Kitty told Luke about Fogg the next day, when she met him to tell him of the outcome of her meeting with Patrick Kenny. He frowned, pensively. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Certain. It isn’t a face you easily forget, is it?’
‘Interesting.’
She watched him. Neither of them had touched on the potentially explosive matter of the fight. Luke, when he had greeted her, had acted as if nothing more than usual lay between them. Kitty, who, since Jem was staying with Luke for the duration of his short stay, had had the quiet of a long night alone to brood upon the violent events of the evening, knew neither how to broach the subject nor, if she were honest, what she would say about it if she did. She did not want to quarrel. Neither did she want to express openly the revulsion she felt, for fear of the breach it might cause between them. She understood well that what Jem had said the night before was the truth; Luke was a man who had lived since birth in a harsh and perilous world. The casual acceptance and use of violence was not to be wondered at in a man of his background and occupation. But the disturbing fact was that in her heart she knew that no matter how she loved him she would never learn to accept that – as she could not, try as she might, close her eyes to the way in which he earned his living.
‘I’ll keep an eye open,’ he said now, referring to Fogg. ‘So – what news from Kenny?’
The excitement she had been tamping down since she had left Kenny’s office stirred again. ‘I’m to be given a spot next month at the New Cambridge.’ Her attempt to sound casual failed dismally. ‘Mr Kenny says the act needs polishing a bit – the Cambridge is no penny gaff – if I can make it there—’
‘You’ll have London at your feet.’
‘Well – not quite that. But it’s a start. A marvellous start. If I can do it.’
‘Sure you can. No question.’ Jem, who had been sitting quietly at a table with chalks and paper, stood up now and presented her with the drawing he had been working on. ‘There. A farewell present. To remember me by when you’re famous.’
She stared in delight. ‘Jem! It’s lovely!’
‘I sketched it last night, while you were on stage. You like it?’
‘I love it!’ Impulsively she kissed him. ‘It’s the Dipper to the life! Though you flatter him a bit, I think!’
‘Not at all.’ Jem took the drawing back and looked at it for a long moment. ‘Not at all,’ he repeated, then, tossing the paper onto the table, he stretched lazily. ‘Well, if you two don’t mind I’m off for a farewell stroll round my second favourite city. I’ll see you later, down at the Rooms.’ He slung his cap at a rakish angle upon his fair head, raised a hand. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do—’
When he had gone the silence was long and faintly uncomfortable.
‘Something worrying you?’ Luke asked softly at last.
She looked at him, a thousand words crowding her tongue, a thousand protests, arguments, pleas. ‘No,’ she said.
He tilted her chin, kissed her lightly. ‘Then let’s do what Jem so thoughtfully left us to do. Come to bed.’ He stepped back, hands held up placatingly. ‘All right – do what you have to do first. But hurry.’
After their lovemaking they lay in silence for a long while, Luke’s head cradled upon Kitty’s shoulder, her fingers in his thick, straight hair. Kitty had given up all thought of tackling him about what had happened the night before. The opportunity had passed, as he had no doubt intended.
‘What are you thinking about now?’ he asked.
She hesitated. ‘I wanted to ask your advice.’
‘What about?’
‘Luke – I have to get away. From here. From Moses.’
‘Yes,’ he said, quietly.
‘Will he let me go, do you think?’
He rolled away from her, onto his stomach, came up onto his elbows, dark hair flopping into his eyes. ‘He’ll let you go.’
‘What makes you think so? Moses seems to believe that he owns anyone and anything that comes within five miles of him – anyone but you, that is. But I won’t let him stop me. I can’t. I’m leaving. And’ – she glanced a little nervously at his calm profile – ‘I want to take Pol with me, if she’ll come.’
To her surprise he threw back his head and laughed. ‘God, girl, you don’t believe in doing things by halves, do you?’
She did not reply to that but there was stubborn resolution in the set of her mouth. ‘Luke – I’ve thought about it – thought about little else over the past few weeks. I won’t stay here. He’ll have to kill me to make me stay.’
He opened his mouth to speak. She rushed on.
‘Matt won’t come – I know that – nothing will persuade him. He’s got what he wants.’ She tried to suppress the bitterness in her voice at that. ‘At least he thinks he has. I can’t change him. But I can’t let him stop me.’
‘He wouldn’t want to.’
She turned her head on the pillow. ‘I know.’
‘I believe he thinks that he’d be no good to you. That he’d spoil your chances.’
‘And I believe it’s got more to do with an itch to thieve and that girl he’s fallen for.’
‘Sally-Anne? They’re still seeing each other?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’ll find himself in trouble with Moses there if he isn’t careful. Moses doesn’t take kindly to anyone messing with the girls in The House.’
‘I know. I’ve told him. He won’t listen.’
‘P’raps I’d better have a word?’
‘You can try, but I don’t think even you could influence him over this. He says he’s in love. Perhaps he is.’
Luke grinned. ‘For the third time this month?’
She did not respond.
In one of those strange, gentle gestures that from him always struck her to the heart he reached a long finger to her face, stroking it. ‘Don’t worry, Songbird. I’ll handle Moses for you.’
She turned her head. The heavy gold ring on his finger glinted in the light. She sat up abruptly, folding her long legs to bring her knees up under her chin, clasping her hands about them. ‘No.’
He lay back, his face expressionless.
She shook her head, her hair veiling her eyes. ‘No,’ she said again, ‘can’t you see? I have to do it myself.’
His eyes were cool, as was his voice. ‘Don’t be stupid, Kitty. I’ve told you – in this world you have to use any weapon that comes to hand. I’m your weapon against Moses. To hell with your pride. I’ll sort Moses out. He’ll let you go.’
‘And Pol?’
‘Ah. That might be a bit more difficult.’
‘I’m not going without her,’ she said, and was mortified at the frail catch of uncertainty in the words.
In the event she found herself confronting Moses Smith rather earlier than she would have wished, and on the fat man’s own ground. She did not even know if Luke had got round to talking to him.
It was some time since Kitty had been summoned to one of Moses’ ‘quarterly meetings’ in the cellar – her new status, both as entertainer and with regard to Luke Peveral, had spared her that. She was surprised therefore to find herself and Matt peremptorily summoned some few days later. She had no time to consult with Luke, nor indeed with anyone else, and it was with some misgiving that she obeyed. She did not at the moment dare to do anything else, for the last thing she wanted to do was openly to antagonize the man.
Reluctantly she had come to accept that only with Luke’s influence behind her would she be able to break free; despite the promptings of common sense she still harboured the hope that Pol might be allowed to leave with her. Not that Pol allowed herself to harbour such false hopes. ‘Don’t take the chance, love – you’ll cock it up fer yerself if yer try it. The old bastard won’t let me go, you can bet yer boots. ’E won’t be ’appy at losin’ you – ’e’ll keep me ter spite us both, you mark my words.’ But Kitty had determined not to give up so easily; so now, if the brusque summons from Moses caught her unaware and unnerved her more than a little, at least it looked likely to take matters from her hands and force the issue one way or another. It might as well be now as later. It was with some determination in her step that she set out for Whitechapel.
She should not, she afterwards realized, have been surprised to discover that it was not she who had stirred up the hornet’s nest of Moses’ anger, but her brother.
