He rolled up the cartoon he had been working on and looked at me thoughtfully, tapping the end of the tube of paper on his chin. ‘Cat, are you happy to venture outside now? Do you think you are in any danger?’
‘Not now I’m prepared. Not during the day,’ I replied. I wasn’t going to let a steaming pile of dung like Billy Boil stop me getting a breath of fresh air. He wasn’t going to make me a prisoner in my own home.
‘Then would you mind running this to Mr Humphrey, the printer in Gerrard Street?’
‘Of course.’ I jumped up eagerly, not least because Johnny appeared to have forgotten that I had an unfinished slate of sums to do.
‘Good girl. I’ve used Caleb too often. What I need is a confidential messenger.’ He pressed a sixpence into my hand. ‘Keep a weather eye for danger, Catkin. Stay on the main streets.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said with a grin. I hardly needed the warning but it was nice to hear that someone cared.
‘Oh,’ he said, as if an afterthought, but I could tell he had been planning to say it all along. ‘If you bump into Mr Sheridan, deny all knowledge of this one.’
I unrolled it and took a peek at the picture.
‘I suppose he wouldn’t be too pleased to see you’ve drawn his best friend in his underwear.’
‘No, he wouldn’t.’ Johnny smiled grimly. ‘Sheridan may be my friend . . . and a good friend in times of trouble . . . but he hasn’t bought my conscience. I serve no party but the truth.’
‘And,’ I added, ‘it’s a good way of throwing people off the scent. Who would look for Captain Sparkler under Mr Sheridan’s wing when this is printed?’
‘You are a sharp one, Cat. What are we going to do with you?’
‘But mightn’t he throw you out for insulting his friend?’ I asked.
‘He might,’ said Johnny with a shrug as he ushered me out of the room, ‘but that’s a chance I am prepared to take. Hurry now. The deadline’s already passed. Mr Humphrey’s waiting to let his etchers loose on it.’
Pausing this time to wrap up warmly, I emerged on to Russell Street to find the world had changed. A steady fall of snow had covered the street with a purifying shroud, hiding the mud and mire that lay just beneath. London was muffled, the snow quelling the evil and violence for a few brief hours, lifting spirits for a holiday of innocence and beauty. I knew it would be all too brief an interval. The white blanket would be quickly sullied by the passage of heavy boots, hooves and wheels. When night fell, the benign-seeming snow would become a menace to those with no roof over their heads, freezing to death the vagrants sheltering in doorways. But for the moment, I wanted to enjoy the spectacle.
Slipping my way to the market, I found Syd’s boys engaged in a furious snowball fight, Pedro among them. The snow-covered houses looked like iced cakes in the confectioner’s window: each sugar-frosted rooftop and window ledge good enough to eat.
‘Here, catch!’ Nick cried as he sent a large ball in my direction. I parried it with the tube of paper I carried, then cursed, remembering the value of the contents.
‘Not fair!’ I called over. ‘I’m on an errand. I’ll get you when I come back!’
Nick laughed and Pedro sent another snowball sailing towards me. I did not duck in time and it hit the side of my cheek, leaving icy water dripping down my neck.
‘You wait!’ I cried, but Pedro and Nick scampered away, turning their attention to other targets.
Once out of Covent Garden, my holiday mood faded. An uneasy feeling crept over me; I felt as if I was being followed. It may have just been a shadow in my imagination cast by the events of the previous night but I could not help but look over my shoulder several times. Everyone was muffled up against the cold. It was hard to tell if I was being shadowed. I thought I saw the same grey scarf twice, but when I looked again, it had gone. The posters offering a reward for information leading to the apprehension of Captain Sparkler flapped on the brick walls of many a street corner as if trying to snag my attention. I saw one lying in the gutter, ripped in half. Someone had scrawled on it ‘Down with kings!’, leading doubtless to its disposal in the sewer by an angry royalist. Was Johnny really in danger of being hanged, drawn and quartered? This was a barbaric punishment not seen in our modern enlightened times, where the felon was cut down from the noose before he was dead and disembowelled before his own living eyes. They wouldn’t do it now, surely? Not to Johnny! But then, I reminded myself with a shudder, you could still see the heads of the rebels of 1745 on the spikes at the entrance to London Bridge . . . stuck up there like black, boiled sweetmeats for the crows. We had entered a new and fearful age: the revolution in France had made the rich fear for themselves. As for the poor, some sought the rights granted to our French cousins; others, it must be admitted, did not want the Froggies to show us how to live. Which would win out? I wondered. The rights of man or John Bull? Since meeting Johnny, I had only just woken up to understand that the answer to this would decide my future too.
Beset by dark imaginings of Johnny passing through these same streets on his way to the scaffold, I was relieved when I finally reached Gerrard Street. Set in a well-to-do area, home to a mixture of comfortable lodging houses and shops, Gerrard Street did not let my grim fantasy survive long. It was the kind of place I would like to live in one day if I had enough money, a place where I need not fear dark alleyways and thugs like Billy Shepherd, where there would be neighbours and friends looking out for you. I found Mr Humphrey’s easily: it was marked by a gaggle of onlookers outside the window ogling the latest productions of the press on display. Sharp-nosed ladies jostled with fleshy-cheeked men, all craning their necks to be up to date with the latest political gossip without having to fork out any money to do so. A ragged boy slipped between their legs, no doubt relieving them of the coins they had been so reluctant to spend.