A Broken Vessel (3 page)

They tiptoed past Mrs. Mabbitt’s door and up the stairs to the first-floor flat. A hallway ran between the front and back rooms.

“That’s the parlour,” said Dipper, jerking his thumb at the front room on the left, “and the one opposite is Mr. Kestrel’s bedroom, and the bandboxical room further down on the right’s his study.”

He took out a tinder box and a candle from a marble-topped cabinet. While he struck a light, Sally went into the front parlour and looked around eagerly. She could see fairly well by the gaslight from the street, thanks to three elegant French windows opening on a narrow balcony.

“Cor, this is lummy!” she called to Dipper. “Only it ain’t so flash as I expected. I thought there’d be lots of ginger-work, and silks all different colours, and that.”

“Mr. Kestrel don’t like nothing gaudy.”

“He wouldn’t like me much, then,” she said cheerfully.

She explored the room more closely. It was full of wonders: crossed swords hanging over the mantelpiece, a pianoforte of polished inlaid wood, a gilt clock showing the phases of the moon, and a painted fire-screen of a woman with a lion’s feet and wings. When Dipper came in with the candles, she was gazing, starry-eyed, at a decanter ringed by little gold-rimmed glasses. She picked one up. “Lord, ain’t that fine! It’s like something a king’d drink out of!”

“Stow your forks, Sal.”

“Dip, he’d never miss one—he’s got five more.”

“Yes, but you see, they’re a matched set,” said an amused voice. “Perhaps you could relieve me of that clock instead. I’ve never much cared for it—it has such a disapproving expression.”

Sally and Dipper spun around.

“I thought you was out, sir,” Dipper stammered.

“Evidently.” The gentleman in the doorway smiled. “I ought to come home early more often—I’ve obviously been missing a good deal.”

“This ain’t what it looks like, sir,” said Dipper.

The gentleman looked at Sally more closely. “No, I see it isn’t. I beg your pardon.”

“What for?” she demanded.

“Because I can see this is a family party. You and Dipper are as like as you can stare.”

“Sally’s me sister, sir. We met up in the street tonight. We hadn’t seed each other in more than two years. And I saw as how some cove had darkened her daylights, and she seemed pretty down pin, so I brought her back here.”

Mr. Kestrel’s face changed. He crossed quickly to Sally, holding up his candle to look at the black eye she half tried to conceal. “Dipper, go and knock up Dr. MacGregor and tell him we need him.”

“I ain’t having no doctor!” Sally exclaimed. “He’ll send me off to hospital, and shut me up with folks as has the pox and the influenzy! I’d as lief be in the stone jug as there!”

“Dr. MacGregor would be the last person to send you to hospital. He’s from the country, and I believe he thinks there’s never been a patient so ill that a London hospital couldn’t make him worse.” Mr. Kestrel put down his candle and pushed a plush scroll sofa nearer to the hearth. “Please sit down, Miss Stokes.”

Sally guffawed. “You hear that, Dip? He called me Miss!”

Dipper shifted from one foot to the other. “Shall I make up the fire before I goes, sir?”

“All it needs is a bit of nudging back to life, and I think I’m equal to that. Go, for God’s sake! Your sister will be safe enough till you get back.”

“It ain’t me he’s worried about,” said Sally, grinning.

Mr. Kestrel’s brows shot up. “You don’t mean to say you’re afraid to leave us alone on
my
account? What in the devil’s name do you suppose she’s likely to do to me?”

Dipper waved his hands, as if to say, it boggled the mind. But he gave it up and went off to fetch Dr. MacGregor.

“Won’t you sit down?” Mr. Kestrel repeated, indicating the sofa.

“I don’t mind.” She sauntered over, keeping an eye on him all the while. She could not make him out. Why was he trotting out all these airs and graces, just for her? It made her want to be rude and provoke him, just to scratch his surface and see what he was really thinking.

