The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (11 page)

She’s taken aback. ‘But everyone can read.’ Not sneery; just like she never thought about it before.

Black-hair seems to think that’s funny, but Yellow-hair puts her clean little hand to her mouth. ‘I’m most awfully sorry, I didn’t mean – um, can’t you read?’

‘I know my letters,’ snaps Ben. And he does, give or take. He went to school for a couple of weeks when they were giving out soup tickets, and he’s a quick learner, but he left before he learnt how to put every last letter together.

‘I do apologize,’ goes Yellow-hair, and then she’s off again ferreting behind the counter. Her sister looks down to see what she’s up to, and that’s when Ben whips off his cap and stows the Brownie inside, and clutches the cap to his belly like he’s just remembered his manners. Nobody sees nothing. Beautiful.

Yellow-hair chucks a questioning look at her sister, and gets the nod, and goes pink and holds out this picture-book to Ben. ‘Maddy keeps a few books for clients’ children, to keep them amused. I thought you might care to have one. Then you’ll be able to read too.’

He’s all hot and prickly again, and sick to his stomach. Who the sodding hell does she think she is?
Giving
him things? Who does she think she
is
?

‘It’s about a cavalry horse in the Crimean War,’ she says, ‘I thought you might enjoy it, as you like horses.’

He snatches it and shoves it in his pocket. ‘I’m not going to read it,’ he snarls. ‘I’m going to sell it.’

She blinks. ‘Um. When you finish it, you can come back, and I’ll give you another.’

‘You cracked?’ he says. ‘Why would I come back?’

That’s better. Now she looks like she’s going to cry. Light-brown eyes with little bits of gold in them, all swimming in tears.

That’s when Black-hair shoots him this look. Plain as day it says to him:
Don’t you dare go upsetting my sister, Ben Kelly, or I’ll have you catting up blood for a week. You understand?

He glares back at her, but inside he thinks, well, fair enough. He’d of done a lot worse if it was Robbie. And it puts him in mind of Kate looking out for him when he was a nipper, and – just
shut
it about Kate, Ben Kelly. Just shut it right now.

It’s high time they was off. ‘Come on, Robbie,’ he goes.

But they’re just out the door when Black-hair knocks him for six. ‘You know, Ben Whatever-your-name-is, you’re not as sharp as you think you are.’ She hoists the rifle, and twists that mouth of hers in a grin. ‘It’s just a fake. Made of wood. Gentlemen like to be photographed with it, so that they can pretend that they’re lords on a grouse moor.’

Quick as a flash Ben goes, ‘And you’re not as sharp as you think neither, my girl! Why’d you go blabbing about that to me? Now what’s to stop me thrashing the stuffing out of you?’

Course he don’t do no such thing, he just cuts the lucky out of there. But it bothers him for weeks that she blabbed about that gun. It’s like she was trusting him or something.

Serve her right about the Brownie. Serve her bloody well right.

He tells hisself he’s had a lucky escape, but he don’t know what from.

So what’s he do? He only goes and sees them again.

It’s Robbie’s fault, as per usual. One day in August they’re up their place in Shelton Street, and Robbie’s patching over the window with bits of card to keep out the smell of some dead cab-horse down St Giles, and Ben’s on the bed, working his way through the last of the book.

‘Them posh bints,’ goes Robbie. He’s been on and on about them for months; keeping tabs on them and all. ‘I heard their old man went to smash.’

Ben don’t say nothing; he’s on the last page. Now that the war’s over, Blacky the charger’s being sent back home, and Farmer Brown’s got this special meal ready for him.

‘Their old man,’ goes Robbie, ‘I heard he croaked and left them stony broke.’

‘So?’ growls Ben.

‘Can we go and see them? See if they’re all right?’

‘Shut it, Robbie.’

Ben’s done all right with the book, except for words with s-h in them. He’s not sure what the s and the h are supposed to do to each other.

He’s still wondering about that when he gives in to Robbie’s badgering and they set off west for Madeleine’s place. Just to prove to hisself that she’s not his sister or a friend or nothing.

When they get to this Wyndham Street where she lives, and he sees how nobby it is, he gives Robbie a cuff that sends him flying. ‘You said they was broke,’ he snarls.

Broke? In a street like this? Housemaids scrubbing the steps, and a bloke with a water-cart laying the dust? And Madeleine’s house has got these big columns, and railings painted green; steps up to a porch with blue and red tiles, and glassed-in window boxes with frilly plants, and this huge window with all coloured glass: birds and a sun and a wavy blue sea.

