The Diamond of Drury Lane (13 page)

‘Look, lads!’ he exclaimed, pulling on my ankle. ‘You saw that: she fair threw ’erself at me, she did. Couldn’t resist me!’

‘Let go, you beast!’ I shouted, kicking at him to release his grip, squirming and twisting on the muddy ground.

Without looking at me, Billy tightened his hold and got to his feet, in effect dragging me up upside down so I was left dangling powerlessly. My ankle hurt hellishly in his fist and I could feel all the blood rush to my head. Billy was now pretending
not to hear my protests, play-acting as if I did not exist. This his gang found even funnier.

‘Anyone ’ear that cat meowin’?’ he asked his gang loudly, cupping his free hand to his ear. ‘Sounds in a bad way. Perhaps someone should put it out of its misery.’

The boys bellowed with laughter; Ferret-features doubled up with mirth. Then, suddenly, the laughter stopped. I felt the grip on my leg give way as I was dropped hurriedly to the floor. Next a pair of strong hands lifted me to my feet and clumsily brushed me down.

‘What you doing to Cat?’ asked Syd from behind me, his voice laced with menace.

Billy’s grin had frozen on his face. He looked pale, tensing for a fight.

‘We were just playin’, weren’t we, Cat?’ said Billy. ‘’Avin’ a laugh.’ His right hand was feeling for something in his pocket. I caught a glimpse of a blade in his palm.

‘I didn’t see her laughing,’ said Pedro, pushing his way forward to stand beside me, Lord Francis with him.

Billy shot Pedro a poisonous look and I could feel Syd’s bandaged hands tighten on my shoulders as he prepared himself for another battle. Panic fluttered in my stomach: I didn’t want to be the reason that more blood was split.

‘It was nothing, Syd. Let’s go,’ I muttered, turning away.

Syd looked down at my upturned face with a strange expression in his eyes: part pity, part understanding. I knew then he’d seen the knife too and was concerned for what would happen to me if this confrontation developed into a brawl. He addressed himself to Billy again. ‘I’ve ’ad enough fightin’ for one day, Boil, but I’ll take you all on if I find you touchin’ Cat again. Understand this: no one, but no one, messes with my Cat and gets away with it.’

Billy slipped his hand in his pocket for a second, then raised his hands, palms open, as if to say something placatory to his rival, but Syd ignored him, steered me round and marched me through the silent ranks of Billy’s gang. Having just seen him fell the Camden Crusher, no one wanted to chance their arm against him now.

Once we had reached the safety of Syd’s party of supporters, I felt relieved but also ashamed of myself. I should not have come to the match. I had run straight into trouble and almost come to grief. Syd’s father, a ruddy-faced man with fists like hams, gave me a disapproving stare as he watched his son usher me over to a stool at the ringside.

‘Let’s see that ankle, Cat,’ Syd said tenderly, taking off the rough woollen stocking on my right leg. Lord Francis, whom I suspected I had to thank for raising the alarm, hovered behind Syd, looking both embarrassed and anxious. Indeed my ankle was not a pretty sight: you could see the marks made by Billy’s fingers now blooming into red and blue bruises.

Syd’s frown deepened. ‘I should’ve punched his stupid face in ’ad I known ’e’d done this.’

‘It’s nothing, Syd,’ I said quickly, not wanting him to think I was bothered by so slight an injury. ‘As he said, he was just teasing.’

‘Teasing!’ exploded Pedro. ‘He had you upside down. That’s torture, not teasing. You shouldn’t play his game, Cat!’

‘I didn’t exactly ask to be treated like that!’ I answered, channelling the pain into anger at Pedro’s remark. ‘If you hadn’t all run off so quick, I wouldn’t have been left alone and he wouldn’t’ve dared pick on me!’ I stood up, intending to make a dignified exit, stamping off back home, but collapsed again as a stabbing pain shot up my leg.

‘Cat is right,’ said Lord Francis, looking abject. ‘We were most remiss to leave a lady on her own.’

‘We were what?’ asked Nick.

‘You shouldn’t’ve scarpered,’ I translated, ‘leaving me with that dung-ball Billy Shepherd.’

‘So that was Billy ‘Boil’ Shepherd?’ asked Lord Francis eagerly.

