The Beggar Maid
Page 8
Daniel took off his bowler hat and jacket and handed them to her. ‘I spent half my childhood climbing trees at home. Give me the key and let’s see if I’ve still got the knack.’ He took a few steps back and did a running jump at the wall. He failed at the first attempt but he tried again and this time he managed to get a grip and heaved himself onto the top. With a cheery wave he let himself down, landing on the other side with a dull thud.
The gate whined on its hinges as he opened it and let her in. ‘Thanks, Daniel,’ she whispered. ‘I dunno what I’d have done if you hadn’t come with me.’
He took his jacket from her and shrugged it on, placing his hat on his head at a jaunty angle. ‘To tell the truth I enjoyed the challenge. I’m not a city type, Charity. The first opportunity I get I’ll go on a dig, preferably somewhere warm and sunny.’
‘You are so lucky being a man.’ Charity stood on tiptoe and brushed his cheek with a kiss. ‘Goodnight, Daniel, and thanks again.’
He tipped his hat. ‘Always glad to help a lady. Goodnight, Charity. See you again very soon.’ He left the yard and she closed the gate, locking it before making her way towards the back door. The whole house seemed to be asleep and for once there was not a sound emanating from the building or its neighbours, but as she entered the scullery she could hear dismal howls and banging, which grew louder as she entered the kitchen.
Chapter Six
‘WHERE THE HELL have you been, you little trollop?’ Jethro lay on the flagstone floor close to his bed. His right leg was twisted at an ugly angle and his face, caught in a shaft of moonlight, was deathly pale. ‘Where were you when I needed you?’
Charity rushed to his side and knelt down. ‘What happened?’
‘Are you blind as well as stupid and immoral? You’ve been with a man. I can smell him on you.’
‘That’s not true,’ Charity said angrily. ‘How dare you say such a thing?’
‘You stink of tobacco smoke and Macassar oil. You’re a worthless slut and I should have known better than to take you on.’
‘We should get you back to bed.’ Charity made an effort to sound calm when really she felt close to panic. It was obvious that he had injured himself badly, but she was at a loss as to how to handle him.
‘Are you mad? I’ve broken my hip. I need a doctor. Give me laudanum and go for help.’
Charity reached onto his bed and picked up a pillow, placing it carefully beneath his head. ‘All right. I’ll do as you ask, but please try not to move. You’re only making matters worse.’
He bared his broken teeth in a scowl. ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’
She rose to her feet. ‘I’ll fetch your medicine, but you need to go to hospital.’
‘No hospital for me.’ His voice rose to a high-pitched scream. ‘I won’t go to one of those places. Never again.’
Having sedated him with a hefty dose of laudanum, and not knowing who else to call upon, Charity sought help from Bert Chapman who was the only man in the building strong enough to lift Jethro. She had to rouse him from his bed and he was sleepy, but comparatively sober. At first he was reluctant to lift a finger to aid a man he obviously loathed, but with a mixture of flattery, persuasion and a bribe of five shillings, Charity managed to persuade him and he lumbered downstairs after her. By this time Jethro was in a drugged state and barely conscious.
‘He says his hip is broken,’ Charity whispered. ‘I think he must have fallen out of bed.’
‘It’s a pity it wasn’t his neck what broke,’ Bert said unsympathetically. He bent down and hoisted Jethro into his arms as if he were a sack of feathers instead of a solidly built adult. ‘It’s not far to the Royal Free Hospital. I’ll carry the brute, but I’m not moving a step until you give me what you promised.’
Charity felt under Jethro’s mattress for his bunch of keys and unlocked the cash box he kept hidden beneath his bed. She took out two silver crowns and placed them in Bert’s hand. ‘There you are.’
‘Put them in me pocket, dearie.’
She did as he asked. ‘Now will you take him to the hospital?’
‘Give us a kiss first.’
‘What?’
‘I said give us a kiss, or I’ll dump the old bugger on the floor and break his other hip.’
