Suki, p.8
Suki, page 8
‘Oh,’ Suki understood. ‘No. They’re on different ships. My brother’s…’ What could she say her brother was? This lying was terribly complicated. ‘…on a trader. Come on, let’s go in here.’
But although she tried every coffee house in the area and was either ignored or scowled upon because she didn’t buy the wares, nobody could help her. Some of the waiters admitted that they knew Captain Jack, but none of them knew where he was. The nearest she got to any information was the grudging admission by one coffee housekeeper that he hadn’t seen the young gentleman since last season and wished he could, bein’ he was owed a great deal of money. She trailed back to the abbey, footsore and thirsty and heavily disappointed.
The abbey clock was striking half past four. They’d been out of the house for two hours and ten minutes and every one of them wasted. Now William was awake and making grumbling noises to show that he was ready to be fed. If she didn’t attend to him there and then he would begin to cry and she couldn’t bear that, after dragging the poor little thing all over town.
‘Are we a-goin’ home?’ Bessie said hopefully. ‘Tis horrible dark. I think there’s a storm brewin’ up. Wouldn’t surprise me. Didn’t we oughter go home? I mean, we don’t want to be out in a storm.’
Yes, Suki thought, we should. She’m right. Heavy clouds were already massing behind the tall frontage of the abbey and the air was prickly. But she couldn’t stop now. Not when she hadn’t found out where he was. ’Twould be admitting defeat. And she wouldn’t be beat. ‘I’ll feed him first,’ she decided. ‘Then we’ll see. We’ll go to the Orange Grove. ’Twill be quieter there.’
Which it was, for although there were still plenty of people about, taking the air between the orange trees or standing in carefully posed elegance to converse with their friends, many more had cast a weather eye at the clouds and were heading home.
The two girls found a quiet spot beneath an orange tree and the baby was fed. As always, suckling eased Suki back to contentment and renewed her optimism.
‘What appetite you got, my ’andsome,’ she said, admiring the little thing. ‘No wonder you’m a-growin’.’ And the baby paused to smile at her, patting her breast with one chubby hand.
‘You do love ‘im, don’tcher,’ Bessie said, watching them enviously.
Suki answered without thinking. ‘Well course I do. He’s my babba.’ And then remembered.
‘Not really though,’ Bessie corrected, her round face solemn. ‘I mean ter say, he’s Lady Bradbury’s really, ain’t ’e?’
Suki explained at once, her heart tugged fearful by how easy it was to make a mistake. ‘I feeds him, so that makes ‘im as good as mine. Don’t it, my little lovely.’
The baby smiled again but Bessie went on worrying about the problem. ‘You’ll have ter give ‘im back when’s he’s weaned though, won’t yer.’
‘I’ll face that when I comes to it,’ Suki said shortly. But even the thought of having to give him back was stabbing her with anguish again. Oh, she’d got to find the Captain. She’d simply got to. She couldn’t cope with this on her own. But where could he be?
‘I wish I could have a baby,’ Bessie confided. ‘Be married an’ everything. Little place ter live. I s’pose you’ll settle down somewhere nice when your husband comes home. Place a’ yer own. Must be lovely.’
This is getting worse and worse, Suki thought, and looked around wildly for a way of changing the subject. ‘What’s that dirty old beggar doing over there?’ she said, feigning outrage. ‘We don’t want beggars in the orange grove. ‘’Tain’t seemly.’
He was squatting under the next tree and having tipped his takings into his hat, he’d pushed up the dirty bandage that was usually wrapped round his eyes and was examining the coins, biting the ones he wasn’t sure about.
Bessie was horrified. ‘Artful of thing!’ she exclaimed. ‘I seen him by the abbey, many’s the time. I thought he was blind. With all them bandages an’ all. I felt sorry for him, poor blind beggar I thought, an’ now look at him, he can see as well as you an’ me.’
‘Beggars are up to all sorts of tricks,’ Suki said. ‘I can remember one used to sit outside the Dog an’ Ducat picking his sores open with a skewer.’ She remembered the man and the place so clearly and the Captain saying, ‘Tis a fine place for gaming. You could win a fortune there,’ and she wondering what it would be like inside. The memory swung her spirits high again. A gaming house. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? He was parlously fond of gambling. They’d be bound to know where he was in a place like that. ‘I’ve thought of somewhere else to look,’ she said to Bessie.
