Of Dubious Intent

by J. A. Sutherland

  She was nearly to the corner when she found her. Emma sat against one wall, immobile, not rocking as so many did, gaze fixed on the far wall — or something only she could see.

  “Emma! Emma!” Cat whispered frantically. “I’ve come to get you out!”

  Her hands went automatically to her stays, through the clever slits and pockets that allowed her access through the other layers of clothes. In a moment, her picks were in her hands and she had them nearly to the lock before she heard the footsteps.

  That sobered her — even if she were to get the door open and Emma out, how would the two of them, with Emma unclothed, make their way from the hospital? What would they do once they were on the streets?

  No, she’d come only to find where Emma was, then make a plan according to those circumstances. Though it broke her heart, she couldn’t get the girl out now.

  “I’ll return for you, Emma,” she whispered urgently. “I’ll be back soon — hang on.” The footsteps drew closer. “I love you.”

  Cat drew the window closed with a grating that cut to her soul. Her last glimpse of Emma was the same as the first — the girl had neither moved nor acknowledged her at all.

  Chapter 42

  The line to enter Bethlem was again rife with boy’s selling sticks and water, but this time Cat was not alone.

  She wore the Parson’s Niece, with some few additions and renamed the Haughty Tutor, in honor of Mistress Hinds, who Cat now modeled her own behavior and bearing after.

  Beside her ranged no fewer than five boys from the gang, stretching in age — or what an observer might believe to be their ages, since none of them knew for certain how old they were — from five to Dome’s possible fourteen. All of them in fine, fresh, starched clothes, the purchase of which, along with payment to the gang and these boys in particular, had stretched Cat’s purse to the very limit. She had, if she were careful, perhaps enough for a fortnight’s lodgings and food — and that at the poorest of places, not much better, and some ways worse, than the gang’s abandoned building.

  Garwin, the youngest of those she had along, tugged at his collar and Cat forcefully took his fingers from it and replaced them at his side.

  “It itches,” Garwin whined.

  “Leave it,” Cat whispered. “And stand as I showed you.”

  Garwin sighed, but put his hands at his side and straightened his back, throwing his shoulders back as a proper boy of quality should.

  “Feels like a lamp post up my arse,” he muttered.

  Cat bent close to whisper in his ear. “Do as you’re told and no more muttering, or I’ll see to it you’re able to make a proper comparison.”

  The boy’s eyes widened and he looked askance at Cat, then straightened further.

  The group awaiting entry began to shuffle forward as the attendants arrived and opened the gates. Cat was relieved to see that there were none among them who’d handled the visitors on her first tour.

  Though the Haughty Tutor looked nothing like the Orphaned Daughter who’d visited before — Cat even going so far as to add a bit of paints to her face in order to look several years older — she had spent some minutes speaking with the attendant who’d caught her in the hall outside Emma’s room.

  That one might recognize her, no matter the disguise, despite her distracting him with talk of the noise and stench quite overcoming her and where, good man, might a young lady find a bit of water — clean water, mind you — to refresh herself with?

  She’d taken his escort to the gate, careful to avoid his getting too good a look at her, and left — just another flighty girl, overcome by the experience of Bethlem Hospital.

  Cat stepped forward with the rest and handed over her ticket, this one lifted from someone farther back in the line, so there’d be no outrage before she was inside. The attendants might remark on so many lost tickets this week, but no more.

  The attendant scanned the boys she had in tow and frowned. “We don’t get many so young,” he said.

  Cat drew the deep, affronted breath she’d learned from Hinds, so that her chest expanded as her shoulders rose.

  “I have a pass, good man,” she said, her tone and inflection brooking no objection and making it clear that volume was a single questioning word away — as well as the switch or paddle, come to that.

  “Well, yes you do,” the man said, “but it’s —”

  Cat snatched the paper from him and held it before his face, snapping her finger against its bottom. “Signed,” she said, “by one of the hospital’s governors. Do you, sir, know better than Lord Tummons who should enter?”