The knowledge that he had just been wrestling with one of London’s most infamous gang leaders seemed to restore his spirits, which had been depressed by Billy’s boot.

‘Let me make some amends for our lamentable neglect by paying for a chair to carry you home,’ he said, pulling out a guinea from his well-filled purse.

Nick and Syd stared at him in amazement.

‘Where’d you get that?’ asked Syd. ‘I’ll not ’ave you friends with no thief, Cat.’ He rounded on me, assuming that Lord Francis’s wealth must be ill-gotten.

‘Nothing to worry about, Syd,’ said Pedro, ‘it’s his. He’s not what he seems.’

Syd gave the blackened face of Lord Francis a hard stare. He may not be quick, but given time, Syd can usually see his way through a brick wall. ‘You a gent?’

Lord Francis glanced at Pedro anxiously. He now knew to fear the gang leaders of Covent Garden. He wasn’t to know that the mountain of muscle in front of him had a much sweeter nature . . . few people did.

‘He is,’ said Pedro.

‘What d’you mean bringin’ ’im along, Cat?’ Syd said angrily, immediately assuming it was all my fault. ‘Didn’t you stop to think what might ’appen to ’im if ’e was found out?’

‘It was my idea,’ said Pedro, but he could not draw Syd’s fire like that. Syd had got it fixed in his head that I must be responsible for the whole affair.

‘So why didn’t you stop it?’ he continued, still berating me. ‘You know Pedro’s green . . . ’e don’t know nuffink yet about the streets, but you do, Cat! I thought you were clever!’

It might have been a good moment to employ one of those moves that Richardson’s heroines use in his novels . . . a good faint or tears might have reminded Syd he was supposed to be feeling sorry for me. But it was beneath my dignity to indulge in such foolishness.

‘You’re right, Syd, I should’ve stopped him,’ I said, feeling quite defeated by the day. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to accept Lord Francis’s offer and go home.’ I stood up. Lord Francis offered me his arm and I began to hobble over to the gate.

My avowal of being in the wrong had taken the heat out of Syd’s anger.

‘You can’t walk like that all the way to Oxford Street, you daft kitten. I’ll carry you,’ he said, picking me up as if I weighed no more than a doll. ‘Come on, your lordship, if you must,’ he added grudgingly over his shoulder to Lord Francis. ‘I ain’t got the gold for a chair . . . you’ll ’ave to foot that bill.’

I
have to confess that I was in a very bad mood for the rest of that day and did not want to see anyone. I hid in the Sparrow’s Nest with my ankle wrapped in a cold cloth, feeling sorry for myself. Covent Garden, my home, had become a dangerous place for me. Now Billy and his gang bore me a grudge for turning them down, I could no longer take my freedom to roam for granted. What was worse, I had fallen out with Johnny. As I half-expected, I met little sympathy for my injury when he spotted me alighting from the sedan chair. He had gallantly rushed out to check I had enough money to pay for my ride (the Irish chairmen would not think twice about thumping a passenger who turned out to not have the means to pay for the luxury of being carried across London). Leaning on his arm to hobble inside, I told him about the disastrous turn of my outing.

‘If you want to run with the hounds, Cat, you shouldn’t be surprised if you get a few nips,’ he said, helping me through the stage door.

That was rich coming from a wanted man skulking in hiding.

‘And I suppose that if you want your wit to
sparkle
brightly, captain,’ I said boldly, ‘you have to take cover under the skirts of Drury Lane to escape the pack baying for your blood?’ I enjoyed the quiet revenge of seeing his face drain of colour as my words hit home.

The pleasure was short-lived. He tightened his grip on my arm and dragged me round so he could look into my face.

‘Who told you?’ he hissed, his eyes glinting with anger as he gave me a shake. I felt suddenly scared: here was a Johnny I had not yet seen, determined and dangerous. It was the first time my mild teacher had so much as laid a finger on me.

‘No one. I guessed,’ I explained hurriedly. ‘Don’t worry, no one else knows.’

He gave me a searching stare and then let go of my arm. He seemed cold and unfamiliar, not the
same man who had spent so many hours with me that week.

‘They’d better not hear about it from you, Cat, or you’ll be the death of me,’ he hissed. Turning his back, he strode away, heading for the prompt’s office, which he had made his temporary home.

