Cat's Cradle Read online

  Cat’s Cradle

  JULIA GOLDING

  CAT IN SCOTLAND

  First published 2011

  by Egmont UK Ltd

  239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA

  Text copyright © 2011 Julia Golding

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  ISBN 978 1 4052 4305 6

  eBook ISBN 978 1 7803 1138 8

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Books (Cox and Wyman)

  www.egmont.co.uk

  www.juliagolding.co.uk

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  For Peter and Ann

  CAT ROYAL SERIES

  The Diamond of Drury Lane – Cat in London

  (On the trail of a diamond mystery)

  Cat among the Pigeons – Cat goes to school

  (Pedro comes under threat from his old master)

  Den of Thieves – Cat in Paris

  (Cat takes up a new career in revolutionary France)

  Cat O’Nine Tails – Cat at sea

  (Our heroine takes an unplanned journey across the Atlantic)

  Black Heart of Jamaica – Cat in the Caribbean

  (Cat and Pedro get mixed up in a slave revolt)

  THE CRITICS

  ‘The British Empire need not fear going into a decline and fall while young citizens like Miss Royal bolster our national spirits!’ – EDWARD GIBBON, HISTORIAN

  ‘A perfectly framed tale – I enjoyed the extra twist’ – SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT, INVENTOR AND MANUFACTURER

  ‘A hairum-scarum, ramstam lassie, May she flourish like a lily, Now bonilie!’ – ROBERT BURNS, POET

  ‘An unwarranted incursion into my territory – get back down south, Miss Royal!’ – SIR WALTER SCOTT, POET AND NOVELIST

  ‘Her story had me all in a spin’ – JAMES HARGREAVES, INVENTOR OF THE SPINNING JENNY

  ‘She’s barking, absolutely barking, what!’ – HM KING GEORGE III

  ‘A total counterfeit from start to finish’ – WILLIAM HENRY IRELAND, FORGER DISCOVERER OF NEW PLAYS BY SHAKESPEARE

  ‘My delight in her work never wanes’ – JOHN CONSTABLE, PAINTER

  ‘Her prose runs as smoothly as one of my own macadamized roads’ – JOHN LOUDON MCADAM, SCOTTISH INVENTOR

  ‘A combination of all that’s best in tale-weaving’ – SAMUEL CROMPTON, INVENTOR OF THE MULE

  ‘Her Scottish tale needs no overture – on second thoughts, perhaps I should write one?’ – FELIX MENDELSSOHN, COMPOSER

  ‘She packs quite a punch – just my Fancy’ – PIERCE EGAN, SPORTS JOURNALIST

  ‘I never have to manufacture any enthusiasm when I read her tales’ – JOSIAH WEDGWOOD, POTTER

  ‘Piffle!’ – WILLIAM PITT THE YOUNGER, PRIME MINISTER

  NOTE TO THE READER

  LIST OF PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  PROLOGUE

  Bolt from the Blue

  Act I

  SCENE 1 Yours Faithfully

  SCENE 2 Celebrating in Style

  SCENE 3 Irish Assurance

  Act II

  SCENE 1 War in the Market

  SCENE 2 The Great North Road

  Act III

  SCENE 1 Mill Girl

  SCENE 2 Crompton’s Mule

  SCENE 3 Revelation

  Act IV

  SCENE 1 Brother-hunting

  SCENE 2 Kin

  SCENE 3 Reivers

  Act V

  SCENE 1 The Sheriff’s Court

  SCENE 2 Merry Men

  EPILOGUE

  Highwaymen

  CAT’S GLOSSARY

  A SUPPLEMENT TO DR JOHNSON’S DICTIONARY BY CAT AND JAMIE

  NOTE TO THE READER

  Reader,

  In my previous tales, I have journeyed far from my origins on the streets of London to the wilds of America and across the turquoise seas of the Caribbean. I have been adopted by Indians, climbed the rigging, and briefly dabbled with piracy. But I had to come home to learn that you do not need to travel great distances to come face-to-face with unfamiliar cultures and new experiences. Such things are on your doorstep if you but look.