She suspected that Matt knew, or guessed, more of the reason for the summons than she did from the moment she slid into the seat beside him, squeezing onto the low bench between him and Croucher. The dimly lit cellar was exactly as she remembered it from that first evening that now seemed so long ago – even the faces were the same, except that Pol now sat alone, brass-blonde head tilted a little tiredly to the mildewed wall. Lottie, of course, was no longer required to attend such gatherings.
‘What’s this all about?’ she whispered to Matt.
He shrugged, a little too carelessly. He had hardly greeted her. Springer, seated at his other side, cast him a single disgusted look and sniffed.
She peered at her brother suspiciously. ‘Matt?’
‘How should I know?’ His face looked a little pale in the half-light. His fingers fidgeted with the ragged strands of cotton at his cuff.
‘You haven’t—?’ Kitty’s question was cut short as all sound suddenly died as Moses, Bobs, and another bruiser, a particularly unpleasant man known as Dyce, who, she had heard, brutally and efficiently policed the brothel known as The House, entered the cellar. Kitty heard her brother’s sharp-indrawn breath. His eyes were fixed on Dyce, and the last vestiges of colour had left his face.
Moses was in no good temper, and it showed. His plump pink face was bereft of expression, his small red mouth pursed. His eyes were flat and cold as a snake’s as he seated himself and stared about the room, his eyes flicking coldly from face to face with no sign of warmth of greeting. Dyce and Bobs stationed themselves one each side of his chair. Moses barely looked at Kitty; the chill gaze slid across hers, fixed upon her brother and stayed there. She felt Matt tense beside her as he lifted his chin and returned the man’s look. Kitty’s heart sank to her boots. The silence was tense.
‘In this organization,’ Moses said, at last, quietly, ‘a warning is given only once. I believe that you all know that. I will not be cheated. I will not be crossed. I will not be disobeyed. Matt Daniels. Here.’
Awkwardly Matt stood. With brave composure he walked into the open space before the dais, where he stood, head up, watching Moses.
Kitty was trembling, fear turned her stomach. Matt, oh Matt, why must you always do it? It was like an oft-repeated nightmare.
At a sign from Moses Bobs stepped forward and caught the boy from behind, holding him by the elbows, twisted savagely back. Matt did not struggle, nor did he take his eyes from Moses’. Dyce stepped to him. He was a brute of a man with a vicious, pock-marked face and the strength of a bull, as many a girl in The House would testify.
Moses spoke very softly. ‘Matt Daniels, did I not, just a week ago, and for the second time, forbid you The House?’
Matt did not reply.
Almost casually Dyce backhanded him across the mouth. ‘Speak when you’re spoke to.’
‘Yes.’ Blood dribbled from Matt’s lip and dripped onto his grubby shirt.
‘And have you obeyed me?’
Matt hesitated. Dyce lifted a hand. ‘No,’ Matt said.
‘No.’ Moses’ voice was deceptively mild. He surveyed Matt for a long moment. ‘Can you give me one good reason,’ he asked, suddenly sharp and hard, ’why there should be one rule for Matt Daniels and another for everyone else?’
Matt was watching him as if mesmerized. Kitty could see his fear and his brave attempt to hide it. He shook his head.
‘And yet – that would seem to be your opinion, boy. This is not the first time you have defied me, that you have presumed upon my good nature and my favour. It will be the last. I told you to stay away from The House, and to stay away from Sally-Anne.’ He glanced around the cellar. ‘Matt Daniels,’ he said, cruelly derisive, ’thinks he can have for nothing what other men pay hard-earned money for.’
Unexpected, painful colour flooded Matt’s face. His bloodied lips tightened, but he said nothing.
Moses’ eyes came back to him. ‘Every whore in that house pays dues to me, boy. And Sally-Anne’s a whore like the rest of them. How can she pay her dues if she’s giving it to you for free?’
Desperately Matt shook his head.
Moses pressed savagely on. ‘Sally-Anne’s been with me for four years. Since she was twelve. And the most willing whore I’ve had – no tongue, no trouble – that right, Dyce?’
‘Yes, Mr Smith.’
‘An’ what happens now? Along comes Mr Cleverdick Daniels, and the girl finds herself in trouble. Eh, Dyce?’
Dyce grinned. ‘Yes, Mr Smith.’
Matt looked at him, wrenched suddenly upon his held arms. ‘What have you done to her?’
‘Ask yourself what you’ve done to her, lad,’ Moses snapped. ‘That’s a bit more to the point, isn’t it? What Dyce did was hurt her, and on my orders. What you’ve done’s far worse than that.’
Matt was struggling wildly now, tears on his face. ‘You bastard! I’ll kill you!’
Kitty sat rooted to the spot. She caught Pol’s eye, sympathetic and warning.
Dyce, at a sign from Moses, struck Matt hard once, and then again, across the face. The boy reeled back, still held by Bobs.
‘Tell me, Matt,’ Moses said, very softly, ‘what the buggery do you think you’ve been doing here? I mean – we all like to take the little ladies for a ride, don’t we? But – fair’s fair! The poor little bitch thinks you love her – least, that’s what she told Dyce. Wasn’t it, Dyce?’
Dyce grinned again. ‘Yes, Mr Smith.’
Matt had stopped struggling. He stood, slim and rigid in Bobs’ grip, his face a picture of ineffectual rage and hatred. ‘I do,’ he said.
Moses shook his head mournfully. ‘Oh, no.’ His eyes flicked to Dyce. Dyce spat on his hands, rubbed them on his dirty shirt. ‘You can’t love Sally-Anne, Matt – she’s mine – and I won’t have you – putting ideas in her head – that don’t suit me. You hear?’ At each pause Dyce’s great fist buried itself in Matt’s lean stomach. Matt screamed. Moses talked inexorably on. ‘You behave yourself a while – show me how sorry you are – and maybe, sometime – you’ll be allowed back at The House – but you’ll take whatever girl’s offered – and it won’t be Sally-Anne. Understood? Enough, Dyce,’ he added.
Matt hung, silent, from Bobs’ huge hands. After a moment he lifted his head. Moses was waiting for him. ‘I asked if you understood?’ The steel chill of his voice gave notice that Matt Daniels had forfeited his untrustworthy favour forever. Matt nodded. Kitty looked down at the cellar floor, not to see the expression on his face. Moses’ next words almost stopped her heart. ‘You will not, of course,’ he said, ‘be leaving with your sister. That goes without saying. You owe me, Matt Daniels, and you’ll pay. You stay.’
His words caused a stir about her. Eyes turned to look at her. Moses’ gaze was still fixed upon Matt, but there was a hint of malice in his face that she knew was directed at her. If pressure from Luke were forcing him to let her go he would make her suffer first if he could. That, she suddenly saw, had been the reason for his summoning her to witness Matt’s humiliation and punishment.
Moses jerked his head at Bobs. ‘Let him go. He’s going to be a good boy now. Aren’t you, Matt?’
Bobs let go of Matt’s arms. He staggered, righted himself, wiped the back of his hand across his still bleeding mouth.
Moses, at last, turned his attention to Kitty. ‘After all I’ve done for you, girl?’
She said nothing.
