Lawless and The Devil of Euston Square (43 page)

“Kensington.”

“We’d be most happy to give you a lift.”

I glanced around sharply, afraid there was someone else in the shadows. But it was the royal plural she was using. “Thank you, ma’am. I am expected at the Exhibition.”

“Business or pleasure?” she smiled.

“A little of each.”

She nodded. Leaning out the window, she yelled in a different voice entirely, one that would not have been out of place at Chapel Street Market. “Oi, Foskins. Up the Exhibition, but don’t shift your tired arse too quick. I want a word with the charpering homie.”

The carriage pulled smoothly away along Whitehall.

“Please to excuse my yelling, officer,” she said, returning to the refined tones she must have learnt from Groggins. “Only Foskins, being half deaf, is liable otherwise to get hisself horrible confused.”

“Nellie,” I whispered, fascinated. “Is it yourself?”

“You seem shocked, officer.” She made a face. “Am I such a monster?”

I opened my mouth but could find no reply. I had the agreeable sensation that she was playing with me, but my overwhelming feeling was relief. “I am glad to meet you, Miss–”

“Call me Nellie,” she laughed. “Everyone does.”

“Nellie,” I sighed. “It’s such a long time I’ve been looking for you.”

“Looking for me?” she said, a breathlessness in her voice. But perhaps she always spoke that way, as if what you had said had thrilled her. Or, even better, as if she expected the next thing you would say would thrill her. “What’s so fascinating about me?”

I wanted to hear her version of the story, right from at the beginning. Of the glorious East End romance that Groggins had described. Of their ascent into society, as related by Kate Dickens. Of how Bertie shattered it all. I began at the end. “I’m afraid of what Berwick may do.”

She clucked at me ironically. “What, start a revolution?”

“Is that what he wants?”

“That’s what he always wanted, even before he met them reformist types. He was a bright one, you know, for all his generosity. I knew that the day I met him. We’re a good match, I told him. We could go a long way on my looks and your brains. We could have a house in Brighton.”

“But he didn’t want that?”

“He wanted me to live underground with stinking sewer children. He talked about revolutions. I said, there ain’t never going to be a revolution in England, Berwick. Already has been, Nell, says he. First I heard about it, says I. That’s just it, Nell. They don’t want you to know in case we wants another one to divvy up the riches fair and square. Don’t be a fool, I says. Why do you want to go sharing it out? There’s never enough to go round. We all want as big a share of the cake as we can get, and who can blame us? I told him, you want to stop worrying about the troubles of the world and think a little more of your nearest and dearest. Where’s the fun in being rich if every Tom, Dick and Harry is as well?” She stared out the window, as if troubled by the memory.

I sat in silence. What she said was reasonable enough. Yet it tarnished her radiance.

“We went far enough. Me showing a leg and him meeting clever folk. Always his head in a book, that one. Said how his father made it out of the gutter that way, though he didn’t talk so much about how he drank hisself back into it.”

“You knew the family?”

“The old man was long gone when we started stepping out, and the old bag wouldn’t have me, not distinguishing treading the boards from whoring. Maybe that’s how things are in France. I’ve acted for this country’s finest, I have. I’ve met the Prime Minister, and the Queen.” She broke off, aware that she was entering dangerous ground. “That’s the truth, not like the tall tales she’ll tell you of her husband.”

“Do you still see him?”

She glared at me, then her look softened. “Berwick, you mean? I thought you was talking about Bertie. Cheek of it, I thought, when it’s your lot that have soured my name with him. Ruined it all.” She eyed me darkly. “You think I’m a fool. I can see you do. That a prince would never court a girl like me, even now that I talk proper.”

“No, Nellie,” I said, “I can see why a prince would court you.”

