by Anne Gracie
She turned the corner and found the alley Daisy had described running behind the houses. It was narrow, gloomy and strewn with filth of all kinds, the cobbles slimy, the damp stench vile. Abby covered her nose and grimly picked her way along the lane. From time to time something squelched underfoot but she didn’t look down. Whatever she’d stepped in, she didn’t want to know. All that mattered was getting Jane out of that place.
She counted along the houses and came to the sixth, set behind a tall brick wall, the top of which was studded with shards of broken glass. A solid wooden gate was set into it, topped by a line of iron spikes.
The sinister row of spikes gleamed dully in the faint light. Ice slid slowly through her veins. With her dying breath Mama had made Abby promise to keep Jane safe, to keep them both safe. It hadn’t been easy—Jane’s beauty had always attracted attention, even when she was a little girl—but Abby had kept that promise.
Until now. Jane was imprisoned in a brothel. Abby raised a hand to her mouth and found it was shaking.
Her whole body was trembling.
How long had Jane been there? Abby tried to work it out, to recall what Jane had said in her last letter, but she couldn’t. Over and over, the question pounded through her mind: How had Jane come to be in a brothel?
Abby shoved the fruitless question aside. She had to think, to plan what to do to get Jane free. What if Daisy didn’t come? Abby would have no option but to fetch a constable.
Do that and for certain sure you’ll never see your sister again. Abby shivered. She was entirely dependent on the goodwill—and ability—of a girl she’d never seen till a few minutes ago.
If constables and magistrates couldn’t help, how could one small, crippled maidservant make a difference? And where was she?
The minutes crawled by.
Abby was almost ready to give up when she heard something on the other side of the gate. Her heart gave a leap of relief, then it occurred to her it could be anyone. She pressed back into the shadows and waited.
The gate cracked open an inch. “You still here, miss?” came a whisper.
“I’m here.”
The girl poked her head out. “I got no time to explain, miss, but come back here in an hour with a warm cloak and some shoes.”
“Shoes, but—”
“I was going to try and get your sister out now, but I can’t while Mort’s here. But he’s goin’ out again shortly.”
She turned to leave, but Abby grabbed her arm. “Why? Why would you do this for us? For Jane and me?” It was obviously dangerous. Why would this girl—a stranger—take such a risk? Was she expecting payment? Abby would gladly give all she had to save her sister, but she didn’t have much.
The girl shook her head. “’Cause it’s wrong, what Mort’s doing. It never used to be like this, stealing girls, keeping them locked up—” She broke off. “Look, I ain’t got time to explain, miss, not so’s you’d understand. You’ll just have to trust me. Just be back here in an hour with a warm cloak and some shoes.”
“Why?” Some kind of payment for services rendered?
“’Cause she hain’t got nothin’ to wear outside, of course.” She jerked her chin at the filth in the alley. “You want her to walk through that in her bare feet? Now I gotta go.” And with that the girl was gone, the gate shut behind her. Abby heard a bolt slide into place.
Numbly, Abby found her way back to the Masons’ house.
An hour.
A lot could happen in an hour.
* * *
“What time do you call this?”
Abby, her foot on the first stair, turned back. Mr. Mason stood in the hall entry, fob watch in hand, glowering. “You’re late!”
“I know, and I’m sorry, Mr. Mason, but I only just learned that—”
“I shall have to deduct the full day from your wages, of course.” He puffed his chest up like a particularly pleased toad.
“It was a family emergency—”
He snorted. “You have no family.”
“I do, I have a sister, and she has come to London unexpectedly and—”
“No excuses, you know the rules.”
“It’s not an excuse. It’s true, and I’m hoping . . . I was wondering . . .” She swallowed, belatedly realizing she should not have argued with him.
“What were you wondering, Miss Chantry?” Mrs. Mason swept down the staircase, dressed in a sumptuous puce silk dress, a feathered headdress and a cloak edged with fur. “Have you forgotten, Mr. Mason, we are to attend the opera this evening? I do not wish to be late.”
“It’s fashionable to be late,” her husband responded.
“I realize that, my dear.” Mrs. Mason’s voice grated with sugarcoated irritation. “But we are going to be more than fashionably late—you don’t even have your coat on.”
The butler arrived in the hallway, heard the remark and went to fetch Mr. Mason’s coat.
Mrs. Mason pulled on one long kid evening glove and glanced at Abby. “Well, what is it, Miss Chantry?”
