The Heartbeat Thief

by Ash Krafton

  “This protection.” Senza struggled to keep the disgust out of her voice. Extortion. That would be a better word for it. “And just what does your protection cost?”

  “A trifle, is all.” He brushed his soiled lapel. “Two pounds.”

  It took substantial effort to conquer her indignant speechlessness “Two pounds—”

  “Each week. And you live out each week worry free.”

  “And these two pounds…” She narrowed her eyes, keeping her expression still. It wouldn’t do to pay him and flee. Money once shown would lead to a quickly emptied purse. “Exactly where do I get them? I don’t see a bank nearby, and the white church is dark, so I doubt alms are forthcoming.”

  “Don’t play stupid. It’s unbecoming. Yeh get it the way all the girls get it. You accept company.” He smiled, a flash of uneven teeth. “You behave most accommodating and you give your company what they want and they pay you. And then you pay me. Easy peasy, duckling.”

  “I am not a… and if I were—” She planted her hands on her hips and leaned into him. “If I were, I’m sure I’d find finer company down in the muck along the river than that which I see in front of me at this moment.”

  “You talk lofty, love.” His voice dropped, low and gravelly and mild despite the threat. “Perhaps you don’t realize just where you are. This isn’t the palace, dearie, and it’s not the governor’s mansion. This is but one of many streets that winds its way down to the deep pits of hell. You, obviously, are new here in hell, and I’m a reasonable man. You ask around, ask about ole Denny, and get your opinion from them. You need me, and you need what I can do for yeh. Or else them—”

  He tilted his head toward the opposite corner, where a silhouette stepped out into the bleary gas light. Another stepped around the corner and a third appeared behind him. “Them won’t be inclined toward protecting a lady. Them’ll be a bit contrary-minded.”

  “Not as contrary as I.” Senza stepped closer, braving the stink of his skin. “I’ll do fine on my own, and I’m sure I won’t need to make your acquaintance again. Goodbye, Mr. Strickland.”

  He nodded and licked his teeth, a half-smile. “You remember that name. And you remember my face. Because you will be seeing me again. You walk on these streets, you pay for it. Them’s the rules.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m not one for rules. I’ve survived this long by avoiding them.”

  “You can’t avoid me.”

  “You’ll be disappointed to learn that I can.”

  He swung his stick like a baton and tapped it on the ground. The sharp clack of metal on stone travelled through her bones. “We’ll meet on more pleasant terms, ginger. I guarantee it.”

  “I did say goodbye.” She turned to leave, turning her back on him. A risky move. He was a man without honor. He could strike her down, crack her skull—could she survive a blow like that? Or would she have to live the rest of eternity with a dent in her head?

  “It’s a bit more like until we meet, innit? Because you will see me again.” He tipped his hat in a parody of a gentleman before turning on his heel and swaggering into the cloaking fog of London midnight.

  One by one, the men melted into the night, the rumbles of their menacing laughter chilling more than her bones.

  She stood beneath the lamp for several long moments, and allowing her heart to thump once, partly in relief, partly in restoration. Perhaps she was done walking for the evening. Rounding the corner, she meant to head straight back to the inn.

  “New here, ain’t you?”

  Senza turned in the direction of the bird-like voice, a handful of musical notes that she traced back to a woman leaning against the wall. She hadn’t noticed the lone figure at first, the shadows deeper and darker in this part of town than any other. Such murky conditions were conducive to the commerce that transpired during these nightly hours.

  The stranger pushed away from the wall, and the thin light from the gas lamps on the street picked out the fire gold of her hair, the bare shoulders and the tucked-up skirt that announced her occupation.

  Ah. Senza pressed her lips together. An unfortunate. This was what Strickland had presumed her to be.

  She remembered the manner with which the people in Chelsea had spoken of them, and she held her opinion. She’d make up her own mind.

  “Nobody talks to them boys like that, none that mean to keep breathin’.” The woman sauntered closer, tugging her threadbare shawl up and around her shoulders. “Either you’re brave, or brainless.”

  “I just don’t have much tolerance for men without manners.” Senza sniffed and cast a contemptuous glare over her shoulder. Her tone softened when she looked back at the girl. “And, I am new, I suppose.”

