Dodger of the Dials (4 page)

Chapter 2
Sunrise Over Soho

Returning to London after a hard night’s work, the scene moves from the professional to the domestic

It was morning by the time our vehicle rolled past the toll gate on the Old Kent Road and joined the steady stream of traffic back into the city. By then we was all much more relaxed than we had been on the journey out and had begun singing some bawdy songs to pass the time. Scratcher had cheered up a good deal after we had finished ridiculing him for his poor standard of crowing and he was now he was enjoying listening to Tom entertain us all with what had occurred inside the manor.

‘They’re probably still searching every room in the crib now,’ Georgie laughed as he drove the horse over London Bridge, ‘looking for the maidservant. How did you think of that, Skinner?’

‘Mary is my given name,’ explained Tom as she blew her smokerings out over the Thames. ‘And I was all set to enter domestic service before my family threw me out for thievery. As well as various other sorts of miscreant behaviour.’ Then she leaned back against the side of the cart and withdrew into herself as we neared home.

Scratcher still lived with his family in Bethnal Green but he asked to be dropped off at a spot in Cheapside where some other urchins was playing in the street. Before he alighted I gave him another quick lecture concerning the value of a silent tongue. We, for example,
was happy not to tell his pals about his cowardly behaviour on the crack if he too would practice discretion concerning our possession of the Lady of Stars. I then ruffled his dirty mop of hair and told him that we would call round to his home with his share of the bunce after tomorrow’s meeting so he was one lucky little lad. ‘And you keep safe, y’hear,’ I called after him as he went off to play with the other kinchins. ‘Don’t be getting in no trouble.’

As we approached High Holborn I spied a familiar stallholder further up the thoroughfare who was already setting up for the morning rush of commuters. The lights of the charcoal was already lit in the pots below his table and I saw his son laying out the tin mugs. Georgie announced that he could do with some refreshment after so many hours driving and he veered the cart over towards the stall and called out to the lad for three hot cups.

‘You’re paying though,’ I told him before he could argue. ‘Because I won’t get much change from this necklace.’ But before we could get close to the stall we was surprised to hear the coffee-vendor barking at us to keep moving.

‘I knows you lot,’ he said and pulled his son back behind the counter. ‘You’re those villains from Seven Dials and around. Well, I ain’t letting you get close enough to pinch another mug.’

‘I think you’re mistaking us with some others, good sir,’ I replied and lifted my hat to him. ‘We’re respectable paying customers, we are.’

‘You’re thieves and nothing more,’ he shouted back. ‘And I’ve taken my last forged shilling from your little crew. Go bother someone else with your base coin.’

I was outraged by this unprovoked assault upon my company but not as much as Georgie, who reared up the horse to enter into a heated altercation with the man. He cursed him with the sort of colourful language that you did not expect to hear on a public
street at that hour in the morning and threatened to get out of the cart for some fisticuffs. I sympathised with the sentiments he was expressing but I still thought it unwise to attract any more attention so I just reached out and touched his coat sleeve.

‘Let’s just take our business elsewhere then, George,’ I said and indicated that he should just move us along. ‘It’s been a long night.’ Georgie agreed but not before throwing the coffee-man a hand gesture what communicated his displeasure in ways what words never could and left him to explain the meaning of it to his son.

‘Thieves and nothing more?’ Georgie continued to rant after he had driven the cart on towards the vicinity of London where we all lived. ‘We’re champions of our class, we are. Champions of our class!’ Tom nodded in lazy agreement as she spat on her silver tureen and gave it a polish.

‘They should be lining the streets for us, Georgie,’ I said as he drove the cart down Monmouth Street towards the Dials. The place stank of last night’s red wine and of this morning’s washed linen and the only souls what was lining the streets for us at this hour was cats and vagrants. ‘They should be singing us songs from the windows,’ I declared.

The cart drew up outside the pub on the corner of Monmouth and Mercer which is where Tom and I both alighted. We then made arrangements to meet up later in the afternoon as I had my appointment with Percival at five and had no intention of arriving alone. So we tipped hats, bade each other good morning and parted company. Georgie led the cart away up the street towards Covent Garden, Tom took off down St Martin’s Lane where she resided with her friend and I headed back towards my new crib in Soho.

