Cat's Cradle (4 page)

‘Syd! Syd! Come out 'ere – and bring Cat!' shouted Mr Fletcher from the shop.

‘What now?' I placed my cup on its saucer.

Syd shrugged. ‘Dunno, Kitten, but let's not keep Dad waitin'.' Pulling me up, he gestured that I should lead the way down the passage. I entered the shop to find a most unexpected customer waiting by the counter. Dressed in expensive Bond Street clothes and looking like a golden guinea among us common old pennies, Mr Sheridan tipped his hat to me.

‘Well now, Cat Royal, and how are you? Far travelled, I hear.'

‘Mr Sheridan!' I belatedly dipped into a curtsey, grinning at him like a fool. He had been my guardian ever since he found me, an infant of two or three years, on the steps of Drury Lane.
‘Wrapped in a blanket and as quiet as a mouse' was how he had described me.

‘How did you know I was back, sir?' I enquired.

‘I'd asked the Avons to send word as soon as they heard from you. When I met the duke outside Carlton House this morning, he told me that you'd written to Frank when you landed. He has sent your letter on to his son by express messenger, so you can expect to hear from Frank very soon.'

Holding me out at arms length, Mr Sheridan looked me up and down, somewhat like an artist admiring a portrait he'd not seen for some time. ‘My goodness, it is a pleasure to see you again, Cat! I have found the stories of your exploits among the Indians very inspiring – I'm sure there's a play in there somewhere.'

Releasing my hands, he stroked a finger along his upper lip in a thoughtful pose, his dark eyes gleaming. Stocky and flush-faced, Mr Sheridan was in appearance a strange mixture – a literary genius with the build of a labourer. No one could make the mistake of thinking him a weakling poet. His uppercut could do as much damage as his wit.

‘Indeed, sir, it was kind of you to seek me out here.' I gestured to the shop, quite a comedown from his fine house in the West End and gentlemen's clubs in St James's.

‘As to that, let us say that I have my reasons.' He cleared his throat. I would have said he was nervous if that hadn't been so out of character. ‘I did not want to risk missing you again. You see, Cat, there is something I need to tell you.' He glanced round at our audience of eagerly listening Fletchers. ‘I wanted to speak to you when I received the results of my investigation late last year; I never got the chance as you were whisked off to Bath so promptly by the Avons and then you went abroad.'

‘What investigation? What did you want to tell me?'

He replaced his hat and offered his arm. ‘Walk with me, Cat?'

With a slightly worried look at Syd – this was so strange – I accepted Mr Sheridan's arm. He tucked my hand in the crook of his elbow.

‘Haven't grown much, have you?' he said. ‘Except your hair, of course.'

I smoothed my unruly red curls: they had escaped their ribbon as usual. I knew I must look a sight, not fit to go walking with anyone, let alone a London celebrity. I fumbled for my bonnet, dangling by its strings from my wrist.

‘That's my motto too: hide it under your hat and no one will notice.' Mr Sheridan tied up the bonnet ribbons for me to hasten our escape.

A little awkwardly, we exchanged news of mutual friends as we strolled down Bow Street, heading for the more genteel district of the Strand. My unease grew: Mr Sheridan had never done anything like this with me before, always treating me as part pet, part servant. Now he was acting as if I were a grown-up lady with whom a gentleman like him would promenade. It only increased the solemnity of the moment.

We stopped when we reached the Middle Temple gardens, a little patch of green amidst the lodgings of the barristers. An exclusive world of wigs and writs, I would never have been allowed in by the porter if I hadn't been with Mr Sheridan. Indeed I wouldn't have wanted to enter. Like any
Londoner with a grain of common sense, I knew better than to get entangled with the courts. The garden was beautiful though. The leaves of the trees were turning golden. With every breath of wind they scattered, tumbling on the grass like the coins poured out on fees by the unfortunate clients. Beyond the garden lay the Thames. A barge with terracotta-coloured sails floated slowly by, heading out to sea. The sun warmed the old stone of the buildings and made the dark waters of the river glow with an oily sheen.

‘Sit down for a moment, Cat,' Mr Sheridan said, handing me carefully to a bench. He remained standing. ‘I'm not sure how to go about this.' His eyes followed the barge downstream.

‘Go about what, sir?' I was really worried now. It sounded as if he was about to announce a death at the very least.

Mr Sheridan crossed his arms, paused, and then turned to me. ‘To go about telling you news of your family.'

*
For further details of these exploits, please see my tale,
Black Heart of Jamaica
.

Reader, I felt as if I had just been doused in iced water.

‘My . . . my family? But you have always said I was abandoned – that I had no one apart from the theatre.'

He looked away. ‘That's all true, I'm afraid. But something has turned up.'

My heart was pounding, palms sweating. How many times had I dreamed that someone would some day reveal the mystery of my origins! It seemed as if that was about to come true.

‘You can't stop there, sir. You've got to tell me all of it.' My voice sounded strangled.
Breathe, Cat, breathe
, I reminded myself.

‘You are right. I must delay no longer.' He sat beside me and took my hand. ‘You see, Cat, when I found you, there were a few clues as to your identity, as you probably know.'

I wasn't sure what he meant. ‘Clues?'

‘Well, yes. First your appearance, carrot-topped even then – a distinctive feature. You must have wondered about that. Then there was your accent.'

‘My accent?'

‘You were only a little – or should I say,
wee
– thing, but the few words you spoke had a Scottish accent. I remember how you called for your
mither
. You were heartbroken at being left, and who can blame you? It took many weeks for you to settle in with us.'

