Birdcage Walk (20 page)

George returned with four glasses, a couple of whiskies for him and more gin for her.

“Steady on, George, we’ll be so drunk at this rate that we’ll miss the stroke of midnight.”

She glanced up at the clock above the bar’s spotted glass and saw it was half past nine already.

“It’s Christmas in a couple of hours,” she tried again.

George didn’t reply, but drank the first whisky down in one, beginning immediately upon the second.

“So, what you been up to today, then, Lottie?” he said when he’d drunk down half of it.

In her confusion at George’s strange mood, she had almost forgotten her mission to Highbury. The day seemed so long and packed with conflicting emotions and experiences that she could hardly believe it had all taken place inside twelve hours.

“I went for a wander to Cheapside to get Annie a little something for Christmas,” she said after a pause. “I found this stall I hadn’t seen before, the old girl behind it must have been a hundred at least. Everything was laid out in a big tangle, all of it glittering and sparkling, but I spotted this little golden bird on a hat pin with an eye made from . . . well, she reckoned it was a real—”

“What time did you say you were you there?”

“Oh. I didn’t say. It was must have been about one or perhaps it was as late as two. I got hungry and bought some whelks but they were full of grit and I couldn’t finish them.”

“So what about the morning then? You weren’t working?” George’s voice was low but persistent.

“No, though Freeman’s will have me back after Christmas, the foreman said. Good thing, too. I had to buy Annie’s present with her own money.”

“So, not at work, then.”

Charlotte gulped at her gin, apprehensive about where George’s questioning was leading. He couldn’t know where she’d been, though. He couldn’t even suspect because only his sister knew she’d taken the scrap of paper with the address on it, and Cissy would never let on and get into trouble for it. She’d said herself that she was scared of George if he ever got really riled.

George had been hunched over his drink, but now leant back and surveyed the room for the first time. She could see that his eyes were bloodshot, though not yet out of focus. She followed his gaze and realised that he had noticed the group of men. Though the other three seemed deep in conversation, the one with the boy’s face had remained on the periphery, as though he was more comfortable that way. The group had sat down at a table by now, but he was half twisted round on his stool, perhaps to keep Charlotte in his sights. She noticed that he had barely touched his pint.

“That one’s looking at you,” said George, finally turning to look her. “You been encouraging him, have you? Making eyes at him while I’ve got my mind on other things? It’ll never change with you, will it? Ted was right.”

“Ted? What’s Ted got to do with it?”

“We was talking about women the other day. About how they pretend to be one thing and act like another when your back’s turned. Can’t trust a single one of them, Ted said, and he’s right too. Sweethearts, married women, mothers, don’t matter. They’re all the same underneath.” He spoke into the second glass of whisky, now also empty, and tiny flecks of spit landed within it as he spat the words out with great force. Despite her anxiety, Charlotte felt her own temper begin to prickle.

“Ted’s got a bloody nerve saying that when my sister puts up with so much from him. She’s a saint to live with him when he’s such a pig.”

“Your Annie’s a rare one, I’ll give you that. Not sure these things run in the family though. Perhaps you take after your ma instead.”

Charlotte forgot any fear of him at this, her face draining of blood in her fury.

“Don’t you ever compare me to her. I’m nothing like her. I can’t believe you would say that to me, George. Something’s going on in your head and you’d better tell me what it is. This is no good, you saying to Annie you want things made right with us and asking me to meet you and then when I do you just sit in silence knocking back the drink, or else insulting me.”

George snorted and rose unsteadily before weaving his way back to the bar for more drink. This time he didn’t even bother to buy Charlotte anything, though she had barely touched her second gin anyway. As he walked back to the table, he stared ostentatiously at the stranger and his three friends, the former returning the look affably. Reaching their table, George landed heavily on the plush seat and banged his knee on the iron leg of the table, swearing under his breath.

“You want to know what’s going round in my head do you, Lottie?” he asked, leaning towards her and smiling horribly, his face pale and clammy with sweat.

She didn’t answer.

“I’ve had some news about you,” he continued. “News I wasn’t expecting. It’s funny really, I’ve been hearing all kinds of interesting things about you lately. Things I didn’t like to hear but I suppose I should be grateful for finding out about in the long run. First there was my little talk with Ted, coming home from work the other week.”

“So he did say something particular about me, I knew it. Whatever he’s said, it’s a lie, George. He likes to stir up trouble, it’s sport to him. He’s cruel like that and he enjoys it, I’ve seen it in his face.”

