‘Unfortunately, I think my tutor might notice this time.’ Frank nodded at my hair which now reached my shoulders after being cut short six months ago so I could masquerade as a Westminster schoolboy. ‘What about you, Pedro? What are you going to do when the theatre closes?’
Pedro stretched out on his back on the grass, hands behind his head. ‘I’ll be with the maestro. He did say something about going to Paris and then on to Italy.’ He’d evidently been saving up that little gem of information, just waiting for us to ask for it. That’s Pedro’s way: to appear quite collected about the most exciting things. I guessed he was really enthusiastic underneath his cool demeanour.
‘What! You lucky thing!’ Frank exploded. ‘So I’m the only one stuck in old England, am I?’
‘Apart from me,’ I said quietly.
‘Of course, you. That’s a given. You leaving Covent Garden is as about as unthinkable as the ravens leaving the Tower of London.’ Frank turned back to Pedro. ‘Will you see the Colosseum? Venice?’
I refilled my glass, not entirely pleased with this speech. Why did Frank think it inconceivable that I would leave London? Why did my privileged friends think I couldn’t move beyond the world I knew? Did they consider me so limited that I wouldn’t be able to cope? Another voice whispered, perhaps they were right? Perhaps I couldn’t survive outside the Sparrow’s Nest? My hand shook and I splashed raspberry sherbet on my white gown.
‘Oh, b*****!’ I swore.
‘Cat!’ exclaimed Lizzie as Frank and Pedro howled with laughter at my obscenity.
‘What was that about behaving at our house?’ crowed Frank. ‘Treating her like a lady?’
I got up. ‘Sorry, Lizzie. I’d better go.’
‘No, no, I’ll summon someone to bring a cloth to wipe off your skirt. Raspberry leaves terrible stains.’ She reached for a bell.
‘No, I clean my own clothes, thanks.’ Pride dented, I took off across the grass before they could stop me. Larking about in the library was one thing, but swearing in front of Lizzie another. I’d let myself down. I knew that my anxious state of mind about the future was some excuse for the bad language. What did Lizzie and Frank know about worrying where your next meal was coming from or where you could shelter for the night? Their reaction to my bad language only served to emphasize the gulf that I had always known stretched between us. What had Syd said? Duke’s children had one world, he another. The problem was I didn’t seem to have any world at all any more.
I heard soft footsteps running up behind me and Pedro appeared at my elbow.
‘Frank and Lizzie sent me to accompany you home,’ he explained. ‘Frank’s sorry if he offended you and Lizzie said not to worry about your lapse in . . . er . . . taste.’
I turned. The duke’s children were standing watching us from the shade of the pavilion, Frank at his sister’s shoulder. He gave me a salute when he saw I was looking in their direction. I waved back, having a strange sensation that they were on board a ship sailing away from me, separating us for ever.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Pedro, noticing my uncharacteristic silence.
‘I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Grosvenor Square,’ I said, giving voice to my intuition.
‘Don’t be silly, Cat,’ he laughed. ‘You didn’t swear that badly. You didn’t say . . .’ He proceeded to reel off a list of the saltiest words in my vocabulary that he had picked up in my company.
It was my turn to laugh. ‘True. No, I just meant that I feel as though these separations are bringing something to an end. All of you are going in different directions. It’s never going to be the same again.’
Pedro kept silent for a moment but I could feel his eyes were on me. ‘Will you be all right, Cat? Lizzie and Frank were wondering if they –’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, cutting him off. I wasn’t going to spoil my friendship with the Avons by becoming a hanger-on, living off their charity. ‘The theatre will look after me, I expect.’ At least, I hoped so. From the angry voices I heard last night, I wasn’t the only one to have worked out that with a full staff at the King’s Theatre already, not all of us would have jobs when the company moved.
We walked on, and turned into Piccadilly, a smart district of gentlemen’s clubs, wine merchants and tobacconists. It was quieter than normal as the season was ending and noble families were departing daily for their country residences. A brace of two-wheeled curricles raced down the street as the young bloods on the driving seats put their horses through their paces.
‘More money than sense,’ I grumbled to Pedro as we waited for the dust to settle. He sneezed.
As the cloud thrown up by the passage of the carriages cleared, I noticed two heavily-built men in sharp cut brown jackets watching us from the opposite side of the street. They had the unmistakeable air of hired hands paid to execute their master’s orders, be it to collect debts or break limbs.
‘Let’s go,’ I whispered to Pedro, giving him the merest hint of a nod towards the danger I had spotted. My first thought was that they had been sent by his old master to rough us up in revenge for squeezing Pedro’s manumission from him in the winter. Quick to reach a similar conclusion, Pedro’s eyes widened in alarm and we picked up our pace. The men started to walk briskly in the same direction, but parallel to us. I looked about for a shop to retreat into, but we were in the stretch of Piccadilly that ran in front of several clubs – we’d not gain admission in there even if we had a mad axeman on our tail.
‘What shall we do?’ hissed Pedro as one of the men crossed the road behind us.