Alley Urchin (16 page)

As his thoughts continued to mull over Marlow Tanner, Emma Grady and the dark-eyed urchin, a distasteful thought began to grow in his mind and to haunt him. Until he murmured out loud, ‘No matter! She’ll go the way of all her kind . . . to meet a sorry end.’ Yet he had not forgotten that Emma Grady was with child when she was convicted and that, according to the report he had received, soon after its untimely birth, the dead infant was abandoned to the gutter and afterwards disappeared. He had believed, as had the authorities, that some marauding dog or hungry rats had carried it off and made a meal of it. He had hoped that such was the case. He was
still
of the same mind. Nevertheless, he suddenly felt uncomfortable.

How much more ‘uncomfortable’ might Caleb Crowther feel if he were ever to learn that the ‘scruffy urchin’ was indeed Emma’s child and his
own
granddaughter.

‘Oh, I can’t believe it, child!’ Sal had staggered home, moaning and wailing, and giving thanks to the girl on whose small shoulder she leaned her considerable weight.

‘Don’t upset yourself, Sal darlin’,’ coaxed Molly, easing the drunken burden from her shoulders and taking it gently to the bed, where she laid it down. ‘I’ll make us a brew, shall I?’ she asked.

‘No, no, lass.’ Sal had dragged herself into a sitting position, although she appeared a twisted and bedraggled sight. ‘Stay aside o’ me . . . I don’t want ter to be left on me own,’ she pleaded, at the same time taking Molly’s hand and tugging the girl to sit beside her. ‘Oh, I’m that upset, lass,’ she cried, rubbing at her eyes until they were puffy and sore-looking, ‘an’ I were in
such
a good mood when we come outta the ale ’ouse.’

Molly could vouch for that. It was ages before Sal had come out, and she was in such high spirits that Molly couldn’t help but forgive her. It seemed that she’d won half-a-guinea, made a new friend, and had a wonderful night into the bargain.

It was when they were some short way along the canal bank and heading for the hut that the hue and cry went up. The outcome of it all was that Gabe Drury’s body had been found floating at the water’s edge. He had drowned, they said, and had a deep cut on his temple, ‘no doubt where he hit the kerbing as he lost his footing and accidentally tumbled in’, it was agreed. And Sal Tanner was the very first to curse the old fool for ‘wanderin’ so close ter the water when he’s drunk as a bloody lord!’ Afterwards, she shed genuine, heartfelt tears.

Molly however was not so satisfied that Gabe Drury had ‘accidentally tumbled in’, though she was wise enough not to say so. All the same, she couldn’t help but wonder about the gent in the carriage – whose face she had not seen – and the conversation between him and the old fellow. Nor had she forgotten how the gent gave instructions to the other one, who then followed Gabe Drury into the darkness. She didn’t care for the way things had shaped up, and that was a fact. But she wouldn’t dwell on it too much if she could help it, because Molly had that same fearful sensation inside: one that told her to stay well away from that sort of trouble, and to look after herself and old Sal.
That
was all that mattered to her, and nothing else. Still and all, Molly felt sorry about the old fellow, even though she didn’t know him as well as Sal did. But having heard a few unsavoury truths tonight, she wondered how much of it old Gabe had brought on himself?

Of a sudden, Molly remembered something, and it brought a smile to her face. ‘Look here, Sal,’ she cried, fishing the fat wallet from inside her tatty dress, ‘see what
I
found!’ She was sure it would do Sal a world of good.

At once Sal was attentive, stretching her scrawny neck and struggling to see what it was that Molly clutched so triumphantly. ‘What yer been up to, yer little sod?’ she demanded to know, as Molly laughingly thrust the article into Sal’s grubby fist. ‘’Ere, fetch that candle a bit nearer,’ she instructed Molly, ‘I ain’t a bloody bat, y‘know . . . I can’t see in the dark!’ Gabe Drury’s fate was quickly forgotten. ‘Feels fat, does this!’ she chuckled, turning the wallet over and over, and excitedly hoisting herself up to a sitting position. ‘Let’s see what we got, eh?’

When Molly brought the candle and held it close, Sal tore open the wallet, and out spilled a fistful of notes, together with a carefully folded letter and a number of calling cards. ‘Bugger me, lass . . . if we ain’t hit the jackpot!’ cried Sal jubilantly. ‘Where’d yer get it, eh?’

‘Found it.’