“So you didn’t get no letter from your soldier sweetheart then? Joe is it?”

Charlotte almost laughed with relief. “God, George, is that it? There’s nothing in that to worry about. I knew Joe before you, we were courting before he joined up. I’ve hardly thought of him since, and not at all since you come along. His letter come out of nowhere, I swear there’s nothing in it.”

“You said Ted was a liar but it sounds like he’s been telling the truth so far. Why didn’t you tell me about this feller before? The way Ted told it, you two were serious. He bought you a ring that you never took off and wanted to marry you when he came home. Well, I hear he’s on his way home now. What were you going to do, toss a coin over us?”

“No, you’re being daft, George. He’s nothing to me now. I never did love him like I do you.”

“Don’t you say I’m daft. You said you’d marry him, didn’t you? Or let him think you wanted to? You don’t agree to that if you don’t love them. Not unless you’re just stringing them along.”

Charlotte put her head in her hands, trying to think straight. Everything she said was making it worse. George’s drunkenness, combined with indignation and pride, seemed to have sharpened his mind, rather than dulled it. Meanwhile her own worsening fear was making her slow-witted. And then suddenly, it came to her—how she might explain Ted’s behaviour.

“Look, I know what this is all about,” she said urgently. “Ted hates me, he would say those things about me. I told you he likes to cause trouble with people for a laugh. Well, he’s wanted to get back at me for months and he’s finally done it.”

George looked at her incredulously. “Why would he want to get back at you? You’re family to him through Annie. He wouldn’t lie about this just because you haven’t paid your keep for a few months.”

“No, it’s not about money. He—Ted—we were on our own in the house one day. He was asleep in the chair and I was looking for my umbrella that had rolled underneath it.”

Charlotte looked up. George was listening intently, though a sneer hovered ready at the corners of his mouth.

“Well, he woke up then and he grabbed hold of me and pulled me down into his lap. I couldn’t get him off, he was so strong, and for a minute I thought he would . . . But I kept seeing Annie’s face in my mind and it made me angry more than afraid. I dug my nails in so that he would let me go. He called me a bitch then and I ran off.” She paused, not wanting to see George’s reaction until she’d finished. “I never told no one that, I didn’t know how to say it to Annie. I thought she’d get the wrong idea or that she’d tell Ted and he’d twist it round, like he does.”

George laughed the same hollow laugh as earlier. “What, you were worried she’d blame you instead of Ted? That she’d think that he, as a red-blooded man who’d been offered his wife’s younger sister on a plate hadn’t been able to help himself, while you were just being a tease?”

“That’s just what Ted said,” Charlotte could feel her anger, this time mingled with disappointment, rising again. “You’re just as bad as him. He said I’d been giving him looks since I’d got there. As if I had. Him, with his potbelly and beer breath. I have to sit opposite him every night at dinner and watch him eat like a dog and he thought I was giving him looks.”

“Like you weren’t giving that feller over there looks while I’m sitting right next to you?” George shook his head. “You’ve got a nerve, Charlotte. I’d admire you for it if I wasn’t the fool who’s supposed to be courting you.”

Charlotte was shaking now. The conversation had spiralled out of her control and she didn’t think she could retrieve it. George hadn’t wanted them to make up at all; he’d wanted to get a confession out of her so he could get rid of her for good. When he found out about her going to Highbury too . . . Her eyes flickered around the room in her agitation, only to meet those of the same man again. He was still looking and she wanted to strangle him for it.

George spotted the brief look and smiled bitterly. “I don’t think I need to go into the rest. There wouldn’t be much point. I need some air, I’m going out. Go and catch the bus home. Or join your new friend over there. I don’t care what you do anymore. I’m done with it. Done with you.”

With that he walked out without turning to see her reaction. The saloon door shuddered in its frame as he slammed through it. Charlotte stayed rooted to her seat for a long minute. She dug her nails into her own palms as she had into Ted’s meaty arm and then, opening them again, watched the pale indentations return to pink. Careful not to look up, she got to her feet, smoothing down her jacket and straightening her hat.

As she made for the door, she almost collided with the man who’d been watching her, and she wondered if he had been about to join her. She pushed past him before he could say anything, feeling that if he spoke to her and she was forced to reply that George would truly be lost to her forever. She felt him place his hand on the small of her back as she wrenched open the door but she didn’t look back. There was no time to worry about it if she was going to catch up with George.

