Dodger (24 page)

‘That's very generous of you, Mrs …'

‘Miss Trotwood.'

‘… Miss Trotwood. I promise I shall read it all the way through from start to finish.'

‘Do so,' said the old bat as she bowed her head. ‘Learn from its lessons and then read it to others. But …' I heard the woman
say to her as I paid the conductor his shilling, ‘are you not taking your child?'

‘Oh, she ain't with me,' Ruby explained as she too reached for her fare. ‘I ain't sure who she's with.'

Once alighted I lost myself down Crown Street but not before peering around the corner to check that Ruby had got out of the carriage safely too. I saw her then waving at the departing green omnibus with much enthusiasm and it occurred to me that now she was taking the act too far. These theatrical types can be a liability on the job if you don't watch them.

*

Ten minutes later, as we had agreed, we met again in Soho Square to compare findings and there she was, sat on a bench reading this book. It was a shrewd way, so I thought, of making herself, an unaccompanied woman, look inconspicuous and I again marvelled at what a natural performer she was. Since we parted ways at the omnibus I myself had been strolling around the nearby Soho streets and there was many men what had bumped into me that morning in Old Compton, Frith or Greek streets who would have found themselves a lot lighter for valuables afterwards. I had about me three gold pocket watches and several fat wallets and I was keen to show this great bounty to her so she could see that I, and not her Jem, was the finest thief she knew.

‘What a thing,' I said to her, all smiles as I approached the bench, ‘that the old plant should just give you that book without you having to steal it or nothing. What a thing.' Ruby looked up from the book most surprised. She must not have seen me coming.

‘Yeah,' she said at last. ‘And look what's written in it.' She flicked to the cover page and showed me a signature with tiny little ink-blots splashed around it. Above this was written:

To my dear Elizabeth Trotwood, to whom I owe everything, Lavinia

*

‘Nice,' I approved. ‘Signed by the author, eh? You should charge your Jew double for that.'

‘It's about a young girl what is mistreated by those around her,' Ruby said as she placed the ribbon between the pages and shut the book. ‘I ain't sure that I want to fence it.'

‘Perhaps best,' I agreed as she stuffed it into her reticule. ‘With that signature inside it could be tracked back to us. At least rip that page out first and burn it if you do. Anyway, look what I got!'

We stepped beneath an overhanging tree so we could not be seen from the street. I had spotted an unnerving amount of these new peelers on patrol and I was feeling cautious. From out of my pockets I produced the wallets, fogles and tickers what I had snatched in this vicinity as well as some choice items I had managed to pinch on the walk down to Shoreditch. I could tell Ruby was most impressed with my dexterity of touch and she made all the right noises as I displayed them in front of her. And then, as if this was top of the bill, I pulled out the bulging silk coin-purse I had removed from the lady's dress pocket.

‘She must be very well off indeed, your Miss Trotwood,' I said, stroking the beaded decorations and fringing. ‘This feels like all sovereigns.' I opened the purse and sure enough it was brimming with gold coins. ‘What a find,' I laughed. ‘Still top-sawyer!'

Ruby, however, did not appear to be as elated by this as I had expected.

‘Do you think she'll be all right getting home, Jack?' she asked, biting her lower lip. ‘Without no coins, how will she pay the omnibus cad?'

‘Don't worry yourself,' I said as I counted out the sovereigns, getting more and more jubilant at their increasing value. I could not have wished for a choicer prize. ‘She'll be all right.'

‘Yeah.' Ruby nodded. ‘A woman like that. All tall and sure of herself. She'll be all right.'

These coins was worth more than to enough to pay off Greta, buy myself some new tailorings and take Ruby out somewhere flash for luncheon. And I could now afford decent lodgings for tonight. ‘Profitable,' I said as I dropped them back into the purse one after the other. ‘Very profitable.'

‘She was an interesting woman, weren't she, Jack?' Ruby said. ‘Miss Trotwood. I should have enjoyed talking to her about books a while longer.'

‘She was indeed, Rube,' I agreed as we set off back towards the crowds. ‘That's what I missed the most about London during my time away. You meet such interesting people here.' I was keeping an eye out for peelers as we stepped across Carlisle Street. I took Ruby's arm in mine so that we would look like a respectable couple. She did not resist me, in fact it felt most comfortable. As we walked towards Dean Street we passed a short fat priest running towards the square. I doffed my hat as he passed and he smiled back.

