Pickpocket's Apprentice (4 page)

If she had thought to provoke him to respond in kind, she was doomed to disappointment. He ducked his head in an approximation of a bow. “It was very kind of you. Goodnight, miss.”

He started to go, but she was apparently not finished with him yet.

“Mama doesn’t want you here, you know.”

He turned and found her still standing on the step, regarding him coyly while she twisted one dark curl around her finger. However unwelcoming her words might sound, there was unmistakable invitation in her black eyes.

“Mama says you’re gallows-bait, and that we’ll all be murdered in our beds. Is it true that you’re a hardened criminal?” Something in her expression gave him to understand that an affirmative response would not put her off in the slightest.

“I wouldn’t say ‘hardened,’ ” he answered, and her face fell, just as he’d expected. “I used to pick pockets in Covent Garden, and I stole food when I was hungry, but I promised Mr. Colquhoun I’d quit if he’d find a way for me to make an honest living. So you’re safe from me, miss.”

He gave her a nod and continued down the corridor toward his room. This time she did not try to stop him, but stood twirling her hair as she watched him go.

“But are you safe from me?” she pondered aloud. “I haven’t yet decided. We’ll have to see what you look like once the bruises fade.”

* * *

Over the next two weeks, Pickett’s life fell into a predictable pattern, delivering coal by day and receiving the remains of the family’s tea from Sophy Granger’s hands by night. He still committed the occasional error (for instance, failing to recognize that the iron eyes covering the coal holes in humbler parts of Town served the same purpose as the more decorative brass ones found in Mayfair), but aside from these infrequent missteps, he could find no cause for complaint; even his muscles had begun to adjust to the new demands placed upon them, and gradually ceased their complaining.

And then, just when it appeared his reform was complete, Temptation reared her lovely head. As Tom emptied his sack down the coal hole of a Grosvenor Square residence, with Bob observing the operation from his perch atop the wagon, a footman emerged from the house and hurried toward Pickett.

“Lady Willard is going to be hosting guests from out of town, and wants an extra sack of coal for heating the additional bedchambers,” he said. “Here’s another seven shillings to cover the cost.”

Pickett held out his hand, and the footman poured into his open palm more money than Pickett had ever seen at one time in his life. Before today, he’d never had cause to handle actual coinage: the aristocrats kept a standing account with Mr. Granger and paid monthly with a draft on their banks, and even those lesser clients who paid cash-in-hand always made their payments to Tom before the coal was delivered.

Long after the footman had gone back inside, Pickett stood staring at the seven silver coins in his hand and wondering what to do. Mr. Granger would not miss what he’d never had, and Lady Willard would never know the difference, not unless she ran low on coal during her guests’ stay. Even then
,
it was unlikely that her ladyship would go down to the coal vault to investigate. His father would say he’d be a fool not to pocket at least a few of them—better still, all seven. Of course, he’d have to wrap them in something to prevent them from clinking together and alerting Tom, or Bob, or both. Fortunately, there were the linen-wrapped sandwiches in his pockets to muffle any sound. It would be easy to accomplish; if his father were not halfway to Botany Bay by now, he’d box his ears for letting such an opportunity go to waste.

Gradually, however, his father’s face faded from his mind, replaced by the scowling visage of Mr. Colquhoun.
If you turn up in Bow Street again accused of theft, you’ll not find me so lenient.
Pickett suspected the magistrate was not bluffing; certainly he’d had no compunction in sending Pickett’s father halfway ’round the world in retribution for his crimes. And yet, it was not so much fear of punishment that made Pickett hesitate as dread of standing before the bench and seeing Mr. Colquhoun regarding him with—what? Anger, yes, but something else. Disappointment, perhaps, that one he’d trusted had let him down.

Trust. That was the thing. No one had ever trusted him before, much less bought him dinner, and Pickett found himself loth to betray it. Coming to a decision, he tightened his fist around the coins lest the sight of them prove more temptation than he could bear, and called to Tom.

“Another sackful for her ladyship. Here, take this.”

Pushing the image of his father’s horrified face from his mind, he dumped the seven pieces of silver into Tom’s hand and hefted another sack from the wagon.