‘Tis gettin’ monstrous dark,’ Bessie said nervously. By now, the clouds were the colour of black grapes and pressing down heavily upon them. ‘We don’t want our babby to get drenched.’ No, we don’t, Suki thought, but I got to find his daddy. ‘Come on,’ she urged, lacing her bodice. ‘One more port of call. That’s all. I really know where to find him this time.’
Bessie wasn’t convinced. ‘Is it far?’
It was on the southernmost edge of town, down by the south gate, where the beggars slept. ‘No distance at all,’ Suki lied. ‘If we look sharp, we can be there an’ back before the rain so much as starts.’
The walk took nearly ten minutes and brought them to the most insalubrious part of the town where the air was foul and the noise deafening, for the narrow street was teeming with people, most of them shouting at the tops of their voices, and heaped with rubbish, from broken carts and baskets to dead cats and piles of horse shit. But at least the old tavern was easy to find because it was the biggest building in the street. Unfortunately, and rather unexpectedly, there was a doorman standing guard at the entrance and the doorman didn’t know who the Captain was and had no intention of letting Suki in to find him.
‘’Tain’t no place for the likes of you,’ he said. ‘Get you off home before the storm starts. Anyways, you can’t take a babby into a place like this.’
Suki stood her ground. ‘Why not?’
‘’Twouldn’t be seemly.’
‘My friend’ll look after him,’ Suki said, unwinding her shawl and signalling to Bessie that she was to take him. ‘I won’t cause the least bit of bother. Just let me see if he’m there, that’s all I ask. You could allow that, surely to goodness. I could be in and out again in a two shakes of a lamb’s tail. They won’t even see me.’
‘Be the devil to pay if they do,’ the doorman said. ‘I’d go straight on ’ome, if I was you. You don’t want your eyes scratched out, now do you? Pretty lady like you.’ His face was wrinkled with concern for her safety and anxiety for his job. But there were three gallants picking their way through the filth towards him and he had to attend to them too. ‘If I may take your canes gentlemen, if you please.’
‘I got to give him some money,’ Suki persisted, as the men were ushered in. He’d understand money. Doormen always did. ‘He’s sent for it, d’you see. That’s all ’tis. ‘Twon’t take a minute. I could be in and out like greased lightning.’
He was harassed and uncertain but in the end he gave in to her badgering. What else could he do? He’d been hired to handle drunken men not headstrong women, and this one was so determined and so prettily aggressive, with those red cheeks and that thick dark hair. ‘Two shakes then,’ he agreed. ‘An’ make sure that’s all ’tis.’
She was gone before he’d finished speaking.
It was dark inside the tavern, for the curtains were drawn and few candles lit, so it took a second or so for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light, but even before she could see properly, she realised that this was no mere gaming house, that the doorman had been right and that she’d made a very serious mistake to push her way in. The room was suffocatingly hot and smelled strongly of sweat and sex. She recognised at once that there was a threat here, and danger, and then her eyes cleared and she knew — although she’d never been in such a place in her life — that she had stumbled into a whorehouse and that the sooner she got out again the better.
Luckily, nobody seemed to have noticed her entrance. They were all too absorbed in what was going on. In one corner of the room, two slatternly women were playing instruments — one a lute, the other a drum — and standing on a wooden tray in the centre of the table. And a third woman was dancing, gyrating slowly and vaguely in time to the wailing tune, and gradually unwinding herself from her clothes as she turned. Her leather stays, dirt black in the candle light, had been slung across a chair, and her grubby stockings lay like discarded snake skins at her feet. Now she was lifting her petticoats slowly and tantalisingly, swaying a plump white leg at her clients, and revealing the occasional temptation of a pitted thigh.
