Scatterheart Read online

  Hannah said nothing.

  ‘When I hired him,’ Arthur Cheshire continued, ‘I expressly outlined the kind of education that I wished for you.’

  ‘But Papa,’ said Hannah. ‘Thom– Mr Behr has been the very best of teachers. He has taught me all sorts of wonderful things.’

  Arthur Cheshire frowned. ‘That is precisely the problem,’ he said. ‘It is quite unnecessary for a young lady of Quality to know about the heathen gods of Egypt, or the voyages of Marco Polo. Unnecessary and undesirable.’

  Hannah’s lower lip trembled.

  ‘Hannah, you need to understand that you must conduct yourself in a proper and dignified fashion if you want to find a good husband.’

  Hannah looked at him. ‘A husband?’

  He smiled. ‘Of course, my love. Isn’t that what you want?’

  She reached out and took a slice of ham.

  ‘You’re a beautiful young lady,’ said Arthur Cheshire. ‘You’ll catch yourself a fine man.’

  Hannah tore the ham into thin strips. Was she beautiful?

  Her father leaned over and patted her on the knee. ‘We shall find you a rich husband, and you shall have a grand house in Mayfair, and carriages, and fifty servants, and you will hold the finest parties London has ever seen.’

  Hannah thought about that. It did sound wonderful.

  ‘But what about Mr Behr?’ she asked.

  ‘I shall let Behr go at the end of the month.’

  Hannah stopped, her hand half-raised to her mouth. She put the ham down again on a plate.

  Her father sighed. ‘You’re nearly fifteen, Hannah. Much too old for a tutor.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Hannah. She wondered what she would do all day without Thomas Behr.

  ‘You shall be far too busy going to parties and meeting rich men,’ said Arthur Cheshire.

  ‘Yes, Papa,’ said Hannah.

  ‘We’ll get you tutors to teach you skills more appropriate for a young lady. Dancing. Pianoforte. Painting. Then, when you are fifteen, you shall be ready to enter Society.’

  Hannah said nothing.

  ‘That reminds me,’ said Arthur Cheshire. ‘Mr Harris is coming to dine with us tonight. Make sure you dress well.’

  Hannah made a face. Mr Harris was a fat, asthmatic man who played cards with Arthur Cheshire. He was at least fifty years old, and was always pink and sweating.

  ‘Now, Hannah,’ said her father, downing the last of his brandy and standing up. ‘Mr Harris is a very rich man. You’d do well to impress him. He has a house on Grosvenor Square, you know.’

  He touched an elegant finger to her cheek, and then left the room, his dressing gown billowing behind him.

  Hannah scowled at the thought of having to spend an entire evening in Mr Harris’s company, listening to him wheeze and stammer, and watching the sweat stains under his arms grow as the evening wore on. Thomas Behr despised Mr Harris, calling him a toad-eater.

  Hannah sighed, and poked half-heartedly at the buttered eggs with a fork. It didn’t really matter what Thomas Behr thought, because Papa was letting him go.

  When Hannah was younger, she and Thomas used to make up stories about the animals woven into the Turkish rug in the sitting room. Hannah would tell him about the outrageous adventures of the tiger and the elephant, and he would laugh and laugh, until his eyes filled with tears.

  She put down the fork and stood up. She only had a few lessons left with Thomas. At the end of the month he would leave, and she would probably never see him again. She thought about Thomas, with his rumpled coat and snow animals. The way he looked at her sometimes. She thought about how she had wanted to touch his hair in the park. Then she imagined wearing jewels and beautiful dresses. She thought about riding through Hyde Park in her own carriage. Perhaps her father was right, it was time to grow up.

  ***

  Most people in the cell just sat staring into space, waiting and wasting away. Hunger gnawed at Hannah. She could feel the water she had drunk sloshing around in her empty stomach. As the dim light in the cell started to fade, Hannah leaned her head against the cold iron bars of the cell. She felt weak and trembling.

  ‘Oi! Y’ladyship!’ she heard the woman with her bonnet call over to her. ‘Stop polishin’ the king’s iron wiv your eyebrows and come over here.’

  Hannah rose unsteadily to her feet and looked around. The woman was sprawled out on the wooden shelf with Black Jack, a brown glass bottle in one hand.