* * *

Two days later, Bob brought the wagon to a halt before a building Pickett recognized.

“It’s the Bow Street office!” he exclaimed, gazing up at the familiar façade.

“Aye, what of it?” Bob growled. “They’ve got to have coal just like anybody else, haven’t they?”

“They’ll have a bank draft ready for us,” Tom said, moving to the back of the wagon and dragging off one of the heavy sacks. “Go inside and get it, will you, John?”

Recognizing this as a command and not a request, Pickett lost no time in obeying, observing as he did so that he’d never been responsible for receiving payment before. He wondered if he had not been trusted with money until Lady Willard and her payment in coin had given him the chance to prove himself. If that were indeed the case, he was doubly thankful that he’d not yielded to temptation.

He strode up the steps and into the building, then glanced toward the magistrate’s bench. Mr. Colquhoun sat scowling down at a weedy little man who appeared to be quaking in his boots. Or maybe the fellow was merely drunk, having availed himself too freely of the Blue Ruin that was available for purchase at one house out of almost every four in the streets surrounding Covent Garden. Either way, Pickett did not envy the miscreant. Still, he could not suppress a pang of disappointment that the magistrate was hearing a case, as he’d hoped for a moment to speak to his benefactor.

Pickett crossed the room to the clerk’s desk and accepted the bank draft that was already written out in readiness for him—apparently this was a regular delivery day—and was headed for the door when Mr. Colquhoun’s voice rang out.

“Well, bless my soul, if it isn’t young Mr. Pickett! Come here, boy, and let’s have a look at you.”

Pickett obeyed, squirming self-consciously under the magistrate’s scrutiny. His teeth and the whites of his eyes stood out in sharp contrast to the coal-stained face, and the shoulder-length curls which Mr. Colquhoun remembered as brown were now dull and black with it. Still, the magistrate noted with approval, his injuries had healed, with nothing left to show for them but a slight crook to his nose. Better still, the boy had filled out a bit and lost his starveling look. Mr. Colquhoun might have been less pleased with this improvement to his protégé’s appearance had he known that much of the change had come not from Mrs. Granger’s table, but from contraband sandwiches smuggled downstairs by the hand of Miss Sophy; he might have told Pickett, had he been asked, that Mr. Granger almost certainly had plans for his daughter that did not include collier’s apprentices, and certainly not an apprentice with his inglorious history.

But he knew nothing of Sophy Granger’s interest in the boy, so he merely smiled at him and asked, “How are you, John? Are you being treated well?”

Pickett hesitated. “I suppose so, sir.”

The salt-and-pepper eyebrows descended over Mr. Colquhoun’s bright blue eyes. “Never say Mr. Granger is cruel to you! I would not have believed it of him.”

“No, sir—that is, I have no complaints about Mr. Granger. It’s—it’s his wife.”

That Mrs. Granger might mistreat the boy had never crossed the magistrate’s mind, although he belatedly realized that it would be a rare woman indeed who was delighted to have a juvenile pickpocket added to her household. “What does she do to you?” he asked. “I can see you are being adequately fed, but is there something else, perhaps? Does she beat you?”

“N-no, but—but—”

“Out with it,” commanded the magistrate, when Pickett faltered. “What does she do?”

“She makes me take a bath,” Pickett blurted out. “Every Saturday night. And not just my face and hands, mind, but
everything
, even my hair. She won’t let me sit down to dinner until I do,” he added indignantly.

Mr. Colquhoun had a sudden vision of his son James at the same age—although James Colquhoun at his worst had never been as badly in need of scrubbing as the lad who stood before him. The magistrate’s lips twitched. “I’m sure you’ll survive,” he said, hardening his heart.

“That’s just what Mr. Granger said,” Pickett recalled bitterly.

“John!” bellowed a voice from the doorway. “Get your arse out here!”

“Coming, Tom!” Pickett took two steps toward the door, then turned back to regard the magistrate diffidently. “I haven’t stolen anything, sir,” he said. “I could have—it would have been easy—but I didn’t.”

The eyes in the coal-blackened face pleaded for approval, and Mr. Colquhoun felt something clench inside his chest. “I would have expected no less of you, Mr. Pickett,” he said gently.