He shrugged. ‘Never let it be said Moses Smith wasn’t soft-hearted. You want to go? Go. Just remember – anyone asks, it was Moses Smith gave you your first chance.’ He turned to leave.
Kitty stepped forward. ‘Mr Smith!’
He stopped. Kitty saw Pol’s frantic gesture to silence, and ignored it.
‘Yes?’
‘Pol – I’d like Pol to come with me.’
He turned very slowly, eyed her for a long moment. ‘I see. And what does Pol have to say about it?’
‘She’ll come if you’ll let her.’ Doggedly she held his eyes, refusing to be intimidated.
‘Will she now?’ The small, unfriendly eyes turned to Pol. ‘I’m surprised at you, Pol. You and me go back a long way.’
‘That’s true,’ Pol said, sourly.
‘Mind you’ – he mused for a moment – ‘getting a bit long in the tooth now, I suppose?’
Pol flushed very slightly, and bit off a sharp retort. The faintest gleam of hope had appeared in her eyes.
‘Was a time when I might have felt different – but, well, I can’t deny Lot’s had a word in my ear—’ He turned suddenly to the wary Kitty. ‘Tell you what I’ll do. Pol wants to go with you – she can go—’
She did not believe it. She waited, and was not disappointed.
‘—for a price, of course,’ he added smoothly.
‘A – price?’
‘Well of course. By way of compensation, as you might say.’
Kitty held his eyes, ‘What sort of price?’
‘Well – let’s see – she might be on the shady side of thirty, but there’s life in her yet, and she’s strong.’ He might, Kitty thought bitterly, have been talking of a milk cow. ‘Midge’d miss her if no one else did. Let’s say – fifty guineas?’
She stared at him. ‘You’re joking!’
He shook his head.
‘I can’t – you know I don’t have fifty guineas!’
His small mouth quirked mockingly. ‘You don’t say? Well that’s that then. Fifty guineas is my price.’
The light had gone from Pol’s face. Kitty’s temper stirred. ‘Thirty,’ she snapped.
‘Forty-five.’ He was grinning, now, enjoying the entertainment.
She hesitated. ‘Thirty-five.’
He laughed. ‘You got thirty-five guineas?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ll get it.’
‘Not a penny less than forty.’
She glared at him. ‘Done!’
He opened a plump white hand, pointed to the palm, ‘Cash on the barrel. Before she leaves.’
‘You’ll have it.’
‘I will. Or Pol stays where she belongs.’ Moses turned and left the cellar, Bobs and Dyce at his heels. Muttering amongst themselves, casting sidelong glances at Kitty and Matt, the others followed. Pol, the last to leave, smiled ruefully at Kitty. ‘Forty guineas? Soppy thing – where you goin’ ter get forty guineas?’
‘I’ll get it.’
The other girl laughed a little, shaking her head sadly. ‘Not much of a bargain fer you, girl. I’d ferget it were I you.’ Still smiling, her eyes sombre, she left them.
Kitty looked at Matt. He had until now been standing, with an effort, in the middle of the floor, where Bobs had left him. Now he moved painfully to a bench, and dropped down onto it, his arms crossed over his bruised torso.
She moved to him, touched his shoulder lightly.
He lifted his head.
‘We’ll get you away, too,’ she said, uncertainly, ‘eventually.’
To her surprise he shook his head, his face set. ‘I’m staying. And not on Moses Smith’s say-so either.’
‘Matt – please – if it’s the girl – you’ll do more harm than good—’
‘Leave it,’ he said.
She shut her mouth.
He grinned a little, split lips seeping blood. ‘It’s not just that. I’m going to be big, Kitty. Big as the Guv’nor. And when I am – I’m going to kill Moses Smith. Very slowly.’
She knew at last from experience when to argue and when not. ‘Tell me when,’ she said, grimly, ‘I wouldn’t want to miss it.’
She would not ask Luke for the money, and there was no one else she could go to. When her temper cooled she had to admit that her impulsive acceptance of Moses’ deliberate challenge had been foolhardy. ‘I’ll save it,’ she said, as confidently as she could, to Pol. ‘It means you’ll have to wait a bit before you can join me, but I’ll do it, I promise.’
‘What’ll you be earning at this Cambridge place?’
‘A guinea a week to start with.’ A fortune she had thought it.
‘Well, that’s all right then,’ said Pol, gently mocking, ‘providin’ yer don’t want ter eat, dress or live anywhere – roll on a year or so—’
Kitty looked at her, miserably. ‘Oh, Pol – I’m sorry—’
Pol patted her hand. ‘It’s all right, yer daft ’a’porth. You tried. That’s what counts. You bloody tried. An’ I won’t ferget that.’
Her disappointment about Pol and her worries about Matt notwithstanding, Kitty’s spirits were high as she set out with an advance from Patrick Kenny in her pocket to find herself somewhere decent to live at last. Not even the days that she spent tramping London’s grimy streets and crowded pavements could dampen them. A week or so later – a week of knocking on strange doors, inspecting rooms that ranged from the squalid through the cheerless to the barely adequate, she found herself in Pascal Road, a narrow residential street in Paddington, not far from the great station. The paved street was quiet and respectable-looking. The houses – built perhaps twenty years before – were small, the front doors opening directly onto the pavement. Most had lace curtains hanging at meticulously cleaned windows. The tiled doorsteps were burnished red, to vie with each other, gleaming crimson. She counted the doors. Number twenty-three was as clean and neat-looking as its neighbours. A small flowering plant blossomed at one of the lace-draped windows and another stood by the scrubbed and polished doorstep. Faint hope stirred. She knocked.
‘Yes, dear?’ A diminutive woman opened the door, tilting her head to look at tall Kitty. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’ve come about the room.’ Beyond the little woman Kitty could see a long hall that in the shadows gleamed with polish, and narrow stairs, carpeted with a well-brushed runner. An indefinable smell, compounded of soap and polish and the fragrance of flowers, came to her nostrils. The smell of a well-kept, well-loved home.
The little woman stepped back. ‘Yes, of course, dear. Come in. I’ll show you.’ She had little black eyes, shiny as boot-buttons, and an equally small, turned-up nose. Her movements were quick and bird-like. She was, Kitty surmised, not all that much older than she was herself. ‘This way, dear. Any preference, front or back?’ The woman bustled up the stairs, stopped, laughing, halfway: ‘Oh, I suppose I should introduce myself?’ She spoke very fast, hardly seeming to take breath between sentences. ‘Mrs Buckley. Amy Buckley. A widow, I am. Now – what do you think, front or back? I’ve two rooms going, you see, I’m moving downstairs and letting off the top.’ She led the way up the narrow stairs, still talking breathlessly. ‘With poor Mr Buckley gone, you see, I need to do something – something to bring in a bit of money. He left me the house, you see, but nothing to go with it – not that I’m complaining, mind you. Oh, no, I wouldn’t complain. Worked hard all his life, he did, and no one could argue about that. Now—’ She paused on a tiny landing, lit from fanlights above the two doors that stood one each end of it. The landing was permeated, as was the rest of the house, with the fresh and clean smell of soap. ‘Which would you prefer, front or back? The front’s a bit bigger, but the back’s quieter. Prettier, too, I reckon. Looks out onto the gardens you see—’
‘Might I see the back?’
