Wasp (33 page)

‘Forgive this abrupt intrusion, ladies,’ he splutters, ‘but I fear any other introduction might prove difficult given the circumstances. Our last meeting did not go as well as I’d hoped. My father is so accustomed to blustering his way through Parliament that he sometimes finds it difficult to detach himself.’

‘Do you usually accost people in the middle of a journey?’ enquires Hummingbird.

‘Gracious, no.’

‘Our driver is handy with a whip. He could’ve had both your ears off even if you are a gentleman. I’m right aren’t I, Richard, in thinking you a gentleman?’

‘Why, yes, yes indeed.’ He drops his hat, picks it up, drops it again. ‘Though I confess the sight of a guinea brought your fellow up sharp.’

‘Ah well, offer a large enough bribe and I daresay even the most dedicated coach driver will turn from his duty.’

Wasp frowns. ‘Your father was not a gentleman towards me.’

‘Don’t judge too harshly,’ Richard says, giving up on his wayward tricorne. ‘You need a stout heart to survive a den of snakes. Parliament demands everything of a man. As I’ve explained, it is sometimes difficult to step away.’

‘Is that where your future lies? Parliament?’

‘Good lord, no, not for any length of time. It’ll be a foreign appointment for me, preferably somewhere warm and far away. The wretched English winter has me constantly snivelling.’

‘Won’t you miss your home?’

‘Probably, but a good political career can be forged just as well under a hot sun as grey London skies.’

‘Sounds like you have everything sewn.’

‘Perhaps, perhaps.’ His long fingers dance around one another. ‘There are people, important people with whom we must first court favour. Out of one pocket and into another, as it were. In any case it’s no talk for ladies.’

‘I was a tart the other night,’ Wasp reminds him.

‘Regrettable, as I said.’

‘Why are you here? How did you know we were in this carriage?’

A blush darkens both cheeks. ‘A few shillings dropped in the right purse and you can discover anything.’

‘You can’t have gone to such trouble to chat about politics.’

‘Indeed not. I’d like an opportunity to make up for the less than genial ministrations of my father.’ He produces a calling card from his jacket pocket and drops it into Wasp’s lap. ‘I wish to hire your services.’

‘After what happened before, the Abbess will need to approve this.’ A fat leather purse joins the calling card. ‘Consider it approved.’

That evening Wasp visits Moth’s bedchamber. The door hangs wide. Inside, the four-poster has been stripped to the mattress. Drawers poke wooden tongues, the insides bare. No hairbrushes, scent bottles or powder caskets litter the top of the dresser. Both windows have been thrown open. Warm breezes gust the curtains into pink butterfly wings. Even Moth’s smell has been purged.

‘I don’t understand,’ Wasp says later while Hummingbird combs her hair in front of their own dresser. ‘If you’re all so certain Moth will be found, why strip her bedchamber?’

‘Kittens aren’t supposed to have rooms to themselves in the first place. She was only put there until her night troubles were cured. I expect the Abbess plans to give it to you.’

‘I don’t want Moth’s bed no matter how many years I spend here.’

‘You can’t cling to my skirts forever. As much fun as we’ve had I’d like some independence.’

Wasp sits on the edge of the bed. ‘Taking Moth’s room feels like stealing. She’s only been gone a day and you’d think she’d died the way it’s been cleaned out. What will happen to her possessions?’

Hummingbird shrugs. ‘We’ll find out after she’s brought back.’

Wasp thinks for a moment. ‘Did you ever tease her? Or play any sort of prank.’

‘Whatever makes you say that? Moth and I became the best of friends.’

Cracks in the Plaster

Moth is apprehended at the Meldrum coaching inn, ten miles out of the city. Wearing stolen clothes, she bluffed her way onto a southbound stage, ordered supper from the innkeeper and tried to skip paying. He locked her in his ale cellar and sent for a constable. According to Hummingbird, she’s in the town jail. No one is allowed to see her until the tavern’s debt is paid.

