Cat Among the Pigeons Read online

  Cat Among the Pigeons

  JULIA GOLDING

  CAT GOES TO SCHOOL

  First published 2006

  by Egmont UK Ltd

  239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA

  This edition published 2010

  Text copyright © 2006 Julia Golding

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  Bowles’s New Plan of London map courtesy of the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 4052 3759 8

  eBook ISBN 978 1 7803 1086 2

  3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  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

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  Egmont is passionate about helping to preserve the world’s remaining ancient forests. We only use paper from legal and sustainable forest sources, so we know where every single tree comes from that goes into every paper that makes up every book.

  This book is made from paper certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), an organisation dedicated to promoting responsible management of forest resources. For more information on the FSC, please visit www.fsc.org. To learn more about Egmont’s sustainable paper policy, please visit www.egmont.co.uk/ethical.

  For Grace, Robert, Olivia and

  Miranda Amakye Saunders

  THE CRITICS

  ‘A welcome return to the London stage for Drury Lane’s favourite child’ – JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE

  ‘Cat Royal’s prose grips the reader like an ancient mariner intent on telling you his tale (now there’s an idea . . .)’ – SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

  ‘Starched small linen all morning, admired daffodils with William, read Cat Royal with great pleasure in evening’ – DOROTHY WORDSWORTH, extract from her journal

  ‘Cat Royal serves no utilitarian function whatsoever – clearly a case for the poorhouse’ – JEREMY BENTHAM

  ‘I have forbidden my children to read this pernicious stuff!’ – H. M. QUEEN CHARLOTTE

  ‘Cat Royal gives us quite a giggle’ – DOROTHY JORDAN AND H.R.H. THE DUKE OF CLARENCE

  ‘I’m sure Cat Royal must be a fake dreamt up by an educated gentleman!’ – JAMES ‘OSSIAN’ MACPHERSON

  ‘Fit only for the bonfire’ – THE SOCIETY OF GENTLEMEN PLANTERS, JAMAICA

  ‘Her work is music to my ears!’ – LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

  ‘Degenerate stuff – enough to cause a mutiny!’ – CAPTAIN WILLIAM BLIGH, late of the Bounty

  ‘Her pen paints a picture better than a brush’ – SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

  ‘Not enough Scotsmen for my taste’ – WALTER SCOTT

  ‘A book that every right-thinking person in this nation of slave traders should read and reflect upon’ – WILLIAM WILBERFORCE

  A NOTE TO THE READER

  If you have not yet read the first instalment of my adventures, The Diamond of Drury Lane, there are a few things you need to know. In that book, I explained how I made friends with Pedro Hawkins, a former slave from Africa, during an eventful balloon ride in Drury Lane. I recounted how, after Pedro’s theatrical triumph, we became acquainted with the two children of the Duke of Avon: Lord Francis and Lady Elizabeth (Frank and Lizzie to you). Together we saved a cartooning rebel lord from the gallows and I narrowly escaped death myself. Unfortunately, in the course of my adventures I managed to make myself the enemy of Billy Shepherd, a ruthless gang leader. Something told me even then that I hadn’t heard the last of him. If you want to find out what happened next, read on.

  Catherine ‘Cat’ Royal

  LIST OF PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  PROLOGUE

  Return of the Master

  Act I

  SCENE 1 Paying the Price

  SCENE 2 Abolitionists

  SCENE 3 A Gentlemen’s Club

  Act II

  SCENE 1 A Tempest

  SCENE 2 Switched

  SCENE 3 Snatched

  Act III

  SCENE 1 Wolfsbane for Bruises

  SCENE 2 Billy Shepherd Returns

  SCENE 3 Rats’ Castle

  Act IV

  SCENE 1 Electra-fying

  SCENE 2 Old Jean’s Beagles

  SCENE 3 Silence is Golden

  Act V

  SCENE 1 Cargo on the Move

  SCENE 2 Am I Not a Man and a Brother?

