by Jan Needle
“Oh Mr Dennett, is there no end to men’s desire? My face is like I’d fallen off a horse and then he’d kicked me!”
“But I won’t be looking at your face. Quickly, girl, just pull your shift up and lie back. I will not be long.”
A tired jest rose in her mind but she did not express it. Dennett with his pocky face and dirty hands and filthy lust revolted her. She wondered why she bothered, but she did. If not him now, Wimbarton soon, or possibly no teeth and welcome lepers for a short, unhappy life. But she saw him there and bothered, horribly.
“No sir,” she said, incisively. Then tried to soften it. “Please, Mr Dennett, think of your own safety. It is breakfast time and everyone is abroad. The master warned you, I saw his look to kill. And Milady is watching like a hawk. Put it away, sir, before somebody enters.” Dennett had it in his hand and it was very eager, but he appreciated sense. He squeezed it, hard, as if to teach it manners, letting out a small, regretful noise.
“Hah, Deb,” he said. “You have a brain as well as beauty. I know you’re right but I would love to have you, just the once for old times’ sake. If you refuse me, and I take your teeth out, I might hurt you worse, you know.”
His small eyes glittered, despite the amicality she’d engendered, and she knew he might, that he was capable. Then they heard a noise on the stair outside, and he cursed, and pushed it out of sight, and she breathed a little breath out, of relief. It was Fiske, with bread and milk and cheese, and he eyed them curiously, but said little except to comment on the weather and tell the mountebank the master wished a word with him when he had eaten.
While Dennett was away for half an hour, Deb explored her dungeon with increasing gloom. Three small airing windows high enough for bats and owls but too high for her, nothing in the privy cupboard, rough walls of enormous thickness, a robust wooden door. There was a table big enough to lie her and missus on side by side if need be, and if the thing was to be done here she could not imagine how she might escape. Her only chance had been the master’s lust, when it came down to tacks. But the mistress, quite definitely, had worked that one out herself. And foreclosed on it.
Marcus Dennett, though, was very thoughtful on his return. Fiske closed the door on them and bolted it as usual, but the mountebank no longer looked on her with lustful eyes. He sat on a chair indifferently, so Deb, who had been standing, perched on the bed, it being comfortable at least. He did not speak for such a long time that it was she who felt the need to break the ice.
“Well? Is he set to dig them out yet? Or has Milady cut his cock off with a saw?”
For moments longer he did not reply. He hissed air out quietly through his nostrils at her humour, but he was still thinking. When he spoke his tone was tentative.
“You’re sharp, our Deb, you’re passing sharp,” he said. “What he’d like to do is get you on your back, as any man with red blood would. If he did, and if you played your hand right, you could marry him, I reckon, with him a magistrate and that. It seems to me most like that’s how he got the first Milady, who is young enough to be his daughter after all. His trouble is — and yours — she fell in love with him, and he with her, he told her, so Fiske says. So any settlement of the hole and corner kind is definitely not possible, because she’d kill you like a bug. Which leaves…”
“My teeth,” said Deborah. As if in sympathy they hurt, inside her mouth. Milady’s desperation came to her vividly for an instant, that she would risk all this to try and keep that love, or that awful, snakelike man at least. “Oh God,” she said. “Mr Dennett.”
“Nay,” said Dennett, “but he’s a single-minded man, and a ruthless one himself. He hinted at a potion, although he did not come straight out with it, he left the work to me. I know his type too well, don’t I? He’d take the liquid, kill the wife, and I would end up hanged, so I played blind and dumb. I said — ” He stopped, arrested by her face. “What?” he asked.
“A potion?” Deborah was aghast. “You mean he’d poison her?”
He smiled, and carried on.
“I did not ask, I’m telling you. I played it like a mute. I said I thought that there would be no point in medication, if that was what he meant. I said I thought she’d die, she was too far gone for saving.” His eyes narrowed. “I should think I might be right, at that. I told him he should talk to her, say you were still too weak, and neither I nor he could kill you just to get your teeth out of your head. I told him to persuade her I could help her with some soothing stuff which would cure her gums, and I would share it with her to show it wasn’t poison. Coloured water as we call it in the mystery, but it would buy some time she might expire in with luck. A sixpence gets two pints.”