Later that day Red Orchid, Moth’s one-time tutor, is ordered to accompany the Abbess on a visit to their prodigal Sister. Red Orchid pleads a bellyache. ‘A very convenient malady,’ the Abbess observes, but Red Orchid remains unrepentant. ‘I’ll not stand by and watch one of our own in chains. I’ve felt manacles and heard the mob baying in my ears. I can’t bear those ugly, dirty places.’

Instead of punishment she’s given leave to fetch a draught from the Fixer then sent to bed. The Abbess tells Wasp to change out of her day gown. ‘You will come instead, unless you too are gripped by a sudden discomfiture?’

Wasp leaves the House feeling that her own gut is full of cannonballs. The Abbess’s private chaise, driven with whip-cracking enthusiasm by Leonardo, makes short work of city traffic. No dramatic arrival at an imposing courthouse or prison, but a jiggling journey through back allyes to a former tollhouse standing at the junction of three streets. The turnkey’s office is a gin-smelling box, the man himself a grim-faced ape with cracked spectacles perched on his bent nose. He nods at another fellow who’s busy warming his rump at the fire. He’s the landlord of the Meldrum inn, and he wants a reward.

‘I reckoned she was more than a common thief,’ he says, winking. ‘I get all kinds tumbling through my door. They can order pigeon pie and a glass of claret as haughtily as the rest of ’em, but no matter how fancy they look, I know a runaway when I see one.’

The Abbess turns to the jailer. ‘How is the girl?’

‘Been howling since we brought her in. We had to keep the chains on.’

‘Wasp, go with this man. Try and get Moth to settle if you can.’

The turnkey takes Wasp downstairs and along a fetid passage. Three cells are built into the mould-spattered walls. Two lie empty. ‘Been taken and hanged,’ the turnkey says as if guessing her thoughts.

A low sobbing issues from the furthest cell. The jailer unlocks the door and pushes it wide. Immediately a rotten stench hits Wasp in the face. A figure, indistinct in the shadows, springs back on the metal bed frame to which it has been chained.

‘I ain’t here to do ye harm,’ the jailer growls. ‘Ye’ve got a visitor.’

Wasp squints in the gloom. ‘Do you have a lantern?’

‘Lantern, my arse. The cost o’ candles comes out o’ my wages. There’s a window high up on the wall. Give it a minute and yer eyes’ll get used to the light. If ye want I can fetch a stool. Just don’t get too close and don’t try to sneak her anything.’

‘No, no stool.’

‘Suit yerself. I’ll be back after I’ve done business with yer mistress. If ye want anything just yell. I’ll hear ye.’ He ducks back out and locks the door. Wasp listens to his heavy feet tramp back down the passage. The window he mentioned is no more than a slit in the masonry that allows a finger of light to filter through. The figure on the bed has stopped whimpering and is bundled up at one end, watching her. No blanket, just a layer of coarse sacking. Apart from a pisspot the cell is otherwise bare.

A whisper. ‘Bethany, is that you?’

Ignoring the turnkey’s orders, Wasp sits on the edge of the bed. She grasps Moth’s hands only to let go on hearing a gasp of pain.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

‘I knew someone would come, from the House I mean. I didn’t think it would be you. You’re going to take me back, aren’t you?’ She leans her head against the wall. In the gloom her face is the colour of fat clouds about to sick rain onto the streets. Creases spider-web the corners of both eyes. Her lips are thin and white in a mouth that’s never going to smile again.

‘I’ve come because you need a friend.’

Moth lets out a sigh. ‘When were you ever my friend, Bethany?’

‘I’d like to think things have changed.’

Metal clinks as she shifts her feet. Her gown is torn. It smells of earth and rusty shackles. ‘She’s here, isn’t she? The Abbess?’

‘Yes. She’s going to pay for your release.’

‘Release? I want to die, that’s all. Let them hang me. Or measure me for chains and have the crows peck my eyes out. I don’t care. Anything would be better than that House.’

‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘Is that so? You spend your whole life dodging death while people around you drown, go under a cart, or catch some foul pox and wither before your eyes, and for what? I know exactly what I’m saying. I’ve grown up fast. I’m an old woman. A crone. You can’t stay a child after what I’ve heard.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Metal clinks again. A hand, ghostly in the gloom, snatches Wasp’s wrist. She feels Moth’s breath whisper against her cheek.

