‘Likely they won’t follow us down here,’ said Joe, ‘but we need to keep movin’. Come on. Watch your head.’ He led the way along the winding tunnel, ducking low, splashing through the water. They emerged into a wider tunnel, where they could stand more easily. There was a narrow brick walkway beside the water. ‘Watch out, it ain’t half-slippery, and you don’t want to be fallin’ in.’
‘Where are we?’ asked Stella.
‘It’s the sewer. We’re scrappers, Will and me. We come down at night to look for —’ He broke off and peered back behind them, holding up the lantern. In the darkness, something moved. They froze. Two green eyes gleamed.
‘A rat,’ whispered Joe. ‘A flippin’ big ‘un too.’ He dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out a pebble. ‘I’ll get him.’ He flung the stone, and the eyes disappeared.
‘You got to be right leery, down here,’ said Joe, as they went on. ‘You got to look out for rats, and for toshers too. That’s why we come down at night, ’cos the toshers usually come in the day. And you got to watch the water, particular if it’s been raining. Sometimes it comes belting down, right deep, and then you’ve got to run like the bleedin’ clappers.’ He laughed.
They crossed the stream on a slippery, wet plank.
‘Careful.’ Joe ducked under a pipe that trickled foul-smelling water.
At intervals along the walls of the sewer, words had been chalked onto the bricks. Will read them out in a whisper as they passed. ‘Barrow Passage. Dog Leg Street. Salamanca Lane. Fiveways.’
‘Hear that?’ whispered Joe over his shoulder to Stella. ‘He’s right clever, Will is. He goes to school. It’s sixpence a week. He’s learnin’ all sorts. Readin’, writin’. He’s right quick at figurin’ too. He ain’t goin’ to be a scrapper when he grows up — he’s goin’ to be a teacher.’
Will nodded. ‘That’s right.’
‘He’ll be a fine gentleman, sure as cheese, and he’ll keep us all in fish suppers and oyster pies,’ Joe said. ‘And we’ll be waltzin’ all around the place in silk suits with pearl buttons.’ He stopped walking and peered back into the dark tunnel behind them. ‘What’s that?’ He held up the lantern. Their shadows made looming shapes on the curved walls. ‘Somethin’ is followin’ us.’
Stella caught her breath. ‘The Gabbro brothers?’ she whispered.
Joe shook his head. ‘I don’t reckon. But it’s somethin’.’
‘Likely it’s the fetch,’ said Will. His voice shook a little bit.
‘It ain’t the fetch. Because why? Because there ain’t no such thing,’ said Joe. ‘You’re too old to be listening to them stories, you are. Likely, it’s a rat. It’s gone now, anyways. Come on. And keep quiet. We’re right close to the Wake.’
They came to the end of the tunnel. Joe stopped and cautiously looked out into a dark, echoing space. Huge brick pillars supported arches overhead. A wide river emerged from a huge pipe and flowed past, rippling silently around the pillars, glinting in the lantern light, before disappearing into the mouth of another pipe. Mud banks stretched beside the water.
‘This is the Wake,’ whispered Joe. ‘Come on. But keep dead quiet. And look out for trouble.’
Fifteen
They clambered down the wall, and Joe led the way across the mud to the edge of the water. ‘It used to be a proper river, years ago,’ he whispered. ‘Fish and all. But now it goes in tunnels down here.’
There were pale lights moving in the darkness. Stella could see a dozen small, shadowy figures poking around on the mud banks. Each held a flickering candle.
‘Do people live down here?’ she asked.
‘No, the air’s bad,’ whispered Joe. ‘You can’t stay down too long, you get sleepy, and you see things that ain’t there. They’re scrappers, like us.’ He raised a hand to a small girl who was collecting sticks nearby, and the girl waved back. ‘We just come down to find things.’
They reached the edge of the water, and Joe held up the lantern and looked around at the piles of rubbish beside the river, tangles of sticks and rags and sodden paper. ‘We’re right underneath all them big shops in the High Street. We’re looking for —’ He stopped, crouched down and picked up something. ‘Look.’ He held out his hand. On his muddy palm were three tiny glass beads. ‘Two blues and a red,’ he whispered.
‘Beads?’ said Stella.