Abby took a deep breath. The Masons were very strict about visitors of any kind. Abby was allowed none. “My younger sister is in London, ma’am, and I was wondering if she could stay with me, just for the night—”
The woman’s well-plucked eyebrows rose. “Here? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not. Now come along, Mr. Mason—”
“But I haven’t seen her for years. She’s just left the orphanage and she’s not quite eighteen. I can’t let her stay in London on her own.”
“That’s not our concern.” Mrs. Mason frowned into the looking glass and adjusted her headdress. “A stranger, sleeping in the same house as my precious babies?” She snorted.
“She’s not a stranger; she’s my sister.”
“It’s out of the question.” Mr. Mason allowed the butler to help him into his coat. “Blake, is the carriage here?”
The butler opened the door and peered outside. “It’s just turning out of the mews, sir.”
“And this is your last word?” Abby asked.
Mrs. Mason turned on her. “Why are you still loitering about? You heard my husband; the answer is no! Now get upstairs and attend to the children.”
There was no point in arguing, so Abby went upstairs. She had no intention of obeying anyway.
She checked on the children, as she did every night. They were all fast asleep, looking like little angels, which they absolutely were not. The two older ones were full of mischief. Abby didn’t care. She loved them anyway.
Susan, the toddler, was sleeping on her front with her bottom poking up as usual. Such a little darling. Abby gently turned her on her side and the little girl snuggled down, smiling to herself, still fast asleep. Abby tucked the covers around her.
These children were the joy and also the agony of her job. Abby loved them as if they were her own. She couldn’t help herself—she knew it was foolish, and that one day they’d break her heart. She knew they’d be taken away from her, or she’d be sent away from them as if they’d outgrown her like a pair of old shoes.
It was heartbreak waiting to happen, loving other people’s children.
She’d learned that hard lesson from the Taylors, her first position. Two years she’d been with them, loving the little ones with all her hungry heart. Not thinking ahead. Never even considering that one day she’d be dismissed and never see the children again.
They lived in Jamaica now.
She would lose the Mason children now too, but she would not—could not—leave her sister alone in a London hotel—not after what she’d been through. Even if she hadn’t, if Jane had arrived in London unexpectedly, as she’d told the Masons, they had six years to catch up on; Jane had been a child of twelve when Abby saw her last.
Jane.
She bent and kissed each sleeping child and hurried out to coll
ect the cloak and shoes for her sister, adding a shawl to the bundle, just in case.
* * *
Gaslight had not yet reached the more sordid parts of the city. In the evening gloom the alleyway seemed more noisome and full of sinister shadows. Abby trod warily, counting the houses until she reached the high brick wall with the spiked wooden gate.
She stationed herself opposite the gate and waited, watching the windows like a hawk, noting every passing flicker of light, every shadow of movement. Was that Jane? Was that?
The time passed slowly. A distant clock chimed the hour. It was taking much longer than she’d expected. Had something gone wrong?
Something ran over her foot, a flicker of tiny damp claws and a slithery tail. She jumped, stifling a scream. She loathed rats.
She was concentrating so hard on the windows above that the scrape of the bolt on the gate opposite took her unawares and she jumped in fright.
The gate creaked open. A head peered out. “Abby?” A low whisper.
“Jane?”
A pale wraithlike shape slipped through the gap and then her sister was in her arms, clinging tightly, trembling, weeping and laughing. “Abby, oh, Abby!”
“Janey!” Tears blurred Abby’s vision as she hugged her little sister. Not so little anymore, she realized. Jane was as tall as Abby now. She hugged her tighter. “Jane, dearest! Are you all right? How did you come to be in London? I thought Hereford—”
A hard little finger poked her in the ribs. “Oy! We’re not out of danger yet, y’know. Escape now, happy reunion later!” It was Daisy. “Now quick, where’s them shoes?”
“Of course.” Abby released Jane and as she stepped back her jaw dropped. Her sister was naked but for a thin chemise. “Good God, Jane, where are your clothes?” She pulled the cloak out and threw it around her shivering sister.
“It’s to stop us leaving,” Jane said between chattering teeth. “We can’t go into the streets dressed like this.”
Abby crouched to slip the shoes on Jane’s cold feet, which were filthy from the alley. She wiped them clean as best she could with a handkerchief, her hands shaking with rage and distress. For her sister to be kept in such an indecent state, without even clothes to keep her covered! And in such cold weather!
“Put this on as well.” She passed the shawl to Jane.
“No, Damaris can use it.”