  A delicate farce, if ever there was one. Senza wasn’t new, not by a long shot.

  “What’s your hard luck story?” The girl straightened her shoulders and crossed her arms, jutting up her chin. “Everyone’s got one.”

  Senza smiled a bitter smile. “I’m not sure it qualifies for any luck at all. It’s been…a long road. I just followed it here.”

  “You have a place to stay?”

  Senza nodded.

  “Well.” The woman eyed Senza, head to toes and back again. “You’re better off than most of everyone else. Round here, either you’re stuffed or you’re down in the gutter. If you ain’t a happy dosser or sleepin’ in the alley, you’re doin’ good enough. Are you workin’?”

  “I’m not employed,” Senza said. “Not for some time.”

  “Employed. That’s a nice way of putting it.” The girl scratched back the hair from her eyes and chuffed out a laugh. “See, most of the others been livin’ this life too long to make quips, like. Now, Denny, there—the one you told shove off—Denny thinks you might be one of Bannick’s girls. He don’t like competition. Now, he’ll ask around to see who’s collecting off the red-headed beauty and, when Bannick don’t own up, Den’ll be back, lookin’ for you. And no one turns Denny down. He gets what he wants, and my girls got the scars to prove it. Whatever you think you’re after here in Whitechapel, I’m tellin’ you straight—it ain’t here. You best go while you got legs to go on.”

  “If it’s so bad, why do you stay?”

  “Ain’t nothing anywhere else. All I got are my girls and, we mightn’t be much, but we’re everything there is.” Despite her tough declaration, a thread of vulnerability wavered its way thinly through her words.

  Senza detected the tone easily. Loneliness was a language in which she was quite fluent. Her heart would not be questioned in this—here was a girl who would understand her, even if she was only privy to part of the story. “What’s your name?”

  “Mary Jane. You?”

  She saw no reason to lie, not to Mary. “Senza Fyne.”

  “Fyne, huh?” Mary danced an exaggerated curtsy and grinned. “Foine name for a foine lady. Whitechapel don’t deserve such a luxury. Look, Miss Fyne. I’ll speak plain. You seem nice and I hate to see badness cross your path. Get out, while you can. But if you stay—you got a friend. Anyone who stands up to Denny gets my respect, even if it was a mistake.”

  Mary nodded and shook out her hair and turned to walk back the way Senza had come, dropping her shawl and swinging her hips. She swore at someone at the corner, an angry rebuke to a lewd suggestion.

  “Mary, wait.” Senza called after her. “If I stay, where can I find you?”

  “Spitalfields,” the woman replied. “I live there and’ll prolly die there. Just ask for me. They know me.”

  Mary continued off, weaving her way along the sidewalk.

  Senza watched her until she was out of sight, feeling not quite so alone.

  The next day, Senza asked Molly for directions to Mary’s neighborhood.

  “Why would you go there?” Molly wore a wide-eyed look of intense alarm and shrank into herself. “My da says it’s the worst of hell there. A thousand men sleep in Spitalfields, people just stacked up like crates in a closet. Da says it’s so bad, even t
he police won’t go in alone.”

  “I heard—I heard there is a big church there. I go to join the relief efforts.”

  “That’d be Christ Church, on Commercial Street. But surely, miss, you can find a different church. That’s too close to Dosset.” Molly’s voice dropped to a thin whisper. “Respectable criminals won’t even go there.”

  “But that’s part of, um, God’s plan. To go to the worst place and help the neediest.”

  “Then God should be sending the Queen’s soldiers to do it, Miss, because I don’t think even He is brave enough to do it.”

  Senza would not be deterred. She’d spent enough days sitting in churches, listening to dozens of reverend men touting God’s charitable message. It was simple to parrot it back now, even though she’d long wondered what God would think of her, this selfish woman who’d turned her back on His plans, and doubted another lifetime of charity would undo the judgment that awaited her.

  Eventually, Molly relented and gave Senza the information she wanted, with a great deal more warning than was desired.