‘The things she told me. The words she whispered into my ear. There is a place other than the House, a place we’re not meant to see. Hummingbird said it’s easy to find when you know where to go, which knobs to turn, the doors that will open and the ones that won’t. The House can offer more than a pretty girl to put on your arm or take to the opera. Those who want it, get it. Dear Lord, they get everything. Watch where you walk, Bethany. You don’t want to tread in the wrong place.’

She stares at her manacles, at the swollen wrists beneath the cuffs. ‘I’ll never leave here. My bones will be buried in the back yard and no one shall ever know I lived.’

‘Hummingbird loves to tease,’ Wasp says. ‘That girl could convince you the world is made of suet pudding if she chose. We all know how exhausted you’ve been. Your imagination can play whatever games it likes and Hummingbird will always be around to stoke it. She can be a nuisance but means no real harm.’

‘You believe that?’

‘Of course. She’s the closest I’ve had to a real friend since arriving at the House.’

Moth leans back against the wall. ‘I couldn’t become a Masque. Not for a lifetime of pretty gowns and dancing lessons. The Fixer can parade me in front of those mirrors as much as he likes and it won’t make any difference. In my heart I’d still run away. Or perhaps go mad. What a sweet escape that would be.’

‘Is life with us so terrible?’

‘Do you see my brand? When I first arrived the Abbess asked whether I would be a slave or a predator. I’m nothing but a common thief. I can’t help it. Whenever I see something pretty I have to have it. I’m a magpie. Many times I’ve sat with my plunder and had no notion what to do with it. Usually it’s too late to give it back, and even if I did I’d likely steal something else. It’s a feeling that rises suddenly inside me, as if I become a different girl.’

‘Is it worth such a risk?’

‘I don’t just steal their goods, I steal a part of them. I think if I do that they can’t hurt me, and if I do it enough times nobody can. People believed me too mousy to misbehave, and so I got away with it. Once, twice, then many times after. Even when I was caught with someone’s fob watch in my hand it was thought I’d made a silly mistake, until my victim turned out to be a lawyer. Don’t you understand, Bethany? I can’t scrub floors or wash dishes in the House for the rest of my days. It’s the thought of
not
stealing that brings the snakes slithering out from under my bed.’

Moth makes a hollow sound at the back of her throat. ‘I was too quiet in my nature to say anything. Always too quiet, but the House has given me time to think.’

‘Moth, I’m sorry.’

‘Far worse tales are told. You’ll hear things that’ll make your ears bleed. Never forget that you’re among killers, thieves and whores. Hummingbird will tell you. She knew all about me. And she knows about you too.’

Wasp finds herself shrinking away from this pale girl with the dark, dead eyes. ‘How can she know so much?’

Moth sighs. ‘Hummingbird flies higher than anyone except perhaps Nightingale. I don’t know what she wants but it can’t bode good for any of us.’

‘I thought Nightingale was the one with the black heart. She’s sour enough towards me.’

‘Have you ever seen her bedchamber? No, I suppose not. You’ve no call to go to that part of the House. One of my chores was stripping the linen on her bed. What a strange place to be, piled with a hundred pairs of gloves and a box on a shelf no one’s allowed to touch.’

‘That means nothing. I’ve shared with Hummingbird since my first night in the House and she has her peccadilloes.’

‘Don’t notice much, do you? Nightingale turned absolutely poisonous when I fetched this brand on the back of my hand. She and the Abbess near had a catfight over it and Nightingale is the only girl who can get away with that. She makes more money than the rest of you put together, but she’s not as spoiled as you think.’

‘But she—’

‘I saw her at the posting house when I was on the run. Her face was caked with paint and she wore a plain gown, not much better than a servant’s. Even so I couldn’t mistake her. You’ve seen the way she moves — a sort of half-glide. She was trying to hide it, but that’s like a horse trying to walk on its hind legs. At first I thought she’d been sent after me, but she boarded a private coach, one I’ve never seen before. And she looked desperate. Whatever is going on, you might need to think about who your friends truly are.’