‘That wasn’t in the bargain.’
‘It is now.’ He leaned forward and Jethro’s arms dangled limply like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Charity held her breath, closed her eyes and gave him a peck on the cheek. He threw his head back and roared with laughter. ‘That’ll do for now, but I want a proper one when we get back. I fancy you, young Charity. You could have all the free beer you can drink if you’d be nice to me.’
A wave of nausea threatened to overcome her but she swallowed hard and backed away. ‘We’ll talk about that later, Mr Chapman. You’ve got what you wanted so please let’s get Mr Dawkins to hospital before the laudanum starts to wear off.’
Bert followed her through the shop and out into the street. ‘With a bit of luck the misshapen monster will die and go to hell. That’s where his sort belongs.’
Charity said nothing and she quickened her pace, heading towards Gray’s Inn Road.
Jethro was kept in hospital for six weeks. As its name implied, the treatment was free for the poor and destitute, but being a man of significant means Jethro had to pay in part for the care he received and Charity had to find the money. She would have been hard pressed to raise such a sum from the shop takings, but, quite by accident, she had found a secret stash concealed behind a false back in one of the kitchen cupboards. She had discovered it when cleaning up spilt sugar, a small luxury she allowed herself now that she was in charge of the housekeeping money. The wooden plank had fallen down to reveal a cocoa tin, which on further inspection was found to be crammed with five-pound notes. It must, she thought, be Jethro’s life savings, and although she would not take a penny for herself she used some of it to pay for his stay in hospital.
It was a relief to be on her own, and she took full advantage of the unexpected freedom to do as she pleased, but she did not neglect her duty as far as the shop was concerned. She opened each day on time and closed at six o’clock in the evening. It was dark by then and winter was on its way, but she resisted the temptation to close at dusk and placed an oil lamp in the window to make sure that passers-by realised that they could still call in and browse or purchase a book on their way home from work. With Jethro safely ensconced in his hospital bed she was able to visit Doughty Street twice a week to have supper with Wilmot and Daniel, who had now resumed his studies. He would sit at the desk, supposedly working on his latest thesis, while Wilmot listened to Charity’s account of what it was like to live on the streets and beg for money. When she had exhausted her own experiences she had many stories to recount of the dispossessed forced to live rough and dependent on the charity of others, or eking out a living by selling bootlaces or matches. Even worse off were the toshers who risked their lives searching the sewers for anything of value that might have been swept into the drains, and the pure finders who collected buckets of dog faeces which they sold to the tanneries.
Wilmot made copious notes and encouraged her to talk, and for her part Charity felt that she was the one who benefited most from these quiet evenings. The strange thing was that she had begun to speak in the well-modulated tones that came so easily to Wilmot and Daniel. She had gradually dropped the strident cockney tones she had adopted at a young age in order to melt into the background of her new surroundings. She had learned early on that to use a style of speech and an accent foreign to the denizens of the back streets led to trouble, and she had become one of them. Now, with the benefit of Wilmot’s coaching, she had put the recent past behind her and had reverted to the ways of her childhood. Memories of her grandmother’s strict edicts on table manners and etiquette came flooding back, and she wondered how she could have forgotten so much in so short a time. She felt as though she had been masked and wearing a
cloak of invisibility, and now she had cast it aside and remembered who she was, but this also brought problems. She might be able to converse on almost equal terms with Wilmot and Daniel, but Violet accused her of turning into a stuck-up snob, and Bert was even more vocal.
Since the night she had asked for his help Bert Chapman had not allowed her to forget that she was in his debt. She had managed so far to avoid his clumsy advances, but at night she dared not venture outside to the privy in case he was lurking in the shadows. He had come into the shop on several occasions but, as luck would have it, there had been customers browsing the shelves and Charity had threatened to scream if he laid a finger on her. He had left with the promise that it was not over. He would catch her on her own sooner or later and then she would see what a real man was made of. It was something she hoped she would never discover, at least not from a brute like him.
