by Anna Elliott
More importantly, she looks both intelligent and spirited.
“Who are you?” she asks in a small, tear-clogged voice.
She’s not just putting on an act of penitence, hoping to avoid punishment; she really is sorry for the trouble she caused.
I open my mouth. I don’t want to lie, but I am also not sure how to answer her.
“She’s a friend,” Constable Kelly says. “She’s had some trouble, so she’s coming to stay with us for tonight.”
“Oh.” Becky gives me another serious inspection. “Do you like music?”
Do I? “I’m not sure.”
“I do.”
In the background, Reg finally manages to stop wheezing for air and heaves himself to his feet. He gives Constable Kelly a brief, lowering glance—but apparently decides that he would rather be able to walk in the morning, because he reverses direction and trundles away towards the tavern’s swinging double doors as fast as his bulk will allow.
“Do you think he’s going to give us trouble?” Becky asks her brother.
“I don’t know.” Constable Kelly rubs his forehead and then looks down at her. “But I’m a police officer, Beck. I can’t be punching citizens just because my little sister has annoyed them.”
“I know.” Becky’s shoulders droop.
“Do you?” I can tell from John Kelly’s expression that he doesn’t want to make her feel any worse. His hand twitches as though he’s on the verge of patting her shoulder again and telling her that everything is all right.
But instead he crouches down so that his eyes are on a level with the girl’s. “Then maybe next time you can remember it before you go sneaking out on your own after dark and getting into some hare-brained scheme. What happens if I lose my job?”
“We can’t pay Mr. Ludwell.” Becky’s voice is so small I can barely hear it. “We won’t have anyplace to live.”
Her head snaps up and she looks at him in sudden panic. “You’re not going to leave me, are you? Or send me to a workhouse?”
“Don’t talk crazy. Who said anything about a workhouse?” Constable Kelly pulls her into a hug. “We’re family, you and me.” His voice is steady, firm and reassuring. “And I promised you I’d look after you, didn’t I? When have you ever heard me make a promise I didn’t mean to keep?”
“Never.” Becky sniffs, but looks mildly comforted.
“All right then.” Constable Kelly ruffles her blond braids and stands up. “Let’s get on home. We’ll have to put some extra water in the soup on account of our guest here.”
He nods to me, and Becky giggles.
Something aching and hollow seems to open up inside me as I watch the two of them—the complete, trusting adoration in Becky’s small face as she looks up at her older brother. The way he keeps one hand protectively on her shoulder.
The feeling isn’t a memory, nothing as definite as that. More just a feeling that once upon a time I was Becky’s age—and I would have given absolutely anything in the world to hear someone say those words to me: we’re family.
“Buy a flower, miss?”
I look round with a start to see that an elderly flower vendor has sidled up to me while I was absorbed in watching Becky and her brother.
The old woman has to be one of the ugliest I’ve ever seen—hook-nosed, stoop-shouldered, and with a mouthful of rotting teeth. She has a wart the size of a ha’pence on her chin—and her straggling gray hair looks as though it’s been cut with hedge clippers.
She also doesn’t appear to be having much luck in selling her wares tonight: the tray of wilted bunches of violets she’s carrying is completely packed full.
“Flower, miss?” she asks again. She shakes the tray of nosegays fiercely in my face. “Come along, help a fellow creature in need.”
The gust of gin on her breath is strong enough that I feel I ought to be growing tipsy just breathing in the same vicinity.
“No thank you.” I do my best not to recoil. “I’m sorry, I haven’t any mon—”
“You, then.” Without even waiting for me to finish, the old woman transfers her attentions to Constable Kelly. “Come along, young sir. Buy a flower for your sweetheart here.”
The flower vendor staggers over to him, attempting a drunken wink as she taps the side of her nose and lowers her voice to a hoarse whisper. “Maybe she’ll thank you with a kiss.”
The look of mingled embarrassment and consternation on Constable Kelly’s face is enough to make me bite my lip. I trample my urge to laugh. After the day I have spent—and now the altercation with Reg—this is just too much.
“She’s not my sweetheart.”
“Oh, come now.” The flower vendor waggles her head at him. “A pretty girl like her? Buy her a flower, and maybe she could be.”
As the old woman brandishes her tray of wares at Constable Kelly, I suddenly stiffen, staring at her.
I’ve seen the old flower vendor before. The impression is so overwhelming that I miss whatever Constable Kelly says in reply.
I know I have seen the elderly woman somewhere before.
But that is surely absurd. And even if it is true, how can it possibly matter? Maybe I ran across the old woman elsewhere in London. But it’s not as though she’s likely to have names and addresses for everyone to whom she has ever tried to sell her sorry-looking bouquets.
“Look.” I can hear the striving for patience in Constable Kelly’s tone. “I’ll take one bunch for my sister here.” He nods to Becky. “As for the lady—” he glances up at me with an odd expression, followed by a quirk of a wry smile. “I’ll leave it up to her. Here’s a loan.”
Before I realize what he’s doing, he hands me a penny coin. “She can decide whether she wants to buy her own flowers or not.”
