Lady Lightfingers

There were about two hundred rats trapped in the enclosure. Not that they’d be missed by the thousands still running loose in the city, Celia Laws thought.

Outside the enclosure several men and a few light-skirts chatted. Not all were slum dwellers; some were toffs, and many were businessmen with side whiskers, cutaway coats, high hats and fancy waistcoats – and in pursuit of certain types of amusement. They had braying laughs, fat wallets and high cravats.

There were women too, dressed in silk, fringes, fancy bows and lace. Hats ranging from demure bonnets to outrageous creations adorned their heads as they sought adventure and amusement amongst the lowest of the low.

The terriers were brought in, blindfolded, but yapping with tension as they smelled the rats. The rags were removed from their eyes and the dogs’ yaps became squeals of bloodlust as they were thrown into the enclosure, where they set to work snapping the necks of their prey.

The rats’ squeaks rose to a high-pitched crescendo as the creatures sensed the fear of the others. They scrambled and piled one on top of the other for safety until a booted foot scattered them into the middle of the ring. Blood ran. Some of the crowd began to shout and yell, counting in unison the number of corpses being tossed aside. Some vomited, adding to the already decomposing street detritus.

Celia felt slightly sick, not at the demise of the rats because there were too many in London to count, and death came swiftly to them, but at the concentration of enjoyment painted on the faces of the watchers. But she was not here to watch rats being slaughtered, she was here to earn a living, she reminded herself.

She made her move. Dressed in her ragged grey cloak, a garment that made her indistinguishable from all the other beggars, her face smeared with dirt so she couldn’t be easily recognized by those who might take coin for reporting her to the authorities, Celia sidled swiftly round the outside of the circle, her fingers dipping lightly into pockets, extracting a watch from a waistcoat, a coin or two from an inside pocket, the metal cold and satiny against her fingertips. A loose ring was slipped from a finger and a purse containing several coins exchanged for a few pebbles wrapped in paper.

There was a young man leaning against the wall watching the proceedings with an amused smile on his face. He seemed to feel her gaze on him, for his eyes, as dark and shining as liquorice, met hers. He smiled, sort of lopsided and bemused, then winked. Celia didn’t stop to admire him because his coat was hanging open and she was hungry, and what might be inside it held more appeal. She closed in on him.

She pretended to trip on a cobble and he automatically reached out to steady her. As smooth as if it were sliding on butter she sent her hand journeying amongst the silk layers of his waistcoat. For a moment his heart beat a lively dance against her palm, then she dipped her fingers inside his pocket and brought out something metal, tucking it into her sleeve.

Celia didn’t linger. Slipping the spoils into the canvas pocket secured inside her skirt at the waist, she walked rapidly away through a rubbish and dung-filled passage to a court similar to the one she’d come from. She began to twist and turn through the maze of passages until she was half a mile from the entertainment she’d just witnessed.

She stopped by a shop to gaze around her and get her bearings, her eyes alert as she scrutinized the crowd. A lad came to look in the shop window. He wore a red kerchief around his neck and his glance was on her reflection.

She’d seen him at the rat pit. He’d marked her and considered her to be easy prey, she thought. She could see the outline of the ned under his jacket, a bag filled with sand. Stuffed in his belt he would use it to stun his victims before he stole from them. There was also a knife in a sheath strapped to his wrist. This lad meant business.

Her blood ran cold. He was dangerous, for he wouldn’t hesitate to use his weapon on his unsuspecting victim, especially one who was too weak to fight back. She wasn’t going to allow him to help himself to the pickings she’d worked for. But though she couldn’t fight him she could outwit him.

Beyond him was the gentleman with the handsome eyes. He lifted his arm when he saw her, and she hunched her shoulders to disguise the small jutting breasts that had grown shortly after her fifteenth birthday. She hated men staring at them.

Better to be safe than sorry. Celia picked up speed, threading in and out of the people, scattering wandering chickens. Pigs and dogs snapped at her heels and a couple of curses followed after her . . . a sound that continued behind her as the lad speeded up. Mingling with a cluster of people, she ducked down a flight of steps. Pausing for just a moment, she turned her cape inside out to reveal the dull green-checked lining.

