A Very Peculiar Plague Read Online Free PDF Page B

Birdie’s name and get away with it!’ she cried, before announcing her intention of tackling Mr Lubbock herself. At once. In person. ‘If I leave now,’ she went on, ‘I might be able to stop the next performance. Mary! Mary! ’
    But the maid had vanished.
    ‘She went to the kitchen,’ Birdie piped up.
    Miss Eames clicked her tongue. ‘Then I must fetch my own hat and coat,’ she said. ‘Will you wait for a moment, Mr Bunce?’
    ‘Aye, but—’
    ‘If Mary comes back, Birdie, tell her to hail a cab for us. Tell her I’ll be down directly.’ Without waiting for a response, Miss Eames turned on her heel and scuttled up the stairs, which were fitted with a handsome carpet.
    Jem looked at Birdie in dismay. ‘Won’t there be no cake?’ he whined.
    ‘There’s cake. Don’t fret. I’ll get you some.’ As Birdie released Alfred’s hand to duck back into the drawing room, the bogler watched her go with a kind of melancholy wonder.
    ‘She’s a real lady now, ain’t she?’ he remarked, once she was out of earshot. ‘It’s hard to believe I found her scavenging in the mud when she were nobbut four years old . . .’
    Jem didn’t know what to say. Luckily, he didn’t have to say anything, because all at once Mary came stomping back up from the kitchen. She was carrying a large basin of steaming water, which he eyed with alarm.
    He had a nasty feeling that it was meant for his feet.
    ‘Why, what are you doing with that?’ Birdie demanded. She had reappeared suddenly, a piece of cake in each hand. ‘They’ll not be staying, you know, so there ain’t no cause to clean ’em up. And Miss Eames says you’re to hail a cab.’
    ‘Hail it yourself,’ Mary retorted. Then she turned around and marched straight downstairs again.
    Birdie sighed. ‘She hates me. I swear she’d like to put me out o’ this house.’
    ‘You’ve not bin tormenting her?’ asked Alfred, with a touch of concern. Birdie frowned, but it was Jem who answered – thickly, through a mouthful of cake.
    ‘Of course not!’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t you hate Birdie, if you was that maid? Mary looks to be from respectable folk, yet she must truckle to a street-urchin her mistress picked out o’ the gutter like orange peel.’ Seeing Birdie’s ferocious scowl, Jem grinned and winked. ‘ I’ll fetch a cab,’ he concluded. ‘I bin fetching cabs for a penny each at the London Docks. I’ll find you a cab, don’t fret.’
    And he did. It wasn’t difficult. There were so many hackney cabs in the neighbourhood that he didn’t even have to run after one. All he had to do was stand at the bottom of the front steps and whistle.
    Soon he and Alfred and Birdie were all safely tucked inside a four-seater carriage, waiting for Miss Eames.
    ‘She always takes a mortal long time to get out o’ the house,’ Birdie explained, as she tied on her bonnet. Jem calculated that it was trimmed with real silk broad lace, worth a shilling a yard at least, and that her lavender gloves were made of the highest quality kid. ‘Her aunt’s a good deal worse, though,’ Birdie continued. ‘Has to rise at dawn for the ten o’clock service at a church that’s just down the street.’
    ‘Where is Mrs Heppinstall?’ Alfred queried. ‘Not poorly, I hope?’
    ‘Oh, no. She’s fit enough. She’s out doing her charity work, and should be home soon. I expect Miss Eames is leaving a note for her.’ Having finished adjusting the bow under her chin, Birdie raised her head and looked Jem straight in the eye. ‘But what I want to know is: what’s a boy as works for a grocer in Islington doing fetching cabs at the London Docks?’
    Jem flushed. He was trying to frame an answer when Miss Eames appeared at the door of the cab, carrying an umbrella. ‘Does the driver know where to go?’ she asked Jem, who nodded. Then he reached down to help her climb in. By the time she’d settled herself on Birdie’s left, opposite Jem, the cab was already moving.
    But Birdie