Avon Street

by Paul Emanuelli

  Frank just smiled. ‘Very well, I’ve nothing to fear,’ he said.

  ‘Tell me about the first job then,’ Caine said, pawing through the drawings and plans. He could almost smell the money. These three jobs might make enough for him to bow out too, and then he could leave them all to it. Let them fight it out between them, he was getting tired of it all. Besides he’d already decided that Harry would be the winner, but it would be good watching Jeb and Harcourt put in their places.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Jeb let him out of the front door of the house in Hucklebridge’s Court and slammed it closed behind him. Frank laughed; another chapter of his life was drawing to a conclusion. He wondered if he’d given it away that he half suspected Caine might have had a hand in the robbery. There was no point in making accusations; what could be gained by that? He couldn’t take Caine on. All that mattered now was laying his hands on enough money and getting away.

  As Frank strode through the streets of Bath, he found himself whistling. He would still have to settle with Daunton, but there was time, and he was in no hurry. He felt purpose in his stride now and a new vigour as he approached his house in The Circus. He found himself picturing that doctor’s wife, Charlotte Wetherby; so beautiful and refined and confident, yet so married. She was a prey worth stalking, a delicious feast worth taking time over and savouring. With a woman like her, half the fun was in the chase, and the other half in the capture, but for now that particular treat would have to wait.

  Still, the prospect of what lay ahead brought a smile to his face. He had dismissed the older maid that morning and the younger girl, Emily, would now, he knew, be in the house alone. The older one had been pleasurable to a degree, and only too willing to earn an extra few pennies, but her features were hard and her body worn. He thought of Emily’s pathetic obsequiousness; a pretty girl, but born to be a servant. He had offered her money in the past, but she had always refused; all she had was her prettiness and she didn’t even know what to do with that. Now he was going to enjoy it without having to pay. The thought excited him and he felt his optimism returning.

  As Frank stepped into the hallway he called out, ‘Emily, come here my little butterfly. I have something for you.’ He waited for her answering light footsteps on the stairs, but there were no responding sounds, no answering voice.

  He searched the house from basement to attic and found no trace of the girl. Instead, in the drawing room he found the secretary table open, its lock prized apart and its contents scattered across the floor. Emily had gone, and she’d taken everything of value she could lay her hands on. He laughed; the girl had more spirit than he had credited her with.

  Sweeping aside what was left in the secretary desk he pushed the small button hidden in the drawer next to the panel, checking the hidden compartment. It was intact and he breathed a sigh of relief. No longer trusting the safe, he had put a small pile of banknotes in the compartment. The money still lay there on top of the letters. He took out the letters and undid the red ribbon they were tied in. He had kept them so they must have meant something to him, he thought. Yet as he scanned the scrawled, childish handwriting he realised that they now filled him with disgust.

  Frank took out the letter from the top envelope. It opened with ‘My dear son’ and was signed ‘Your loving ma,’ and was full of the usual pathetic sentiment in between. His parents fitted even less comfortably in his life now than they ever had before. He could remember being happy when he was young; an only child and spoilt as much as they were capable of spoiling him, yet they had tried to push him into servitude, and the same empty life as their own.

  The childhood memories were still there, and yet it was as though they were part of a story that someone had told him. He could not feel any happiness, looking back. All he remembered was their incessant bowing and scraping to their so-called betters. They had put him in service as soon as he was old enough, and he still recalled their pathetic ambitions for him. Still, that’s how he learnt to be a gentleman, and how quickly he had learned. It was so easy to ape his lords and masters.

  He had told Belle where he came from, but he was glad he had not told her how he had got his start in life; how he had blackmailed the man who employed both him and his parents. He wondered if the man’s wife had yet discovered that he preferred the company of boys to her own. Probably not, he thought. He had honoured his word to the man, never returning, never asking for more. In return the man had also honoured his side of the deal. His parents would never want for employment, or a home, while the secret remained between them.