She didn’t have long to wait. A few seconds later her pursuer ran past, his shabby boots a soft clatter on the spread of dung coating the cobbles. Pulling the hood up over her hair she headed back up and retraced her steps, walking like an old woman and not looking at the gentleman, who didn’t give her a second glance as they passed each other.

She took a look behind her. Of the lad or the gentleman there was no sign now. She picked up speed, heading towards home; though she felt uneasy, as if she were still being observed. Celia was soon tucked out of sight in the basement hovel she shared with her mother and sister.

Their home was one miserable cellar, which was damp with mould in the winter. The ceiling pressed down on them, so her mother had to bow her head if she stood. At the moment, Alice Laws was stitching the seam on a pair of trousers she was making, a garment that would earn her eight pence. If she was diligent and trade was good, the occupation of trouser hand would earn Alice three shillings a week. But she had to buy her own thread and needles, so the pittance didn’t go far enough.

Her mother didn’t talk about it, but Celia knew she earned money in other ways as well, but she never brought men home. Here, her mother had her own sleeping arrangement, a mattress spread on the table.

At the back of the cellar a small and grimy barred window allowed a grey smear of daylight to penetrate. Barely three feet away they had stretched a ragged sheet across on a length of string. Behind that sheet, Celia slept with her sister Lottie. It provided an illusion of privacy.

Her mother didn’t often bring up her past. She spoke, and sometimes acted, as if she hadn’t been brought up to such a life as the one she now led. And indeed, she hadn’t been. She’d been the eldest of three daughters, and had taught in the church school for two mornings a week.

Celia had listened with interest when her mother said of the man who’d fathered her: ‘Jackaby Laws was his name, and I still use it because, as far as I know, I’m still legally married to him, and I have the papers to prove it. He was a charming rogue. It was my father, Richard Price, who brought Jackaby home to dinner.’

Celia loved it when Alice Laws spoke of her past life, which was very different from the one they led now, but something Celia aspired to.

‘Jackaby was a theatre impresario looking for investors. We married and came to London, staying in a fancy hotel while he did business. The show didn’t eventuate. A month later Jackaby left for America to seek his fortune. He took my money with him, but left me you to remember him by, and a note to say I was to go home to my father, and he’d join me when he’d made his fortune.’

‘I stole out of the hotel at midnight and made my way back home. My father was a broken man when I told him. He’d invested heavily, you see, and although he didn’t tell anyone lest he look like a fool, it got out because Jackaby had persuaded father’s friends to invest too.

‘When Jackaby didn’t return for me, my father was convinced that his good name was ruined. And indeed, the family was no longer welcome at the local social gatherings. He needed someone to blame, and although he didn’t turn me from his door, he sent me to be a companion to his cousin in Scotland.’

‘That’s where you were born. We lived there for five years, with father supporting us, until his cousin died. I’d hardly got back home when my father followed her into the grave. My stepmother accused me of bringing about his death, and used it as an excuse to turn us out of the house.’

‘Harriet and Jane?’ Her mother had given a slight shrug. ‘They were young, and in no position to argue against her authority. Though Harriet pleaded with her mother to allow us to stay, she wouldn’t hear of it. I haven’t seen any of them since the week following my father’s funeral. What my father had left went to his wife. I was given the coach fare to London and twenty pounds, and advised not to go back to Hanbury Cross again.’

‘That’s not fair,’ she said hotly. ‘It wasn’t your fault that Jackaby Laws turned out to be a liar and a trickster. You were as much a victim as they were. One day I’m going to hunt the man down and do the same to him. I’ll trick him out of everything he’s got, and see if he likes it. And I’m going to find those sisters of yours too, and give them a piece of my mind.’

‘Don’t be so passionate, Celia. Jackaby was a bad money manager, that’s all. As for my sisters . . . let sleeping dogs lie. It wasn’t their fault. They were young and they didn’t have much say in the matter. It’s not worth getting angry over after all this time. Just know that your life can be different if you work at it. There’s a world outside London where it’s clean and green and the air is sweet. Now, fetch your slate and the dictionary and get on with your lesson. As soon as you’ve copied down every word in it, learned to spell them, and can understand the meaning of them, I’m going to buy you a book.’

