Kitty Peck and the Child of Ill-Fortune (20 page)

I smiled. ‘You and Lok are quite the best of friends, aren’t you?’

‘He’s a kind man, Kit – matter of fact they both are, him and his brother, and Lok loves little Robbie as much as I do. You heard from his father, this David, then?’

I shook my head. ‘Nothing. Unless that package downstairs is from Paris?’

I pushed at the wide door to the workshop behind The Gaudy and it juddered open. I paused for a moment, surprised at how the familiar scent of paint and sawdust made me feel. It smelt like the past and it smelt . . . clean. I know that’s an odd word to use, but I can’t put it another way. It made me think of the time when I was just a seamstress and a slop girl and everything was straight.

I stepped inside. The sound of sawing came from behind a wide flat board painted up to look like the outside of a tavern. I’d know Lucca’s hand anywhere. The tavern looked so real you’d think you could step through the half-open door, slap your coins on the board and order yourself a jug of eyewater. Just above the door he’d painted a square wooden cage with a little yellow bird inside.

I took a step closer and stared up. I could even see the feathers.

‘Anyone at home? You there, Lucca?’

The sawing stopped. ‘Who’s that?’

I stepped round the scenery to find Danny working at a plank stretched between a couple of chairs. He laid down the saw and rubbed a hand over his forehead.

‘Hello, stranger. We haven’t seen you here for a month or so.’

That was true enough. It was the first time I’d visited out back since I’d took over. I’m not entirely sure why. If I took it out and examined it there was something about not wanting to lord it over people who’d been my friends, not wanting to make them feel uncomfortable around me. But looking closer, it was most likely the other way round.
I
didn’t want to feel uncomfortable. Tell truth, I didn’t go to the workshop across the yard at the back of The Gaudy because I was frightened to find I no longer belonged there.

I tried to smile. ‘I reckon you don’t need me poking about in your business. I trust you all to get on with the job. What you doing there?’

‘I’m making up the flats ready for Lucca.’ Danny pointed at the tavern scene behind me. ‘It’s the other half of that. This side needs a window that opens out.’

‘It’s for the sailor song?’

He nodded. ‘First proper performance on Monday. We need to be able to take it all over to The Carnival too, so it’s made portable – you can see the joins on this side, but not from out front.’

I looked back and realised that Lucca’s tavern scene was painted across four panels. Even up close I hadn’t noticed.

‘It’s a lovely job, Dan.’

‘And it’s a ripper of a song. It’ll bring in the punters. Jesmond’s hot as Colman’s for it to move over to The Carnival. Netta Swift’s got a decent pair of lungs on her.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘I wouldn’t let Peggy hear you say that.’

He grinned. ‘She’s got nothing to worry about on that score. But she is good, Netta I mean. Almost as good as you were, Kit.’

Danny glanced over his shoulder and then I saw it – my cage. It stood in the shadows at the back of the workshop, half-covered in sacking. Planks of wood were propped up against it. I walked over and put a hand on one of the bars. Strands of glittering ribbon studded with paste jewels were still threaded through the metal.

‘It seems like a long time since I was dandling in here.’

‘Would you do it again, Kit? Go up, I mean?’ Danny came to stand next to me. ‘I reckon we could make it safe for you. Put a net up underneath. I couldn’t make out why you never had one.’

I shook my head. ‘It was part of the thrill, wasn’t it? Will she, won’t she? The punters came to see me perform, but they also came to see me fall. It gave them a little bit extra. It excited them – the men ’specially. You wouldn’t believe what I saw them doing with their hands from up there sometimes.’

‘It was good for takings, though. Fitzy says . . .’ He trailed off.

I swung round. Danny was scuffing at some wood shavings with his foot. He didn’t look at me. ‘Go on, what does he say?’

‘Something and nothing. The books and that. With The Comet closed for the duration, he reckons there’s not enough coming in to pay out.’

I planted my hands on my hips. ‘Well, he’s wrong. The books are good. I’ve been through them all a hundred times over. Fact is, once we get The Comet open again we’ll treble our takings. I’m thinking of taking out the tables and putting seats in. We’ll pack more in that way and we can attract a better class of trade. I’ve got the carpenters booked in now and Fitzy’s supposed to be dealing with the plaster boys and the gilders. It won’t be dark for long.’

Danny didn’t answer.

‘Listen to me. Patrick Fitzpatrick’s fat boxer’s nose has been knocked so far out of joint by me taking over the halls that he’s practically sniffing out of his arse. He’d say anything to undermine me. I’ll have it out with him and make it very clear that I don’t want him spreading lies. And that goes for you too, Dan.’

Danny shook his head. ‘It’s just . . . well . . . me and Peggy we need all the money we can get right now and if the halls aren’t going to pay—’

‘But they are! This is just rumour and rot.’ I stared up at him.

Big Danny Tewson was a handsome lad with broad shoulders, thick black hair and fine brown eyes. There were pouchy grey bags under his fine eyes today. I reckoned he’d been spending more than Thursday nights at the card table. There was something else too now I looked – a purple bruise stretched around his throat like he’d been gripped too tight. He must have seen me mark it because he pulled at his shirt collar to cover up.

‘What’s that, Dan?’

He fiddled with a button and mumbled. ‘Nothing – an accident, that’s all.’

‘Accident with someone’s fist, was it?’ I took a deep breath. ‘If you’re worried about money, you only have to ask. I’ve said as much to Peggy.’

