The Isis Knot (21 page)

After a long moment, Viv’s dubiousness began to melt—or it could have been the rum easing the restraint on his emotions—and he nodded slowly. She should keep talking; he wanted to believe her.

“At first I couldn’t believe it when I heard the townspeople talking. We weren’t well-off back in London, but she was always the better-behaved child. Mother wasn’t surprised when I was shipped here. I simply could not believe it when I heard she’d been sent to New South Wales, but I suppose they’re transporting anyone who so much as sneezes incorrectly these days. You know how long it takes to communicate with the homeland. It’s possible she contacted me and I never received it. When I asked after Sera in town, I was told you took her as wife.”

The old man blinked slowly and even that much sent him off balance. “Something like that.”

“Please.” She took his hand—the one not clutching the mug. “May I speak with her? I’m so desperate to see her again after being so long apart. It’s lonely here, as you know. My husband, the man who claimed me after my arrival, well…he…” She pulled out a false tear and shook her head, making sure to show every bruise and laceration to the old man. “I ran from him and I want to find Sera. I miss our home, our life together. I miss her.”

“I know. I miss her, too.” Viv sighed, long and resigned. “She isn’t here.”

Elizabeth tried not to scream in frustration. “Oh. Well, do you know when she’ll return?”

“She won’t.” His chin began to quiver and his eyelids drooped heavily. He took a step back, wobbled, then caught himself. “Your sister, she’s gone to Sydney.”

CHAPTER 14

London, 1806

Elizabeth knew every cobble on Whitechapel Road. She knew exactly where to place her feet so her ankle wouldn’t turn. She could tell which stones, slippery from blood or grease or human waste, to avoid.

It was five paces from the alley in which she slept to Mr. Portney’s butcher shop. Seventeen more to the corner where Natalie and the other painted women squeezed their breasts and jutted out their hips as men strolled by. Maybe someday Elizabeth would grow as tall as Natalie; she could only hope and pray.

The women were always together, always talking. She had no one like that. So one day, she joined them on the corner.

The women found something about Elizabeth’s presence entertaining, and she began to mimic their actions. She sashayed around a lamppost. She squeezed her flat chest, wishing for something to grab, but at ten years old, breasts were still a few years away. Natalie laughed and pointed, making Elizabeth smile. Making her feel part of the world outside her alley that lived under the gas lamps and mist of London evenings.

Natalie licked her lips, smearing the cakey cosmetics Elizabeth had watched her steal yesterday from a woman’s pocketbook. She copied Natalie, also licking her lips. Natalie smiled even wider, and so did the man with the crooked jacket and jaunty hat across the road. He waited for a carriage to lumber past, then crossed the dark street toward the women. Elizabeth could feel his eyes on her.

“Looks like you got your first customer,” Natalie said, her voice scratchy and uneven, as unattractive as her oddly angled face.

At first, Elizabeth didn’t understand what Natalie meant. Then the man jumped onto the curb, one hand pulling a coin from his pocket, the other playing with the buttons of his trousers. And then she understood.

“You’ll need three times as much as that.” Natalie shoved Elizabeth behind her skirts, the fringe of her shawl dusting Elizabeth’s face. “It’s her first time. Ain’t it, love?”

The man smiled so big his face almost split in two. There were spaces where teeth should have been, and rot where the remaining teeth jutted out from red gums. He reached out and dragged a grimy finger down Elizabeth’s cheek, leaving a smear of something that smelled foul.

She knew him. He was the stablehand at The Goose in the Heather. He knew how to filch just enough from saddlebags so the owners wouldn’t notice; that was how he’d gotten the pence, no doubt. She was trembling all over now, wondering what she’d started, whether she could take it back. Her knees shook under her skirts and her trembling hands clung to the worn fabric of Natalie’s dress. The hidden place between her legs felt numb, and it scared her.

It was twenty-two steps back to the alley—maybe fifteen if she ran fast and hard.