But her basement gate’s wide open and the kitchen door’s ajar, and Ben’s shocked, just shocked. Anybody could walk in off the street. He’ll have to have a word with her about that.

Robbie says they got no more money for domestics, and sure enough when they nip down the steps, there’s Madeleine standing at this big gas range, all in black with her sleeves rolled up, stirring this big stewpan and frowning at the thickest book Ben’s ever seen. And Sophie’s on the table swinging her legs and chattering nineteen to the dozen. Same pinafore dress as before, but dyed black, though Ben can still see the stripes.

The food smell makes his belly twist something awful. And that kitchen! Gaslights and an indoor tap, and piles of stewpans that’d keep a tinker happy for a year. Stony broke, my arse.

Him and Robbie go in, and Sophie gives them this big grin like they’re long lost friends. ‘Maddy,
look
! It’s Ben and Robbie!’

Madeleine shoots Ben a cool look and tells him to shut the door, and Sophie asks her sister if she can show them the morning-room. ‘There’s a stained-glass window which Maddy
detests
as it reminds her of Jamaica, but I think it’s stupendous, like in a church.’

Ben’s never been in a church, so he takes her word for it.

‘No,’ says Madeleine over her shoulder, ‘they’re to stay down here or they’ll steal things.’

Ben flashes a grin. ‘Now you’re learning.’

Robbie’s gawping at Sophie, and she asks to see Dog, and they fall to chattering, or Sophie does – though she keeps darting little glances at Ben.

He stays by the door. Says to Madeleine, ‘I heard your old man went all to smash.’

‘He was our cousin,’ she goes, still stirring. ‘After he died we learned that he’d been embezzling from the bank where he was a director.’ She says it matter-of-fact, like she’s not too surprised.

Sophie pipes up. ‘Cousin Lettice is in a state of
collapse
, and has taken to her room.’

‘Cousin Lettice’, mutters Madeleine, ‘will outlive us all.’ She shuts the book with a thump, and catches him eyeing it, and twists that curvy red mouth of hers. ‘I had no idea how to cook or clean, so I thought I should learn. Lettice was horrified; she despises Mrs Beeton. Calls it “the Bible for parvenues who don’t know which fork to use”.’ She and Sophie swap one of their sister-looks that’s nearly a smile, then she tells Sophie to lay the table.

Sophie sucks in her lips like she knows Ben’s watching, and hops to the dresser for bowls and that. Four of everything, he can’t help noticing. He gets that hot prickly feeling again, and stays by the door, so he can cut the lucky whenever he likes.

He watches Robbie sitting at the table, and Sophie fetching a jug of milk keeping fresh in the sink, and Madeleine dishing out the soup. And all of a sudden he’s back at Sunday dinner in the old days, with Kate laying the table and yelling at him to run down the pump and sluice or I’ll tan your hide.

His chest hurts. He’s got to get out of here. But he can’t. He watches Madeleine eating neatly like a cat, and Robbie slopping milk in his soup, and Sophie chatting for England. He never met a bint that talked as much as her. If she talked that much in Shelton Street she’d get beaten up.

All of a sudden she hikes her frock up to her knees and goes, ‘Look, Ben, I’ve got a bruise. I fell down the steps and banged my knee.’

‘Sophie . . .’ says Madeleine, but Sophie twists in her chair and peels back her black stocking to show the cleanest, smoothest knee Ben ever saw. She’s frowning and pointing to a faint pink swelling with one clean pink finger.

‘That’s no bruise,’ he sneers.

‘Yes it jolly well is,’ she flashes back, ‘and it hurts, too.’

Crikey, he thinks. I was right about them eyebrows.

The smell of the soup’s making him dizzy, so after a bit he sidles over and pulls up a chair where Madeleine’s set a bowl for him. It’s the best grub he’s ever had in his natural. Great big lumps of meat and onions and barley and stout.

Robbie looks up, soup down his chin, and goes, ‘Ben clumped a geezer.’

‘Shut it,’ mumbles Ben.

‘This geezer calls me a charlie,’ goes Robbie, ‘and Ben goes I’ll get you, and the geezer laughs ’cos he’s a docker and big as a shed. But Ben waits and tips this barrel on him, and the geezer falls under a dray and the wheels go on his legs, and Ben goes, now who’s the cripple, eh?’ Robbie leans back and roars. Then he sees the bints aren’t laughing, and looks worried.

Sophie’s staring at Ben with her big brown eyes. ‘Didn’t you get told off?’

‘Who by?’

‘Um. Your parents?’

He snorts. ‘Dead and gone.’