She looked him boldly up and down. He was about Blue Eyes’s age: five- or six-and-twenty. His hair was dark brown, his eyes lighter, with a greenish glint. He was not handsome. He did not need to be, to make you want to look at him twice. He had keen, alert eyes, arresting brows, and a wry smile always at the ready. He was not tall; he did not need to be that, either. His figure was proportioned just right: slender but solid, masculine but graceful. He wore a frilled white evening shirt, a dressing-gown of bottlegreen silk brocade, and black trousers in the style called eelskin, fitting closely as a glove. Well, he had the legs for them—no doubt about that.

She lowered herself onto the sofa—carefully, for her back and sides felt like one large, smarting bruise. He watched her, his brow creasing with concern. Why? What was she to him? Just his servant’s sister. She said, with deliberate impertinence, “I could do with some’ut to sluice me ivories.”

“Of course. Brandy and water?”

“Leave out the water, and it’ll be something like.”

He fetched a bottle and two glasses. But after an instant’s thought, he poured her brandy into one of the little gold-rimmed glasses she had admired. That small gesture touched her; she forgot to be saucy. She clinked glasses with him and took a swig. “That’s bang-up, that is!”

“I’m glad you like it.”

He went to the hearth and began to stir the coals. She drained her glass, took off her bonnet, and hung it on a nearby chair. Her hair, which had come unpinned in her struggle with Blinkers, spilled over her shoulders. Her skirt was twisted uncomfortably round her legs, so she gave it a vigorous shake.

The secret pocket, overburdened with coins, came loose, flew off, and hit Mr. Kestrel right between the shoulder blades. He looked around, brows raised. She bubbled into laughter, her hands to her mouth. At the same time, she was a little frightened. What would he do when he found the stolen handkerchiefs?

He picked up the gaping pocket. “You appear to have lost something.”

“And you wants to know what it is, I expect.”

“It’s quite evident what it is—some coins, and a few handkerchiefs that you found before they were lost.”

“How do you know they ain’t mine?” she said challengingly.

“Three men’s handkerchiefs?—one of them with a monogram,
CFA
?” He pointed out the neatly stitched letters in the corner of Blue Eyes’s fine cambric handkerchief.

“Well—the coins is mine, anyhow. I earned ’em meself. I expect you can guess how.”

“I have an idea.”

“So you might give ’em back to me.”

He restored the money, but not the handkerchiefs. She eyed him resentfully. “You going to call a watchman?”

“Why? Do you want one?”

“You knows what I mean. If you ain’t going to peach on me, why won’t you give me back the wipes? You going to keep ’em?”

“My dear girl!” He looked shocked. “Russet calico?” He held up the handkerchief that must have been Bristles’s; Blinkers’s was made of coarse silk.

“Well, what you going to do with ’em, then?”

He considered. “I’ll ask Dipper to find some worthy charity—a society for interfering in the lives of contented Africans, or some such thing.” He started to tuck the three handkerchiefs into his pocket—then he looked at them more closely. “Here.” He took out a folded paper from among them and handed it to her. “I didn’t see this before.”

“What is it?”

“Isn’t it yours?”

She unfolded it and frowned at the writing inside. She could not read very well. “I never seen this before. You sure it come out of me pocket?”

“It was here, among the handkerchiefs.”

She looked up, suddenly enlightened. “I must’ve pinched it from one of them coves along with his wipe! I wonder which?” She held out the paper. “What’s it say?”

CHAPTER
3

M
r. Kestrel read the letter aloud:

October 1824

Saturday evening

I hardly know what to say to you, how to tell you where I am, or how I came to be here. It’s just as well I’m obliged to write it: how could I speak to you or look you in the eyes, even if I were permitted to leave this place and had the means to find my way home? I do not think I could face anyone I know, ever again—not you, nor anyone else in our family, nor him I once thought I loved. Please forgive me! I’ve been punished so much! I am punished again every day—not so much by the miserable life I lead, as by the memories I can’t banish: of my happiness, my hopes, my innocence—and of the stupid, stubborn, ungrateful rashness that swept them all away!

