A Broken Vessel (7 page)

“It might be a lark, at that! I’ll do it. I’ll go slap off!”

“I didn’t mean you should dash off this instant. Wait till you feel more the thing.”

“I’m in high gig now.”

“I can see that. But wait till tomorrow, for God’s sake. A day won’t make any difference.”

“Oh, all right, Mr. High and Mighty. You do order a gal about!” She cocked her head at him appraisingly. “I been wondering: have you got a woman? I asked Dip, but he wouldn’t tell me.”

“How inconveniently discreet of him.”

“Well, have you or haven’t you?”

“I’m not married.”

“I knows
that
,” she said impatiently. “I mean women—any kind.”

“As with racehorses, I lose money on them from time to time, but I haven’t one of my own.”

“You’re enough to make a cat laugh,
you
are.”

“A cat? You mean, like the one curiosity killed?”

She grinned. “All right, Lightning, I get your drift.”

“Lightning?”

“That’s what I’ve a mind to call you. ’Coz why, ’coz you’re so flash. You know what ‘flash’ means?”

“Showy, stylish, having something to do with thieves—”

She shook her head. “That ain’t what a game gal means when she says ‘flash.’ You see, for us there’s two kinds of coves, ‘flash’ and ‘foolish.’ ‘Foolish’ means a cove as has to pay. ‘Flash’ means you’d give it all to him for nothing.”

Their eyes met and held.

All at once there were footsteps on the stairs below. Julian’s landlady, Mrs. Mabbitt, came bustling in, her white hair tucked under a big checked cap, her sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Her cheeks glowed with health and hard work. Mrs. Mabbitt was so full of vigour that sometimes the very sight of her made Julian want to take to his bed for a month. Dipper came in after her, bearing a bundle of clothes in one hand, and a large bonnet with a draggled red plume in the other

“I ran into Dipper downstairs, sir, and—” Mrs. Mabbitt broke off, staring at Sally’s attire.

“I’ve just had me very first bath,” Sally announced.

“And I’ve just come home,” added Julian hastily, “and heard all about it.”

“As I was saying, sir, I ran into Dipper, and he told me his sister’s come to visit. Now, I’m sure it’s quite all right, seeing as she
is
his sister—” She looked keenly from Dipper to Sally, verifying the resemblance. “But still, in the strictest sense, it ain’t proper, a young woman staying with two men. You must see that, sir.”

“Quite, yes.”

“I’ll tell you what, sir. I have that little back room where the maid sleeps, when I’ve got one.” Mrs. Mabbitt took on maidservants from time to time, but few could live up to her standards of cleanliness for long. Julian suspected she was really much happier doing all the work herself. “How will it be if I let Miss Sally stay there, while she visits her brother and—er—gets her affairs in order?”

“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Mabbitt. Of course you’ll make an appropriate adjustment in the rent.”

“That’s my look-out, sir,” said Dipper.

“Stuff and nonsense,” said Mrs. Mabbitt cheerfully. “Nobody needn’t pay anything. Miss Sally’s to be my guest. I shall like having her about.”

“I don’t want to be no trouble,” broke in Sally, not liking this arrangement one bit.

“You won’t be, my girl. I like to have a visitor now and again. Come with me, and I’ll show you your room. Are those your shoes in there by the fire? Here, put them on at once, we can’t have you catching cold padding about on your poor bare feet. Once you’re settled, we’ll see about getting you some proper clothes.” She clucked her tongue at the red-feather hat. “And you haven’t washed properly behind your ears. You’ve a good deal to learn about bathing, my girl.”

She got a firm grip on Sally’s hand and led her away. Sally looked back, mutely appealing for rescue. Julian and Dipper smiled and shrugged, in a stunning display of male helplessness.

After they had gone, Julian said, smiling, “I think Sally may have met her match.” He added, “How much does Queen Mab know about her?”

“I didn’t tell her much, sir, but I think she dropped down to a good deal on her own. She’s up to snuff, is Mrs. M., and a pinch or two above it. Caught me tracking up the dancers with Sally’s togs, so I had to put down to her that she was here. There wasn’t no hiding this.” He waved the red-feather bonnet.

Julian explained his plan to send Sally to the refuge. “She seemed very keen on the idea.”

“It’s a first-rate dodge, sir. Might keep her out of trouble for a bit, too.”

“Are you worried about her?

“’Course I am, sir. It ain’t no kind of life she’s got now.”

“You know, I could help her find work. One of my friends could give her a character.”

“That’s good of you, sir, but I don’t think she’d stick it. Why, sir, she can earn more blunt in a night, seeing company like she does, than she could in a month as a moll-slavey, or in one of them factories. And the work ain’t so hard, and she’s got more liberty, like. What’s being on the square got to offer, compared to that?”

“Self-respect,” suggested Julian doubtfully.

“Self-respect’s a fine thing, sir, but you can’t eat it, nor drink it, nor put a red feather on it and tie it under the chin.”

Julian had no answer to this. There’s a poser for you, Mr. Harcourt, he thought. Write us a pamphlet solving that, and we’ll hail you as the genius of this age.

Sally was up before dawn next morning. She could not sleep any later, with Mrs. Mabbitt bustling about the house, clattering saucepans and raking out grates. By half past six, she was on her way to Stark Street. She supposed they would be up and about at the refuge—she had an idea that reformers did not waste time lolling in bed when there was God’s work to be done.

She took a hackney coach to Stark Street, which made her feel very grand. She had never had a hackney to herself before. But she got out at the corner, thinking it would not fit the character of a penitent whore to arrive in a coach. The driver let down the steps, and she swept out with her nose in the air, pretending she was a lady, and this was her very own carriage. Then she spoilt it with a giggle. Tipping the driver, she sent him on his way.

