“Very well!” said Twill, accepting the bread and sausage and a slice of cheese with very ill grace. And then, because Baggage had taught her it was bad manners not to make conversation at the table, she asked. “What became of Fagin’s boys?”
“Don’t ya know?” asked Dodger, enjoying Twill’s feigned indifference. “After Oliver becomes all la-di-da, he only persuades his guardian that he wants to help unfortunate boys like ’imself, don’t he?”
“How did he do that?” asked Twill haughtily, hungrily tucking into the bread.
“The Brownlow Be-nev-o-lent Home for Unfortunate Boys,” said Dodger, pronouncing the words with an expression of distaste, as if he were chewing on a snail. “All the boys is taken in, fed an’ watered, an’ teached up good too.”
“Sounds nice?”
“Tha’s wha’ it’s supposed to be. Nice!” Dodger’s snub nose wrinkled up as he used the word. “An ’ome for the ’omeless. A refuge for the lost boys. All nice sound-ling like you says…”
“But?” Twill sensed there had been a but coming for some time.
Dodger shrugged. “But it weren’t the place for me. Tried it for a bit – liked the vittles an’ the new togs they gave us, but the bein’ learned – letters and addin’ up – ain’t no life for a Dodger. I got out of there soon as I could. Back on the streets where a Dodger belongs! It’s the life of an adventurer for me!”
The word “adventure” made Twill’s heart beat a little faster, but she turned up her nose nonetheless. “What? Stealing things? You call that adventure?”
“I most certainly do!” said Dodger. “Fogles and tickers and ladies’ purses – whatever I can get me ’ands on.” And with this he produced an array of silk handkerchiefs from his rolled-up sleeves, and proudly withdrew a pocket watch from down the front of his corduroy trousers. “I am an in-de-pen-dent trader now, though. Not answerable to no one. What I steal is me own!”
“Except it’s not!” she pointed out. “That purse belonged to the young lady on Doughty Street.”
“An’ possession is nine tenfs of the law!” declared Dodger. “Ain’t you never ’eard that?”
Twill, who had been briefed by Mr Scapegrace in the rudiments of Property Law – young men wagering all their property on the Hazard cards being not unknown at the Black Jack – simply raised her eyebrows.
“So wot about you?” continued Dodger, ignoring her disdain. “I ain’t never see you in this vicinity afore. Wha’s your story?”
“Maybe I don’t have one!” said Twill, haughtily accepting a second portion of sausage and cheese.
“Everyone ’as a story. An’ since we’re stuck here for the foreseeable, you might as well share it with old Dodger!”
So Twill narrated the events that had led up to the present, and when she had finished, the Dodger shook his head and offered her the last of the bread, though in truth his own stomach still gaped with hunger. “My eyes! That place sounds like a right bang set-to! Almost as bad as old Fagin, that Manzoni Monster. You’re well shut of it!”
“I know, but…” Twill thought of Baggage and a lump rose to her throat.
“Folks like you and me, we is free spirits,” said Dodger, wiping crumbs from his face with a pocket handkerchief. “We don’t take to being shut up in in-sti-too-tions and the like.”
Twill just sniffed and did not look him in the eye.
“You ’aven’t nowhere to kip, am I right?” said Dodger, guessing the truth in an instant. “’Ere, I got an idea! I am going to int-er-duce you to some acquaintances of mine wot might be able to assist you.”
Twill looked up hopefully.
“But first we gotta get you there wi’out the rozzers catching you,” continued Dodger. “Lucky you gots me to ’elp, ain’t it?”
Chapter 14
In which Twill is introduced to the Sassy Sisters of Saffron Hill and learns that there is honour among thieves
It was dark and Twill’s heart was beating violently as she and Dodger made their way back into the city streets. Dodger had said there was less chance of being spotted under cover of darkness, and he boasted of knowing every back alley and short cut, so they could avoid the main highways, where there were street lamps and where a top-hatted peeler on the beat might spot Twill and give chase. But still she couldn’t stop her heart hammering.
