by Y. S. Lee
James turned pale, felt his blood rush towards his toes. His stomach turned over violently – but not unpleasantly. For a moment, he simply stood stupidly and gaped, while the "boy" stared back at him. A chain of expressions flitted across her face. Embarrassment. Panic. And something else…
"You!" The word left his body on a rush of air – a boyish gasp that annoyed him immensely. It also triggered a coughing fit. He hunched over, cursing his damaged health and wondering if it were possible to appear calm and authoritative while hacking up a lung. When he looked up, his ears were ringing and dark spots swam in his vision.
"My dear boy! Are you quite all right?"
He nodded, unwilling to risk speech just yet. A surreptitious glance at his handkerchief showed no blood, thank God. The seconds ticked past. He had to say something, damn it all. It was a large effort, but he cut through Harkness's well-meaning blather with, "It's merely a slight cough; nothing at all to do with malaria." He looked straight at Mary as he spoke, but her expression was now neutral. Damn. He'd given her the advantage of time to recover.
"If you say so, of course…" Harkness sounded unconvinced. "As I was saying, Quinn ought to be of assistance to you. He's a bright lad who wishes to learn more about the trade. Isn't that right, sonny?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well then, that's all arranged. I suppose you'd like a tour of the site, Easton?" He was so greatly altered that she wondered, at first, if she'd have recognized him at all. He was still tall, of course, but his shoulders now seemed too broad for his thin frame. He was sun-browned, but instead of looking healthy and relaxed he seemed to vibrate with an underlying tension. And his features had a harsh cast that was new to her. He'd always looked serious – severe, even – but this saturnine expression was new. Then her gaze locked with his and she felt a deep surge of warmth curl through her entire body. Of course she'd have recognized him; she'd know those eyes anywhere. She felt breathless. It was hard to look away, now, but she managed – and then wondered if averting her gaze had seemed coy.
The tour of the site seemed to go on for hours. Harkness pattered nervously, James nodded his comprehension, and she followed the men in silence. What an absurd, improbable stroke of fate that she should meet James Easton here, when she was masked in this guise. Had he requested an assistant, or was that Harkness's doing? And – again – what did that suggest about Harkness's intentions for her? He couldn't possibly know the truth about her disguise.
Could he?
And then they were alone. Mary stood very still, nerves humming, bracing herself for his attack. Her situation was awkward and potentially scandalous: perfect fodder for the sort of cocky, blistering observation he loved to make. No doubt he'd been crafting a series of withering, faux-innocent remarks throughout the tour, to be delivered with his usual insolent drawl. Her only surprise was that he'd managed to restrain himself in Harkness's presence.
She waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
After a full five minutes' silence, she raised her eyes to his face.
He was staring at the labourers working at the base of the tower but, as though sensing her unspoken question, turned to look at her. "I think," he said in a conversational tone, "we'll begin with the stonemasons. Er – Quinn, isn't it?"
It continued like this all afternoon. They – or rather, James – observed workers, inspected scaffolds, examined safety equipment and took note of difficult or dangerous bits of work. He worked without haste, but covered a lot of ground none the less. And throughout their labours he treated her with remote courtesy, exactly as he would any young assistant.
She hadn't seen him in over a year. Had never expected to meet him again. Even so, it seemed impossible that given her surname and confronted with her face, he had indeed forgotten all about her. She could have sworn that in those first, tingling moments, he'd recognized her immediately. That gasp – hadn't it been a gasp of surprise? He might have covered it with a coughing fit, but she hadn't mistaken that light of recognition in his eyes.
Or had she? Common sense told her that if he truly didn't remember, it would be cause for celebration. It would be by far the simplest, safest state of affairs. Yet if she was perfectly honest, this simplest, safest state of affairs bruised her pride. The – what was he? A bit young to be a "man", but certainly not a "boy" – damn it all… he, James, had kissed her. Yes, he'd been concussed, and light-headed with smoke inhalation, and probably delirious to boot – but he'd pinned her against a wall and kissed her. Twice. She shivered with pleasure at the memory. So yes, a part of her hoped that, despite the complications it would create, James wasn't unmoved by Mark Quinn.