* * *

As the man with the childish face watched her flee, the too-tall feather on her hat bobbing comically, he found himself smiling. Her little jacket was almost the same shade as the plush on the seats, like sage, or moss. He returned to the table where his companions sat, the three of them by this point in the evening quite the worse for wear.

“I’ll be off now,” he said. “Someone finish that pint, I’ve hardly touched it.”

One of them looked up indistinctly as the words were spoken, his expression soggy with all the beer he’d poured down his throat. None of them would be capable of thinking up any coherent reason why their friend should stay, as he well knew. Reaching down, he fetched up his cap and put it on low, so the peak’s shadow partially concealed his strange face. Without saying goodbye he left quietly, a blast of freezing air from the door the only sign he’d gone.

Charlotte skittered down the dark lane she’d followed George up a couple of hours before. She kept her eyes on the icy path in front of her, resisting the temptation to glance to the side, knowing the sight of the dilapidated and vacant buildings would unnerve her once again. She tripped and nearly fell on some uneven ground, her gasp of fright echoing around her as a series of ghostly sighs. She wasn’t even sure George had gone down this way, he would be as silent as a cat in his anger and his old rubber-soled boots, but it was the only way she knew.

She was halfway down the lane when she heard footsteps behind her and stopped short in sudden fear. Whirling round, the figure grew larger out of the gloom until he stopped just in front of her, the brim of his cap obscuring his face.

“Who is it?” she said, hearing her voice shake and rise on the last word.

He lifted his cap briefly then, as though he was greeting an acquaintance in the street, and smiled the lopsided grin of a child. He must have seen her leave and followed her.

“What do you want?” she said bluntly, her recognition of him freeing up her impatience to chase after George. “I’ve got to get going. There’s someone I’ve got to speak to.”

His smile faded then, though he didn’t drop his gaze, which was as intense as it had been across the saloon bar.

“What’s all the rush then?” he said slowly. “You’re not chasing after that fellow you were with, are you? He looked like he couldn’t get out of there quick enough.”

Charlotte glared at him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about and, besides, it ain’t none of your business.” Her voice came out shrill and common and she coloured in the pale light.

Just as the man reached out a hand to her cheek another footfall, this time from the other direction, echoed in the still lane, making her startle again. The man dropped his hand as though he’d been scalded. She turned, sure it would be George come back to find her, but stopped when she saw it was a stranger. Hunched from the cold, he glanced over at the pair of them briefly, probably taking them for lovers, and Charlotte wondered whether she should call out to him. Not knowing what she might say if she did, she watched him hurry towards the lights of the Park Hotel instead.

Not wanting to waste another moment while George increased the distance between them, she made off herself, not pausing to say goodbye to her admirer. He caught up with her effortlessly and reached out to bring her to a halt. Pulling her close to him, she found herself tasting in the back of her throat the sharp astringency of his cologne. Still gripping her hard, he spoke in a low tone.

“Now, what do you have to go and run off on me for, eh? When we was having a nice chat and all.”

Charlotte felt cold fear soak through her insides but then, abruptly, he let her loose. She caught her breath, not having realised she was holding it. Relief made her angry.

“You’re funny in the head, you are, grabbing a girl like that when she don’t know you.” She began to retreat up the lane, raising her voice so he would hear her. “As if I’d look twice at someone like you, someone who has to force a girl to get near him, I bet.”

She couldn’t see his face now, though she could tell by his silhouette that he still watched her, that he hadn’t turned away or looked down. His stillness stirred up the fear in her stomach and she turned and ran without waiting for any response, or heeding the ice. She didn’t look to see if he had followed until she reached the bus stop, her relief at arriving back on a main thoroughfare betrayed by her ragged breaths. There was no sign of the man now, though she cast a desperate look about her in all directions.

From out of the quiet she suddenly heard the approach of an engine and decided that if it was a bus going south she would do as George had asked and go home. The thought of a seat warmed by someone else taking her back home to Annie was a tempting one but as it drew closer, the strange hypnotic rhythm of the sound not slowing or accelerating but steady, she realised it was a train. George had said there was a station nearby. Abruptly, it clattered into view, racing across the black void of the marshes, the eerie light from its front lanterns flickering dangerously. If it hadn’t been for the familiar sound of its wheels on the tracks, Charlotte thought it would have looked like a demon in flight, rushing across that dark expanse of nothing towards London.