‘’Course, dear, this way.’ She led Kitty to one of the doors and threw it open, standing back. ‘There.’
Kitty stood like a statue. It seemed to her to have been an age since she had seen such a room, welcoming and homely. Roses scrambled across the wallpaper and over the plump eiderdown that covered the bedspread. Crisp and pretty pink curtains hung at the narrow window. Roses there were too upon the jug and bowl that stood on a sparklingly clean tiled washstand in the corner. She walked to the window. A long slender strip of garden marched in parallel with its neighbours to a fence, beyond which ran a narrow, linking alleyway. The garden was a patch of grass with a tiny path, straight as a ruled line, beside a washing line upon which blew Mrs Buckley’s immaculate washing. The path ran beneath the spreading branches of what looked like an apple tree to the wooden gate that led to the back alley. She felt Mrs Buckley’s small presence at her shoulder. ‘Mr Buckley’s pride and joy was that little garden,’ she said a little sadly. ‘I try to keep it nice. For him, like.’
‘It’s lovely.’ Kitty turned. ‘And so’s the room. I really don’t need to see the other. Your advertisement said three and six a week?’
‘That’s right, dear.’ The little widow glanced up at her, bright and birdlike again. ‘Though if you think that’s too much I could probably see my way to—’
‘Oh, no. I can manage that.’ On a guinea a week – unheard of riches – Kitty knew herself to be well off, even though she was committed to saving up for Pol.
Amy Buckley seemed as pleased as she was herself. ‘Well, good, that’s settled then. I’m sure we’ll suit. Felt it as soon as I saw you. You’ve got references, of course?’ This last was said with a beaming smile and no question in the tone.
Kitty hesitated. ‘References?’
The little woman’s smile faded. ‘Well – I can’t say I’d considered taking any young woman without references.’
Kitty wondered, dourly, what sort of reference her present landlord would give her. ‘Please – I can pay in advance if you’d like – it really is the nicest room I’ve seen.’
‘Haven’t you someone who’d stand for you?’ The poor little woman was obviously distressed at Kitty’s disappointment. ‘I’m a woman alone, you see – I really must be careful.’
‘Well yes, of course, I can see that—’
‘You’ve got work?’ The words were hopefully expectant. It came to Kitty that Mrs Buckley was trying as hard as she was to find a way out of their difficulty. But here, of course, could be another stumbling block.
‘Yes,’ she said, and then, quickly, to get it over, ‘I sing. On the stage.’
‘Sing?’ Amy Buckley repeated. ‘You sing? On the stage?’
Kitty’s sinking heart settled lower. ‘Yes. But truly, Mrs Buckley, it’s—’
‘But how lovely! Good heavens! A real singer! Oh, the lovely times that Mr Buckley and I had at the Music Rooms down the street! A fine voice, he had, Mr Buckley, a fine voice. I used to love to hear him sing.’ She blinked, swallowed, looking vaguely astonished at her own emotion. ‘We’ve a piano in the parlour. I’d be pleased to have you use it any time—’
‘You mean – you’ll take me? Even without references?’
‘Oh, I don’t see why not, dear, do you? We’ll give ourselves a couple of weeks and see how we do, shall we? No obligation on either side of course.’
‘Of course.’ Relief welled in Kitty. ‘And thank you.’
‘Now – why don’t we go down into the scullery and have a nice cup of tea?’ And you can tell me all about yourself—’
In the event it was a lot harder to leave Stepney than she had anticipated – not that she had the slightest regret at turning her back at last on the dirt and squalor that she so detested, but saying goodbye to Matt and to Pol was quite another matter. And not made easier by the fact that both of them seemed quite surprisingly – and, it occurred to Kitty, quite callously – ready to see her go.
‘It’s what you’ve wanted, moi owd Kitty,’ Matt said. ‘What you’ve been working for all along. You deserve it. And you aren’t going a million miles away, are you? I daresay your Mrs Buckley isn’t such a dragon that she won’t let your brother visit you, is she?’
‘She isn’t a dragon at all.’
‘Well, then! – And anyway, the Guv’nor isn’t moving house as far as I know, is he? So I daresay we’ll still be seeing a fair bit of you?’ He grinned, and with some difficulty winked. His right eye was still all but closed, a legacy of Dyce’s fists, the bruise around it fading now to ochre and blue. Since his outburst in the cellar he had mentioned neither Moses nor the girl Sally-Anne, and Kitty had thought it best to steer clear of the subject. She had long ago given up trying to force her brother to confide in her.
She sighed. ‘Matt – be careful?’
He flicked back the hair from his brow, the faintest irritation in the gesture. ‘’Course.’
If Matt’s equanimity at her impending departure did not particularly surprise her, Pol’s did – and hurt her not a little as well, though she did her best to hide it. Pol’s theme was, sensibly, much the same as Matt’s. ‘You aren’t takin’ ship for bloomin’ America, yer know. We’ll be seein’ plenty of one another, you’ll see.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Her friend’s apparent unconcern disconcerted Kitty. Her voice was subdued. ‘Pol – I’m so sorry I couldn’t get Moses to let you come with me.’
‘Think nothin’ of it, love. When yer don’t expect nothin’ yer can’t be disappointed, can yer? Want an ’and with yer packin’?’
A few days later, escorted by Luke, she piled her few possessions in a hackney and at last left Stepney for good. No one came to see her off, there were no last-minute tears or goodbyes. It was strangely anti-climactic and not at all somehow what she had expected. She stared stonily from the cab window. Luke, beside her, cast an amused glance but thankfully held his tongue.
When they reached Pascal Road, Amy Buckley, hearing the cab, opened the door with a wide smile that faded a little when she saw Luke.
‘I – oh, Miss Daniels – I thought you’d be alone—’
‘This is a friend of mine. Mr Peveral.’
‘How do you do?’ Amy Buckley worriedly bobbed a neat little head at Luke. He looked very big and very out of place indeed in the little hall. ‘A gentleman friend. I didn’t know you’d be bringing a gentleman friend.’ The little woman fussed nervously with her spotless apron.
Kitty cast a quick, fiercely warning glance at Luke, knowing his acid humour, ready to kill him if he so much as opened his mouth.
She need not have worried. ‘Mrs Buckley!’ Warmly Luke held out his hand and bent his most charming smile upon her. ‘I’m so very pleased to meet you.’
‘Why – charmed I’m sure.’ Suddenly cherry red, Amy Buckley took his extended hand and then dropped it like a hot cake.
‘Miss Daniels has told me all about you – and about your delightful house. It seems she was very lucky to find you.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that—’
‘Oh, but yes, Mrs Buckley.’ The narrow, dark-lashed eyes crinkled beguilingly. He lowered his voice a little, laid a confidential hand lightly upon her arm. ‘Miss Daniels needs a friend, Mrs Buckley. Someone kindly and sensible, who’ll look after her. I suspect – I greatly hope – she may have found that someone in you.’
Kitty winced and cocked a derisive eyebrow. Luke, surely, was laying on the charm just a little too heavily.
