by L. A. Meyer
"Bless you, Miss," says I.
The lady grabs the girl's arm and starts on up the street. "You are just throwing your pennies away. I'm sure her father is right around the corner waiting to take your penny to drink. I am very displeased with you."
Somethin' happens in me head and I says, "No, Mum, you've got it all wrong. I ain't got no Dad or no Mum neither and—"
"Come, Dear," says the woman, nervouslike. I follows 'em down the street and I knows she's lookin' for a constable but I just can't help it and I clutches the penny in me fist as I runs after 'em and I'm chokin' up and the tears are startin' out of me eyes and runnin' down me chin and I shouts, "Me mum was just like you, she just died is all, it warn't her fault, she just died like me dad died and me sister died and Emily died and..."
I stops in the middle of the street and throws down the penny. It rings against the cobblestones and I lets out a howl and I hopes that a horse comes by and stomps on me head 'cause I hates the beggin' and I'm scared of the stealin' and I just want Jesus to come and put me out of my misery, but instead it's Charlie what comes and puts his arm around me and says, "C'mon now, Mary, it's awright, it's awright. Hush now, hush. Ye just got to remember it's, 'Please Mum, Please Mum,' over and over. Ye can't get personal, they don't like it. Hush now."
"But me mum was a lady," I blubbers, all snotted up and teary.
Charlie bends down and picks up the penny. "I know, Mary, I know. I reckon ye just wasn't cut out for the beggin'."
***
Charlie buys a meat pie with the penny and sticks it in his vest pocket, and we heads back to our kip, it startin' to get dark and all. We'll divide up the pie when we all gets back in the kip, along with whatever else the others have managed to scrounge up. Charlie's got a good way of dividin' up the stuff we get. He says he learned it from a man who was once in prison, and what Charlie does is he takes his shiv and cuts up whatever's there into pieces as alike in size as he can judge it. Then he turns his back so he can't see the pieces and one of us points at a piece and then Charlie calls out one of our names and that one gets that piece, and so on till it's all shared out and fair.
We're almost there and I'm quieted down now and I asks again, "Charlie, why don't we just do the readin' thing? We always makes money at it. I hates the beggin' so."
Charlie is quiet for a while and then he says, "Awright, Mary, I'll be tellin' ye straight. Yer the bright penny, anyways, and ye'll see the wisdom of me thinkin'."
Charlie stops in the gloom and takes me by the shoulder and turns me around and looks me in me eyes. "It's 'cause I don't want ye stolen, is why."
I looks up at him and he puffs up and goes on.
"Now, suppose we stands up in front of the broadsides and newspapers and such every day, and awright, we'll make money, I'll grant ye that; prolly enough to get by on, but..."
And here he stops and looks hard at me again. "It won't go without notice, don't ye see?" And he shakes me shoulder.
"Some bigger and meaner gang will see that yer little trick is a good quick way t' turn a penny and they'll be off wi' ye in a minute. I'll try to stop 'em, but all I gots is me shiv and Hughie. They've got bigger and tougher coves runnin' those gangs. Some are full growed and I couldn't stop 'em. Like Pigger O'Toole and Dirty Henry. Ye want to be with them? That's why I only runs the readin' game ever' few days so's nobody'd notice ye and why I'm always on the outer edge of the crowd keepin' me eye peeled for some cove checkin' ye out. That's why I told Hughie that if anyone ever makes a grab for ye that he's to hold on to ye and run away and hide, not stand and fight like he'd want."
Charlie stops to see if I'm gettin' this. I am.
"And if a big and nasty gang don't get ye, then one of the printers'd see that ye could be of some use to him and without the bother of an apprentice, 'cause no girl's ever an apprentice in the trades, and he'd take ye and use ye for setting words for a while and then he'd take ye and use ye for other things when ye got older and then he'd throw ye out. Or his wife would. Is that what ye want, Mary?"
I looks down all meek and says, "No, I don't want that."
Charlie puts his arm around me shoulders, and I puts me arm around his waist and presses me face against his vest. I likes it when he does that, puttin' his arm around me, I mean, and I get to be close to him and all.
We go back to the kip.
