Katherine Woodfine - The Jewelled Moth

As for the Baron’s Boys, they were almost as feared as the Baron himself. They were the ever-growing gang of toughs who did the Baron’s business – legitimate or otherwise. They collected his rents – the protection money he demanded from most of the East End – and dealt with those who got in their way. People hurried in the opposite direction if they saw them standing on a street corner. Conversation fell away when a group of them swaggered up to the bar of the Star Inn, demanding the landlord’s best beer, or when one or two came striding into the fish shop for their penny bit and ha’p’orth of chips. And now they had been here, to Lim’s shop.

Mei felt sick. The back room had always seemed like the safest place in the world when the family were sitting around the table, in the warmth of the range. But suddenly it was just a room, any room, small and cold. All the laughter had gone out of it. The green parrot in the corner was silent, and even the twins sat still and quiet, their eyes round as saucers.

As if it was their silence that had suddenly reminded her that they were there, Mum glanced over at the twins. ‘Boys, go outside,’ she said curtly. ‘Run along now, chop-chop.’

Dad shook his head weakly. ‘No, Lou. I don’t want them out there. It’s too dangerous,’ he said.

‘Upstairs then,’ said Mum firmly.

‘But, Dad – we’ve got to go out.’ Jian spoke up, looking alarmed and astonished. ‘We’re s’posed to meet Spud and Ginger for a kick-about after tea. They’ll be waiting for us!’

‘Well they’ll be waiting a long time, then, won’t they?’ snapped Mum. ‘You heard your father. You’re not to go out. So upstairs you go. And Mei, you can get started on clearing things up in the shop.’

They wanted them out of the way so they could talk, Mei knew. There was no sense in arguing. She got up, and obediently shepherded the boys out of the back room and up the crooked stairs towards the bedroom. The twins had forgotten about the Baron’s Boys already. They were babbling away in the funny mixture of playground slang and their own peculiar twin language that they used when they were speaking to each other. Now, they seemed to be jabbering something about a game of cowboys and Indians.

‘Come and play with us, Mei,’ said Jian. ‘We’ll let you be the squaw.’

‘We’ll make Song’s bed into our fort,’ said Shen with a grin.

But Mei shook her head. Normally she’d have been happy to have the excuse to join in with one of the twins’ make-believe games, but today, she couldn’t think about anything beyond Dad’s bruised face and the Baron’s Boys.

Instead, as they bounded up the stairs, she went slowly through into the deserted shop as Mum had told her. It looked quite sad and unlike its usual self. The door was locked and bolted, and Song had nailed boards over the broken windows so that only one or two beams of light broke through. Dust motes danced in the shafts of light.

She decided to light a lamp to try and break through the gloom, but the glow it cast out seemed somehow feeble. She looked around her, feeling despondent. There was so much to do that she hardly knew where to begin. Listlessly, she took up the broom and began to sweep the floor, making a little mound of spilt tea and tobacco and broken glass.

She could hear more voices now, in the back room. It sounded like Ah Wei, Song’s boss at the Eating House, and Mr and Mrs O’Leary from the baker’s, and Mrs Wu from the Magic Lantern Show. Their voices sounded solemn and grave. Traces of their conversation reached her as she swept: ‘. . . can’t go on like this ’, ‘. . . that sort of money ’, ‘. . . making an example ’, ‘. . . far too dangerous ’.

She didn’t want to hear them. To block them out, she began to tell one of Granddad’s stories to herself, an old tale about a talking fox, but she could not concentrate. She was getting it all wrong. The story of the fox kept getting mixed up with the cobbler’s warning, with Dad lying crumpled on the floor, and then with Granddad himself. Thinking of Granddad made her want to cry, and that would not do – Song would say she was being a cry baby. He said she needed to grow up now she had left school: she was too old to be a feather-brain; she shouldn’t spend so much time playing with the twins; she oughtn’t to always have her nose buried in a book.

Once, she and Song had been the best of friends. They had done everything together; told each other all their secrets; but things had changed. He seemed so much older, all of a sudden. She could hear him now in the back room, his voice forceful and authoritative, although she couldn’t make out what he was saying. When had he become one of the grown-ups?

Then someone in the back room made an unhappy gasping sort of sound – a strangled sob. It wasn’t Mum or Dad or Song, but all the same it pulled her up short. She even stopped pretending to sweep. Instead, she sat down on the stool behind the counter, and wedged her hands over her ears. There was a copy of yesterday’s newspaper lying nearby, and she pulled it towards her and opened it, hoping for a new episode of the serial story to distract herself with. She turned the pages rapidly over a report of a murder in Whitechapel, and a robbery in Shoreditch, but there was no story today, so instead she fixed her attention upon the society pages. She liked to look at them, sometimes, intrigued by the pictures of young ladies in white dresses with elegant-sounding names like Lady Cynthia Delaney or Miss Louisa Hampton-Lacey . The fancy descriptions of grand balls and elegant gowns could have so easily come from one of her favourite fairy tales.

Now, she read them with grim determination, taking in every word of an account of a charity fashion show at a West End store; a report on the upcoming marriage of a glamorous actress; and an article about a lavish society ball. The voices rose and fell in the back room, but Mei read on, filling her mind with words like opera and bazaar and waltz .

Then she stopped short. Two words jumped out at her from the page, and all at once, it was as if the sounds in the next room had vanished into abrupt and ominous silence. She saw and heard nothing: all that was left were those two words, printed in smudgy black ink, in the middle of a paragraph: Moonbeam Diamond.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Ladies’ Lounge at Sinclair’s was a most elegant place. Arrayed like a fashionable drawing room, it was decorated entirely in white and gold, with bowls of flowers set here and there, and plenty of soft chairs and comfortable sofas. It was no wonder it had become a favourite destination for London’s society ladies to meet after a busy day of shopping. That afternoon, the room was full of them: ladies drinking iced lemonade in tall glasses served to them by maids in frilled white aprons; ladies talking vigorously in lively groups; ladies sitting alone, studiously reading the newspaper. There was a low buzz of civilised conversation in the air, and the delicate chink of china and silverware. As Sophie and Lil entered the room, they could not help feeling a little awkward, unsure of exactly who they were looking for, or what they ought to do.

But almost at once, one of the maids came up to them, and directed them to a corner over by the window. Glancing at each other apprehensively, they hurried over. Sophie was not quite sure who she had expected to find, but it certainly was not the young lady who sat waiting, small but very upright, in a large velvet armchair, coolly drinking a cup of tea.