Yet if he had made the connection, would he simply think her face vaguely, perhaps only slightly, familiar? That stung even more. How many girls had James kissed? More than a few, judging by those kisses. (And how might you know? taunted her inner voice. Who else has kissed you?) It would be even worse if he knew her face but couldn't place it.
Be rational, came the inner voice, cool and precise this time. Although he'd seen her in boy's clothing once before, his lack of recognition now was actually a compliment on the excellence of her disguise. And if her features seemed slightly familiar, he would likely assume this was merely in the way that most children seemed – their unformed faces so often all but interchangeable to adults.
It was only at day's end that he showed signs of seeing her as an individual, rather than a moderately useful tool. "Quinn."
She looked up – and caught her breath. He was looking straight at her. "Y-yes, sir."
"Mr Harkness mentioned that you're new to the trade."
She nodded slowly.
His eyes wandered over her roughly shorn hair, the grubby boy's attire. A faint smile curled the corner of his mouth. "What brought you here?"
"Sir?"
"To this site. It's unusual for a lad to find work on a building site without previous experience or connections. You must have impressed Mr Harkness."
"He's been very kind to me."
"I see." His gaze seemed to snag somewhere at the level of her waist – she was holding a roll of drawings – and lingered for so long that she squirmed with discomfort. "What did you do before coming here?"
She hesitated. Part of her wanted to shout, As if you don't know! "Bits of all sorts, sir. Errands. Nothing as you'd call a trade." That was truthful – and vague – enough.
"No. That's quite clear."
She waited, but he didn't elaborate. "Why's that, sir?" she asked eventually.
He nodded towards the scrolls of paper. "Your hands are soft and pale – not working hands." That quarter-smile reappeared, and this time there was a glint in his eyes. "Some might even say lady's hands."
She froze, scarcely able to breathe. Now was the time for a clever, snappy retort, but her wits were paralyzed, too. The best she could manage was to gape at him with her mouth closed instead of open.
James shrugged and made a show of consulting his watch. "Ah – six o'clock. Mustn't keep you, young Quinn."
It took a moment for the words to register. When they did, she was furious. Still, there wasn't a thing she could safely do or say apart from, "Yes, sir."
The blasted man only grinned. "See you tomorrow, laddie." Eleven
There was a bakery in the Cut, not far from Miss Phlox's house. As arranged with Anne Treleaven, Mary stopped there each evening to buy "a plain roll, the brownest you got". Once outside, she tore eagerly into the bread. She was perennially hungry, these days. But tonight at the bun's squishy centre she found a ball of paper the size of a green pea. On it was scribbled an address in Bermondsey, with additional terse directions. It was often difficult to find one's way about dockside areas, owing to the absence of street signs. It took only a moment to commit the directions to memory. Then she dropped the scrap into a particularly nasty puddle, where it was promptly obliterated by the wheels of a passing dray cart.
London was a transiti
onal sort of place in the evenings. Thousands of people had finished their day's work and were now pouring out from the heart of town towards the suburbs: shabby-suited clerks trudging across bridges, weary-looking market traders dragging the last of their wares with them, labourers with toolbags slung across their backs. Yet there were a few bodies tacking their way against the rush. Already, new vendors were arriving to sell coffee on street stalls; to set up the late markets where the last of the day's – and yesterday's, and last week's – meat and vegetables were sold at knock-down prices; and to sweep the streets of a long day's dust and refuse.
It wasn't difficult for Mary to resist the third-rate scraps laid out on the crude stalls that sprang up just outside the Borough Market each evening. But all around her, poor people bargained for slimy vegetables, wormy fruit and rank meat on the grounds that they could afford these and nothing else. She thought of Jenkins knocking back the dregs of sour milk at yesterday's morning tea break, and of the hunger that must be even greater because he'd earned no wages today. The thought made her walk faster.