‘Seems a shame, don't it?' Ruby said.

‘What does?'

‘To thieve off a nice old bird like her.'

‘Why's that then?'

These streets, I considered as we crossed through to Wardour, was not near populated enough. Nor did those populating them strike me as very affluent. We would need to head back to Oxford Street where the pickings was richer and then down to Regent Street.

‘Cos she was kindly,' Ruby answered. ‘And I always feel it ain't nice to steal off someone what's done you a good turn.'

We was getting closer to the big crowds now and I was keen for her to drop this line of conversation in case somebody overheard us.

‘She weren't kindly, Ruby, she was rich. It's no great thing to give a person a book if you have libraries of the things back at home.' I lowered my voice in the hope that this would encourage her to do the same. ‘She most probably felt it was too heavy to go on carrying.'

Ruby lifted at her reticule, what was now busting at the seams with this big book inside it. ‘Perhaps,' she said.

Just before we headed out into the thick stream of people I realised that Ruby's thoughts was not where they should be. I pulled her arm most gentle away from the thoroughfare and into a tiny alley where we could talk this through before proceeding.

‘What's troubling you, Ruby?' I asked her. ‘You seem out of sorts.'

‘Nothing,' she said. And then, with a twitch of embarrassment, she asked, ‘Jack, are we bad people?'

‘Bad people?' I asked, most stupefied by the question. ‘You and me? What makes you ask such a thing?'

‘Because we're on the thieve,' she answered.

I did not know how to reply to such an enquiry. I had never before been asked anything like it.

‘Course we ain't,' I said at last. ‘The very idea!'

‘But it's a sin, ain't it?' she went on. ‘Thieving. Taking things what ain't ours from those what have done nothing to harm us.'

It was clear to me now that this crafty omnibus woman had worked upon Ruby's conscience in much the same manner that the sleeping beggar whose boots I had stolen the night before had
almost worked upon mine. This was the danger of using conversation as a distraction for those you wished to touch. Sometimes they touch you back.

‘Nothing to harm us?' I said. ‘If it's Miss Trotwood you're speaking of, then no, she didn't do nothing to harm us.' Ruby raised her eyes to mine and I touched her gloved hand what held on to the reticule. ‘But she never done nothing to help us neither, not she nor anyone of her class. And to me, that's as bad as harming us.'

I stepped out of Ruby's way so she could see the rush of people what was marching up and down Oxford Street. ‘See them swells,' I said as we took in the sight of all these people in their splendid finery – the top hats, the tailcoats, the bejewelled necks, the fancy bonnets, the latest fashions. Popping in and out of different shops, arms full of brightly coloured gift boxes, Christmas presents for their loved ones no doubt. Backs straight, noses held aloft, like nothing in the world could harm them. All so handsome, all so polished. Respectable fathers, fashionable mothers, beloved children. ‘Them swells, Ruby,' I told her, ‘would not care a farthing if you or I was to drop down dead at their feet. They just would step right over us and hail themselves a hansom.'

Ruby did not seem shocked at my words. It was something she already knew and I was only reminding her. ‘They know nothing of the streets we was born in,' I went on, ‘though they glide by them every day on their way to somewhere cleaner. There is not one of them what ever gives a moment's thought to how we can live so poor and what can be done about us. They don't care if we're brutalised or kept ignorant. Their homes are grand and comfortable and if they see someone poor, outside in the cold night, gazing in through the window, then they draw the curtain and think no more about it. Perhaps they will call for a peeler
who will come and shoo us away, for the peelers are their servants, not ours.' As I said this one such character plodded past and we both turned away to not draw attention to ourselves. Once he had passed we looked back. ‘As long as we don't suffer inside their living rooms they don't care where we suffer. They are happy for us to starve,' I said, ‘or to live as low as animals.'

