The Sea Officer Bentley Thrillers

by Jan Needle

  A half an hour later, Kaye put the cap on it by disappearing, first to public stairs obscured from the powder wharves, then by four-oar wherry to the heart of London. Most strangely, he vouchsafed the news only to the so-called tutor, Kershaw, who stammered as he passed it on to Holt.

  “The man is crazy,” Holt said to William. “Kershaw’s crazy too, the whole damn lot of them are crazy. Apparently, it is a secret to be kept from Gunning, in case he takes it into his own head to go off drinking, too. Kaye insists he’ll be back on board for midnight, no argument. And pigs can dance the Irish jig!”

  “So are you on for it?” said William. They were standing by the rail, and dark clouds were moving from the west, high and majestic. “For God’s sake, Sam, I’m going to go!”

  Sam was set to argue, that was obvious. His eyebrows rose comically on his high forehead and his lips began to part.

  But he was laughing. He clung on to the rail and hooted, loud and briefly, across the dark water.

  “By God, you’re mad as well,” he said. “And to hell with all of it — I’m coming with you!”

  *

  Their only hope was Mistress Margery, with perhaps a sweetener in cash. On the way to London they discussed their strategy, but it added up, inevitably, to that alone. Will feared they might have been marked down by his behaviour, and excluded at the door, but Sam hooted at that possibility. Dr Marigolds, he said, existed to take cash, and lack of it was the sole excluder. In any way, some nights there was real mayhem, heads broken, once or twice a death by steel or ball; this was London, after all. A young man in the maidens’ parlour was not much cause for panic, as he lived and breathed.

  At the door, this assessment seemed exact. It was opened, they were whisked inside as easily as the night before, and as indifferently. No time for meat and ogling, however — they bustled through the throng, across the court, and to the entrance to the “shagging suite,” as Samuel crudely dubbed it. He said it with a sideways glance at William; his intention, nobly, to bring down the flights of fancy about a maid who was a whore. William was too full to notice, naturally. At the doorway as they entered, his mouth was dry, his heart was thumping. Mistress Margery, he feared, would give him short shrift, then throw him out.

  Indeed, she did act somewhat surprised to see him, then somewhat cold. But Sam moved immediately to touch her palm with something, and addressed her in a voice of mocking earnestness, its mockery not for her but his companion, who looked a chastened booby in his turn.

  “Mistress Putnam,” he began, “my Margery. Can you forgive me that I bring you such a country stick? Look at him. Young, and innocent, and ashamed. We’ve rowed up all the way from Woolwich to bring his apology, and could even lose our ship for it. And all because he saw a naked woman!”

  “Lord,” said Mrs Putnam. “It was not so bad a thing he done. Young man, remind me of your name, I have forgot it. You set them shrieking in the kitchen, but you will not hang for it, I think.”

  “Will’s his name; Midshipman Bentley. He had a shock, that’s all. He thought he knew the girl, then he got into confusion.”

  Margery’s eyes twinkled with amusement.

  “With her face wrapped up in covers and her body stark as dawn. Well, not so innocent as he do look and you do claim then, Mister Sam!”

  “He was drunk was at the top and bottom of it, and mad with lust,” said Sam. “Still is, Marge, that’s the funny thing. With your permission — well, he wants another shot!”

  The woman had a frank and honest face, but her eyes narrowed and hardened. She was seated as usual at her table in the corridor, and she touched her glass of gin, then took a sip of it.

  “Well,” she said, at length. “On account you’ve got the cash, where’s the objection?”

  “Oh, we will settle,” Sam said. “I han’t never let you down, have I? The thing is, though — ”

  Mrs Putnam interrupted.

  “Does he speak at all? The thing is though is what, though? Why does it need the two of you to row from Woolwich and him to stand there like a dummy just to pay a shilling to dote on a maidens quim? The rate is up, by the way. It’s the demand.”

  “And how,” said Samuel, “if he wished to converse with her alone?”

  William felt a complete fool. The woman stared at him, so he lifted his face and met her eyes, as steadily as he could.