‘They come from them fancy hat shops up above,’ he said. ‘They get washed down here when it rains. We pick ’em up, and our sister Liza makes them into flowers, and I hawk ’em in the street. Greens and blues and yellows, there’s loads of them.’ He dropped the beads into a little bag hanging around his neck. ‘Reds too. The purples, you don’t see them too much. Silver and gold, they’re right rare, they are.’ He grinned. ‘Find one of them, and that’s an oyster pie for supper.’
They went along the edge of the water, searching the mud. The tiny beads caught the light and glittered. Stella found a green bead and three yellow ones. She passed them to Joe, and he put them in the little bag. Joe and Will turned over the rubbish as they went, picking up sticks, pieces of wire and nails, bits of string, and the ends of cigars and stumps of candles, and putting them into the sacks they had slung over their shoulders.
Will found a small lump of coal and gave a whoop as he dropped it into his sack.
‘Shhh,’ whispered Joe. ‘Stow that.’
The river lapped silently at the mud banks. Wisps of steam drifted from the oily surface of the dark water. Stella walked carefully, her boots squelching in the mud. She found a red bead and a blue one. She yawned and rubbed her eyes. Something glinted at the edge of the water. She lost sight of it as a shadow passed in front of the light, then she saw it again. It was tiny, gleaming like the inside of a seashell. She picked it up. ‘What’s this one?’
Joe inspected it in the light of the lantern and grinned. ‘A pearl,’ he whispered. ‘A flippin’ pearl. That’s right lucky. That’s a fish supper for all of us right there, that is.’
Will gave a hoot.
‘Shut it,’ whispered Joe, as he placed the pearl very carefully into the little bag and patted it. ‘Keep lookin’. There might be more.’
Something moved in the shadows. Stella felt her heart lurch, remembering the creature from her dream. ‘What is it?’ she whispered, pointing.
‘It’s another bleedin’ rat,’ said Joe. He took a pebble from his pocket and bent his arm back to throw.
Two green eyes gleamed. The shape slinked closer. Stella recognised it and grabbed Joe’s arm. ‘It’s not a rat!’
The pebble went wide, and the stripy cat emerged from the shadows and came towards them. He looked bedraggled and annoyed. He miaowed loudly.
‘What’s a flippin’ cat doin’ down here?’ said Joe.
‘He must have followed me.’ The cat wound around Stella’s ankles. She bent down and stroked his wet, shaggy fur.
‘Is he yours?’ asked Joe
‘No,’ said Stella. She picked up the cat. He bumped his head against her chin and bit her ear, quite hard. ‘Ouch.’ She rubbed her ear. ‘Not really. He saved me from one of the Gabbro brothers. He leaped right on top of his head and scratched his eyes.’
‘Did he just?’ said Joe, grinning. He gave the cat a pat. ‘You’ve got to keep him, then. What’s his name?’
‘I can’t keep him. We’re not allowed cats at school,’ said Stella sadly. She remembered how she had found the cat on the roof, just after the clock had struck. ‘Midnight,’ she added. ‘He’s called Midnight.’ The cat scrambled up onto her shoulder and arranged himself across the back of her neck like a heavy, and rather damp, fur collar. He dug in his claws and purred.
Joe patted him again and suddenly stiffened, listening. ‘Shhh,’ he whispered, looking upstream, towards the mouth of the huge pipe.
A metallic, clinking sound echoed. Yellow lantern light flickered inside the pipe, glinting on the water. All along the mud banks, the little candles were extinguished and the scrappers faded si
lently into the darkness.
‘Toshers, comin’ down the Wake,’ whispered Joe. He blew out the candle. ‘Quick. We’re goin’.’ He and Will hurried along the mud bank, away from the water. Stella struggled after them, her boots sinking into the mud. She could barely make out their shapes in the darkness.
‘What are toshers?’ she whispered.
‘They reckon all this, the Wake and all the sewers too, is theirs. Upstream, particular. They say if we go up there, they’ll slit our throats and toss us in the water,’ whispered Joe over his shoulder. ‘And we don’t want that.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘So we’re leavin’ now, quick. Come on.’
Stella glanced behind and saw several tall figures emerge from the pipe. They were wading through the water. They held lanterns and long sticks with wicked-looking metal hooks at the ends.
Midnight mewed loudly.
‘Shhh,’ said Stella.
Joe clambered up a crumbling wall, then reached down and helped Will and Stella up into another narrow tunnel.