‘It’s a small piece of land surrounded by sea, usually unpopulated. The air is fresh there and the palm trees provide shade when it’s hot. There, you can walk for a whole day without meeting anyone else and not be frightened by anything, except for a snake perhaps, or a coconut falling from a palm tree on to your head.’

A smile inched along Alice’s lips when she saw how absorbed by the thought of it her daughter was. ‘Dorset doesn’t have any palm trees with coconuts as I recall. Compared to London, it’s like the Garden of Eden, though. You’ll be able to read about such places if you work at it.’

Over time Celia copied all the words in the dictionary, and in doing so learned to read and write . . . but it had taken a long time. By that time, she realized that any money they earned was needed to feed and shelter them, and Robinson Crusoe would have to wait. Celia could read well when she came across any printed material, and she could write with a neat hand, make up her own stories and poems, and do her numbers.

Alice Laws bit through the cotton thread and glanced at Celia now, managing a weary smile. ‘I’m glad you’re home,’ she said. ‘You’re breathing fast. Have you been hurrying?’

‘There are too many beggars out there already. I’m fifteen, and getting too big to beg. The toffs like the younger children. I should take Lottie with me. With her curls and sweet smile she’d do well. All I get now is lewd suggestions.’

Celia didn’t, but if there was a way out of life in the London slums, where everyone seemed to prey on everyone else, she had yet to discover the secret. ‘I’ll be careful. Just take a look at that watch. It’s real gold,’ she said proudly, and examined the house key hanging from the chain.

She’d taken it from a well-fed-looking gentleman who she’d seen in the district many times before. He’d been totally distracted by the entertainment, tearing his eyes away only to write notes and make sketches in a notebook. She’d seen him coming out of the print shop on several occasions before. Celia was curious about what he put in his notebook, and why he was doing it, and was surprised that his watch hadn’t been lifted before.

‘How do you expect me to sell that without arousing suspicion? It’s got a name etched on it. Thomas Hambert. Besides, I didn’t bring you up to be a thief. Dipping becomes a habit.’

‘I’ll give the watch back to him, and tell him to keep a better eye on it next time.’ She didn’t tell her mother about the card case she’d taken from the young toff. He’d been too quick to alert himself to what was going on, and might come looking for her.

‘Don’t worry, I was just teasing. If I can take it from his pocket I can just as easily put it back in again. Or I can follow him home and hand it to a servant. I’ll tell him that I found it. He might offer me a reward.’ She giggled at the thought. ‘It’s just a game, Ma.’

Celia drew her mother’s attention away from the watch as she handed over a fat coin purse. ‘Here’s some money for you.’

‘It was my lucky day. I was reciting poetry and a drunken man gave it to me. “Keep it,” says he when I went to hand it back. “I won’t need it where I’m going.” Where’s that, sir? I asked him, all polite and ladylike. “To hell, my little beauty . . . hell is where I’m going,” says he. “You can join me if that’s your fancy.”’

Her mother managed a small smile as she cut through Celia’s embellishment of the situation. Celia had been prone to melodrama when they’d travelled the country fairs for a short time with the Wentworth Players. Her daughter had enjoyed watching the actors and had been influenced by their play-acting. Sometimes she’d been given children’s roles to play. Alice herself had been employed playing small roles, and making and repairing costumes, but Mrs Wentworth had accused her husband of flirting with Alice, and had dismissed her.

Celia modified her earlier lie. ‘It dropped from someone’s pocket when he gave me thruppence, and I put my foot on it. He was as drunk as a lord and said I could have it for my trouble. It was a good poem, worth every penny, and one that took me a whole week to learn – the one Lord Byron wrote about walking in beauty. The toff said it reminded him of his true love, who he was parted from, and so did I. Then he tried to kiss me.’

‘You didn’t fall for that man-talk, did you?’ her mother said, her anxiety all too apparent. ‘You’re old enough to know about men and their ways, and don’t need to gain experience the hard way, like I did. Get the ring on your finger first, and make sure he’s an honest man. Women are easily duped.’

Celia did know about men. In this part of London you learned quickly if you wanted to survive – and she did intend to do that. She knew what her mother had to do on occasion to keep food on the table, and how much she hated it. Celia was learning other skills of survival, but they didn’t include accommodating the appetites of men.