But no – Luke, as always, had gauged his victim to a nicety. Blushing like a poppy, Amy Buckley beamed. ‘Well, do come in both of you.’ She glanced up at Luke with an eye that could only be described as coy. ‘If you wouldn’t mind carrying Miss Daniels’ case, Mr—?’
‘Peveral,’ he supplied easily. ‘And of course not, Mrs Buckley. That’s what I’m here for.’ Grinning, Luke waited as Kitty fetched her reticule from the cab, then stepped back for her to precede him through the door. As she did so she thought she saw the curtain at the front bedroom window twitch. She glanced up sharply. An indistinct figure drew back.
‘You’ve let the front room, then, Mrs Buckley?’ A faint, unreasoning disappointment stirred. She had already, perhaps absurdly, come to think of number twenty-three as home. She did not want to share it so soon with a stranger.
‘Yes, dear. Just yesterday. Nice enough young woman. Very quiet.’
They had arrived at Kitty’s room. Luke looked round approvingly. Kitty thought of his own eccentric taste in accommodation and could not prevent a smile. ‘Very nice, Mrs Buckley,’ he said. ‘Kitty was absolutely right. What a pity the front room is taken. I might have been tempted to take it myself.’
‘Mr Peveral!’ The little woman was quite delightedly scandalized. ‘I couldn’t see my way clear to taking a gentleman lodger. Oh, dear me, no!’ Her small hands had begun their agitation with her pinafore again. ‘Mr Buckley would never have approved of that!’
Luke turned to her. ‘That,’ he said with a smile, Kitty thought, that might have charmed a winkle from its shell, ‘is my loss entirely, Mrs Buckley.’
Amy Buckley was blushing again. ‘I’ll – go and make some tea,’ she said, and fled.
Luke, behind the door, was convulsed with laughter. Kitty slapped him none too gently with the gloves she was carrying. ‘You pig! Poor Mrs Buckley! You’re not to tease her, do you hear? Poor little thing—’
Luke gurgled but could not speak for his repressed laughter. Kitty stifled her own, holding on to severity. ‘You really are a pig! Stop laughing – she might come back!’
He struggled for composure.
The door at the other end of the landing opened.
Kitty stood, half-laughing, hands on hips, watching Luke. ‘Honestly – you think that all you have to do is to turn on that disgusting charm of yours and half the female population will drop dead at your feet—’
‘While the other ’alf spits in ’is eye,’ a familiar voice put in, caustically, from the door.
Jaw dropping, Kitty turned. Pol lounged, brassy head cocked at the familiar, affectionately mocking angle, laughter in her eyes.
‘Pol! What are you doing here? How—?’ Kitty stopped. Her eyes travelled beyond Pol to the open door at the other end of the landing. ‘You?’ she asked, faintly. ‘It’s you? In the other room?’
‘That’s right. Me. Large as life an’ twice as awkward,’ Pol said, grinning widely. ‘An’ with a whole envelope full of forged references at that. Thanks for the tip.’
‘But – how? How did you get round Moses?’ Kitty intercepted the small, significant glance that flicked between Pol and Luke. She turned to him. ‘Luke? You did it? You paid Moses off?’
Luke smiled, said nothing.
‘That’s what ’e did all right.’ Pol’s voice was light, as if even now she could not bring herself to speak warmly of the man she had always so disliked.
‘Oh!’ Kitty stepped towards Luke, hugged him fiercely. ‘Oh, thank you! Thank you! I’ll pay you back, I promise, every penny—’ She turned. Pol held out her arms. Kitty flung herself into them. ‘Pol! Pol!’ The two girls held each other, laughing and crying together. ‘Oh, I thought I was going to be so lonely and miserable without you – and I thought you didn’t care.’
‘Goodness gracious me!’ Amy Buckley said, uncertainly, from the top of the stairs. ‘I came up to tell you that tea’s made. And to introduce you.’ She looked from one to the other, puzzled, yet obviously pleased at the happiness in their faces. ‘Seems I don’t have to?’
Up to the terrifying night that she opened at the New Cambridge Kitty found herself working harder than she had ever believed possible. Until now she had worked instinctively; now the professionals took over and she discovered how much she had to learn. In a cold, bare rehearsal room she worked and reworked her act under the shrewdly critical eye of Patrick Kenny himself, rehearsing every note, every step, every movement until she could have screamed with the frustration of it all.
‘No, no, Miss Daniels! Can’t you see? You’ve got to move about more – use the whole stage. Get down to the front there – involve your audience! And exaggerate, Miss Daniels – exaggerate! Get that chin up – stick those elbows out! Good Christ, you’re supposed to be the cockiest pickpocket in town, not a sneak-thief who pinches pennies from old ladies! Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Smarten up! Swagger a bit! That’s better—’
Sometimes she thought she hated him. Sometimes she knew she would never be able to face the vast stage and huge, intimidating, critical audience with which he so often threatened her. She lay sleepless through the long hours of the night, staring into darkness, hearing the echoes of that carping, critical voice, seeing nothing ahead but disaster and humiliation.
‘For God’s sweet sake, Miss Daniels – how often must I say it? Stop creeping around like a beaten child! Stand up straight! Get your shoulders back! And sing, girl, singl Don’t whine – oh, Christ, you aren’t snivelling now, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Right – back to the beginning. Start over in that corner and come towards me—’
If it had not been for Pol and little Amy Buckley she was sure she never would have stuck it. Pol it was who held her hand, wiped away her tired tears, mocked her gently and encouraged her fiercely when the mockery failed. She also showed unexpected skill with her needle and was invaluable in helping with costumes and props.
‘You’ll be there, won’t you?’ Kitty asked, anxiously, ‘to help me dress?’
Poll grinned. ‘Try ter keep me away!’
Time and again Kitty had tried to thank Luke for his magnificent gesture in paying off Moses so that Pol could join her. The debt, she knew, went beyond the money it had cost him, yet he brushed her thanks aside and utterly refused to discuss any idea of repayment. If, however, he had hoped – not unreasonably – that his gift might have made some difference to Pol’s unflattering opinion of him, he must have been disappointed. Though unreservedly grateful, she with bland obstinacy reserved her right to dislike him, and made no secret of it. And Kitty sometimes thought that Luke admired her for it. She visited him at least twice a week, oases of pleasure in a grinding round of hard work. Their lovemaking was as fierce and as pleasurable as ever and in it she found the antidote to the fears and worries that beset her when faced with what seemed to her as Patrick Kenny’s heartless persecution.
‘Don’t be so silly, Songbird!’ Luke kissed her nose lightly, brushed warm lips along the line of her jaw. ‘He wants you to be a success, that’s all. And it doesn’t grow on trees, to be picked with no effort. You don’t get more than one chance in this business. You flop, and that’s that. No second go. Kenny’s putting his own reputation up with yours, you know – and he has more to lose than you have. Listen to him. He knows what he’s doing.’
‘Well, I just wish he’d stop shouting for a minute every now and again while he’s doing it,’ she said, gloomily unconvinced.
Inexorably the night grew closer and, as surely, Kitty’s nerves grew taut as strung wire. The night before her debut at the Cambridge Pol insisted upon pouring a large tot of the detested brandy into her tea.
‘Ugh! I can’t drink this!’
