The Cockney Sparrow (19 page)

Edith’s heavy eyelids fluttered open. She stared at Clemency with eyes opaque and frosted, like shards of green glass worn smooth by the river and washed up on a high tide. Her lips had a bluish tinge and they moved soundlessly.

‘Let her rest.’ Mrs Blunt placed fresh towels beneath her, and covered Edith’s lower limbs with a sheet. She turned to Clemency and her harsh features softened into a sympathetic smile. ‘Go downstairs, there’s a good girl. Your ma won’t die because I shan’t let her. Now do as I say.’

Fancy took her by the hand. ‘She’s right. You can’t do nothing here. We’d best go downstairs and break it gently to Jack.’

‘Can’t you think of no one else but Jack?’ Clemency struggled to her feet. ‘Me mum is close to death, and all you worry about is upsetting me brother.’

‘That’s better,’ Fancy said, smiling. ‘You have a go at me, girl. Spit it out.’

Clemency dropped her gaze, ashamed of her outburst when she knew that Fancy had only been trying to help. ‘Sorry.’

‘Come on.’ Fancy led her from the stuffy room with its sickly stench of blood.

‘Why did she do it?’ Clemency demanded as she followed Fancy down the narrow staircase. ‘Ma was upset when I left this morning, but not desperate.’

‘Her bloke, Mickey, come round after he finished selling his fish. All slippery and shiny with scales he was, and stinking like Billingsgate Market on a hot day. I dunno how she could let him near her, but there’s no accounting for taste.’ Fancy stopped as they reached the baize door. ‘She took him up to Mrs B’s parlour. We heard him shouting and her crying, and then he come thudding down the stairs and the front door slammed. I wanted to go up to her, but Mrs B said not to, she’d be best left alone. I had to go out to market then, and when I come back your mum had been somewhere and got it done. Doubled up in pain she was …’

‘Don’t tell me any more. I got to think what to do next.’

Fancy peered at her in the dim light of the gas mantle. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Never you mind. I got to speak to Jack right away. In private.’

‘No.’ Fancy folded her arms across her chest, barring Clemency’s way into the kitchen. ‘You may be his sister, but I’m Jack’s woman. Whatever you got to say to him, you say to me too.’

A wave of exhaustion washed over Clemency, adding to her feeling of desolation. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘All right, but you don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for.’

Fancy opened the door. ‘It can’t be that bad, but whatever it is, I’m with Jack.’

‘So you say now. But you ain’t heard the half of it.’ Clemency pushed past her and went down the steps into the kitchen.

Jack and Augustus were seated on either side of the range.

‘What’s going on, Clemmie?’ Jack’s voice cracked with concern.

Fancy ran to him and gave him a hug. ‘Your ma has had a bad time, Jack. But she’ll be all right. All she needs now is rest and quiet.’

‘But what’s wrong with her?’ Jack cast an anxious glance at Clemency. ‘Has she been took with a fever?’

Clemency shook her head. She sat down suddenly as her legs gave way beneath her. Everything had been going so well, and now it was all going horribly wrong. ‘It’s worse than that, Jack. Much worse.’

‘I’ll make a pot of tea.’ Fancy made a move towards the kettle, but Augustus stopped her with a wave of his hand.

He rose to his feet, taking a flask from his pocket. ‘I think we all need a drop of something stronger than tea. I don’t know what it is that ails poor Edith, but Jack has told me about Hardiman. What we need now is a plan of action.’

‘Hardiman? What’s he got to do with it?’ Fancy demanded. ‘If someone don’t tell me, I swear I’ll scream.’

‘And what’s wrong with Ma?’ Jack thumped the arm of his chair with his hand. ‘For Gawd’s sake, tell me.’

Aided by a large tot of brandy, Clemency told him everything. There was a momentary silence, and then everyone began talking at once: Jack swearing that he would get even with Mickey, and Augustus ranting against Jared Stone for employing a villain like Hardiman to do his dirty work for him. While the men raged, Fancy and Clemency sat quietly, waiting for them to calm down.

‘It would be worth meeting up with Hardiman again,’ Jack said bitterly, ‘if only to set him onto Mickey Connor. Them two bastards deserve each other. I’d pay good money to see them fight it out with bare knuckles.’

‘Just as I was making my name in the theatrical
world,’ Augustus groaned, taking a swig from his flask. ‘As your manager, young Clem, I had my foot on the first rung to success. Why, given a year or two, we could have been in the West End. You could have been as big a star as Dorabella Darling.’

‘Self, self, self!’ Fancy cast them a scornful glance. ‘All you blokes can think about is yourselves. What about us poor women?’

