can take it out of this,” I said, very casual. “I was give it by a gentleman I met this afternoon—a real gentleman, with a carriage, who liked what he saw, and knows you have to pay top price for quality.”
This was God’s own truth, or some of it at least. I was never a beauty, but I was small, and there are gentlemen who like that. This one wanted a naughty child that required correction, so that’s what I gave him. I was a naughty child that stole things too.
“Oh, you peach,” wheezed Mother C, and had the guinea before I could think twice. “Is this my clever girl? Oh, my.”
I’d never see that guinea again, nor any part of it. But the expression on Luna’s gob almost made me forgive myself. Besides, I still had the gentleman’s gold watch, which was in his weskit when the gentleman wasn’t. It was worth a good sight more than a guinea, and Mother C was never going to know about that. Anyroad it was always a good investment to stay Mother Clatterballock’s peach. Then there weren’t so many questions about coming and going as I pleased.
“Your brother, eh?” Mother C was eyeing my actor gentleman. “And ’as ’e come to rescue his little Nell from out o’ this life?” She said it with her old whore’s squint, the one that said both I’m just having a joke with you, ducks, and think very careful what you say next.
“No,” I said, “he’s here to ask money of me. For there has to be one in each family that’ll do a day’s work, and he ent it.”
I don’t suppose I fooled her one bit. But after a moment, Mother C’s squint relaxed into a leer. “Well, then, enjoy your family time,” she said, “for this hestablishment is built on family walues. At least, enjoy yourselves for a minute or two. But after three minutes, I’d best see you back at work, Nell, for the sake of all concerned. And you, sir,” she added, with another look at my actor, “won’t be showing your phiz ’ere again without you got coin of the realm clinking in your pocket, family or no family, brother or no brother, for Tim Diggory is here seven days o’ the week, every week o’ the year, and that hincludes Christmas. Ent that right, Tim? Yes it is. So nod your ’ead, Tim, and let go the gemmun’s windpipe, and we’ll take our leave—and so will the gemmun. ’E’ll be on his way directly, and won’t be ’anging about like a fartleberry from an arsehole. Come on then, Loo. Loo! I’m talking to you, you surly slut. Pinch your cheeks all rosy-nice, and smile for the lads, for no one wants to fuck a lemon.”
So they left, with Luna shooting unspeakable looks every second step. That left me and my actor gentleman, staring at each other.
“Yer welcome,” I said.
“Yes. God, yes. Thank you.”
He sat with a whump on the bench, like his legs had clean give way beneath him. I matched the saving of his hide against that guinea of mine in Mother C’s fat grubby palm. Good exchange, Nell, I said to myself, you twat.
“I’ll pay you back, of course.”
“Yes you bloody well will. You’ll pay me back with fucking interest. By the time you’ve finished paying back, you’ll wish you’d gone to the moneylenders instead.”
He started to laugh, with the sheer relief of it. He was actually nice looking, when he laughed. In fact, he was almost handsome— or at least he would’ve been if he’d had a bit more in the way of a chin. All that Count of Monte Cristo business—the brooding stranger, rough and bitter—that was nothing but an act he tried to put on. But just when you were fed to the teeth with him, he’d cock his head a quarter of an inch, and sneak a peek at you out from under the wing of soft brown hair that had fallen over his eyes, as if to ask: how am I doing so far? Then he’d flip it back with a movement of his hand, and give a crooked boyish smile. A rake’s younger brother, maybe—wishing he could be dangerous and wicked, but not getting much past coy.
Maybe I didn’t dislike him as much as I’d thought.
“My name is Hartright,” he said. “Jack Hartright. At least, this is the name I go by, in these days of my exile from a former life.”
“Then go buy me another drink, Jack Hartright, just before you fuck off. Cos your three minutes are about up.”
He laughed again, and shook his head. He had a scar at the side of one eye—a strange thing to see on such a smooth face. It was shaped like a horseshoe.
“My God, but you’re a curious little creature, aren’t you?”
There was several things I could have said to this, and probably would have, in another half a second. Starting with: “Tim Diggory? Come back here please, cos I’ve decided I’d like you to kill him after all.” But I didn’t get the chance.
“I’ll be glad to buy you a drink,” he said.
Except it wasn’t Jack Hartright who said it.
Tall and thin and dressed in black, with a limp and high boots and a low slouching hat. The old gentleman from outside the theatre. He’d come in behind me, without my knowing he was there.
He’d brought the night in with him; suddenly the air was cold.
“What would you like to drink, my dear?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Thank you very kindly, but I ent available.”
“No? But I think you are.”
He had a coin in his hand. He’d plucked it out of the air, some fucking conjurer’s trick.
“I’ll pay you a crown.”
It was good money—except you always knew, when it was wrong. In the first second, you just knew, before they said a word. But this was different. This was all wrong, but wrong in a way I’d never come up against before. I opened my mouth to call for Tim Diggory.
“A guinea,” I heard myself saying instead.
His lip crept up over his teeth. I suppose you’d call it a smile.
I STOOD BY the window. My room was at the top of the stairs, on the third floor, at the back. There was a bed, and a little low table with a pitcher and a basin and a candle fluttering, and a trunk against the wall by the door. He looked round the room. He looked at the trunk. Then he sat down on the lid of it, slow and creaking, and looked at me.
The room was icy with him.
“Let’s have the guinea, then,” I said.
All my things were in that trunk he was sitting on. Everything I owned. Bits of clothes, and other things too—most of them useless, but they were mine. An old clock with some of the insides missing, except maybe I’d meet someone who could mend it. A wooden soldier with arms and legs that moved when you pulled a string. My hat with a feather and some lace and a real silk handkerchief. I had some books, too. One of them was lying on top of the trunk. He picked it up.
“You can read?”
“Of course I can bloody read.”
“Well done.”
It was a little book about Dick Turpin’s famous ride. I had some other books too, inside the trunk. One about Tom Thumb, and also Bewick’s Birds with beautiful drawings.
“My guinea,” I said. “You said a guinea, so let’s have it.”
He plucked it out of the air—that fucking conjuring trick of his—and smiled. “Here,” he said. He held it out, but only partway, so’s I’d have to step closer to take it. When I did, his other hand moved faster than I could see. I gave a cry and pulled back, thinking he was grabbing at my throat. But it was my locket he wanted—the one I had on a chain around my neck.
“Give that back!”
He turned it with his fingers, examining it in the candlelight.
“I mean it. Give it here. Look, it’s only brass, all right? It isn’t gold—it