All around the table men watched with lecherous anticipation, their eyes moist and their mouths agape, while the other whores plied them with drink and picked their easy pockets, and allowed them to take what liberties they’d paid for. A skinny servant scuttled in the shadows gathering up empty glasses and being goosed for her pains, and the madame sat in the midst of the company, memorising the money as it changed hands. A hard, calculating, dangerous woman, Suki thought, appreciating the doorman’s warning, and she looked round quickly to check that her exit was clear. There was no point in searching for the Captain in a place like this. He would never make one in such horrible company. And neither would his friends.
But she was wrong. She’d barely taken two steps towards the door when she caught sight of a face she recognised, the shrewd dark face of a man with a deal of black stubble on his chin and a velvet patch over his left eye. She couldn’t put a name to him, but he was certainly one of the Captain’s friends and sitting with two or three others she thought she recognised too. Was there time to ask him? Did she dare? The madame was watching a man in an embroidered jacket. If she was quick about it, she might just…
‘Beg pardon,’ she said, stepping towards the group and speaking in the lowest voice she could manage. ‘But do any of you know where Captain Jack is? I got a message for him.’
The eye nearest her focused with some difficulty and she realised that the man was rather drunk. ‘Who’sat, Charlie?’ he asked his friends. ‘What she say?’
‘One of the Captain’s wenches,’ the man called Charlie explained. ‘Ain’t you my luscious lovely?’ His voice was slurred with drink and he was leeringly amorous, lurching at her, hands outstretched to grab, his breath rank with garlic and wine. She dodged his hands but humoured him because he might be useful. ‘That’s right,’ she agreed. ‘You seen ’im have you?’
‘Ain’t seen that worthy for nigh on six months,’ the third man told her. ‘In Lonnon I reckon. Take another lover, my charmer. Plenty here be happy to oblige you.’
Suki looked at their grimy linen and their ugly, seamed faces and shuddered inwardly, but kept smiling nevertheless. ‘Ain’t he comin’ to Bath this season?’ she asked.
‘Don’ look like it,’ Charlie said. ‘Come an’ sit with us, my pretty. We’m a sight better than the Captain. Love you an’ leave you, ’e would.’
‘Can’t do that,’ Suki said, avoiding him again. What parlous rough hands he do have! ‘I’m with my mistress.’
‘Wish I was,’ Charlie grinned, nudging his companion in the ribs.
‘Should you see him, sir, would you tell him Suki was asking for him. Say I need to speak with him. Tell him ’tis important.’
‘Anythin’ else?’ the man asked sarcastically.
‘Tell him he’m a father. Tell him he got a son.’ And she suddenly remembered the name of the man with the eye patch. ‘You will, won’t you, Mr Cutpurse?’
Quin Cutpurse was instantly sober and annoyed to be addressed by his name. ‘Get rid of her, Charlie,’ he ordered. ‘Afore there’s trouble.’
Charlie’s tone changed too. ‘Hop it!’ he ordered. ‘You heard what he said.’
She persisted. ‘You’ll tell him then, won’t you, Charlie?’
He took her by the shoulders and swung her body towards the door. ‘He’ll be here for the fair,’ Charlie said, speaking low and close to her ear. ‘Promised me, as a sworn brother, so he did. But that’s all I’m a-telling you. Now go, if you know what’s good for you.’
It was too late. As she ran towards the door, eager to escape, her way was blocked by the newest arrivals, three staggeringly drunken young men who, being still dazzled by daylight, reached out for the nearest female flesh to hand. For the second time that afternoon she found herself being mauled by clumsy fingers and, although she struggled away, her denial took her straight into difficulty. Being thwarted, the gallants protested loudly and at that the harlots took notice and protested too, and the madame rose to her feet, saw a stranger in their midst, and was instantly foul-mouthed with fury.
‘Who sent that bawdy basket here to queer our pitch?’ she roared. ‘You stay in yer own scalding house, if you please! Artie! Artie! Throw this dirty piss-kitchen out the winder!’
‘I was only looking for my brother,’ Suki tried to explain, but it was no use. An enormous black man filled the doorway. He wore a formidable cutlass and looked as if he could break bones by just leaning on them, so when he took her shoulder in his huge hand she went meekly where she was guided, and without another word, praying that he would simply lead her to the door and let her go without damage.
‘We don’t want none of you skains-mates in this house!’ the dancer called after her, and her patrons cheered her, sliding their unsteady fingers up her skirts.
