“It’s tea time, my little crumpets!” Lottie Wandsworth called toward the rooftops in her sing-song pie-selling way. She closed her eyes and smiled, hearing her children draw near. The pat-pat of running feet started as soft as a psalm but swelled suddenly – a thunderous sforzando of thin leather on grimy cobblestone. A cadenza of a score of excited children brought the mealtime ritual song to a close.
“Bag o’ mystery again, Missus Lottie?” one of the children, a boy of about eight asked, grinning impishly. She tutted fondly and shook her head, rolling her eyes heavenward as though to ask God why He sent her such trials.
“If you’re looking for that bow wow mutton, you best be trying that young lad down by the river,” Lottie replied, feigning hurt. In truth, she looked forward to the usual exchange with Darling Thomas. It was the same routine, the same script, day in and day out. “If you don’t want any eel pie – the best eel pie south of the Thames – then that’s fine, love. More for the rest of us!” At this, the rest of the children cheered.
Lottie Wandsworth was a fixture in this poor London neighbourhood. No one could recall a time she hadn’t been around, hocking her pies in the day and baking most of the night. She charged the local workers almost nothing, for that was what they earned during their long days of bone-breaking, muscle-rending labour; the children she fed for free. Most of them were near enough to homeless and those that weren’t couldn’t always be guaranteed a warm, filling meal every night. But old Lottie could smell money like hounds could pheasants, and those customers paid what she thought they were worth. Moneyed customers weren’t exactly regulars, so she learned to make it count without driving them off. Sometimes those folk even returned, citing the siren smell of eel pie.
Nearly two hours passed as Lottie distributed pies and listened to the children tell her about their day. They sat in and around the bakery and her tiny living quarters upstairs, giving her all the gossip. Lord Carrington was powdering his hair at the House and his new maid was leaving town already; several had stories about a death along the wharf that Lottie suspected would need looking into; and one or two were approached about factory work.
Lottie sold her pies and fed the children, earning her a reputation as a good woman with a full heart. But her real business was information. The children weren’t just hungry, they were messengers, delivery boys, eyes and ears. Nothing happened in London, as big as it was, without Lottie knowing about it. And buyers with deep pockets were plentiful. The aristocracy could never pay enough to stab their fellows in the back and since Lottie didn’t give two great stonking shits for the rich, she was happy to keep them in supply. Every penny they paid her could be put to good use, helping the people of her neighbourhood to get by in this world that so loathed the poor.
“Missus Lottie?” A shy voice jolted her mind back to her little home, away from Lord Carrington and his drunken nighttime adventures with the new maid, away from the murder at the docks, away from sorting out the spider web of who would pay what for which piece of news.
“What would you like, my sweet William?” she asked pleasantly, setting her heft down on the bench beside the boy. She smoothed out his hair and smiled down at him. “Did you need another pie to take home to your mother? Is she feeling better?”
“Oh yes, Missus Lottie! She’s feeling much better now!” William beamed at her, forgetting for a moment that he was shy. “But I have something for you. A message.”
“For me?” Lottie’s eyebrow shot up suspiciously. William nodded.
“A man told me you’re supposed to look at the hummingbird you keep in the dark cage. I don’t know what it means though, Missus Lottie.”
“It’s okay, pet,” she assured him. “Let me get you an extra pie for your mother and I’ll see you again tomorrow, okay?” William nodded excitedly and clasped his hands together against his chest, remembering suddenly that he was still shy.
Once all of the children were safely out of the house and Lottie found herself alone for the first time all day, she scuttled off to her little bedroom and pried up the loose floor board under the bed. All of the treasures of her life fit in that one narrow space, in one highly-polished wooden box. She lifted the lid to look for the clockwork bird, to make sure this treasure was still hers.
The bird, with its golden wings and gleaming black eyes, sat in a nest of burgundy silk, just as it always had. Only this time, the bird’s beak was open. And this time, there was something sticking out of it. A note.
