The Diamond of Drury Lane (18 page)

We were approaching the greatest danger: the corridor containing the prompt’s office. I had to think of a diversion before he burst in upon Johnny.

‘Oh, sir,’ I cried quickly as he approached the door, ‘you can’t go in there.’

He turned to give me a bitter smile, scenting his quarry to be nearby.

‘Why not, Miss Royal? Mr Sheridan has given us the passport to roam. He said we were to go anywhere we liked.’

‘Did he?’ I replied, silently cursing my over-generous sponsor. ‘Well, I’m sure he did not intend the permission to include the ladies’ powder room.’

Marchmont flushed and removed his hand from the handle as if it had burned him.

‘There’s no sign,’ he said hotly.

I shrugged. ‘Of course not. Those who need it know what it is. If you require the privy, I could ask one of the stagehands to take you.’

I enjoyed watching Marchmont’s cheeks turn red. ‘No, no, that won’t be necessary,’ he said,
striding purposefully off down the corridor.

Just as I was about to congratulate myself on my cleverness, disaster struck. Lady Elizabeth, waiting for the young gentlemen to leave, whispered aside to me, ‘I’ll call in here for a moment and catch you up.’

‘No!’ I protested, trying to stop her. But it was too late. She had opened the door and stepped inside, closing it swiftly behind her.

‘Miss Royal!’ called Lord Francis from the scenery lot at the back of the stage. ‘Miss Royal, tell us again how this balloon thing works.’

I stared at the door in agony, expecting Lady Elizabeth to rush out screaming at any moment.

‘Leave Lizzie; she’ll find us all right,’ Lord Francis continued.

Not daring to imagine what was happening inside that room, I tore myself away and joined Lord Francis, Miss Jane and Mr Charles by the deflated splendours of the balloon. I don’t know what they made of my mechanical explanation: I was so distracted that I must have talked utter rubbish.

‘What do you think, Charlie?’ wondered Lord
Francis. ‘Shall we test it out on old Marzi-pain and leave him up there? It would be doing the world a favour.’

Charles Hengrave laughed. ‘Good idea. You still haven’t got your own back on him for snitching to your father about that coach you drove around the Square.’

‘You’re right! How had I forgotten that?’

‘Your problem, Frank, is that you’re too good-natured to bear a grudge,’ said his friend approvingly.

‘Or too absent-minded to remember anything for long,’ added Miss Jane with an indulgent smile at her cousin.

Soft footsteps behind me and Lady Elizabeth appeared at my elbow. She looked a little shocked but managed to give me a small smile.

‘Unusual powder room, Miss Royal,’ she said softly. ‘As I was unable to avail myself of its facilities, perhaps you would be so kind as to guide me to the appropriate chamber?’

‘Of course, Lady Elizabeth,’ I said, feeling a wave of gratitude towards her.

Leaving the rest of the party under Sarah Bowers’ capable eye in the Sparrow’s Nest, I led Lady Elizabeth to the privy.

When she re-emerged, she took me to one side.

‘Do you know who that is, Miss Royal? I assume you do as you were trying to prevent our paths crossing.’

I nodded.

‘So how did Lord Jonathan Fitzroy come to be here?’ she whispered.

‘So he is a lord,’ I said half to myself as her question confirmed my suspicion. Johnny’s knowledge of the Avons and their friends had given me a hint that he had moved in higher circles than the one he was currently occupying. I should have put two and two together when I heard Mrs Reid’s story about the Earl of Ranworth and his troublesome son. The rift between Johnny and his father could be explained by the predilection of the son for treasonous cartoons. And why else had Mr Sheridan despatched Mr Salter off to the other end of the country? My patron knew better than to send a fool like that to find someone. He’d been
sent out of the way to stop him recognising his cousin. But Johnny’s identity as Captain Sparkler must be preserved as a secret, even from the Avons.

‘I think Mr Sheridan is helping him until a reconciliation can be arranged with his father,’ I explained. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’

She shook her head, her neat ringlets whispering like silk at her neck.

‘No, I’ve given him my word. He said I could tell my brother if I wished, but no one else. He also said I could trust you.’ Her cheeks were now blushing. ‘He said that you’d pass him any messages I might care to send him and you’d bring any word from him to me.’