‘’Old yer nose!’ Pol said, firmly, ‘it’ll ’elp yer sleep. Yer don’t want ter go on stage lookin’ like a bleedin’ ghost, do yer? Sorry, Mrs B,’ she added and without waiting for protest. Their friend and landlady, Kitty was astonished to note, was in her determinedly respectable way toning down Pol’s vocabulary considerably – a feat which a few short weeks before Kitty would have believed impossible.
She woke the next day, after a night of broken sleep, to the low-slanting red sun of a late autumn morning, the first crisp touch of winter in the steamed window panes and the cloud of her breath on the air. It surprised her. In her preoccupation she had hardly realized how the year had advanced. She lay quite still for a long moment. This, then, was the day. By this time tomorrow she would know what the vastly different and more sophisticated audience of the New Cambridge thought of her. Success tonight could mean an open door to fame, prosperity and safety. Failure could condemn her to a return to Smith’s Song and Supper Rooms and the shackles of poverty.
With a sudden, determined briskness she threw back the bedcovers and braved the unexpectedly chill air.
Her success that night went beyond even her wildest and most private dreams – a success, she realized later, that was aided and abetted by an audience already strongly predisposed towards her.
‘There’s nobs in,’ she heard someone say, excitedly, ten minutes or so before the curtain went up. ‘They’ve packed the place. Pat Kenny’s jumping about like a monkey with pepper up his you-know-what—’ The speaker, a young girl in the spangles and tights of an acrobat, cast a quick, inquisitive glance in Kitty’s direction as she flitted gracefully past, but said nothing directly to her. Earlier Kitty had seen her nursing a tiny, undernourished baby who lay, now disregarded, in a cardboard box in the corner of the dressing room.
‘Nobs?’ Kitty asked uncertainly of Pol’s reflection in the mirror. ‘What does she mean, nobs? What’s she talking about?’
Pol tweaked a lock of hair. ‘Sit still. Your bloody ’air’s ’ard enough to ’andle without you jumpin’ about like a scalded cat. Luke’s invited a few friends, so I ’ear – oh, come on, don’t be daft’ – she sensed Kitty’s stiffening, had caught the swift, concerned glance in the mirror – ‘not them kind of friends. Gawd girl, give ’im credit fer some sense! No – I ’eard ’im tellin’ Mr Kenny ’e’d arranged a party fer some of the toffs ’e knows. The West End mob ’e ’angs about with.’
‘Oh, God!’
‘Come on – what’s the difference? Toffs – dockers – they’re all the same underneath. They’ll take one look at them long legs o’ yours an’ that will be that, you mark my words. They’ll love yer. There. Yer look top notch. I’ll get the other outfit out.’
‘We only have four minutes to change,’ Kitty fretted.
Pol was unruffled. ‘That’s all right then. We only need three.’ The dressing room was empty now. The neglected baby mewed in the corner. Music sounded in the distance. Pol grinned into the mirror encouragingly.
‘Kit Daniels. Call for Kit Daniels.’
Shakily Kitty stood. Pol kissed her. ‘You’ll be just fine.’
Not until much later, in a dressing room crowded with strange faces and with an enormous glass of champagne in her hand, did Kitty dare to admit to herself just how terrified she had been until the moment she had stepped onto the stage. But then the magic had worked, and now it did not matter. This time her success was solid and incontrovertible. If she could arouse the audience of the New Cambridge to a pitch of enthusiasm where they simply would not allow her to leave the stage, then there could now be few barriers left between herself and what had seemed to be her unlikely ambitions. She did not fool herself – she knew what lay ahead involved hard work and no few heartaches, but the chance was what she had wanted and now, with the wildly enthusiastic roars of applause still ringing in her ears, she knew she had gained it.
‘Splendid, m’dear. Absolutely splendid! An’ very fetchin’ too, if I might say so! Luke, old lad – where have you bin hidin’ such a treasure?’ The speaker was a tall, thin young man with a beak of a nose and a monocle that dropped from his eye every time he opened his mouth to speak. ‘By God! I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since Mackney opened at the Alhambra! And I must say, m’dear, you’re a great deal prettier! A very great deal!’ He snorted with laughter, then with elaborate courtesy removed the white carnation from his buttonhole. ‘Please – a small token of me undyin’ admiration—’
Kitty accepted the flower, smiling, laid it beside several others on the table before her.
‘Out of the way, Barty old boy. Let the dog see the rabbit! Ah – and there she is! Beauty, talent and that rare – je ne sais quoi—’ A stocky man, red faced, white haired and with the most magnificent set of snowy whiskers Kitty had ever seen, bent to give the surprised Kitty a smacking kiss. ‘Ain’t ready to consider marryin’ a besotted old man, I s’pose? That’d show the young ’uns, what? Percy Roland. Your devoted slave, Miss Daniels.’
‘Sir Percy,’ someone said, drily, ‘still doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet, does he? God only knows what he was like at thirty—’
‘Roly!’ Luke came through the crowd, smiling easily. ‘Leave her alone, you old dog!’
The old man’s eyes twinkled with mischief. ‘Aha! That’s the lie of the land, is it? Might have known it, you gypsy barbarian!’ He turned back to Kitty. ‘Dear child – just remember – if ever you need to be rescued from this savage, just call on me. My sword is at your service at all times.’ He winked salaciously.
She laughed. ‘I’ll remember.’
More champagne was poured. She drank it thirstily.
‘Kitty! Wonderful! Hit of the season! I knew you could do it! We’ll draw up a contract tomorrow—’ Patrick Kenny swooped on her. Dapper as ever and not a hair out of place, yet she sensed his genuine excitement.
‘Contract?’ Luke said, wagging a gently admonishing finger sorrowfully. ‘Tut, tut, tut. Not the time nor the place to talk business, my friend. And anyway – we aren’t sure we want a contract—’
We? Kitty sat bolt upright, head tilted, straining her ears in the hubbub to catch the words of the conversation now being carried on above her head.
‘Oh, come now, Luke – who took the chances?’
‘There were none to be taken. You knew what you had.’ Luke’s smile was easy, his voice friendly, yet there was a hint of steel somewhere about it.
Kitty looked sharply from one to the other. ‘Luke!’
‘My dear Miss Daniels – or may I call you Kitty? I’m sure we’re going to be just the greatest of friends. We might as well start as we mean to go on, yes? Standen D’Arcy – theatre and music critic for – oh, Lord knows how many unnameable rags – well, we all have a poor living to make, don’t we? So delighted to meet you—’ She found her fingers taken delicately in a small white hand, raised to red, full lips. The diminutive, effeminate Mr D’Arcy simpered at her. ‘Aren’t you just the teeniest bit curious to know what I’m going to say about you tomorrow?’ he asked, archly.
At that precise moment she was in fact much more interested in what Luke and Patrick Kenny were saying about her over her head. She gave in, however, gracefully. The purveyor of information to Lord knew how many unnameable rags was clearly a personage to be courted, and unfortunately he knew it. She patted the chair beside her. ‘Of course, Mr D’Arcy. Do come and tell me.’
