The Cockney Sparrow Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Dilly Court

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Gifted with a beautiful soprano voice, young Clemency Skinner is forced to work as a pickpocket in order to support her crippled brother, Jack. Their feckless mother, Edith, has fallen into the clutches of an unscrupulous pimp, whose evil presence threatens their daily existence.

  Befriended by Ned Hawkes and his kindly mother, Nell, Clemency struggles to escape from life in the slums of Stew Lane. She finds work with a troupe of buskers and is spotted by the manager of the Strand Theatre. Clemency looks set for operatic stardom, but a chance meeting with the mysterious Jared Stone brings danger and intrigue and threatens to change her life forever …

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  www.dillycourt.com

  Dilly Court grew up in North East London and began her career in television, writing scripts for commercials. She is married with two grown-up children and three grandchildren, and now lives in Dorset on the beautiful Jurassic Coast with her husband and a large, yellow Labrador called Archie. She is also the author of Mermaids Singing, The Dollmaker’s Daughter, Tilly True and The Best of Sisters.

  Also by Dilly Court

  Mermaids Singing

  The Dollmaker’s Daughters

  Tilly True

  The Best of Sisters

  For Clemency South, who also sings like a nightingale

  Chapter One

  London, January 1889

  The toff was drunk. He could hardly stand straight, let alone find his way from the Strand Theatre to the cab rank outside St Clement’s Church. He teetered on the edge of the pavement and then staggered into the road. Judging by the state of him, the masher must have spent most of his time in the theatre bar. Clemency flexed her cold fingers – she needed supple hands and the lightest of light touches to dip into the flash cove’s pockets. He might not know what day of the week it was, but he could still turn nasty if he caught her picking his Lucy Locket. A bitter east wind brought with it tiny flakes of snow. Her ragged clothes were no protection against the cold, and her teeth were chattering like a pair of magpies. The wind funnelled between the buildings on either side of Fleet Street, bringing with it the damp chill from the Essex marshes. It snatched at the man’s opera cloak, causing it to billow out behind him: this gave Clemency the perfect opportunity to slip her hand into the pocket of his dinner jacket. But just as she did so, he lost his footing on the icy pavement and stumbled against her.

  ‘What the hell?’ His voice was slurred, and he glared at her through bloodshot, half-closed eyes. ‘Help, police! I’m being attacked.’

  ‘It’s all right, mister. I was just trying to save you from falling.’ Clemency’s fingers curled around the bulging leather wallet. She allowed her shawl to slip to the ground, exposing her thin cotton blouse with the buttons open almost to her slender waist. She might be skinny and underdeveloped for an eighteen-year-old, with a boyish flat chest and just a hint of budding titties, but some blokes liked it that way. Not that she ever let them go too far, but if it distracted their attention for a few seconds, then that was all she ever needed to make a getaway. She smiled up at him. ‘Want a hand across the road to the cabstand, guv?’

  He gave her a shove that sent her sprawling on the ground. ‘Get off me, you little whore.’ He staggered crabwise across the Strand, hiccuping and cursing as he went. Clemency scrambled to her feet, snatched her wet shawl from the pavement, and raced off towards Fleet Street with his wallet clutched in her hand. She hardly felt the cold as her bare feet skimmed over the paving stones. She ran until her lungs felt as though they would burst. She had not heard the dreaded shout of ‘Stop thief’ or the piercing blast from a police whistle, and, as she reached Ludgate Hill, she fell into a dark doorway. She huddled in a corner, sheltering from the snow-storm and gasping for breath. Apart from the muffled sound of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones, and the rumble of carriage wheels, there was blessed silence. No one was chasing her. The poor bugger probably hadn’t even noticed that his wallet was missing. He would only discover his loss when the cabby delivered him to his door. She chuckled. Serve him right, the dirty dog.