“Damaris?” Abby glanced up and saw another girl hovering uncertainly outside the gate, shivering, her arms wrapped around herself. She too was scantily clothed, but unlike Jane, this girl looked exactly like a woman out of a brothel.
She wore a thin red-and-gold gauzy wrapper that barely reached past her thighs. Her dark hair was piled high, spiked into place with two sticks. Her face—clearly painted—was a dead white oval. Her lips and cheeks were garishly rouged, her eyelids had been darkened and the line of her eyes was elongated at the corners.
“Damaris is my friend.” Jane took Abby’s shawl and tucked it around the shivering girl. “She’s coming with us.”
Abby frowned. Take this painted brothel creature with them?
Jane saw Abby’s hesitation and put a protective arm around the other girl’s shoulders. “She has to come with us, Abby. She saved me. I owe her everything.”
“Come with us? But . . .” It was going to be difficult enough to smuggle Jane into the Mason residence, let alone this . . . this person.
“Damaris is the only reason I wasn’t raped,” Jane said urgently. “She has to come with us, Abby!”
Shocked, Abby stared at the garishly painted girl. The only reason Jane wasn’t raped? Suddenly she didn’t care what Damaris looked like, how much paint she wore, how scandalous her clothing was, what her past was. Whatever she’d done before this moment, she’d saved Jane from rape.
Daisy shifted restlessly. “Goin’ to stand around all night talkin’?”
It jolted Abby to her senses. “No, of course not. Here, Damaris.” She unfastened her own cloak and wrapped the shivering girl in it. She tugged the hood up to conceal her face and hair.
Abby glanced down at Damaris’s narrow feet, pale against the dark mud of the alley. “I don’t have another pair of shoes, but here.” She passed Damaris her mittens. “Put them on your feet. It’s the best I can do.”
“Thank you,” Damaris said in a soft voice. “I don’t mean to be a burden.”
The girl’s gratitude made Abby ashamed of her earlier hesitation. “You’re not a burden,” she lied. “You helped my sister and for that I owe you. Besides, I wouldn’t want anyone to return to that horrid place.” They would manage. Somehow.
She turned to Daisy. “I cannot thank you enough for what you’ve done. I have a little money. It’s not much, but . . .” She proffered a small purse.
“I don’t want your money!” Daisy stepped back, offended.
“But you risked so much—”
“I didn’t do it for money. Anyway, I got me own money. Now, are you lot goin’ or not?”
Abby stepped forward and hugged her. “Thank you, Daisy.” Jane and Damaris hugged and thanked Daisy too; then, with whispered good-byes, they hurried down the alley.
Almost immediately Abby heard footsteps behind them. Had they been discovered? She whirled around. It was Daisy, carrying a small bundle.
“Are they Jane’s belongings?”
Daisy clutched the bundle tightly against her chest. “No, it’s me own bits. I’m getting out too.”
“You?” Abby exclaimed. “But why?”
“Mort’ll flay me alive when he finds out what I did.” She must have noticed Abby’s hastily concealed dismay, because she added proudly, “Don’t worry about me, miss; I can look after meself. Now hurry! They’ll be out lookin’ for them girls any minute now. Valuable property, they are.”
Slip-sliding as fast as they could down the alley, the girls broke into a run as soon as they reached the street. They turned down the first corner, ran several blocks, turned another corner and kept running. When they had no more breath, they collapsed, panting, against some railings bordering a quiet garden.
A minute passed . . . two . . . The only sound was their labored breathing. They watched the way they’d come, ready to flee at the first sign of any movement.
But no one came. Nobody was following them. They’d escaped.
“Right, I’ll be off then,” Daisy said gruffly when they’d caught their breath. “Good luck to you.”
But Abby couldn’t let her go like that. “Where will you go? Do you have family in London?”
“Nah, I’m a foundling.” She shrugged. “But don’t worry; I’ll find somewhere.” She went to push past them but Abby caught her by the sleeve.
“It’s my fault you’re in this situation—”
“Nah, I was going to leave anyway.” Daisy pulled her arm out of Abby’s grip.
“Abby!” Jane turned pleading eyes on her sister, but Abby didn’t need any prompting. If she could take a painted prostitute under her wing, she certainly wasn’t going to let this small heroine stump gallantly off into the night, alone and friendless. And bruised.
She took Daisy’s hand in a firm grip. “You’re coming with us, Daisy, for tonight, at least. No, don’t argue. After all you’ve done for us there’s no way in the world I’m going to let you wander off in the dark with nowhere to go. Now come along; let’s get Jane and Damaris into the warmth.”
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