by Jim Piecuch
Ginny told Lizzie about being robbed, and had just finished when they arrived at the rooming house she had sought. It was a decrepit two-story building that had once been home to a factory owner. As the manufacturers prospered, they had moved to larger homes in the prestigious West End, renting their former homes to their employees. After years of poor maintenance had left the buildings nearly in ruins, the owners sold them for whatever they could get. This particular building had been purchased by Benny Phelps, a street tough who collected debts for a group of informal “bankers.” These men loaned money at usurious rates to financially pressed people who could never hope to borrow from a bank. When borrowers failed to pay, Benny Phelps called on them and convinced them, usually with his fists, to come up with the money. He received twenty percent of the amount he collected, and had hoarded his earnings to purchase the building. He had taken two of the downstairs rooms for his personal residence, and had divided the other two on that level and the four rooms upstairs into twelve small spaces, which he rented for a shilling and tuppence per night. The enterprising Phelps, who undoubtedly would have earned Mrs. Glastonbury’s applause, had also divided the garret into four rooms, then gone on to scavenge odds and ends of lumber to construct a rickety shack in the backyard as a source of additional rental income.
Phelps did not waste time or money on repairs. The gray clapboards of the once neat building were warped and showed not a single trace of paint, many of the windows were broken, and a sloping mound of earth and chunks of brick had replaced the rotten front steps. The crumbling chimneys appeared ready to topple, and the roof was pocked with holes where shingles had come loose and the underlying wood had rotted through.
When Ginny, Lizzie, and Jonathan entered the building, they found Phelps seated behind an old table in the foyer. Despite his white hair and sixty years, he still looked like the brawler he had once been. He was broad-shouldered, with muscular arms and chest, and his face bore the marks of his former occupation. Although he had generally been the one to dole out beatings, occasionally a debtor had gotten in a few licks. Phelps’s wide nose was flattened and bent to one side, while an array of scars from old cuts crisscrossed his cheeks, chin, and forehead. He squinted at the newcomers, then broke into a broad grin.
“Why, it’s Ginny! I haven’t seen you for ages—I was worried about what might have befallen you.”
“No, Benny, I’ve been fine,” Ginny said. “I just haven’t been able to afford your rooms for a while. How are you?”
“Hard at work, as always,” Phelps replied. “Trying to make an honest living. Do you need a room? I can let you have space in the garret for ten pence a night.”
“No, thanks, Benny,” Ginny said. “We don’t want to get soaked if it rains.”
“But then you won’t have to go outside to the pump for water.” Phelps laughed.
After some negotiations, Ginny paid Phelps three shillings in advance for three nights in an upstairs room. Taking the key, she carried Jonathan up the shaky staircase while Lizzie brought the satchel. The room was barely an improvement over an alley or doorway. The single window had no glass and was partially boarded over. The three original walls were bare plaster, and the fourth, the divider Phelps had installed, had been made from salvaged wood scraps and testified to Phelps’s absolute lack of carpentry skills. The room was unheated, and in one corner the worn floorboards were charred where a former tenant had built a fire.
Ginny left Jonathan with Lizzie, who seemed thrilled at the chance to take care of the child, and went in search of work. A lengthy trek brought her to a middle-class neighborhood that was home to shopkeepers, ships’ officers, and some of the more skilled artisans. Perhaps because her new dress gave her a more respectable appearance, the mistress of the first house she called at hired her to do the laundry. She returned after dark, tired but with eight pence and a loaf of bread. She shared some of that and the leftover cheese with Jonathan and Lizzie, then huddled with them under the blanket and slept.