  ‘Still hungered?’ she asked.

  Hannah nodded, and put her hands to the buttons of her pelisse. Her father had bought it for her birthday last year. It had been wrapped up in delicately scented tissue paper, in a white box with a green velvet ribbon. The woman looked at Hannah pointedly. Hannah sighed, and fumbled with the buttons.

  The woman wedged her bottle between her knees, holding out both hands. Hannah held out the dark green garment. The woman stood up and put it on. It was tight around her shoulders and across the bosom, and only reached mid-calf, but she belted it up and paraded around the cell like a peacock.

  ‘Ooh, I say,’ she said in a posh voice. ‘Aren’t I devilish grand, old fellows? A diamond of the first water, ay?’

  Black Jack chuckled. He was a tall man, bigger even than Thomas Behr.

  ‘Wait!’ said Hannah.

  The woman stopped. ‘I ain’t goin’ back on no bargain,’ she said darkly.

  ‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘I just–’ she took a deep breath. ‘There’s something in the pocket of my – of your pelisse. It’s … precious to me.’

  The woman tilted her head on one side. ‘Precious, eh? What is it then? Gold? Jewels? A note from your sweetheart? A pretty polly like you must have a handsome heart-splitter hangin’ off your sleeves.’ She dug her hand into the pocket of the pelisse and drew out a handkerchief. It was rumpled and a little dirty. She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘This?’ she said. ‘This is precious?’

  Hannah nodded. ‘Please.’

  The woman shrugged, and passed Hannah the handkerchief. Hannah wrapped it around her fingers.

  ***

  At Hannah’s next lesson, Thomas didn’t talk about ancient Greek myths, or Columbus’s travels, or tell stories about ice-castles and tricksy winds. He was formal, even awkward. Hannah yawned.

  Thomas sighed. ‘Shall we go for a walk? I’m sure your father would not disapprove of us visiting the British Museum–’

  ‘Papa says it is too cold to go out. He says I have a weak chest.’

  ‘Your Papa is full of concern,’ said Thomas, stiffly.

  Something was itching inside Hannah, making her restless.

  ‘Was there something you wanted to say?’ she asked. ‘About my father?’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Thomas. He tugged his too-short shirtsleeve down where it had started creeping up his arm, revealing a thick tangle of pale hair on his wrist.

  ‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘I want to hear your opinion of my father.’

  Thomas hesitated.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ said Hannah.

  He stood up and walked over to the fireplace. Then he turned and looked at her. ‘Hannah, your father dresses you up like a china doll and then swans around town spending other people’s money, leaving you in this big house on your own–’

  ‘My papa is very important,’ said Hannah. ‘I don’t mind at all that his affairs call him away from time to time.’

  Thomas snorted. ‘Affairs is right enough. Your father is known all over London for his affairs.’

  Hannah stared at him, speechless. His eyes were sparkling again, and a part of Hannah was just happy to see his face lit up and excited, even if it was lit up with anger. But he shouldn’t speak to her like that. Her father would be angry.

  Thomas shook his head. ‘Listen, Hannah–’

  ‘Miss Cheshire,’ said Hannah coldly.

  Thomas looked away. The flush left his cheeks, and his eyes grew dull again. His shoulders hunched back over.

  Hannah felt a
tugging in her chest, and softened.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, reaching over to touch his hand.

  Thomas snatched his hand away.

  ‘Your hands are icy,’ said Hannah.

  ‘It’s cold outside,’ he replied, not looking at her.

  ‘Not as cold as the land where Scatterheart and the white bear come from,’ she said with a smile.

  Thomas looked surprised, but smiled back. ‘No, not that cold.’

  ‘Where is it, that land?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘The story comes from Norway.’ He took off his glasses, which were fogging up in the warm room, and polished them with his handkerchief.

  ‘How do you know it? Are you from Norway?’ She wondered that she had never asked him that before, and realised that she knew very little about him. Where did he live? Did he have another job? Where was his family?

  ‘My father is German, but his mother was from Norway. She liked to tell stories–’ He broke off, as a door slammed somewhere in the house, and they heard the sound of glass breaking, and of sobbing.

  ‘What on earth is that?’ he asked, getting to his feet. The handkerchief slid onto the floor.

