by Lou Kuenzler
“I hope you don’t expect a tip, because you are not getting one!” she sniffed.
“As you wish.” Mac took his fare and bowed politely as the lady stomped away. “Now, lass. There’s Drury Lane with all the theatres that way, and the Strand with cafes and restaurants just down the road. This is the beating heart of London. Every cabby comes to Covent Garden sooner or later. If you wait here long enough you’ll see your Black Beauty trot by.”
“Like a cat at a mouse hole?” I said.
“Exactly!” Mac grinned. “I’ll have to leave you to it, lassie. But good luck.”
“Thank you,” I called, scrambling down from the cab. Mac had changed everything. It wasn’t hopeless. I could find Beauty. All I had to do was watch and wait.
Chapter Thirty-six
Five days I sat on the steps outside the opera. A thousand cabs must have trotted past me or pulled up on the kerb to drop fine ladies in winter furs and gentlemen in smart top hats.
But not one of the cabs was pulled by Beauty.
“Move along! You’re like a stray dog sitting there on the steps like that,” said the usher outside the theatre.
“I’m not a dog. I’m a cat,” I said, remembering how Mac had told me to stay watching in one place and never move. “Only I’m waiting to catch a horse, not a mouse.”
“A horse-catching cat! I’ve heard it all now!” The usher laughed. “But at least you’ve made me smile.”
After that he let me stay, bringing me bitter cups of hot coffee and only pretending to bustle me along when the theatre manager came by.
It turned out he was called Arthur and had grown up in the country near Newmarket.
“I dreamed of being a jockey until I grew tall as a beanstalk,” he said with a grin.
I told him exactly what Beauty looked like. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” he promised.
Nights were the busiest times of all. The cabs dropped off the opera-goers in time for the show, or hurried past on the way to the theatres on Drury Lane. They came and went between restaurants and cafes and swarmed back again at the end of the night to take people home. All the time, I kept watching, looking, hoping to see Beauty somewhere in the swirl of traffic. Sometimes I thought of Mother – wondering whether she was out there too, somewhere in that glittering throng. Would we even recognize each other if we were to pass in the crowd? Probably not; all I had to remember her by was that one picture with those bright green eyes. All she knew was the tiny baby she had left so long ago.
At last, about one o’clock in the morning, the streets grew quiet and no more cabs and horses came. Then I would slip away and huddle under an old vegetable wagon or a market stall. After the first night, I learnt quickly to keep out of sight, well away from policemen and drunks and lonely men seeking the company of the women who walked the streets at night. I curled myself into a little ball, covered up with a piece of old sack from a turnip bag and dozed fitfully until the lamplighter came to put the gaslights out at dawn. Then the day began again.
Sometimes I cried, thinking how much I missed Beauty and how afraid I was. But mostly I tried to stay brave. I longed for a hot meal, but Arthur’s cups of coffee kept me warm and there was plenty of fruit – apples, carrots, maybe a raw potato – that fell from the stalls during the day. I remembered how Wilf at Birtwick had longed to come to London. Like Dick Whittington, he thought the streets would be paved with gold. The twins would laugh to find there wasn’t any gold at all, just vegetables like they grew in the garden at home.
“You want to watch it, Josie,” said Arthur, on my sixth day. “You’re getting awful thin. You’ll be like the Crawlers soon.”
“No I won’t,” I cried. Crawlers were old women mostly; so poor, they were little more than heaps of rag and bone, too tired, thin and weak to even beg. Sometimes they barely moved all day. They shifted only to crawl left or right when kicked like a dog to get out of someone’s way. How they stayed alive I had no idea.
“I’ll tell you something else,” said Arthur, “there’ll be snow soon.”
He was right. On my seventh day it came.
I was woken that morning not by the sound of sellers setting up their stalls, but by the sound of bells.
“Of course, it’s Sunday,” I said as the song of London’s churches rang out. The market would be closed today. I shivered, climbing out from under a vegetable wagon, muttering the old nursery rhyme Nanny Clay had taught me.
Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St.Clement’s.
You owe me five farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin’s…
I stopped, halfway out, and gasped. The world had turned white.
A great blanket of fresh snow was spread all across Covent Garden market.
“Oooh!” I couldn’t resist… I was just about to run across the square to be the first to christen the new snow with my footprints when I noticed that there was already a set of markings after all… I saw horseshoe prints and the wheels of a cab. Just one set. Very faint – as if they had been left by a ghost while I was sleeping.
I buttoned my coat and began to follow, drawn along as if the tracks were trying to lead me somewhere.
Beauty? I thought. Beauty. Is this you?
The tracks led on, still just one horse and one set of wheels, down Bow Street past the Theatre Royal and into Drury Lane. My heart was pounding. Without knowing quite why, I began to run, glancing left and right but the streets were empty.
“Hello?” I shouted out, but my voice just echoed back to me, quiet and strangely muffled by the snow.
I ran on, slipping and sliding on the icy cobbles, desperate to catch sight of the horse that had left the tracks.
“Whoa!” As I reached the junction with Wych Street, a carriage shot out from the side road, and I only just stopped myself from colliding with it. “Watch where you’re going, girl!” cried the coachman, cracking his whip at me as his team of four greys thundered away down Drury Lane.
I stumbled backwards and sat in the snow. The single track of hoof prints was ruined now, smudged and smoothened by skidding wheels and the fresh marks of the speeding team of four.
Swoosh! A high buggy pulled by a chestnut mare came the other way. I had to pull my knees up tight as the driver swerved to miss my feet.
Then it was quiet again and I sat still in the road, trying to catch my breath for a moment more.
As my breathing steadied, I had a strange feeling I was being watched. My spine tingled. I looked around but there was no one; just the silent, snowy streets.
I dusted myself off, trying to shake the odd feeling. Then, as I looked up, I saw a poster on the wall above me.
THE BARD THEATRE, DRURY LANE
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare.
The poster showed the famous Egyptian queen in the arms of the Roman general. Her hair was jet black, as dark as Beauty’s tail and she wore a golden crown in the shape of a snake. She looked so romantic, beautiful and proud. And her eyes…
I gasped. Those eyes. The same eyes that had stared down at me from the nursery wall every day of my life at Summer’s Place.
I did not need to read the name on the poster.
Starring Valentina Green.
I knew who it was.
It was Mother.
Chapter Thirty-seven
I was still staring up at the poster when I heard a horse whinny and someone calling my name.
“There you are, Josie, lass,” said Mac as Pinky picked her way down the snowy street. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Mac!” I gasped, tearing my eyes away from the poster. “Have you heard something? Have you found Beauty?”
“I can’t promise,” said Mac with a big grin. “But jump up and we’ll go and see.”
“You think Beauty’s in Richmond?” I said.
We were trotting along near the river, through the quiet Sunday streets of London. Pinky was pulling a little light trap instead of the heavy hansom cab and we f
airly sped along. I gasped as I saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament glistening with snow. “Like the old city’s put on a wedding dress,” Mac said.
Then he told me how he had heard news of a cab horse south of the river who fitted Beauty’s description.
“Owned by a fellow by the name of Brannigan.”
“That could be him!” I cried. “Barker, Baker … Brannigan.” At least it began with the right letter.
“I don’t ken him myself,” said Mac. “Folk say he’s not a bad sort. A bit gruff perhaps. But rumour is the horse is as black as midnight.”
As Pinky’s bit jingled and the wheels of the trap rattled over the snow, I began to sing a little tune inside my head: Let it be Beauty. Let it be Beauty. Let it be Beauty. Please.
Brannigan was a big man who lived in a tiny cottage, tucked away in a ramshackle street close to the river. He appeared at the door still chewing his breakfast and it took a while before he understood my garbled plea to see his horse.
“You want to look at Blackie?” he growled and scratched his chin.