As she passed Tower Bridge, the stench of the tanneries struck her like a physical blow. Rotting flesh, caustic lime, animal dung – these were the constant perfumes of Bermondsey. They made the Thames itself smell acceptable. Jenkins's address turned out to be a bedraggled little terraced house not a hundred yards from one of the larger tanneries. Outside this strip of houses, a large flock of dirty children clustered near the gutter. They ought to have been playing boisterously, but this group seemed as downtrodden as their surroundings. A few bickered among themselves, but otherwise they seemed too listless to do anything much except sit in the road and watch Mary's passage with glassy, tired eyes.
She rapped on the front door and waited. Nothing. She knocked again, and this time, a voice from within snapped, "Well, what d'you want, then?"
"Please, I'm here to see Peter Jenkins."
There was a long silence. Just as Mary was about to repeat herself, the door jerked open a couple of inches and a pair of bloodshot eyes stared down at her with suspicion. "Jenkins?"
"Yes, ma'am." It was a guess; she couldn't see much through the narrow gap, but the voice was more alto than tenor.
The door opened wider and Mary saw a wild halo of grey hair and a shapeless dress draped over a humped back. "Jenkins be down there," their owner said curtly, jerking her chin towards the interior.
Mary tried not to flinch as the smell of the house – dirty hair, mould, sweat and decay, all compounded with the stink of rot and excrement – embraced her. She trod cautiously; if the street had been dim, the house itself was in near darkness. It took several moments for her eyes to adjust. Eventually, she made out a square wooden hatch towards the back of the house. It opened with a reluctant squeal to reveal a rotting wooden ladder disappearing down into what looked like a cellar.
She paused and looked back over her shoulder for confirmation, but the woman had already lost interest. "Hello?" Mary called down tentatively. In sensation novels, this was the part where the intrepid hero got clubbed over the head only to awake several hours later, bound hand and foot, in the villain's lair. Mary turned her head abruptly – but of course there was nobody.
There was also no response from below, only a faint rustling that might be human. She had a rushlight in her pocket, but it wouldn't do much good here. With an inner sigh, she prepared to descend. Now that she'd come this far, there was no point in turning back.
She was slim and light, but even so she descended slowly, testing each rung before transferring her weight onto it. There were only six rungs before her foot touched earth instead of wood. She stopped again to let her eyes readjust to this new level of darkness. A small grate at the top of the wall nearest the street was the only source of light and air.
"Hello? Jenkins?"
If she hadn't been completely still, she might have missed the rustling noise from the corner.
As it was, she squinted but could see nothing clearly. "Jenkins? It's Quinn."
Silence.
If the rustling had stopped, it probably wasn't rats. "I know you can hear me."
Finally, from the same corner came a petulant sigh – and a voice. "Piss off!"
Mary grinned. Definitely Jenkins. She made her way to the corner by instinct more than anything else.
He was there, lying belly-down on a straw pallet with a hunted but defiant look in his eyes. "I said, piss off! You got no call coming in here where you's not invited."
She ignored this. "I brought you some stuff."
"I don't want it," came the automatic response.
"Wait till you see it, first." She rummaged in a pocket and brought forth a small handful of pennies and ha'pennies: all the ready money Mark Quinn had in the world. "Still don't want it?" she asked, and grinned when he scowled but remained silent. She placed the coppers in a neat heap by Jenkins's elbow, and dug out from a different pocket a long twist of paper.
"What's that?" His tone was surly but his eyes intrigued.
"Powdered willow bark." At his blank expression, she explained, "For the pain."
"Oh." His eyes followed her movements now as though she was a conjuror.
From her jacket she produced a two-pound loaf of bread – white, with a golden crust, the most luxurious type one could buy.
His eyes widened and he sniffed appreciatively.
Finally, she pulled a small flask from her pocket and sloshed it encouragingly. "Still going to tell me to piss off?"
"Aw, stuff it." But Jenkins's tone was distinctly pleased.
It was the first time she'd heard it so, she realized with some surprise. Even on site, even mucking about, he'd never sounded this happy. Or this boyish. She opened the sachet and watched him tip the bitter powder down his throat without a grimace.
