“You’re wrong!” the woman jeered. “We’re the ones who will be paid. And with notes of the realm! That’s what!”
Betsy drank a dipperful of the water and then used a little of it to wash. She was determined to keep herself in as good a condition as possible since this might build up her spirits. After that she sat thinking about her plight for a long while and wondered how long before the man with the ransom demand might return with some answer from her parents. Not too long. Perhaps by the end of another day.
Would these villains release her even if the ransom money were paid? She very much doubted it. They would find some way to be rid of her, if they didn’t kill her, perhaps ship her over to a brothel in France. She had heard of such cases. It was not pleasant to think about.
Would Felix Black decide she had turned down his plea for assistance in his strange project and go ahead without her? Was the spy master mad, his mind finally turned by the strain of the years battling Napoleon? Or had he really fallen on to some important facts? It wasn’t likely she’d ever know, not with all the odds against her of escaping frrom this place.
She fumbled in her pocket and found some coins. She counted them out, and it amounted to only a few bob. Hardly enough to bribe anyone. No wonder the fat Jim had not taken the coins from her.
Outside she heard Toby barking furiously and knew that he was probably being fed. Only when the fat man whipped him did he snarl and howl. It would be Gimpy tending to him.
A little later her door was unlocked, and Gimpy came in with a plate of food for her. He put it down, “Better eat it, miss. It’s good enough, and you need your strength.”
“Thank you, Gimpy,” she said. “I’ll try. You’re kind.”
He had put aside his crutch and was sitting, gazing at her as she ate. He said, “You’re a proper pretty gal!”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
“I’d let you go free if I had the say.”
“Then I wish you had the say,” she told him. “Where is this place?”
“Whitechapel,” he said.
“Tell me about the dog fighting.”
“You’ll be hearing them at it tonight,” he promised. “Old Toby has to fight again tonight. Hannah taught him herself, put him in the ring with a gummer first.”
“A gummer?”
The boy nodded solemnly. “A gummer is an old dog who has fought a long time and has lost his eye teeth through age or had them pulled out. He fights with the dog in training, and the new dog learns from him the moves and how to protect himself.”
“Then what?”
“Toby was put in with some mongrels who’d been toned up to fight. But before they were put in the ring with him, they had the parts most easy to attack shaved. That way Toby learned to go after them in those places. Once Toby fought a few of those curs and tasted their blood, he was made. Ready to fight like a champion!”
“Terribly brutal!” she said, shuddering.
“There’s much that’s brutal and little to do about it,” the boy said. He picked up his crutch and prepared to go.
All the time he’d been telling her about the training of Toby, she’d been doing some quick thinking. Now before he could leave her, she said, “Gimpy, one minute.”
“Yes,” he stood, leaning on his crutch, his thin face pathetically wistful.
“If you had one wish you’d like to fill, what might it be?”
Gimpy looked behind him furtively and then leaned forward to her. “It’s the gin! I miss it fearful, and they won’t give any of it to me!”
“Why?”
“They don’t trust me to drink!”
“I trust you, Gimpy.”
“Thank you, miss.”
She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out the coins and held them out to him. “Is that enough to get you some gin?”
His eyes opened wide. “Crikey! That will get me a bottle or two!”
“Then make your dream come true,” she told him. “Take the money and bring the gin here and hide it. I won’t tell on you, and you can drink it while you’re here watching me.”
He reached out and clawed for the coins and thrust them in his pocket. His thin face was glowing with anticipation. He said, “You won’t regret this, miss. I promise you that!”
She nodded. “I want you to enjoy yourself, Gimpy.” She knew she was doing wrong, but she steeled herself to it. If she were to survive, she had to learn to play the game.
Night came! She knew it only because Hannah told her when she came with another bucket of water. She sat alone in the dark, and a new ordeal began. She first heard the rumble of male voices growing louder in the adjoining cellar where the dog fights were held. Then came the fury of the fight itself and the snarling and howling of the battling animals as they fought for their lives.
Again she covered her ears, but she could not blank out all the sounds. The last pitiful howl of the dog that met its end in the ring came to her with heartrending clarity. There was a rumble of voices again and then silence as the crowd dispersed.
She was sitting thinking about attempting sleep when the door was furtively opened. She started and uttered a gasp of fear.
“It’s only me. Gimpy!” came a whisper.
“Oh!” she said. “The fight is over.”
“Yes. Toby won again. But it was close. The other dog near tore his eye out!”
“Don’t talk about it!”
“I came by to hide it here,” the lad whispered, limping over to her. “I want you to keep it for me.”
“All right,” she said. “But it will be bad for me if they find out.”
“They won’t,” he said. “I’ll come by when I bring your food around noon time. I’ll stay awhile and have some of it then while I’m waiting for your empty plate.”
“Very well,” she said. And she took the gin bottles, and he went limping out and locked the door behind him.
Betsy hid the bottles in a far corner, placing them on their sides and brushing some debris over them. Then she tried to sleep, her mind disturbed by the events of the evening and the frantic knowledge that if she were to escape, it must be soon.