I kept one hand in my coat pocket where the necklace was as I crossed through the dangerous maze of alleys and courtyards and smiled at what excitement it was about to stir up when I got home.
Once I reached the end of Crooked Arm Way I stepped into a small courtyard known to locals as Five Fingers Court and looked up to the window of my new lodgings. I noticed the curtains was still drawn as I reached for my keys.

I was vexed to still be behaving like a thief as I crossed the threshold of my own home but I was keen to avoid my landlady who occupied the lodgings below ours. However, as soon as I had shut the front door after me and before I had grabbed hold of the bannister, I heard her thick Irish accent call out from her kitchen.

‘Is that a burglar I can hear?’ she said and before I had made it halfway up the staircase towards my own rooms she was out into the hallway and stood at the bottom.

‘Not at all, Mrs Grogan,’ I said as I took off my hat and turned to face her. She was a heavy-set, formidable bruiser with a moustache as thick as that of her late husband. ‘It’s just Mr Dawkins Esquire back from working the docks.’ She gave a small snort to let me know she had no use for my flam.

‘Ah, Mr Dawkins? I was not to know. When I hear a pair of male footsteps treading up that staircase, well … I suppose it could be just about anyone.’

I let my smile drop to show her I was in no mood for her goadings.

‘I’m keen to get to sleep now, Mrs G,’ I said cold and turned away from her. ‘I’ve been hard at it.’ But she was not to be shaken off.

‘Do you have my rent then, Mr Dawkins? Did you earn it last night down these docks of yours?’

‘I did as a matter of fact,’ I replied with a nod. ‘Don’t get paid ’til later though. You’ll get your money, Mrs Grogan, don’t fret on it.’

‘All four weeks’ worth?’ she continued as I made it to the door of my apartment. ‘
Four weeks!
’ I unlocked this other door and
turned back to her before entering. ‘See that I have everything by tomorrow evening,’ she warned me. ‘Or my sons are going to come knocking to turf out the pair of you. A thief and a whore I can suffer but I won’t keep wastrels.’

I slammed the door shut between us and sighed at how much more disrespect the multitude of London could sling at me in one morning. I hung my hat from a peg on the papered wall and then took off the coat which I folded over my arm. As I did so I heard another, fairer voice calling out my name from within. She sounded surprised to hear me back so early.

‘Lily?’ I said before I opened the door to our bedroom. ‘You alone?’

I’m not sure why I asked that, perhaps it was the landlady’s snide insinuations. But as I entered the bedroom Lily was sat up and looking most affronted. She was in her nightdress with her hair dishevelled from sleep.

‘Course I’m alone, you cheeky bugger,’ she tutted. ‘What a thing to ask.’ I smiled and threw the coat onto a small upholstered chair what we kept at the foot of the iron bedstead. Then I went over to give her a kiss.

‘Only teasing,’ I said at last after letting her go. ‘Here, guess what I found?’ I started taking off my work clothes and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘It was just lying there in the street as I passed by minding my own business. I have a feeling you might be interested.’

I heard her jump up over from behind in quick anticipation. I had, in truth, told her all about where I was going and for what purpose on the night before and described the Lady of Stars to her in as much detail as Percival had to me.

‘Did you get it?’ she asked as she placed her hands on my shoulders. ‘Is it here?’ I gave a small nod towards the coat as I pulled at my shirt buttons.

‘Go and take a peek if you don’t believe me.’ She got up from the bed and darted over to the chair. ‘Not that pocket,’ I said as I removed my trousers. ‘The other.’

I flung my clothes onto the rug as Lily found the necklace and I then crossed over to open the curtains. She held it up to the morning light and let it dangle between her two hands as she whistled while surveying it. The Lady of Stars seemed even more magical in this humble abode than it had set amid the grandeur of Whetstone Manor.

‘We can’t keep it,’ I reminded her. ‘It’s just for now.’

‘Oh, that right, is it?’ she arched an eyebrow. ‘You mean you won’t let me wear it out to show the neighbours? I was hoping to parade it around the rookeries looking like Marie Antoinette in the hope that someone might stab me to death over it.’

