Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders (14 page)

‘James, please. As I tried to explain, so clumsily, I wanted to see you again. Did you like my gift?’

I felt my belly flip and a stab of excitement sparked deep inside. I’d been right then.

‘So it was you. I wondered.’

He actually looked embarrassed. ‘What did you think? It’s not much, but I wanted to show . . .’

I smiled at him now. ‘It was a lovely thing to do. Thank you . . . James.’ I liked saying his name aloud. I offered him the ’kerchief back, but he shook his head. ‘No, please keep that too.’ He frowned as he looked down at the patterned silk square. ‘When I followed you I must admit I wasn’t sure what to do, but then when I heard you crying . . . Kitty, what’s wrong? You sounded so, so . . . desolate.’

I stared up at him confused as to what to say.

‘Desolate, it means sad, so very sad,’ he explained. ‘Are you in pain, in some sort of trouble?’

Well, that was one way of putting it. I chewed my lip and looked down. What would James make of this business with Lady Ginger’s girls and that painting?
The Cinnabar Girls is a masterpiece. It is the work of a genius
– that’s what he’d said in my dressing room, wasn’t it? I wondered what he’d say if he really knew.

And as I stood there thinking about that painting, it came to me of a sudden that I was out on the road in the middle of the night talking to a man I barely knew. What if James Verdin really
did
know something about that picture? I took another step back and looked around. The street was deserted apart from an old tom cat slinking around in the shadows.

‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, all the while thinking that if he tried anything on with me I’d scream loud enough to stir a cemetery. I looked at him narrow, assessing like, but he was just standing there, his eyes all wide and clear. That little furrow had come back between his brows too, as if he was really concerning himself about me. He removed the glove from his right hand, reached forward and gently brushed a tear from my cheek. I felt my skin tingle as he touched me with long tapering fingers that smelt of good cologne.

‘If there is anything wrong, perhaps I can be of assistance?’ He held his head to one side and smiled.

I had the strong feeling in me then that James was as sweet on me as I was on him.

‘Kitty?’

I shuffled my feet and lowered my eyes to the cobbles. ‘It’s nothing. I’ve just had a bit of bad news, that’s all . . . family business. I was walking home because I needed to think about it, work some things out.’

‘Family!’ He almost spat the word and I looked up surprised as he continued. ‘Then you have my sympathy. Always the cause of the greatest suffering, I find. At the moment I am tortured by both my father and my uncle.’

‘Him at the gallery, is that who you mean? Tall gent . . . you take after him in looks?’

‘And nothing more, thank God.’ James breathed deep and stared across the street like he could almost conjure him up. For a moment I think he forgot I was there, but then he carried on, ‘My uncle, the great Sir Richard Verdin, has no children of his own. My parents intend that I should inherit his business. I am the second son, so their hope is that I will make my own way –’, he paused and snorted, ‘ – on the back of Uncle Richard’s fortune. My father has cut off my allowance to make this plain to me. But I am an artist. How can I be expected to bury myself alive in meetings, ledgers and figures when there is so much more to see, to feel, to touch, to taste . . .?’

I must have looked blank because he pulled himself up. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to burden you with my own troubles. But it seems we might have something in common, yes?’ He smiled and his grey eyes caught the light again. I noticed there was something hard to them behind the brightness.

Now, it was clear as the boil on Fitzy’s nose that James Verdin and me had about as much in common as Mrs Conway and Queen Victoria, so I wasn’t sure what to say next, but he was.

‘Look, I must be frank. Since that time at the gallery I have thought of little else but you. I’ve watched you perform so many times now that Edward and John have made me a laughing stock. They have even wagered . . .’ He stopped, smiled and brushed a snowflake from my shawl. It had just started to fall again.

‘I cannot help myself. It’s why I came to see you again this evening, why I sent you those inadequate expressions of my affection.’ He shrugged, and gestured with his hands. ‘Will you take pity on a poor soul?’

I laughed at that – the thought of James Verdin as a poor soul, when he was standing there in a coat that probably cost as much as I earned in two years. I looked up at him and grinned. My tongue did the thinking for me – quicker than my mind it went sometimes. ‘Well, you can walk me home, if that’s what you mean. It’s bleedin’ cold standing here. I’m over at Penny Fields near West India Dock.’ I was amazed to hear the bold way it came out.

He smiled and bowed. ‘Thank you. It will be my pleasure. Here . . .’ He unfurled a woollen scarf tucked beneath the fur collar of his coat. ‘As you say, it is “bleedin’” cold indeed. I think you might need this.’

I was grateful for the scarf and I wrapped it round my neck over the shawl as we started off.

