"And then?"
"You just continue—fresh crop after fresh crop, all the same kind of girl. It's bound to discourage the rescuers before long. Kill it with your own enthusiasm. That's what I'd do."
"By jove, Stevenson! I believe you've hit it!" He began to giggle excitedly.
"Only one thing," John added.
"What's that?"
"Make sure the house they pick as their Refuge will convert easily into a suitable residence for a rich young widow!"
Walter's laughter shook the cab. They had reached Griffin Lane, where the driver would normally have turned right to go up to Park Street. But Walter leaned out and told him to make a detour via St. Augustine's Place. "I'll make my arrangements for later," he told John.
"Aren't you afraid of being clapped?" John asked. "A terrible thing to take home."
"I go for the youngsters," Walter said. "They're generally free of it. I look for the new ones."
They were soon at St. Augustine's, where Walter made the cab pull up. "There's two," he said eagerly, and, throwing down the window, called. "Hey, sweetmeats!"
John could not believe it; the two girls who came over, dressed in trumpery cast-offs that hung about them, were hardly yet pubescent. "Hello, Charley!" the taller one said with a cheeky little grin. "Are you kind?" She had a bright eye and a strong, pleasant face.
"What are your names, my dears?" Walter asked.
"Becky, sir. And yur's Annie."
"And how old are you, Becky?" Walter was like a kindly uncle.
"Thirteen, sir. And Annie's twelve." Her Bristol accent made her sound a little adenoidal.
"Are you sisters?"
"Yes, sir."
"Does your mother know you're out, Annie?"
Annie, who had not once looked at Walter—indeed, did not once take her eyes off her sister's face—made a snotty, giggly, gurgling sound. Her mouth never closed and her lips never ceased to smile.
"She ain't got no speech, sir. She'm simple," Becky said with a grin.
Walter suddenly leaped from the cab and began running his hands over simple little Annie. "But well made!" he said admiringly. "By harry! A simple little Venus!" He might have forgotten John's presence.
"She do please. All they men do say it," Becky confirmed.
"What about under? Lift your skirts, Annie." He bent down to her and spoke in gentle encouragement. "Skirts. Lift. Goo' gel! Got any hair yet?"
John watched spellbound as Walter, stooping as farmers stoop to feel cows' udders in the auction ring, reached his hand under her lifted skirt. All the while her simple, giggling eyes never left her sister's face, and the simple drooling gurgle poured happily from her lips.
"She ain't got none. An' 'tis a tanner for a feel. I got more'n what she 'ave," Becky was saying.
"My word!" Walter said admiringly. "She's as big as Marble Arch though."
John leaned out of the carriage then. "Just going to stroll around to the quay, Thornton," he said. "Pick me up on Under the Bank."
Walter, not even turning, held up a hand in acknowledgement. "Shan't be a minute. Only making the arrangement now," he said.
The last words he heard from Thornton, as he turned the corner, were to the effect that Becky had "a sweet little mossy bank."
He breathed with relief as he came out of the Place; what an astonishing thing was Thornton's obsession. He did not believe all he had told Walter in the cab on their way down. He had much more faith in Arabella's robustness of spirit and persistence; and he wanted to see what she would make of this chance.
Right at the corner, a girl stepped out fearlessly into the full glare of the gas lamp—and he felt his heart quite literally turn over in his chest.
Alice!
It was Alice beyond any doubt. Alice to a T. The same Alice whom he had married over the anvil when he was a navvy. Alice with whom he had shared one delirious year out at Irlam's-o-th'Ights, on the Eccles road out of Manchester. Sixteen—seventeen years ago?
"Are ye kind, Charley?" she asked. Very West Country accent.
But Alice would have been—thirty-eight; and this girl, this Alice looked barely eighteen.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Charity," she said.
"Your full name?"
"Dunno. C'mon then. Fire be warm an' do need a poke!"
It was Alice's voice too—except for the West Country accent, that almost American burring of the r's. Warrrm, she said. It made his scalp tingle.
"Listen!" he said, turning her back into the light so that he could see her face again and drink it in. "I don't want—what you're offering. But I'll give you a guinea. Look"—he fished it from his change purse—"a golden guinea. I'll give that to you if you'll just answer me some questions. Right?"
The girl nodded, made solemn at the thought of so much for so little.
"Why do you not know your name?"
"I only do know what they did give I when I was a orpheling."
"Where?"
"Orpheling Girls' Asylum, Ashley Hill. But they give I that name in the other place, in the work'ouse."
"Where was that?"
"Egghouse, they did say."
"Egghouse? Could it be Eccles?"
"I s'pose so. Eccles? Could be. I was there wi' my mam."
"What was her name?"
"I think 'twas Alice?"
Something in the girl's face—a hint of cunning—made him doubt this. Had he said the name aloud when the girl had first startled him? He was sure he hadn't; at least, he had been sure until this moment. Now he would never know. He cursed himself. He ought to have gone away and worked out his questions very carefully.
Too late now.
"I aren't sure, mind," the girl said.
"What name did they give you at—Eccles?" he asked.
"Charity Bedfordshire!" The girl smirked. "Next girl was Diligence Berkshire, an' the next was Earliness Buckinamshire." She giggled and then laughed, Alice's laugh, a warm, rich, infectious invitation. A peal of bells.
He was lost. What could he do? He could not leave her here. If she really was Alice's child, she was his child too. It was ridiculous—preposterous to think it. But it was just possible. Possible, he kept telling himself. Yet where could he take her? Not home. A pretty, vulgar little whore off a Bristol quayside? How to explain that! Even if he told Nora everything and she accepted it, the child would be a constant sore between them.
No, no. It was unthinkable. Leave her! It was trouble.