  “Young man, I told you yesterday. She is not a whore. She is not for solo intercourse. She is exceeding beautiful, and Dr Marigold has designs for her.”

  Sam challenged William with a look. They had agreed beforehand that if Cecily had not revealed a connection they would keep it secret. But they both knew what would happen now.

  “She is not beautiful,” said William. “She has had to sell her teeth, like the maiden in the parlour, Cecily. We met them in the country. We gave them some little aid. I must speak with her.”

  “You must?” There was a challenge in the woman’s voice, but it was not brazen, she was not angry. She somehow seemed amused.

  “I would wish it most sincerely,” said Will. “I will pay the rate, of course.”

  The woman chuckled.

  “Oh, you would.” She took more gin, as if for thinking time. “But what rate? There are four places in there, for the looking at her beauty. Each place is reserved for twenty minutes, let us say, although that is my discretion. How long did you expect to talk to her? If indeed she does not call me to have you beaten out, if indeed she will give you audience in the first place? At twelve pence the ogle, twenty minutes would tally something tidy, while the hour would ease your purse of plenty more. And how do you propose to talk to her? Through the spy-trap? Clothed or unclothed, for a shilling naked buys you silence only; for speaking we would have to set another rate. Oh come, sir, look not so down! You said you must speak, that was your words!”

  “Margery!” put in Samuel, as if to a playful child. “He wants to talk, not do the deed; by Christ, she has no teeth! Look, the fellow’s foolish, but humour him for my sake. Your talk of Marigold and great things is most impressive, but we know the truth of it. Close up the peep-show for a while, and let Will talk with her in a little room, or sit at her feet and worship, if he will! But covered up, for Christ’s sake, or I’ll never get him back on ship, will I? Yes, we must back on board tonight, betimes, so no harm can come of this, can it? He is not about to spirit her on board with us. He will be assuaged, and you will make five shillings. God, woman, there will be no oglers yet, it is too early. Come on! Five shillings, and a small gratuity in hand.”

  “Twenty.”

  “Six.”

  “Ten. That is the last, Mister Sam. Do not test me into anger.”

  “Seven shillings and sixpence, and a whore thrown in for me. I am not a worshipper of gums.”

  Mrs Putnam gave in with a smile, and Samuel kissed her on the cheek. She pushed him off, and stood.

  “Annette is in the small back room,” she said. “She likes you, foolish girl. Now come you on, Mister Silence. For God’s sake put a smile upon your face, you’ll frighten her to death.”

  Sam waved a hand in salutation.

  “Good luck, Will. When I’ve done my business, I’ll see you in the second drinking parlour, Margery will show you where. Hey! That’s your passageway! Second door.”

  But Mrs Putnam ushered him another way.

  “Not tonight,” she said. “She has not started yet. Come you to this room.”

  “Bah, seven shillings!” said Sam, hitting his forehead with his palm. “And the maid is still at leisure!”

  “And sixpence,” added Mistress Margery. “Mr Will — is that your name? Stand there a moment while I warn the girl. Are you sure you want this? Are you sure it’s wise?” Her face softened, she was motherly, as she’d been the night before. “It is only a little punk, you know. There is nothing here for you, I warrant you.”

  Will made a gesture with his hand, and she turned and went abruptly through a door. He stood there in the d
ark and quiet passageway, alone and in some kind of turmoil. He had thought that this was necessary, that he and Samuel had some duty to this girl and her companion, but Samuel had chosen the softer option of Annette. His stomach hollowed as he stood and thought it through. Deb naked, and as beautiful as life. Deb with a robbed and ravaged jaw, like Cecily. Deb in the rain, excited and exhausted, soaked to the skin. A runaway, a tinker girl, a prostitute, a drab. Deb a toothless, ruined maid.

  Mistress Margery emerged with her face mysterious, unreadable. She gestured at the doorway and Will, gulping, propelled himself through it, no chance to change his mind. The room was dim and the young woman in it had her back to him, although her arms were at her sides, she held no cloth up to her face as Cecily had done. There were two candles in the small room, which was not bright, but her dark curls gleamed. There was a table, and a narrow bed, and in the corner a pisspot, that was empty, underneath a straight-back chair.