‘Johnny! I’m sorry!’ I called softly after him, glancing around to check no one was in earshot. ‘Of course I won’t say anything. You can trust me.’

He gave a shrug without turning to look at me.

‘Can I, Cat?’ he said and banged the door closed behind him.

So, Reader, you can understand why I had retreated to my nest in a sullen mood. It was now ten o’clock. The theatre was quiet but the streets outside were alive with revellers as the taverns did a roaring Sunday trade. Even from my attic, I could hear voices calling out the name of the Bow Street Butcher. Syd was the local hero and was doubtless being fêted by his gang somewhere nearby, glorying in his triumph. All his boys would be around him. Pedro was probably there, leading the singing, perhaps playing for him, spending the
money Lord Francis had given him for taking him along on his adventure. Of everyone, I felt most angry with Pedro. He was like the cuckoo coming to throw the chick from her nest: he’d taken the place that should’ve been mine in Syd’s gang. And it was his stupidity that brought Lord Francis to the match in the first place, causing me to argue with Syd! And as for my ankle . . . well, if I could’ve thought of a way to blame Pedro for that too, I would’ve done.

After an hour of such dismal complaints, I’d had enough.

‘Come on, Cat,’ I told the darkness, ‘stop feeling sorry for yourself.’ I realised I was both hungry and thirsty. If I stopped sulking and did something about this, I’d begin to feel happier. This proved to be the case for, standing up, I found that my ankle was much better. Heartened, I picked up my candle and went downstairs in search of company and some food. There would be few people around this late on a Sunday, but I might be able to make it up with Johnny and have supper with him; failing that, perhaps Caleb, the
night porter, might have something to eat.

Backstage was silent and very dark. I didn’t like it like this: a theatre should be full of people and life. Empty, it echoed with ghosts of past performances and dead actors. My candle cast long, misshapen shadows where it caught on the ropes strung like spider’s webs from the roof. I had to be careful as I made my way round scenery waiting in the wings: fragments of castle battlements littered my path, wizened trees grew from the boards in a thicket that caught on my clothes. An enchanter’s laboratory, abandoned in one corner, gleamed with glass bottles fastened to wooden shelves and gilt-edged spell books. It rattled as I passed as if it hid a skeleton that was trying to break out of its cupboard.

‘Johnny?’ I called outside the prompt’s room. My voice sounded frail in the yawning darkness. There was no answer. I pushed the door open. A low fire lit the room with a red glare. His office was filled with piles of scripts. A small camp bed, neatly made, stood ready in one corner. Pens, drawing equipment and paper were bundled underneath it.
But there was no Johnny. I closed the door softly.

A noise behind me caught my ear like the sound of a distant door clicking to. I spun round.

‘Johnny?’

No answer.

Apart from Johnny and the night porter who manned the door, I did not expect anyone else to be in the theatre. Perhaps Johnny had gone in search of me? Perhaps he had also wanted to make up? Even if he didn’t, I would have welcomed a further reproof as long as I could have company.

I moved as swiftly as I could in the direction of the noise and found myself outside Mr Sheridan’s office. I paused, trying not to breathe too loudly. Yes, there was definitely someone moving stealthily about inside, but it couldn’t be Johnny, not in this office. I could hear the scrape of a chair as it was dragged across the floor. Had Mr Sheridan come in for something? That was most unusual this late on a Sunday night.

‘You’ll keep my jewel safe for me, won’t you, Cat?’

My promise to Mr Sheridan came back to me as I stood in the dark corridor outside his office.
What if someone was in there right now? What if they had already found the diamond? I had to stop them. Looking around for inspiration, my eyes lighted upon a spear leaning against the wall: I recognised it as the one used in the pageant for ‘Rule, Britannia’. Though blunt, it should be sufficiently menacing to scare off a would-be burglar. But what if it was Mr Sheridan? I couldn’t just go bursting in and threaten him with a spear. There was a chance that he might find it funny; on the other hand, he might decide I’d gone too far. He was very particular as to who entered his office. Taking the spear in my right hand, I gently eased the door open with my left and peeked in. I could see a dark figure, too small for Mr Sheridan, standing on the chair, searching along the shelves opposite.