‘Come on. Quick,’ he whispered. They crouched down and made their way along, splashing through the shallow water. The tunnel sloped upwards. Water trickled down the brick walls. At intervals, dim light filtered from gratings overhead.
‘Sputters Lane,’ read Will in a whisper, peering at the chalk writing scribbled on the brick. ‘Fishbone Yard. Lurking Cross. Rat Alley.’
‘Nearly home. Watch your head,’ whispered Joe, as he ducked between the broken rails of an iron grating. They came to a rusty ladder. Joe and Will climbed up quickly. Stella followed them, clambering up awkwardly with Midnight clinging to her shoulder. She climbed out of the drain, took a breath of the icy night air and looked around as Joe and Will heaved the iron cover back in place.
They were in a narrow lane. A street lamp flickered. Dark buildings loomed up all around.
‘This way,’ said Joe, and he led them along the lane and turned into a court. They climbed down a flight of stairs and went along a winding alley. Stella stumbled along after Joe and Will as well as she could. They turned into a doorway and climbed a flight of stairs that wobbled and creaked. The air was close and smelled of sweat and dirt and boiled cabbage. A light gleamed under a door. They heard grumbling and a sudden angry shout from inside one of the rooms.
They went up another flight of stairs, along a passageway, then up another rickety, narrow staircase, almost as steep as a ladder.
At the top, Joe pushed opened a door. ‘We’re home,’ he said. ‘Come in.’
It was a tiny attic room. The ceiling sloped down to the floor in one corner. The gaps between the roof slates had been stuffed with rags. Pictures from the newspaper were pasted on the walls. In the middle of the room was a bed, and two little girls were asleep under a pile of blankets and rugs. An older girl was sitting at a small, crooked table beside the empty iron grate, making beaded flowers. A candle was alight, a pale, flickering flame. It was very cold.
‘This is our sister Liza,’ said Joe, pointing to the older girl. ‘Lize, this is Stella. The Gabbro brothers were after her, so we brung her home with us.’
Liza smiled, but did not stop working. She had the same straw-coloured hair as Joe and Will. She wore an old felt hat, a patched, old-fashioned grey coat and a knitted scarf, and she had a piece of sacking wrapped around her shoulders. Beside her on the table was a row of broken saucers, each holding different-coloured beads, and a little pile of finished flowers. They glittered in the light of the candle.
Liza’s face was scarred, and her eyes were milky blue. Stella realised that she was blind. Liza threaded several green beads onto a piece of wire and twisted them around deftly to make the leaf of a tiny daffodil.
‘Stella’s got a cat too,’ said Joe. ‘Midnight, he’s called.’ He said to Stella, ‘Sit down here,’ and pointed at a wooden crate beside the table.
Stella sat. She was sleepy and cold, and she ached all over. Midnight scrambled down from her neck and curled up on her lap, purring. She stroked his shaggy fur and thought about Agapanthus and Ottilie. They might be miles away by now. How could she ever find them?
‘Any trouble, Joe?’ asked Liza.
‘No trouble,’ said Joe. ‘Toshers come, but they din’t see us. But look what we found, Lize.’ He carefully emptied the little bag of beads into a saucer, picked out the pearl and laid it in Liza’s palm. ‘Look at that.’
She rolled it between her fingers and tested it with her teeth. ‘A pearl!’ she said, smiling. ‘That’s a bit of luck, so it is.’
‘Stella found it,’ said Joe. ‘She’s right lucky.’
‘Get your wet things off,’ said Liza, ‘and wrap yourself up, or you’ll catch your death. Did you get something for the fire? There ain’t no bread left. I gave it to the little ’uns, they were crying. But I saved a bit of soup for you. Put some water in — it’ll go further.’
‘We got some sticks, and Will found a huge great lump of coal,’ Joe said. He and Will emptied their sacks onto the floor and sorted through the contents, pulling out a handful of sticks and the piece of coal. Joe laid them in the grate and lit the fire. The damp sticks hissed and steamed, then the flames flickered up. Joe poured water from a tin jug into a saucepan and put it on the fire.
They removed their wet coats and hung them up on a line that stretched across the room. Joe took a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around Will’s shoulders.