Ginny was up early the next morning. As usual, she checked her son to verify that he had survived the night, felt relieved to find him breathing. Reluctant to abandon the warm blanket for the cold drafts that blew into the room from between the few boards covering the window, she considered her situation. She needed to contact Dr. Cratchit, she knew. He would be wondering what had happened to her and Jonathan, perhaps even thinking that she was ungrateful for what he had done for her. Ginny could leave the few remaining coins with Lizzie and ask her to send the doctor a telegram. But she couldn’t remember his office address, and didn’t know the street or number of his home. She might be able to talk a cabbie into driving them to Harley Street, with the promise that Dr. Cratchit would pay the fare, to look for the doctor’s office, which she was sure she would recognize. But even if she found a cabbie who was softhearted or gullible enough to help them, Ginny knew it would be unfair to Dr. Cratchit. Showing up at his office and sticking him with cab fare was no way to show gratitude for all that he had done for her and Jonathan.
Finally Ginny rose. Her body ached from lying on the wooden floor, and her joints were stiff. At least the night had been quiet. Whoever occupied the other rooms had not disturbed her sleep or the children’s, a rarity in places like this, she thought. Ginny dusted off her frock, which she had carefully hung from a rusty nail that protruded from the wall, and was putting it on when Lizzie awoke. Ginny gave the girl the few coppers she had and instructed her to buy milk for herself and Jonathan, and to try to make the remnants of the loaf of bread last the day.
“Come straight back here after you get the milk,” Ginny said. “Benny will keep out anybody who might trouble you.” Lizzie promised that once her errand was completed, she would stay indoors and look after Jonathan. Shortly after Lizzie returned, Ginny set out to look for work, hoping to earn enough for cab fare to Harley Street. Lizzie waited until she thought the older girl was out of sight, gathered Jonathan in her arms, and then left the house.
“Mom said not to go out,” Jonathan reminded Lizzie when he realized what she was doing.
“I’m going to help your mom,” Lizzie reassured him. “I’ll find some sewing work that I can do in the room, and we’ll come right back.”
It was a cool morning, with thick clouds overhead that darkened the sky and promised rain. Picking her way around the heaps of snow and refuse that littered the streets, Lizzie made her way to a residential area where she had found customers in the past. With his usual forbearance, Jonathan gave her no trouble, but after she had covered the first mile, his light weight seemed to increase with every step Lizzie took. She stopped occasionally to rest, sitting on dry patches of sidewalk with the child in her lap while she rubbed her aching arms. She began to question the wisdom of her decision, although she figured that she had gone too far to turn back.
“Need any sewing, mum?” she asked the woman at the first door that opened to her knock once she had reached a street of decaying homes.
“No,” was the curt reply, one that was repeated at the next several houses that Lizzie called at. People must be saving their money for Christmas, she thought.
Lizzie had a persistent streak, and was prepared to go on knocking until she found someone willing to give her work, but a slow rain began to fall. Not wanting Jonathan to get wet, she bent over him and turned back to Phelps’s boardinghouse. The rain increased in intensity as she walked, ducking into doorways occasionally to rest. Jonathan seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. Increasing her pace to a trot, she reached Phelps’s at noon. Her arms ached and she was soaked, but at least Jonathan was only slightly damp.
Benny Phelps heard her come in, and generously invited her and Jonathan into his parlor, if such a wretched room deserved the name, to dry off before the fire. Lizzie pulled a crooked chair in front of the fireplace, where a mixture of coal and wood scraps struggled to burn against the overpowering dampness. The weather and the decaying chimney
combined to obstruct the rise of the smoke, and most of it drifted back into the room. By the time Lizzie’s condition had improved from soaked to just wet, she had had enough. She thanked Phelps and carried Jonathan upstairs. She smelled like the firebox of an old stove.
Ginny stumbled up the stairs at eight o’clock, drained from the day’s labors. Turned away at every door for most of the morning, she had finally gone to one of the better neighborhoods, where a woman hired her to clean the drawing room for a Christmas dinner party that was to be held in the evening. The stout lady of the house promised to pay her a shilling for her work, then supervised her every action, shouting and gesturing as Ginny scrubbed the hardwood floor, beat the carpets, washed the windows, and polished the furniture. When the tasks were completed and the room gleamed, the woman pronounced Ginny’s work unsatisfactory and refused to pay her more than sixpence.
