Ghost of the Thames (4 page)

“No,” Sophy replied uncertainly. “I
don’t think so.”

“Do you remember anything more than
what you told the Captain the night he brought you
here?”

“No, I don’t.”

Sophy glanced at the window. She could
see the brick house next door and beyond it the roofs of the
neighboring buildings. She took a deep breath and looked back at
the matron. The thought of having to find lodging in a strange city
when she barely had enough strength to sit up in bed was
terrifying.

“Would it be possible to stay here for
a little longer?”

“For today. Beyond that, I shall need
to send a message to our benefactor and ask his advice.” The woman
reached over and pulled the basket from the other bed onto Sophy’s.
“But it’s time you made yourself useful. Here is some mending. And
there is a decent dress in there that you can change into. You
won’t be given a frock like the rest of the girls. That is only for
those who are invited to join us here.”

The matron stood abruptly and started
for the door, but then stopped. “You do know how to sew, don’t
you?”

“Of course,” Sophy answered as
brightly as she could.

Mrs. Tibbs appeared satisfied with the
answer and went out the door.

Left alone, Sophy took the clothing
from the basket, laying it on the bed beside her. She knew what
sewing involved, but as she held the three balls of thread in her
hand, her confidence wavered about her ability to do the job well.
Holding the needle, she realized she was nowhere near as
comfortable as she had been holding the Captain’s
pistol.

She changed out of the nightgown and
into the dark woolen dress and busied herself with the mending. The
room grew dark as the afternoon progressed. She didn’t hear the
approaching footsteps, but looked up at the feeling of being
watched. It was the same girl who had brought bandages that
morning.

“Supper in the kitchen for us, if ye
be wanting it.”

“Thank you. I certainly do,” Sophy
replied, throwing the sewing to the side and following the girl
down the stairs.

Other than Mrs. Tibbs, she remembered
three girls who had been frequent visitors to her room. One of them
shared the room. Two others had taken turns feeding her and
changing the bandage on her head when needed. All three of them
minded their own business when they were with her, and there was no
deviating from their assigned duty. Sophy was simply another task
to them, like hanging out the linen, or washing the floor, or
beating the carpet out in the alleyway beneath her window. None of
the three had ever asked any questions.

As she stepped into the kitchen, Sophy
could smell the stew simmering on the stove. The other women
shifted aside to let her eat, making no overtures to
friendship.

When she was finished, she placed her
dish in the waiting tub of water and went out without a
word.

Several rooms opened off the central
hall and she saw, as she passed, one of them served as a library,
of sorts. She eyed the shelves of books and spotted a newspaper on
a table. Sophy slipped in. Picking up the newspaper, she glanced at
the year and date.

“Well, at least I know that,” she
murmured to herself as she looked at the headlines and columns.
Moving to a window for light, she sat herself in a chair and was
soon immersed in the news of London and the empire.

“Anything interesting in
there?”

Sophy looked up and saw Mrs. Tibbs
standing in the doorway. The woman’s normally stern features showed
no anger.

“It is all interesting, thank
you.”

Mrs. Tibbs moved over to her and
pointed to a specific line. “Read this aloud.”

Of all the news, Sophy thought, that
was least interesting. She complied, though.

“Railway Signals. The
following circular has been issued by the Great Western Railway. On
and after the 4
^th
day of October--
”

“And this line.”

“Marriages
.
On Saturday last, at St. George’s Hanover
Square--”

Mrs. Tibbs continued to point to
different articles and lines in the newspaper, which Sophy read,
knowing this was a test.

“Who taught you to read so well?” the
matron asked finally.

“I don’t remember.” Sophy folded the
paper and looked up.

“What else can you do?”

“My sewing is competent enough, I
believe,” she said with a smile, hoping to make a
friend.

The matron’s features showed nothing.
The older woman picked up a book that was sitting on the table,
opened it to a random page, glanced at it, and handed it to
Sophy.

“Go to the desk, if you please, and
copy out the first three lines from this page. You will find chalk
and a slate in the top drawer.”

If this was another test, Sophy knew
she had passed it, for a few moments later Mrs. Tibbs was looking
with open admiration at her penmanship.

When the matron saw Sophy watching
her, her expression hardened. “Go up to your room. I will send for
you in the morning.”

*

After four days in bed, Sophy was
unable to sleep, so she lay on her back watching darkness fill the
room. The girl who occupied one of the other beds had come in and
was now asleep.

There’d been so much in that newspaper
that Sophy had wanted to read. She’d never had a chance to look
past the front page or search for any report of a missing person.
Perhaps she had family out there looking for her right
now.

Urania Cottage was silent and dark.
She didn’t know how late it was—and she was certain she’d get into
trouble if discovered—but she left the room and crept
downstairs.

The newspaper was where she had left
it. The parlor was dark, and she did not dare light a candle.
Moving to the window, she pulled a curtain aside, hoping to gain
some light from the street.

Sophy saw her. The young woman dressed
in white. She stood on the sidewalk, facing the window, motioning
to Sophy to join her outside.

CHAPTER 4

Hammersmith was a village of old
clergymen and drunkards, churches and taverns, and sometimes it was
difficult to tell one from the other. Situated near the river to
the west of London, the dark lanes of the sleepy village had been
gradually swallowed up by the expanding reaches of city. What had
once been a quiet country village was now a dank and sullen huddle
of ramshackle dwellings, warehouses, and brothels.

