A Nest of Vipers (11 page)

But Addy just said, ‘Hide!’ and she was gone from his side. Cato felt his way around the room. There was a couch against the wall and he threw himself under it. He heard Addy slip through the door onto the landing and then a great deal of thumping and running up and down
stairs
. Whatever was happening, the whole house seemed to be awake now – ribbons of yellow light showed under the door, more footsteps thumped. He tried to turn and banged his elbow into the wall. Then it seemed like hours before he heard the handle turning; he held his breath until he was sure it was Addy.

She hustled him down the stairs and into the front area. Whenever he opened his mouth to ask her what was going on, she shushed him.

‘You have to go! The Stapletons are called home from the dance.’

‘But the coach. It’s in the square. Someone will see.’

‘I’ll go up first and talk to the driver – you run the other way,’ she said hurriedly.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Old man Stapleton is dead. Our Sir John’s a bleedin’ marquess now. They’ll be insufferable,’ she complained. ‘Come on.’

Outside it had started snowing. Addy let Cato out of the house into the silent square. The carriage was being led away into the mews and the falling snow made a useful curtain. It would be hard to see a boy slip through the area gate, and any footsteps he left on the new yellow stone pavement would be covered almost instantly. Cato found Sam Caesar waiting at the corner of the square and they both started walking briskly back to The Vipers. As they turned into Piccadilly, the Stapletons’ flash
brougham
pulled by matching greys passed, going the other way at double speed, one horse almost slipping on the frozen road.

‘They’re back in a hurry. What happened?’ Sam asked. ‘I saw the coach and pair arrive earlier – he was driving like he had a ghost on his tail.’

‘I s’pose he did, in a manner of speaking,’ said Cato. ‘Old man Stapleton, our Stapleton’s father the marquess, died this afternoon up in the country.’

‘Mother Hopkins won’t like it. She likes a lay to go nice and smooth.’

Cato pulled his coat close and hurried to keep up with Sam. ‘She can’t stop the dead from dying though. And look on the bright side – they might be swimming up to their necks in even more cash!’

Sam was quiet for a while before he spoke. ‘So much cash that a couple of fields of tobacco won’t mean so much as a fig. And they’ll be so busy with the mourning and that, they won’t want Bella spouting cod Russian in their ears.’ He sighed.

Cato thought Sam might be right, but he didn’t answer. There was a knot in his middle just below his ribs and above his stomach. This lay was on the wrong road for success, he was sure of it. He wanted it all to be over and done with and Addy to come home. He shivered, and it wasn’t just the thickly falling snow.

The streets were still busy enough that no one paid
them
any attention, and the snow meant no one stopped to wonder what two young black men were doing out at this ungodly hour.

Cato was more pleased than usual when they turned the corner into Great Queen Street and saw the lights burning in the windows of the Nest of Vipers. The snow had begun to settle and The Vipers’ sign creaked under the extra weight.

It was a relief to be home. Cato stamped the snow off his feet and took himself upstairs. Mother would be waiting and he’d have to break the bad news, but at least there’d be a warm drink and a hot fire.

Upstairs, Mother Hopkins was sitting in her chair by the fire. The smell of tobacco filled the room, but through the smoke Cato could see that the look on her face was dark as thunder. Maybe she’d heard about the death – or perhaps it was worse: Bella had been unmasked; the magistrates had put her in the Westminster lock-up and were on their way.

He looked at Sam, neither of them wanting to speak first.

‘There’s news, Mother,’ Cato said as he took off his jacket. ‘Old man Stapleton is dead—’ He stopped.

‘We’ve company,’ Mother Hopkins said, and suddenly Cato realized he was looking at Quarmy, sitting by the fire in the upstairs room of The Vipers, firelight shining on his skin as if he’d sat there all his life.

‘And more than that,’ she said. ‘Master Tunnadine is called back to Kent.’

No wonder she looked grim, Cato thought.

Mother Hopkins refilled her pipe. ‘And if the old marquess is dead, in one night our world is changed, turned upside down. All plans must be remade. We’ll need more than the promise of another fortune to reel these fishes in.’

It was hours later when Cato led Quarmy down the stairs and out of The Vipers. Although it was not yet dawn, the city was beginning to wake up, the first rattles of market traders pushing barrows west to Covent Garden. The snow that had fallen all night made everything seem clean and sparkling, as if London was a place where only good deeds and kind thoughts flourished. All the dirt and sin scoured clean away – or rather covered in a blanket of shining white. The reflecting snow gave the still-dark early morning a strange lightness, an unearthly, unreal glow, and the harsh cold sent those poor souls who slept in doorways straight to heaven or hell.