My ruin has not been all my fault. I can’t write about that—I can only say that I never knew there was such evil in the world as I’ve known since I left you.

When you know where I am and what has happened to me, you may not ever wish to see me again. I will understand. You can’t despise me, reject me, hate me, any more bitterly than I hate myself. But if you wish to know once and for all what has become of me, come to No. 9, Stark Street. You need not come in, or speak to me. I will never seek you out, or force you to support or acknowledge the thing I have become.

I have not told anyone here my name, or put into this letter anything that might reveal who I am. People spy on me in this place—I’m afraid they may take this from me and read it before I can send it. Thank heaven, there’s someone I think I can trust to post it for me secretly, so that no one will see your direction on the outer sheet. So if you choose not to answer it, no one will ever know what has become of me. I shall be forgotten as one dead, like the broken vessel in the Psalm.

I love you dearly. Pray for me.

Sally stared. “Well, carry me out and bury me decent!”

“You know nothing about this at all?”

“No, I told you, I must’ve lifted it off one of them flats I picked up. There was three of ’em: I called ’em Bristles, Blue Eyes, and Blinkers.”

He was momentarily diverted. “Why do they all begin with ‘B’?”

“I dunno. They just do. I al’ays gives me flats names. I’ll think of one for you, maybe.”

“I don’t see any need,” he said lightly. “I wasn’t planning we should enter into a business relationship.” He ran his eyes over the letter. “No signature, no direction. She mentions an outer sheet—I suppose she used another sheet of paper as an envelope.
Saturday evening
—that must have been the day before yesterday. There hasn’t been another Saturday in October so far. If she sent the letter by the twopenny post, it could have arrived today. Have you any idea at all which man you got it from?”

“I couldn’t, could I? Soon as I nicked them wipes, I stowed ’em away double-quick, in that pocket under me skirt. I could’ve pinched that letter along with any of ’em, and not knowed a thing about it.”

“I wonder if the man you got it from is the person she was writing to?”

“Must’ve been. How else would he get it?”

“I don’t know.” He frowned at the letter. “What sort of place do you suppose it is—this place where she says she’s being held against her will? A house of correction?”

“A knocking-house, more like.”

He grimaced. “I think Stark Street is in a fairly respectable neighbourhood, near Russell Square. But God knows, there are discreet ‘houses’ tucked away all over London. It’s curious, though. This letter is from an educated woman—the penman-ship alone shows that. Some governess taught her to write like this, all curlicues and feminine flourishes. And the language is literate, eloquent. She sounds young, though, don’t you think? Naive, bewildered. How did she ever come to this?—ruined, shut up and spied upon, afraid to see her family again?”

Sally shrugged. “I expect some cove made up to her, and next thing she knew, she was seeing stars lying on her back.”

“It does sound as if she’d been seduced. Her shame, her self-disgust, her regret for some rash act, all point to that.
My ruin has not been all my fault.
That could be a reference to her seducer.
I do not think I could face anyone I know, ever again—not you, nor anyone else in our family.
So the person she wrote to was a relative. Perhaps even her husband—no, it must be a blood relation. Because she next speaks of
him I once thought I loved
—that could be a husband, though it sounds more like a suitor. Perhaps she turned from him to another man, who compromised her. And after that false step, she could all too easily have gone on sliding downward.”

“It’s the end of the world to a lady, ain’t it?” marvelled Sally. “Losing her character, and all?”

“Because there’s no going back from it—not if it becomes known. Casting the first stone being a favourite recreation in this Christian land.” He added, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m all right. ’Cept I’ve got a cobweb in me throat.”

He refilled her glass. As she drank, her eyes fell on the handkerchiefs, which he had laid on a nearby table. She suddenly snatched one up. “It was him, I’ll take me oath on it!”