Edward was told the Broken Oar Tavern
was a decrepit place, sitting on the navigable stream that opened
directly onto the broad Thames. The ancient inn attached to it had,
for a decade at least, been used by sailors drinking up their pay
between voyages. The girl who came to his Berkeley Square house
late in the afternoon had mentioned that she’d heard talk of a
young midshipman who’d taken a room there with his woman for almost
two months. Though the sailor came and went regularly, after the
first day no one ever saw his girl. There were rumors of her being
“quality.”

It was well after dark when Edward
arrived at the tavern. Taking a quick glance, he thought the
descriptions he’d heard earlier were far too generous. There
appeared to be not a straight line or a sound piece of timber in
the structure.

Edward ducked his head and entered a
taproom thick with smoke. The smell of stale urine and old ale vied
with tobacco for dominance. A lamp hung on a post by a bar and a
small fire flickered on a large hearth, but the dark corners hid
the faces and the transgressions of those wiling away their hours.
Between him and the bar, two dozen faces turned and measured his
worth, including several painted women of indeterminate age who sat
on laps or hung on the arms of other customers.

A short man peering from the casks and
bottles lining the wooden surface of the bar nodded to him. “First
time ’ere, sir, I reckon. So what can I be gettin’ for
ye?”

“I’m told you let out rooms,” Edward
said over a shriek of drunken laughter.

The barman grinned knowingly and
jerked his head toward the end of the bar. There, the proprietor
was waiting and opened a half-door into a small, stale-smelling
parlor beyond. No one occupied it, but the noise of the tavern
filled the room.

“Your office,” Edward commented,
looking at the empty fireplace on the far wall and the table and
two chairs in the center of the room.

The proprietor touched his nose with a
crooked forefinger and moved around the table.

“Indeed, sir.” He settled into a chair
and motioned Edward into the other.

As Edward sat, he turned his chair
slightly. He had no desire to sit with his back to the door,
knowing that more than one man had gone into a tavern like this,
only to wake up on some outbound Indiaman with a lump on his head
the size of Gibraltar.

“Now,” the proprietor continued. “What
would ye be wishing for as far as the room . . . time wise . . .
and what kind of trinket ye like to be having delivered to ye fer
yer pleasure?”

“Trinket?”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Do you let rooms without a
trinket?”

“I would be doing that, sir, if ’twas
to be made worthwhile fer me.” The man’s face took on a pained
expression. “And if I had any of ’em sitting empty. But I am a poor
citizen, trying to keep the wolves from the door, as ’twere,
sir.”

“Of course.”

“But a . . . well, trinketless room
brings me two pence a night, if I can let it out. Deliver a woman
to the door, though, and I’d be making five shillings.”

“Five shillings?”

“Well, four shillings for ye, sir . .
. depending.”

“Depending?”

“Aye, depending on the value of the
trinket ye’d be wanting.”

Edward stared across the table,
calculating that there was no way Amelia would have had the money
to stay here for all this time.

“And what kind of girl is worth the
five shillings?”

“Glad ye ask, sir. Indeed, I am.” The
man warmed to the discussion. “Nothing like these old buzzards out
there, ye can be sure.”

“What, then?”

“Exotics, sir.”

“Exotics?”

“Aye. Exotics. Straight from the
Orient, they are. Granted, none are exactly virgins. We get ’em
after the gentlemen of yer sort in London are done with ’em. But
fine wenches they are still, sir.”

Edward glared at the man. “And how do
you get these exotics?”

“Why . . .from Shill, o’
course.”

“Shill? Who is this Shill?”

The little man lowered his voice, but
there was no mistaking the note of pride in his tone. “I shouldn’t
be saying, but he’s the very source of all these quality-type
exotics. These ain’t any slut or dolly mop picked off the street,
if ye catch my drift.”

“This Shill fellow must have quite a
gang, to be able to make such arrangements.”

The proprietor glanced at the door of
the bar cautiously before looking back at Edward. “I’ve never seen
him, sir, to be blunt, but he’s the cock o’ the roost in this
business. And I can be arranging a virgin fer ye through him,” the
proprietor continued quickly. “I can have her brought in, if ye are
willing to pay . . . say, a pound . . . and wait a week for
it.”

Edward felt faintly sick. Dockside
whores were common in every port he’d ever dropped anchor. The
military stationed abroad, he knew, even made arrangements for
women to be brought in and made available to their soldiers. But
this was different. This smacked of slavery, and of the vilest
kind. Human trafficking of women from the Far East, from Africa,
from the islands of the West Indies. Legality and morality be
damned; there was money to be made. So, too many simply chose to
ignore the situation. As he himself had been ignoring it for his
entire life.

And the Broken Oar was no different
than dozens of other places he’d visited these past few weeks while
searching for his niece.

He forced himself to focus on why he
was here. Reaching into his pocket, he took out a shilling. “That
is not for a room or a trinket. But for some
information.”

The coin bounced on the table only
once before disappearing into the little man’s pocket.

“Do you have a sailor, a midshipman,
who’s been hanging about?”

“Hanging about, sir?”

“Yes, a young man who has been renting
rooms from you for the past couple of months?”

“Indeed, no, sir. I been telling ye my
prices. I have many a returning customer, but mostly none that can
afford to stay more than a couple of nights.”

“I had a girl come to my house today
claiming that a midshipman named Henry Robinson has been keeping
rooms here for several months.”

The man shook his head slowly. “I know
of no such fellow, sir.” He scratched his nose thoughtfully. “What
was the girl’s name who would be telling such a tale?”