Clearly there was much more to the history of Lord Jonathan and Lady Elizabeth than I knew. As Johnny’s friend, I felt it my role to blow his trumpet for him.

‘Certainly. I’d like to be of assistance to you both, especially since Johnny saved my life last night.’

‘He did?’ Her eyes glowed with pride to hear of her sweetheart’s courage.

‘Yes, he saved me from certain death, armed
only with a brace of unloaded pistols. I had a razor held to my neck at the time.’

Lady Elizabeth frowned and took my arm in her gloved hand. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you? Someone did this to you?’

I hadn’t meant her to set off on this track. I tried to shrug but the shock in the eyes of a girl who had only ever known the comfortable life of the affluent made me realise just how far below her I was. My life was a series of buffets and blows, hers a round of tea parties and pretty dresses. I felt ashamed of myself. But, to my surprise, Lady Elizabeth said, ‘You are the bravest girl I’ve ever met, Miss Royal. I admire your courage.’

I met her gaze and saw that she was not looking at me as the scruffy commoner, but as the heroine of my own tale. As her equal.

‘Please call me Cat,’ I said. ‘All my friends do.’

She smiled. ‘Yes, I’d like that. And call me Lizzie . . . that’s what Papa and Frank call me at home.’

Our friendship sealed, we returned to the Sparrow’s Nest to find the rest of the party decked out in a fantastical selection of robes and crowns.
Lord Francis had Pedro’s turban perched drunkenly on his head and he was making Sarah howl with laughter as he tried to imitate Pedro’s spinning dance.

‘Lawd love us,’ said Sarah. ‘You’d go down a treat on the stage you would, sir.’

Lord Francis stopped twirling and gave her a wobbly bow.

‘Ma’am, may you be blessed a hundred times for your kind words. An actor’s life for me, it is!’

‘How many dukes do you know who combine their duties with clowning in front of the rabble?’ asked Marchmont as he toyed contemptuously with a patched cloak.

‘Not enough!’ cried Lord Francis, making Miss Jane and Sarah giggle.

‘I think I’d better take my brother away, Cat,’ said Lady Elizabeth, ‘before he does himself an injury. Thank you for your kind attention this morning.’

Her thanks were followed by the warm farewells of the rest of the party . . . excepting the Marchmonts, of course. Still, I had to remove an
ostrich feather that the younger Miss Marchmont had inadvertently slipped inside her reticule, much to the chagrin of her brother. I wondered if he had put it there.

‘Well,’ said Sarah, rocking in the armchair with a pile of mending on her lap, ‘if all lords were like that Lord Francis, England would be a fine place.’

I heartily agreed with her. Unfortunately, there were too many Marzi-pain Marchmonts to make that a reality.

‘So, what’s the story behind you and Lady Elizabeth?’ I asked Johnny as I sat over the slate of sums he had set me. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was pouring obliquely through the grimy windows of his office, lighting his face with a pale golden glow. What a fine couple he and Lady Elizabeth would make if fortune smiled on them. No longer needing to conceal his activities from me, he was inking in a cartoon he had done about the complicated love life of one of the princes. He looked up at me and brushed a stray strand of dark hair off his face.

‘A short story, I’m afraid, Cat. Not enough to satisfy your voracious appetite for information. We met in the autumn at her coming-out ball.’

‘Her what?’

‘Her first venture into society as an adult. They call it coming out. When you see a young lady, you must ask yourself, is she in or is she out?’

‘Sounds like cricket,’ I said glumly, remembering a tedious afternoon I had once spent with Syd’s gang when they had played against a rival team from Smithfield. Johnny laughed.

‘Not really. It’s a kind of code, meaning is she on the marriage market or is she not?’

‘And are you bidding for her?’ I teased.

‘I might’ve done . . . had circumstances been different. That was before I fell out with my father. He discovered all this.’ Johnny gestured at the cartoon lying on the table before him. ‘Didn’t take too kindly to it, staunch royalist that he is. He failed to understand how his son could be a republican at heart.’