Quarmy was tired but walked out into the street, head held high as if reviewing his courtiers rather than making for Soho Square. He turned and waved.

‘I knew Mother Hopkins would help,’ he said.

Cato wanted to answer that all was not over yet, and counting chickens before they were hatched was always
a
bad idea. He bolted the front door behind Quarmy and made his way back up the stairs. Addeline would be getting up, lighting the fires, as he made for his bed. Too much had happened in one night. Not only was there a death in the Stapleton family, but Master Tunnadine would no longer play the inside man for them, the tobacco baron home from Virginia with investment opportunities a-plenty. His wife had heard he might be falling in with his old, and not entirely straightforward, lifestyle.

Quarmy had brought the bad news that Tunnadine had gone and then petitioned Mother Hopkins. He wanted help with his schoolmaster, who was refusing his daughter’s hand in marriage while holding onto his funds so Quarmy could neither return to Africa nor set himself up in London as he wished.

Mother Hopkins had said nothing, just scowled and sucked on her pipe. Cato had seen it all before. This was her way: she would think good and hard. Cato sighed as his head hit the pillow. They had spent so much cash and time on this lay. If they cut and ran now, there would be even more money to be found before Mother Hopkins could think about Bath.

He was drifting into sleep, imagining meeting Addy coming home from the Stapletons’ – surely she would be allowed home now – when the door creaked open and Mother Hopkins came in. Cato sat up suddenly.

‘I need a word,’ she said, and opened the curtain so that the first daylight came in.

‘With me, Ma? I know I met that Quarmy, but I thought he wasn’t quite watertight, so I said we couldn’t help, that we was too busy—’

‘Hush up, Cato. That young man’s problems aren’t what’s troubling me.’

Mother Hopkins looked out of the window at the city. She sighed. ‘I’ll miss this town and all that’s in it, and that’s the truth.’

‘But the Stapletons . . . they’ll be in mourning.’

‘Death is never an excuse to stop living, Cato.’ Mother Hopkins sat on the end of the bed. ‘And there is always better work to do than sleeping.’

‘I don’t understand, Mother. Tunnadine’s out of it.’ As Cato spoke the name, it seemed as if a shadow moved across Mother Hopkins’s face. He went on, ‘What I mean is, we’ve no inside man. Jack can’t do it – they think he’s a mute Russian – Sam can’t do it in case the Lady Elizabeth recognizes him . . .’

Mother tutted. ‘There’s always more than one way to skin a cat, or part a greedy man from his gold. Always see the opportunity, Cato, not the impediment. No doubt our Stapletons will come into a deal more cash. I know the old man had more holdings in West India than the Governor of the Bank of England himself . . .’

Cato made to speak but Mother put up her hand.
‘Rich people, greedy people, they never have enough goree. Even if they can furnish their houses with beaten gold, they’ll always want something more, especially if it seems like they’re cutting corners, getting something no one else has. That’s what we have to be giving them! And the way I see it, with young Sir John – or should I say, the new Marquess of Byfield – busy with sorting his father’s estate, we can cut straight to the chase, straight to the softest cheese in the dairy, in a manner of speaking.’

‘You mean the Lady Elizabeth?’ Cato asked.

Mother Hopkins nodded. ‘She’s the way in, and with her husband out of the picture Bella can wrap her around her little Russian finger. I thought about this . . . Bella’s so close to that Elizabeth, you couldn’t slide one of Addeline’s playing cards in between ’em. It’s too good an opportunity – we’re too close to the cash.’

‘But Lady Elizabeth won’t be interested in investments surely? From what Bella says she cares only for herself – how her hair is dressed, what to wear for which dance.’

‘Too right, Cato, too right.’ Mother Hopkins nodded. ‘She follows fashion closer than the starved crow follows the plough. And that’s how we’ll bait our hook.’

Cato was confused. He got up and put on his jacket for warmth.

‘
Fashion
,’ Mother Hopkins said. ‘The finest silks and satins, fresh from the east. So beautiful, so rare, so far
ahead
of the weavers of London or Paris with their patterns and their subtleties! I can see ’em now in my mind’s eye. Complete originals and all at knock-down prices!’

