A Very Unusual Pursuit (6 page)
‘Why, whatever’s the matter with you?’ Emma stared at Birdie, who was flushed and panting, with a distraught expression plastered all over her face. ‘You got a fever?’
‘I didn’t have nothing to do with it, Emma! It were them lads as took it!’ Birdie thrust the lace collar under Emma’s nose. ‘And now I’m bringing it back!’
‘Why? What’s wrong with it?’ the slop-seller asked.
Birdie’s jaw dropped.
‘Did Jem give it to
you
?’ Emma went on, with a twinkle in her eye. ‘He’s proper smitten, that lad.’
‘Y-you mean – you mean – he bought it?’ Birdie stammered.
‘
And
beat me down on the price. But I’ll not hold it against him.’ Leaning down, Emma put her mouth to Birdie’s ear. ‘You should take it, love, in all good conscience. Don’t turn up yer nose at a gift o’ the heart. Them tokens’ll stop coming to you soon enough! And Jem Barbary’s got the makings, beneath all his bluster . . .’
As she talked, Emma gently guided the scrap of lace back into Birdie’s basket. Birdie, meanwhile, stood stiff and mute, so angry that she could hardly breathe. She felt like hitting someone. But mixed in with the anger was a kernel of fear. Could Sarah Pickles really be so desperate to recruit her? Had Sarah’s three missing pickpockets left a gap so large that she was willing to use a thinly veiled threat to secure Birdie’s services – even at the risk of offending Alfred?
I can’t tell Mr Bunce,
she thought, on her way past a coal-merchant’s shop.
He’ll give Sarah what for, and then she’ll get back at him secretly. She’ll do worse’n plant stolen goods on him . . .
Not that the collar
was
stolen. But it could have been; that was the point. Sarah’s warning was clear enough. She was saying that she could force Birdie to thieve for her. A well-placed scrap of silk, planted by a deft hand, could put Birdie in danger of arrest – even imprisonment – unless Sarah stepped in to help.
I’ll have to be on me guard,
Birdie decided.
I’ll have to make sure she don’t take advantage of me
or
Mr Bunce. I’ve faced down bogles; I can deal with an old toad like Sal. Why, if it comes to that, I’ll tell police she killed her missing boys!
Turning into her own street, Birdie paused for an instant, scanning every shadow for a trace of Jem or Charlie. Though she couldn’t see them, that didn’t mean they weren’t out there, watching her.
Just in case they were, she tossed the lace collar into a puddle of mud and marched away with her chin in the air.
A dozen young scavengers worked regularly around the coal wharf at Shadwell. From the banks of the River Thames they picked up iron, coal and copper, wood and canvas, old lengths of rope and lumps of fat. Sometimes they found coins or antiquities. If they were lucky, their labours earned them a shilling a day. Each.
Even after pooling their funds, they hadn’t been able to collect more than four shillings to pay Alfred for killing the sewer-bogle that appeared to be stalking mudlarks along the river flats. Luckily, Bill Crabbe, the tosher, had come to their rescue. Bill had seen the sewer-bogle. Though he’d caught only a glimpse of it, he was keen to make sure that he didn’t see it again.
‘Ah’ve three children work the sewers, and didn’t raise ’em to fill the belly of no grindylow,’ he told Alfred, as they stood gazing down at the river. ‘So ah went to t’other toshers hereabouts, and we stumped up half a crown between us. For there’ll be no peace without this thing is nobbled – and right quick, besides.’
Bill was a small man, very thin and yellow, with a bad cough. Despite the heat of the day, he was well wrapped in a tattered oilskin coat over a wool vest and flannel shirt. He had met Alfred and Birdie at a well-known riverside public house, and from there had guided them to the site of ‘the little lad’s doom’, as he called it. This was a patch of mud near the very end of Wapping High Street. It was a strange place, busy yet desolate, flanked by a wall of warehouses on one side and a forest of ships’ masts on the other. Empty boats littered the mud flats, which smelled very bad in the summer sun. Toiling among the jetties were men too preoccupied to notice a small knot of idlers who were nodding and pointing at the mouth of a nearby drain.
This drain was a perfect bolthole. It lurked behind a barricade of casks, barges, broken crates and coils of rope. There was enough foot traffic to guarantee a steady supply of food, yet all the business of the riverbank would serve to distract people in the immediate neighbourhood. Frightened screams would be masked by the cries of coal whippers and ballast heavers. Brief scuffles would be concealed by overturned keels or piles of fishing nets.