It was astonishing, after that first breakthrough, just how quickly the snowball of fortune moved, gathering momentum, drawing to Kitty as it went both the privileges and – inevitably – the disadvantages of sudden fame. She was besieged by those who wanted to court her, dress her, write songs for, or articles about her. She became almost overnight the fresh focus for those idle and usually well-heeled gentlemen of all ages who made an enjoyable way of life out of pursuing the darlings of the theatre; the newer and more outrageous the better. They got as short shrift as did the over-enthusiastic tradesmen. If they were amusing – and, to be fair, a lot of them were – she had no objections to being amused; any other expectations were swiftly dashed – though she could not help but suspect with an amused exasperation that their restraint had more to do with Luke Peveral’s shadowy presence in her life than with any respect for her or her wishes.
In one thing she was adamant – she would not allow herself to be winkled out of Pascal Road. If it was good enough before the New Cambridge, it was most certainly still good enough now. In the short time she had been there it had become a comfortable home and a stable base, and her friendship with Pol and with Amy Buckley was very precious to her. Pol, who was still unabashedly and, Kitty suspected, more successfully, pursuing Barton Wesley, was now officially her dresser and went everywhere with her. When, in the week that followed that first triumphant night, Patrick Kenny, at Luke’s insistence, installed Kitty in her own private dressing room, complete with day bed, mirrored dressing table and with the picture of the Dipper that Jem had given her in pride of place on the wall, Pol it was who, with razor tongue and an utter disregard for rank or station, defended her privacy and kept unwanted visitors from the door. For, of course, unwanted visitors there were, by the baker’s dozen; it did not take Kitty long to discover that the bright blade of success was sharply double-edged. Inevitably there were drawbacks. If she were too tired or too busy to give an interview, a critic would damn her as arrogant. If she resisted the too-forceful charms of a young man of flawed reputation, that did not always stop him from speaking of her as if she had not. None of it worried her. She was, in the months that followed, truly happy for perhaps the first time in her life. Success bred in her a confidence that in turn bred further success. Her relationship with her audience – almost the most important thing in her life, certainly the mainspring of her performance, improved with each passing day. It was for them she worked, to them she dedicated every effort, and they instinctively knew it, and they loved her for it. She gave them unstintingly of herself, and in return they strengthened and stimulated her. She added to her repertoire – Bertie, who suffered unrequited love for Carrie, the costermonger’s daughter, came into being, together with a dashing cavalryman, Stacey by name, who strode the stage in gallant scarlet and was the scourge of the Frenchies and the darling of the ladies.
‘Do you think I’ll ever get to wear a dress in public again?’ she asked Pol one day, half-laughing. ‘I’m afraid if I walked onto the stage in a gown no one would recognize me!’
The weeks and the months sped by. She signed a short-term contract with Patrick Kenny, but not until after she had had a few sharp words to say about the man’s infuriating tendency to confer not with her but with Luke – a tendency that Kitty knew to be not the least discouraged by Luke himself. It caused the first real discord between them for some time, and the air did not clear for days, due mainly to the fact that, once temper had slipped the curb on Kitty’s tongue, she as always found it impossible to hold back, and what had started as fairly reasoned argument soon deteriorated to passionate quarrelling.
‘You don’t own me, Luke! Stop trying to run my life!’
He was as angry as she. ‘You’d have done well without me, I suppose?’
‘I didn’t ask for anything! You can’t say I did! What you did, you did – for God knows what reasons of your own. Am I supposed to pay for that for the rest of my life with my freedom?’
‘Is that what you think? Is it?’
‘What else is there for me to think? You treat me like a child! – Get on the stage, Kitty, and sing to the nice people – don’t worry your pretty little head – I’ll manage all the grown-up things.’
‘You sound very grown-up at the moment, I must say!’
‘Luke – you have to understand! I want some say in what I do, in what I am. That isn’t too much to ask, surely? You and Barton might have created the Dipper – but you didn’t create me! It’s bad enough that Pat Kenny and people like that appalling little D’Arcy man think they can run me~;~ to have you doing it too is just too much! How do you think I felt when Pat told me you’d already virtually negotiated that contract without once consulting me? Two inches high, that’s how! And I won’t have it!’
‘I didn’t think you’d want to be bothered with such details.’
‘Well, think again! And stop interfering!’
She knew she had gone too far. She did not see him for days. Three evenings running she allowed herself to be escorted by surprised and delighted young Johnnies to the smartest restaurants in the West End. Hoping to see him. Hoping, more to the point, that he would see her. See that she didn’t care. On the fourth, alone, she finished up as she had always known she would in the dusty porch of St Bartholomew’s, tugging nervously at the bell-rope that hung in the corner.
‘Well, well. The prodigal returns. Where’s the sackcloth and ashes?’
Miserably she pulled a face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.’
He eyed her with frank and exasperated amusement. ‘Don’t tell such fibs. Of course you did.’ Strong arms, warm mouth, lean body that fed her hunger and slaked her thirst. They made love in the firelight and then again in the dawn, and all was well.
Until the next time.
One aspect of her new life brought her nothing but pleasure. She, who had never in her life owned more than two dresses at the same time and never one that might be described as fashionable, now discovered that it was positively expected of her that she should invest in a wardrobe as varied and fashionable as possible. The full crinoline, that had never really suited her, was now evolving into the elegant bustle – a style very well suited to Kitty, with her long legs and narrow hips, though her lack of curves and strong-boned face still kept her, she was the first to admit, from being regarded as a popular beauty. From light-hearted, modish, Second-Empire Paris a foam of frills and flounces were imported. Wisely she resisted them, refusing to be forced into styles that she knew did not suit her – and in another area of her life her confidence grew again as she learned to take decisions and stick to them.
In the early spring of 1866, Lottie was delivered, full term, of a child, a little girl that she named Poppy. Pol, who despite Lottie’s earlier coldness to her had never lost her affection for the other girl, was there to help both before and during the difficult birth, and for her friend’s sake if not for her own Kitty was happy at the reconciliation. Pol it was who told her of Moses Smith’s unlikely delight in the unexpected role of father.
‘Anyone’d think the thing’d never bin done before. Mind you, she’s a pretty little thing, the kid. Accordin’ ter Lottie Moses is talkin’ of makin’ it legal. Mind you – pigs might fly – needless ter say ’e ’asn’t named a day!’
But – astonishingly – he did. With that odd quirk of respectability that so often resides in the least respectable of souls, Moses Smith decided to make an honest woman of the mother of his child – and so it was that in midsummer of that year, with two great countries of Europe, Austria and Prussia, on the brink of war, with the telegraph cable that was to link Britain to the United States nearing completion and with the music halls of London gaining in popularity every day, Kitty found herself back at Smith’s Song and Supper Rooms celebrating the most improbable wedding of the year.
She pondered, that afternoon, as she watched the festivities, on the strange and timeless magic of such occasions.
Animosity and resentment seemed for the moment forgotten – Moses had greeted her, beaming, as if no sharp word had ever passed between them, though Lottie had not spoken to her. Hardship and deprivation, the fear of the law and its punishments that more usually haunted these streets had given way for the time being to celebration. As the bride, looking more beautiful than Kitty had ever seen her in a dress of cobweb lace sewn with tiny pearls, and her fat, perspiring husband were escorted through the cobbled streets and lanes from the church, the world and his wife turned out to greet them. On every street corner barrels of ale and of porter had been set out. Men, women and children staggered happily as they called down the blessings of heaven on the happy couple. Flower petals and tiny scraps of coloured paper made a colourful blizzard in the stinking alley of Blind Lane. Moses beamed, a father to his people, his malice stored in darkness for the day. His bride, pale and beautiful, looked at Luke Peveral with a defiance in her eyes that no one noticed but Kitty.