Jethro’s return in the middle of November thwarted Bert’s attempts to make free with Charity, and for that she was grateful, but Jethro Dawkins was a bad patient and even more demanding now that he was more or less confined to his bed. He could stagger a few paces with the aid of a crutch, but it was plain that he would never walk unaided, and the doctors had discharged him with the warning that his bones were brittle and would break easily. The only way he could escape from the pain and misery of losing even more of his independence was with laudanum in ever increasing doses. Charity was now his nurse as well as his housekeeper and she worked in the shop, but was no longer in charge. Every evening she had to give the ledger and the takings to Jethro, and he would sit in his chair by the range checking every last penny, and making lists of the replacements they needed. Eventually, and with great reluctance, he allowed Charity to visit the warehouse in his stead.
On these occasions it was necessary to have someone in the shop and Charity immediately thought of Violet, who had learned to read and write and do simple arithmetic at a board school and would be pleased to have the opportunity to earn a few pennies. Violet said she would be happy to leave her younger brothers and sister in the charge of ten-year-old Emmie for a while, but Emmie was not the sharpest knife in the box and she might have to dash upstairs if anything went wrong. It was a solution that was reasonably satisfactory to everyone except for Jethro, who disliked change almost as much as he disliked Violet. ‘She’s a common little tart,’ he said bitterly when Charity put the idea forward. ‘I don’t want her fingering my books and making eyes at my customers.’
‘But I have to go to the warehouse,’ Charity said reasonably. ‘You can’t manage the shop on your own, and it’s only for a few hours.’
‘I want the door left open so that I can keep an eye on her. I won’t have my business turned into a place of assignation for that cheap trollop.’
‘Violet is a good girl,’ Charity said, biting back a sharp retort. ‘She’s very willing and she knows exactly what she has to do. If she needs help she’ll come and ask you.’
‘I don’t suppose she’s read a book in her life.’ Jethro reached for the glass of water laced with laudanum. ‘My heart is racing. I think I’m going to die.’
Charity picked up the glass and placed it in his hand. ‘You’re just working yourself up, Mr Dawkins. Take a sip of this and it will calm you.’
He gulped the mixture and closed his eyes. ‘If I find there’s a penny short in the day’s takings it’ll come out of your wages, miss.’
Charity sighed and rescued the glass from his limp hand before it crashed to the floor and smashed. She left him to sleep off the excess of the drug and went outside to call for Violet. If luck was on their side she would return from the warehouse before Jethro became fully conscious and could make things difficult. It was raining and bitterly cold. The raw east wind had carried the chill from Siberia over the flatlands of Essex and it slapped her cheeks and nipped at her ankles. The wooden steps were wet and slippery and she made her way carefully, holding up her skirts so that she did not catch the toe of her boot in the hem.
She had reached the first floor and was about to climb the next flight when the door opened and a hand shot out. She was dragged bodily into the narrow passage and her arms were clamped to her sides. Bert Chapman sought her lips in a rough embrace. She opened her mouth to scream but he was too quick for her and he thrust his tongue into her mouth, pressing her against the wall as he tore at her blouse, sending the buttons flying in all directions. She struggled and kicked out but he was a strong man, used to hefting barrels of beer onto the dray, and he rubbed himself against her in a frenzy of desire. A satisfied grunt escaped his lips and Charity seized the opportunity, nipping his bottom lip and causing the blood to run. He released her with a yelp of pain and she kicked him hard on the shin. She could hear a woman screaming and she realised that the sound came from her own throat as she staggered outside. She retched and gasped for breath but he was close behind her and had her round the waist before she had a chance to escape.
‘Leave her alone.’ Violet’s shout from above gave Charity the opportunity to break free and she hurtled down the steps, sliding down the last of them to land in a heap on the wet ground.
Violet was close behind her. ‘Are you hurt?’