She snorted. ‘Do donkeys fly? There were others waiting to relieve him of the purse if I hadn’t planted my foot on it. That’s why I was marked myself, I reckon.’

Celia grinned. Her explanation had been accepted. She must have inherited her father’s skill where lying was concerned. Or perhaps her mother chose to believe her because they were in need.

Her smile faded as a second thought intruded. Watch out, Jackaby Laws, I’m only fifteen at the moment but I’ll soon be grown-up. If I ever run into you I’ll find some way to relieve you of the money you took from my mother and grandfather. When I do, my mother will be able to hold her head up again and so will her children.

Lottie called out and her mother sighed. ‘Look after her, Celia. I’ll go out and buy some milk and bread, and some pies and fruit. We’ll eat like princesses tonight.’

‘You can’t miss him; he’s wearing a red kerchief, and there’s a ned in his belt. I haven’t seen him round here before, and I spotted him easily. What about the watch? Shall I try and sell it?’

‘You must find some way of giving it back to the gentleman, but don’t get caught, Celia. I couldn’t bear it if you were put in prison or transported to the other side of the world and I never saw you again. And get rid of that ring at the same time. It’s too noticeable.’

It was a pretty trinket with a green stone in the middle, surrounded by small, creamy pearls. It fitted her middle finger perfectly.

Lottie came in and climbed on to her lap, her eyes widening when the watch began to chime. Celia held it to Lottie’s ear. She was three years old, and she had light-blue eyes and soft, brown, curly hair, the same as Alice, so she looked as though she belonged to them. Celia had darker eyes. Cornflower blue.

Celia could remember cornflowers in the fields when they’d toured with the Wentworth Players. She resembled her father, her mother had told her. His eyes had been the same colour, as was his hair – dark brown, almost black. Not that Celia had ever met him. He didn’t even know of her existence – not yet! But one day she’d find him, even if it took the rest of her life.

As for Lottie’s parentage, it was a mystery. Her mother had found her as a newborn baby, abandoned amongst the rubbish on the riverbank. She’d been left for the tide to carry away, something that was a common practice. She’d probably been born there and left where she was dropped.

At first, Alice had intended to ignore the child, but her thin little cry as the cold and dirty water began to lick at her naked body had touched her, and Celia had begged her mother to save the baby’s life. They’d called her Charlotte, quickly shortened to Lottie, and thus Celia had gained a sister.

They’d lived in a real house then, the room and board paid for by her mother’s efforts at housekeeping. Another child in his home, especially one that cried at night, was too much for the owner to bear, and he’d sent them packing.

They’d gone downhill. Nobody would employ her mother and she sent Celia begging. But Celia couldn’t earn enough to keep them all.

They’d been lucky and had found the cellar that they’d called home for the past three years. But it was a struggle to pay the rent and buy food. Now, when it seemed that they couldn’t go any lower, her mother seemed resigned to her lot in life.

Life wasn’t fair sometimes, Celia thought, kissing her sister’s soft curls. But she had no intention of trying to earn an honest living by sewing seams in trousers or being a housemaid and a dollymop on the side.

Celia learned things easily, and she didn’t intend to stay. When she was old enough she would leave this place. Using her wits, lying, stealing, dramatics, begging – or even marriage to a rich man – she’d be the very best at what she did, and she’d look after her family while she was doing it.

Her gaze went to the watch. She was tempted to keep it, but just as she thought she might, Lottie’s exploring fingers found a hidden catch and the back sprang open. Celia laughed when Lottie’s eyes rounded with surprise and she clapped her hands. Revealed was a small sketch of a child’s face surrounded by a wreath. RIP Celia Jane Hambert it said on the back, and there was an address.

The man had lost a child he loved and he carried a memorial of her around with him. Odd that they bore the same name. Celia didn’t believe in signs . . . until now. It was as if the ghost of the girl was whispering to her, asking to be taken back to the father who loved her. She must take the timepiece back; if she didn’t something bad would happen to her.

Her fingers touched against the dangling door key. She had the address and she had a way in. There was bound to be cash at the house and she could leave the watch and help herself to the reward at the same time. All she had to do was watch and wait, and seize her chance.