‘That’s right,’ Clemency agreed. ‘Never mind worrying about revenge or what might have been – what we got is a problem here and now. How are we going to get Ma and Jack to a place of safety? And where in heaven’s name can we go that is safe from Stone and Hardiman?’

‘I’d like to kill them both.’ Jack fisted his hands, beating them on his withered limbs. ‘Useless bloody cripple that I am.’

‘Take the boy to his bed, Fancy,’ Augustus said, getting to his feet. ‘We all need to get some sleep. We’ll see things in a different light in the morning.’ He lurched across the floor, and made his way slowly up the stairs.

‘Things won’t look different in the morning,’ Clemency said, frowning. ‘It will be light in a few hours, and God alone knows what will happen then.’

Jack closed his eyes, resting his head against Fancy’s shoulder. ‘He’s right. We need to get some rest. Help us to bed, Fancy, there’s a little love.’

She hooked his arm around her shoulders and hefted him from the chair. Clemency stepped forward to help her, but Fancy shook her head. ‘It’s all right. I can manage. I’ll be back in a tick.’

Clemency waited, pacing the floor, until Fancy tiptoed back into the kitchen. ‘He was asleep afore I got his boots off,’ she said, smiling. ‘Poor boy, he ain’t used to strong drink.’

‘What’s on your mind, Fancy?’

‘Strange as it seems, I’m on your side in this, Clem. I seen Jack grow in pride in himself since he’s been took on with the orchestra, and I ain’t going to let no one put him back to begging on the street. You and me ain’t never going to get on like sisters, but I’d do anything for Jack, and I got no quarrel with Edith, except that she’s a silly mare for letting a bloke get her in that state.’

The stench of the sickroom and the sight of Edith’s waxen face flashed before Clemency’s eyes and, for once, she had to agree with Fancy. ‘All right,’ she said slowly. ‘Then you’ll agree with me that we got to get Ma and Jack away from here. We got to find a lodging where Hardiman can never find us.’

‘Yes, and I’m coming too.’

‘I suppose Jack would want that.’

‘And Augustus?’

Clemency stared at her. Was it the brandy fumes or just tiredness that was fogging her brain? Nothing seemed to make sense.
‘Augustus will want to stay here with Lucilla.’

‘No he won’t. That’s another story. Lucilla and Tom have run off together.’

‘But she’s his little songbird – he thinks the world of the fat tart. It’ll break his heart.’

‘She’s another silly cow who couldn’t keep her legs together, and now she’s in the pudding club. She was too scared to tell her dad in case he knocked out the rest of Tom’s teeth.’

‘Gawd’s strewth, what a mess!’ Clemency didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘Don’t worry about them. Tom’s well in with the O’Malley brothers, and they’ve promised to find him work. It’s a bit different to playing a concertina, but no doubt he’ll keep them all entertained in the pub of an evening, afore he goes home to his fat and grumpy songbird.’

‘I got to get some sleep,’ Clemency said, rubbing her knuckles into her burning eyelids. ‘First I’ll go and check on Ma, and then I’m going to bed. We’ll have to get away early in the morning.’

‘But where will we go?’

‘I have no idea, but I do know someone who may be able to help. G’night, Fancy.’

Wearily, dragging her feet, Clemency made her way up to Mrs Blunt’s room. She peered round the door, holding her breath, terrified of what she might see, but all seemed quiet. In a yellow pool of gaslight, Mrs Blunt was sitting
beside the bed. She turned her head to peer at Clemency, putting her finger to her lips. ‘She’s sleeping peacefully. Don’t wake her.’

‘Will she be all right?’

‘I hope so, dearie.’

Clemency had to be content with that. She crept up the stairs, tiptoed past the maids’ door and went to her own room, where she collapsed onto the bed. She fell asleep almost at once, but a succession of nightmares disturbed her rest and she awakened in a cold sweat. It was still dark, with no sign of dawn streaking the night sky, but she now was wide awake. She stripped off her clothes and dressed herself once again in a shirt and breeches.

With no clear plan of action in mind, she crept from her room, and went down the stairs to check on her mother. The gaslight had been turned down low in Mrs Blunt’s room, and it made popping sounds as it cast eerie shadows on the walls. Mrs Blunt was asleep in her chair, snoring gently, with her head lolling on her chest. Clemency tiptoed up to the bed, scarcely daring to breathe. Ma was lying so stiff and still beneath the coverlet that, for a moment, Clemency was sure that she was dead. Then, with an almost imperceptible sigh, Edith made the smallest of movements, and Clemency had to bite back tears of relief. She crept out of the room wiping her eyes on her sleeve. Now it was up to
her to find a safe haven for them all, and she knew exactly where to go.

