The Lights of London (35 page)

‘She’s had a lot to eat today,’ she said frostily.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’

‘I don’t suppose one more bag of sweets would hurt,’ said Jack.

Polly smiled and held out her hand, ready to go with Archie, but Tibs wasn’t having it. ‘Don’t be naughty,
Poll. Uncle Archie’ll be getting tired of you hanging round him all day.’

‘She’s all right,’ he said.

Tibs looked him directly in the eye. ‘I’ll tell her what to do, thank you very much.’

‘Hang on, Arch, why didn’t you wait with me to see the girls in?’ Jack pulled off his boater and gave his head a good, hard scratch.

Archie stopped in the pub doorway and turned round to face his boss. ‘I just wanted to go in and see if Joe’s been managing without us, that’s all.’

‘Come on, Archie, this is me you’re talking to, not a drunken sailor.’

‘It’s Tibs.’ He sighed.

Jack nodded. ‘She’s upset you.’

‘No, not really. It’s me. I was stupid enough to think she liked me. But now …’

Jack was beginning to wish he hadn’t asked. This was more like women’s sort of talk. ‘We’ve all made mistakes with women, Arch. But what makes you think she doesn’t like you?’

‘It’s obvious, innit?’ Archie slapped angrily at his arm. ‘It’s this, of course.’ Then he shoved open the pub door and let it slam loudly behind him.

Jack followed him in, but he didn’t stop in the bar. He went straight up to his room, where he had woman trouble of his own.

He was dreading seeing Tess, but he knew he couldn’t put this conversation off any longer and he also knew exactly what he was going to say.

He pushed open the door and just stood there, staring.

She was sitting on the bed with his tin box –
his private tin box
– going through his things.

She looked up, apparently unperturbed at being caught. ‘I thought you’d be back later.

‘We were tired.’ He stepped inside to get a closer look. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I’ve long since given up pretending I’ve got any interest in you, Jack Fisher – I’ve got no interest in any man, to be honest. Why be a housekeeper for no pay?’ She snorted unattractively. ‘But I do have an interest in what’s mine by rights.’

‘But why are you …’

‘I told you, I want my share of the money and I was just going through your papers to find out exactly how much that comes to.’

Jack snatched off his boater and his stiff collar and dashed them to the floor. ‘To think I’ve felt guilty about you all this time.’

‘Not guilty enough to come back and marry me.’

Jack hung his head. ‘I will get the money sorted out as soon as I can. You’ve looked through those papers, you know how much I had to lay out to get this business started. And the debts that’ve mounted up. But I’ll find a way. Now will you just go?’

She stretched out on the bed and smiled up at him slyly – a snake judging its strike. ‘Soon, Jack Fisher. Soon. In fact, as soon as I get the money in my hands. But don’t take too long about it, will you, or I might start forgetting myself and go opening my mouth to that lass next door.’

With a clatter of hooves and a jingle of harness the hansom pulled up by the flaring torches lighting the entrance to an impressively grand white stucco building in St James’s.

Tibs lifted the corner of the blind. ‘This must be it,’ she said, tilting the stiff white address card that Tressing had given them towards the light.

Kitty said nothing. She just ducked her head, so that she could see through the window. She stared up at the massive neo-classical façade of columns and pediments standing out starkly against the velvet of the winter sky, closed her eyes and gulped.

Tibs pushed open the door and stepped down on to the street. ‘It ain’t gonna fall down and wallop you on the head, Kit. Now come on.’ She pulled her coat tightly round her, covering up the thin muslin dress.

‘Bloody glad he gave us the money for a cab,’ she said through chattering teeth, as Kitty sheepishly joined her on the pavement. ‘Coming out on a November night wearing just these little things, we’d have froze our bits off. You know, all I hope, Kit,’ she went on, as she concentrated on sorting out the exact fare, ‘is that Joe’s old Aunt Sarah makes sure my Polly don’t kick off the blankets and that she keeps plenty of coal on the fire. It’s sodding bitter tonight.’

She counted out the coins into the cabman’s hand and he snatched them from her, furious at not being given a tip. ‘Pissing cheek,’ he spat, cracking his whip over his
horse’s flanks. ‘Trying to act like ladies when anyone can see they’re just a pair of whores.’

‘What was that?’ asked Kitty, as the cab pulled away in a shower of sparks from the startled hackney’s metal-clad hooves. ‘What did he say, Tibs?’

