By the Friday morning I was feeling a lot better. A bit sore, to be honest, but nothing I couldn’t deal with.
I splashed my face with icy water from the basin and looked at myself in the crackled mirror. Did I look different now?
Behind me in the glass I saw the three new dresses I’d bought with Lady Ginger’s shillings. They were hanging off a string running across the damp back wall of my room – a row of crumpled headless bodies in fairground colours. What had James made of that?
I’d thought I looked so fine got up as a lady, but tell truth, looking at them empty frocks now with their low cut and their fancy bits at the sleeve ends, I realised I must have looked as cheap as a tuppenny bobtail. Lucca had been right – as usual.
As I buttoned up my old brown frock and searched the room for the other boot, I wondered how much I should tell Lucca about James. That didn’t make me feel too good neither.
I went to the workshop at The Gaudy first. Lucca wasn’t there but Danny was. He had his back to me and was sawing through a plank across the work bench. I called his name, but he kept on working, so I stepped through the door, walked across the room and tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Any news?’
He shook his head and even though it was cold in there, little beads of sweat fell from his forehead to the wood. Then he slammed his fist down so hard on the plank that it jerked up and clattered to the floor, splitting in two.
‘She’s gone, just like the others.’ He turned to look at me and I could see dark circles round his eyes and stubble on his chin. Dan was usually very particular about his looks. It was one of the things Peggy loved about him.
I didn’t know what to say. I reached for his arm and squeezed it.
‘Kitty, if you hear anything – anything at all, if she gets in touch, you’ll let me know, won’t you? Even if she’s run off, I just want to know she’s safe.’
I swallowed. ‘That’s what we all want to know. And you’d be the first one to hear, Danny, not me. You know that, don’t you?’
He rubbed his big calloused hands together and nodded miserably. ‘You looking for Lucca, only he’s over at The Comet. You need to get over there too, Kit, we all do. There’s a gathering.’
‘What, for everyone?’
Danny nodded again. ‘We need to do a run-through with the cage this afternoon. I’ve worked on the chain and replaced a couple of the guide ropes, but you need to get the feel of the balance in case it’s different.’
‘There wouldn’t be a gathering for that. What else is going on?’
He shook his head. ‘Some business or other. You better go. I need to finish up here, but I won’t be far behind.’
*
Like I said, The Comet was always thought to be the best of Lady Ginger’s halls. It was far grander than The Gaudy, with plaster angels and golden flowers crawling all over its ceiling. Looking up from my cage one evening at all the little winged babies and the curling leaves and petals going on over my head, I wondered if that was why Lady Ginger’s patch was called Paradise.
Anyway, it might have been the grandest hall, but it wasn’t the most friendly. The Comet girls hadn’t taken to me and my cage, and I hadn’t taken to them. Now I was going to be hanging up there for a second week on the trot and I wasn’t looking forward to it. The thought that Peggy wouldn’t be there with me made it even worse.
The thought of Peggy made everything worse.
Dan had said there was going to be a run-through, and frankly, I was glad to have the chance to get up there away from the world. I needed to clear my mind. Being on the swing, twirling to the music without having to give a thought to what I was doing, was actually quite restful to the brain. Tell truth, I actually looked forward to those moments in the evening when the orchestra struck up with my song, because for the next ten minutes it was like I wasn’t there no more. I just went off into a sort of trance and did what I trained to do. Madame Celeste had called it ‘the state of perfection’ and I’d perfected it all right.
When I got to The Comet I went round the back, but instead of finding the hands working in the yard – as a rule they’d be painting up bits of scenery and building bits of stuff for the novelty acts – everything was quiet.
I went up the steps to the back door, pushed it open and called out, ‘Anyone home?’
‘Kitty!’ Mr Leonard came pattering down the corridor. He didn’t look his usual immaculate self. He hadn’t managed to do up the buttons on his waistcoat proper and one side of his waxed moustache had the droop, giving him a most comical expression.
‘There was an . . . incident last night. My office was ransacked. The Lady is furious and Fitzpatrick is due at any moment. Everyone is waiting in the hall, come along quickly.’
So that was the reason for the gathering.
It must have hurt Mr Leonard to have Fitzpatrick coming over. The Comet might have been the grandest of The Lady’s halls, but old Fitzy was the top dog when it came to management. He’d have a lot to say about it, I was sure. It didn’t surprise me that Mr Leonard didn’t mention the rozzers. In Paradise we liked to deal with things in private. I say ‘we’, but what I really mean is that Lady Ginger didn’t want anyone with a legal cast of mind sniffing around her business affairs.