  Then again, Senza had already seen what Whitechapel had to offer. Maybe the warning was warranted.

  Mary had been right; the folk in Spitalfields did know her, and seemed to have relatively good opinion of her. Folk were very eager to help, as she’d brought a pocketful of small pence.

  She’d also brought a basket, a heavy one that Molly had packed with bread and cheese and cold meats, eager to help with the charity, even though she wasn’t eager enough to go along to dispense it. And that suited Senza just fine.

  Senza found Mary, washing a few clothes at a public street pump. The girl’s eyes went wide and she smirked, wringing out a skirt with a rough twist. “Decided to stay? My, you’re a brave one.”

  “I suppose.” Senza lifted the basket. “Somewhere we can sit?”

  Mary tried to ignore the large picnic on Senza’s arm, although unsuccessfully. “If you don’t mind the vicar stoppin’ and askin’ you to repent your sinful ways every five minutes, we could sit in the church garden. Shady there, with benches and all.”

  The church was only a short walk away, and just as Mary had described. Excepting the vicar, of course, who only met them with a reproachful look. Senza had worn her plainest dress, so as not to attract attention, but she still must have seemed like a Mrs. Branson-in-training, feeding the poor wretches of East London, one soul at a time.

  Mary was in possession of excellent manners, and showed signs of utmost civility—nothing at all like what Senza imagined a prostitute would be. The girl was smart, quick-witted, and had a sarcastic sense of humor matched to a delighted laugh. Her voice occasionally betrayed a soft lilt, although it had been buried under years of living in London.

  In return for the meal, Mary spilled the story of her past, and shattered several more of Senza’s ignorant misconceptions. Born in Limerick, she’d moved with her family to Cardiff, only to encounter step after step down from her once-fortunate prospects. To spite her parents, she took up work in a brothel.

  Senza listened, rapt and wide-eyed, to the tales of the various disappointing men with whom Mary had fallen in. The girl had virtually thrown away a life of prosperity and ease, only to rely on the dangerous and distasteful practice of selling herself, while living with another man, no less.

  That particular man wasn’t around very often, and certainly didn’t make his business in this wretched neighborhood. He kept only a set of clothes in a crate under the bed, allowing Mary to live most days in peace and quiet. She seemed to enjoy the arrangements.

  Senza had difficulty comprehending the attraction of such a life. “Why, Mary? Why live like this?”

  “Aw.” Mary spoke around a mouthful of cheese. “It’s not so bad. In the country, I hear farm girls work sun up to sundown. At least I get to sleep.”

  “But, there has to be better…livelihood.” Senza faltered, unsure of was a polite word would be, if there even was one.

  “Than whoring, you mean?” Mary grinned, more at Senza’s awkwardness than the plight of her own situation. “Round here, whoring is simply a job like any other, when it comes down to it. You get used to it. Work is work. That’s how you hafta think about it.”

  Senza had never lain with a man, never mind asked recompense for it. Her body was truly her temple—her looks and perfection were the only solid truth in her lie of a life. She’d heard about the pleasures of the flesh, to be sure, but had never experienced them. At the moment, she felt as green as any thirteen-year old girl, discussing private matters with her mother. “Does it… pay well?”

  “Bloody hell, no. Couple a pence, most times. More, if you can land a gentleman. You have to take care of yourself to get toffs like them that’s got real coin, though. The other girls, they tease me because I wash my things every day. But I get fairer wages than them. They just don’t learn.”

  “Are there…gentlemen…in the area?”

  Mary shrugged. “Passers through, mostly. Strange likings, usually, but the coin is good and real. One of my regulars is like that. Don’t see him often, but the money he pays is good enough to last. “

  “I once read,” Senza said, “that ancient times, Roman prostitutes charged the equivalent of eight cups of red wine for their services.”

  Mary whistled and reached for another roll, breaking it open and stuffing it with meat. “Whitechapel girls don’t earn half so much, and get treated twice as poor. If they’re lucky. Me, I can keep a room without having to beg off the landlord every week.”

  That answered another question Senza had been too afraid to ask. She’d come to like Mary, and if she were to discover the girl took to sleeping in an alley, she would have been compelled to share her own room with her.