Dashin' highwaymen and funny drawin's ain't the only things out in front of the printers' shops—there's also the posters for the Newgate hangin's, which I don't find fun at all 'cause Charlie one time told us about the hangin' of Mary Townsend a year or so back and how she was only thirteen and condemned for stealin' bread or somesuch. When she was dropped on the gallows, she wouldn't die 'cause she didn't weigh enough to break her neck when she come to the end of the rope; she just dangled there kickin' and chokin' for the longest time till the merciful hangman took the rope in his hands and jumped down on her thin shoulders with his heavy boots, which snapped her neck and stopped her chokin' and kickin' for good and ever, and I'm so sick when I hears this that I pukes up the nothin' in my belly and I runs off and don't sleep right for three nights and I never get the thought of poor Mary Townsend completely out of my mind, ever, and I have a weird awful sense that it's goin' to happen to me someday, too. I don't know why, but I do. It keeps comin' to me in dreams or when me mind wanders, and I dreads it and I shakes when it comes over me.
So when the others go off to work the crowd at Newgate on Mondays, which is the hangin' day—unless it's a holiday like Christmas, in which case the poor wretches are hanged the Saturday before so as not to upset the joy of the day—I won't go with 'em; I stays in the kip. I've seen the awful horrid things hangin' in the cages at the edge of the city, all black and dried out and stinkin' wi' the birds pickin' at 'em.
Along with the posters in front of the printers is advertisements for extra good viewin' windows for rent by the day in the Newgate courtyard, so's the toffs can have a party with their friends and watch the hangin's, and when a young girl is bein' hanged, the price goes up. Ten pounds, sometimes.
I am sick to me heart over such hateful things in the world, and I prays for deliverance.
Chapter 3
Muck sits at the table outside the Bell and Boar drinkin' his pint and soppin' his bread in the stew what sits steamin' all glorious in front of his fat gut while we try to coax a penny out of him, but the swine says no, it wouldn't be good business practice to feed us. Ah no. He shakes his head sorrowful, like he can't help the way things are.
"It'd be like starvin' a goose before y' kills it, which is counter t' yer best interests, see? Only it's like backwards with orphans 'cause ye certain don't want t' feed yer orphans—they might not die, and where would we be then?"
"Back t' robbin' graves direct, like the rest of the ghouls, I suspects," says Charlie, standin' there with his arms folded across his scrawny chest. He fetches a black look from Muck. Charlie looks back at Muck with just as black a look. Charlie, be careful, I thinks to meself. Muck may be stupid, but he's dangerous, too, and remember our motto, Charlie, Keep Yer Head Down and Yer Backside Covered, and ye ain't doin' that, Charlie, ye aint doin' that at all. Yer stickin' yer neck out.
"Shut yer jaw, gallows bait," says Muck, lookin' all dark and threatenin' at Charlie, "or I'll have ye in me barrow before ye thinks maybe it's time."
"Sod off, Muck," says Charlie, and he saunters off down the street to wait for us to finish working the crowd. I'm glad Charlie has left, but I wish he hadn't said those things to Muck.
Muck leans back in his chair and wipes his hands on his coat. The table he sits at has been set up in the street outside the tavern's door to catch the cool of the day. He sucks at his teeth to get the morsels out and sighs in the warmth of the day and allows as how he wishes it were winter 'cause the orphans die more regular in winter, mostly from the cold and not from disgustin' diseases like in summer, diseases which maybe a poor working man could catch from their corpses when he's tossin' 'em
in his barrow. Nay, in winter, it's one here and one there, and they're easier to keep 'cause of the coolness. Stack 'em up like cordwood, y' can.
"Sure, and in the summer ye might have a fine pestilence which mows 'em down like wheat in a field, but then ye have too many of 'em at once and the surgeons can't use 'em all and they starts to stenchin' and me meself has to haul 'em out to the lime pits at me own expense, mind ye, and not even a thank ye fer me troubles," he says, all wounded.
It was a warmish winter and the spring was warm and dry, mostly, and the summer has been cool and we orphans ain't dyin' at a clip that pleases Muck and his patrons. Loud and long are Muck's complaints and beatin' of breast. We orphans usually aims to please and promises to die real soon if he'd just give us a penny, but it don't work, it never does. Inside us we're happy with the state of our health, and we pictures in our minds the anatomical surgeons sittin' all sad at their empty tables a'tappin' their knives and askin' the merciful heavens for a fresh orphan and not gettin' one today.