He fell to silence, watching. A small hope stirred in her, but not significant. God, even if this justice was the sort of man who took up pretty doxies and married them, he’d kill her when she lost her looks! Deb’s head had begun to ache.
“He’ll try,” said Dennett, “but she’ll have none of it, I’d wager all I have on that. There is another way that came to me. Fiske might be open to a bribe, or one of the lesser men, more like. We could fly from here in the extra time I’ve talked us into. You are fair and know the ropes and have a ready wit. I thought together we might make a living, pretty good. Partners, not pimp and whore nor anything like that, although there are worse ways if we select good customers. I’ve known whores of twenty years and more who’ve never parted thigh! What say you?”
Come live with me and be my love, thought Deb, the old line from the song. She knew men married doxies — rich men like Wimbarton, poor crooked men like this mountebank — and it was possible to make a life that way. Not today though, not like this, not with either of this pretty pair. It occurred to her that, as life was so hard and men so stupid for her body, she should aim her sights far higher. Maybe Marigold did have a scheme for her in reality and not in jest. For the moment, even her viewing room and cushion seemed worth pining after.
“Dr Marigold said — ” she started, then broke off. “We could go there, I suppose, to start off from. A safe place in London. Oh no, Jeremiah knows it, I suppose. When you came for me.”
“I came alone,” said Dennett. “One does not throw away good secrets on such as him.” He did not voice his own dislike and fear of London, though. Or say he would hardly entrust her to another pimp to put her in safekeeping! Enough to get her out of this.
“What say you then?” he asked her brusquely. “If you are agreeable I must go about it quickly, for there will not be much time. If she agrees to wait she won’t wait long. Well, come on. Do we run?” You are a spirit, thought Deborah. You will use me as a common whore till I no longer suit, then you will sell me to the Colonies as a slave or servant. And the alternative is to stay here for my teeth to be ripped out, then die of the infection or end up a drab without good looks. For even if Milady did die it would be too late, he’d hardly trade one gumhag for another. She nodded her assent.
“Well, good!” said Dennett, in delight. “Now, I do not say that I can bring it off, but by God I’ll try! First of all I’ll go speak to the master and see how he fares with keeping her at bay. I have a little sleeping draught would do the trick most excellent, if only she would take it! Then I’ll try to ease some cash about, into some useful palms.”
He crossed to the door and rapped on it. Before they heard a step he cocked his head at her. His foxy face was sly.
“One thing, Deb,” he said. “I’ll try to stop it but I fear it is inevitable. Before the teeth come out — because he still thinks they will — the master will have your body, he will go to any lengths. If he comes through that doorway, with me or without, that is his intention. For God’s sake, for the sake of everything, do not resist.”
Deb saw it all. You’ve sold me, haven’t you, she thought. The bolt was drawn back noisily, on the outside. You’ve sold me, he will have me, then you’ll take my teeth. She turned away as the mountebank went out.
*
I
t was not the master who came through the door an hour later though, it was Amelia Wimbarton. Deb had heard the noises on the stairway, quiet noises, and had stiffened as she lay upon the bed. Before she’d stood, and smoothed her shift down, she had forced her mind to say to her once more, and to mean it, that she would endure this thing, this raping by the master, then — if the mountebank did betray her — she would fight them to the death rather than lose her teeth, she would rend and tear and battle until they would have to beat her beyond saving. As the door had opened she had bitten her lips, and braced herself.
The mistress, who had come in so quietly, must have gained her entry through force of personality or through cash. She closed the door behind her, and her eyes were wide and staring, with enormous pupils, wild. She had taken off her veil, and her face was still impossible to look at. Deb’s eyes lit on her eyes, slid downwards till she caught the nose, and careered upwards as she gasped, involuntarily. And the stench. From across the room, immediate, horrifying. Deb might have had a flood of sympathy, but she knew she was to die.
