A Very Unusual Pursuit (5 page)
‘But I much prefer to hear music,’ Mrs Heppinstall admitted, her pale eyes still fixed on Birdie. ‘What is your name, child?’
‘Birdie McAdam.’
‘Indeed? Well, with a pretty voice like yours, Birdie, you should be singing nicer songs. Do you
know
any nice songs?’
Birdie thought for a moment. She didn’t understand what the old lady meant by ‘nice’. ‘I know “Down by the Greenwood Side”,’ she volunteered. ‘
There was a duke’s daughter dwelt at York – all alone and alone-a-a. She fell in love with her father’s clerk, down by the greenwood side
.’
The old lady nodded. ‘Yes, that
is
pretty.’
‘
She took a knife both sharp and short – all alone and alone-a-a – and stabb’d her babes unto the heart, down by the greenwood side.’
‘Oh, my goodness.’ Mrs Heppinstall winced. ‘No, I don’t think we need hear any more of
that
.’
‘Would you like some tea, Aunt Louisa?’ Miss Eames suddenly broke in, almost as if she were trying to change the subject. ‘I could ask Mary to make a fresh pot.’
‘No, thank you, Edith. I don’t wish to disturb you, dear.’
‘You’re not disturbing us at all. Mr Bunce was just leaving. Is that not so, Mr Bunce?’
‘Aye.’ Alfred seemed anxious to go. Clutching his sack in one hand and his hat in the other, he began to sidle towards the door. ‘Goodbye, ma’am. Thank’ee, miss.’
‘Let me show you out, Mr Bunce,’ Miss Eames said firmly. She ushered him over the threshold as Birdie lagged behind, throwing a wistful look at the remnants of the plum cake.
‘I’ll cut you a piece to take home,’ the old lady suggested. ‘So you can share it with your family.’
‘Oh, I ain’t got no family,’ Birdie was forced to admit. ‘But there’s plenty I know as would be happy to share a bite with me.’
‘You’re an orphan, dear?’ When Birdie nodded, Mrs Heppinstall remarked, ‘How sad.’
Birdie shrugged, her gaze still on the plum cake. ‘You don’t miss what you never knowed,’ she advised Mrs Heppinstall, who immediately picked up the entire cake – or what was left of it – and thrust it into Birdie’s hands.
‘Take it all,’ the old lady insisted.
Birdie blinked. She was about to mumble her thanks when a horrible thought struck her. ‘I never said I were orphaned just to get more cake!’ she protested. ‘I ain’t no cadger, ma’am!’
‘No, of course not. That is to say, while I’ve no idea what a cadger might be, if it is in any way wicked or dishonest, I’m quite convinced that you’re nothing of the sort.’
‘Yes, but—’
her head, so that her ringlets bounced like coils of wire.
‘Take it, dear.’ Mrs Heppinstall smiled and bobbed Then she leaned towards Birdie and with a twinkle in her eye murmured, ‘I’m not fond of plum cake, but Edith
will
have it. Our cook’s next cake will be an almond one.’
‘
Birdie!
’ It was Alfred, calling from the front doorstep. Birdie flashed a grin at Mrs Heppinstall and ran to join him, clutching her slab of plum cake beneath the folds of her little yellow cape.
‘So I shall meet you tomorrow at three o’clock,’ Miss Eames was saying to Alfred, as Birdie dodged past her. ‘Near the sewage outfall at the bottom of New Gravel Lane, in Shadwell.’
‘Aye, but . . .’ Alfred hesitated for a moment before feebly protesting, ‘It ain’t no place for a lady, miss.’
‘I shall wear clothes appropriate to the task,’ Miss Eames promised. ‘There will be a lot of mud, I know.’
Alfred glanced at Birdie, who saw the appeal in his eyes. So she piped up, ‘Them docks is as rough as fustian, miss. If you dress like a lady, there’ll be hell to pay.’ Seeing Miss Eames wince at the word ‘hell’, Birdie flushed and said, ‘Begging yer pardon.’
‘They don’t like toffs in Shadwell,’ Alfred confirmed.
‘You should buy yerself some slops,’ Birdie went on, thinking of all the bedraggled petticoats and moth-eaten jackets for sale in the slop-seller’s stall near her own house. ‘Or borrow one o’ Mary’s dresses. And
don’t
take a cab. Not to Shadwell.’
‘I’ll – I’ll take an omnibus,’ Miss Eames stammered.
‘As far as Commercial Road,’ Birdie agreed. ‘But on no account ask the way, or you’ll make a mark o’ yerself. Stay mum till you find us.’
‘
If
you find us,’ Alfred muttered, as a parting shot.
Birdie followed him down the front steps. When she turned back to wave at Miss Eames, however, she suffered a pang of remorse. Poor Miss Eames looked so anxious!
