The Ladder Dancer (21 page)

‘Which other one?’

‘Started tweeting like a bird,’ another man said. ‘Then asked for a ladder.’

‘He dances on it,’ Hugh said.

‘Sure he does,’ said the man in good-humoured disbelief. He lit a pipe.

I was almost choking on the smell of smoke. ‘Was he on his own? No girl with him?’

‘Tried to sweetheart Meg.’

A dark-haired girl straightened from wiping a table at the back of the room. ‘I know what he was after!’

‘Make sure you charge him high!’ pipe man said to general laughter. He puffed out a huge acrid cloud. ‘Plenty of money, that one.’

‘But you weren’t interested?’ I asked.

She cocked her head. ‘He looked rich enough. But he was angry – looked mad enough to slap a girl round a bit. I wasn’t going to take that. And he already had a lass waiting outside.’

‘In a yellow dress? No more than twelve?’

‘Some like them young,’ she said philosophically.

The customers were eyeing us thoughtfully and it wasn’t our conversation they were interested in. There was all too much concentration on our clothes and presumably on how much they’d fetch if they could be sold. ‘You know Cuthbert Ridley too?’ I asked the girl.

‘Aye,’ she said coyly. ‘I know Cuddy. Many a time. In the Biblical sense.’

I smiled politely as everyone laughed again. ‘
Was
he in here last night?’

‘He was.’

‘Were Ridley and Nightingale in at the same time?’

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘I don’t do nothing like that.’

I winced as she grinned and the laughter echoed. ‘I meant, were they in the tavern at the same time?’

‘Nah. I’d sent the singing gent on up to the Castle. To the Black Gate. A man can find anything he likes up there. Plenty of obliging girls.’ She frowned. ‘Cuddy came in later. But he asked for the singing gent, mind. And went out again, soon after.’

‘Did you tell him where the – er –
singing gent
had gone?’

She shrugged. ‘Why not?’

I gave her sixpence, knowing full well it was a lot more than she expected, and she said saucily that I could come in any time I liked.

We beat a quick retreat to the street. Hugh breathed in the fresh air with a satisfied sigh. ‘If Nightingale ended up at the Castle, it would have been natural for him to come back to the Fleece down that Stair.’

I contemplated the possibilities, looking around at the bustle of everyday life, the sailors, the whores, the respectable housewives, the carrier bustling to and from the Printing Office with bundles of newspapers. Seagulls wheeling and squawking overhead.

And saw a flash of bright yellow.

I took off after her.

Twenty-Seven

Women of the lower orders have frequently been the downfall of many a promising youth; sons, therefore, should be watched carefully and their associates chosen with the utmost care.

[
A Gentleman’s Companion
, September 1735]

I raced across the road, darting in front of a cart that turned suddenly out of a side street. The driver yelled after me, swearing. I was certain I knew the road Kate had turned down but when I got there it stretched before me, long and straight and empty. I glanced down a side street. Nothing.

I ran on. Street after street. Chances were she’d stepped through to the other world again. I ought to follow her at once. But there were too many people around – I needed somewhere quiet to step through. And she
might
still be here.

A spirit hovered on a doorknocker.

‘Have you seen a young girl—’

‘No, I haven’t,’ she said stridently. ‘And if I had, I wouldn’t tell you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’

Damn. I started off again. The spirit called after me, ‘I know your type – give her fine clothes, bribe her to do as you want.’

So the spirit had seen Kate, in all her yellow finery. I glanced into an alley – and caught a glimpse of a bright petticoat whisking round a corner at the far end. I darted after her.

Spirits danced high up under the eaves. ‘Villain!’ cried one. ‘Ravisher!’ shrieked another. I spun round a corner. Another empty alley. A spirit on a windowsill said sleepily, ‘What’s going on? What’s all the noise about?’

I’d lost Kate.

I looked about. In my mad dash, I’d worked my way westwards across town; I wasn’t far from my own house in Caroline Square. I checked one or two side streets, called Kate’s name, was stared at by suspicious passers-by. No trace of her.

There was only one place she could have gone, and one thing to do – follow her. I ducked into an alley, glanced around to make sure I was alone, and took a deep breath. Footsteps behind me, a woman called out to a friend. Hurriedly, I took one step forward, felt a sudden chill. Blackness.