  He thought of the person he might have been and smiled to himself. The past was best buried, he thought, as he tossed the bundle of letters on the dying embers of the fire. Only Belle had ever seen them. Why had he shown them to her? Had he really wanted her to understand, or was it just a manoeuvre to lure her into his bed? Whichever, it wasn’t worth worrying about now.

  When he had composed himself, he felt compelled to check the doors and windows yet again. He bolted the front door and stood in front of the mirror in the hallway. For a moment he thought he saw Belle’s reflection, as though she was standing behind him, and the memories of that night flooded his mind.

  She was the only one he had let near him in years. For one short night she had made him imagine that he could change, made him confess to a weakness he had never shown to others. If she’d still been there in the morning, perhaps things would have been different, but in the cold light of day he knew he could not change, did not want to change. She would have made demands and altered the way he lived; who he was.

  How could he have allowed himself to become so vulnerable? He could never be tied down and subdued like some tame pet. He smiled, admiring his appearance for a second, before lashing out with his clenched right fist, smashing his reflection into a thousand slivers of broken, useless glass. He licked the blood from his fingers.

  ‘You’ve made me bleed, Belle,’ he said to the empty hallway.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  The room was crowded but Jeb was, as usual, standing alone at the bar when John walked into The Fountains Inn. John was never sure if Jeb chose to drink here because the other gang members never did, or whether the others avoided the place because Jeb drank there. Whichever it was, his isolation had proved useful.

  Jeb had not seen him enter and John reconsidered for a moment. The man might still be valuable, but he knew he took a risk each time he met him. The hours he had spent in his drunken company had left him in no doubt as to what Jeb was capable of. The pleasure he took from the pain of others was never long out of his conversation and the closer John got to him, the more intensely he disliked the man. He had had to listen, night after night, to his boasts of whom he had beaten and why; whom he had robbed and how; bragging about what he had done to Belle, and cursing the fact that he hadn’t taken the pleasure in her that he had wanted. But it was too late now. Jeb had seen him.

  John smiled, there was no option but to comply as Jeb motioned him over to the bar. It was obvious he was drunk again; his unsteady stance and slurred words left little doubt of that, and it took no effort on John’s part to turn the conversation gradually to Caine and to begin picking at Jeb’s insecurities. ‘So what’s Harry Wood up to these days?’ he asked.

  ‘Harry’s the blue-eyed boy now and no mistake,’ Jeb said.

  ‘But Caine would be no one without you,’ John replied.

  ‘He don’t realise that though,’ Jeb said. ‘He treats me like dog shit on his shoes and expects me to be grateful. Wood gets an arm round his shoulder and I get pushed into whatever dirty job’s going. It’s all down to Harcourt, is too thick with Caine.’

  ‘You reckon it’s him that’s poisoned Caine against you?’ John asked. ‘I’ve heard no good of him myself.’ Jeb looked suspicious. He had to follow up, somehow, put him back at his ease. ‘It’s only that I’ve heard his name before and how he cheats at cards.’

  Jeb laughed. ‘That’s him, a cheat and a bas
tard; except now he’s a bastard who’s been robbed.’

  John laughed. ‘Just deserves; I hope he lost a lot.’

  Jeb smiled. ‘Lost everything, I reckon.’

  ‘Did you do it?’

  ‘No, he’s too close with Caine,’ Jeb said. ‘Not that I couldn’t have if I’d wanted to put my mind to it.’ He stopped and leant towards John, grabbing his collar, pulling his face closer. John could smell the foulness of his breath, but he smiled and bent forward towards him. ‘We’ll see what he’s made of now,’ Jeb whispered.

  ‘How d’yer mean?’ John asked, speaking quietly and looking slowly around the room.

  ‘He’s set up some break-ins, big houses. The first is tonight, but I don’t know where. They don’t tell me nothing. Caine says Harcourt’s got to do them himself.’

  ‘What, just him?’ John asked.