‘Don’t worry, miss, we’ll keep you safe,’ Birdie promised. ‘There ain’t a soul on the docks would cross a bogler, for fear o’ what he fights. Once you’re with us, you can do all the talking you want.’
Then she offered Miss Eames a wink and a grin before racing to catch up with Alfred.
‘Birdie! Hi! Come ’ere!’
Birdie stopped and glanced around. She was picking her way along a narrow, busy street, carrying a covered basket full of cooked tripe. To her left was a jellied eel shop. To her right was a slop-seller’s. Peering through a stream of pedestrians, Birdie caught sight of the slop-seller, Emma Bridewell, waving at her.
‘Birdie! Come see what
I
got!’ Emma cried. ‘It’s the prettiest article I ever laid eyes on!’
Birdie hesitated for a moment, but the lure of the old clothes was too strong. Emma’s shop was so thickly hung with garments that its walls were barely visible. Coats, capes and gowns dangled above her head. Battered boots were lined up near the door. Piles of handkerchiefs spilled from a wooden tub.
Emma herself wore a skirt and blouse much drabber than most of the items she sold. She was a stout young woman with a slight limp and eyes permanently inflamed by her dusty, musty stock. ‘Look at this here collar!’ she was saying. ‘Real point lace, fine as fine! Did you ever see such piecework?’ She darted forward to arrange the collar around Birdie’s neck, then thrust Birdie towards a spotted mirror hanging by the shop door. ‘There, now! Ain’t you a picture? That’ll dress up any frock, no matter how plain.’
It was true. Though slightly torn and yellow, the collar made Birdie’s soiled cotton dress look almost like a ball gown.
‘How much?’ Birdie asked, gently fingering a knotted leaf.
‘For you, dear, only a shilling.’
‘
A shilling
? Why, I could buy a pair o’ wool trousers for ninepence!’
‘But this is point lace, Birdie – real point lace, same as royalty wears.’ Emma whipped the collar off Birdie’s shoulders and held it up to the light. ‘That’s silk, that is. Handmade. Feel it. There’s ladies in the West End would be glad to pay a
florin
for quality stuff like this.’
Birdie thought briefly about Mrs Heppinstall’s white lace cap. Then she shook her head. ‘I ain’t got the chink,’ she said ruefully.
‘Ninepence-ha’penny. That’s me last offer.’
‘No.’ Birdie turned away. Her visit to Bloomsbury the previous afternoon had exposed her to a whole new world of daintiness; for the first time she found herself pining after lace and fresh flowers and gold-rimmed teacups. But she knew that such things were beyond her reach. ‘Lace is for ladies,’ she told Emma, averting her eyes from all the silk and satin on display. As she moved off down the street, she reminded herself that Miss Eames, for all her elegance, wouldn’t know what to do with a bogle. A bogle wouldn’t be discouraged by clean, polished surfaces or well-aired rooms. It wouldn’t be bribed with plum cake, or repelled by reasoned argument. When it came to bogles, a lady’s only defence was someone like Alfred – with someone like Birdie at his side.
‘Oi! Birdie McAdam!’
This time the voice hailing her didn’t belong to a shopkeeper. It belonged to a skinny, undersized boy with snapping dark eyes and so much thick, black, shiny hair that his head looked too big for his body. His name was Jem Barbary, and he was a thief. Birdie had seen him about. Unlike most of Sarah’s lads, who tended to be rather pale and quiet, Jem was lively, restless and quick to talk.
He wore a shapeless cloth cap, an oversized flannel shirt, and striped canvas trousers torn off at the knee. Birdie had always judged him to be about her own age.
‘They say you bin mixing with toffs,’ he remarked, with a teasing grin. His teeth were surprisingly good. ‘Prancing about in hackney cabs,
I
heard.’
Birdie sniffed. She had paused for a moment, but didn’t like being jostled by the crowd. So she began to move on again, anxious not to be seen conversing with a known pickpocket.
Jem kept pace with her, dodging hawkers and porters and piles of manure. He was very quick on his feet. ‘I got a job for you,’ he said. ‘Unless you’re too high and mighty to be chasing down work, nowadays?’
‘I know what
you
call a job,’ Birdie rejoined, ‘and don’t want no part of it.’
‘Are you sure? For it’s bogling work.’ Jem smirked as Birdie stopped in her tracks. ‘That’s right,’ he went on, lowering his voice. ‘Sal’s acquainted with a feller named George Hobney. He’s the night porter at Hackney workhouse, and will turn a blind eye to what goes in and comes out, if you know what I mean.’