  She opened the wallet and stifled a gasp of dismay. It had felt fat and she had imagined that it was stuffed with fivers or even tenners, but the only paper inside was a programme for the comic opera at the Strand Theatre. She frowned as she attempted to read the large print, holding the crumpled sheet of paper so that it caught the dim glow from the street lamp. It wasn’t that her eyes were weak; she could spot a gold watch, a full purse or a bobby’s uniform a mile off, but she had spent more time wagging school than attending classes. She could read, but it was a struggle, especially if there were big words. She threw the programme out onto the slushy pavement. Either the toff wasn’t a music lover, or the production had been so boring that it had driven him to the bar. She tipped the wallet upside down and a small photograph fell out onto her lap. She recognised the simpering face of the voluptuous leading lady, Dorabella Darling, which only confirmed Clemency’s opinion that the chap was a masher. Well, tonight hadn’t been his night, had it? He’d obviously been turned down by the darling Dorabella and got himself sozzled into the bargain. She shook the wallet again – but there was no money, not even a halfpenny or a farthing. The bloke would have had trouble getting home anyway, silly sod. Her first reaction was to toss the wallet in the gutter, but she thought better of it and tucked it into her skirt pocket. It would fetch a couple of shillings at the pop shop when old Minski opened up in the morning, but that wouldn’t buy supper tonight. Wrapping her shawl around her head, she went out into the swirling snow. It was too late to trudge back to the Strand and, anyway, the theatre crowds would have dispersed and gone home by now. She would catch her death of cold if she were to hang round outside the boozers in the hopes of begging a copper or two. She was good at acting the waif, pleading for money for her sick mother and starving brothers and sisters, but that only worked in the summer when the living was easy and there were geezers with their pockets jingling with hard-earned wages, and their bellies filled with beer.

  She put her head down and broke into a jogging run, ignoring offers from men loitering in pub doorways who were looking for an uncomplicated tumble in a back alley. Clemency was not going down that path. She had seen her mother go that way and witnessed the effect that it had had on her. She was prepared to steal, cheat and lie, but she was not going to sell herself for money.

  By the time she reached Cheapside, she was wet and chilled to the bone. She couldn’t feel her feet or her fingertips: she knew if she did not get home soon she would join the rest of the stiffs that regularly froze to death in doorways, and under the bridges that spanned the Thames. She forced her legs to move in stumbling steps; she was getting near now, very close to St Paul’s Church and Knightrider Street. She just had to go a hundred yards or so down the street, turn left into Stew Lane, and then feel her way
in the dark to the steps leading down to the damp basement room she called home. The snow had funnelled into drifts at the end of the alleyway, and the wooden steps that led to the area were outlined with crisp snow, like the icing on buns in the baker’s shop window. Clemency trod carefully, not wanting to end up at the bottom of the steps with a broken ankle, or worse.

  As she opened the door and went inside, the stench of unwashed bodies, cheap tallow candles and stale alcohol caught her at the back of the throat, making her retch. Slumped on a pile of sacks, her mother lay sprawled liked a broken doll, her mouth hanging open and her lips vibrating with drunken snoring. On the floor beside her was an empty gin bottle, and cockroaches swarmed over her bare legs and feet. A large Norwegian rat was sitting on the upturned tea chest that served as a table, finishing off a stale crust of bread. It turned its head to look at Clemency with small, ruby eyes, and ambled off with a swish of its tail when she hurled the wallet at it, missing it by inches.

  ‘Hello, Clemmie.’ In the flickering light issuing from the stub of a candle, Clemency could just make out the pale face of her elder brother Jack as he sat, propped up against the damp brick wall, his crippled legs sticking out at unnatural angles from his emaciated body. ‘Any luck today?’ His deep, man’s voice was at odds with his child-sized frame, but there was neither self-pity nor resentment in his tone and he was smiling.