  “Oh Deb,” he said. “I have come to visit you. To see if you are all right. Deborah?”

  She turned then, and faced him rather gravely, but with a small smile that had a query in it. She had a black eye, and a cut upon her cheek with an unsightly scab or crust. But when she spoke he saw her teeth, and her lips were full and sweet, not bruised or broken in the least degree. Deb had her teeth, her mouth remained unrobbed, her cheeks unsunk.

  “Well met,” she said. “But I am not for sale, sir, nor can you take me out of here. I have protection, sir. Pray do not forget it.”

  William, for the moment, was bereft of speech. Behind him, very quietly, he heard the door pushed to. Margery, almost inaudible, was chuckling.

  THIRTEEN

  There were a dozen questions that he had to ask, there were a hundred. But Deborah, in a dark, stuff smock from neck to ankles was an answer, and he drank her in. His relief at her lack of injury was palpable, but he was aware also of great disquiet, a fluttering in his belly that was akin to terror. He had seen her once one might say in extremis, one night unclothed, now face to face across a truckle bed. I do not know her, he told himself, I do not know her, she is nothing to me. But she was, apparently she was. Or why this volcano churning up inside him?

  “Mistress… Mistress Margery said…” he faltered. Deb cocked her head, and it was wholly charming to him. “I understood that you had lost your teeth. Like Cecily.”

  “She said,” Deborah replied. “She likes a jest, does Margery. She said you might not know me with my clothes on, neither. It is not, perhaps, a jest I would enjoy, but no matter, it is necessity. Better I should lie about like that than truly have done what Cecily was forced to do, poor Cec.”

  “I saw her. In the kitchen. After I had… looked at you, and some fool there had said you’d lost yours, too. I needed to get out and take some air, and I got lost. I was unsure if she knew me, when I barged in the kitchen.”

  “She did. It gave us much fear, to begin with. We thought… well, there seemed no other explanation for your presence. Perhaps there is not. Sir — if you have been sent to take us back, you cannot have us. You helped us once, which is why we were unsure. But we cannot go back to your uncle’s and we will not. We have not told Margery or Mistress Pam we know you — Cec kept it like the grave last night — but Marge said you said you’d met us otherwhere, and she asked me, and I told her we were staying here, and we would not be moved, or forced, or cajoled into anything at all, by you or anyone. Now please, sir, what is it you want?”

  And William was stumped. He saw himself from outside himself, for one moment. A young Navy officer, absent from his ship without a leave, on a wild fool’s errand. Standing gawping in the bedroom of a maiden whom he hardly knew, but whom he had stared at the privy parts of with an intensity that might have melted lead. Whom he had felt enormous sorrow for, and whose ruined beauty he had had to come and see, despite he knew it would destroy his heart. To find her whole, and strong, and beautiful, and suspicious of his motive for being there. What was his motive? To himself, William could just admit it, barely. He felt he loved her, he felt he knew what love meant, he who had never used the word in all his life, at least of womankind. What did he want, though? He was stumped.

  “We were… I was; anxious,” he faltered. “A fellow said… that you had sold your teeth, and then I saw Cecily, and knew it must be you… lying there.”

  “Naked as a new-born babe.” Her voice was harsh, eyes bright with anger. “I should feel shame, you think? But men will pay and maids must live. You paid, did you not?”

  He moved backwards, towards the wall and door, as if an unseen hand were pushing him. But Deborah was not. Although angry, her body was relaxed, her fists unclenched. All the spirit was in her eyes and face, a strong face, dark and lovely. He made a gesture with his hand, and felt ashamed.

  Deb said: “Why did you pay Lo shame me, though, if your task was to take me for your uncle? When you aided us upon the road you were so kind. You and your friend were.”

  She fell to silence. Her eyes were brighter yet, as if bathed in tears, which she was not prepared to shed. He would have blessed the succour, but Deborah was hard on that score.