My mind was reeling. None of these bits of information fitted with the image I had of myself. ‘No one told me that.'

‘You soon lost the accent – I doubt many remember now. I would not have recalled it if not for . . . well, never mind that now.'

‘You think I'm Scottish?'

‘Your mother must have been. You, my dear, are a Londoner through and through.' He gave me a bow. ‘Any trace of that accent has long since disappeared.'

‘And did you try and find my mother?'
I clenched my free fist in the folds of my skirt, my knuckles white.

‘Of course I did. Some remembered the . . . er . . . woman with the red-headed child but no one around Covent Garden knew what had happened to her – the trail petered out. There was one more piece of evidence, however. The blanket.'

I remembered it well – I had used it on my bed in the Sparrow's Nest, the old costume store in the theatre, until it fell into holes and had been thrown out. I'd always been told that it had been found with me so I'd kept a scrap of it tucked away among my belongings.

‘It was the Stirling tartan,' Mr Sheridan continued. ‘I thought I'd told you that.'

I shook my head.

‘Perhaps just coincidence, perhaps not.' Mr Sheridan frowned, lost in his memories of the past.

‘And is that it?' I asked, feeling a gust of anger at the carelessness of great men. How like my guardian to be so casual about the few details con cern ing my identity, so vital to me, so unimportant to him!

‘No, my dear. One more thing – and this is
where I want you to think very carefully before you do anything. Remember those pamphlets of your adventures that Mr Tweadle published last year?'

I gave a curt nod – it was still a sore point.
*

‘A few weeks later, while you were in France, I received a letter from a woman near Glasgow asking for more information about you. It wasn't very subtle: she wanted your address, and to find out how rich you were. I almost dismissed it as a begging letter but the writer let drop a few things that made me wonder. I'll leave you to decide what to make of it.' He passed me a fold of cheap paper. ‘Even if she does have some connection to you, Cat, you must remember that she emerged from obscurity when there was a hint of money. That speaks volumes about her motives, I think. You must not delude yourself as to what lies at the end of this particular road.'

A mother only after my supposed riches: was that what he was warning me against? But could any of this be true? Could she still be alive? In my
less fanciful imaginings, I'd decided that my mother must have died soon after she left me, of cold or disease. I'd created an image of a heroic unfortunate whose last act had been to ensure that her child survived. But what if my mother had just left me because she didn't want me? If she was still alive and only now making contact, that surely must be the conclusion to be drawn.

The paper shook in my fingers. I felt like I held a thunderbolt. If I opened the letter, it would probably scorch a painful track through all I knew about myself.

But I could not avoid it: I had to know the truth.

I unfolded the letter.

29th July 1791

5 Long Row
New Lanark
Lanarkshire

Dear Sir,
I am writing to you to ask for news of the girl you called
Cat Royal but known to me as Maudie Stirling. I have just read a penny tale from London, which from the details it revealed, can only have been written by our Maudie. I pray to God that you will be able to put my mind at rest that she has not fallen into bad company as that scandalous rag suggested.

You may be wondering why it has taken me all these years to write to you. The truth is I did not know what had become of Maudie. It was only when I read about her origins in the pamphlet that I began to hope that she was one and the same with the child who disappeared in London so long ago.

If you are able to contact her, there are things she should know about her birth and the events leading to her being entrusted into your care which only I, her kin, can tell her. If you would be so kind as to give me her address and send me word of her circumstances, I would like to apply to her for sufficient money to cover my travel expenses to London. Once this arrives, I will gladly post down to fulfil my obligation to enlighten her. A sum of five pounds should be ample.

Yours faithfully,
Mary Stirling Moir

I let the letter drop to my lap, feeling strangely hollow-chested.

‘Can you see why I was suspicious?' Mr Sheridan probed gently. ‘It was all leading up to the request for money and I doubted that anything I sent would be spent on a journey to London.'

I nodded. The letter did not ask after my welfare, other than my reputation and fortune. No love, no affection. There wasn't even a hint of apology, only promise of a delayed explanation as to why I had been cast off in London. She almost made it sound as if it had been my fault – a child – that I had ‘disappeared'. But yet that seemed in conflict with the statement that I had been ‘entrusted' to Mr Sheridan. How could the act of leaving a child on a doorstep be called that? No one had bothered to look for me; no one had been interested – until now.

‘Who do you think she is, this Mrs Moir?' I asked bleakly.

‘I'm not sure, Cat. It could be a cruel hoax. If it hadn't been for the link to the Stirlings and Scotland, I would have dismissed it out of hand.
A relative
possibly
; your mother
maybe
.' He rubbed his throat uncomfortably.

I wasn't sure if I believed it to be genuine. I looked down again at the address. ‘Where is New Lanark?'

‘That in itself is very interesting: it's a cotton mill built to the latest specifications – run on water power, large workforce, benevolent owner. It's quite famous actually – people travel from all over the world to visit. It sounds as if Mrs Moir is employed there as she lives in one of the cottages. She's fallen on her feet if that is so.'

I re-read the letter and gave a stilted laugh. ‘It's kind of her to write despite my scurrilous reputation.'

‘Isn't it?' Mr Sheridan smiled cynically. ‘Come, I didn't bring you to the Temple for no reason. There's someone I want you to meet.' He stood up and offered me his arm.

‘Who, sir?'

‘A friend of mine. When I received this, I could not let it rest so I asked him to look into it for me before I brought it to your attention. He has
connections with that part of Scotland.'

Mr Sheridan led me over to the entrance to one of the staircases leading up to the barristers' chambers. At the bottom, names of the advocates were listed on the wall.