  SCENE 3 The Price of Freedom

  EPILOGUE

  Pigeons

  GLOSSARY

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  IN THE THEATRE

  MISS CATHERINE ‘CAT’ ROYAL – ward of the theatre

  MR PEDRO HAWKINS – talented musician, a former slave under threat of recapture

  MR SHERIDAN – playwright, politician, theatre owner

  MR KEMBLE – actor-manager, best Shakespearean actor in the world

  SIGNOR ANGELINI – musical director who thinks he is Pedro’s master

  COVENT GARDEN MARKET

  MR SYD FLETCHER – boxer, leader of the Butcher’s Boys

  MR BILLY SHEPHERD – leader of rival gang who thinks he’s going up in the world

  JOE ‘THE CARD’ MURRAY – one of Syd’s boys, street magician

  THE DUKE’S HOUSEHOLD

  LORD FRANCIS, OR FRANK – reluctant schoolboy, heir to a dukedom, master forger

  LADY ELIZABETH, OR LIZZIE – his sister, who is annoying her mother by refusing to elope

  DUCHESS OF AVON – Lizzie and Frank’s mother, the peeress, formerly the singer known as The Bristol Nightingale

  WESTMINSTER SCHOOL

  THE HONORABLE CHARLES HENGRAVE, OR CHARLIE – a good sport and great friend

  DR VINCENT – the headmaster, very attached to his cane

  MR CASTLETON – theatrically minded Latin master

  MR RICHMOND – runty offspring of slave plantation owner

  MR INGELS – his none-too-bright sidekick

  THE ABOLITIONISTS

  MR OLAUDAH EQUIANO – former slave, great traveller, leading light of abolition movement

  MR GRANVILLE SHARP – legal brains behind abolitionists

  THE MISS MILLERS (PATIENCE, PRUDENCE AND FORTITUDE) – kind Quakers with an unexpectedly powerful grip

  MISS MILLY HENGRAVE – sister to Charlie with a talent for saying the wrong thing

  THE SLAVERS

  MR KINGSTON HAWKINS – Pedro’s old master and a nasty piece of work

  Actors, ballerinas, scandalized gentlemen, rioting schoolboys, et al.

  London, November 1790

  Curtain rises.

  RETURN OF THE MASTER

  I still can’t believe it happened – not here, not in my theatre.

  Forgive my scrawl: my hands are shaking even as I write this. I find it hard to put pen to paper when I want to scream at the unfairness of the world and throw the inkpot across the room. Oh yes, we Londoners pretend to be all civilized and cultured, a beacon to the world, but it’s all lies. We’re rotten – and will remain so as long as a man is able to walk into the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and claim a fellow human being as his property.

  I must calm myself.

  Part of it is my fault for I told Pedro that we would have the place to ourselves this early in the morning; I thought we’d have plenty of time to practise away from hostile eyes. How wrong I was.

  You see, Reader, Pedro has just been cast in his first speaking role: that of Ariel, the sprite who serves the magician Prospero i
n Shakespeare’s The Tempest. I am so proud of him – and of Mr Kemble who has taken a gamble in giving the role to Pedro over the heads of many more experienced actors. There had been quite a rumpus backstage when the news leaked out to the cast that one of the choice roles had gone to my African friend. It wasn’t enough for some of the disappointed actors that he had proved himself a skilled musician and a dancer – to them he is still an outsider and he’s black-skinned: that damns him in their eyes. With the lingering jealousy and prejudice backstage, Pedro wanted to prove his detractors wrong and be word perfect for the dress rehearsal today.

  ‘Come on, Pedro, give me a hand here!’ I put my lantern on the floor and struggled with the winch that raises the curtains. Pedro was standing motionless on the forestage, staring into the darkness of the empty auditorium. Doubtless he was imagining a variety of receptions for his debut. Would it be orange peel and turnips or flowers and applause?

  ‘Stop thinking about it,’ I cautioned him. ‘What will happen will happen. Nobody, not even Mr Sheridan himself, can guess how an audience will behave on the night.’

