The Cockney Sparrow (11 page)

At last, when she thought she was about to collapse, they reached Flower and Dean Street. Augustus unlocked the door and went inside, but he came to a halt at the foot of the stairs so unexpectedly that Tom and Ronnie cannoned into him. He raised his fingers to his lips. ‘Hush, we don’t want to wake the whole house. But I think we’ve earned ourselves a drop of hot toddy, just to keep the cold from our bones, of course. What d’you say?’

Tom nodded. ‘You’re on, guv.’

‘Ta, but I’m going to me bed,’ Ronnie said wearily. He hobbled off along the passage.

‘Me too. I’m fair done in.’ Lucilla grabbed the banister rail with one hand and began to haul herself up the stairs.

‘Goodnight, my little nightingale,’ Augustus called in a stage whisper. ‘You were magnificent tonight, as always.’

Clemency said nothing. She followed Lucilla up the staircase, parting company outside her room on the second floor and wearily mounting the final flight that led to the attics at the top of the building. The dancers from the Pavilion Theatre shared one of the tiny rooms beneath the eaves. Doreen and Flossie, the two young chambermaids, slept in the middle room, and Mrs Blunt had grudgingly allowed Edith and Clemency the use of the smallest room at the end of the narrow corridor. Clemency felt her way
along the wall, unable to see even the faintest chink of light in the darkness. Her fingers closed round the latch and the door opened with a squeal of rusty hinges. She blinked as her eyes grew accustomed to the silvery stream of moonlight slanting through the skylight. They were beneath the rafters that supported the roof. It was bitterly cold and the wind whistled through holes left by broken or missing tiles. There was head height at one end of the room only, and the floor and ceiling met at a sharp angle just above where Edith lay sleeping.

Clemency stooped to cover Ma with the rough woollen blanket. In this light, her face was smooth and unlined as a marble statue in the graveyard, and, in startling contrast, her hair spilled over the mattress ticking in a fiery halo. Even in her state of complete exhaustion, Clemency could see that Ma must have been beautiful once, a long time ago before poverty and Todd Hardiman entered her life. She shuddered. This was not the time to dwell on the past. Above all she needed to sleep. It was too cold to undress. She tugged off her boots and crawled across the floor to lie down beside her mother. A spider’s web tickled her nose and something was scrabbling in the eaves, very close to her head, but she was too tired to care. She closed her eyes.

It seemed as though she had just fallen asleep
when the shrill ringing of an alarm clock awakened Clemency with such a jolt that she sat upright and banged her head on a rafter. It was still dark, but she could hear sounds of life through the thin partition wall. There was whispering and muffled giggling and she realised that it was the chambermaids getting ready to start their daily chores. Clemency rubbed the bump on her head and stretched her stiff limbs. The coarse material of the breeches irritated her skin: she felt sure that some of the fleas must have survived, and had been feasting off her blood. She crawled out of bed and stripped off the offending garments, slipping on her cotton shift, which clung damply to her flesh, and thrusting her arms into her blouse. It was difficult to do up the buttons with numbed fingers but she managed somehow. She stepped into her skirt and fastened it around her waist.

Edith groaned, and in the fading moonlight Clemency could see that her eyes were open and staring. ‘What is it, Ma? Are you ill?’

‘Me belly aches, Clemmie. I’m hot and cold all over. I need a drop of gin, ducks. It’s the only thing that will give me ease.’

‘I got no money left, Ma. And the gin will do for you one day. You’re best off without it.’

Edith raised herself on to her elbow. ‘You had a florin. I know you did.’

‘And Mrs Blunt had it off me for the use of the
bedding. The old besom said it was extra on top of the charge for lodgings, and it were up to us to pay it. I couldn’t let you or Jack sleep on the floor, now could I?’

‘Me guts is being cut with knives. Me stomach is full of cramps. It’s worse than when I was giving birth to you and Jack. Can’t you find me a drop of something? Anything, I don’t care. Laudanum will do if you can’t get a drop of tiddley.’

‘I’ll go down to the kitchen and see what I can find.’ Clemency crept out of the room. Doreen and Flossie were already halfway down the staircase. They glanced up at her, but she could not see their faces clearly in the dim light. She followed them downstairs to the kitchen, where Fancy was kneeling in front of the range energetically working a pair of bellows.

‘Ain’t you got the kettle on yet?’ Doreen demanded. ‘I can’t start work until I’ve had a cup of tea.’

