A Nest of Vipers by Catherine Johnson Page A

clothes and wearing the tallest, whitest fur hat Cato had ever seen.
    ‘Come on, yer leery kinchen, give us a hand or two with these duds!’ she said.
    Cato and Jack looked at each other.
    ‘Addy, you sound more like the thimble twister you are every day!’ Jack shouted across The Vipers, and most of the regulars laughed.
    Cato went across and took some of the clothes. ‘You should watch what you say in public,’ he whispered.
    ‘They all know us here, Cato. We’re coney catchers, and the best around. And what’s more we’ve the salad here to catch those rabbits.’
    ‘Hah! The Stapletons are rather more than rabbits, Addy.’
    ‘But rabbits all the same, and this hat is the very thing in St Petersburg. Oi! Ivan,’ Addy said as she walked in front of Bella and the Russian.
    ‘This good hat, yes? This bene shappo, Ivanski?’ Addy plonked it onto Bella’s head.
    The Russian smiled. ‘Da. Is good, yes. Da. Bella real Cossack devotchka.’
    ‘There. One happy customer,’ said Addy.
    Bella smiled, but her words were cold. ‘Hold your tongue, Addy, and go away.’
    Addy pulled a face, turned on her heel and strode away. ‘Why does Bella get all the good jobs?’ she said to Cato as they went upstairs. ‘Have you seen the state of these threads? Serious splash-up stuff.’ She held up a jacket edged with fur. ‘If this is the Russian style, I could see me in St Petersburg, sailing into town in one of these!’
    ‘I thought you hated girls’ clothes,’ said Cato.
    Addy shrugged. ‘This is different. I wouldn’t mind being a Russian girl. Just look at these boots!’
    Mother Hopkins was sitting at the table writing a letter, pen in one hand, pipe in the other.
    ‘Addeline, good, you’ve the clothes. And Cato. I must talk to you both.’
    She signed the letter and blotted it. Cato read the address on the envelope: it was to the Stapleton house but it was addressed to the housekeeper. Someone would be working inside – he was sure of it.
    Mother Hopkins looked up. ‘Bella will be going to a party on Friday night as the Russian.’
    Cato looked at Addy. He hadn’t expected things to be moving this quickly, and from the look on her face, neither had she.
    ‘This Friday? Only three days away? That’s a bit quick,’ Addy said as she warmed herself by the fire.
    ‘I’m not sure how good her accent will be by then, Mother,’ Cato warned.
    ‘Bella knows. She’ll have to nail it down or keep her mouth shut. Either way, there’s a party in Mayfair and we need her there. The Stapletons will be attending and we can’t afford to miss it. She’s to be Ekaterina, Countess of . . . of . . .’
    ‘Of St Petersburg?’ Addy suggested.
    ‘No! Too obvious.’ Mother Hopkins folded the letter and reached for the stick of red sealing wax, holding it in the candle flame till it softened. ‘Cato? Any ideas? Did you not fetch an atlas from the bookseller’s?’
    Cato was opening the bundle of clothes. There were the dresses for Bella in the Russian style, edged with fur and heavy with gold thread, and a smaller bundle of servants’ clothes . . . girls’ clothes – the stays looked too small for Bella.
    ‘An atlas!’ Cato had passed the morning in the bookseller’s in St Paul’s Churchyard. He’d spent hours poring over engravings of men with heads in their chests and women with tails like fish instead of legs. There were some truly excellent ‘Dying Words’ ballads, one by a pirate who’d sailed out of Port Royal, another by Claude Duvall, the gentleman highwayman, and he’d read a whole volume of poems by an author he’d never heard of before being thrown out for reading the goods and not buying. But he’d managed to forget the atlas.
    Mother Hopkins dolloped the melted wax on the edge of the letter. ‘Addeline, the Salters’ seal please.’
    Addy scrabbled in the dresser drawer amongst a variety of the best (and worst) London families’ seals, stolen or recreated over the years.
    Cato