The old woman seems to be satisfied with that arrangement. She hands one bunch of flowers over to Becky, then turns expectantly to me.
“I really don’t need flowers.” I hand her the coin. “But see if you can find a bed somewhere for tonight. It’s going to be dreadfully cold.”
Now that the night has fully fallen, the raw chill in the air is turning bitter.
“Hmmph.” The old woman takes the penny—but then she looks from me to Constable Kelly, seeming reluctant to leave.
Where have I seen her before? Where?
I lean forward a little, trying to search her face beneath the curtain of shaggy gray hair.
But before I can even recapture the feeling of familiarity, the old woman turns abruptly away and with a final hmmph, stamps away up the street.
Constable Kelly lets out what sounds like a breath of relief. “And now that that’s all taken care of, let’s go home.”
13. THE HOUND—AND THE HOME—OF THE KELLYS
Constable Kelly and Becky live in the next street over—which is marginally less bleak and depressing than the rest of what I have seen so far in Saint Giles.
“This is us.” Constable Kelly points towards the corner house in a group of buildings set around a central paved square with a pump in the middle.
This is much better than the rest of Saint Giles, if they actually have shared running water.
Constable Kelly opens the door to a set of rooms on the ground floor of the building—and we are instantly greeted by a huge, tawny brown, frantically baying and barking dog. The term mastiff springs to my mind, though I’m not sure from where.
The dog is not attacking—as is my first panicked thought. The barks and howls are merely evidence of the huge animal’s ecstasy on our arrival.
With the ease of long practice, the constable catches the dog before it can plow one of us over with its leaps.
“And this,” he says, raising his voice to be heard over the cacophony, “is the last member of the family. Prince.”
Prince finally settles—though he snuffles at me inquisitively as we make our way inside.
“He’s our watch dog,” Becky puts in, beside me. “Jack got him for me for when he’s on duty. So that I won
’t be on my own.”
I can well believe that even the most hardened criminal would think twice about breaking into a house containing the huge mastiff.
His tongue is lolling out in a doggy grin at the moment. But the teeth in his mouth are the size of my littlest finger.
The Kellys’ lodgings are small—just two rooms—and sparsely furnished, but very neat and clean. There’s an outer room that seems to serve as both a parlor, dining room, and kitchen combined. It’s probably Constable Kelly’s bedroom, as well, to judge by the blanket I can see folded on the arm of the well-worn sofa.
A pot of something bubbles over the fire in the hearth.
“Becky can show you where you can wash, if you like,” Constable Kelly says.
Becky seems to have been struck by a sudden fit of shyness. Her eyes are huge as she studies me—but she doesn’t say a word as she opens a door and shows me to the inner chamber.
“Is this your room?” I ask her.
A narrow wooden bed, a washstand, and a rickety wooden chair are the room’s only furniture—but the walls are papered with dozens of scraps cut from sales circulars and advertisements: flowers, ladies in extravagant hats, butterflies … plainly anything that Becky found pretty has been snipped out and used for decoration.
She ducks her head and then hurries out, closing the door behind her.
There’s a jug of water in the washstand. I rinse my hands and face, and then glance quickly in the small, cracked mirror.
At least this time my own features and the wide green eyes staring back at me are familiar.
There are no cosmetics here for me to pilfer, so I merely check to be sure that my hair is tidy and go back to rejoin Constable Kelly and his sister in the outer room.
Prince has ceased barking and taken up an observatory post by the fire. And Constable Kelly and Becky are talking quietly.
“All right,” I hear Constable Kelly say. “So, tell me what you were thinking, trying to sneak in to play the piano in a public house.”
Judging by the expression on Becky’s face, she was very much hoping that her brother might have forgotten the subject.
But she sighs, digging in the pocket of her tattered jacket. “I got it from the sheet-music vendor’s cart in the market,” she says in a small voice. “He let me have it for half price because it was torn, see?”
She holds up a grubby piece of paper on which are printed the lines of the treble and bass clefs.
“A bargain.” Constable Kelly’s voice is torn between exasperation and something like amusement.
“I just wanted to hear what the tune sounded like,” Becky adds.
“May I see it?” I ask.
Both brother and sister look at me, startled. I’ve startled myself with the request—which seemed to come out of my lips completely on its own.
Becky passes the paper over to me. Which is lucky, because my fingers twitch with the strangest urge to snatch it straight out of her hands.
I can’t explain or understand that, but something about the lines and the printed notes on the page seems to almost call to me.
I glance over the sheet of music. I don’t think the words and notes are familiar. And yet I can feel my lips start to move.
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
My voice rings out, clear and true and soaring on the melody.
I do not know how I’m singing the music on the page. It just seems to happen by instinct—the same instinct that led me to defend myself from Frances Ferrars and the elderly man.
But this is so, so much better, because it feels right. I feel right.
For the first time since I regained consciousness this morning, I feel as though I am doing exactly what I want to be doing—exactly as I am meant to be doing. The music just seems to flow from me, as effortlessly as breathing.