  So come with me on an adventure to a land famous for pushing forward the frontier of human ingenuity, leading us into the new age of manufactories. Can you guess where we are going yet? What if I tell you that it is also a place of rough manners and banditry; Highlands and lochs; pibroch and poets? A strange mixture indeed.

  Do you know where we are bound?

  To find out, turn the page and follow me.

  Cat Royal

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  LONDON AND CAMBRIDGE

  Miss Cat Royal – orphan from Drury Lane, your guide

  Mr Billy Shepherd – reluctant travelling companion, crime lord

  Mr Syd Fletcher – old friend and admirer, boxer, gang leader

  Mr and Mrs Fletcher – Syd’s parents

  Mr Nick – Syd’s second-in-command

  Mr Joe ‘The Card’ Murray – street magician

  Mr Sheridan – playwright, politician and theatre owner

  Mr Peter Dodsley – violinist

  Mr Beamish – jolly barrister

  Mr Robert Marks – Mr Beamish’s hat-throwing clerk

  Miss Bridgit O’Riley – Irish girl at a loss in London

  The seven O’Riley brothers – Bridgit’s troublesome siblings

  The Earl of Arden (Frank) – son of a duke, Cambridge scholar, friend

  Mr Charlie Hengrave – Frank’s room-mate and Cat’s former brother

  NEW LANARK

  Mr Jamie Kelly – trainee mechanic, unfriendly to Sassenachs

  Mr David Dale – generous factory owner

  Goodwife Ross – lady in charge of the orphan workers

  Miss Martha – reluctant bedmate

  Miss Annie MacGregor – helpful fellow worker

  Dominie Blair – schoolmaster with a sense of humour

  Mistress MacDonald – hospitable school teacher

  Overseer Shaw – busy man in control of day-to-day running of mill

  The Moir Family (Mr Moir, Mrs Mary Moir, Katrine, Ian, Dougie, and Jeannie) – intriguing family living in Long Row

  Dr Gordon – kindly medical man

  Gillie Archibald Brown – fierce gamekeeper

  Sir Charles Laud – dandified sheriff of Lanark

  Lady Ross-Baillie – owner of Bonnington House, keen on her cows

  THE TOWER HOUSE

  The Bruce Clan:

  Rabbie – young lad who wants nothing to do with a certain lass

  Malcolm – leader of the local troublemakers

  Nan – Malcolm’s wife

  Willy – malicious, drunken second-in-command

  Rioting apprentices, noisy mill workers, outraged duchesses etc. etc.

  London, October 1792 – Curtain rises.

  BOLT FROM THE BLUE

  Many people are fort
unate to have a family tree that stretches back hundreds of years. My friend Frank, for example, can point to a sprig and say, ‘That was Great Uncle Timothy who died at the Battle of Blenheim,’ or, ‘That’s Great Great Great Grandma Eustacia who smoked a pipe and bred rare pigs.’ For him, history is a hop from stepping-stone to stepping-stone of notable or eccentric relatives all leading up to the present time – to him.

  By contrast, I had always thought of myself as a lone shoot. Abandoned as an infant on the doorstep of Drury Lane theatre twelve years ago, I was the acorn dropped carelessly far from the parent plant. I had been left to grow (or not) as fate decided, with no knowledge of the tree that produced me. That was, Reader, until I arrived back in London after my adventures in the Caribbean. Out of the blue, my past caught up with me and sprouted in a most unexpected way.

  The post-chaise rattled down Oxford Street, but I was in heaven. Finally, after a year of exile, I could see, hear and smell my city in all its grimy glory. I was home.

  ‘Gawd almighty, girl, can’t you sit still for a moment?’ Billy Shepherd, my friendly enemy and travelling companion, gave a tug to the back of my skirt. ‘You’re like a jack-in-the-box.’

  I ignored him. ‘Look – there’s the turn to Grosvenor Square! And that’s the way to St Martin-in-the-Fields! And look – there’s Scratch Harry.’