Birdie shuddered as she peered at the rank, boggy, cluttered stretch of riverbank. ‘That’s a sad spot to meet yer end,’ she observed to the boy standing beside her, who nodded, but said nothing. His name was Ned Roach. Having been entrusted with the mudlarks’ share of Alfred’s fee, he had tagged along with Bill Crabbe to make sure the money didn’t go to waste. Birdie wasn’t quite sure what to make of Ned. She thought he was probably about eleven. Though plastered with filth and missing a couple of teeth, he was pleasant enough to look at, with his sturdy build and springy brown hair. But he didn’t have much to say for himself. At first Birdie had wondered if he was deaf and dumb – or just stupid. Only after he had corrected one of Bill’s statements about the afternoon tides did she realise that he wasn’t stupid at all.
He was either afraid of boglers or suspicious of them.
‘Did you know the two missing lads?’ she asked him, keeping one eye cocked for Miss Eames.
He answered with a nod.
‘What names did they go by?’
‘Dick. And Herbert.’ All at once Ned frowned. Following his gaze, Birdie saw that Bill was making his way down to the mudflats, using a short flight of stone stairs.
Alfred was following him.
‘Them two’ll come to no harm,’ Birdie assured Ned, ‘but don’t
you
go after ’em, else you might get ate.’ She smiled up at him reassuringly, and was surprised when he coloured. ‘Did you ever see this bogle yerself?’ she queried.
‘No.’
‘Well, I seen plenty, but not one that ever got away. Mr Bunce knows what he’s about.’ As Ned moved forward to the edge of the quayside, she added, ‘Mind, now. If you get too close, you’ll spring the trap afore it’s set.’
She was about to say more when she heard the strains of a distant chorus, chanted by rough voices in a mocking tone. ‘
Abroad I was walking, one morning in the spring, and heard a maid in Bedlam, so sweetly she did sing . . .
’ Convinced that this noise meant trouble for somebody, Birdie spun around and spied the singers almost at once. They were half a dozen coarse-looking youths who seemed to be following a madwoman down the street, towards the river. Two of the men had porter’s knots tied to their shoulders, suggesting that they had just set down a load of wool, or coal, or coffee. Two of them looked like sailors, and two like off-duty pickpockets. Together they lurched along in a jeering cluster, past tumbledown shoe-marts and sailmakers’ shops, trying to tread on the skirts of the woman who stumbled along just ahead of them.
‘
Her chains she rattled with her hands, and thus replied she – I love my love because I know he first loved me-e-e . . .’
It took Birdie a few seconds to recognise Miss Eames, who was dressed in such a motley collection of clothes that she really
did
look as if she’d just emerged from a madhouse like Bedlam. Because her skirt was much too big for her, Miss Eames kept tripping on its hem. Her wide, old-fashioned sleeves were flapping like wings – and they seemed not to belong to the main body of her jacket, since they weren’t the same shade of purple. Her straw hat, which sprouted a clutch of mismatched feathers, had the squashed appearance of something recently peeled off a busy road.
Birdie stood for a moment, rooted to the spot, with her mouth hanging open. But then one of the sailors darted forward to tug at the veil that dangled from Miss Eames’s hat.
‘
Oi! You leave her be!
’ Enraged, Birdie rushed to defend the poor lady, dodging a bemused customs-house officer who had stopped to stare at the loud and drunken gang cluttering up the street.
‘
My cruel parents are being too unkind; they drive and punish me and trouble my mind . . .
’ ‘Oh, Birdie,’ Miss Eames whimpered. Everything about her was dishevelled; her clothes, her hair, the contents of her basket. ‘They’ve been following me and I don’t know why . . .’
‘Well, they’ll follow you no further!’ Stepping between Miss Eames and the gang, Birdie put her hands on her hips and cried, ‘All o’ you, go back to yer mumping and yer shirking and let us honest citizens alone!’
‘Oh-ho!’ The largest porter peered down at Birdie, swaying a little, as the song sputtered and died around him. ‘What’s this? Another lunatic?’
‘You’d best turn tail or you’ll be sorry!’ When a burst of raucous laughter greeted this warning, Birdie went on to announce, ‘I’m ’prenticed to a Go-Devil man, and he’s down there now, on the water! With his bag on his back!’
The two sailors immediately crossed themselves, retreating a few steps. The most sinister-looking member of the gang muttered a curse and slunk away. Only a couple of faces didn’t fall. They belonged to a very large porter with an oversized head and a very drunk lout in a blue neckerchief, who was having a hard time keeping his balance.
‘A Go-Devil man?’ the porter brayed. ‘Then bring him here, and I’ll tell ’im to go to the devil!’
‘Hsst.’ His cannier friend prodded him in the ribs.
‘Careful, matey. Ain’t no sense in turning one o’
them
coves against ’ee.’