‘She had no business—’

‘She’s my friend. Course she had a right to tell me. And if we’re talking business, then you need to get it straight in your head that the halls – all three of them – are in good order.’ I poked him in the chest and he stepped back. ‘If you want you can come over to my office right now and I’ll show you the books.’

He raised his hands. ‘I believe you. Peggy always said you had a temper, Kit.’ He grinned. ‘Anyway, it’s not me you came to see here, is it?’

I shook my head. ‘I was looking for Lucca.’

‘He’s not been in yet. We’re expecting him later. When the lads get back with more wood I’ll need to cut it to shape before he can get to work on it. It’ll be a late-night job I reckon.’

‘Well, when he comes in, whenever that is, can you ask him to come over to the office? I’ll be there until after tonight’s house. It’s important.’

Dan nodded. I rapped the cage once and a long low note rang out around the workshop.

‘Lovely tone.’

I remembered how Fitzy had said that the first time he’d shown it to me. Now I was going to use a ‘lovely tone’ on him.

The lascar stood up when I opened the door to the office. He seemed to fill the room. He towered over me and most other people in the street, I noticed, as we’d walked to The Gaudy earlier.

He’d been waiting for me in the hallway at The Palace when I went down that morning and I’d been expecting him. Tan Seng held out my coat and nodded at the dark-faced man perching on the hall chair under the painting of the young toff in blue. The lascar sprang to his feet.

‘Amit will walk with you and stay close to you, Lady.’ Tan Seng bowed. I shot a look at the lascar and then at Tan Seng. How much did he know?

Tan Sen cleared his throat. ‘The streets are dangerous for a lady alone. It is better this way. Amit is mute, he will not disturb you. I have taken the liberty to employ him here, for you, Lady. He is known to us.’ He bowed and held the coat open.

I already knew the giant wasn’t here to protect
me
.

I sidled a glance at the lascar. The man’s face was long and deeply lined. The jutting bones of his forehead were so heavily pronounced that I couldn’t clearly see his eyes. His hair was black except for a single streak of grey that sprang from the crown. He clenched and unclenched his huge fists as he stood there staring at me.

‘It’s Amit Das, isn’t it?’ The lascar nodded and I was pleased to see Tan Seng’s eyes flicker in surprise. ‘You and your brother Ram have lodgings near Bell Wharf Stairs?’ He nodded again. I turned to allow Tan Seng to help me push my arms into the sleeves. ‘I know him from the books. I pay their rent. They worked for my . . . for Lady Ginger, didn’t they?’

Tan Seng bowed. ‘The Lady knows all.’

I wished that was true.

I went over to the desk in The Gaudy’s office and sat down.

‘You can take off for a bit, Amit. I won’t be leaving until after we close up tonight. Here . . .’ I handed him a couple of pennies. ‘Get yourself off to a cookshop.’ He looked doubtfully at the coins. ‘It’s all quite safe. Come back this evening, please.’

I pushed the pennies across the table and after a moment he reached down. His fingers were so big I was minded of one of them wind-up mechanical grab machines at the travelling fairs, the ones where the claws are deliberately made too big to pick up the sugar sticks. I lost a purseful on one of them once when Joey took me out to London Fields. Nanny Peck gave me what for when she found out. I learned a lesson that day and I didn’t chance it ever again.

Amit couldn’t seem to catch hold of the pennies, so after a couple of tries he just swiped them off the desk into his paw. As I watched him lower his head to dip out through the door I thought about that cage again. I was still trapped, wasn’t I?

I emptied the contents of my bag over the desk top. The letters tumbled out and I spread them over the leather. I’d gone through them all – the ones I could read – over and over last night and the story they told made a sort of sense. Now I wanted to show them to Lucca to see if he agreed.

My grandmother had included a note with the package. Her old-style, looping hand fluttered across the page.

The story?

I reached for a yellowing sheet and followed down the slanting lines of close-packed writing again with my finger. It wasn’t complete. The first page, at least, was missing and it wasn’t in English. Across the top there were two names and a date scrawled in capitals in my grandmother’s hand.

A word was repeated several times in the text and each time it began with a capital letter. I wondered if it might be a name. The second time the writer had underlined it and the words in front –
ihre kleine Tochter, Drina

The letter was signed with a flourish.

I stared at the sheet for a moment and reached for another. There were a dozen like it, all written in words I couldn’t read. At least three of them appeared to be in the Russian script Old Peter had translated for me. Every one of them was carefully numbered, dated and noted with my grandmother’s capitals. By my reckoning I had correspondence in front of me from half the nobility of Europe – duchess this, grand duke that, a couple of princes, a bishop and a patriarch . . . whatever that was.

I leafed through the pages again and took out the one I could read – number seven. The bold scrawl across the top told me the writer was:
SIR WILLIAM JENNER, SEPTEMBER 1864
.

Like before, the first page was missing. I don’t know who Sir William was writing to – and presumably neither did my grandmother seeing as how nearly every other letter was itemised most careful. I knew one thing, though. He had a ripe story to tell. I followed the meandering lines. His writing was terrible.

I looked at the date again. Whoever this William was, seventeen years back he was writing to someone about Prince Leopold, Queen Victoria’s second youngest. But he was still alive, wasn’t he? As far as I knew – and that wasn’t much seeing as how the nearest I’d come to Her Majesty in the bosom of her family was on the lid of a biscuit tin – there was nothing wrong with him.