dice,’ grinned Georgie Jay. He patted the girl’s shoulder and turned back to the game.
The girl let her fair brow pucker a little. ‘Weren’t you—worried about me, Georgie?’
‘Why, lass? Should we have been?’
She shrugged. ‘Not really. I helped the cups-and-sixpence man up on the Strand.’
‘Old Peg-leg? Did you make much?’
‘Didn’t get the chance. We were chased off by the Charleys.’
‘Good job you can run fast, then.’
‘Indeed.’ Tassie stretched out her legs in their over-large boots and leaned back in her chair, her hands in her pockets, secretly a little upset that they weren’t more troubled by her encounter with the Watch. She decided to say nothing about the dark-haired man and his wallet, though at one time she’d have told Georgie Jay everything, for he was the undisputed leader of this motley crew of travellers, and had been like a father to her ever since he’d found her eight years ago, alone on a country lane. ‘We work when we can,’ he’d told her, ‘and when we can’t—for times are hard for poor folks like us—why, then, we take a little from those who have enough and to spare!’ Yes, Georgie Jay had been her saviour and protector, and she would always be grateful to him. But things had changed. Oh, how they had changed.
Moll, the buxom landlady, had just come into the room to see what was going on, Then she spotted Tassie, and scowled. ‘Our Tassie’s had a run-in with the Watch, Moll!’ Georgie Jay told her.
‘Lord’s sake,’ said Moll, ‘what a fuss you all do make of that girl. ‘Tain’t natural, a grown lass like her trailing round with you all.’
Tassie met Moll’s glare with stony dislike, and began to get to her feet, but Georgie reached out to forestall her. ‘Tassie’s one of us, Moll. Bring the girl some food, will you? You know she’ll be ready for her supper.’
Tassie was; but she fought down the hunger pangs gnawing at her ribs. ‘My thanks, but I’m not hungry.’ Most certainly not for anything Moll dished out.
She picked up her cap, ready to leave; but just at that moment Georgie Jay exclaimed, ‘Tassie! Now, what in the name of wonder is that?’ He was pointing at the ugly bruising on her wrist, where the Watch man had grabbed her.
‘It’s nothing. Nothing at all.’ She stepped quickly back, shaking down her sleeve.
‘So you were in danger! Look, Tass, perhaps it really is time you stopped all your trickery out on the streets…’
‘Oh, fiddlesticks, Georgie,’ she said airily, ‘you all have close shaves with the Watch every now and then, don’t you? Tonight was no different!’
But Georgie Jay was sighing as he gazed at Tassie’s defiant face beneath her tumbling curls that glowed a fierce gold in the flickering candlelight. ‘You’re a lass, Tassie,’ he said regretfully. ‘It’s as simple as that. Things just can’t go on the same. Why, you’re nigh as tall as young Lem! How old are you now—fifteen, sixteen?’
Tassie shrugged her shoulders, guessing now was not the best of times to tell him she was seventeen. ‘How should I know how old I am? Do you really think anyone used to celebrate my birthday?’ No, indeed. Painful memories flashed through her mind. The big old house where she’d spent her early childhood. The long days spent locked in her room, learning her letters or struggling over hateful stitching with frozen fingers. The endless fear of punishment. She’d run because she felt that nothing, anywhere, could be worse.
She realised now that she’d been more than lucky to be found by good-hearted Georgie Jay, who still lived by the honourable code of the travelling folk, and insisted that his followers did the same. He’d stoutly declared that Tassie had a place with them for ever; but even he, it seemed, was now having his doubts. And so, perhaps, was she.
‘All the same,’ he was saying now, ‘we need to have a talk, lass.’
Tassie gazed at him steadily. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you don’t want me with you any more?’
Georgie Jay looked unhappy. ‘We’ve been doin’ a bit of thinkin’ and Moll’s got a grand idea that might suit you just fine!’
Tassie’s eyes flashed warningly as she looked at the older woman. ‘Oh, has she now?’
‘Moll’s got a brother,’ Georgie pressed on. ‘He and his wife, they’ve got a small farm—Kent way, isn’t it, Moll?—and they could do with some help around the place—’
Tassie turned on Moll incredulously. ‘You think that I’d go as a servant to your brother? The one you were going on about the other night, saying he was a miserable skinflint and a tyrant?’
Moll coloured and looked angry. ‘There’s a good opportunity for you there, young madam, and don’t you scoff at it!’
‘I’ll scoff at it all right,’ Tassie breathed. ‘You’d better think again, Moll, if you want to find your brother a—a cheap skivvy.’ And, holding her head high, she marched to the door that led to the stairs, and closed it with a resounding bang behind her.
Once in the inner hallway, though, Tassie stopped, fighting to control the emotions that were now shaking her body. Despite her words of bold defiance, there was a huge lump in her throat, and her heart ached sorely. She’d known for some time that things couldn’t go on as they were. But if Georgie Jay and his comrades didn’t want her, she had no one. No one.
She heard them all getting up. One by one the others—Lemuel, Billy, and kind old Matt who played the fiddle at country fairs, who’d all been her friends for years—traipsed out through the other door to the taproom to have their meal, until only Moll and Georgie were left in there. Tassie bit her lip. Moll and Georgie. Usually Georgie Jay and his friends kept pretty much on the move, taking rooms at various inns or lodging houses depending on the work they found. But this winter they’d spent all of the last two months at the Blue Bell—because Georgie Jay had taken to sharing landlady Moll’s room, and Moll’s bed. And now Tassie could tell by the sound of clacking little heels on the flagstones that Moll had moved towards the jar of gin that she kept for herself on a high shelf near the door. Georgie Jay must have followed her; he was saying, in a low voice so that Tassie could only just hear, ‘I did warn you she wouldn’t like the idea, Moll.’
‘Such a fuss about a silly girl,’ Moll snapped back. Tassie heard the rattle of gin jar against beaker; and could just picture Moll drinking it down in one greedy swallow. ‘All right, then. I’ll not interfere! But you’ll have to think of somethin’ for her, Georgie Jay. Sakes alive, you must have seen the way men are starting to look at her! Lemuel worships the ground she walks on, and that big simpleton Billy watches her all the time. She’s becomin’ a real pretty piece, and there’ll be trouble soon if you don’t look out…’
Tassie could stand to hear no more. Horrified to find that her eyes were smarting with tears, she almost ran up the rickety staircase to her tiny attic room, where she was greeted by the loud squawking of a brightly coloured parrot gazing at her from its perch by the window. Georgie Jay had bought Edward for her seven years ago in Dorchester market, and now she angrily dashed away her tears with the back of her hand and stroked the bird’s beautifully-crested head, whispering, ‘How can Georgie Jay be so taken in by that—that