  Billy rolled his eyes at my enthusiasm. Rumpled by months of travel, everything about him, from his limp cravat to his scuffed boots, looked weary, more than ready to exchange continual motion for a seat by a comfortable fireside.

  ‘You know who I mean, Billy – the fake legless beggar, the one who has his legs concealed in that cart – he’s still sitting on the corner!’ I called the tramp a cheery greeting and flipped him an expertly aimed penny. It plopped into his bowl with a satisfying plink. Catching sight of the donor, Scratch Harry gave a bark of laughter and doffed his cap.

  ‘Course ’e is, you idiot,’ grumbled Billy, tugging fretfully at the frayed end of a cuff. ‘Works for me, doesn’t ’e? ’E knows ’e ’as to put in the hours.’

  I’d momentarily forgotten Billy had this part of London well and truly under the control of his gang.

  ‘If you’re going to get a cut, I want my money back.’ I held out my hand and wiggled my fingers.

  With a pained sigh, Billy dug in his waistcoat pocket and slapped a shilling into my palm. ‘Don’t carry small change,’ he muttered.

  ‘Your loss is my gain.’ I smiled sweetly and turned back to my examination of the streets. After a short pause, I began drumming my fingers restlessly on the sill, beating a tattoo guaranteed to annoy Billy. ‘Do you think everyone else got home safely? Frank and Syd, I mean?’

  Having waved off my friends in Philadelphia, I expected them to have returned some months ago. Unless my letter to Frank had arrived before me, they would not be anticipating me landing on their doorstep so soon. They’d left me pursuing a career as an actress with a troupe touring the Caribbean. That enterprise cut short by brief spells as enslaved servant, pirate and rebel soldier,* I had finally taken passage back across the Atlantic with Billy. Our ship had carried the taint of the slave trade, having just unloaded its cargo of human captives from Africa. Mercifully, on this eastbound leg, it had only transported cotton and sugar to the manufactories of northern England and Scotland. There had been no other ship willing to take us, so we had had to make do. After a swift sailing, Billy and I disembarked with the cargo at the port of Liverpool and had spent the last few days jolting down the turnpike to make our grand entry into the capital.

  Billy’s temper was hanging by a thread; my spirits were high. He had given me to under stand that I made an infuriating fellow passenger in the close confines of cabin and carriage. Excellent news all round.

  My drumming reached a crescendo.

  ‘’Ow many times do I ’ave to tell you? Stop tappin’!’ Billy ran his fingers through his brown hair, making it stick up like a bristling hedgehog. Smoky grey eyes flashed a warning – he was about to lose his composure. ‘And ’ow the ’ell do I know if your friends are ’ere, Cat Royal? What you think I am? A bleedin’ gypsy or somethink? With a bloomin’ crystal ball?’

  I collapsed back on the seat opposite him and grinned. ‘The question was rhetorical, Billy.’

  ‘What the Devil does that mean?’ He massaged his temples with his long fingers. ‘You’ve given me the ’eadache, but do you care?’

  ‘That last one of yours was an excellent example of a rhetorical question,’ I commended him as if he were a star pupil. ‘It means that I wasn’t expecting an answer, merely speaking my thoughts aloud.’

  ‘Well, don’t.’ He clenched his fists on his knees.

  ‘Don’t what?’ I wrinkled my brow in innocent puzzlement.

  ‘Don’t speak another word.’ He chopped at his throat. ‘I’ve ’ad it up to ’ere with your thoughts, rhetorical or whatever. You’ve done nothink but jabber on since we left Tortuga three months ago. You’ve driven me to drink,’ he took a fortifying gulp from the flask of brandy at his side, ‘as well as driven me mad.’

  I smiled serenely. ‘You should count your blessings, Billy. Only a few more minutes of my company then you’ll be shot of me for good.’

  ‘About time.’

  Congratulating myself silently for routing the affection that Billy misguidedly felt for me, I sat back to enjoy the familiar sights. Billy had not finished; he continued to grumble.