  His braveness in the face of their dire poverty and his own pitiful state never failed to bring Clemency close to tears. Sometimes she wished he would shout and storm at the cruel illness that had left him unable to walk or even to stand on his withered limbs. She went to retrieve the wallet and placed it in his hand. ‘Not much. I got this from a drunken masher outside the theatre: there was nothing in it but a rotten old theatre programme, and a photograph of that singing woman.’

  ‘I bet she don’t sing no better than you, Clemmie.’

  ‘Maybe or maybe not – but she’s rich and we’re poor. Worse than that, we ain’t got nothing for supper.’ She jerked her head in the direction of their mother. ‘Looks like she spent that money I give her this morning on booze. She promised me she’d get food.’

  ‘He come here again,’ Jack said, his cheerful smile fading into a scowl. ‘Said he had a friend what was eager to make her acquaintance. And we all knows what that means.’

  ‘The bastard! One day I’ll get him, Jack. I’ll catch him when he ain’t looking and I’ll stick a knife right through his black heart.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that, girl. If anyone was to kill the geezer it ought to be me. If I wasn’t just half a man I’d do it meself.’

  Clemency went down on her knees in front of him and took Jack’s face between her hands. ‘You’re more of a man than he is, Jack Skinner.’

  ‘Get on with you, silly mare.’ Jack’s brown eyes filled with tears and his lips trembled. He pulled her hands away from his face and clasped them to his chest. ‘You’ll have me weeping like a girl if you carry on like that.’

  She squeezed his fingers and leant over to kiss him on the forehead. ‘You’ll do, fellah. One day we’ll be rich and we’ll eat breakfast, dinner and tea with supper thrown in. We’ll live in a proper house, not just one stinking basement room with cess coming up through the floor. We’ll get Ma away from the drink and that pimp what’s ruined her life.’ Patting his hands, Clemency got to her feet. She looked round the dank room and shivered. The grate was filled with ash, but they had not had enough money to buy coal or even firewood for over a week. It was so cold in the basement room that the windows were frosted on the inside. Her mother’s bare arms and legs were mottled and purple, although she probably had enough alcohol in her bloodstream to keep her from dying of the cold. Clemency shot a worried glance at Jack: he was alarmingly pale and drowsy-looking. She must get him something to eat, and some fuel for the fire, or he might slip into the permanent sleep that claimed so many of the undernourished poor in midwinter.

  ‘I couldn’t get up the steps today, they was too slippery. So I never got to play me tin whistle outside of St Paul’s.’ Jack’s dark eyes burned like lamps against his pallid skin. ‘The other buskers will wonder what’s become of me – the crippled boy.’

  ‘Don’t speak of yourself like that, I won’t have it. You’re a wonderful player, Jack.’

  ‘It’s the only thing I can do.’ Jack picked up the penny whistle that lay at his side, and he stroked it as tenderly as if it had been a kitten or a puppy.

  ‘I can make a hatful of coppers when the worshippers comes out of the cathedral.’

  ‘Well, they’re all tucked up in their nice cosy homes tonight, so don’t you fret. I’ll pop out and get us some supper and you sit tight. I’ll be home in a couple of ticks.’

  ‘You can’t go out again tonight, Clemmie. Not in this weather.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, Jack. You keep an eye on Ma.’ She bent over her mother and began searching her pockets. Edith made a noise that was halfway between a snort and a groan, but she did not wake up. Her pockets, as Clemency had feared, were empty, but she dared not tell Jack. She knew he would rather starve to death than allow her to go out on the dip again at this time of night. She closed her hand into a fist and held it up for him to see. ‘She ain’t spent it all. The bastard, Hardiman, must have missed this little threepenny bit. I’ll run to the pub get us some supper.’

  She left the room, closing her ears to Jack’s protests. The snow underfoot was so cold that it burned her feet, but Clemency was impervious to the weather. She was on a mission and no one and nothing was going to stop her. There was a respectable pub in Carter Lane used by reporters from Fleet Street, bank clerks and businessmen. It was not as rough as the pubs nearer to the docks and wharves, and they sold hot pies and buttered rum punch. She went inside and gasped as the heat hit her in the throat like a punch, and the thick pall of tobacco smoke made her cough. The bar was packed with men, smoking, drinking, eating and chatting. She received a few cursory glances, but none of them seemed interested in a ragged girl who had not the strength to elbow her way through the forest of men in order to make her way to the bar.