  Hannah shrugged. ‘It’s probably Lettie. Papa let her go yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Let her go? Why?’ Thomas turned his head upwards, as if he could see through the ceiling to where Arthur Cheshire was asleep in his bedroom.

  Hannah waved a vague hand in the air. ‘Papa wasn’t happy with her. She always made the cup rattle in its saucer when she brought him tea.’

  ‘She made the cup rattle?’ asked Thomas. ‘He’s letting her because she made the cup rattle?’

  Hannah rolled her eyes. ‘He also thinks she stole his mother-of-pearl cufflinks. He can’t find them anywhere. Shall we continue with my lesson?’

  Thomas turned and frowned slightly. ‘Of course,’ he said, and came and sat down again. But he said nothing.

  ‘Thomas?’ said Hannah.

  ‘That poor girl.’

  This time it was Hannah’s turn to frown. ‘Poor girl? That poor girl stole from us,’ she said. What was wrong with him? Who cared if the serving maid had been let go?

  Thomas sighed. ‘But what could have driven her to it? She seemed so happy here.’

  ‘You never can tell with people like that.’

  ‘People like what?’ Thomas asked. ‘Servants? Poor people? People like me?’

  Hannah blushed. ‘She was a thief. She deserved to be let go.’

  Thomas stood up again, and paced over to the fireplace. ‘Don’t you pity her?’ he asked. ‘Your father turned her out onto the streets. She will steal, or starve, or worse. She could be sentenced to death, or transportation.’

  Hannah felt a tug of guilt in her belly, but shook it away. ‘You’re being ridiculous. You didn’t even know her.’

  ‘Neither did you.’ Thomas threw his hands up in the air. ‘Last week a nine-year-old boy was transported for stealing three wrinkly old apples. The week before, a nineteen-year-old girl was hanged for taking a silver spoon from her mistress’s cabinet. A single spoon!’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Hannah, relieved. ‘Papa didn’t turn her in. He just asked her to leave. She won’t face any charges for her theft. Really, he is being very generous.’

  ‘Why are you defending him?’ asked Thomas, looking at her strangely.

  ‘Things could be much worse for her,’ said Hannah.

  ‘I doubt that very much,’ said Thomas. ‘You have no idea what life is like outside this house. You’ve never been to Seven Dials and seen a woman feeding her baby gin because she can’t afford to buy milk. Or a man so drunk that he beats his wife senseless and then drinks himself to death. Or a child, without family or shelter, frozen dead in an alleyway … You have all the silver spoons and apples you could ever want,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what it’s like.’

  Hannah said nothing. Did he know what it was like? Had Thomas seen those things? Lived in those places? It was as if the ocean in his eyes had frozen solid. He looked disappointed in her. She felt a prickle of tears behind her eyes.

  The frown-lines on Thomas’s forehead faded, and the thin line of his lips softened.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you. Maybe I should talk to your father. Reason with him.’

  ‘And what would you say?’ said a smooth voice from behind them.

  Hannah turned around to see her father standing in the doorway. He looked small and delicate compared to Mr Behr, like one of the china figurines on her mantelpiece next to a rough patchwork doll.

  ‘Sir,’ said Mr Behr. ‘Please don’t do this to Lettie.’

  Arthur Cheshire wore an amused expression, but Hannah could tell that he was furious.

  ‘I’m sorry, Thomas,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid I don’t take advice from servants.’

  Hannah saw Thomas’s shoulders straighten, and he stood up to his full height. Thomas’s face was flushed with anger. ‘You’re a pathetic little man,’ he said.

  Arthur Cheshire didn’t seem at all intimidated. He smiled blandly, and examined a perfectly shaped nail.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time you found a real job, Thomas?’ he said. ‘You’ve been here for nearly four years, dangling after my daughter. It’s getting unseemly. You should go and find yourself some pretty serving-wench to marry. Someone who is closer to your own station in life.’

  Thomas ignored Arthur Cheshire, and turned to Hannah.

  ‘I’m sorry I said those things,’ he said, his voice quiet and strangely gentle. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  Hannah swallowed. She felt hot and angry and sick. She wanted Thomas to stay, but her father was right. She looked up at Thomas.

  ‘Hannah?’ he said.

  Hannah looked away, saying nothing.