‘Nothing,’ she said hurriedly. She didn’t want to risk losing out on the evening’s pay just because Kitty got scared by some loud-mouthed old goat of a driver. She wanted that money. Although, she had to admit, she wasn’t as desperate for it as she had been a few weeks earlier when Jack had first agreed to them having the night off to go to the ball, because, just this morning, he had announced he was giving them a rise.

Tibs smiled as she mounted the broad sweep of steps, thinking how full of himself Jack had been when he’d told them; how proud he was at what he’d achieved at the pub and how he’d managed almost to sort out his finances at last. He had, however, been surprised that they were still going. He’d thought that if he gave them the rise they would give up the idea of the evening with Tressing. But although Tibs didn’t exactly need the extra money now, she still wanted it. It would be Christmas soon and she was going to make up for all those other Christmases, make it a day Polly would never ever forget.

Jack had really tried to persuade them not to go and had even gone as far as telling them that there was something about Tressing he didn’t like. He should have added that there was something about the man that not only made his flesh crawl, but that had him seriously questioning whether the bloke was actually all there. But Jack didn’t want to risk making too much of a fuss and falling out with him. If they had a row and Tressing stormed out of the place, he could still just come back whenever he felt like it. No, that was no
good, Jack wanted to get rid of him properly. And that meant getting the money together to pay back the IOU – which, with a bit of luck, he would be able to do very soon. And with the debt repaid there would be no excuse. Jack could bar him from the Old Black Dog for ever.

Tibs reached the top of the steps and looked over her shoulder to see where Kitty had got to.

She was still hanging around on the pavement.

‘For Gawd’s sake, Kit, get yourself up here or you’ll freeze to the bleed’n’ spot.’ Tibs turned back round to find herself being snootily appraised by a liveried doorman. ‘And what d’you think you’re bogging at?’ she demanded, sticking her nose in the air. ‘We’re guests, we are. Of Dr Tressing.’

The man smirked. ‘I might have known.’ Then added sarcastically, ‘Madam.’

‘Oi! You!’ Teezer leaned drunkenly in his chair, tipping it alarmingly on to its back legs. ‘Over here!’

Archie shielded his eyes with his hand and peered out into the darkness of the auditorium.

‘Over here!’ hollered Teezer, snatching Buggy’s matches and striking one in front of his face.

Spotting the unpleasant sight of Teezer’s fat, beery mug, illuminated by the flare, Archie put the name card announcing ‘Miss Tilly Thomas and her Tantalising Times’ carefully on the easel, tapped himself on the chest and mouthed ‘Who me?’ in the vague direction of where the flame had been.

‘Yeah, you,’ Teezer shouted back over the band who had just launched into the introduction of ‘I May Be a Poor Little Rich Girl but I Know what a Copper is Worth’. ‘I wanna word.’

Reluctantly, Archie picked his way through the tables
in the gloom, whispering his apologies to the customers as he threaded his way over to where Teezer and Buggy were sitting.

‘We’ve got a complaint,’ slurred Teezer.

‘You and the rest of the audience,’ muttered Archie under his breath.

‘We came here to see Sweet and Dandy, not some fat old tart squawking like a parrot and waggling her wobbly, flabby old arse.’

‘I’ll go and get the boss,’ said Archie, almost as fed up with taking complaints as he was with the fact that Tibs was doing anything to avoid his company. ‘But I’m telling you, he’s as unhappy as you gentlemen that they ain’t appearing tonight.’

The interior of the private club was even more nerve-rackingly impressive than the façade and even usually perky, mouthy little Tibs was momentarily lost for words.

At first they just stood there in the wonderful warmth, staring about them at the glowing braziers and candles that threw shadows dancing against the walls and the almost cathedral-height ceiling.

There were servants everywhere, gliding around the huge entrance hall with silver trays laden with drinks. But instead of the powdered wig and breeches worn by the doormen they were dressed in flimsy white drapery that barely covered their nakedness.

Tibs opened her coat, looked down at her own white dress and let out a little sigh. So, they were here as bloody servants – she might have guessed.

Kitty hadn’t seemed to make the connection. ‘Look at those outfits,’ she whispered behind her hand, lifting her chin at a group of costumed guests who had just appeared from one of the side doors. ‘They look just like
those Alhambra posters for
The Arabian Nights
that they pasted on the warehouse opposite the pub.’