  “Well, no, mum, but it’s not a place for children, this. Very —”

  Cat lowered her free hand and flicked her fingers in signal.

  Albern, the ostensible eight-year old, shoved Jeremie, who might have been nine. The latter shoved the former back, and a tussle ensued until Cat, not taking her eyes from the attendant, handed back the pass and caught both boys by an ear, nearly lifting them off the ground.

  Cat inhaled again, this time to give vent to the sigh of the long-suffering.

  “There are reasons, sir,” she said, “for these boys to see what ends await those who do not properly follow the ways of good, Christian folk. We shall tour Newgate, as well, I think, before returning to the country.”

  The attendant looked from Cat to the two boys, still nearly elevated off the ground by Cat’s grip on their ears, then to the other boys who were standing ramrod straight, their eyes fixed ahead and not looking at their “brothers’” condition.

  “O’course, mum,” the man said, taking her pass from her. “Step on through.”

  Once inside, things went much as before. Cat settled the boys in a place where her own absence would not be noted and waited for a chance to slip away.

  “Start the count when I leave,” she told Dome and the oldest of the boys nodded.

  Her chance came soon as a gentleman approached an attendant as she’d seen before. In a moment, the two were off, leaving fewer attendants to watch the “guests” and Cat was able to slip away after them. She began counting in her head as Dome, behind her, would be doing.

  She entered the hallway not far behind the pair she followed, taking less time about it than before, and walked on, paying no heed to the sound of her heels on the tile and the backs of the two men ahead of her.

  The attendant turned at the sound, frowned, and slowed his pace, the gentleman beside him did likewise.

  “Miss,” the attendant said, “the exhibit’s back that way, please.”

  He held out a hand to block her way as she approached. The gentleman turned away, as though not wanting to be seen here.

  “Miss, you’ve got to go back, this way’s not for —”

  Cat’s blade, hidden behind her forearm as she approached, took the attendant across the throat. Her free hand grasped his arm and spun him against the blade and away from Cat so that his blood spurted against the grime-covered wall.

  The gentleman turned, eyes wide at the sight of the great gout of blood on the wall, still being added to by spurts from the attendenant’s throat.

  Cat was on him before he could exclaim in shock, driving a knee into his groin, then a shove to put his head into the tiled wall, and finally to grasp his hair, pull his head back, and draw the blade across his throat as well.

  She let his body fall across that of the attendant and left them there.

  Not a shred of pity or remorse crossed her mind, which was filled only with the thought of getting Emma out. The bodies behind her were those who’d sell the helpless to those who’d buy them, and there was the one truth she felt she’d ever hear from her father — there were some men who needed to be dead.

  There was no time wasted hiding the bodies, either. So long as they weren’t discovered before she had Emma in hand, then the finding would only add to their chances of escape. This was no sneak job in the night they were about.

  She turned the corner, made her way to Emma’
s cell, and in a moment had the lock picked — the locks here were no challenge, which she’d seen on her last visit. They were blocky, crude things, meant only to hold in those incapable of any real effort at escape. They yielded easily to her manipulation, as they would to Dome’s, who would already be at the first bit of his work behind her with the main group.

  “Emma!”

  Cat rushed through the door and dropped to her knees before the girl, pulling her close, then cupping her face to pull her gaze from the far wall.

  “Emma?”

  There was no response — no movement save what Cat’s grasp imparted, not even a glint of recognition in the girl’s eyes.

  For the first time since she met with Roffe, Cat felt real fear. When her father’d said Emma was alive, Cat felt there was hope. She’d find her, get away, and find some way for them to be safe. She hadn’t considered —

  Cat pushed all thoughts of what might be wrong with Emma aside. Perhaps they drugged the girls in these rooms to keep them from harming the “visitors.”