‘Take your boots off, Stella. We’ll put them by the fire, and they’ll dry a bit,’ Joe said. He saw she was watching how Liza made the little flowers and explained, ‘Lize was apprentice to a milliner, in the High Street. She was learning beadwork, she was right clever at it. But there was an accident, and she got burned and blinded, so now she makes flowers.’
‘They’re very pretty,’ said Stella, as she unlaced her wet boots and pulled them off.
Liza smiled. She curled the leaves on the daffodil, laid it with the other flowers and picked up another piece of wire.
Joe poked the little fire and put Stella’s boots beside it. He sat down next to Will and began sorting out the tiny beads they had found.
‘So,’ he said, spitting on a bead and rubbing it on a bit of rag. ‘Why are them Gabbro brothers after you, anyways?’
‘They took our friend away from school,’ Stella said. ‘We were trying to rescue her.’
‘Asparagus? Your friend at the fair?’
‘Agapanthus,’ Stella said. ‘No. Our other friend, Ottilie. The Gabbro brothers snatched her away.’ She swallowed. ‘We found her at the fairground, but they chased after us. We were nearly back at the school when they snatched her away again. And this time they took Agapanthus too. They pushed them into a coach. And the coach drove away with them.’
Stella felt tired and cold and very discouraged. She did not want to cry, but could not stop her voice from shaking. ‘I don’t know where they are. I don’t know what to do.’
Sixteen
‘Them Gabbro brothers are right bad,’ Liza said. ‘They were priggin’ clouts and cacklers before they could walk, I reckon. Likely they’ve been hired to do someone’s dirty work. What do they want with your friend?’
Stella hesitated. She was not sure if she should tell them how Ottilie could open locks so easily. It was a dangerous secret. ‘Ottilie’s mother was a locksmith,’ she said. ‘And a gentleman took her to open a special lock. An underground door. But something happened to her, and she never came back. And then the Gabbro brothers snatched Ottilie too.’
‘Who’s the gentleman?’ asked Liza.
‘I don’t know who he is,’ said Stella. ‘And I didn’t get a good look at him.’
‘What was the coach like?’ asked Joe. ‘Was it from the fairground?’
‘No, a gentleman’s coach. It was black and shiny, with two horses.’ Stella rubbed her eyes. ‘It could have taken them anywhere. I don’t know how to find them.’
‘It’s late. Have a bit of soup and get some sleep,’ said Liza. ‘And in the morning, we�
�ll think what’s best.’
Joe took the lid off the pot on the fire and looked inside. ‘It’s hot,’ he said. He collected two tin mugs from the mantelpiece and carefully poured the soup into them. He gave one of the mugs to Stella. He swallowed a mouthful from the other, and then passed it to Will.
‘Thank you.’ Stella wrapped her cold fingers around the mug and took a sip. The soup was mainly water with little scraps of onion and potato floating in it. It was hot and comforting. She finished half and offered the rest to Midnight. He poked his head into the mug and lapped, purring.
Liza reached out and stroked his fur. ‘He’s a good size, ain’t he?’ she said. ‘We could do with a cat. Mice, I don’t mind so much, but big rats come up here sometimes, and I fret they’ll nibble the little ’uns in their sleep. And black beetles too. I hear them scuttlin’ about.’
‘You could keep him, if you like,’ said Stella. ‘We’re not allowed cats at school.’
Liza scratched Midnight between his ears. He rubbed his head against her hand. ‘You stay at school, do you?’
‘Yes. At Wakestone Hall.’
‘That’s right lucky,’ said Liza wistfully. ‘Learnin’ all the time, and three meals every day.’
Stella sighed. She supposed that she was lucky to be at school. But she dreaded the punishments that would be waiting for her when she returned. She yawned and leaned her head against the wall. The little fire had almost died down, and the room was very cold. She shivered.
Joe stood up, took a rug and a blanket from the bed and said, ‘Lize and the little ’uns sleep in the bed. Me and Will sleep here on the floor. You can share our rug, if you like.’
‘Thank you,’ said Stella.
Later, once Liza had blown out the candle, Stella lay awake in the dark and listened to the rain pattering on the roof. She rubbed her feet to warm them up a bit. Her toes felt like ice. Beside her, Will muttered something and turned over. One of the little girls cried out in her sleep. There were footsteps somewhere in the building. A door slammed. Outside in the street, someone shouted.
Wakestone Hall Page 10