‘Can I offer you this as well – against the chill?’ James reached into a pocket of his coat and produced a leather flask with a silver top. It minded me of Fitzy’s.

I took a deep swig. It warmed me up all right. I could feel it slipping down my throat and into my belly where it seemed to glow inside me like a fire in a grate. I don’t know what it was – not gin, that’s for sure; it was too fine for that. It had a sort of flowery sugared flavour to it.

‘Is it to your taste, Kitty?’

I nodded. ‘It’s good – a lot better than the muck they serve in the halls. What’s in it?’

James laughed. ‘I’m not entirely sure myself. It’s the special mixture of a friend, he calls it an elixir. The recipe is a closely guarded secret. I understand it can be quite addictive.’

‘I can believe that.’ I took another mouthful and rolled the sweetness round my mouth. When I allowed myself to swallow, I enjoyed the sensation of heat and comfort that seemed to spread to every part of my body, even to the smallest toes inside my boots.

‘As we walk, you must tell me about yourself. I want to know everything. Your friend with the scar . . . Mr Fratini . . . was it? And what about the lovely Peggy? Woody was very taken with her, you know. I want to know all about you, Kitty, and all about your life. The life of an artist.’

I felt a little jolt of excitement as he put his arm around my shoulders. For the warmth and the boldness it gave off, I took another nip of the lixir. I could feel my heart fluttering like a little bird under my ribs now. James drew me closer and I didn’t pull away as he bent down to kiss me – the first time.

I won’t lie, I’d been thinking about that kiss for days. And it didn’t disappoint neither.

I’d made a very bad mistake. That much was clear when I woke up.

My head felt like there’d been a dog fight going on inside it. My tongue was as dry and stiff as one of Ma Stebbings’s aprons and when I shifted the room seemed to sway like I was bobbing about on a river barge.

Now, tell truth – I’d been something this way before. There was a night at The Lamb a year or so back when Old Peter laid a bet that I couldn’t match him drink for drink on the Russian stuff. As it turned out, I could, and everyone was most impressed. Only I didn’t feel too clever the next day.

Lucca had come over and stayed with me while I got it out of my system. And when it was clear that I wasn’t going to die he’d made it very clear that he didn’t approve. ‘It’s not becoming to a lady,’ he’d said, holding my hair back while I leaned over the bowl. ‘You can be surprisingly stupid sometimes, Fannella.’

I’d been stupid this time all right. There was a long lump in the bed next to me. The only part of James Verdin visible among the rumpled sheets and blankets was the top of his head, coppery hair fanned out on the pillow.

He had his back to me. That was something. I lay there for a moment staring up at a knot in a beam overhead. For some reason my eyes kept slipping away so I had to make myself focus. That made my head hurt even more.

What had happened last night? I remembered changing behind the scenery, going out into the alleyway, the old bangtail warning me off and then . . . then it all became thick as fog. On the little chair by the door I could see James’s clothes neatly piled and folded. His coat with the fur collar was hung up on a wall hook.

I sat up and my head felt like it might explode. My clothes were everywhere – strewn about the room like I’d done the bleedin’ Seven Veils for him. Perhaps I had? I couldn’t remember a thing.

Trade’s as dead as a corpse’s prick tonight, love, so if you’re thinking of working this patch you’d best move on.

I’d moved on all right. I remembered feeling sorry for the old girl in the doorway and now it seemed I was no better. I rubbed my forehead. My hands were cold and it helped a bit, but every time I moved my body ached. On the floor next to the pile of blue stuff that was my dress I saw a leather flask. The stopper lay nearby and a little pool of liquid had dripped from the silver-rimmed neck staining the boards.

Something flickered in my mind – a word, ‘lixir’, was it?

James stirred in the bed. I pulled the sheets tight up to my neck as he turned over and opened his eyes.

‘Kitty.’

He didn’t smile at me, just stared. I must have looked a wreck.

‘Charming.’ Something in his tone gave off the strong impression he didn’t mean that. He reached to the side of the bed where there was a little stand. I saw that he’d made a tidy arrangement of his things the night before. There was a fob watch and chain, a ring, a stick pin and his cufflinks – all laid out in a row. He took up the fob watch and flicked it open.

‘So late already? I must be on my way.’

James sat up straight, pushed back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed so that he was sitting with his back to me. I gripped the sheets and pulled them even more tightly. He was completely naked; the clear-marked muscles in his back curved outward like he had the wings of an angel hidden under his smooth, even skin.

I tried to say something, but nothing came. What
did
you say at a time like this?

He stood up and went over to the chair. Even though I felt like hell, I caught my breath. He was as beautiful as one of the boys in one of Lucca’s pictures. I wanted him to stay with me, to talk to me.