“Thank you, sir,” Pickett said, and turned to go.

“Oh, John—”

“
John!
” echoed Tom from the door in very different accents.

Pickett knew where his loyalties lay. He turned back to the magistrate. “Yes, sir?”

Mr. Colquhoun fished in his pocket, then tossed something in Pickett’s direction. He caught it in midair, and looked down into his palm. A copper penny gleamed in his grimy hand.

“Thank you, sir!”

The white teeth flashed briefly, and he disappeared out the door.

In Which John Pickett Discovers a Hidden Talent

If his weekdays were exhausting, Pickett’s leisure hours every Sunday afternoon were quite the opposite. In fact, he had difficulty finding anything to do with himself. He had no desire to linger in the servants’ hall, for the household staff was inclined to view him with disfavour; given his criminal background they considered themselves his moral superiors, and yet the fact that he was permitted to dine once a week with the family placed him slightly yet undeniably above them in the domestic hierarchy.

On the third such Sunday, having made no friends in his new position with whom he might pass the time, he toyed with the idea of visiting Covent Garden, where he used to roam at will. But to what purpose? He had promised Mr. Colquhoun he would not steal, and yet he had no money with which to purchase anything in the market there—no money, at least, except for the single copper penny given to him by the magistrate, which was now squirreled away under his mattress until he should have need of it. More difficult to explain, yet no less real, was the sense that he no longer truly belonged there.

Weary of looking at the four bare walls of his tiny room, he went outside and sat down on the staircase that led from the basement up to the street above, carefully choosing a step high enough to let him see the traffic in Cecil Street while remaining out of sight to all except the keenest observers. It was here, half an hour later, that Miss Sophy Granger, charmingly attired in a very fetching cloak of dark red velvet, found him.

“Here,” she announced, tucking her mittened hands inside the folds of her cloak and withdrawing a leather-bound book. “For you.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a book, you ninny,” she said impatiently, shoving it toward him. “You’re supposed to read it.”

He said nothing, but took the volume and began flipping through the pages.
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World,
he read silently to himself.
In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships. Volume One.

“I know you can read,” Sophy continued. “I suspected as much that very first Sunday at church, when Papa had his prayer book open, and I noticed you reading over his shoulder. I’ve watched you every Sunday since then, and now I’m sure of it. Where did you learn to read?”

“Charity school,” he said belligerently, daring her to turn up her nose at him.

Her reaction surprised him. “I wish I could go to school,” she said with a sigh. “Instead, Papa engaged the most
tedious
governess for me, so I was obliged to tease her until she quit in a high dudgeon. But it won’t serve, for it won’t be long before Papa engages another one. He says the daughters of all the great families have governesses, and so I must have one, too—not that we are a great family, but Papa
wants
us to be one, and so—” She shrugged her shoulders, then reached for the book in his hands and stood it up on its spine, revealing the jagged edges of the pages. “I cut the pages myself. I figured you wouldn’t have a knife to do it with.”

“This—this is for me?” He turned the book over reverently.

“Not to keep of course,” she hastened to clarify. “But I’m sure Papa won’t mind if you borrow it from his library—in fact, he’ll never even notice it’s gone—and I can bring you the other three volumes after you’ve finished with this one.”

“Thank you,” Pickett said, without looking up from the book. “But—why?”

“I know how dull it is around here, with simply
no one
to talk to,” she said, twisting one black curl around her finger. “Sometimes I’m sure I shall
die
of boredom.”

Pickett, halfway to Lilliput by this time, made no response beyond turning the page. Sophy gave a huff of annoyance (which was utterly wasted, as he gave no indication of having heard it at all) and flounced back up the stairs and into the house unnoticed.

From that day forward, Pickett lived for his leisure hours, even squeezing in a little time every night after finishing supper in which he might accompany Gulliver on his adventures, stretching himself out on his cot and reading by the light of his single tallow dip until the demands of his weary body forced him to blow out the candle and allow sleep to claim him. In such a manner November gave way to December, until one Sunday afternoon when Sophy discovered him outside in the freezing weather, sitting low enough on the stairs that the wind would not disturb the pages of the precious volume.