‘Lovely,’ said Tibs flatly, thinking of carrying all those glasses and the weight of the bloody silver trays.

‘Tibs! Look at him,’ Kitty gasped, pointing to a man who had appeared at the top of the sweeping staircase that led to the galleried upper floors.

He was dressed in a shimmering floor-length robe, which fell in fine jewelled pleats from a golden breastplate. On his head he wore an eagle’s head mask fashioned from iridescent green and gold feathers.

‘Blimey, Kit, he’s only coming over to us.’

‘What’ll we say?’

‘How about good-evening?’ As soon as they heard his deep, hypnotic voice, they knew it was Bartholomew Tressing. ‘This way, Miss Wallis, Miss Tyler.’

As they followed him through one of the doors leading off the hall, Tibs puffed out her cheeks and shook her head. ‘You wait and see,’ she whispered. ‘It’ll be the sodding kitchen. I just know it.’

But it wasn’t. It was a dressing-room.

In it, there were matching gilt and brocade chairs, a cheval looking-glass, a table covered with powders and scents, and a carved double wardrobe which the doctor opened.

He took out two extravagantly embroidered gowns that wouldn’t have looked out of place in ancient Egypt and held them at arm’s length, judging the sizes, before handing one to each of them. ‘You can leave your own things in here,’ he said. ‘You won’t be needing anything you are wearing.’

‘Not even our drawers?’ asked Tibs sourly. She wasn’t worried about shedding her underwear – the place was gloriously warm and she’d never been keen on stays anyway, not since One-Eyed Sal had first
insisted she should lace herself into them when she was about fourteen years old – but she was angry at having wasted good money on the thin muslin shift for which she now had absolutely no use, except for maybe hanging over the window to keep out the flies and bluebottles.

Tressing raised an amused eyebrow. ‘Actually, undergarments would spoil the effect of the clothing and it is, after all, a costume ball.’

‘So I can see,’ she said, looking him up and down. ‘But if that’s what you really want – and we agree to do it – it’ll be an extra Jacks. For each of us, mind.’

Kitty didn’t know whether to be more shocked by Tressing wanting them naked under their outfits, or Tibs having the front to ask for yet more money.

‘I mean it, it’s a tenner or we’re off. And you can think yourself lucky we ain’t asking for more.’

‘You shall have it. I’ll leave you to change.’

‘Now.’ Tibs, having guessed, quite rightly, that even in costume his sort wouldn’t risk leaving his personal effects where some light-fingered servant might help himself, held out her hand.

Perfectly calmly he slipped his hand between the folds of his costume and took out his wallet.

As soon as he left, Kitty propped one of the chairs under the door handle, turned her back modestly on Tibs and slowly, reluctantly, took off her clothes.

‘I’m sure you can see through these costumes in the light.’

‘Good job we’ll be wearing masks then, eh, Kit? They’ll save our blushes.’

When she was dressed, Kitty walked over to the mirror to look at herself.

‘Let’s have a butcher’s,’ said Tibs, nudging her to one side. ‘Blimey! We’re flipping gorgeous. And just look at
them,’ she said, poking Kitty’s bosom that was bulging over the top of the beaded bodice. ‘You don’t look much like a soldier boy now, darling.’

‘Tibs. I’m not sure about this.’

‘Don’t you start fretting and carrying on. They won’t be able to see a thing out there.’ Tibs pulled one of the chairs over to use as a ladder and set about fixing Kitty’s feathered head-dress and mask in place. ‘It’s almost pitch dark, apart from a few candles and fires. And just think what a nice change it all is from wearing trousers.’

Tressing, who was waiting outside the door, led them through to a dimly candlelit room, where all they could make out at first were shapes moving around in the gloom, some deep rumbling music and an almost overwhelming scent of incense.

‘Behold, the Room of Ritual,’ Tressing intoned in a slow, breathy gasp that made Tibs want to giggle. ‘Watch and prepare for the mysteries.’

Gradually, as their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, they saw a scene unfolding before them that had Tibs digging Kitty in the ribs and snorting, as she did her best to stop herself from laughing out loud.

‘It’s like the Old Testament stories,’ whispered Kitty as a man who, except for an enormous black leather codpiece, was dressed entirely in the red satin of a cardinal, chased a woman – naked apart from a breath-takingly tight corset and buttoned-up ankle boots – across the room, switching at her bare buttocks with a riding crop.