  Pedro turned to me and flashed a brilliant smile. The light of his candle lit him alone, leaving the rest of the theatre in darkness. ‘They’re going to be amazed.’ He threw his arms wide and bowed. ‘I’ll make sure they love me!’

  ‘Hmm, we’ll see.’ I’d forgotten that Pedro was never one to underestimate his own abilities. ‘If you’re going to be so astonishing, we’d better practise some more. Give a lady a hand, will you?’

  Pedro took the other side of the winch and we turned it together, lifting the heavy red drapes as if we were furling a sail.

  ‘Blow the man down, bully,

  Blow the man down,’ Pedro began to sing.

  I joined in.

  ‘With a way, hey,

  Blow the man down.’

  By the end of the verse the curtains were stowed and we had the whole stage to play on.

  ‘We’ll need some more light, or one of us is going to end up in the orchestra with a broken neck,’ I said, crouching over the footlights to coax them into life with a taper.

  ‘Not me. I think I could act on this stage blindfold,’ boasted Pedro. He lit a second taper and began at the other end. Exchanging a glance, we raced to see who could reach the middle first. I won. At least I was still better at some things than my accomplished friend.

  ‘There, that’s done.’ I stood up. ‘Let’s start from your entrance.’ I hitched up my skirts and strode into the centre like a man.

  ‘Approach, my Ariel . . . Come!’

  I was in my element, aping Mr Kemble’s deep voice as I swept my hand commandingly to my servant, imagining the ranks upon ranks of empty seats before me filled with invisible creatures waiting on my magic. Unlit, the theatre was like a vast echoing cavern, a fitting backdrop to my wizard powers. I could call storms from the ornate ceiling, spirits from under the benches in the Pit, strange music from the silent orchestra.

  ‘Is there more toil?’ said Pedro sorrowfully from behind a silver mask. He’d stripped off his street clothes to reveal his costume – vivid blue silk breeches and shirt, topped off with a white cloak fixed to his wrists like a pair of wings. Mrs Reid, the wardrobe mistress, had copied it from pictures of the Venetian Carnival and was very proud of the result. His favourite pearl earring, trophy of his first performance in Drury Lane, hung from his lobe shining dully in the half-light. ‘Since thou dost give me pains . . .’

  ‘Louder!’ I interrupted, having heard Mr Kemble say it often enough in rehearsals. ‘Pretend you’re speaking to a hard-of-hearing dwarf in the gods.’

  Pedro gave a snort and hitched his voice up a peg for the rest of the speech. Listening to him, I realized that he was showing real promise. I’d seen many actors come and go at Drury Lane, but none had his grace and feeling tone. Not that I was going to tell him, of course: he already had too keen a sense of his own greatness. I wasn’t about to sharpen it further.

  And now for Ariel’s acrobatic exit. Pedro was to tumble off stage in a series of cartwheels, back flips and somersaults. Giving me a cheeky wink, he took a run up and –

  Clap, clap, clap.

  Pedro crashed to the floor at the side of the stage as a slow round of applause rang out from the shadows of the Pit, startling us both.

  ‘Oh, well done, Pedro, well done.’ From the auditorium came a man’s voice. He had a strange accent – American or West Indian, I guessed.

  Pedro froze. Sprawled in the dust, his dark eyes looked up at me through the slits of his mask, wide with terror. It was his expression that made me feel afraid. I moved to the edge of the forestage and shaded my eyes from the guttering footlights, my heart beating unsteadily in my chest. Few things could stop Pedro in his tracks but this person had succeeded with no more than the sound of his voice.

  ‘And my, little gal, you ain’t bad neither – not that Kemble need worry for his position any time yet.’

  A broad-shouldered man in a brown jacket and black breeches was making his way down the central aisle, an iron-tipped cane in his hand. As he approached, he seemed at first glance a handsome man, bronzed by the sun. But when he stepped into the pool of light by the orchestra, I saw his eyes were hard, the lines around his mouth cruel. Black hair shot with grey straggled from beneath his hat. He walked as if he owned the place – it annoyed me intensely.