‘Thank you for w . . . walking me home last night.’ The words came out cracked and thin. It felt like someone had been rubbing around inside my mouth with a bit of sandpaper.

I felt cheap as the whore in the doorway when he laughed. ‘It was nothing. My pleasure entirely. Now I’m afraid I really must be on my way.’

‘Y . . . you aren’t going to stay on f . . . for a bit then?’ I hated myself for asking.

James bent to sort through his folded clothes. ‘Sadly, I cannot, Miss Peck. I have an early engagement with Woody and Edward.’

I noticed I wasn’t Kitty any more.

He pulled his shirt over his head and walked back to the bed to take up the cufflinks, the stick pin and the signet ring. I watched as he pushed the gold band over the little finger of his left hand.

‘Where are you meeting them?’

It was all that came to my mind. It was clear he wanted to be out of my dingy room quicker than a fox over a yard wall, but I wanted to make it seem – I don’t know – clean somehow. Like nothing untoward had gone on and we was just having a polite little conversation.

‘The club. As usual.’ He smiled at me then, but there wasn’t much warmth in it. ‘We dine together twice a week. We like to keep . . . abreast of each other’s activities.’

So, I was an ‘activity’ now, was I? It came to me very clear just then that James Verdin had got what he wanted. In fact, he couldn’t wait to get away from me now. A snatch of conversation from last night came back –
I’ve watched you perform so many times now that Edward and John have made me a laughing stock. They have even wagered . . .

There! I was the subject of a bet and the bleeder had won it. What a stupid little fool I was to think that someone like him might be interested in me. I tightened my fists under the sheets. I wasn’t going to make it easy. He was going to talk to me as if I was a proper lady.

‘They seem very . . . interesting, your friends. How do you know them?’ I winced at the coarse sound of my own voice. I’d never heard it like that before, but James was making me feel dirty and low.

He stood in front of the rickety dressing table, one of its legs propped up on a pile of old books, and looked at himself in the crackled mirror. He licked his fingers and pushed his hair back from his forehead, then he frowned and leaned closer to examine the gingery stubble on his chin. If James Verdin found this situation uncomfortable he certainly didn’t show it. On the contrary, he seemed quite happy to have a chat – as long as it was about him.

‘I’ve known them for years. I was at school and, briefly, at college with Woody. The two of us toured Europe together for a year after we were sent down. There was a small misunderstanding with some local girls.’ He grinned at himself as he fastened his cuffs. ‘He can be wild-hearted, but he’s a splendid chap – his wife is a cousin of my mother’s.’

Good luck to her I thought, remembering the way he looked at Peggy.

James started to work on his tie as he continued. ‘And Edward is . . . I suppose you could describe him as a member of the family, almost. His own parents died when he was very young so my uncle, who was in business with Edward’s father, took him in, became his guardian and agreed to pay for the rest of his education, including his medical studies.’

‘That was good of him,’ I said.

James nodded. ‘He still lives with my uncle when he is not at the hospital. Sometimes I think Edward is the only one of us Uncle Richard actually approves of – with all his books and his high ideals. Still, in his favour, at least Edward is good company – when my uncle isn’t around.’

I thought of the little lines around Edward’s blue eyes – he was certainly someone who found life amusing. He’d laugh at James’s story today, that’s for sure. They would all find me highly comical. Something itched on my cheek. I reached up and was surprised to find a tear there. I rubbed furiously, but James had seen me in the mirror. He stopped fiddling with his collar and came over to sit on the edge of the bed.

He was quiet for a moment and then he spoke. ‘I was the first, wasn’t I?’

I looked down, but he took my hand. ‘I am sorry, sincerely. I mistook you for . . . well, girls from the halls have a certain reputation. You must know that?’

I couldn’t look at him. ‘But I’m not like some of the other girls – and what about my reputation? If Mother Maxwell knew you were here then . . .’

‘She keeps this house?’

I nodded. ‘And it’s a clean establishment. If she finds out you’ve been here, she’ll show me the door.’

‘Then I will endeavour to be careful when I leave. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of any difficulty for you, Miss Peck.’

I could feel my eyes glassing up again. ‘I was Kitty to you last night. I thought you liked me, I thought . . .’ Tell truth, I’m not sure what I thought.

James sighed. ‘Look, Miss Peck, Kitty – last night was . . . delightful, but you must see that you and I could never . . . That is to say . . .’ He paused and looked at me and those distinct furrows appeared between his eyes again. ‘This is not what I intended. I have made a mistake and I am sorry. You are a lovely creature, but I have disappointed my family enough without . . .’