  ‘You snored on my shoulder all the way from Liverpool. Anyone would think I was put on earth to be your pillow. And you dribbled all over my best coat –’

  ‘Did not!’ I protested, though I could not deny falling asleep on him.

  ‘On the boat you gave me a seizure, goin’ up the mast and ’angin’ off the yardarm like a monkey.’

  That had been wonderful: the only place on the ship I had felt free of the smell below decks. ‘Ah, happy days!’

  ‘You flirted with everyone in sight.’

  ‘You mean I talked to the other passengers.’

  ‘And the crew and every Tom, Dick ’n’ ’Arry at the inns on the way down from Liverpool.’

  ‘Jealous, Billy?’

  ‘Course not. You just . . . just don’t know ’ow to behave.’

  ‘Thus speaks that paragon of polite behaviour Mister William Shepherd, cut-throat and slave owner.’ I flourished my hand in a mock bow.

  ‘You were brung up bad – anyone can see that.’

  ‘I was brought up with you, Billy, on the streets, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, but you pretend to be a lady, and them kind of goings-on will get you into trouble.’

  I batted my eyelashes at him. ‘I thought you liked my friendly nature, Billy dear.’

  He scrubbed his hands through his hair. ‘Just stop it, Cat. Stop acting like a mindless ’alfwit who’ll flirt with anythink in breeches.’

  I had to laugh. I’d set out on this journey home planning to push Billy past the point of endurance, playing on his misplaced feelings of ownership towards me, and five hundred yards from his door I had succeeded.

  ‘Sorry, Billy, but this is me. Only cure is for you to jump out and leave me to meet my doom in my own way.’ I folded my hands in my lap, assuming a resigned expression worthy of a martyr.

  The post-chaise drew up outside Billy’s grand house on Bedford Square. He grabbed his hat and was out of the carriage and on the pavement in a trice, stretching his lanky frame with a groan of pleasure. He slammed the coach door shut and shouted for his belongings to be thrown down to his footmen who were dutifully filing out of the house. While this pantomime proceeded apace outside, I sat back, arms crossed, a smug smile on my lips. I’d feared that when we reached home he’d try and persuade me to stay with him – after all, he had come all the way to the Caribbean to find me – but it now looked as if that was the last thing on his mind.

  Possessions safely on the way into the house, Billy ducked his head back in through the open window.

&nb
sp; ‘You’ll be all right from ’ere, Cat?’ he asked brusquely.

  ‘Yes, Billy.’

  ‘Where’re you goin’?’

  ‘Bow Street.’ I could not stop a triumphant grin at his expression of relief. I suppose he was living in dread of me inviting myself in.

  He gave a curt nod, turned to go, then stopped as a new thought struck him, prompted by my smile.

  ‘You . . . you’ve been doin’ this on purpose, ain’t you? You meant to make me glad to be rid of you.’

  I tapped on the ceiling and called to the coachman, ‘Drive on, please.’

  ‘You schemin’ little minx!’ Standing on the pavement, hands crushing the brim of his hat, Billy looked torn between admiration and fury.

  The carriage surged forward.

  ‘You could’ve just told me, you know!’ he shouted after me. ‘Spared me months of sufferin’.’

  I chuckled. I could’ve done, but this way had been far more fun.

  The butcher’s shop on Bow Street was just as I remembered it: cuts of meat hanging on hooks, sausages curled on platters, basins of quivering tripe, sawdust on the floor, the sickly sweet smell of blood. Figures moved around inside but I couldn’t make out who was serving. Why I thought the shop should have changed, I don’t know. Twelve months was nothing really; it was just that I had lived through so much, I expected to see signs of this reflected in the places around me.

  I paused on the pavement, strangely hesitant now I had reached this point. There was one old haunt that I knew would have changed out of all recognition. Just around the corner was the building site of the new Drury Lane theatre. I couldn’t bear to look at it yet but I could see the clouds of dust and mason’s carts rumbling in that direction. Mr Sheridan, the owner, had promised that a new theatre would rise from the ashes of the old and he was keeping his word. But there was no place for me there now.