“Think what you like,” she shrugged. “You didn’t see how he wooed me. He nearly wet hisself when we met after
The Frozen Deep
. Courted me proper, he did. Promised to take me off the stage and look after me. Private box at the Evans. At Roxy’s country pile. Riding out down Cremorne Gardens.” She cradled the words with such pleasure, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Wardle had arranged all these things for the Prince. “Have you seen the gardens lately? Flags of every nation draping the pavilion. Like the old jousting tournaments. We watched this Frenchman fly there, in his balloon, you know. A fearful crash he fell with. Killed on the spot. Marvellous.” She lowered her head to give me a thrilling smile, then stuck out her bottom lip like a child. “Then you lot started interfering.”

That was what Nellie wanted. She wanted exotic men falling to their death for her amusement; knights in shining armour jousting for her attentions, jousting to the death for her sport. “What did you expect? Did you think Bertie would marry you?”

She gave a wry smile. “I used to pester him, that he’d never marry a commoner like me. Only princesses for the likes of you, I’d say. Then I get this beautiful invite, summer of ’58 it was. A carriage rolls up, takes me down the Thames, and he’s had the tunnel fête shut for the afternoon so’s we can ride the miniature railway. He gets all lovely and stroppy with it. ‘I’m going to marry whom I damn well like,’ he goes. We had a lark, back and forth on the train, the stalls all lit up, never mind they were shut. ‘Bertie,’ I says, ‘build us a train under London, won’t you, so’s we can go wherever we like without anyone telling us no.’ He smiles and says, ‘You shall have your secret train, Nellie.’ He takes out this gold watch and gives it me. I says, ‘What, you trying to make an honest woman of me, young Bertie?’ ‘One day, Eleanor,’ he says, ‘we’ll ride on your train beneath London and I’ll make an honest woman of you.’ And he kissed me.”

Throughout our talk, I couldn’t help but smile at the lapses in her vowels. It was as if she spoke two different languages, and it was always an effort to stick to the correct one. “And Berwick?”

“Fuss and drama I expected.” She frowned. “All he did was stare. He stared at me and let me go.”

That had clearly upset more than any amount of stomping and shouting.

“Hester told me I was a doxy haybag. That Bertie was out for improper favours. He’d never treat me like a lady. I was a fool for dropping Berwick who loved me. She was always sweet on him, though. Don’t look at me like that, like you’re on her side. What would you do? Your sweetheart gives you a watch that he’s lifted and christened for you; then a prince of the realm only goes and buys you a gold one. You wear the gold one, don’t you? Anyone would. That was what got Berwick all moony-eyed.”

“You were engaged.”

“S’pose I was. He asked and I’d said I might. Didn’t owe him nothing. I helped him out of the gutter. Where is he now? Gone and got himself back into it like his old man after all, never mind his ideals and fancy talk.” She pulled at a strand of her hair. “There was always going to be problems. He never liked my touring. I couldn’t stand him wasting his time and his brains on committees of wastrels and moaners.”

“Wasting time?”

“I want my husband caring about me, not Yorkshire weavers and nigger slaves. Berwick could have got himself a position. He knew people. But he was too busy, overthrowing the System.”

“Are you not afraid he’s going about these plans now?”

She looked at me. “Nah. He’ll have forgotten me by now.”

“I don’t believe anyone forgets you. I think he’s plotting his revenge.”

“Revenge? He’s not the sort.”

“And the spout at Euston?”

“Just playing up.” She looked up at the window, sadness flashing over her face as a street light lit up her hair. “We’re there, Sergeant.”

“Where is he now, Nellie?”

“Berwick? Haven’t seen him for a month of Sundays.”

I gritted my teeth in frustration. She was slipping from my grasp as soon as I’d found her. Except it was she who had found me. “Then why did you come?”

She rubbed her stomach absently for a moment then smiled dazzlingly. “I’m glad it’s you, you know, and not that inspector of yours. He’s been a curse to me from the beginning.”

I gestured at the carriage around us. “Is it him has given you all this?”

“I am far from destitute, officer,” she said, drawing herself up and resorting to that false voice, “despite the indelicacies I have been put through.”

I shook my head in desperation. “Why now, though, after hiding so long?”