He took a mouthful of rum next and gave an appreciative "Hooo-aaarh!"
Silently, she hacked several thick slices from the loaf with her pocket knife. As he munched, washing down every few bites with a swig of rum, she poked the pile of coppers with the toe of her boot. "Anything else you need? I can fetch it for you."
He looked tempted, then shook his head decisively. "Naw. I can't take your money."
"It's your share of the tea round."
"I ain't never made that much on the tea round." But his gaze was focused on the pennies, as though hypnotized.
"Did today." A rotten lie, but it was the most plausible reason she had. She just hoped Jenkins needed the money enough to force himself to believe it. "I went round with Reid – he was collecting for Wick's widow – and the men all coughed up, for him and for me."
"Hunh."
"Men didn't seem too happy about it, though – Reid collecting."
"For Wick, you mean. No – he were a natural-born scoundrel, that one. Bet the glaziers didn't give nothing."
"Yeah – how'd you know?"
Jenkins grimaced. "I just know. Wick and Keenan – nobody wants to give 'em anything, 'cause they's always on the take."
Interesting. "What d'you mean?"
Jenkins merely gave her a sharp look. "I ain't got to explain everything. Just watch and you'll see." And that was all he would say on the subject.
Mary's eyes had now adjusted to the near-blackness and she could make out the general shapes of things. They were in a small, low-ceilinged, earthen-floored cellar. It held no furniture, no hearth, no place to eat, and certainly no place to wash. Only a few clues suggested that human beings attempted to live here: two small piles of matted straw and rags, representing beds; a dented pail without a handle; and a candle stub.
She tried not to look at him with pity. Jenkins's backside was obviously badly lacerated and in need of treatment, and he was wearing the same clothes she'd last seen him in. Quite likely, they were the only clothes he owned. Given the filth and poverty in which he lived, it was surprising only that he wasn't already feverish with infection.
"Who else lives here?" she asked.
A pause. Th
en, "Me dad and the babies."
No mother – that wasn't unusual. "Baby brothers?"
"Sisters. They ain't such babies now. Next year, maybe, Jenny'll be old enough to work."
Old enough to work was a relative concept. At the Jenkinses' level of poverty, Jenny might be five or six years old, at most. "What's your father do?"
"What's it to you?"
"Nothing. I just – you said he's a builder, right? Because that's how you got your job."
"None of your business."
"All right," she said mildly. It sounded as though she was dismissed. "I'll come back and see you in a few days, if you like."
Jenkins's gaze was riveted to the pennies, once again, and he shrugged ungraciously. "Suit yourself."
She unfolded her legs, stood, and promptly banged her head on the ceiling. If she, a fairly small woman, was too tall for this cellar, how on earth could a grown man like Jenkins Sr live here? And why was his son so protective of him? "Right. See you."
Jenkins merely grunted. But as she climbed the rickety ladder out of the cellar, she heard him say, "Quinn."
She paused, her hand on the top rung, anxious now to escape that dank pit. "Yeah?"
He was poking at the small pile of pennies and ha'pennies as though testing a hallucination. It seemed difficult for him to meet her gaze. "Ta."
She nodded once and tried to smile, but suddenly it was all too much: the cellar; the stench; the utter desperation all about her. She scrabbled her way up and tore out of the house, nearly knocking down the hunched woman who'd admitted her, not stopping to apologize. She pelted past the children, who blinked at her with their owlish, drugged eyes – sedated with a blend of starvation and opium, no doubt. And she didn't stop running until she was back in Lambeth.
Near Coral Street, she stumbled into a quiet alley and vomited. Bread, ale, that extra bun – all her meagre supper accounted for. But even once her stomach was empty, the retching continued in long, violent spasms that shook her frame, making her gasp and choke. She tasted salt water on her lips, and found that she was crying. What for? Not for Peter Jenkins, entirely. And not for the others she'd seen in his street. It was absurd. Childish. Weak. But for several minutes she couldn't stop.