She walked up to No. 9. It was just as Mr. Kestrel had described it: two houses joined together, with the formal entrance on the right-hand side. She went up to the door, put on what she hoped was a doleful, repentant face, and rang the bell.

The door opened a little way, and a woman looked out. Sally guessed at once that she was Mr. Kestrel’s dragon. “What’s your business?”

“If you please, ma’am, I’ve come to be showed the error of me ways, and save me soul.”

The dragon looked her scathingly up and down. “Very well, you may come in. But no one can see you now. We’re about to have morning prayers and breakfast. Mr. Harcourt may find time to speak with you afterward, or he may not. We’re very busy this morning. We’re expecting the trustees.”

She opened the door just wide enough for Sally to enter. Sally found herself in a sparely furnished hallway, with stairs leading down to the kitchen level, and up to the floors above. The walls were painted a sedate, leaden grey. An incongruous door was cut into the left-hand wall. Sally realized this must have been added when the two houses became one, to make a passage between them.

“What’s your name?” the dragon demanded.

“Sally Stokes, ma’am.”

“Sally isn’t a proper Christian name.”

If you’re a proper Christian, Sally thought, I’d as lief be in the other place. “It’s short for Sarah, ma’am.”

“If Sarah is the name you were christened with, then Sarah you must be called. I’m Mrs. Fiske, the matron on duty today. Come with me. Not there,” she added sharply, as Sally turned toward the elegantly furnished front parlour. “That room is reserved for trustees and patrons.”

She led Sally to a well-scrubbed back parlour. It had no furniture but a rectangular deal table and four bare, armless chairs. There was a view of the back garden: a couple of stunted trees, some pinched, precise flower-beds, and a gravel walk. Around the garden ran a high brick wall, with iron spikes along the top.

“Wait here,” said Mrs. Fiske. “After breakfast, I’ll inform you whether Mr. Harcourt has time to see you. He interviews all the women who come here, to determine whether they’re suitable candidates for reclamation.”

She went out. Sally wondered what to do now. Being pent up in here was no way to find the writer of the letter. Why shouldn’t she venture out and have a look around? The worst they could do if they caught her was to chuck her out. And it was not as if she really wanted to stay.

She opened the door a little way and looked out. There was no one in sight. All the activity in the place seemed to be in the basement below, where Sally could hear footsteps, the scraping of chairs, and the clanking of pots and pans.

She tiptoed downstairs. The front room here was the kitchen; she peeked in, but saw no one there. All the noise was coming from the back room. Sally crept toward it and hid behind the open door, looking in through the narrow gap between it and the wall.

This was the communal eating room. There were two long tables, each with about a dozen women seated at it. The women varied in age from perhaps fifteen to thirty. Some were fresh and pretty, others withered and losing what looks they ever had. They were all dressed alike, in stiff grey gowns with white collars, aprons, and caps. Sally scanned their ranks, wondering if one of them had written the letter. If so, how was she to single her out from the rest?

Mrs. Fiske stood stiffly before one of the tables. Beside her was a young woman Sally felt sure must be Irish: no English girl had such porcelain skin, or such delicate features. Her hair was black, her figure straight and trim, her age perhaps five-and-twenty. She was dressed in the same grey and white uniform as the inmates. Perhaps she was to serve breakfast—she was standing by a large tureen, with a pile of wooden bowls and a ladle ready to hand.

At the head of the room stood a man holding a venerable-looking book—a Bible, Sally supposed. He was dressed soberly, yet with a dash of elegance. His skin was very pale and smooth, more like wax than human flesh. He had straw-coloured hair, thin lips, and disdainfully flaring nostrils.

Some of the inmates were talking among themselves. Mrs. Fiske clapped her hands, and at once there was a dead silence. “We are fortunate to have Mr. Harcourt here to lead us in prayer this morning,” she announced. “As you know, the trustees are coming today, and Mr. Harcourt was obliged to remain here all night, preparing to meet with them—”

She broke off, staring across the room. Sally followed her gaze, and saw a small, forlorn table pushed into a corner. There was a chair before it, empty.

“Where is Mary?” thundered Mrs. Fiske.

The inmates exchanged glances and shifted about in their chairs.

“Has anyone seen her this morning?” Mr. Harcourt’s voice was as smooth as velvet, and seemed to fill the room without his raising it.

There was a tense silence. At last one of the inmates stood up hesitantly. She was in her early twenties, plump and pretty, with a few flaxen curls stealing out from under her cap. Her bosom and hips strained against the stiff, straight lines of her gown. “If you please, sir, I did look in on her, very quick, just before we come down to breakfast.”

“And what was she doing?”

“She was sleeping, sir. I said to her, ‘Sst! Mary! It’s almost seven o’clock!’ But she was sleeping so sound, she didn’t stir. Then Peg—Margaret, I mean”—she bobbed her head at the Irish girl standing beside Mrs. Fiske—“come looking for me, and I had to shirry along to breakfast.”

“Lazing in bed at this hour!” exclaimed Mrs. Fiske.

The Irish girl dropped a meek curtsey. “Shall I be after fetching her, ma’am?”

“You ought to have done so, before. Mr. Harcourt’s put you in charge of making sure the inmates are prompt at meals and prayers.”

“I think we needn’t blame Margaret overmuch,” Mr. Harcourt interposed. “I’m afraid this is merely another instance of poor Mary’s intransigence. Margaret, go and bring her here for prayers. As she is late to breakfast, she will have none this morning.”

“Yes, Mr. Harcourt.” The Irish girl darted off. Sally stood very still behind the door, hardly daring to breathe until she had passed.