Above them Bert was shouting and swearing. ‘You’ll suffer for this, you stuck-up cow.’ He turned on his wife, who had appeared in the doorway, and thrust her inside slamming the door.
‘I’m all right,’ Charity said, clutching her torn blouse over her bare breast. ‘Thank goodness you distracted him, Violet. He almost had me.’
Violet helped her to her feet. ‘He’s got his eye on you. He may be my dad but he’s a wrong ’un.’
‘I’ll have to change my blouse,’ Charity said through chattering teeth. ‘I can’t go to the warehouse looking like this.’
‘You nearly got raped and all you can think about is buying bloody books. What am I going to do with you, Charity Crosse?’
‘He won’t catch me out again. I’ll be extra careful from now on.’
They hurried inside and Violet took up her position in the shop while Charity changed her blouse. She was still shaken, and now that the shock was wearing off she was angry. Bert Chapman was the sort of man who ought to be locked up and punished for his treatment of women, but she knew very well that the law would do nothing. He would have to kill someone before the police would take allegations about him seriously. It was a man’s world and women had to deal with it as best they could. She put on her bonnet and a jacket she had purchased at a good price in the dolly shop, and checked that Jethro was still sleeping. She pulled the coverlet up to his chin, thinking how defenceless he seemed as he slept, and she felt a surge of pity for him, despite the harsh treatment she had received at his hands. The world had not been kind to Jethro Dawkins, and he had fought back the only way he knew how. She was about to join Violet when she heard a familiar male voice, and she hurried into the shop. ‘Mr Barton, I thought it was you. Have you come to browse or to buy?’
He came towards her smiling. ‘I came to see you, but you are obviously on your way out.’
‘I’ve been entrusted with the task of visiting the warehouse in Cheapside to order more books,’ she murmured, feeling suddenly shy.
‘As it happens, I’m going that way too and there’s something very important I have to say to you. Perhaps we could share a cab?’
She was going to refuse, but the thought of walking such a long way overrode her reluctance. ‘That’s kind of you, sir.’ Charity gave Violet an encouraging smile. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can. Mr Dawkins should sleep until I return.’
It did not take long to find a cab and Charity settled down beside Wilmot. ‘You said you wanted to speak to me, Mr Barton.’
‘I’ve been thinking, and it seems to me that you’re wasted working in the shop with Dawkins as an employer. It’s slave labour and you could do better. You’re an intelligent girl, Charity.’
‘Thank you, sir. But I’m happy with matters as they stand at the moment.’
She frowned. ‘I hadn’t thought about it like that. I still remember the days when I had nothing and was forced to beg on the streets. I wouldn’t want to go back to that.’
‘And you won’t. I wouldn’t allow that to happen, my dear girl. You’ve been a great help to me in my work, and I think you ought to further your education. I’m offering you the chance to attend some of my lectures and I will give you private tuition.’
‘Me?’ Charity stared at him in amazement. ‘But I can’t afford to pay for lessons, and Mr Dawkins wouldn’t let me have time off to attend classes.’
‘The cost is the least of your concerns, Charity. I’m prepared to cover any expenses in order to give you the education that your late father would have wished for his daughter. You would, of course, have to leave Dawkins to fend for himself and it would be beneficial to both of us if you took a room in my lodging house so that I can supervise your studies. You owe him nothing.’
‘But I couldn’t just walk out and leave him to cope on his own. He’s a sick man.’
‘And he’s not your responsibility. I’m sure we could find someone to take your place. There are plenty of people who would be glad of a roof over their head in return for a small wage.’
‘People like me,’ Charity said, turning her head away. ‘I was aptly named Charity.’ She shot him a sideways glance. ‘Why would you do this for me? And how would I live if I wasn’t earning anything?’
‘I would give you an allowance.’ He held up his hand as she was about to protest. ‘I’m a confirmed bachelor. I have neither wife nor children to care for, but suddenly I have an opportunity to do something good and I see in you a love of learning that should be nurtured.’