The earl could be forgiven his confusion. How did the son of an earl end up rejecting the system that so favoured him and his kind in exchange for the new ways of France and America? I wondered. Well, the only way to find out was to ask.

‘Why are you?’

‘Why am I what?’

‘A republican.’

‘Ah.’ Johnny put his pen down and wiped the
ink from his fingers with a rag. ‘It’s all thanks to Mr Shore, my old tutor. He taught me that all men are equal. Titles are nothing when you place man beside man in the wild. What is important then is character and intelligence. He told me how many so-called savage races around the world live noble lives, free of our corruption, greed and envy. It’s not the man’s title but his qualities you should look to.’

‘Or woman’s.’

‘Quite so.’ He acknowledged my correction with a slight bow. ‘That’s why I despise Billy Shepherd as much as I do the prime minister. It is nothing to do with Shepherd’s lowly station in life; it’s his cruelty and greed that brings him into contempt. And it’s why I admire Lady Elizabeth. Her rank is nothing, but her mind and her heart are everything. She’s so different from all the other young ladies I’ve met. When you talk to her, you know she understands you, follows your thoughts through all their fancies and wanderings.’

He meant she’d put up with him rambling on about his revolutionary ideas, I thought with a
smile, picturing him talking earnestly to her in some corner at her coming-out ball. But he was right: she had the air of someone intelligent and thoughtful. Not to mention her beauty. I could see how he had fallen hopelessly in love with her.

He rolled up the cartoon he had been working on and looked at me thoughtfully, tapping the end of the tube of paper on his chin. ‘Cat, are you happy to venture outside now? Do you think you are in any danger?’

‘Not now I’m prepared. Not during the day,’ I replied. I wasn’t going to let a steaming pile of dung like Billy Boil stop me getting a breath of fresh air. He wasn’t going to make me a prisoner in my own home.

‘Then would you mind running this to Mr Humphrey, the printer in Gerrard Street?’

‘Of course.’ I jumped up eagerly, not least because Johnny appeared to have forgotten that I had an unfinished slate of sums to do.

‘Good girl. I’ve used Caleb too often. What I need is a confidential messenger.’ He pressed a sixpence into my hand. ‘Keep a weather eye for
danger, Catkin. Stay on the main streets.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said with a grin. I hardly needed the warning but it was nice to hear that someone cared.

‘Oh,’ he said, as if an afterthought, but I could tell he had been planning to say it all along. ‘If you bump into Mr Sheridan, deny all knowledge of this one.’

I unrolled it and took a peek at the picture.

‘I suppose he wouldn’t be too pleased to see you’ve drawn his best friend in his underwear.’

‘No, he wouldn’t.’ Johnny smiled grimly. ‘Sheridan may be my friend . . . and a good friend in times of trouble . . . but he hasn’t bought my conscience. I serve no party but the truth.’

‘And,’ I added, ‘it’s a good way of throwing people off the scent. Who would look for Captain Sparkler under Mr Sheridan’s wing when this is printed?’

‘You are a sharp one, Cat. What are we going to do with you?’

‘But mightn’t he throw you out for insulting his friend?’ I asked.

‘He might,’ said Johnny with a shrug as he
ushered me out of the room, ‘but that’s a chance I am prepared to take. Hurry now. The deadline’s already passed. Mr Humphrey’s waiting to let his etchers loose on it.’

Pausing this time to wrap up warmly, I emerged on to Russell Street to find the world had changed. A steady fall of snow had covered the street with a purifying shroud, hiding the mud and mire that lay just beneath. London was muffled, the snow quelling the evil and violence for a few brief hours, lifting spirits for a holiday of innocence and beauty. I knew it would be all too brief an interval. The white blanket would be quickly sullied by the passage of heavy boots, hooves and wheels. When night fell, the benign-seeming snow would become a menace to those with no roof over their heads, freezing to death the vagrants sheltering in doorways. But for the moment, I wanted to enjoy the spectacle.

Slipping my way to the market, I found Syd’s boys engaged in a furious snowball fight, Pedro among them. The snow-covered houses looked like iced cakes in the confectioner’s window: each
sugar-frosted rooftop and window ledge good enough to eat.