As she watched it merge once again with the night, the smoke from its boiler barely a shade paler than the starless sky, she saw a speck of movement on her side of the tracks. She peered at the point where she’d seen it, a flash of something lighter, a hand or a face or a white collar. It was moving, growing more indistinct as she watched. It could only be a person and she would have to take the chance that it was George.

Looking over her shoulder at the empty lane for a last time, she lifted her cumbersome skirts and hurried over the road. With only a slight hesitation, she stepped onto the wild, open land of the marshes. The going was rough, and she struggled to keep the mobile blur of light in sight while minding where she placed her feet. At least it wasn’t too boggy; the acute cold of the last weeks had made the earth as hard as iron underfoot, while the spiky carpet of marsh grasses snapped and crunched drily beneath her weight.

When she seemed to be gaining on the figure, for she could see by now that it was indeed a human figure, she called out, though the sound seemed to fall short in the frozen air, like a paper dart thrown into a headwind.

“George, is it you? George, can you hear me? Please stop a minute.” She ran on, calling out as she went, the cold down her throat becoming an ache.

Just as she her legs were beginning to shake and stumble, the experience feeling increasingly like a dream she wanted to break the surface of, the figure stopped and turned. It was George and she nearly collapsed with relief that it was. She could see the shadows of his deep-set eyes and a streak of warmth beneath them, where he had wrapped his dark red scarf. She cried out again then but he didn’t approach her. She hurried to close the distance between them before he moved off again.

“Lottie, I told you to go home,” his voice barely audible. “I want to be on my own, think things through. You shouldn’t have followed me.”

“I was going to get the bus, George, honest I was. But then I heard the train and saw something moving on the marshes and thought it might be you. I hardly even thought about it, I just ran.”

George rooted in his pocket, brought out a crumpled packet of cigarettes and lit one. As he dragged on it, he scuffed at a large, half-exposed stone with the toe of one of his boots.

“I know you didn’t just go to Cheapside today, Charlotte. That’s what I didn’t want to say in the bar.”

It was difficult to tell in such dim light, the moon entirely hidden by skeins of heavy, low-lying cloud, but she blanched at his words.

George continued. “You didn’t know it, but I was invited today to the house in Highbury—the Drews’ house—to a Christmas party. It’s an annual event, always held on Christmas Eve. I was to be there at two but I was late getting out of the print and what with Cissy not being well.”

“Cissy’s not well?”

“It’s a bad cold, she’s right enough.”

He ground the cigarette out with his heel, its glowing point extinguished abruptly. He turned to look at Charlotte properly.

“So when I get there and meet the captain for the first time, I get ushered out the back into the study before I can even say hello to Mrs. Drew. Turns out he’s already had a visitor from Hoxton.”

The words were spoken softly, as before, but there was nothing gentle about their intonation. Charlotte opened her mouth to speak but found she couldn’t.

“Not three hours before I turns up he’s had someone sitting there in his study telling him what a bad lot I am. How I’m so scheming and heartless and feckless that I’ve not only got her in the family way but I’ve thrown her over for someone else and won’t marry her at all now. And that the someone else I’m wanting to get these dirty working hands on is his very own daughter.”

He held his upturned hands out to Charlotte and they looked very white in the gloom. Charlotte bowed her head and kept her eyes lowered, unable to look at him.

“I didn’t think you’d find out till after Christmas,’ she said finally. ‘I was angry after I saw you and then when I got home I got your note, saying you wanted rid of me. I couldn’t help myself then, I wanted to get back at you.”

“Hold on a minute, when did you see me?”

“The night Cissy delivered that note I wasn’t out at the pub or whatever you thought. I walked to Highbury, same as I did this morning, to see what you were up to. I saw you sitting there with that girl, all happy and acting like you belonged up there instead of in Hoxton with me. It made me sick to my stomach to see it. Then I got home and there was your note waiting for me, just to finish me off, it felt like.”

“You followed me there? Where were you? How . . . ?” George shook his head in confusion.

“I didn’t need to follow you, I had the address, off the bit of paper that gentleman gave your dad. The one that wanted the cage delivered a few months ago.”

George stepped closer to her, fury altering his face so that it looked years older. “You took that paper out of my private things. How did you manage it?”

“I went to see Cissy after our argument in the street, when you said you were going off to Highbury and that you had someone else there.”

“I took that back, though. I told you I’d just said that to hurt you.”

“I know, but I couldn’t help but believe the worst. I couldn’t explain it any other way. I couldn’t see how you were going up there to look at some old books. You don’t even read books, George.”