Out in the street, Bessie was sitting by the wall dangling the baby in her lap. The storm had broken at last and large drops of rain were falling, making dark coin-sized circles on her skirt and bodice. She looked up in horror as the man threw Suki forward out of the door and, seeing her, Suki suddenly felt weak to tears. She’d been manhandled and shouted at, and she still didn’t know where the Captain was, only that he’d be at the fair, if that man was to be believed, and that was more than a week away. And now her darling was getting wet and she and Bessie would be scolded for being late back and heaven knows what Lady Bradbury would say if she knew she had taken the baby out into town again.
‘We’ll have to run,’ she said, as she took him. ‘We’ll go round the side roads. They’m not so crowded.’ And she settled the child into her shawl, tied it firmly and set off at once.
‘Did you find him?’ Bessie asked, trotting along behind her.
‘Not in there,’ Suki said. ‘’Twas a fearsome place. A whorehouse. I wish I’d never gone in.’
Bessie’s eyes were as round as the rain spots on her bodice. ‘My lor’!’
Suki quickened her pace, pushing past a woman with a broken barrow who was scavenging among the rubbish heaped against the walls. The thunder rolled and grumbled above their heads and there was such a racket in the street that at first she wasn’t aware that someone was calling her, ‘Mistress! Mistress! Wait for me!’ But after a while, as the voice grew more insistent and people seemed to be looking her way, she turned to see what was going on.
It was the skivvy from the brothel and she was running to catch up with them, waving and calling. ‘Mistress! Do wait!’
Bessie looked a question at her, but Suki didn’t stop to think. They were so late already they might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. So they waited.
‘Not meaning to butt in or nothink,’ the child said as she reached them, ‘but you was arskin’ fer the Captain, wasn’t yer?’ And she rubbed her nose with the back of one chapped hand and looked at them hopefully.
‘Yes,’ Suki said at once. Could she know anything? Was it possible? ‘You don’t know where he is, do you?’
‘Used ter come in a lot onst,’ the urchin said. ‘En’t seen ’im this year though. I should try Mrs Roper’s, if I was you. That’s where he stayed last time. Nowhere Lane. On the corner by The King’s Arms. I thought you’d like to know.’
Suki didn’t stop to consider the implications of the fact that a servant in a brothel knew where to find her Captain. It was enough that she had been given an address. After all this effort, she knew where to find him. At last! ‘Thank ’ee kindly,’ she said to the child and searched in her pocket for a coin to reward her with. All her money was gone except for a farthing, and that seemed very little for such wealth. But the skivvy took it with delight.
‘Ta ever so,’ she said. ‘That’s handsome.’ Then she wiped her nose again, straightened her cap and was gone.
‘Well, fancy that!’ Bessie said.
‘Yes,’ Suki said, smiling with the delight of it. ‘Now we must run or we shall certain be late.’ But being late didn’t matter anymore. The thunder didn’t matter anymore. There was no harm in the rain. No harm in anything. Hope shone through the rainclouds like a six-pointed star. He could be in Bath any day, she might find him at the theatre, or see him at the fair, or Quin Cutpurse might tell him, or that man Charlie, and failing all else she had his address.
Chapter 6
The three horsemen were waiting, sitting out the storm, as still as statues at the top of a rise above the Bristol Road. From time to time, lightning silhouetted their watchfulness against a lurid skyline; the wind whipped their cloaks until they cracked like sails; the incessant rain stung their faces, obscured their vision, made their horses twitch sodden flanks, but they sat on, menacing and patient, watching the road — waiting for their quarry. Quin Cutpurse, Charlie Moss and Captain Jack.
‘Here’s another,’ Charlie called into the wind.
A bedraggled carriage toiled round the bend in the road, hauled by two horses, both blowing and mud-spattered and struggling to keep their balance in the mud. The driver sat huddled into his cape, his whip heavy with water and, as they laboured on, another roll of thunder made the lead horse flinch and stumble. To the watchers’ delight, the carriage gave a lurch to the right, tipped a little, seemed about to fall, steadied and stopped.
‘Likely?’ Charlie yelled into the wind.