  ‘You will address my daughter as Miss Cheshire,’ said Hannah’s father. ‘If you address her at all, which I hardly think necessary any more.’

  Thomas seemed to shrink. He reached down to put on his hat and gloves. He picked up the parcel of books. Then he sighed and looked at Hannah.

  Hannah stared firmly at her hands, folded in her lap.

  ‘Hannah,’ said Thomas again.

  She looked up. He was staring at her, a strange expression on his face that seemed urgent and sad and gentle all mixed up together. Hannah wanted to look away, but found she couldn’t. She felt very aware of her father standing only a few feet away, watching.

  She closed her eyes, and turned her head away, hot and trembling.

  Thomas sighed, and walked into the hallway, closing the sitting room door behind him. It slammed loudly – Hannah wasn’t sure if it had been Thomas’s anger or just a gust of wind. The room trembled, and a blue-and-white porcelain vase toppled from the mantelpiece and shattered on the hearth.

  Arthur Cheshire raised his eyebrows, and turned and left the room. Hannah heard the creak of stairs as he went up to his bedroom.

  She went over to start picking up the pieces of broken vase, and saw Thomas’s handkerchief lying on the floor where he had dropped it. She bent and picked it up, absently thinking she could give it to him at their lesson next week. Then she remembered he wasn’t coming back. Her fingers curled around the handkerchief, and she dissolved into tears.

  ***

  ‘What’s your name, then, y’ladyship?’ asked the woman.

  Hannah swallowed. ‘Hannah Cheshire.’

  ‘Hannah Cheshire,’ the woman mocked. ‘Well, Hannah Cheshire, I is Long Meg.’

  Hannah held out her hand. ‘Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Meg.’

  Long Meg stared at the proffered hand, and burst out laughing. ‘Ooh, ain’t she posh, Black Jack! Did you hear that? Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Meg. Did you ever hear such a thing?’

  Black Jack shook his head. Hannah looked at Long Meg expectantly, who looked back.

  ‘Is there sommit I can do for you, Hannah Cheshire?’ she asked.


  Hannah nodded. ‘I – I gave you my pelisse. Do you think I might have some bread now?’

  Long Meg slapped her forehead. ‘Well ain’t I just the most buffle-headed creature in all of the wit!’ She reached under her skirt, and drew out the piece of bread. Hannah snatched it out of her hand.

  ‘Careful now, else you’ll be washing your shoes with it again like you did last night,’ said Long Meg.

  She watched Hannah devour the bread. ‘So what you in for, eh?’

  Hannah looked at her blankly, still chewing.

  ‘What did you do? To get in here? Did you pilfer sommit? Those fancy threads, by the looks of it.’

  Hannah looked indignant. ‘Certainly not. I’m not supposed to be here. It’s all a mistake. I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  Long Meg laughed her great roar of a laugh again. ‘Sure you ain’t. None of us have, have we lads?’ She spread her arms wide. One or two people acknowledged her with a nod or a wink. She turned to Hannah. ‘We’s all innocent, pet. All of us.’

  Hannah felt anger rise in her. She opened her mouth to issue a sharp retort, but said nothing. What was the point? She should be saving her energy to explain everything to the turnkey.

  She swallowed the last crumb of bread. ‘What did you do? To be in here?’

  Long Meg stood up proudly, and linked her hands behind her back as if she were reciting poetry. ‘One raven grey Coventry gown, one white ground cotton gown with red and laylock stripes, one Norwich crepe gown, one pink quilted petticoat, seven yards of black Calomanco, one pair of women’s stays, one black satin cloak, one red duffin cloak, one fine white lawn apron, one chocolate ground silk handkerchief, one red and black silk handkerchief, one black silk handkerchief, one women’s black silk hat, three white linen aprons, two checked linen aprons, one pair of leather shoes and one pair of plaited shoebuckles.’ She sat down again.

  ‘How did you steal it all?’ Hannah was impressed, despite herself.

  Long Meg just grinned, and reached for her brown glass bottle.

  three

  ‘Good evening to you,’ said the bear through the window. ‘Same to you,’ replied the man. ‘Will you give me your daughter to marry?’ asked the bear. ‘If you do, I shall make you as rich as you are now poor.’ ‘Well…’ said the man. ‘No,’ said Scatterheart.