The pistol, small and bright, appeared from underneath a drapery at her right side. Deb gasped once more, almost choking as her throat went tight with fear. She raised her hands in front of her, fingers crooked.
“No,” she said. “I — ”
“Be mine, that’s what he said,” said Mistress Wimbarton. Her voice was thick and slurry, but the thought incisive, like a knife. “Be mine and live happy ever after, happily and rich. We will marry for love, he said, and hang the Doubting Thomases. I would do anything to please him, which is why I bought your teeth.”
The thoughts were incisive, but they were completely mad. The smell was overwhelming Deborah, she was becoming faint. She tried to speak, to plead, but nothing came.
“You’ll be better dead,” said Mistress Wimbarton. “The pain is awful, to lose your teeth, and what comes afterward is worse. I agreed to go on pleasing him, do you understand, for he loves me and your teeth would please him in my head but now it’s you he wants, it’s you. He’s on his way here, with that filthy man. One to hold you, one to… oh Jesus, Jesus, I was beautiful.”
She walked towards Deb, and as she did so Dennett came through the door, and Wimbarton. Dennett had a cudgel in his hand, and a rope, but for a moment both men stood amazed. As the barrel of the pistol rose towards her, Deb made a small and breathy noise, not a scream but saturated in fear, and Wimbarton let out a squawk, propelling the mountebank across the room with an almighty shove. Dennett, yelling, struck out wildly with the club, the end of which caught Milady in her awful face as she tried to turn. As she went down the gun went off with a flash that closed Deb’s eyes, and a shattering, ringing bang. Falling in her turn, she saw Dennett fold up like a clasp, as the master ran into the thick, blue, acrid smoke that bade fair to fill the room. Outside, women screaming, on the stair.
Oh God, she thought, Dennett is dead. They came to have me, then to tie me down. Oh God, my teeth are saved.
*
The ride to London, although long, went without a hitch. They took the letters first to Bobby Beaumont — Lord Wodderley, as he turned out to be — whose house was just off Seething Lane and who greeted them as valued messengers from a valued friend. While he read he snorted, then called for tea and pikelets to restore them while he scratched out some missives of his own. The Biter, his servants ascertained, was back by the receiving hulk, and Lieutenant Kaye could be with her, or at the Lamb, or “any bloody where, how should I know? Heh? Heh!” If they found him, good, if not no matter any bloody way, the order was specific. Five days’ leave of absence on a special mission, “no questions asked or answered!” It occurred to him, he said, that they should not even bother to seek Kaye out, but let a man take the orders down, as “old Sir Arthur says despatch is of the essence.” But this would not be courteous, he agreed with Will — who felt daring just to hint at contrary opinions to a lord — and offered them one of his pinnaces and a crew, which Sam accepted with alacrity.
Kaye was not on board the dark and silent ship, nor her owner/master Gunning, nor any of her people, at first sight. She lay to piles not far from the hulk, with only one small boat tethered to her boom. They left the pinnace crew to wait, and climbed quickly overside. There was a watchman — one leg, one arm, one eye, but very fierce! — and when they’d told him who they were, he gave tit-for-tat with information that there was an officer somewhere aft. This turned out to be Kershaw, whom they found sitting reading by a lamp, hunched far forward, they supposed, to bring his eye to bear. He greeted them with his usual nervousness, then asked if he should have a bottle brought. “By whom?” said Samuel. “Do you have servants now?”
Kershaw almost smiled — not quite — and said Black Bob was in the captain’s berth, but would do things for him if asked. But Sam and Will, obscurely, wished to be away. The Biter empty was a bonus they did not wish to risk by hanging on. They showed the sealed missive from Lord Wodderley, with the letter from Sir Arthur Fisher to explain his need, and told Kershaw he must pass on their apologies as well. An explanation, Bentley said, would have to wait until they should return.
“It is in the best of causes, that is certain,” he added. “I confide that he will understand entirely.”
“I am sure,” said Kershaw, drily. “Aiding the Customs will please him. As it would your Uncle Daniel Swift.”
There was something in his voice beyond the distaste for the other service that was expected of a Navy man, but nothing in his expression that William could read. Sam was prepared to probe.