“Just a quick peek,” I said. “That’s all we’ll need.” I would know in an instant if it was Beauty or not.
“And what if he is this horse of yours?” said Brannigan. “What good will that do you? I paid good money for that nag.” He folded his arms and stood like a rock.
“Where did you buy him?” I asked. “From Riverford Fair?”
“Riverford? No,” scoffed Brannigan. “I got him from a dealer in Windsor.”
“Oh.” My heart sank a little but Mac squeezed my shoulder.
“You only got him two days ago. Is that right?” he asked Brannigan.
“Thursday.” Brannigan nodded.
“So he could still be this wee lassie’s horse,” Mac explained. “The fellow who brought him in Riverford could’ve passed him on to your fellow in Windsor, who sold him to you and…”
While they were talking, I noticed a shed at the end of the street with a muck heap behind it. Brannigan’s horse must be inside. I crept away. Could it really be Beauty? I had to find out for sure.
It was black as a cave inside the shed.
I could hear the horse shifting his feet and breathing somewhere in the darkness.
“Beauty?” I whispered. “Beauty, is that you?”
But even before his soft nose touched my hand, I knew.
This horse was not Beauty.
He did not sound like Beauty. He did not smell like Beauty. And, as I buried my head in his short scruffy mane, he did not feel like Beauty either.
“I wish you were,” I said. “But you’re not.”
Even so, I couldn’t let go. It felt good to hold him and I stayed, whispering in his ears, until Brannigan flung open the door of the shed.
As winter light flooded in, I saw that the horse did not look like Beauty either. Blackie had a long, heavy head like a cow with small ears and big teeth. He seemed gentle and kind but his coat was dull and his legs were short. He was not Black Beauty. Not even close.
“Sorry, lass,” said Mac miserably. “I thought it was worth a shot.”
“It was. It really was. And it was so kind of you to take me,” I said, trying to sound cheerful as we sloshed and slithered our way back towards the city. Poor Pinky kept slipping on the slushy streets.
The snow on the ground had turned grey and wet, churned up by horses and cartwheels all day long. And it had begun to sleet now too, thick wet drops blown in our faces by the wind.
“I’d planned to come back past Buckingham Palace,” said Mac. “I thought a country lass like you might like to see the sights. But are you not in the mood for it?”
“Oh please do, I should love to see,” I said. Sad as I was I couldn’t bear for Mac to notice, not after all he had tried to do. He was such a kind man.
“You never know,” I said, attempting to laugh. “If Queen Victoria is home, she might invite us in for a cup of tea.”
“And a shortbread biscuit, I hope,” chuckled Mac.
But the palace just looked big and grey and cold. If there was anyone at home, the sleet was falling far too thick and fast by then for us to even see the windows.
“Where will you sleep tonight?” Mac asked.
I coughed and tried not to answer.
“You can’t stay out on the streets, Josie. Not in weather like this,” he said. “I’d invite to you to stay at mine if I could. But it’s my uncle’s lodgings – just two rooms – and I’ve three big cousins all as rough as rams. I don’t think it’s any place for a lassie.”
“I’ll be fine, Mac,” I said, pulling Doris’s old coat up around my neck. “Honestly I will.”
“I don’t like it,” muttered Mac. “I’ve a wee sister your age back in Scotland. I’d hate to think of her out on the streets in the cold all night.”
He was right. The thought of crawling under an old fruit wagon again tonight was almost more than I could bear. Seeing Blackie had made me realize again how hopeless my search for Beauty was.
I shivered, more with misery than cold.
Even if I did not freeze to death tonight, I would never find my Beauty. London was just too big. Too busy. And too lonely. How could I hope to find a horse in a place so huge that people barely knew each other’s names?
Then I thought of Mac, sitting beside me, his face looking so sad, all because he was worried for me.
Just a week ago, Mac had been a stranger too. I hadn’t known his name. Or Pinky’s. Now here they were. Out on a Sunday. In the snow. Just to try and make my dream of finding Beauty come true.