Mr Leonard trotted up the corridor and disappeared behind a green velvet curtain hung over with a garland of gold tassels, but I still could hear his tinny little voice going on up ahead. ‘I suppose I must take comfort from the fact that the assault on my property took place after I’d secured last week’s takings. You more than tripled our best and outstripped The Gaudy and The Carnival together – it’s why you’re here again this week. The Lady was pleased with me. Keep up, Kitty.’
I followed him through the curtain, reflecting that I was a valuable commodity these days to a lot of people, including James Verdin. I wondered how much he’d ‘wagered’ on me? When I thought of his fine grey eyes and his copper hair now, I didn’t see stars twinkling and hear birds singing like one of them love-struck maidens in Mrs Conway’s songs, that’s for sure.
It seemed as if everyone in Paradise was gathered in the hall waiting for Fitzy. The curtain was down and some of the flares were lit. I looked around – the Comet girls were lolling around on little gold chairs at the front, Professor Ruben and the boys were playing cards at a table, Mr Jesmond from The Carnival was talking to Mrs C and some of the hands were smoking or ogling the girls. Swami Jonah was sitting at one of the tables. He didn’t have his turban on today and his freckled bald head gleamed. He nodded at me as I came through the curtain. The tease line about his act on all the playbills went through my mind: ‘Swami Jonah – he knows you from cradle to grave.’
Lucca was over on the far side leaning against a pillar.
When he saw me come in behind Mr Leonard he waved. I pretended I hadn’t seen him. For some reason I didn’t want him to look at me. Would he be able to tell what I’d been up to with James? Was that possible?
I went to the back of the hall and leaned against the rail of one of the booths. Lucca came over, of course. I could feel my cheeks flushing red. He took off his hat and leaned back against the rail next to me.
‘There will be no time for a run-through this afternoon, Kitty. By the time Fitzpatrick has finished with us, it will be late.’
I nodded. Thievery in the halls was nothing new. Over at The Carnival the cellar man had been running a very lucral gin racket for a year and a half before Fitzy got wind of it. Every so often we was gathered together for a little talk about loyalty and the consequences of not being loyal. The cellar man at The Carnival, what was left of him, had been fished out of Deptford Creek on the other side of the river. He’d been bound up and wrapped tight in an old oil sheet. Someone had spotted him bobbing against the wall of the Phoenix Gas Works like a big old turd.
I could hear some banging about behind the curtain on the stage. ‘Lucca, after the show tonight can I come back to yours – you’ve heard about Peggy?’
He shook his head and spat into the sawdust. ‘Danny told me yesterday. Do you think she has run away or do you think she is . . .’
‘I don’t know. I want to think she’s done a runner, but it doesn’t ring true. She and Danny were good and I don’t think she’d go off without telling me. She wouldn’t.’
Lucca fiddled with the rim of his hat and nodded. ‘You are right. Peggy was . . .’ He stopped himself. ‘Peggy is a good woman. She would never hurt Danny . . . or you, Fannella.’
It struck me then that proper friends tell each other things. I looked at Lucca’s face, into his bright brown eye, and realised that he was pretty much all I had left in the world. I was going to have to tell him about James – maybe not all of it – but as much as he needed to know. Like I said, to my mind there were too many secrets knotting around us and I didn’t want to add to them.
‘After the show tonight then, yes?’
Before he answered, the red stage curtains swept back. The sudden silence in the hall was so thick you could cut it with a barber’s razor.
Lady Ginger was sitting in that old carved chair right in the middle of the stage. Two of her lascars stood either side and Fitzy was up there too, over to the right. He looked pale as milk and he was rubbing one of his ugly great paws over and over the top of his cane so I imagine that he and The Lady had already been having a little chat.
Mr Leonard gasped and tried to scramble up the side steps to join them, but The Lady raised a hand and one of the lascars went to block his way. She was wearing a black lace dress with a high collar right up to her chin. Around her shoulders was a red China shawl all broidered over, and jewels glinted at her ears and on her fingers. Her face was painted white, but her lips were red as the shawl.
Even though she was tiny as a wren, Lady Ginger seemed to fill that stage. You could feel something coming off her like heat from a fire – although this was the kind of heat that burned and tore at your skin when you touched an icy wall with bare fingers. Her glittering black eyes caught the limelight as she scanned the room and I swear that every one of us there would say that she stared straight at us.
After a moment she clicked her fingers and one of the lascars lit a pipe for her, like that time at the warehouse. She inhaled deeply and blew a smoke ring that floated up and hovered above her head for a moment, looking for all the world like a grubby halo.