  And, considering Senza’s sleeping habits, that probably wasn’t a smart thing to do.

  Relief must have shown on her face because Mary finished her sandwich, brushed the crumbs off her skirt, and stood. “Why don’t you walk back with me? I want to spread these wet things out. And I can repay your generosity with a drink or two. I have a bottle of red wine or two in my wine cellar, left over from last pay day.”

  Senza eyed her suspiciously and folded her napkin. “So…they do pay you with red wine?”

  “No, yeh silly bird.” Mary gathered up her damp clothes and stood, tossing her head in direction. “I’m English, not Roman.”

  As they walked along the crowded streets, several people called out to Mary, good-natured jibes and cheerful greetings.

  “Does everyone know you?” Senza grinned as yet another shabby gent tipped his rumpled hat.

  “They’re neighbors. We’re a tight group. Everybody knows everybody here,” Mary said. “I live just around the corner.”

  Senza peered at the sign on the corner, marking the street name. She gasped and grabbed Mary’s arm. “But, Mary—”

  DORSET STREET

  Mary waved up a woman who whistled down from an open window. “What, bird? Never took a stroll here before? See what you’ve been missing.”

  “I’ve heard things, Mary.”

  “And they’re prolly all true.”

  “I can’t believe you’d live here.” Senza crossed her arms against an imaginary chill. “Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Not anymore,” Mary said, bitter humor curling her lips. “This is the worst street in London. If I can live through this, I can live through anything.”

  Halfway up the block, a narrow alley led back to a small alcove of doorways and stairs. Mary led her back to one of the doors and let them in. A small room, only a bed and a few tiny tables, with a chair that looked like it wouldn’t hold together under a child.

  Several garments lay folded upon the seat, and a gentlemen’s vest draped over the back. The vest caught Senza’s attention. The style was one that had been popular among the young men back in Chelsea. Mary’s patron was a gentlemen, then.

  A thin clothesline was stretched across one wall. Mary shook out each of her garments an
d smoothed them over the line.

  “You can just sit on the bed.” Looking over her shoulder, Mary grimaced when she saw Senza hesitate. “Go on. It’s clean.”

  “I—I didn’t mean disrespect,” Senza stammered. “In fact, I meant the opposite. Your bed is your personal space.”

  “No such thing as personal space round these streets.” Mary shrugged and smoothed a blouse over the line. “If you’d rather sit on the table, have at it.”

  A sudden rap at the door made them both jump. Mary peered through the thick, blurry window and released a shaky laugh. “Keep your skin on, Senza. It’s only one of me girls.”

  “Will wonders never cease.” Mary opened the door. “Katey, what’re doing up so early? I thought you’d still be sleepin’ off that bender. You were in rare form last night, you were.”

  “Oh, Mary, it’s ‘orrible. Just ‘orrible!” The older woman broke into tears, her words running together and becoming muddled.

  “Now, you just sit down and get your breath, Kate. What ‘appened?”

  “It’s Annie.” Kate clutched at Mary’s arm, sagging as though her despair were too great to stand. “The ripper got her, Mary, the coppers found her this morning. They said she was in tatters, Mary, just opened up and gutted like a pig—”

  Mary grabbed Kate in a fierce hug. Her eyes were raging bright with desperate tears. “But not you, you’re safe. You’re safe, you hear me? Annie took chances. How many times I got to tell you, it’s not safe! Don’t go with someone you don’t know.”

  “It ‘appened right around the corner, Mary. He’s here, he’s walkin’ our streets, right alongside us. What if we’re next?”

  “We won’t be, Kate, ‘cause we ain’t berks. We don’t go nowhere alone. Tell Lizzy. You stick to her and don’t leave her out of your sight.”

  Mary ushered her friend out the door, calling after her to hurry. She took a long look around before sliding back in and closing the door.

  She wiped her palms against her skirt, avoiding Senza’s eyes. “You, um, better get back to your place, as well, Senza. Just because this bad business happens in the dark don’t mean a shadow won’t pop up and surprise you. Just—check back, get safe, and get the bleeding hell out of Whitechapel.”