I reached then into my pocket and pulled out the purse what I found on Miss Trotwood. ‘And yet, when we behave like animals and hunt for what we cannot live without –' I made the coins jingle – ‘they act as though we are the ones at fault and cry for us to be locked up or packed off to some dusty foreign place or, worse still, hung. There ain't one of them, Rube, not your Miss Trotwood, not the men in Parliament and not our new Queen sat fat and comfortable upon her throne, what would take our side if they did not need to.' I could tell from the way her eyes was beginning to lift that I was setting her right. She had no reason to be ashamed of her soft-heartedness but it was a quality people of our class could not afford. Our eyes did not meet then though; instead she looked over my shoulders at the tall houses behind. She seemed to start at something but I pressed on. ‘They ain't our friends, Ruby,' I said, putting away the purse again, ‘they're the opposite of that. They expect us to live off air and the nothing that they provide for us. Or they do not want us to live at all.'

Ruby and I was close together now, almost as close as we had been during my bath, and I felt the need to kiss her again. She looked back at me, our eyes locked and I saw a hardness in them.

‘Jack,' she said then as if desperate to tell me something.

‘Besides,' I whispered, stopping her from whatever she was about to say, ‘it ain't like you'll ever see the woman again.' I moved closer and placed my hands on her waist. I tilted my head and went in for that kiss. I was desperate to know if she would respond.

‘Flora!' a voice cried out. ‘Get away from that boy. He's a thief!'

I turned my head and saw her, standing tall and furious on the other side of Oxford Street, her parasol, purple to match her outfit, pointing across at me, a thick slash along the pocket-side of her dress. She was flanked either side by two peelers, both of them taller even than her, but who both seemed to be having trouble seeing me through the roaring traffic between. ‘That's the boy, officers,' she announced loud enough for all Oxford Street to hear. ‘The boy from the bus! And look, he's about to molest that poor defenceless girl!'

The two peelers dashed across the street before she had finished speaking, weaving in and out of the racing phaetons and hackney carriages towards me. My hands was off Ruby in an instant and my feet already charging back towards Soho. Ruby, I could hear, was fast behind and not foolish enough to think that Miss Trotwood would labour under her false impression for long. There was enough distance between us and the peelers, what had still not made it through the bustling shoppers, to exchange words as we came to a crossroads.

‘We're being followed,' she said.

‘I can see that,' I panted. ‘See you at the spot,' I said before she scudded off in her direction. ‘I'll hang back so they chase after me.' I turned and saw the men, both tall, and leaner and fitter than the old Bow Street Runners, make it across the street and into the road where we were. I paused just long enough for them to see which way I was going and then turned on my heel. My first thought, as I ran, was that they would not chase after Ruby. Her safety was the thing I prized above all others.

The second thing I prized above all others was my own safety and, if I'm truthful, it was a very close second. I cut through into
the nearest turning in the hope that I would encounter a great crowd to lose myself in. But, as I had noted before, the back-streets was not well populated and I was unlikely to be able to hide behind this band of three small urchins what was frolicking in the street ahead of me. One boy what was trying to entertain the others by standing on his head with his heels in the air seemed to take a nasty tumble and fall flat on his back, an accident what could have been avoided had he not performed his feat straight in the middle of my path of escape. I could hear him making a right old fuss about it behind me but I did not stop to look back as I was already quickening my pace and dashing into another turning what led to a courtyard with a number of exits. This was always the best way for a cat to lose a dog and so the trick was bound to work on a pair of stupid peelers.

But once inside the courtyard I saw that it was occupied by a gathering of dustmen filling up their dirty great box-cart what they had left right in front of one pathway. The biggest of the men, what was ringing a great bell and calling for people to bring out their dust, was stood in front of another alley, but I pushed past him and headed down it in the hope that the peelers would think I'd taken the third, unobstructed, cut. However, before I had even made it to the end of that alley I heard something what surprised me almost as much as Ruby's earlier question. Back in the courtyard I heard the peelers ask the dustmen, in loud regimental voices, down what path I had vanished. And the dustman with the bell could be heard telling, as loud as if still calling out ‘Dust Ho!', that I had just dashed past him and had gone in this direction. I was astounded by this betrayal. A working man, an honest labourer, taking sides against one of his own class. This would never have happened back in the time of the Runners. In those days most ordinary people knew better than to help a
policeman; they kept quiet or even hindered those in authority to protect a poor man's hero like me. But now it was as though these new blue policemen, Sir Robert's Men, was respected by the people. Feared. Perhaps even approved of.