  Jeb laughed. ‘No he’s too much a gentleman to know anything about housebreaking; there’d be lads with him and maybe Harry or maybe Caine. But they won’t send me out with him. They know what I think of him. I’d be happy to see the bastard caught.’

  ‘You wouldn’t rat on him though?’ John asked. He was pushing now and he knew he might be pushing too far, but Jeb looked interested, as though it were an idea he had already toyed with.

  ‘Never,’ Jeb said. ‘It’s too dangerous, and besides you never rat on your own.’

  ‘I would,’ John said. ‘For a friend – and if there was something in it for me.’ He realised he had committed himself now. There was no pulling back as he watched Jeb’s face. There was no reaction for a while, as though he were thinking, lost in his own small world. John thought he had pushed him too far.

  Then Jeb grinned. ‘You’d need to know when and where though, to do that.’

  ‘That’s true,’ John said, hoping he was not reading too much into Jeb’s reaction.

  ‘I’ll need time to find out the wheres and whens of the other jobs,’ Jeb said. ‘Give me a few days to find out. Meet me back here, a week from today.’

  Jeb held out his hand and John shook it. ‘There’d be a place for you if I was to take over,’ Jeb said.

  ‘And I’d take it if it was offered,’ John said. ‘You know that, Jeb.’

  Chapter 31

  John had been in Avon Street for three days. He could smell the place on his clothes and his skin and in his hair, as though he had become part of it, or it of him. The lodging house wasn’t so bad though. In fact it was one of the better ones at fourpence a night. Until lately he might have thought it quite acceptable, but he had become used to a better life and now longed to be back at Charlie’s house.

  He had slept badly that night. The same thought that had disturbed his sleep was still troubling him when he woke, just as it had been nagging away at him for days now. He needed to speak to James and Charlie, to put things right and clear his mind or it would just keep haunting him. They had accepted him almost without question as if he’d ridden to their rescue like Paul Revere, but he had allowed too many half-truths to form between them.

  Perhaps he hadn’t trusted them at first, but he had let it go on for too long until the secrecy didn’t make sense to him any more. Perhaps he had begun to enjoy being the person they thought he was, the person he knew he was not. They deserved to know the truth though, just as he needed to be true to himself.

  Someone grunted, half asleep, half awake, interrupting his thoughts. There were six beds in the room and that morning four were still occupied. The room was as cold as the street outside and stunk of unwashed bodies, damp over-worn clothing, and the animal stench of urine left standing in the penny piss pots beneath the beds. The draught through the window blew like a true winter’s wind, but the air it carried from Avon Street was just as foul as that within.

  The only furniture other than beds was a wash-stand, with a bowl and two cheap candle-holders. He poured some of the contents of the jug that stood beneath the wash-stand into the bowl and brushed aside the fine film of grease and soot covering its surface, before cupping his hands and dousing his face with icy water.

  He shivered and wondered if it was the cold or the thought of another day in Avon Street, trying to pick off Caine’s men, dodging and hiding, never knowing if one of them would be alert enough to pull a knife or get off a shot, for most of them seemed to be carrying pistols now. If it was just him it would have been all right, but knowing there were other lives involved, and that those lives depended on him, made it all so much more difficult. He stared down into the bowl as the oily rainbow scum reclaimed its dominance of the surface.

  James and Charlie thought he was fearless; that he could do anything. Perhaps he’d let them think it, though he knew that it wasn’t true. And it seemed important to him now that they understood it, recognised him for who he really was. He resolved that he would tell them everything when he got back to the house.

  He smiled to himself, feeling his conscience ease, as he shook the water from his face and smoothed his hair back with wet hands. Looking around the room, he realised how quickly he had grown soft, remembered the ‘shake-down’ he had stayed in once, with straw and rags laid down between the beds and rats running over you. He had only spent one night there, but he still shivered at the thought.