She arrived outside the Crown and Anchor just as the first grey streaks of dawn slashed the dark bowl of the eastern sky. She had walked all the way from Whitechapel, unnoticed in the crowds of people making their way to work on the docks, in the markets, manufactories and warehouses that hugged the banks of the Thames. She was just one amongst so many that she had no fear of being seen by Hardiman, who was a creature of the night: come the dawn, he would go underground, like the sewer rats who were his familiars. Just the thought of him made Clemency shudder. She raised her hand to knock on the taproom door, and then changed her mind. She did not want to draw attention to herself. Hardiman had spies everywhere, and it would only take one sharp-eyed sneak to see through her disguise. She shuddered at the thought, and decided that it would be best if she went round to the back of the building. Someone was sure to be at work in the kitchen, even if it was just Annie. She cut through the alley at the side of the pub, and let herself into the back yard, dodging behind a barrel as the scullery door opened casting a shaft of light onto the cobbles. Annie came out carrying a hod and she trudged across the yard to the coalhouse. Waiting until she was safely inside, Clemency emerged from
her hiding place. Keeping in the shadows, she crossed the yard and entered the scullery. She could hear sounds of movement in the kitchen and she put her head round the door.

‘Gracious heavens!’ Nell let out a startled shriek, and then she peered at her. ‘Is it you, Clemency?’

‘It’s me, Mrs Hawkes.’ She tugged off her cap. ‘I’m in desperate need of help.’

Nell’s expression changed from alarm to one of concern, and she waddled across the flagstones to hug her. ‘You poor girl. What’s happened now?’

‘I need to speak to Ned.’

‘He’s in the parlour having his breakfast. Come and tell us all about it.’ She propelled her through a door into a small, wainscoted room where a fire blazed in the grate.

Ned was sitting at the table eating his breakfast of cold meat and pickles. He dropped his knife and fork with a clatter when he saw Clemency, and rose to his feet. ‘Well,’ he said, with a mock bow. ‘This is an honour. The cockney sparrow herself has come to pay us a visit.’

‘Now, Ned. None of your sauce.’ Nell gave him a warning look. ‘Make yourself at home, ducks. I’ll fetch you a cup of coffee and a plate of breakfast. Then you can tell us what’s brought you here at this hour of the morning.’ She hurried back into the kitchen.

Ned held out a chair. ‘Take a seat then. That’s if the leading lady at the Strand Theatre don’t mind sharing the table with a common innkeeper.’

Clemency sat down. ‘Don’t be like that, Ned. I know I haven’t been round to see you, but I’ve been busy.’

‘I know. I seen the posters. I’d recognise you anywhere, even with a stage name and all that stuff on your face that makes you look like a common actress.’ Ned sat down heavily, pushing his plate away, leaving his food barely touched. ‘So what brings you here in your fancy dress?’

Before she could answer, Nell came back into the room carrying a tray. She set it down in front of Clemency. ‘Eat your breakfast and then you can tell us everything. You too, Ned Hawkes, and don’t browbeat the girl. She’s come to us for help and it’s help she’ll get, not a lecture on how she earns her living.’

Clemency flashed her a grateful smile. She sipped the hot, sweet coffee and felt the warmth returning to her chilled body. Ned mumbled something unintelligible, but he took his plate and ate silently. Every now and then he shot a piercing glance at Clemency. She could feel his resentment burning into her, making it almost impossible to eat. Nell bobbed in and out of the kitchen, issuing instructions to Annie, then
returning to see if they had finished their food. In the end, Clemency pushed her plate away. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t eat while he’s glaring at me like I done something wrong.’

‘Ned, you should be ashamed of yourself.’ Nell came to sit beside Clemency. ‘This poor girl has come to us for help, and all you can do is sit there like some blooming justice of the peace. You tell us all about it, Clemency, love. Don’t take no notice of my boy, he’s as bad as his father.’

‘At least I won’t run off and leave you in the lurch like the old man, who couldn’t keep his hands off a pretty barmaid.’ Ned folded his arms across his chest. ‘Go on then. I’m listening.’

‘I know I only seem to come here when I’m in trouble.’ Clemency stared down at her intertwined fingers. ‘But you’ve both been so good to me in the past, and I – I think of you as part of me family.’ She raised her eyes and saw Ned’s harsh expression soften. ‘I’m sorry, Ned. I don’t mean to take advantage of your good nature.’