Her first visitor the next morning was the fat man. He was sober and in a bad mood. He said, “What a pretty vixen you have turned out to be!”
“Why do you say that?” she asked, playing along to find out as much as she could of what was happening outside.
“You all but killed that old blister of a Dakin,” the fat man said angrily. “Still not able to talk! His doctors don’t know whether he’ll live or not!”
“Do you expect me to feel sorry?”
“You may have reason to,” he snapped angrily. “Your precious mother is in hysterics, and your blundering stepfather cannot raise five thousand pounds! The only one who can pay up is Dakin, and no one can consult him about it.”
“I doubt very much if he’d pay now anyway,” she said dryly.
“We’ve given your parents an ultimatum,” Jim warned her. “Either they find the money from some other source, or they will never see or hear from you again!”
She said, “Will they, even if they pay up?”
A nasty smile crossed the fat man’s face. He said, “That is something to be decided after the money comes in.”
“And I think I know how it will be decided,” she said.
He nodded his approval. “You’re beginning to think more sharply. Pity you didn’t get on to it earlier.”
“Yes,” she said. “I might have been better able to deal with a certain man of the cloth!”
He made no answer but went out and locked the door. The future suddenly looked bleaker than ever. She knew the state of her family’s finances, and she was almost certain they could not raise the ransom money. Lord Dakin was apparently still in a critical state. The ransom would not be paid. Jim, in his rage, would invent some especially evil punishment for her.
The morning dragged by, interrupted only once when she suspected that the fat man came
by to torment and whip the dog Toby. She heard the animal snarling and howling along with the hoarse laughter of the drunken ex-parson. It made her feel ill.
Promptly at noon Gimpy appeared with her food. As soon as he set the plate down, he asked, “Where is it?”
She indicated the corner. “Over there!”
He limped over and came back with a bottle. Putting his crutch aside, he struggled with his thin hands shaking to open the bottle. When he’d managed, he held it up to his mouth and gulped down the strong watery liquid until he choked and it ran down his chin. He put down the bottle and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand and blinked his eyes.
“Months since I had a drop,” he told her in a hoarse whisper.
“Is it good gin?” she asked, feeling guilty.
He winked at her. “Good enough,” he said. And he drank from the bottle again.
“Aren’t you taking too much?” she worried.
“Mother’s milk!” he said. “I can handle it!”
“Save some for tomorrow!”
He nodded to the corner. “There’s still the other bottle.”
“You’re so small,” she said. “Won’t it make you drunk?”
“I’m used to it,” Gimpy told her happily. “I never felt better. I’m floating on clouds!”
She begged him, “Be careful! We don’t want to let Hannah find you drunk!”
He had consumed a major part of the bottle and now his eyes were glazed, and in a slurred voice, he declared, “Hannah is an old blister! She cheats at cards!”
“I know,” she said. “Do give me the bottle. You’ve had enough. We must be careful!”
“God bless His Majesty!” Gimpy said drunkenly and lifted the bottle to his lips again. She was about to seize it and take it from him when the crippled boy suddenly went limp, let the bottle drop with its precious contents draining out onto the earthen floor, as he fell backward dead drunk!
Betsy stood up in alarm, staring at what she had wrought. She didn’t know what to do next. But the instinct for survival told her she must get away from the drunken lad and quickly. She went out to the big room where the dog fights were held. Then she heard Toby growl suspiciously in his cage. She summoned all her courage and went over by the cage fence. The dog glared at her with his angry red eyes, and she saw the torn flesh around one of them.
“Good boy!” she said in a low voice.
The big brown dog growled again and showed its great yellow teeth. She was carefully observing the cage and saw there was an entrance to it at one end and an exit to the ring at the other. Each of these was held in place by a heavy push bolt. To open the gate, one had only to draw the bolt and swing the gate outward. Very cautiously now she pulled back the bolt as an aroused Toby began to bark furiously at her!
She stood there trembling, holding the gate in place manually now that the bolt on it had been drawn. The door from the front opened and an angry Jim showed his fat self.
He shouted down, “Toby! You beast! Stop that row!”
And then she deliberately stood up from where she’d been crouching so that he might see her, still holding the gate in place. The fat man saw her and let out a cry of outrage!
“What are you doing there? Where is that little fool, Gimpy! I’ll kill that boy!” And he came unsteadily down into the big cellar. He had been drinking, and it showed in his awkward movements as he came after her.
She waited until he was almost upon her, his hands reaching out for her, and she played her trump card. She jumped back and swung the gate open. It took the ferocious Toby but a second to know there was nothing between him and his tormentor. With a great snarl he leaped straight at the fat man’s throat!
The ex-parson screamed in the manner of one who knows his death is at hand! He kept screaming as the great dog tore at his throat and worried him about. Betsy ran for the door leading upstairs.
The screaming grew weaker and the snarling continued as she reached the door only to be confronted by a white-faced Hannah! The big woman was about to tackle her when she saw what was happening down by the dog pit!
“God save us!” she screamed and ran down toward the now motionless man and the dog snarling over him.