‘Me neither.’ Flossie turned to stare at Clemency. ‘What d’you want?’

‘Mind your own business. I’m a paying guest in this house.’

‘Ooh, my. Hoity toity,’ Doreen said, mimicking Clemency’s voice. ‘What are you today then? A girl or a boy? Or don’t you know the difference?’

Flossie sniggered. ‘I bet she’s got a whatsit, just like a fellah.’

‘If you had half a brain you’d scare me,’ Clemency said, curling her lip. ‘I could whop you with one hand tied behind me back, so don’t give me no lip.’

Flossie’s dishwater-pale eyes widened and she backed away. ‘I was just joking.’

‘Leave her alone, Floss,’ Doreen said over her shoulder as she went to open the door to what had been the broom cupboard. ‘You make the tea and I’ll fetch the cleaning stuff.’

Fancy stopped pumping the bellows and glanced over her shoulder at Clemency. As their eyes met, Clemency was certain she caught a glimmer of amusement in Fancy’s expression. At the same moment, Doreen uttered a loud scream and ran back into the kitchen, clutching her chest.

‘He’s in there, the man with no legs.’ She turned on Fancy. ‘You bitch, you might have warned me. And it ain’t funny.’

Fancy sat back on her heels and rocked with laughter. ‘You should see your face.’

Flossie rushed to comfort Doreen. ‘That ain’t fair. You never told us the cripple was in there.’

‘You never asked,’ Fancy said, wiping her eyes on her apron. ‘And for your information, you dumb-bell, he ain’t a cripple and he has got legs, they just don’t work proper. And if I hears either of you say anything nasty about him, or to him,
you’ll feel the back of my hand round your silly faces.’

Doreen and Flossie went to sit on one of the forms, silent and glowering, waiting for the kettle to boil. They shot dark glances at Clemency, who ignored them. She went over to Fancy and touched her on the shoulder. ‘Ta for standing up for me brother.’

Fancy flinched and pulled away from Clemency’s touch. ‘Just because I think a lot of Jack don’t mean that I like you. You got the room what ought to have been mine. I’ll not forgive you for that.’ She clambered to her feet and went to the table to set about hacking slices off a loaf of bread. Clemency could see that it was useless to argue. She wanted to reason with Fancy and tell her that if Mrs Blunt had intended her to sleep in the filthy attic, then she would have done so, but she could see that nothing she could say or do would make the slightest bit of difference. Fancy was a stubborn mule and had a mouth on her the size of the Blackwall Tunnel, but she was good to Jack and that made her all right in Clemency’s book. The kettle on the hob had begun to bubble. Doreen and Flossie seemed unwilling to risk annoying Fancy any further and they sat side by side on the bench, like a pair of starlings on a washing line.

‘I’ll make the tea then, shall I?’ Clemency did not wait for an answer. She warmed the large
brown teapot and made the tea. She sniffed the scented steam rising from the pot. These tea leaves had not been used and reused – this would be a lovely fresh brew. Mrs Blunt might be a bit of a harridan, but at least she was not mean when it came to catering for her lodgers.

After the lodgers had breakfasted and gone about their daily business, Clemency and Jack took a seat in the far corner of the kitchen, well away from Mrs Blunt and Fancy who had begun preparing the day’s meals. Jack had wanted to hear all the details of last night’s street shows, and Clemency had related everything, making light of the gruelling march through the London streets in the biting cold.

‘If only I could get about better,’ Jack said, staring moodily into the distance. ‘I don’t like sending you out on the streets, Clemmie. It ain’t right. It’s a pity I can’t have wheels strapped to me bum so that you could pull me along.’

He laughed, but Clemency was quick to hear the bitter note in his voice. She could think of nothing to say that would comfort him, and she bent her head over the song sheets that Augustus had left for her to read and learn. If it had not been for Lucilla’s caustic tongue, she would have admitted that she had difficulty in reading, but she did not want to lose face in front of that stuck-up little madam. It had been a relief when, during breakfast, Augustus suggested a
shopping trip to Lucilla. He had promised her a new bonnet, and Lucilla said she had seen just the thing in a shop window in Commercial Street. She had practically dragged her father from the table, and he had gone off with a hunk of bread in one hand and a slice of ham in the other. Tom had not come down to breakfast. Ronnie said he had drunk too much hot toddy and was feeling the worse for it. Clemency decided that she liked Ronnie. He was a lot older than Tom, who must be in his early twenties. Ronnie seemed to be closer in age to Augustus and he had a world-weary look, as though life had beaten him soundly and now he accepted each day as it came, without either enthusiasm or fear. He was, Clemency thought, the calmest and quietest person she had ever met.