He stared around the room taking in the peeling walls, the patch of damp under the window and, most shamefully, my clothes spread out over the boards – one boot was hanging by its laces from a bedknob. He released my hand, stood up and walked over to take his coat from the wall hook. He was twitching to be away.

‘Goodbye, Kitty. And . . . thank you for a most entertaining evening. You tell a chap the most extraordinary things when you are . . . well, no matter. Good morning to you.’ He smiled, made a shallow bow, plonked his toff hat back on his head and reached for the door handle.

‘Wait!’ It came out shrill.

He turned. ‘What about your flask, there on the floor?’ I pointed at the stained boards where the flask and stopper lay. As I moved I accidentally lost hold of the sheet so that more of me was on show than I intended.

James smiled. ‘You may keep the flask, Miss Peck. I understand that the silver is of a high grade. It is hallmarked. You may be able to sell it.’

When he’d gone out of the room, I leaned forward, grabbed the boot from the end of the bed and hurled it at the door. Then I was violently sick.

I don’t know what was in that stuff James gave me to drink, but I was ill for the rest of that day and into the night. It wasn’t like that time with Old Peter’s firewater, it was ten times worse. Just when I thought there was nothing more inside to bring up, I’d start retching and heaving again. Every muscle in my body felt like it had been pulled out tight like you see the butcher boys doing with the tendons in a calf’s leg down Smithfield. My head rang, my neck ached and my eyes burned. But the most uncomfortable thing of all was when the flashes started up of exactly what James and me had been up to.

By the evening my memory had come back all right, but I almost wished it hadn’t. I was furious with James Verdin, but even more angry with myself. How could I have been so stupid?

I didn’t have Lucca to look after me this time neither. It being a Thursday, it was the quiet day in Lady Ginger’s halls and I supposed he’d taken himself off to one of them galleries or exhibitions he was so fond of.

So I wallowed there in my room, feeling used, sullied and sorry for myself. When I finally got out of bed I stood on the stopper by mistake. I was about to kick the thing away when I thought better of it. If James Verdin mistook me for a whore, I might as well get paid for it. Ezra Spiegelhalter over on Stainsby Road would give me a fair price.

I bent down to pick up the flask and got a whiff of the stuff spilled out on the boards. It made me feel noxious again, but I still didn’t recognise what it was – not gin that’s for sure and not firewater neither. It was almost like a cologne, but under that first flowery sweetness there was a tang of something else, something metallic or bitter.

I thought back to when I met James last night. He’d been very keen to get me to drink up, hadn’t he? The lixir had certainly warmed me – in every sense. I pushed the tangle of curls away from my face as another flash started up; the pictures that gallivanted through my head made me close up my fist so tight that the nails drew blood in my palm. That girl hadn’t been me, had she? The more I thought on it the more I knew she wasn’t.

I understand it can be quite addictive.
That’s what he’d said wasn’t it?
Now, that was interesting. From my reckoning James hadn’t taken a sip of the stuff. Was that because he knew what was in it? Or because he knew what it did? Or both?

I forced the stopper back into the flask and folded it up in my shawl.

Then I pulled an old blanket off the bed, wrapped it around me and went over to the window to let some clean air into the room. It was dark. I leaned out over the narrow street below and gulped down the freshness like it was a glass of water.

That cut through. So that was romance, I thought to myself?

I watched a couple of women swaying about on the cobbles below. They were half-cut already and the very thought made my stomach churn over again. I most definitely wouldn’t be taking in anything stronger than cocoa for the foreseeable.

One of the women rolled over to a man standing in the shadows just beyond the pool of dirty yellow light cast by the lamp on the corner. She pawed at his arm and I heard her cough and slur something out, although I couldn’t hear exactly what she said.

The man shrugged her off, stepped back and raised his arm as if he was going to belt her one, but her mate pulled her back just in time. ‘Leave him be, he’s not worth it. Come on, we’ll find some likely ones up on the Commercial.’ Her voice was over-loud and ragged with liquor. The women staggered on together a little way until one of them stopped and bent double. Clutching her sides she began hacking away like she’d rack up half her lights right there in the gutter. Her friend waited until the spasm finished. All the while she just stood by, rubbing her hands over and over against the cold, her eyes darting about for trade.

‘You done?’

The coughing woman wiped her mouth, straightened up and nodded. They linked arms and lurched into the dark.

I watched them go. Was that going to be my future, I wondered? Joey had always protected me from that world, but I reckon he knew all about it. In fact, considering he worked direct for the old bitch he was probably up to his wide green eyes in all the greasy filth that floated around her like scum on the river. When I thought about Joey now my head fogged up so that nothing was clear any more – and it wasn’t the lixir.