  I bobbed a curtsey. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but the theatre’s closed until six,’ I said tartly, clearly signalling that he was not wanted here, whoever he was.

  He waved me away with his cane like a bothersome fly.

  ‘I ain’t here for no play. I’m here to reclaim my property.’

  Thinking he had probably dropped something in the scrum to get out the night before, I asked more politely than he deserved: ‘What have you lost, sir? Perhaps I can fetch it for you?’

  He gave a belly laugh. ‘Maybe you can, missy. I’ve come for my slave – Pedro Hawkins.’

  I heard a whimper as Pedro scrambled to his feet. Clasping my hands behind me I made rapid ‘get going’ gestures, giving him the chance to back slang it out of the theatre.

  ‘Your slave? I think you must’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘I don’t make mistakes,’ said Hawkins, moving closer. ‘He’s my boy and I’m coming to get him.’

  ‘Is that so, sir? Well, I’m sorry, but you can’t have him,’ I replied airily.

  ‘Oh, can’t I?’ With unexpected agility for one so large, the man bounded across the orchestra pit and clambered on to the stage. I retreated a step to prevent him following Pedro into the wings. ‘A bantling like you won’t stop me getting what’s mine,’ he added, swiping the cane at me. I tried not to flinch.

  ‘Of course not, sir,’ I replied, my tone studiously polite. ‘What I’m trying to tell you, sir, is that the Ariel you just saw isn’t your boy Pedro.’

  ‘No?’ the man said sarcastically. We were now doing a strange sort of Barnaby dance: shuffling to and fro as I blocked his attempts to set off in pursuit.

  ‘No. Sadly, Pedro Hawkins died of a fever last Monday. That was the understudy you saw.’

  ‘Balderdash!’

  ‘It’s God’s honest truth, sir,’ (said with fingers crossed behind back). ‘I can understand your confusion – what with the costume and the mask. But black boys are ten a penny round here. We keep a few in stock in case they up and die in this cold climate as they so often do.’

  He wasn’t fooled. ‘Let me at him then – I’ll soon tell you if it’s him or no.’

  ‘I can’t, sir. I’m not allowed to let anyone backstage. I’ll be fined five shillings if I do.’

  He felt in his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. ‘Here, this’ll more than make up for any fine. Now let me by, or I’ll stop being so reasonable.’

  I ignored the coins. ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Out of my way!’ His bloodshot eyes glaring, he raised the cane.

  ‘No!’ I stared back at
him, my chin thrust forward. I wasn’t going to let a big bully like him lay hands on Pedro! The man then lunged, grabbing me by the scruff of the neck. His sudden resort to violence caught me unprepared. I was dangling in his grip like a puppet with broken strings and could do nothing but curse him. How dare he lay hands on me!

  ‘You know what we do with pert gals like you back where I come from?’ he hissed, thrusting his cane under my chin. ‘We teach ’em a lesson with this.’ He jabbed me hard on the jaw. ‘That’ll stop your mouth.’

  ‘What, sir, are you doing to that child?’ a voice roared from off-stage. Mr Kemble strode on to the boards decked out in the crimson robe of the magician, his face made up a startling white with dark eyebrows over flashing black eyes. Power seemed to radiate from him.

  ‘Teaching her some manners,’ said the man. He shook me like a terrier with a rat in its mouth.

  ‘He’s trying to get backstage, sir! He’s trying to steal Ariel!’ I squeaked.

  ‘Put her down this instant!’ boomed the actor-manager.

  ‘Bring me the boy first.’

  ‘You’re talking rubbish, man. Put her down.’

  ‘I told him Pedro died last week but he won’t believe me,’ I added, half-suffocating under his grip on my neck.

  Mr Kemble raised an eyebrow but said nothing to refute the lie.

  ‘Hold your tongue,’ snarled the man. ‘Don’t think for one moment that you can bamboozle Kingston Hawkins, you little witch. The boy is mine by law. You’re keeping him here against my will.’