“You don’t think Lieutenant Kaye will appreciate our mission, then? Why so? Come, spit it out, sir!”
As well ask this odd, crippled man to dance a jig. He shrugged the shoulder he had movement in.
“He was… aggrieved, a little. By the manner of your parting, and your failure to return. He questioned Behar and Tilley closely on the matter.”
“Those two,” said Sam. “No sign of Shockhead, then? Eaton, boatswain’s mate?”
Kershaw shook his head.
“Those two and the ratty one. They waited for you on the shore, they said. You did not return.”
“The buggers split and left us,” Sam said bitterly. “Did not return, indeed!”
“However,” Will said, “Kaye knows from them three that we got away, and now we’re off again, without a by-your-leave. Mr Kershaw’s right, Sam. Aggrieved won’t be the half of it.”
“And to aid the Customs once again into the bargain! Then good!” said Sam. And then, remembering maybe this man was there to watch over William, even to inform, he coughed, to fudge it. “Nay, apologies to the good lieutenant of the very humblest, an’ you please,” he added. “Tell him we shall return with all despatch.”
Dropped back by the pinnace at stairs near where they’d liveried their horses, Sam wondered if they should take some food and drink themselves before their ride to Surrey and Sir A’s. The thought of his distress, however, the fate of Yorke, weighed on them both so much they paid their charge and rode. Their conversation as they went through Southwark and out into the country blackness was stilted, but by an hour’s time they were back on the comfort of the general, ranging over Tilley and Behar’s behaviour, the fate of Eaton, the whereabouts of the good captain and the drunken Gunning, and that “infernal oddfish” his Uncle Swift had foisted on them, the ghost-like Kershaw. Will ventured that he had begun to like the man, or see some value in him rather, most difficult to put a finger on, and to his relief Holt agreed. They mused on what had crippled him, what he made of the Navy’s “most outrageous ship and overlord” (Sam’s phrase), what he made of the uncle’s nephew if it was indeed his place to make some comment in the future. They both admitted there was more to him than they had guessed.
The time passed easily enough, with the weather chill but far from unpleasant to be abroad in, without alarms from passers-by or lurking ne’er-do-wells. It was gone midnight by the time they approached the gate lodge, by
which time William had fallen into an introspection once more. They had not made a detour to go past Chester Wimbarton’s, although the urge to do so had been strong on him, but his mind was back to Deb and raw regret. He was pulled round by a note of surprise from his companion, who pointed at the lodge.
“Lights,” he said. “What’s afoot? Sir A don’t normally keep it manned these times, at night.”
As they came closer, men emerged, and they were armed. Tony was in the centre of them, looking tired.
“Well met, Tony,” said Sam. “What’s all the pother? Have the Frogs invaded us at last?”
The steward took his bridle for a while.
“Men abroad,” he said. “Not seen them for some hours, but not the sort you’d wish to share a dark street with, sir. Sir Arthur thought they might be troublesome to us, although there appears no reason they should think she’s here that I can fathom.”
Will Bentley’s heart rose straight into his throat and almost strangled him.
“What?” he choked out. “Who?”
A knowing grin lit across Tony’s broad face.
“Why, the maid,” he answered, disingenuously. “She came running here this afternoon. A maiden in distress. She’s battered, sir — but has got all her ivories!”
But Will had not waited for the end; and his friend was in a very hot pursuit.
TWENTY-ONE
The tale Deborah told Sir Arthur was harrowing, but it was not entire truth. When she had arrived at Langham Lodge she had been in a state of terror and exhaustion, having found it more by luck than memory and in mortal fear that Jeremiah and his men would have set out in pursuit. She had no connection with Sir Arthur that they knew about, she hoped, but a general hue and cry might pick her up on roads, so she kept to fields and woods and by-ways. The mountebank had been very good at picking across country, and had taught both her and Cecily how to spot and memorise, for which she had been grateful on at least one flight before. The thought of gratitude and Marcus Dennett was an odd congruence though, so she decided she was grateful he was dead.