Cato smiled, bowed low and pretended to lay out a bolt of cloth. ‘Yes, madam – unrivalled quality, unparalleled beauty.’

Mother Hopkins nodded. ‘Thank you kindly, sir. I’ll have the lot!’

‘But are you sure that’ll make enough of a return, Ma: some cloth for dresses?’

‘We’ll make it enough. Oh, it won’t be no ordinary cloth – you wait and see. We’ll throw some jewels and gold in with the silks. And we’ll make the whole package too good to be true!’ she said. ‘And you know what else, Cato? I can see a way your friend can be a real help to us with this.’

‘He ain’t my friend. He believes in the natural order of things, I reckon, as his father makes more cash selling people than anything else.’

‘You don’t know that for certain, Cato. We can do each other a deal of good. He is a prince. The genuine article, not some faker. He can be our inside man.’

‘Mother, no! He can’t tell a lie to save his life, and he has such arrogance he’d never work for us!’ Cato protested. The thought of Quarmy helping them was too much to bear.

‘That’s what you’ll teach him,’ Mother said. ‘You’ll show him what he’s to do, tell him when to open his mouth and when to keep it shut. You’ll be his valet, you’ll be his brains. It’s ideal!’

‘But, Mother, you don’t know him. He’ll never listen to me – I am a mere peasant as far as he’s concerned. And I don’t know, Ma, but there’s something . . . something not right. Are you sure that Quarmy’s what he says he is? I mean, I know he talks flash . . .’

Mother Hopkins smiled. ‘Joshua knew what he was doing. Here.’ She took out a letter rolled up tight in her pocket. ‘Tunnadine wanted a manservant and Quarmy did the job. He lived with the boy – what you see is what you get.’ She put the letter back in her pocket.

‘I can see your worry, but don’t fret so, Cato. Quarmy needs hard cash, and he can earn it and do us a favour at the same time. I have no intention of running a scam against his old teacher or embroiling ourselves in more trouble than is necessary.’ Mother Hopkins stood up. ‘He is a prince! His father is a king! A king who trades with the east. Bella said the Lady Elizabeth is one for the fashion, for clothes and fripperies, and that’s the way to her pocket, I fancy.’ Her eyes came alive at the thought. ‘Oh, he’ll spin us tales and we can use that in so many ways. He’ll worm his way into Lady Elizabeth’s finances and we’ll have the Stapletons and the house in the west before the year is done! We
have
to make this lay the best we’ve ever set. We’ll be playing for our lives now, Cato. Just you remember that!’

C
HAPTER
N
INE

A Sudden Change of Horses

CATO WALKED WITH
Quarmy across Covent Garden Market and down towards the river. They were both wearing their best clothes. Quarmy was got up in a suit that reeked of wealth. It was, he said, the last one his father had had made for him and the only thing of value he’d taken from his trunk at school. Cato wore his Sunday best, which paled into insignificance next to Quarmy’s. His suit was now a little small around the armpits, and he thought that if he raised his arms, the seams would split. He patted his jacket pocket to make sure the cards Mother Hopkins had had newly printed were ready and waiting.

Mother Hopkins had told him to ‘open Quarmy’s eyes and give him as thorough an education in the trade of deceit as was possible’. The snow had now turned to slush and filth, yellow with horse pee in places and grey
with
dirt everywhere else. The traders – and there were fewer than usual on account of the weather – were packing up their empty baskets and loading truculent ponies, hooves bagged with sacking so as not to slip.

The boys crossed the Strand and followed an alley down to a set of stairs that led to the river, where the fair was still in full swing. Cato stopped.

‘I want one thing clear as crystal,’ he said. ‘There’s to be no commands. No
do this
,
do that
. Me an’ you are equals now.’

Quarmy rolled his eyes.

Cato went on, ‘I am not your subject, I am your teacher. Although how Mother Hopkins expects me to set you on the same road as all of us in just one day only the Lord himself knows, and that’s the truth.’

‘I can assure you it will come naturally to me,’ said Quarmy. ‘I was at the top of my class at school, and anyway, I do not need to know how to act like a prince, I am one already!’

‘You do not understand at all, Quarmy. What we do is not the real world. The real world is out there in the filthy streets. We are more than real, better than real. You need to be not just a prince, but more like what somebody
thinks
a prince should be like.’