‘Or he’ll open his sack!’ Birdie threatened. Then she turned on her heel and grabbed Miss Eames, who was hovering nearby, looking dumbfounded.
Ned was also within easy reach. It pleased Birdie that he had followed her. ‘Ain’t one o’ them lags worth fretting over,’ she informed him, as she led Miss Eames to safety. ‘But thanks for standing by me, Ned. I’ll not forget it.’
Ned flushed again. He flicked a doubtful glance at Miss Eames, who said, ‘Oh, Birdie! I’m so sorry! But I assure you, I never uttered a
word
—’
‘You didn’t have to. Them clothes was all it took.’ Studying the crumpled brim of Miss Eames’s hat, Birdie had to suppress a smile. ‘Why’d you dress so glocky, miss? You look like a halfwit.’
Startled, Miss Eames peered down at herself. ‘I was assured that this ensemble would pass muster in the lowest dens,’ she faltered.
‘The lowest dens of Bedlam, perhaps!’ Birdie gave a snort. ‘Whoever told you that was a dirty liar.’
‘It was a Houndsditch woman,’ Miss Eames confessed. ‘A dealer in old clothes.’
‘Well, miss, it seems like you was the answer to all her prayers,’ said Birdie. ‘I’ll lay you a shilling that she sold you all the slops she couldn’t unload – and charged you double for ’em.’ Stopping abruptly at the edge of the wharf, Birdie added, ‘But don’t fret. Ain’t no one’ll trouble you, now you’re with a bogler’s girl.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Miss Eames was dabbing at her flushed face with a cotton handkerchief. ‘How dreadful this is! And how sorry I am! You shouldn’t be called upon to defend
any
one; not at your age. It shouldn’t have happened. Forgive me.’
Birdie shrugged. Then she pointed at Alfred, who was down on the mudflats, in front of the drain. ‘There’s Mr Bunce,’ she said, ‘and that’s the bogle’s lair. You can watch from up here, until Mr Bunce tells you different.’ Glancing at Ned, she explained, ‘If there’s too much bustle and chatter, the bogle won’t come.’
‘But what is Mr Bunce
doing
?’ Miss Eames demanded. Ned was also looking puzzled, and even Birdie had to think for a moment when she saw that Alfred was arranging long strips of rag on the ground.
‘It’s for the salt,’ she finally declared. ‘So it’ll not get wet from all that mud.’
‘The salt?’ echoed Miss Eames.
‘Mr Bunce always draws a circle of salt,’ said Birdie. ‘To trap the bogle in.’
‘Like a pentagram, you mean?’ Miss Eames began to rifle through the contents of her basket as Birdie frowned, unable to answer because she didn’t know what a ‘pentagram’ was. ‘Or perhaps an evocation circle,’ Miss Eames continued. ‘Like those used in demonic summoning. Can Mr Bunce read, by any chance?’
‘No.’
‘I thought not. And yet he is using techniques derived from ancient texts! How
very
interesting!’ By this time Miss Eames had extracted a book and pencil from the clutter in her basket. She pushed the basket’s handle up over her elbow and began to take notes. ‘What else does he use, dear? Herbs?’
‘No.’
‘Holy water?’
‘A little,’ Birdie said reluctantly. She didn’t know if Alfred wanted her spilling all his secrets.
‘Does he bathe beforehand?’ Seeing Birdie blink, Miss Eames hastily elaborated. ‘It needn’t be in water. He might use sweet oil, perhaps. Or smoke.’
‘
Smoke?
’ For the first time, Ned spoke up without prompting. He was staring at Miss Eames as if he’d decided that she really
was
a madwoman.
‘Mr Bunce don’t hold with baths,’ Birdie said. She was about to remark that oil was better if burned or eaten when Alfred whistled softly.
It was the signal that she had been waiting for.
‘I’m wanted,’ she informed Miss Eames. ‘You’d best stay here.’
‘Oh, but . . .’ For a moment Miss Eames was lost for words. Then she rallied again. ‘It is so very
unwhole
some
in that quagmire. Can Mr Bunce not manage on his own?’
‘Of course not!’ Birdie almost grinned at the thought.
‘Can you swim, though? How thick are your shoes?’ Miss Eames kept up her barrage of objections, though she spoke in an undertone. ‘Look at all the sharp objects sticking out of the mud! What if you impale yourself on one of them?’ Hearing Birdie laugh, Miss Eames spluttered, ‘I’m sure that Mr Bunce is quite capable of making all the necessary preparations, Birdie!’
‘Yes. He is,’ Birdie agreed. ‘But he can’t bait the trap.’