“I wasn’t hiding from you, young fellow.” She reached out and touched my chin, a gentle gesture, but it could not win me over. She was sad, it was true, but somehow not sad enough for my liking. Her face was luminescent within the dark carriage, but there was a toughness in her voice. “He’s asked me to leave.”

“Who?”

“They’re paying me off. Me! It’s a liberty. Ain’t it a liberty?”

“Wardle?” I looked away. “I didn’t know.”

“Take him a message, will you? Tell him it’s not enough. There’s complications needing dealt with and they’d better see me right. There’s this finishing school in Switzerland I rather fancy the sound of. Need a good word from a gentleman, and a few pennies to boot. I’m sure there’s an arrangement will suit us all.” She smiled again, touched me on the shoulder, then turned away with a swish of her hair to tell me that our interview was at an end.

I stepped out in front of the Exhibition Hall, and watched her plush carriage sweep away. I wondered if she had understood Skelton at all. She wanted to be courted, wanted to be spoiled. Berwick fitted the bill well enough, until Bertie came along. When you turn a prince’s head, how can you look the other way? And even now that it was all gone wrong, she was well enough looked after. Why should she care?

As I went into the Exhibition, Big Ben struck five. I tugged down my shirt sleeves and headed for the stereoscope.

THE GREENHOUSE

“Ah, Sergeant,” said Miss Villiers, as I entered the great forecourt, “I’m afraid I must be off.”

“I’m terribly late, I know,” I began, but something in her eyes stopped me. Her smile was uncertain and in her eyes was a strange look, as if she no longer felt she knew me.

“I understand,” she said offhand. “A policeman’s life, et cetera, et cetera.”

She broke off as a young constable approached me. “Sir, here’s a note one of them boys of yours brung. Oh, and watch yourself. Wardle’s on the warpath.”

I screwed up my eyes, trying to make sense of the spidery letters on the envelope.

“
Sir
, is it now?” Miss Villiers nodded. “My, we are important.”

I smiled tightly. “Not so important I won’t get a lecture.”

“Best run along then,” she sighed, “hadn’t you, Sergeant?”

“I wanted to show you around.”

“Don’t concern yourself over much.”

“I’ve spent so many days here,” I sighed. “I wish you’d have come.”

She pursed her lips. “You could have invited me.”

“I did. Twice.”

“Did you really?” She didn’t believe me. “Don’t worry, this is my third visit.”

I looked at her in exasperation. Did she mean with other gentleman friends? I coughed and gestured across to the Exhibition Halls. “You’ve seen the stereoscope?”

“Two were given to me.”

“The bi-cycle?”

“Yes.”

“The piping? Revolutionary hydraulics,” I said, aiming at a jocular reference to our first meeting.

She did not smile. “You still take an interest in that?”

“I take an interest in the case, yes.”

“I imagined you’d wrapped it up.”

“Not at all. Have you stopped working on the code?”

“I cracked it. I told you, I needed something more to transcribe.”

“I assumed you were busy with your exams.”

“I finished in July.”

“Of course.” I hung my head. “How did they go?”

She pointed ahead. “Have you seen the Difference Engine? That machine could do some code-breaking for us.”

I smiled. For a moment I felt the spark of the old warmth between us. Then she turned away, and I looked up to see Wardle charging towards us like a rampaging bull.

“Where the blazes have you been?”

“Sir?”

“I sent for you at nine this morning. Look at the state of you.”

“I was out of town, sir,” I said, acutely conscious of Miss Villiers observing my discomfort.

“Nice for you,” Wardle barked.

“Pursuing the case, sir,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Get my note at the Yard?”

“No, sir, I came directly,” I lied.

“Bloody useless Worms,” he snorted. He glanced back towards the room reserved for important personages. The sociable murmur of railway kings, piping princes and toilet lords bubbled away pleasantly. Originally there had been mooted a huge event, like Albert’s address to the multitude, when Wardle so proudly stood guard. But there was no-one to fill his shoes. Bertie, even if we risked exposing him in public, could not be trusted. Victoria, still inconsolable, was not fit. Instead, things were winding up with this informal do for investors and exhibitors, with the party at the Palace the following day.