The Rooms were packed. For a while Kitty found herself an embarrassing centre of attention – not a soul there but had heard of her success and wished to assure her that never a doubt had there been as to its certainty. When she realized that through no fault of her own she was causing almost as much stir as the bride and groom she hastily disengaged herself from the crowd and tried to shrink into the relative obscurity of a darkened corner. Over the heads of the crowd the bride’s eyes met hers, cool and expressionless, and she knew that nothing, whether real or imagined, had been forgotten or forgiven.
It did not, of course, take long for the party to become predictably riotous. Kitty, seated at a table beside Luke with Pol and Barton Wesley, winced at a rendering of Polly Perkins so off-key as to be painful, but bearing in mind the bride’s already intemperate hostility declined to improve on it herself. A space was cleared on the floor for dancing, and the pint mugs of porter began to line up on the piano and the pianist got into the swing of the celebrations. Nearer at hand, Barton was already at that happy stage of inebriation that had stilled his usually rapid tongue and put a picturesquely silly smile more or less permanently on his face.
Pol leaned towards him. ‘Nice do, ain’t it?’
‘It certainly is.’ The words were more than a little blurred at the edges.
‘Married,’ she said, thoughtfully. ‘’Oo’d ‘a’ thought it?’
Barton shook his head sagely, still grinning like an idiot.
Kitty, knowing Pol, was watching and listening, stifling laughter.
Pol sighed. ‘Nice idea, ain’t it – marriage? Sort of – romantic?’
A spark of panic had appeared in the little man’s eyes. ‘Sort of permanent, too,’ he managed, remarkably soberly.
Pol leaned closer, took his hand in hers, turned it over as if to read his palm. ‘Aw, Bart – just think. ’Ome an’ ’earth. Kids. Slippers by the fire.’
He was staring at her, owlishly appalled. ‘W-would you like another drink?’
Straight-faced, she leaned back in her chair, reaching for her empty glass. ‘Not half. I thought you’d never ask.’
As Barton pushed his way into the crowd Kitty laughed. ‘You shouldn’t tease him so.’
‘Why not? Does ’im good. An’ one o’ these days I’ll get ’im so pissed ’e’ll propose, you see if I don’t.’
‘Kit! Kitty, moi owd gal! There you are! I’ve been looking all over the place.’ Matt swooped upon Kitty, caught her hand. ‘I’m going to dance with my famous sister. Don’t mind, do you, Guv’nor? – come on, Kit - let’s show them how it’s done—’
It was deliberate, she knew – dancing and breathless she could not ask awkward questions of him. She had not seen much of him in the past months, but rumours had reached her – rumours that she prayed had not reached Moses – that he still courted his Sally-Anne, despite – or perhaps, she thought, knowing him, because of – the obstacles. ‘How are you?’ she shouted, above the music.
‘Fine.’
‘Keeping out of trouble?’
‘Trouble? Me?’ He swooped her into his arms, whirled her around the floor. ‘Don’t know the meaning of the word.’
When she returned to the table Luke stood a little way off, talking earnestly to Spider. Barton snored, his head pillowed uncomfortably upon the table. Pol nursed Poppy, a tiny, delicately beautiful child, murmuring to her softly, protecting her from the crush about them.
Kitty parted the shawl that covered the child’s face and looked at the perfect, doll-like features. ‘She’s lovely.’
‘She is that. ’Ow’s Matt?’
‘Same as ever.’ Kitty offered a finger to the tiny, grasping hand. ‘Oh, Pol – I do hope it isn’t true he’s still seeing that girl – he’s storing up such trouble for himself – and still he won’t listen, still he won’t come. It’s like – it’s like talking to a stranger—’
Barton mumbled and moved. His arm slipped, dangling, from the table.
‘Oh, blimey, just look at ’im. ’Ere – Kit, ’old the baby fer a minute, would yer? I’d better straighten ’im up before ’e does ’imself a mischief.’
Kitty received the warm little bundle, settled the child safely in her arms. Someone had staggered onto the stage and was roaring a drunken and riotously obscene song. Pol heaved at Barton’s slight, utterly unconscious body. Kitty bent to the child, adjusted the shawl about the tiny, flower-like face then, some sixth sense warning her, she glanced up to find Luke standing across the table from her, eyes and face totally inscrutable as he watched her. Oddly, a faint, uncertain pulse, something like a flutter of fear, began to beat in her throat. Hastily she leaned towards Pol. ‘Here, you’d better take her—’ and she handed the child back.
Someone had struck up an energetic polka on the piano. She stood up briskly, holding out her hand to Luke. ‘Let’s dance?’
They went back to his room long before the celebrations, that looked set to continue into the following day, had even begun to wane. They walked the narrow streets that were still littered with the detritus of the day, clambered precariously across the wooden plank and walked the canyoned alleys down which Kitty had fled in panic that day so many months before, to the church. Behind them flitted the watching shadow that was Spider.
‘Where does he live?’ Kitty asked, in curiosity. ‘Where does he sleep?’
Luke shrugged. ‘He has places.’
‘But – no home?’
Luke shrugged.
‘But – that’s a pretty awful life, isn’t it?’
‘It’s what he wants. I’ve tried to change him. He won’t listen. He’s doing what he wants to do.’
‘Looking after you.’
‘I suppose so; yes.’
‘Why?’ There was real curiosity in her sideways glance.
‘I saved his life once. He thinks he owes it to me.’
‘It’s more than that,’ she said, positively.
He turned her into his arms, kissed her. She closed her eyes and snuggled to him. She was pleasantly light-headed from the wine she had drunk. They strolled on.
‘Someone—’ he mused, ‘was it the Greeks? I can’t remember – someone used to believe that if you saved a person’s life you became responsible for them. They belonged to you – you became’ – he paused – ‘irretrievably entangled.’
They had entered the dark porch. ‘Do you remember the first time you came here?’
She shivered a little. ‘Yes. Of course.’
‘You probably saved my life that night.’
She shook her head. ‘You’d have got away somehow.’
He smiled faintly. ‘Such touching faith, Miss Daniels—’
They slipped into the alcove, started up the stairs. Suddenly then Luke’s hand was an iron grip upon her wrist, his voice a breath in her ear, all mockery gone from it. ‘Wait!’
She saw it too. Above them a faint light filtered into the stairway through the open door.
She sensed rather than saw the finger he put to his lips. Silent as a menacing shadow, he continued up the stairs.
She waited for a tense moment before, unable to remain behind, heart pounding and head suddenly and uncomfortably clear, she followed.
Luke stood like a statue by the door. She looked past him. Sprawled on the rug by the empty fireplace lay the body of a man.
Kitty put a hand to her mouth.
Then she saw the empty bottle that had rolled a little way from the lax, open hand.
Jem O’Connell stirred, snorted, lapsed again into unconsciousness, dead drunk.