‘Turn around,’ I said not wishing to encourage any more sarcastic remarks and I inspected how the necklace clasped together. ‘Pull your hair up.’ She did so and I found the jewellery easier to place around her neck than I had expected it would be. ‘There,’ I said and kissed her on the nape before reaching for her hand mirror. She took it from me as her hair fell back down onto her shoulders and regarded herself. ‘What a beauty,’ I said as I watched her. Her manner altered as she looked at her reflection and when she next spoke all the playfulness had gone.

‘I’ll keep it on this morning though, Jack,’ she said. ‘Please. Until you go out again.’

I had no intention of refusing her. We kissed again and I said of course as long as it was all she would wear. Soon we was both back on the mattress and as naked as babes save for the necklace still hung around her neck. She stretched her limbs out and began to just enjoy herself as the morning sun rays drifted slow across the
room. We stayed like that for some time and she let me love her in the manner in which I had seen the rich people love.

*

I had first spied Lily Lennox about one year prior to this and from the very first glimpse I could tell that she was going to be the real knock-me-down. She was stood outside the Theatre Royal with two other excellent examples of ill-repute in a very fetching green dress while I was strolling along the opposite pavement with my new silver-tipped cane and heading towards Piccadilly. It had become a habit of mine around that period for my feet to move me towards the brilliant splendour of the Haymarket where all the other fashionable nightbirds of the city would flock. It was a glorious place for a pickpocket to explore as I was forever surrounded by the sons of nobility all promenading with their ladies and acting so careless. I was dressed in my flashest attire in order to blend in with the other dandies and I was at last starting to feel my old buzz coming back. The wounds from Ruby Solomon’s bewildering rejection of me had just about begun to heal and I was now in the market for a new fancy woman. I did not want one of those sad, gin-soaked rookery girls what all the other thieves attached themselves to though. No, I wanted a girl worth impressing, someone to steal for who would know the difference between me and every other fellow. And there, stood proud between the two columns of the theatre, was someone who looked like she would be ideal for the role.

She was displaying herself in full view of the passing traffic, mistress of her situation, just gossiping and smiling with her friends. It was as if these wantons was the star attractions of the theatre and the approaching gentleman who would doff their hats and make their advances was just grateful admirers to be tolerated but not indulged. She was, I felt sure, prizing herself high, not
wanting to lower her value for the first blunt soldier what would make an offer so early in the evening. They was not the courtesans of the rich but they did look they had the talent to snare a gullible aristocrat if the chance came along. Lily was still laughing at something the girl to her right in the canary dress had said with her hand covering her mouth and she flashed me a look what was both question and invitation at once. I realised that not only had she seen me admiring her but she was waiting for me to make my advance. I decided to dally no longer and, after waiting for a break in the traffic, cut across the road resolved to make good my introduction and seduce her with my honeyed words.

‘So how much for a squeeze and a poke then, you gorgeous little tart?’

Lily seemed unfazed by this crude proposition and even a little amused by its forwardness which vexed me much as it was not me what had said it. Because – before I had got close enough to present myself in the fashion of a gentleman and employ the sort of rich language I had found in the more florid poetry of the day – I was beaten to the moment by some corpulent old geriatric. I had not seen him charging down from the other direction of the street but he had managed to swoop in before me and had pitched his woo before I even had time to compare her beauty to a fluttering leaf upon the wind. Lily paid me no regard now as I stood there and waited for this winking, weighty fart-bag to receive his rebuttal and move along.

‘If by that, gentle sir, you mean one of those new street games what children play,’ she replied in a voice which was like east-end cockney but without all the clatter, ‘then I’d prefer to stay here, thank you kindly for asking.’ She gave him a little curtsey and I liked her even more now.

‘A suck on the pipe then?’ he persisted with a wheeze. ‘There’s a
sovereign in it for you if you don’t mind taking your time over it. I’m sixty-six, you understand.’

I could see that she was just humouring the old blockage so I stood there leaning on my cane making no attempt to disguise my impatience with him. As I did this her friend in the canary dress approached me to strike up a conversation and I waved her away. I wanted to make it clear that it was Lily I was waiting for.