Lizzie and Jonathan had finished the remaining bread and Ginny lacked the energy to go out for more, so after she had held Jonathan and heard Lizzie’s story of their day’s experiences, she went to bed hungry. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but one that she knew well. The children quickly drifted off to sleep, and Ginny was dozing when she heard a row downstairs.
At first Ginny thought it was a fight, but it turned out to be much worse. A group of sailors from a merchantman that had docked that morning had come seeking lodging after spending the afternoon and evening in the pubs. From the tone of Phelps’s voice, which Ginny could hear clearly through the walls, the boardinghouse owner disliked being awakened but was willing to put up with the inconvenience to collect additional rent. The voices soon subsided to a murmur. Then Ginny heard the clump of many feet upon the stairs.
The door of her room swung open and she saw Phelps standing there, candle in hand, a faceless, shadowy throng on the dark landing behind him.
“Make room, Ginny,” Phelps ordered. “I’ve got more lodgers, and no place else for them. Seafaring men in need of a berth, as the mariners say. You won’t mind a little company.”
One of the sailors, a rangy man with a bushy black beard, stepped past Phelps into the room. His eyes studied Ginny in the feeble candlelight and he leered. A strong scent of rum emanated from him.
“I won’t mind this kind of company,” he said, chuckling, “and neither will me shipmates. Aye, laddies?”
The question was greeted by hoots and crude remarks. The other men jostled forward to get a look at Ginny, their eyes gleaming with lust. One of them grinned at her, displaying a scattering of rotten teeth, and tugged suggestively at his belt buckle.
“Get up,” Ginny told Lizzie. “We’re leaving.”
“Do we have to?” Jonathan pleaded.
“Yes.” Ginny’s own experience led her to expect the worst; Jonathan’s father had been a sailor. She counted seven men, some of them holding bottles, and she had no intention of allowing them to celebrate their return to port with her, and probably Lizzie, as part of the festivities. Lizzie, eyes wide with fear, had the satchel packed in an instant. Ginny gathered Jonathan into her arms and pushed past the mob of sailors, twisting her body to evade groping hands. Lizzie stuck close to her, clutching Ginny’s skirt. Phelps followed her downstairs.
“We’ll take the garret,” Ginny said when he reached the ground floor.
“Garret’s full up. Share or go,” he said bluntly.
“Then we’ll go. And I’ll have the two shillings you owe me.”
“One shilling,” Phelps declared. “You gave me three, one for last night, one for tonight, one for tomorrow. You’ve had the room part of the night.”
Ginny knew that arguing with him would be senseless. Away from the sailors, Phelps gave off his own alcoholic stench, and if challenged he might send Ginny off with a blackened eye in place of the shilling. She held out her hand and he dropped a silver coin into her palm. With Jonathan in her arms and Lizzie in tow, Ginny headed out into the cold night. Lizzie guided them to her shelter under the loading dock, only to find it occupied by a group of boys.
Resuming their wanderings, the little group eventually settled in an empty wagon with a broken wheel that had been left in an alley. The space underneath the vehicle would have provided decent shelter, but Ginny saw that the old cobblestone pavement was rough, and half covered by puddles from the day’s rain. She placed Jonathan in the open cart, hoisted Lizzie in, and clambered up after them. The wagon’s low sides gave them little protection from the cold night, and the boards were damp, so they huddled together under the blanket. At least, Ginny thought, the wagon driver had propped the axle with timbers, so the surface was level.
About midnight the wind picked up and the temperature plunged further. Strong gusts sliced through the alley, bringing a scattering of snowflakes and whipping the blanket about them. Jonathan, bundled in the extra clothing, slept beside Lizzie, who tossed frequently in fitful slumber. Both children were occasionally jarred awake when the wind tumbled over objects unseen in the dark. Now and again a scrawny dog ambled by, sometimes stopping to sniff at the wagon’s occupants before continuing its aimless travels.