  As he made for the door, he reflected on the three days. The first had gone well and they had got two of Caine’s men, both in the morning. No one was hurt and no one was recognised. But Caine was quicker to react this time, yesterday they had caught only one man on his own, the others had been in twos and threes and looked too alert to tackle. Perhaps he’d just had enough of skulking in alleyways and running the risks. Perhaps he’d seen too much of Jeb and come to realise all too clearly what he and Caine were capable of.

  James had been right though. Rumours of Caine’s men being beaten and robbed seemed to spread through the streets faster than the wind. John had listened to the exaggerated gossip in wonder; how another gang had beaten half of Caine’s men and threatened to burn him out of his house; how Caine was packing to leave the city. Let them dream, he thought, one day it might be true.

  Today it might be safer if they left off the robberies altogether. Still, he’d see what was happening before he decided. He wanted to get back to the others; needed to get back to tell them about his talk with Jeb. He wondered what Charlie would think of the idea of informing on the brotherhood of thieves. It all seemed too easy, or perhaps too much of a risk. After all James’ planning, it was hard to imagine that it might all be resolved at the end of the day by something as simple as informing on Caine.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  When Jenny and Molly returned from their morning walk, Belle found it hard to believe that this was the same little girl who had been so ill such a short while ago. Her cheeks were now as red as a ripe apple, her complexion healthy and her energy boundless. Belle took her from Jenny and sat her at the table with her beloved Dolly. ‘You sit here for a while and play with Dolly,’ Belle said. ‘I need to speak to your mother for a while.’

  ‘Molly and Dolly,’ Molly said, and laughed to herself at the rhyme. Within seconds she was in another world, chattering away to the doll and nodding its wooden head in agreement, as if she was unaware that it was her own fingers that were making it move.

  ‘This money I’ve come into,’ Belle said, rejoining Jenny, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  ‘I suppose it means you will be moving away soon,’ Jenny said.

  Belle took Jenny’s hands in her own. ‘Not necessarily, but I must go to where the work is and seek out the opportunities where they exist. The money has made me realise that acting is much more to me than a wage. I would be lost if I gave it up, but I want to invest the money in you.’

  The look of shock on Jenny’s face turned to disbelief and then concern. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Is it so shocking?’ Belle replied. ‘You are the finest seamstress I know and your eye for detail and your designs and the way you use material all set you apar
t from the others. We will open a dress shop as partners. I will put in the money and you the skill. That way I will have an investment; you will have an income, and we will have a home that we can share whenever I am in Bath.’

  ‘But the risk,’ Jenny said.

  ‘What risk?’ Belle said, as dismissively as she was able. ‘There is demand in the city for quality gowns, and you know the women who have the best dressmaking skills, and where the best materials can be bought at least cost.’

  ‘But I know nothing of running a shop, or of accounts.’

  ‘Then we shall employ someone to run the shop and the salesgirls, and someone to keep the books. You take charge of the fittings and the dressmaking and the designs. In time, I’m sure you will master all the skills necessary, when the ladies begin beating a path to your door. Will you do it?’

  ‘Does it mean you will stay?’

  ‘No,’ Belle said, ‘but if I were to take large enough premises there would be room for a shop and fitting rooms and workrooms and living quarters. You could keep a room for me and then, if I do go, I will stay with you whenever I return.’ It seemed enough to persuade Jenny. Belle could see that she was already busy with her thoughts.

  ‘What of Molly?’ Jenny asked. ‘Who would care for her while I was working?’

  ‘You could employ someone, perhaps another mother bringing her child up alone. Then she would have someone to play with.’

  ‘I know other women who would work if there were someone to care for their children, but it wouldn’t be a sweat shop. I’d make sure that our place was the best place for women to work in Bath. I’d pay good wages and there’d be somewhere clean and warm to work.’ Belle remembered Jenny’s stories of the places she had worked when she was apprenticed, and later when she was an improver; the filthy ill-lit hovels where girls paid to be trained and were used as slave labour.