Then I put my foot down on to grass and a brilliant sunset was dazzling me.

I ducked instinctively, turned my back on the huge bright low sun. Purple spots scattered across my sight. I was in someone’s garden, on a neatly scythed lawn. Close by a clump of trees; I drew back into their shelter and peered through the foliage.

Three children were playing on a terrace in front of a house; a woman, stylish in pale petticoats, came out on to the terrace to laugh and joke with them. Behind her, a nurserymaid cradled a baby. Were these people I knew in my own world? But now was clearly not the time to indulge curiosity. Cautiously I retreated – and came up against a wall. Six feet of it, adorned on the top with broken glass.

Damn. I peered through the tree branches, trying to spot a gate out of the garden. If all else failed, I could step back to my own world, then back again, but that would make finding Kate almost impossible.

There
was
a gate, across the far side of the garden; I’d have to work my way round the wall to it. At least this world had no spirits in it, to spot me and give warning of my presence.

It didn’t need them. It had sharp-eyed nurserymaids instead. I heard a shriek, glanced round, saw her pointing at me. I started running for the gate. A child leapt up from the terrace, a boy of ten or so, quick, lithe and fast.

I jerked to a halt. Damn, damn, damn. There was a dog too, one of those ridiculous lapdogs, a white ball of fur, yapping as it bounced over the neat lawn.

I turned, took a step, felt the cold, and found myself back in the alley.

Where a fat woman was squatting and relieving herself.

I pulled back into a corner, squeezed my eyes shut. She was singing beneath her breath, occasionally grunting with effort. Resigned, I stepped back again—

And found myself in a street, just outside the garden gate, in pitch-black night.

Facing a tearful Kate.

Twenty-Eight

Children should obey their elders, and be firmly disciplined when they do not.

[
A Gentleman’s Companion
, May 1735]

She lifted her chin. Tears had traced grimy marks down her cheeks; her yellow dress was grubby and torn around the hem. She said in a voice full of wavering defiance, ‘Don’t want to talk to you.’

I glanced round to orientate myself. We were on Westgate and it looked much the same as it did in our own world, although I glimpsed open ground in gaps between houses, where I’d have expected to see more buildings. A full moon rose high above us; the street was deserted except for a fox slinking across the cobbles a hundred yards away. I moved to the nearest doorway and sat down on the step, patting the stone beside me.

‘Well, come and not talk here.’

She burst into tears.

She sobbed and sniffled, and wiped her nose on the grubby dress then, scowling to make sure I knew she did it unwillingly, came and sat down beside me. ‘I’m hungry.’

I patted my pockets but found nothing edible. ‘How long have you been here? In this world?’

‘Weeks!’ she said despairingly, then, ‘maybe two or three days.’ She sniffed. ‘I went home. Well, not
my
home. I mean, my home’s back there. In the real world.’

‘What happened?’

‘I was there already.’ Tears coursed down her cheeks again; she wiped them away angrily. ‘With a sailor.’ She glared at me. ‘I was just like ma. Don’t you understand? Here, I’m just another whore and— and—’ Her voice nearly failed her. ‘With child. Big. Huge! And
still
going with men!’

I sat silent. The fox pattered up the other side of the dark street, casting us wary glances, occasionally pausing, one foot lifted, to scent the air.

‘I ain’t going to be like that,’ Kate insisted. ‘I ain’t!’ She must have known how desperate she sounded.

‘You came back to our world,’ I said. ‘I saw you. Why didn’t you come and talk to me?’

She twisted the yellow satin between her fingers; she was shivering in the chill night air. ‘I hate this dress. Makes me look like a whore.’

‘Why avoid me?’ I insisted.

‘Scared,’ she said, in a muffled voice.

‘Of me?’

‘You’ll send me back to ma.’

The fox had seen prey, was creeping forward.

‘I don’t want to be stuck on street corners, singing ballads for pennies,’ she said passionately. ‘I want proper gowns like your wife has, I want somewhere nice to live. I want money. And I want to earn it proper.’

I winced. Her words struck a chord. ‘Kate.’ I hesitated. ‘About Mr Nightingale.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ she said. ‘He only wants one thing. That’s what all men want.’