  She pulled packets of cloth from beneath her skirts and began dressing Emma. All the while she counted in her head and cursed — this was taking more time than she’d thought. She’d planned for Emma to be awake, aware enough to help.

  “Emma, you must help me, please!” She pulled the girl up to stand, grateful that she did so, and thrust bits of clothing into her hands. “Dress! Please, help!”

  Dully, slowly, Emma did so.

  Cat felt some hope at that — the girl was hearing and could do as she was told. She remembered how to dress, so that meant she was in there, somewhere, behind that vacant mask, didn’t it?

  She’d brought only the barest clothing needed, only what someone would see, not the complicated underthings and stays that made up the base. They only needed to look … normal, for a time.

  Cat caught Emma’s hair in her hands as the girl finished buttoning her jacket. She pulled it back and bound it. There was nothing she could do about it being greasy and wildly tangled, but in what was about to come, a bit of disarray would only be expected.

  She grasped Emma’s arm and pulled her along, out of the cell and into the corridor.

  “Oy! What’re you about?”

  Chapter 43

  Cat shoved Emma ahead of her, sparing but a glance for the Bethlem attendant who was now walking quickly toward them from the other way.

  “Stop there! You! Stop, I said!”

  She prodded Emma again and the girl moved faster, then a shove and she began to run. It wasn’t enough to outpace the attendant, but it was enough to make the turn before him. Cat grasped Emma’s arm and swung her into the hallway toward the exit, then shoved her hard.

  “Run!”

  Cat stopped. The attendant’s footsteps were sounding the pattern of a run themselves, and approaching quickly. She tucked herself against the corner and as the man rounded it, she dropped to the floor and tangled his legs. He went flying, arms outstretched to land on the hard tiles with a muffled oomph of escaping breath.

  She was on him in a second.

  Her knees in his back drove him down to the tiles as he tried to rise. The blade, drawn while she leapt at him, sank deep into his lower back. Cat jerked and twisted, savaging the man’s insides, then rocked forward and slammed her forearm against his head to bash his face into the tiles.

  He had time for one, brief scream before that blade made it to his throat.

  Cat rose, wiped blade and hands on the man’s garb, leaving bloody streaks behind, and tucked the blade away again.

  Emma had stopped ahead, no longer prodded, so no longer running, she stood still and stared down at the other bodies, the attendant and gentleman Cat had done for on her way in.

  There was noise coming from the gallery ahead. Shouts, screams, and wails, along with the shrill call of the attendants’ whistles shrieking for aid. They weren’t too late, but nearly so.

  Cat took Emma’s arm, easing her around the bodies. The girl’s face fixed on them, expression still blank, but staring at the carnage, taking it all in.

  The sounds from the gallery were stronger now.

  Cat pulled Emma’s arm and the girl came along obediently.

  They passed through the gallery door into chaos.

  Dome and the boys had done their jobs well.

  First Dome, to edge to the front of the crowd, poking and jeering along with the rest, while he worked the locks. Then the boys to grip the bars or sit and place their feet against the cage doors and keep them closed.

  Then five cages sprung open at once, the crowd of onlookers drawing back and blocking the way for the attendants to get through, even as the cage’s occupants found a new route for their agitated movements. Mad they might be, but they knew their tormentors — recognized the white clothes of the attendants and the sticks and water sprayers of the Quality come to jeer at them in their misery.

  Some left the cages with intent, others with mindless motion, but all contributed to the shouts and chaos that followed.

  Dome met Cat and Emma at the doorway.

  “The lads are run already like you said!” he shouted over the din. “Come on!”

  He grasped Emma’s other arm and the two of them pulled the girl along between them into the panicking crowd.

  Cat and Dome added their own shouts to the cacophony.

  “Help! They’re loose!”

  “Murder!” Cat yelled, shoving bodies from her way. “Bloody murder! Help!”

  Cat hooked a foot between an attendant’s legs and gave his shoulders a shove as he raised a baton to strike at two naked men. The man went down and was soon covered in naked, grimy bodies that swung their arms and came up with bloody bits.