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
I finish the song and then stop—realizing abruptly that both the Kellys are staring at me. They may look nothing alike, but right now their mouths are both dropped open in identical expressions of astonishment.
Even Prince is sitting up in his place, staring at me with his ears pricked up and his head on one side.
“It goes something like that.” Suddenly self-conscious, I hand the sheet of paper back to Becky.
“Well. I think that answers the question of whether or not you like music.”
14. A BUMP IN THE NIGHT
“Her mother taught her to play the piano a little,” Constable Kelly says.
He keeps his voice low, so as not to wake Becky—who is now asleep in the inner room.
She held out as long as possible after our dinner of stew. But she finally fell asleep with her head resting on the arm of the couch, and a short while ago Constable Kelly carried her in to her own bed.
“Her mother?”
What I really want to ask is whether that lady was Constable Kelly’s mother, too. I am dying to know more about the brother’s and sister’s respective stories.
But I cannot think of a way to phrase the question without seeming either abominably curious or simply rude.
Constable Kelly shrugs and does not answer directly. He has taken off his blue uniform tunic and is in his trousers and a plain white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
He’s sitting on the room’s only chair, watching the leaping flames of the fire.
I’m perched on the couch. I should be exhausted after the day I’ve had, but somehow instead I feel wide awake.
“It’s not much fun for her, being on her own when I have to be on duty,” Constable Kelly goes on. “I try to angle for patrolling at night whenever I can, but it doesn’t always work out.”
“You don’t know anyone who could look after her for you?”
Constable Kelly gives me a sidelong look. “Yeah, my old mates from the Sloggers are just lining up at the door, hoping for work as a nanny.”
I can see his difficulty. Since he’s the one who brought it up, I ask, “The Sloggers?”
“It’s a street gang in Cheapside. I used to run with them, just like Reg said. Lucky for me, I was never arrested, or I’d have had a lot harder time getting work on the Force.”
It is almost impossible for me to imagine what that transition must have been like. “Why the police force?”
Constable Kelly raises one shoulder. “It paid enough to feed both me and Becky and keep a roof over our heads. And it seemed like it would give me at least halfway decent odds of staying alive long enough to see her grow up. Cheapside Sloggers mostly wind up dead or in jail—or both.”
He rubs his forehead. “Of course, maybe Becky’s the one I should be worrying about keeping alive.”
I smile slightly. “I don’t know. I used to dress up as a boy and sneak out to fight clubs when I wasn’t much older than she is. And I lived to tell about it.”
Constable Kelly’s head snaps up and he stares at me. I stare back, suddenly realizing what I have just said.
“How did I know that?”
“Do you remember it, then?”
I shake my head in frustration. “No. I mean, I think I did a second ago—but now I’m just … remembering that I remembered it. I can’t remember actually being there. Except—”
Fight clubs. I suppose that would explain a great deal about my survival skills.
I draw my feet up under the hem of my gown, hugging my knees.
“Except that I have a … a kind of feeling that I was on my own a lot of the time. I didn’t have any family or any home to go to. I knew I couldn’t depend on anyone else to keep me safe. So, I had to learn to take care of myself.”
A little of the hollow, lonely feeling puddles around my heart, and I add, “Not that you need me to say it, but Becky is lucky to have you.”
Constable Kelly is quiet for a second, still looking into the fire. Then he says, “She’s only lived with me for a b
it under two years. Since her mother died. Well, she was my mother, too. Not that I called her that. I never knew who my father was. And when I was six or seven she took up with a new man who didn’t want me hanging around. So, she kicked me out onto the streets and left with him to go up to Liverpool.”
“She just left you?” I stare, incredulous.
Constable Kelly shrugs. “She was just a kid herself. Only fourteen when she had me. And I could walk out of that door and find a dozen, girls and boys both, who’d make me look like one of the lucky ones. I knocked around, but I survived.”
No wonder he fell in with a gang. To a scared seven-year-old living alone on the street, it would have meant family of a sort—or at the least protection.
“And Becky?” I ask.
Constable Kelly glances at me. “Three years ago, my mother turned up again, out of a blue sky—with Becky in tow. Seems her new husband had been arrested. He’d owned a tavern—but he’d been found to be selling smuggled liquor, so he was thrown in jail and had all his property seized. All she and Becky had were the clothes they stood up in. Their money’d run out, and they’d had to beg and hitch rides all the way back from Liverpool.”
He stops, his eyes shadowed with the memory. “I gave her some money—enough to rent them a room in a lodgings house and feed them for awhile. But she was sick—dying of consumption. She begged me before she died to look after Becky.”
“And you did as she asked?” I can’t help but be amazed that he would care about his mother’s dying wishes, after she abandoned him without so much as a backward glance.
But Constable Kelly only shrugs again. “It’s not like any of the whole mess was Becky’s fault. And I wasn’t going to let her be carted off to the workhouse or put in some children’s home.”
No, of course he wouldn’t. I don’t know Constable John Kelly well—but I am sure that he wouldn’t throw his half-sister unto the cruel mercies of the world.