‘That’s a coincidence, so are ours.’

They go back to their soup. Then Sophie asks Robbie what their mother looked like, and he’s off.

‘She had red hair, like me, but Pa’s was black like Ben’s, and Pa knocked her about so she died. Then Ben took me away and Pa died too and Ben said good riddance. Ma used to send us hop-picking, that’s why Ben’s so strong, but I had to stop home on account of I was too little. And we had two whole rooms in East Street with a separate bed for the kids, and every Sunday Ben had to fetch the dinner from the bakehouse, brisket and batter pudding and spuds.’

Ben shuts him up with a cuff. Robbie’s always pestering him to tell it, but he shouldn’t be gabbing to this lot.

Sophie goes, ‘I’ve never seen a picture of my mother. Cousin Lettice burned them all. But I do have a cabinet card of Miss Sarah Bernhardt, whom Maddy says Mama resembled. Although I’m not sure how Maddy knows that, for she
says
that she scarcely remembers Mama at all.’ A sideways look at her sister, like they’ve had fights about that.

Ben says to Madeleine, ‘This Cousin Lettice. She all you got left?’

She nods. ‘Mother died when Sophie was born, and Father was killed in the Sudan.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A desert in Africa. He was a soldier.’

Despite hisself, Ben’s impressed.

Sophie pipes up. ‘His name was Major Alasdair Falkirk and he came from Jamaica and deserted his young wife to run off with our mother. Her name was Rose, but that’s all we know.’

Madeleine keeps her eyes on the table, and Ben guesses she knows more than she’s letting on.

‘We’re not supposed to talk about them,’ says Sophie.

‘Why?’ says Ben.

Sophie shoots Madeleine a look. Madeleine gets up and puts her bowl in the sink and smooths back her hair from her temples. ‘We’re illegitimate,’ she says.

Ben don’t know what that means, but it’s plain that they think it’s the worst thing ever.

‘It means’, says Madeleine, ‘that our father never married our mother.’

‘Is that all,’ says Ben. ‘Can I have more soup?’

Madeleine and Sophie stare at him like he’s cracked.

So he gets hisself more soup. ‘Where I live,’ he goes, ‘you don’t get spliced. In fact, nobody does except toffs. Don’t you know that?’

Madeleine shakes her head.

‘Think about it. It costs at least sevenpence, and you’re prossing about all morning, and for what? Some bit of paper that says you can’t get out of it, ever.’

Madeleine is watching his lips like he’s talking Chinese.

‘Only toffs get spliced,’ he goes. ‘Cos only toffs got to worry about who gets the house and the jewels and that.’

She looks at him as if he’s said something deep, and in spite of hisself he’s pleased.

Robbie asks Sophie if she wants to play stick and goose, and she says what’s that, and Madeleine sends them out into the garden, calling after Sophie to put on her hat.

‘Proper garden they got,’ Robbie shouts down from the steps. ‘Grass and flowerpots and a tree.’

When they’re gone, Madeleine goes to the dresser and fetches a book and plonks it down in front of him.

‘What’s this?’ he says.

‘
The Downfall of the Dervishes
. It’s a Jack Hathaway adventure. We thought you might like it.’

He looks at the letters on the front and thinks, so that’s what s and h do to each other. Then he realizes she’s had that book waiting all along, like she knew he was coming. He
hates
that. He goes, ‘I never read the last one. Sold it. I’ll do the same with this.’

‘Do what you like. It was cheap enough.’

‘Cheap?’ he snaps. ‘Nothing’s cheap if you can’t pay for it. Don’t you know that yet?’

She’s leaning against the dresser with her arms crossed. ‘I don’t know anything,’ she says in a funny voice.

What’s she on about?

‘Sophie knows more than I do,’ she goes. ‘She’s amazing, she reads everything. I’m too stupid and undisciplined. Like my mother.’ She bites her lip. ‘I don’t even know the sort of things you know.’

You got that right, girl, he thinks.

She sits down across from him and puts her hands on the table. ‘You think we’re rich, but soon we’ll have nothing. We’ve got to sell the furniture to pay off the debts, and I’ll have to work to support us.’ She pauses. ‘Mr Rennard can’t afford to give me a job, and no-one else seems to want a photographer’s assistant. I can’t be a governess because I never went to school, and I can’t be a stenographer, I don’t know how. I could be a lady’s companion or a shop assistant, but that won’t keep the three of us alive.’

‘So?’ says Ben. ‘Why tell me?’

She looks at him with her big dark eyes. ‘I thought you might be able to help.’