  Hunger growled in her empty stomach like an angry tiger. She was desperate, and she would not stand for being ignored: Jack was close to death from cold and starvation, and Ma would need something other than gin in her belly when she awakened from her stupor. A burly market porter got up from his seat to make his way to the bar, and, seizing her chance, Clemency jumped up on his chair and began to sing ‘Home Sweet Home’ in a clear soprano. Gradually, table by table, the men stopped talking and turned their heads to stare at the girl who sang with the sweetness of a nightingale. She brought such pathos to the words that, by the end of the song, many of them were left with tears in their eyes. There was an emotional silence, broken only by sounds of men clearing their throats or blowing their noses, and then someone started clapping. Soon the taproom was echoing to the sound of appreciative cheers. Taking advantage of her success, Clemency leapt down from the chair, snatched a cloth cap from a drayman’s head, and went round to each punter in turn until the cap was filled with coppers.

  ‘Well done, little girl,’ the young barman said, grinning down at her with an appreciative sparkle in his hazel eyes. Clemency tipped the contents onto the bar and tossed the cap to the drayman. He caught it with a whoop of appreciation and stuck it back on his head. She gave the barman her best smile, ignoring the insult of being referred to as a ‘little girl’. There were times when it paid to be thought of as a child, and this was one of them. ‘I’ll have three of them hot meat pies, mister. And a jug of buttered rum punch, if you please.’

  ‘That’ll be twopence deposit on the jug, missy.’

  ‘That’s all right. I got enough here. I’ll bring it back tomorrow, first thing.’

  The barman wrapped three hot pies in a piece of butter muslin and handed them to her. ‘You got a fine singing voice.’ He poured rum into an earthenware jug, added a dollop of butter, a generous h
elping of sugar, and some lemonade. He went to the fire, took a poker from its blazing coals and thrust it into the liquid where it sizzled, sending up clouds of fragrant steam. ‘You can give us another song tomorrow,’ he said, handing the jug to Clemency. ‘You brought tears to me eyes, girl.’

  ‘Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t.’ She flashed him a smile.

  ‘You got the voice of an angel, miss.’ An old man with gnarled fingers and skin wrinkled like a prune patted Clemency on the shoulder.

  ‘Ta, Granddad.’ His rheumy eyes were either watering from the smoky atmosphere or filled with tears, Clemency did not know which, but she kissed him on the cheek anyway. She carried the precious bundle of food and the pitcher of rum punch carefully so as not to spill a drop, and the men who had previously ignored her stood aside to let her pass. As the pub door closed behind her, Clemency was conscious of a feeling of elation that was not just due to the anticipation of a good meal. She had felt a connection with those men as she sang to them, a sharing of emotion that she could not explain. The snow was falling in earnest now. The streetlights were almost obliterated in the swirling, dancing flakes that floated down so pure and white from the dark night sky. She quickened her pace. She must get home before the food cooled and the heat went from the punch.

  She slept well that night with a full stomach and a head that swam pleasantly from the unaccustomed alcohol. She did not feel the cold seeping up through the crude stone slabs that were laid on bare earth, nor the bites of the fleas and lice that inhabited her bed of straw. She dreamed that she was on stage in the Strand Theatre, singing her heart out, and the toffs in the audience were clapping and cheering. She awakened with a start, and she realised that the sound of flesh on flesh was not clapping, but slapping. She sat upright, blinking and shaking off the remnants of sleep.

  ‘Get off me, you sod,’ Edith screamed, lashing out with her feet and fists at the man who was standing over her, slapping her about the face and body with the flat of his huge hand.