‘Found
it? . . . Well, I’m blowed!’ Of a sudden, Sal was rolling her small eyes heavenward, saying in a reverent voice, ‘There y‘are . . . I
knew
it! It’s the little people, tellin’ me I’m fetchin’ yer up right!’ Molly didn’t think so, but she wouldn’t dream of spoiling Sal’s astonishing recovery from the sad news concerning Gabe Drury.

‘What’s
that
say?’ Sal pushed one of the small cards under Molly’s nose. ‘I can’t mek head nor bloody tail o’ these words.’ She squinted her eyes and looked down the length of her nose at the card.

‘Oh, Sal . . . you know I can’t read the words either,’ protested Molly, making no effort to take the card from Sal.

‘Hang on a minute, lass!’ Sal pointed a dirty fingernail at the bold, black capitals printed there. ‘I’ve seen them words afore.’ Of a sudden, she had thrown the card down on the chequered quilt and was scrambling from the bed, her eyes. wide with fear and her finger still pointing to the card. ‘I
know
where I’ve seen them there words! It were when me an’ a few drinkin’ pals were fetched afront o’ the Justice. It was Justice Caleb Crowther as had the lot on us flung in the cells.’ She had backed away from the bed and was standing by the door, her stocky figure held stiff and upright as she told the astonished Molly, ‘
Caleb Crowther!
That were it. It were them words as were fixed on a board for all to see. Cissie Bent learned to read when she were in service at the big house down Lytham Way . . . it were Cissie as told me what them words on the boards were sayin’.
Caleb Crowther . . .
same as them words on that card!’ The next minute, she shot forward and caught hold of Molly by the shoulders. ‘Where’d yer get it, lass?
Found
it, yer say? Tell me the truth now . . . I’ll not have yer tellin’ me lies!’ She proceeded to shake the girl but instead was violently shaken herself when Molly instinctively braced herself. ‘Has Justice Crowther been round these ’ere parts? Is he looking fer us? Oh dear God . . . dear God! When will the evil fella leave us in peace!’ She was beside herself, and her face had turned bright crimson from the futile efforts she was making to loosen the girl enough to shake her hard. Of a sudden, she gave up the effort and ran round the room gathering up her bits and pieces. ‘We shall have ter gerrout o’ this place, an’ that’s a fact.’

‘Calm down, Sal,’ Molly told her, collecting the few sorry articles from Sal’s hands, and replacing them, ‘we’re safe enough here. Justice Crowther ain’t been nowhere near this place.’

‘Then where did yer get that there wallet from, eh?’ Sal demanded.

‘I told you . . . I
found
it!’ lied Molly, feeling satisfied in the face of poor Sal’s fit of panic that she had done the right thing in keeping secret that meeting between Gabe Drury and the gent. Sal was afraid.
Really
afraid, like Molly had never seen her before. ‘So you needn’t worry,’ she assured her.

Sal needed more convincing and, looking deep into the girl’s big, black eyes, she asked, ‘Are yer
sure
, lass? Yer not lying? Yer really
did
find that there wallet?’ When Molly nodded, saying, ‘It was like I told you,’ Sal visibly relaxed. Then in the next minute, she became anxious again, ‘Where? . . .
Where
did yer find it?’

Molly had to think quickly, because she daren’t frighten Sal by telling her that the Justice was in a carriage right outside the ale house, or Sal would
never
be convinced that he hadn’t come to cart every last one of them off to jail: ‘. . . so I wandered about a bit, and found myself nearer town. That’s where I found it . . . down Ainsworth Street.’

‘Oh aye? Well,
that’s
where yer gonna return it!’ declared Sal, going to the bed and folding everything back into the wallet.

‘Return it!’ Molly could hardly believe her ears. ‘What? Now?’

‘That’s what I said, lass! You’re gonna
return
it . . . right away. My God! The minute that fella finds his wallet gone, he’ll not rest till he’s found it. What! . . . The bugger’ll turn Lancashire upside down if needs be!’

‘But if we throw the papers and the wallet away . . . and just keep the money, he’ll never know it was us that had it,’ argued Molly, who was loath to let go of her prize.