“That’s because I don’t have them, isn’t it? That’s why I wanted to see them. Why don’t you think I might want to better myself, Charlotte, just because you’re happy enough where you’ve washed up?” Charlotte was lost in her own train of thought.

“I thought it must be some maid you’d taken a fancy to at first.” George almost smiled at this, imagining himself and Milly as sweethearts.

“It seemed to add up to me then—that it was you and their maid, and so I thought I’d catch you at it. Cissy had only shown me your little book to cheer me up, she thought there’d be some drawings of me in there that would prove you did love me. But there was only one of me and it was just a rough one and not even finished. I saw this picture of a grand house then, and some girl’s face I’d never seen and I knew then I had to see for myself. When the scrap of paper fell out with the address on and Cissy remembered it from that gentleman who bought the birdcage I just took it and left. Cissy couldn’t have stopped me if she’d tried. It wasn’t her fault, George.”

“Don’t worry about her,” he said coldly. “It’s you I blame.”

He stepped closer still and, with one hand, gripped the lapels of her green jacket in his fist, pulling her right up to him.

“You’re not expecting really, are you? I know you’re not.” His face was an inch from hers.

“No,” she whispered. “I lied about it. I wanted to cut you off from them and it was the only way I could think to do it. You’ve been so distant since you started going up there. It’s not been good for you, getting ideas above your station like you have.”

He pushed her away at that and she stumbled back, catching her heel of a clod of soil and landing hard. The shock of the impact made her cry openly, not bothering to cover her face or wipe her nose. He took her forearms and pulled her up roughly and she felt the very tip of her spine bloom with pain. Quite suddenly she felt rage and clawed at his face with her hands, her arms still firmly in his grip. Her nails were long and they cut into his cheeks, still soft like a boy’s. He yelled in pain and dropped his grip, covering his face and then checking his hands for his own blood.

“You’ve got your way now,” he said, half-sobbing himself. “I’m never to go to that house again. Captain Drew thinks I’m a danger to Miss Clemmie now. He said he can’t risk me forming any more of an attachment to her when he’s away so much. He despised me, Charlotte. I could see it in his eyes. He was trying to be fair and I think he even believed me that you hadn’t told me that you were . . . with child. But he still thought I was a coward for not marrying you already and he still thought I had designs on her. And I never did, I never would. It’s never even crossed my mind to think of her in that way. She’s just an innocent child, it would be like imagining being with Cissy.”

He stopped, disgusted, and abruptly sat down on the ground. He looked small down there, with his knees up, his head resting on them and his arms wrapped protectively around. His voice, when he spoke again, was muffled by his scarf.

“I can’t believe you would do it to me, Lottie. I can’t believe that you would go to a house like that and tell them lies about me, such wicked lies. And when I have never gone with another behind your back, not like you.”

“Me?’ Charlotte was angered into speaking again. ‘I have never looked at anyone else since I met you. I told you about Joe and I swear on it. I couldn’t stop him coming home for Christmas and I couldn’t stop him sending me the letter telling me he was. I can’t help who I knew before you come along, George. But I never loved him and I certainly never took a shine to that Johnny in the pub, whatever Ted’s told you.”

“I don’t know, Charlotte. It’s all too much. It’s all spoilt now. I need to be on my own and think it all through.”

“George, I’ll make amends, I will. I know I’ve done wrong, I can’t almost believe it of myself now. I should’ve have just stopped and thought for a moment but I was jealous. Not only of her, but of you. When I saw you in that room, done up so lovely, I felt so bitter.”

George got to his feet and brushed the dirt off his trousers.

“I’ll go and see that captain tomorrow,” said Charlotte determinedly. “Never mind if it’s Christmas. I’ll tell him I lied to get revenge and take all the blame. Then you’ll be able to go back there and see them again and I won’t mind this time.”

“It’s too late for that,” George shook his head sadly, his anger all spent. “He won’t want to hear that. We’re nothing to him, you and I. I was barely anything to his wife and Miss Clemmie. They don’t want to hear all our tawdry business, it’s not fit to be heard in that house, can’t you see? He looks at us and he just sees muck and grime getting trodden into his nice rugs from overseas. He’s got rid of me now and he’s happy to have had it made so easy for him. You did him a real favour there, Lottie. I’ll never set foot in that house again and I can’t forgive you for that. I had a good name there, insignificant as it was. Now it counts for nothing. I am nothing.”