‘I don’t,’ I said mildly. Certainly not from her.

‘Anyway.’ The tears were dry now; she stared belligerently at the fox which was nosing in the dark holes under the hedge of the Vicarage gardens. ‘It ain’t going to happen now, is it? He’s dead.’

I stared. ‘You know?’

She nodded, said in a small voice, ‘I saw him.’

I waited for her to go on but she didn’t; I said, ‘You followed him all evening.’

Her fingers crushed the grubby satin of her dress. ‘I knew he was going to get drunk. I thought I’d wait until he was so drunk he’d not remember anything, then we’d go back to the inn and I’d get in bed with him. When he woke up, I’d tell him he’d had me. And then I’d say I’d tell everyone I was a respectable girl but I’d keep quiet about him seducing me if he made me his apprentice.’ She cast me a sideways glance. ‘
You
made me think of it – you said he wouldn’t remember nothing in the morning.’

So I had. ‘That would have been blackmail,’ I said, quelling an absurd inclination to applaud. Nightingale might have agreed to her terms; he couldn’t have afforded a scandal.

‘I saw him when he came out of that place in the Fleshmarket,’ she said, ‘and I followed him round half a dozen taverns. He can drink,’ she said admiringly. ‘He picked up a whore too, and they went into an alley and I had to wait till they came out.’

‘And then?’

‘Lots more taverns,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Till he could hardly walk.
And
he had his pocket picked on the way. He went down to the Key and then back up to the Turk’s Head in the Bigg Market, then off to the Castle Garth.’

‘Did he see you?’

‘Coupla times.’ She rubbed her arms against the cold. ‘Told me to get lost, so I made sure I kept out of his sight. He was reeling about and singing. Proper singing, not that stuff he usually does. He found himself another whore in the Garth,’ she said scornfully, ‘but he couldn’t do it – that was the drink talking. She wanted her money anyway and he wouldn’t give it her, because he said she’d done nothing for it. So she gave him a push and he sat down in horse shit and yelled at her.’

Nightingale had had an eventful evening, I reflected. The stone doorstep was becoming uncomfortable; I shifted, leant back against the door behind me. ‘And after that?’

‘A watchman told him to go home, and he said he didn’t know how to so the watchman pointed him out the Stair down to the Sandhill. Only the watchman stood there to make sure he went and I didn’t want to follow in case he thought I was up to something.’ She added darkly, ‘Watchmen don’t like me. They always think I’m up to no good.’

They were probably right. ‘Go on.’

‘I didn’t think it mattered – I knew he was going back to the Fleece so I sat down on a wall. I thought I’d wait a bit for him to get settled in bed. I know where his room is – he took me there once, the day he ordered the dress for me.’

She stared at the hedge into which the fox had slipped.

‘Did you see anyone go down the Stair after him?’

She frowned. ‘Two lasses and a lad. They didn’t go right down to the bottom though – I heard them laughing in one of the streets off the Stair.’

‘Anyone else?’

She thought. ‘A man and his wife, old, both of them. And a young man on his own.’

‘How tall was the young man?’

She shrugged. ‘’Bout like you.’

‘How old?’

Another shrug. ‘Older than an apprentice.’

Maybe early twenties then. ‘What was he wearing?’

‘Black.’

‘You mean mourning?’

‘Never asked him.’

Black didn’t sound Cuthbert Ridley’s style. ‘Wearing a wig?’

‘Silly little one.’ That was more like Ridley.

‘Was he fat or thin?’

‘Thin,’ she said decisively.

‘And did he go all the way down the Stair?’

She considered, staring out into the dark empty street. ‘The old man and woman went all the way down. She was trailing behind him, like she didn’t want to be there. And she had trouble going down the Stair. He just went striding off ahead. Typical man – no help at all! Then the young lad came.’ She screwed up her eyes. ‘Don’t remember what he did.’

‘Would you recognize any of them?’

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘Too dark. And I was across the other side of the Garth.’

I hesitated. We were coming to what must inevitably distress her. I’d no doubt she’d seen plenty of unpleasant things in her time but she was still young, no matter how hardened she pretended to be. ‘So what happened then?’