“I’ll give you double.” The stablehand produced another coin from his pocket.

Natalie sighed and reached behind her to unlock Elizabeth’s hands from her clothing. The harder the older woman pulled, the stronger she resisted.

“No!” Elizabeth shouted. “I don’t want to!”

“Now, now, love,” Natalie said between clenched teeth. “Don’t be a tease. You’ll only make it worse for yourself.”

A huge shadow, unwashed and reeking of liquor, hurled into the would-be customer. The stablehand fell on his arse in the street. He cried out when his backside struck the one cobble with the rounded point that always seemed to catch wagon wheels.

“The girl’s not for sale,” slurred the shadow. “Move on.”

Natalie rolled her eyes. “It’s only a matter of time. Let her get started early. Make some money for the two of you.”

Three of you
, Elizabeth almost corrected her, catching Stumpy’s squat little shadow peering around the corner. Always watchful, always silent.

“My daughter won’t turn out like you,” the shadow growled, pulling Elizabeth into his arms.

The comfort her father gave her—squeezing her shoulders and patting her head—would be short-lived. Already his fingers were turning to fists and she could feel the sting of the beating to come. She’d left the alley again without his permission. The beatings were almost worth it though, to move among the twisting lanes, to listen to adults speak to her, to watch the colorful carriages of the West Enders rumble past on their way from the country or other such wonderful places she would never see.

“What are you doing out here? You worried me,” Father said to her, loud enough for Natalie to hear before she sauntered away. Then, harshly into his daughter’s ear: “You little bitch. What did I tell you about leaving without telling me? Get back to the alley. Now.”

He shoved her toward the slit in the brick facades, the place they called home. He let go of her arm only for a moment, but it was enough to wrench herself free, to wiggle away from his hands, which were slow and inaccurate in his drunken stupor.

She dashed the opposite way down Whitechapel, smiling to herself.

She ran past Stumpy, who was slinking in the shadows. His brown eyes shimmered up at her. Poor little boy, so small and fat and stupid. He didn’t know he could run away from Father if he wanted to. Stumpy would learn, though.

Soon she’d be old enough to venture out into the world beyond these gray streets. She’d see where all the roads led. Then she’d come back and take her little brother away from that alley. From Father’s fists and his stinking breath. Perhaps they would find someone who knew Mother—someone who could explain what happened to her, why she was taken away from them. Father only cried when she was mentioned.

As Elizabeth ran down Whitechapel, Father bellowed after her. It made her laugh despite knowing she’d get an even more severe beating when she returned. And she would go back because she had to. She had nowhere else to go.

As she crossed Whitechapel at Greatorex Street, she looked back and saw Father trip over the cracked curb. He fell into the same gutter as the stablehand. As Stumpy waddled over to Father, she turned her back and disappeared into the curves of Plumbers Row, all misty with rain and temporary safety.

Here the street narrowed, the buildings leaning over the lane only wide enough for one horse and carriage. She careened around the curve, her breath hammering her chest and making her head all fuzzy. At last, after she could no longer hear the commotion of Whitechapel Road, she collapsed against a corner of a building, hands on knees and glee in her heart. She could not stop laughing.

“What do you find funny, my dear?”

She gasped and straightened, searching the foggy darkness for the source of the clear, composed voice.

“Pardon?” She remembered her manners, even with Mother not there to remind her.

A man detached himself from a lamppost. He wore a tall hat and a natty coat. One hand rested leisurely in his pocket while the other gripped a shiny cane. He tilted his head back, letting some of the lamplight catch the hard lines of his cheeks and a fascinating dimple in his chin. His straight brown hair hung long and he’d clubbed it at the nape of his neck. Even in the dark she could tell he had brown eyes. Stunning eyes that crinkled with sophisticated age.

He wasn’t dirty. Not like that man who’d wanted to buy her body. Not like Father.

“I asked what made you laugh.”