Ginny knew that they were in trouble. Lizzie’s arms and legs ached from her day’s exertions, and a night in a cold wagon would not make them any better. They had only a shilling and sixpence, and the work Ginny could find was barely enough to feed the children, let alone cover the cost of shelter. The dim prospect of help loomed on the far horizon, like a distant, flickering lantern, in the person of Dr. Cratchit. Ginny didn’t want charity, just a chance to earn enough to care for her child. The doctor must know someone who needed a maid. She would take the lowest job if need be, and work as a scullery maid in a basement kitchen.
Maybe, Ginny thought, tomorrow she could find a reasonably safe place to leave Lizzie and Jonathan and go in search of Dr. Cratchit. She suddenly worried that he was likely angry at her for disappearing. Who knew what that nasty Mrs. Glastonbury and spineless vicar had told him about her departure from St. Luke’s? The other doctor, his partner, did not want her around, that much was clear. If she showed up at their offices he was liable to kick her to the curb. Was there any sense in troubling Dr. Cratchit further? Was it even fair, given all that he had done for them already? Her despair grew as the night wore on, the cold worsened, and these thoughts revolved endlessly in her mind.
Perhaps, she reflected, the old crone she had met a week ago was right, and it would be best if all three of them froze to death and went to heaven. Sometimes she did not believe that heaven existed, but even if it didn’t, could death be worse than this life?
Ginny shivered as a chill gust of wind blew over her. Her fingers were numb from the cold and her stomach ached from hunger. Would tomorrow be any better? No. Nothing had changed in the past year, except that Jonathan’s health had grown worse. He was all she had, and Dr. Cratchit could not help him. Her son would die, and she would be left alone. If she wanted to see what her future would look like, all she had to do was picture the crone. That would be her in a few years. What was the point of struggling through life, Ginny asked herself, when she had nothing more to look forward to than that? Better to go peacefully, let the cold take them. She closed her eyes, hoping that it was for the last time.
Krrrrt. Ginny started at the sound of a leather-soled shoe scraping on cobblestone. She raised her head slightly to listen. It was not the wind. Someone was approaching, walking slowly. A peeler, most likely. If he found them, he would roust them and they would probably wander the streets the rest of the night. Ginny quietly positioned herself at the front of the wagon, with her head behind the driver’s bench. That way, she hoped, she could keep an eye on the approaching stranger without being seen herself.
The sounds continued until the person reached the mouth of the alley. What, she wondered, if it was not a peeler? Plenty of people roamed London’s streets at night in search of mischief. If that was the stranger’s purpose, she was defenseless, and the
streets were empty—nobody around to come to her aid if she screamed. She would lose the satchel with the clothes, the blanket, her few coins. A gas lamp near the alley’s entrance feebly lit the area, and now it outlined the figure of a man. His posture indicated that he was looking in her direction. He held what appeared to be a club in his hand. Ginny tensed as he turned and strode, slowly but purposefully, in her direction.
The man stopped upon reaching the wagon. Despite the darkness, his face was visible, almost as if it had its own internal glow. Ginny heaved an immense sigh and relaxed. She recognized the same old man whom she had met a few days earlier, the one who had directed her to Dr. Cratchit’s office. He was holding a walking stick, not a club, and smiling.
“I’m so glad I found you, miss,” he said, his eyes bright, his voice soft and comforting. “I’m sorry to find you without shelter on such a cold night. Why haven’t you gone to Dr. Cratchit’s?”
“I’ve . . . I think I’ve troubled him enough.”
“Quite the contrary,” the stranger reassured her. “He’s quite worried about you and your son, and in fact he was out tonight, asking his friends to keep an eye out for you.”
“And have you been searching all night?” Ginny asked, amazed that an old man would roam the dangerous streets into the early morning hours.