  They shoved their way through the crowd to the exit, Cat and Dome using fists, knees, elbows, and blades as necessary to clear their path.

  Outside, people crowded about, wondering at the louder shrieks and whistles — they might be used to some noise from the hospital, but this was new. The crowd reversed itself and rushed away as naked men and women came pouring out, along with no few visitors and attendants, all of them screaming murder along with Cat and Dome.

  The two of them hurried Emma along, away from the worst of the crowds and dispersing madmen, to the open space of Moorfields Park which fronted the hospital. Before they reached the first pathway, a coach clattered to a stop before them and Osraed flung the door open.

  Osraed reached out to take Emma’s arms and pull her inside, then Cat shoved Dome in and climbed up herself.

  She pulled the door shut after her and pounded on the ceiling.

  “Away! Away, driver, away — as though the hounds of hell are after you!”

  Cat paid Osraed for the boys’ help, adding a promise of more coin and more work. She wasn’t sure if she’d have either for them, but the promise would keep them silent for a time, and that was time she needed.

  Emma said nothing through the whole carriage ride to her rented rooms. Her gaze remained vacant and distant, even when Cat knelt before her in the carriage and whispered urgently for her to speak, blink, do something — anything — to let Cat know she was aware. That she knew she was safe and out of that horrible place.

  Nothing came and Cat finally bowed her head to rest it in the girl’s lap and give vent to the tears she’d had to hold in for the rescue.

  Osraed and Dome hopped from the carriage and scurried off without a word. Cat pulled Emma out to the street, handed payment up to the driver, and led Emma to their rooms, poor as they were.

  The building was shabby and not much more stable than Bethlem itself had appeared.

  She settled Emma in a chair and knelt before her again, searching for some sign of life, some spark in the girl’s eyes, then buried her face in Emma’s lap and let her tears overcome her again.

  Silently, beneath her sobs, she cursed herself — for taking so long to get to the city, for leaving Emma in Bethlem for so many days, finally, with more guilt than she thought she�
�d ever be able to bear, for making the trips away from their cottage that she was sure had led Roffe to their sanctuary.

  “I’m sorry, Emma, I’m so sorry.” She gripped the girl’s waist tightly, fingers clenching into claws. “Please come back to me — you’re safe now. Please!”

  She looked up but Emma’s face was blank and still as any stone.

  Cat stood and paced the room, always turning back, searching for some sign of awareness. She begged, she pleaded, she screamed — until there came a pounding on the wall with the muffled demand she shut up — all for naught.

  Finally, exhausted, she stood and took Emma’s arm to at least put her to bed for the night. The girl stood at the pressure and Cat had a moment’s hope, but her face remained still, her eyes unseeing.

  She responded to other commands — to lift her arms, to step out of her skirts, as Cat helped her to undress. That gave Cat some hope — with time, with rest … perhaps there was a physician who could understand and help her —

  That thought nearly sent Cat into a rage again, for physicians would cost and she had barely enough for a few more nights in these dingy rooms after paying the boys. She had nothing to pay a physician with, much less to keep Emma safe and warm and fed for however long it took her to recover.

  Rage filled her, and she wanted to lash out, to break everything in the room that came to hand. Roffe had done this. Roffe and his obsessions — Roffe and his demands.

  God damn him for the evil he is! I’ll see him hang — no, I’ll see him dead and gutted by my own hand!

  “Some men deserve their name in your ear, indeed, Father, but yours is in mine now, have no doubt.”

  She eased Emma into the bed, naked for she had no night shift, and saw so many bruises and marks on the girl’s fair skin that Cat’s heart broke again.

  The sheets were rough as Cat joined her — rough and stuck through with the straw that filled the mattress. The sharp jabs must be painful, but Emma made no sound or movement and Cat accepted them as the smallest of penance for her role in bringing them to this.