Dodger had said there were other dangers to worry about at night – though he would not say what. The city seemed very different from how it had appeared in the day – bundles of rags in doorways shifted to reveal sleeping figures that moaned like ghosts and made Twill jump, and shapeless figures slunk in dark alleyways from which foul whisperings and the odd inhuman shriek emitted to make her stomach lurch.
As they made their way through Little Saffron Hill and into Saffron-Hill-the-Great, they passed a grubby-looking public house named the Three Cripples, and two drunkards came tumbling out, lurching woozily towards Twill, causing her to cry out in alarm. Dodger grabbed her by the hand and pulled her out of their path.
“You needs to watch you’self,” declared Dodger. “You ain’t in Camberwell no more!”
Twill shivered a little, annoyed to have shown this boy she was afraid.
But even the Artful Dodger seemed to move with wary urgency now. “Come on – there’s eyes in every alleyway hereabouts,” he said. “And worse besides!”
Quickening their pace, they hurried on through little-frequented dirty alleyways, which seemed to get narrower and smellier and more maze-like as they delved deeper into the heart of the slums, until at length the Artful stopped before a ramshackle building above which a sign hung drunkenly, declaring, “Price’s Printing Press”. What had happened to Mr Price was unclear, for the place had the appearance of having been abandoned many years ago. It was a broken and boarded-up skeleton of a building, with chimney stacks leaning drunkenly, and crumbling brickwork that was coated with years of soot and smeared with slime that dripped down the walls, as if the whole place wept for its reduced condition.
“Where are we?” whispered Twill.
But Dodger did not answer – just looked around warily then rapped on the door in a rhythmic “one two, one two, two” pattern. That was when Twill heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching from the other end of the alleyway. Dodger heard it too. He rapped on the door again, more impatiently this time. The footsteps were getting closer – a heavy tread that reverberated through the night air. Dodge raised his fist to knock again when the door opened just a crack and a low voice whispered, “Cribbage and Rum”, to which Mr Jack Dawkins responded, quick as a flash, “Tic-tac-toe – Marco Polo”. Then – the footsteps nearly upon them now – a hand reached out and grabbed Dodger. He had the common sense to snatch Twill by the hand, who – for the second time that day – was rudely propelled into an unfamiliar environment.
“What the…?”
But Dodger pressed an urgent finger to Twill’s lips and there was a long moment of held breath as the heavy footfalls passed right by the doorway – pausing just for a second – before moving on. During this interlude Twill’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, and she was able to make out a large warehouse that had once been used for Price’s trade. It was lit by only a few tallow candles, so she could just make out a giant rusted printing press in the middle of the floor and some other paraphernalia rusting in damp corners. Instead of being filled with printed pages, however, the place was bedecked with what looked like pocket handkerchiefs, hung out to dry like a laundry. There were other trinkets besides: Twill spotted a lady’s parasol in soft grey silk, a mantle of fox fur, a dozen or so pocket watches which hung by a rusty old furnace, and – was that a set of intimate undergarments strung across one of the boarded-up windows?
“That were a close one!” said Dodger – but he wasn’t addressing her, for in the corners of this vast damp space Twill now saw there lurked a dozen or so young ladies, if that be the correct term for them, scattered about like the rubbish dumped on Mount Pleasant. And all of them wer
e now staring intently at her.
“Why ya comin’ ’ere this time a’ night, Dodger?” demanded a red-headed wench – presumably the one who had answered the door and dragged them inside.
“An’ a very good evenin’ to you too, my dear Chelsea,” said Dodger, with a low bow and a flourish.
“Was you followed?” demanded the young lady, who was taller than Twill but perhaps not much older, with a wiry frame and a face that might have been described as handsome if she didn’t look so cross. “Did the Child Catchers spy you comin’ ’ere?”
“Don’t fret your eyelids, my little Chelsea bun.” (This made the red-headed maiden flush the same colour as her hair). “The traps ain’t followed me, and there was no sign of the Child Catchers neither. I brung along a new acquaintance, is all.”
The red-haired maiden called Chelsea turned to look at Twill as the other girls edged closer, emerging from dark corners, whispering and staring – half a dozen sets of wide eyes taking in Twill’s almost-clean apron and her almost-clean fingernails, both of which stood in stark contrast to any of their own.