Betsy did not wait to see what happened. She no longer cared. She pressed her way up the narrow stairs to the squalid house above. She raced through the house and out onto the street. There she nearly knocked over a startled fishmonger and his cart.
He cried, “All right now, miss. A little care, if you will!”
“I’m sorry,” she gasped “Where can I find a law officer?”
“Let me see,” the man said in wonderment. “I passed one about two blocks back that way!”
She didn’t even pause to thank him but ran through the slum streets, ignoring the stares of the battered and dirty-looking humans whom she hurried by. At last she saw a moustached street keeper, his trusty stick in hand — old, but with a face that showed he put up with no nonsense.
Gasping, she ran up to him and managed, “Save me! I’ve just escaped from being kidnapped. My name is Betsy Chapman, and I wish safe escort to my friend’s house at number Twenty Fetter Street.”
The man studied her with astonishment. “Come now, what is this all about, miss?”
“Please don’t ask questions,” she begged him. “Just take me to Mr. Felix Black at Twenty Fetter Street.”
The street man although clearly a veteran was not too bright. Hired for a pound or less a week to keep peace in alloted streets during the daylight hours, these were usually honest fellows but only marginally intelligent. He removed his cap and ran his fingers through his long, thinning gray hair.
“What’s this, now?” he wanted to know.
“I’m fleeing from kidnappers,” she gasped. “I must get away from here at once!”
He replaced his cap and stared at her. The uncanny appearance of this well-spoken frightened young woman was something he did not feel equal to cope with. He said, “Now if you wish to place a charge against someone, you must see a beadle.”
“I’ll be placing no charges,” she promised. “I only wish my freedom!”
“You’re free as day now, miss,” the old man said, totally confused.
She looked behind her apprehensively, expecting to see Hannah coming along the street in pursuit of her at any moment. She tried to make him understand. “It is dangerous for me here. I must get to my friend!”
Now a new voice from behind her joined in the one-sided exchange, a loud, booming voice demanding to know, “What is going on here?”
She swung around to find herself facing a loudly dressed man in a checkered brown jacket and light fawn trousers. He carried an ebony walking stick with a silver head. He used the walking stick to bar the street man from getting nearer her. He said with authority, “One moment, my man!”
Almost automatically Betsy poured her tale of woe out to him, ending with, “I’m afraid they may come after me again!”
The man so extravagantly dressed stared at her in wonderment. “It’s an amazing tale,” he declared. “It would go well on the boards even if it has no truth!”
“But it has!” she protested.
The man patted the street keeper on the back and told him, “I shall take this girl under my wing! Or perhaps one might say under my cloak!” He smiled at this since he was also wearing a short black cape.
The street keeper hesitated. “I want her seen to safety.”
“I shall do that,” the man in the extravagant outfit promised. “I’m George Frederick Kingston, member of the Covent Garden company, honored member of an honored profession; I am in short a well-known actor, and I shall take this girl to her friends at Fetter Street.”
The old street keeper looked relieved. “Very well, since you’ve identified yourself. But mind I shall hold you responsible for her welfare.”
“Depend on it,” the actor said with a flourish of his walking stick, and he took Betsy by the arm and led her away.
&
nbsp; She reluctantly went with him, worrying, “Can I trust you? No one seems quite what they appear to be in London!”
“Ha!” he said grandly. “That is the reason I have often been at the peak of my profession. My business is make-believe. I must always be somebody else and do it well. Yet in true life I’m a rather simple fellow!”
She was so bewildered by his sudden appearance and his flamboyance that she had taken small stock of him as an actual person. She saw now that he was a slim man of about forty with brown hair and long sideburns and a plain if pleasant face — the sort of face one saw again and again and hardly remembered.
She pleaded, “You will see me safely to Twenty Fetter Street?”
“I have given my word!” he said in his theatrical fashion. “The devil of it is that it happens to be on the other side of London and we shall require a carriage.” He gave her a questioning glance. “Can you supply me with the money to pay for a carriage?”
“No. Those villains took everything from me!” she said unhappily.
“Not everything, my dear,” he said loftily. “He who steals my purse steals trash and all the rest, if you follow me.” He paused and frowned as he searched the street for a carriage. “It so happens that I’m between engagements and so also have no funds!”
“You don’t need any,” she said. “My friend will gladly pay for my transport! We can collect it from him!”
George Frederick Kingston came to life again at once. He took her by the arm and moving more quickly headed for a wider and more busy thoroughfare where a carriage might be located. He said, “You shall be at the door of Twenty Fetter Street in a flash!”
They did not arrive there in a flash but soon enough. The carriage they located was somewhat decrepit and the horse ancient, but they made their way through the clogged traffic of the great city’s streets with all the speed which might be expected. Betsy sat beside the actor, weary and stunned, barely hearing his descriptions of the various sights which they passed along the way.
Fetter Street proved to be a cul-de-sac of modest two-story brick houses, and number Twenty was at the very end. She remained seated in the carriage while the actor went to the door of the house to inform Felix Black that Betsy Chapman had arrived and needed the money to pay for her carriage.
Vintage Love Page 5