Muck goes around mournful-like, liftin' our shifts and countin' our ribs, which is easy to count 'cause they stands right out for the countin', and he asks if we been havin' the runs and such and looks powerful downcast when we says no.
Polly asks him why the doctors like us orphans better than the grown-up dead people, which they could get all they want from Newgate, and Muck says, "Why bless yer heart, dear, it's 'cause yer so light and small. The good doctor can flip ye over on the table wi' two fingers when he needs t' empty out yer other side, not like a full-growed corpse what weighs maybe fourteen stone. And ye've got the same guts as a grown-up, mostly."
Polly's eyes well up with tears at the thought of her own dear self bein' parceled out on the table. Polly is our best beggar 'cause she's got these huge blue eyes that brim up and spill over at the slightest thought in her lovely head of the meanness or sadness in the world. And she is lovely, too, under all the dirt, with her pink skin and cherry cheeks and cupid lips and loose curls makin' a dirty gold frame for her dirty little face. She's wondrous good, too, at the piteous cryin' and when she puts her hands together like she's a little angel prayin' and lets go the waterworks, she gets me and the other girls all in a fine howl and you'd think it'd all melt the heart of a statue and we'd get tons of money, but we don't. Hearts of stone are all we got round here and they're evil cheap, but if any of us can wring a penny out of 'em, it's Polly. I betcha Charlie don't want her stole, neither.
"And another thing," says Muck, all like a schoolteacher teachin' the young ones about sweetness and light and dancin' around the maypole and such, "another thing the doctors like about orphans aside from their fine compactness is they ain't got no ugly yellow fat to wallow through on their way to the prime organs."
Muck takes his stick and lifts up Judy's shift. "Look at that," he says fondly. "Not an ounce of fat, bless her. See, right there's the edge of her liver, just waiting to be popped out, and this bump here is bound to be her appendimox and..."
Now Judy is cryin', too, and so's Nancy, and I gives up on this street for today and gathers up the girls to head off after Charlie.
"I'd despise it if I had to go back to the actual grave robbin'," Muck says gloomily, puttin' on an air like it's beneath him in his present state of Purveyor to the Holy Order of Anatomical Surgeons.
"It's dirty work and I don't like it," he allows. Plus he knows he'd get hanged for it if he got caught, which would serve the beast right, and I feels that way even though I hates hangings.
Chapter 4
Me immortal soul took a beatin' today as I steals a whole loaf of bread. The beggin's been real bad lately and we ain't et in two days and Nancy is poorly, and I seen the bread come out of the oven and put on the coolin' board outside the bakery and I loses me mind with the smell of it sittin' there all steamin' and callin' out to me, and I grabs it and runs.
I'm runnin' down the street in mortal terror and there's shouts behind me, but I runs faster and I'm seein' the gallows and the rope and Mary Townsend and the hangman jumpin' on me shoulders till me neck snaps and me gullet is stretched, and I'm blind with fear but I keeps on runnin' till me breath is tearin' holes in me chest and finally I lies down in the gutter with me arms wrapped around the bread and waits for them to come and wrap the noose around me neck and haul me up.
But nobody comes with the noose nor without it, so I gets up and heads back to the kip, me breath comin' in gulps and me immortal soul in tatters.
***
The others is already back, as it's gettin' to be dark, and they stare in wonder at the grand loaf, everyone 'cept Charlie, who ain't here. Polly has got a bit of cheese at the beggin' and we're all lookin' forward to a feast, but where's Charlie? We waits but he still don't show.
It's almost pure dark now and Hugh says, "Mary, go out and find 'im. Likely he's down at Lambert's. That's where I saw 'im last."
Out I scrambles, hopin' to find Charlie right off 'cause I know I bought meself some more time in purgatory with the stealin' of that bread and I wants to at least get to the pleasure of eatin' it as some small payback for me poor damned soul. I ain't worried about the bread bein' et while I'm gone, 'cause we have our rules, and I ain't worried about the dark streets 'cause I knows 'em like a rat knows his rat hole, but I am worried about Charlie. He's usually back at the kip to count our heads before dark.