“Who’s ya lady friend, Dodger?” demanded a young girl of maybe eight or nine, with one eye folded permanently shut, like a round white moon in her dirty rose of a face.
“An’ what you bringin’ a posh cove like that ’ere for?” asked one of a pair of stocky-looking twins with identical squashed noses that looked as if they had been broken and mended several times each.
“Ladies, let’s play nice and remember our manners!” said Dodger. Then he turned to Twill and announced with aplomb, “Miss Twill Jones, meet the Sassy Sisters of Saffron Hill! An all-female crew of vagabonds, thieves, prigs an’ down-an’-out bad ’uns.”
“An’ the best in the business!” added the second of the broken-nose twins.
“The Sisterhood is an independent venture, based on democratic and Amazonian principles,” Dodger continued.
“What we steal we share,” declared a rather pungent young lady with an expression as belligerent as a bare-knuckle fighter. “No one takes a cut, no one tells us what do to, nor pushes us around.”
“And the most important rule of all,” declared Chelsea, evidently the leader of the pack. “No men – no boys – girls only!”
“Exceptin’ me!” declared the Dodger with another sweeping bow. “I am an honourable exception. An honorary sister. Ain’t that right, ladies!”
“If you means youse a big girl’s blouse, then that’s about right!” Chelsea emitted a loud sniff and continued to eye Twill with angry suspicion. “An’ you’d better have summat good in them pockets o’ yours, comin’ ’ere this time a night, or the girls’ll sling you back out for the child snatchers to take!”
“Come now, Miss Chelsea, you woutn’t do that to your dear old Dodge!” said Dodger, taking her hand and bestowing a delicate kiss, which elicited an eruption of giggling from the younger girls, who now crowded round and tugged at his pockets, revealing several handkerchiefs and the large golden pocket watch Dodger had shown Twill earlier, as well as the remaining sausage and the young lady’s reticule.
“Ooh – where’d you get this ticker, Dodge?” asked the girl with the closed eye.
“Why, young Sloane, from a prime plant up by Pembroke Gardens,” said Dodger with a grin. “There’s rich pickin’s that way now all the la-di-das been moving in – ruining the area, if you ask me!”
“An’ what about this pretty purse?” asked a tiny tot of a girl – the smallest of them all – with skin the colour of warm chocolate and eyes as blue as periwinkles.
Dodger bent down to pick up the tiny mite and sling her up on to his hip. “From a Doughty Street dame, but I nearly had to fight this one for it.” He indicated Twill with a jerk of this thumb. “Had a chase on my hands, so I did, young Angel!”
The little girl stared at Twill with undisguised admiration and all the other girls surveyed her with surprise. Only Chelsea continued to scowl.
“Caught the Dodger, did ya?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Twill, meeting the challenge in that young lady’s eye without blinking. “An’ then he stitched me up – like a louse!”
“I foxed you, is all!” said Dodger. “Showed I was the superior tactician. Then saved your life!”
“If that’s what you want to tell yourself!”
Ignoring this slight, Dodger turned back to the cherubic-looking creature balanced on his knee. “Look what else I managed to catch, young Angel!” He gave the young girl a twist of paper, and she opened it with an “ooh” of delight.
“Sugar mice, Dodger!” she exclaimed. “Look at their tiny noses!”
“Where’d you get ’em, Dodge?” asked one of the twins. Twill noticed that each girl had one brown eye and one green, the only difference being that the colours were reversed, so that if they stood side by side they were in perfect symmetry.
“I pur-loined them from that doddery old sweet seller on Clerkenwell Green,” said Dodge. “Half blind ’e is – never saw me comin’!”
There was something about the way he said this that made Twill think he wasn’t being entirely truthful, though she couldn’t imagine why.
“Oh, Dodge!” said Angel, wrapping her little arms around his neck and planting a kiss on his grubby cheek. “You’re the best!”
Twill was surprised to see Mr Jack Dawkins blush.
“Enough of this twaddle!” barked Chelsea. “Let’s introduce ourselves to Dodger’s new acquaintance!”