‘You don’t have to worry about me, Mac,” I said in a cheerful voice. “I know we couldn’t find Beauty today, but … but I did find someone else.”
“Who?” asked Mac, his face brightening almost at once. “Who did you find, lass?”
I thought of the poster of Cleopatra and a strange fluttering feeling flickered in the pit of my tummy.
“Someone special,” I said as Mac’s grin grew even broader. “This morning, on Drury Lane … I found my mother.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Mac dropped me outside the Bard Theatre, right underneath the poster of Cleopatra.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right, lass?” he asked for the hundredth time.
“Don’t you worry, Mother’s meeting me here in half an hour,” I lied. “You get Pinky home for a nice bran mash.”
“As long as you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” I said. Without my fib, I think Mac would have kept poor Pinky standing there in the cold all night. But at last they trotted away into the dusk, waving as they went.
As it was, the theatre was all closed up, of course, because it was Sunday. And so began the longest night of my life. I daren’t keep still, for fear I’d freeze, so instead I walked. First to the end of Drury Lane. Then back to the Bard Theatre. Then to the opera house. Then back to the Bard again. Then from the Bard to the river. Then back to the Bard, always stopping under the gas lamp outside the theatre to stare into Mother’s Cleopatra eyes.
The eyes stared back at me – so bright I almost believed the poster would come alive.
“Mother?” I stretched out my hand and touched the cold paper. Cleopatra didn’t even blink, of course.
I couldn’t keep still for long. Off I went, walking again.
I didn’t sleep at all that night. Up and down the quiet Sunday streets I tramped. The sleet had left off and it was a beautiful clear crisp night. But questions tumbled around my brain like snowflakes.
Should I go to the theatre when it opened?
Should I speak to Mother?
Would she recognize me?
Would she want to see me?
Why did she run away?
Why did she leave me all those years ago?
Exhausted, I found myself outside St Martin’s church at five o’clock in the morning. The darkness was still velvet-thick but the city was coming back to life. It was Monday.
“What
should I do?” I said out loud. I didn’t know if I was asking God or Beauty or talking to myself. I sank down on the church steps as the bells chimed the hour. When I looked up a fresh flurry of snow was falling. I watched as the world turned white and beautiful again, all the slush covered over. My spirits lifted. “It’s like a new start!” I said and I leapt to my feet, leaving a trail of fresh footprints, as I ran towards the Bard Theatre.
I knew what I had to do.
It turned out that theatre people start their day a lot later than stable boys and flower sellers.
It was ten o’clock in the morning before anyone opened the doors at the Bard. It was noon when a thin grey gelding pulling a hired hansom stopped at the stage door.
“Thank you.” A woman in a dark blue cape with the hood pulled over her head stepped out.
It was her. I did not need to see her face to know.
She paid the driver and turned towards the theatre.
“Mother!” I cried. She did not stop. Perhaps she had not heard me. Maybe it was the noise. A wagoner was unloading barrels of beer across the street.
“Mother!” I cried again.
She stepped through the stage door.
“Mother!” This isn’t how I’d meant our meeting to be at all. I was shrieking like a fishwife. But the door was swinging closed, so I called out: “Miss Valentina Green…”
“My dear!” She turned towards me at last. Her hood fell back as she swung around. Her hair tumbled down over her shoulders – coppery-gold without her Cleopatra wig, just like the picture in the nursery. Our eyes met. Hers were emerald green – far brighter than even her portrait or the poster had promised they would be.
She held my gaze and my heart thumped like a galloping horse.
“H-hello,” I whispered. “I came to see you, I–I hope you don’t mind…”
“Of course not.” Her voice was rich and warm. She held up her slender gloved hand before I could say another word. She smiled so kindly, I thought that I would melt like snow.
“It is very good of you to wait for me in the cold,” she went on. “But if you want me to sign autographs, you will have to return again after the show.”