I crosses Earl Street and heads up Water Street and over to Broad, but Charlie ain't at Lambert's and he ain't at The Plow and Stars and he ain't at The Soldier's Joy. I look across the evening sky and there's the dome of Saint Paul's, but I know he ain't off in that direction cause that's Bellycut George and his gang's turf and we never, never go there at night, so I heads across Ludgate to check out Benbow's, but nothin'. I've been lookin' a long time and I'm thinkin' I'll go back to the kip to see if he's come back whilst I was gone, and so I cuts down through Slipburn Alley. It's right dim in there 'cause the buildings come together overhead, and as I'm goin' through I trips over somethin' and sprawls headlong onto the cobbles. There's sticky and gooey stuff all over the cobbles and on me hands and on me knees and on me shift and I don't know what to think, and then I look.
What I tripped over was Charlie, and Charlie's dead.
I lifts up Charlie's head, but the back of it is a bloody mush in me fingers and I know he's gone and the tears well up and I starts makin' high keenin' wails. I hugs him to me and rocks back and forth and say, Ah, Charlie, Charlie, over and over and over. I'm cryin' for poor Charlie dead in me arms, and I puts me face on his and keens some more. Who done ye, Charlie, ah who done ye and who stopped yer dancin' and jokin' and foolin' for good and ever? Not another street kid, 'cause every street kid knew ye and yer shiv and would have taken it after they did ye, but here it is gleamin' all wicked in me hand. Who then, Charlie?
I runs me hand up Charlie's chest and opens each button as I go up. When all the buttons are undone, I pulls off Charlie's vest, sobbin' all the while.
Ah, Charlie, you was a good one, you was. You looked out for us in your way and took care of us in your way and always shared even though you didn't have to and was always happy in spite of all. And takin your clothes is prolly a sin, too, and I don't mean no disrespect, Charlie, hut I got to do it. I got to get away.
I slips Charlie's shirt over his ruined head as gentle as I can and then loosens the cord on his trousers and pulls them off. His legs flop all limp and slide on the stones and I remembers how they used to dance and caper and now they don't do nothin'.
Goodbye, Charlie. I close his dead eyes and kiss his dead cheek. You was my darlin.
Leavin' the alley, I sees a horse trough in the gloom and I commences to washin' Charlie's clothes what was dirtied by his dyin'. After I gets most of the blood and dirt off, I takes off me two shifts and rolls 'em up. I puts Charlie's clothes on wet, grateful it's a warm night. I puts the shiv in next to me ribs like Charlie always done and I sticks me old shifts under me arm and gets ready to head off, but then I hears a noise
and jumps back quick in a doorway. I peers out and there's Muck wheelin' his barrow toward the alley and toward all what's left of Rooster Charlie.
How long will it be 'fore it's me that Muck is coming after?
I'm lookin' down through the grate at the shapes below and I counts three, no, four of them huddled down there. Three girls, one boy.
"Psst! Toby!"
The shapes start in alarm. I'm startin' to shiver from the wet clothes, in spite of the warmth of the night. I hisses down through the grating, "It's me, Mary, from Rooster Charlie's gang."
Toby gets up and walks toward me, his face striped white and black from the moonlight and the shadow of the grate. "What's up, then."
"Charlie's been done," I says, as even as I can.
"Wot? The Rooster done! It can't be!" wails one of the girls.
"Who done it?" asks Toby.
"Dunno," says I. "Prolly Muck." Then I tells him what happened at the Bell and Boar and in Slipburn Alley.
Toby lets loose a string of low curses and while he's doin' it I says, "I want you to take over our gang, Toby."
I lets that sink in a bit and then plows on. "I don't want 'em picked up by Scroggs or Jimmy Ducks or Dirty Henry or any of those. I takes you for a decent sort, Toby, the sort'll look after 'em a bit. Like Charlie done."
"I ain't nobody's mother," says Toby. "And I ain't—"
"Our gang lost two today, so there's Judy and Polly and Nancy and Hugh the Grand, with your bunch that makes eight, a good-sized group, and we got a better kip than this. More privatelike, where coves can't piss down on ye like here."