Then that fluttery little voice started up. And don’t, for a moment, think it sounded sweet or comical, because standing there listening to her, it was like someone had scratched down the line of your backbone with a jagged cube of ice.
‘It has come to my attention that there has been an . . . incursion into my property. I understand from Fitzpatrick here that last night someone entered this theatre and stole several items from the office. This is not pleasing to me.’
She coughed and took another deep pull on her pipe. The bowl glowed up.
‘I further understand that some of you have been talking about my business affairs. This, also, is not pleasing to me. Indeed it is something I will not tolerate.’ She stared hard at the Comet girls and I noticed that a couple of them looked at their pretty boots. I knew there’d been a lot of speculation about Martha Lidgate. In fact, I’d heard that a couple of the Comet girls had been round to see Martha’s ma. I remembered that letter The Lady sent to Fitzy – Moreover, it seems that the mother of the Lidgate girl has approached the constabulary. I need hardly tell you, Fitzpatrick, the consequences of investigation . . .
The Lady continued.
‘You must understand that I see myself as a mother to you all.’ The way she said mother brought to mind an old story Joey had read to me once. Something about some old Greek witch – Medea, was it? I think that was her name – anyway, she wasn’t much of a mother.
‘You are my family and I will care for you, but only if you have the courtesy to abide by my rules.’ She clicked her fingers again and the double doors at the back next to where Lucca and I were standing swung open. Six of the Lady’s Chinamen came in – all dressed in long dark gowns with plaits hanging down their backs. They walked in two lines to the foot of the stage where they bowed their heads to The Lady.
‘Frances Taylor and Sukie Warren, you will stand.’
There was a murmur among the Comet girls up front as two of them rose to their feet.
‘Now you will kneel.’
The hall was that silent you could have heard a bluebottle fart. Frances and Sukie sank to their knees, their eyes huge with fear.
Sukie started up. ‘Please, Lady, please. We didn’t . . .’, but Lady Ginger raised her hand. ‘Silence.’
Then she turned to look at the hall. ‘I want you all to remember that what you see today is the act of a loving mother. Frances and Sukie have . . . disappointed me. And now, in front of their family, they must be punished.’
The Lady sucked on the pipe again and the trail of smoke coiled up around her on that chair.
She nodded at the Chinamen.
‘Deal with it.’
They moved swiftly and neatly. Two of them took hold of the girls’ arms from behind, while two more leaned across their shoulders and forced their heads to the floor. When the girls were unable to wriggle free the last two Chinamen produced curved blades from their sleeves.
I gasped as the flash of silver caught the lights. I stepped forward, but Lucca caught hold of my arm and hissed, ‘No, you cannot.’
The men with the blades bent down to the two girls who started to scream. Through the tables, chairs and people all I could see was the glint of silver as they slashed and hacked. I could hear the girls sobbing and calling out too, but after a while they fell silent. Everyone else in the room stood absolutely still. A couple of the Comet girls hid their faces in their hands.
‘Enough.’ The Lady’s voice was high and clear. ‘You will stand now.’
The Chinamen moved back and Frances and Sukie rose unsteadily to their feet. They were both completely bald – their scalps raw and bleeding where the blades had bitten too deep and too vicious. One of the Chinamen held up a great hank of dark hair – Sukie’s – then he dropped it into a limelight cup on the front of the stage where it sputtered and smouldered.
The sour- sweet smell of burning human hair filled the hall as the girls wept.
‘I trust I have made my point.’ The Lady was ram-rod straight in her chair, her face a mask. ‘When any of you question me, when any one of you displeases me, you strike at the heart of your family. Do you understand?’
The hall was silent.
‘Do you understand?’ the Lady asked again and received mutterings and nods in reply as she carried on. ‘A family is a precious thing, but it is also a fragile thing. There are many who cast envious eyes over my children – many who wish them harm. But I will continue to protect you all, as long as you show me the respect I demand. “Honour thy father and thy mother.” That is what the Bible tells us, is it not? If any of you bring dishonour on this family, make no mistake, I will deal with it.’
Lady Ginger leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, and she didn’t open them when she spoke again. ‘Now, Mr Leonard, I wish to talk to you in private. Come.’
From the look on Mr Leonard’s face I could tell he’d rather be shorn in public like Frances and Sukie than face The Lady alone. The lascar at the top of the steps by the stage moved aside and Mr Leonard climbed up them like they was a scaffold. When he reached the middle of the stage just a few steps from The Lady, the curtains came down.