  “He is not my uncle.” Irrelevance, another kind of succour, although it did not ease him much. “Sir A is Samuel’s, well, he has aided him. Samuel, my companion.”

  “Who has gone to fuck Annette, says Margery. At least he does not gaze at her through a filthy little peephole, like some loathsome thing!”

  It was running from his grasp. He had come in fear, to offer aid, to see if help were needed, and now he was a loathsome thing! William, who had never seen a maiden angry, was almost afraid. The eyes were frankly flashing, the breasts heaving beneath the smock.

  “I did not know!” he said. “What one is meant to do! I have never… Indeed, I knew not it was you. How should I, when your face was covered up?”

  “But still you paid to look. Oh sir, that is a loathsome thing.”

  Her eyes had clouded, and her shoulders slumped. She turned, and sat upon a chair.

  “By God,” she muttered. “What things to say. Margery will hie me out into the gutter. Sir,” she said, loud and clearly to him, “forgive me for a saucy whore. Pray you, do not tell the mistress what I’ve done.”

  In truth, he almost wept for her, she looked so young and hurt. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen at the most, and suddenly she was her age, a girl with bruises round her eyes. His voice was thick.

  “You are not a whore,” he said. “And I am sorry I offended you. We have not come to fetch you neither, for we did not know you lodged here. How come you to? Why have you left Sir A’s? He did not surely force you into flight?”

  She did not answer. She bit the inside of her lower lip, her hands still clenched. But, gradually, they eased. William mastered his emotions likewise.

  “The mountebank damaged your face,” he said. “That is why you had it covered. But Mrs Putnam says you ain’t a whore, Dr Marigold has better things for you. Dennett, was that his name? That quack that marked you?”

  “That’s why we run off maybe, me and Cec,” she said, quietly. She glanced at him, then away. “He would have come for us. He would have tracked us down.”

  “But surely not! There are men at Sir Arthur’s, even if he had found you out. But how should he do that, in any way? We found you in a wood, and carried you away in darkness. How would he discover you?”

  She shrugged. There was a look of doubt, momentarily, almost a sulky look. She was a wayward, stubborn thing, it came to Will. She and her friend had run away before, from home, had tracked two hundred miles or so.

  “But you had friends, in any case,” he said, remembering. “So why run here? You had relatives, was it? You told Mrs Houghton.”

  “We thought we did,” said Deb. “Nay, we looked for them, but we could not find, Cec maybe made them up. London is not Stockport, though, if you take my meaning. It is all a maze.” She met his eye. “He would have tracked us, Dennett would. He has captured us before, he is
a devil, not a man. He is a tight, cruel bastard. London is a maze, and for the moment I go covered, do not I? In the parts that matter, anyway.” A pause. “We stole an ass. We gave it to some men. Will you tell him?”

  No, naturally he would not. Will felt helpless once more, and lost. He sensed a gulf in understanding that he could not cross. This maid was on a chasm’s edge, and surely had to fall. And surely, he had to help her, he wanted to, he ached to be of aid. But how?

  “Why did you come then?” she asked, suddenly. “If you did not know? Did you want to tumble with a drab, like your tall friend? It is what sailors do. It is what men do, I suppose. You paid to stare at me.”

  He feared she would be angry once again, but her voice had not the ring of it. Her eyes were not challenging, but sad.

  “I thought of you,” he said. “After we had met you, and you had come up on my horse. I could not get you from my mind.”

  He was discomfited, but Deborah did smile.

  “If you hope to flatter me you go about it strangely, sir,” she said. “You thought of me so came to make the bent-back beast with anyone you found. Or ogle through a little peephole at their shame.”

  “I don’t know why I came,” he said. “You said sailors do, and Sam said sailors do, and I suppose I thought I could, what, clear my mind? You were stuck there, is the truth of it. But afterwards, when I’d seen Cecily — well, you must allow my reasons were more noble! We came back to help you if we could! We — ”

  “Came back to do it with Annette.”