The dapper man leaned the cane against the lamppost and removed a pipe and flint and tinder box from an inner coat pocket. The pipe was apparently already filled with tobacco because he stuffed it between his lips without delay and lit it. The sweet smell formed a cloud on the corner, making her recall a more peaceful time, not three years ago, when she and Mother and Father and Stumpy lived in a house, and Father used to rock in the chair near the fireplace, a pipe balanced in one hand, a small smile on his face.

“It’s late for a girl your age to be out on the streets.” The stranger spoke casually, easily.

Oddly enough, she didn’t feel threatened by him. Still, she felt it necessary—in order to avoid another scene like that with the ugly stablehand—to say, “I’m not like those women. I’m not one of them.” She pointed to two prostitutes who appeared around the bend, their heels clicking on the cobblestones.

The stranger glanced their way with disinterest. “I know. Are you hungry?”

The rumble in her stomach answered for her. He produced an apple from somewhere in the folds of his fine coat. Saliva tingled the inside of her cheeks. She had never seen a piece of fruit shine so deliciously. She snatched it from his hand before he could take it back or make her do something to get it. He let her take it without protest, and leaned against the lamp to watch her eat.

His head tilted from side to side as he puffed away on his pipe. She didn’t care; she let him stare. The apple was the most scrumptious thing she’d ever tasted. She slowed her chewing to make the taste of it last longer.

The stranger eyed the tatters of her clothing—the frayed hems, the stockings with the holes, the shreds of ribbon tying back her smudged blond hair.

“Do you live near here?”

She nodded in the direction from which she’d run. “Up fere,” she answered, mouth full of sweet apple.

He squinted over his pipe. “You wouldn’t happen to know a Samuel Oliver, would you?”

“Oliver? I know a Samuel Branson. He owns a bakery.” She spit out a seed. “And a Samuel Grant.”

The man smiled. Not the way Natalie had smiled, with something sinister behind it, but a true smile. His lips twitched and there was a beguiling sparkle to his eye. “Little one, can you ask around for me? Sometimes people tell nice little girls things they won’t tell strangers. Can you do that? Can you ask people if they know Samuel Oliver? He used to serve in the Royal Navy. Medium of build, I’m told. Sandy hair. Chipped front tooth.”

She finished the apple and smacked her lips. “And what will you give me if I do this for you?” He looked wealthy enough for her to ask with confidence.

His smile widened. “More apples.”

That was what she hoped he would say. He barely finished the sentence before Elizabeth was nodding eagerly.

“You look like a resourceful little girl, like you know your way around London, who to ask. Otherwise you wouldn’t be wandering around in the dark this late at night. How old are you?”

“Ten.” She lifted her chin so he could see how mature she was.

“And your name?”

“Elizabeth.”

“Well, Elizabeth. How about we meet back here tomorrow night and you can tell me what you found out about my friend, Mr. Oliver?”

She considered whether Father would allow her out of the alley after her running away tonight, but she nodded anyway, just in case. She liked the stranger. She didn’t want to disappoint him.

“And will you promise me one other thing, Elizabeth?”

“Maybe. What is it?”

He laughed. “You are such a smart girl. You must be so good in school.”

“I don’t go to school.”

“Oh. Well, that’s unfortunate.” He paused and seemed to be thinking in that scattered way of adults. “Will you promise to keep our conversation a secret? When you inquire after Mr. Oliver, I need you to not reveal that it is I who look for him.”

“How can I? I don’t even know your name.”

The stranger pursed his lips and looked amused. “I think it’s best you don’t know my name at this point. But perhaps I may tell it to you later.”

She started back up the street, then stopped. “You’re not going to
hurt
Mr. Oliver, are you? I don’t like it when people get hurt.”

“Oh, no, no, no.” The stranger finished with his pipe and tucked it safely back in its place. He pulled out a pair of gloves from his pocket and tugged them on, pressing the fabric firmly between his fingers. “Mr. Oliver merely has something of mine. I’d like to get it back. I will see you tomorrow evening, my lady.”