All the young ladies, it transpired, were named after the places they had been found before they came to Price’s Printing Press. There was Battersea, a squat-looking girl with the appearance of a pugilistic pug; Sloane, whose half-closed eye and scarred cheek had been gained in an encounter with the Old Bill on the King’s Road; Fleet, whose feet proved to be as fast as her name implied and who was as grubby and pungent as that river tributary itself; Chelsea, who had slept a whole winter in the snow on Eaton Terrace; and little Angel, who had been found starving on a street corner in Islington. Poor Piccadilly and Trafalgar – the symmetrical twins – seemed to have come off worst from the naming strategy, but as Chelsea pointed out, “None of us got no call to be ashamed of where we come from!”
“And I am but an ’umble conduit for the Sassy Sisterhood,” said the Dodger. “I broker certain deals for the resale of the – ahem – vintage goods these ladies procure.”
“You’re a fence!” said Twill, who was familiar with the term for one who launders and sells on stolen goods too hot to handle. Occasionally, Mr Scapegrace did dealings with such gentlemen in the back offices of the Black Jack for reasons that did no credit to that establishment.
“A vulgar term,” said Dodger, pretending to look offended. “I am an en-tre-pren-ure, helping these good ladies turn the sweat of their labours to ’ard blunt!”
The small girl called Angel had slipped her hand into Twill’s and was now looking up at her with bright eyes. “You looks ’ungry, miss!” she declared. “We got bacon – an’ broth too – an’ sugar mice what the dear old Dodger cadged for us. Want some?”
In truth, Twill was starving hungry again. It seemed like days since she had eaten the bread and cheese with Dodger, though it was in truth no more than a few hours. But Chelsea was still eyeing her suspiciously, and Twill was far from sure that she was welcome in the Sisterhood.
“Well,” said Dodger, turning to the flame-haired leader of the clan. “You got room for one more?”
“Can she pull her weight?” demanded Chelsea.
“She’s as speedy on her pins as you could wish for!” said Dodger. “I can vouch for that!”
“An’ she won’t peach?”
“She’ll be dark as a safe,” said the Dodger. “I knew it the first moment I clapped eyes on ’er. Said to meself, there’s a gal wot you can trust.”
Chelsea looked from Dodger to Twill then back again, as if trying to decide something. All the other girls waited for her verdict – and Twill was surprise
d to realise that she wanted to stay. Despite their rags and grubby faces, there was something about this clan that reminded her of the female camaraderie of the Butterfly boudoir.
“Please, Chelsea!” said little Angel, with plaintive eyes.
Chelsea sighed and gave a non-committal shrug. “She can stay for tonight and then we’ll see.”
Angel emitted a squeal of delight.
“What we callin’ you then?” demanded Chelsea.
“Oh, she’s a south of the river girl!” said Dodger with a giant grin. “Camberwell, ditn’t you say? Nice – suits you, I reckons.”
“My name,” said Twill, sticking out her chin and casting a disdainful look at the Dodger, “is Twill Jones.”
Chapter 15
In which Twill proves her sass and Dodger pays the price for a kiss
Chelsea declared that Twill’s continued tenure at the printing press was dependent on her proving that she had the skills of the Sisterhood, and so the next morning, along with Angel and Dodger, she took Twill out to teach her the tricks of the trade. “Gotta prove you’re up to scratch,” Sloane had explained to her over a breakfast of bread and warm milk. “If you wants to stay, that is!”
“Every sister brings some blunt to the table,” added Battersea. “That’s how it works.”
Twill nodded. She had slept surprisingly soundly, on a mattress of old rags and newspapers beneath the skeleton of the old printing press, with little Angel pressed up tight next to her, smelling of coal soap and sugar mice, and she had awoken surprisingly excited – and nervous – about the day’s adventures ahead.
“Gotta fink of yourself like that Robin Hood,” added Dodger, who had reappeared at dawn, bringing with him a bunch of rather battered carnations, allegedly purloined from a Covent Garden flower seller, which he distributed to each of the girls, causing much delight.
“What do you mean?” asked Twill. The flowers had not impressed her as much as they had the younger Sisters.
Another Twist in the Tale Page 5