But Sal would have none of it. ‘Oh, he’ll know right enough, my gal!’ she retorted, shaking her grey head from side to side. ‘He’ll
know
well enough . . . ’cause he’s got spies
everywhere
! He’s a bad ’un, child,’ she said, thrusting the wallet into Molly’s hand, then frantically wiping her hands down on the fringe of her shawl, as though the very touch of Caleb Crowther’s wallet might have left its mark. ‘You don’t know that fella like I do! Long afore the little people sent you ter me, that Justice Crowther had a grudge agin the Tanners. Why! . . . He even took a horsewhip to my Marlow, when the lad were doing nothing more offensive than talking ter Justice Crowther’s ward, a nice enough lass, by the name of Emma Grady. Stripped the skin clear off his shoulders. An’ he hounded Marlow ever after . . . sacked him from running goods to his mills . . . not carin’ whether we
starved
because of it! Oh aye, he’s a wicked, spiteful bugger, is that one.’ She opened the door of the hut and pushed Molly towards it. ‘That ward of his . . . lass by the name of Emma Grady . . . she were accused o’ murderin’ the bloke as Crowther wed her off to. An’ d’yer know, child . . . that lass were innocent, an’ there’s plenty o’ folk who’d vouch fer it, I’m sure. She were heavy wi’ child an’ all, when they took her. An’ it were said that she begged an’ pleaded fer him ter come an’ help her. But the bugger never lifted a finger . . . an’ he could have done! Oh, aye, he could a saved the lass, I’ve no doubt at all.’ Here, she bent forward to whisper in Molly’s ear. ‘So y’see, Molly darlin’ . . . y’see how dangerous such a fella can be? If yer don’t shiver in yer shoes at the very sound of his name . . . then yer bloody well should.’

Molly felt herself being firmly propelled through the door and out into the blackness of the night. With Sal’s instructions to ‘tek it right back where yer found it, mind!’ she took off at running speed in the direction of Angela Street. She had learned a very important lesson, and one which she wasn’t likely to forget in a hurry. This fella, this Justice Crowther, was someone to be avoided if at all possible because, if he frightened Sal in that way, then he must be fearsome. ‘Blimey!’ Molly muttered aloud as she ran along the bank. ‘What a good job I didn’t tell Sal that he were asking after her. Or she would have gone mad.’ She was struck by a sudden thought, every bit as unpleasant. He was asking after
her
as well. Of a sudden, Molly’s reluctance to return the wallet didn’t seem as strong. In fact, the more she thought of it, the faster her thin little legs ran, because now she couldn’t get it back to the spot fast enough.

By the time Molly turned out of the canal banking and made towards the spot where the carriage had stopped, everything was quiet. She supposed that the sorry Gabe Drury had been taken away in a waggon by now, and folks had gone home to their beds. She wondered again about that strange meeting between the Justice and the old fella, but her young mind couldn’t make head nor tail of it except to be even more certain that she’d done right in keeping her mouth shut. ‘After all,’ she whispered aloud, quickly laying the wallet on the flagstones, and looking round furtively before making her way back, ‘look what happened to old Gabe Drury!’

No sooner had Molly disappeared into the darkness than a carriage drew up in Stephen Street, some short way from the Navigation. Out of it stepped Caleb Crowther, who moved softly, first to instruct the driver to ‘stay quiet’, then hurriedly to where he suspected his wallet might have fallen when he had climbed out of the carriage earlier. Coming to the top of Angela Street, he stayed close to the wall of the Navigation. Then, peeping round to satisfy himself that all was quiet, he quickly crossed the cobbled road and began searching the flagstones on the opposite side. It took a moment or two, as there was only one gas lamp lighting the comer, but after a determined and frantic search, he gave a small, jubilant cry and snatched up the wallet.

In a few moments he had made his way back to where the carriage waited in an unlit part of Stephen Street. ‘Quickly man . . . get away from here!’ he told the bowler-hatted driver in an urgent whisper.

As he settled back into the seat, before going through the wallet to satisfy himself of its contents, Caleb Crowther gave a sigh of relief. On discovering earlier that his wallet was missing, he had half persuaded himself that the urchin might somehow have picked his pocket, though he could not see how she would have had the opportunity. But one thing was certain, if the little wretch had been guilty of stealing his wallet, it would have been the worst act of thieving she had ever committed. It would have been her
last!
He had been fearful that the wallet might have been ransacked before he could recover it, and with his name on those cards for anybody’s eyes to see, he had spent more than a few frantic moments being anxious of the consequences, for they did not bear thinking about.

Agnes Crowther watched from her bedroom window, a tall and solitary figure with a regal head and unbending neck, her two hands joined together in that posture of prayer which was her particular trait. With staring, unfriendly eyes, she followed the carriage as it turned into the drive. Instinctively, she knew that it would not come right up to the house, but would halt some distance away, in order for her husband to disembark and make a quiet return from his nightly exploits. The pattern was always the same: on the days when he was not travelling the circuit as Justice, he would go to the Wharf Mill, for the purpose of satisfying himself that the recently appointed manager was carrying out his instructions to the very letter. Afterwards, he would make his way into Manchester for a long and detailed discussion with his accountant.