Jem waited, searching Birdie’s face with a bright, penetrating gaze. Since he had just confessed that Sarah Pickles was having goods smuggled in and out of an institution specifically designed to feed and house paupers, he may have been expecting Birdie to comment. Birdie, however, was speechless. Any mention of the workhouse always silenced her, because she feared the place as much as she feared prison. From what she could tell, the workhouse was almost as bad as prison. The food was supposed to be dire, the work punishing, and the discipline much too strict.
Birdie knew that she might have ended up in a workhouse, if Alfred hadn’t plucked her out of the Limehouse canal. And she also knew that she wasn’t safe, even now. One stroke of ill luck and she could easily find herself destitute again. If Alfred should die – or if he should one day tell her that she was too old to act as bogle-bait – and if she didn’t then find work as a matchgirl, or laundress, or clothespeg maker . . .
With a shudder she dismissed the thought, turning her attention to what Jem was saying.
‘There’s four children gone from Hackney spike, and now the workhouse well is beginning to stink,’ he revealed. ‘They dragged it and found nothing. No bones. No clothes. The master claims it’s proof them children hooked it, on account o’ there’s
allus
kids running away from that place. But certain people in the workhouse think otherwise. They think it might be a bogle as took ’em. And when Sal heard, she told George to hire a Go-Devil man.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Birdie asked suspiciously, edging away from a coster’s donkey that had halted in the middle of the street. ‘Why not speak to Mr Bunce?’
‘I tried,’ Jem countered. ‘He ain’t at home. I just come from there.’
‘He’s at the pub,’ Birdie had to concede. She still didn’t like what she was hearing, though. ‘Why would Sarah Pickles want to tout for Mr Bunce? She ain’t never done it previous to this.’
‘She
says it’s by way o’ payment. For any help she’ll need finding her boys as went missing.’ Jem’s face darkened suddenly, and he looked away. For the first time Birdie noticed the graze on his chin and the dark smudges under his eyes.
‘Did you know them kids?’ she queried.
Jem gave a nod. Studying him, Birdie couldn’t help remarking, ‘You should be careful, then.’
‘Hah!’ Jem scoffed. ‘Ain’t no bogle fast enough to catch
me.
’
‘Mebbe it weren’t no bogle as took ’em,’ Birdie pointed out. ‘Don’t you think it’s queer they was all working for Sarah Pickles?’
Jem scowled. ‘You’d better stow
that
kind o’ talk, if you want a quiet life,’ he snapped, ducking to avoid a wooden beam that was balanced on the head of a passing porter. Though the warning unnerved her, she shrugged off the threat with a fine show of confidence.
‘I’m just saying as how you should mebbe give up the work, since it’s so perilous,’ she said.
‘And do what?’ Jem sneered. ‘Sell chickweed? Round up stray hogs?’
‘At least it would be honest toil.’
‘So that’s what
you’ll
be doing, is it? When you get too old for bogling?’ Jem’s taunt was accompanied by another sly smirk, which annoyed Birdie so much that she set off down the street again.
Jem followed her. ‘A prig can be any age,’ he continued. ‘Ain’t
no one
too old for hoisting or tooling – which is a sight easier’n killing bogles.’
‘I ain’t no thief,’ Birdie spat.
‘Are you sure about that?’ As Birdie halted again, glaring at Jem, he added, ‘What is it the parsons say? Summat about not casting the first stone?’
As his gaze slid towards her basket, Birdie’s stomach seemed to turn over. With a gasp and a start, she twitched aside the cloth that covered her purchases – and almost fainted.
Emma Bridewell’s lace collar was sitting on top of the tripe.
‘It’s a mortal shame you don’t have the chink to
buy
what you want,’ Jem taunted, as Birdie tried to think straight. How had he done it? Or had someone else done it, while Jem was distracting her . . .?
‘You was the decoy!’ she blurted out, as white as salt. Looking around frantically, she caught a glimpse of Charlie Pickles, who was ducking behind a nearby dustman’s cart.
‘That weren’t too clever,’ Jem observed. Though his tone was breezy, he couldn’t quite meet her eye. ‘If I was you, I’d hook it and stay low. On account o’ the dealer knows you, and how much you like such baubles—’
‘Oh, the dealer knows me, all right! She knows me better’n
you
do!’ Birdie swung around and began to retrace her steps, ignoring Jem’s frantic jabbering. He was telling her that it wasn’t worth risking arrest. He was telling her that Emma Bridewell knew where she lived, but would
never
find her if Sarah Pickles took her in. He was telling her that if she joined up with Jem and his mates, she could have all the lace collars she wanted . . .
‘Emma! Hi!’ Birdie called, having spied the slop-seller through a screen of moving bodies. As Emma glanced around, Birdie pressed forward – and Jem suddenly melted away into the crowd.