He had come back into the kitchen and politely asked if he could join them at the table. Jack welcomed him with a wide grin, and Clemency knew that if Jack liked a person, they were likely to be all right. From his permanent sitting position, Jack had had time to study people, and he was a good judge of character. Although, Clemency thought, chewing her finger as she watched Fancy sidle over to stand by his side, even Jack could be wrong sometimes.

‘How are you doing, Clem?’ Ronnie asked, sitting down beside her.

She met his frank gaze, and was about to say
she was doing well when she saw a flicker of understanding in his grey eyes. ‘To tell you the truth, Ronnie, I can’t read. Well, I can make out the letters, but it takes me ages to work out the words.’

Ronnie’s waxed moustache quivered upwards as he smiled. ‘That’s not a problem. I’d be pleased to help, if you’d let me.’

‘I’d be ever so grateful. But why would you want to help me? I ain’t nothing to you.’

‘I had a daughter once. She died of the smallpox and it took my wife too. Effie would have been about your age now, had she survived. You’ve got a lovely voice, young Clem. You could go far, especially if you could read.’

Clemency shot a furtive glance at Fancy, but she was too busy flirting with Jack to have overheard the conversation. She turned to Ronnie and smiled. ‘Ta, you’re a brick.’

They were out on the streets by midday, performing up West outside the large stores. Augustus had taken them on the underground train, an experience that took Clemency’s breath away, and left her gasping for air as they emerged into the winter sunshine in Oxford Street. She had never been any further west than the Strand Theatre, and she had certainly never seen anything like these imposing shop fronts.
The windows were filled with luxury goods that she could never have begun to imagine. The horse-drawn omnibuses, broughams, hackneys and hansom cabs jostled for position in the busy streets, and pedestrians took their lives in their hands as they attempted to weave in and out of the traffic. Uniformed chauffeurs leapt out of motor cars to assist their elegantly dressed passengers to alight. Liveried doormen hurried to open the glassed doors of the department stores, and the intoxicating mixed scents of perfume and expensive toiletries wafted out in a gale of hot air. Clemency could barely sing a note as she stood, open-mouthed on the pavement, completely fascinated by this exotic new world. In her shabby boy’s clothes, she felt even more like a cockney sparrow than before. One day, she thought, staring at a particularly beautiful young lady being handed out of a cab, I’ll be dressed in silks and satins, with a whole dead bird and a pound of grapes on me hat. Lucilla nudged her in the ribs and hissed at her to stop gawping and sing.

In the afternoon, they moved from Oxford Street to Regent Street, and by teatime they were in Piccadilly Circus, where they had to vie for position with the flower sellers, who took a dim view of their pitch being queered, and other groups of buskers, who were as territorial as fighting cocks. Augustus allowed them brief
stops for refreshment at a pub and a teashop, and by late evening they had made their way back to Carter Lane.

Augustus stopped outside the Crown and Anchor. ‘This will be our last stop for tonight.’

‘Daddy!’ Lucilla whined. ‘I’m exhausted. I can’t sing another note.’

Augustus pushed the door open with his shoulders. ‘My old friend Cyril Hawkes was mine host here, that is until he run off with a barmaid from Wapping, which made him a fool, in my opinion, as his wife is the best cook in London. We’ll do our turn and then I’ll treat you to supper. I can’t say fairer than that. Now can I?’

‘You could send me home in a cab,’ Lucilla muttered, pushing past him into the smoky interior of the pub.

Clemency followed last. She did not want Ned to see her dressed like this, but perhaps he would not recognise her. She pulled her cap down a bit further over her eyes. The bar was packed with customers: Augustus cut a swathe through them with the aid of his cane and his loud voice. He came to a halt by the inglenook, claiming a table that had just been vacated by a group of men. Clemency had to push to get through the crush of male bodies.

‘Here, look where you’re going, boy.’

The familiar voice sent an icy shiver down her
spine. Todd Hardiman gripped her by the shoulders, shaking her like a terrier with a rat. ‘Where’s your manners, boy?’