No. He had to find out more about her. "Listen, Charity," he said. "I believe I knew your mother. At least you are the very living image of someone I… once knew. Now, I can leave you here if you wish it. I do not want to harm you or disturb your…way of life if it contents you." Her lip curled in scorn; or it could be cynical disbelief. "I do not want anything of you, not the favours you are selling. But if you want it—if you want it—I can help you. So tell me honestly—and as God is watching you, I want the truth—do you enjoy this work? Do you do it for choice?"
She spat on the cobbles; an answer and yet not an answer. He tried another approach.
"How often do you go with men? Every day?"
"Dunno. When I do lack money, I s'pose."
"And if you could get money any time you wanted without having to go with a man, would you stop going with men?"
"Dunno. S'pose I might."
Her willingness was beginning to fade. The smile was going. He played idly with the guinea, where she could see it. "What goes on—what d'you think about when you are with men?" he asked.
"Dunno. Dresses mostly, I s'pose. An' dancin'."
"Have you a family? Are you married or living with anyone?"
"Dunno."
"I see." He sighed. "You make it very difficult to know whether to help you or not, Charity. Whether you want it."
She smiled, knocking him sideways again. "I'll be thy missy," she said sweetly, making it seem the most natural offer in the world. "Put I in a nice li'l house, out Cli
fton Hill"—she began to toy with his waistcoat buttons—"wi' a maid, an' a guv'ness cart, an' give I pretty dresses…"
That smile again!
"Is that all you want?" he asked. "Nothing more in life than that?"
"Dunno. I ain't thought 'bout it, really."
"Suppose," John suggested with a sinking heart, unable to hit upon anything better, "suppose I did all that for you, not here, but in London. Suppose I came and saw you once or twice a week—not to lie down with you but just to talk and read books and—I don't know—dance…whatever you want. Would you prefer that to this?"
"'Course I would!" she said, finding affirmation at last. "If you was generous." She kissed him quickly on the lips, a flesh-and-blood ghost of a kiss that floored him entirely.
"Well, listen," he said when he had rallied. "I'm stopping here in Bristol with a man called Mr. Thornton, who at this minute is going mad in a cab on Under the Bank, round the corner here, thinking I've vanished. You'll come back with me now and stop the night at his place. I'll take you to London tomorrow. All right?"
"Me guinea?" she said.
He gave it to her.
"An' you must buy I off of Billy." She held up a hand in the gaslight.
Someone came running over the street.
"Don' give he more'n ten pound. Tha's all he bought I for, an' he've 'ad good value since."
The running figure turned into a squat, powerful man, something the cut of a sailor. He had a badly healed scar down his right cheek.
"'Tisn't trouble, Billy," she said quickly. "He do want to buy I."
Billy smiled. "What for, matey? Pretty 'un, isn't she?" He winked. "For a French house, is it? What's the offer? I'm reasonable."
"Something of that sort," John said, also smiling.
Unseen by the man, he was reaching his arm around in the shadows, feeling for something heavy that had made the man run lopsidedly, clutching his pocket. He found it. Quicker than thought he gripped it and tweaked it up and out.
A poker. A heavy, stout fire poker, of slightly wrought drawn-iron bar.
The man backed away, still smiling. "Don't be daft, matey," he warned softly. "You'd never get off the quay alive."
But John was not grasping the poker in a menacing attitude. Instead, he held it level in front of him, one huge gloved fist around each end. He prayed it had not been too work-hardened. His arms began to tremble. His breath grew strained. Nothing happened.
The man, who had put his fingers to his tongue to make a whistle, now lowered them again and began to laugh. "Oh no, matey!" he said. "Never in a month!"
John's whole body shook. His neck bulged in his collar. His eyes seemed to be extruding from his head. The man was right. The pain from his tortured hands was intense.
Then suddenly the bar gave. It bent a whole ten degrees at once. Quickly, before it could cool and harden, John redoubled his grip and bent it further. Now it went smoothly and easily round. His hands did not even tremble. He brought the two ends into contact. "Enough, Billy?" he asked.
"No, no." Billy said. He'd forgotten Charity completely and was fascinated at this exhibition of strength. "See if you can go right round."
John laughed. To complete the circle was even easier. He handed back the poker, now much shorter and with an o in its middle. At the same time he pulled out his wallet and from it drew a ten-pound note. "I wouldn't cheat you, Billy," he said. "But I didn't want any misunderstanding. She's mine now, right?"
"Too right!" Billy said. He looked again at the poker. "Gawd help us!"
Charity took his arm and walked proudly round onto the quay. "Here!" she said. "You be some proper man, be'nt ye!"
What have I done? John thought.
The cab was at the far end of Under the Bank, with Walter standing beside it, searching.
"Thornton!" John waved.
Walter climbed back at once and the cab came rattling down the quay toward them.
"Oh, I see!" Walter said when he saw Charity. "I forgive you utterly."
"This is Mr. Walter Thornton," John said. "Miss Charity Bedfordshire. I think I have Mrs. Thornton's first charge."
Walter's face fell at that. "You can't be serious!"
"Serious enough to hand over a tenner to her bully boy. Come on! Strike while the iron's hot!"
"Not in my house!" He was both frightened and angry. "They must buy their Refuge first."
John laughed. "I'm joking, old fellow. I'll take her to the London Refuge tomorrow. Mrs. Cornelius can come too."
"Oh, that'll be good!" Walter said, unthinkingly relieved.
"So she may stay the night?" It was all John had really wanted to wring out of him.
"Yes, yes, yes," Walter said.
Charity waited outside while Walter took John into the Philosophical Institute to introduce him to Alderman Proctor. They were gone about half an hour. She got down from the cab briefly to look in the workshop window of James Gordon, who carved, among other things, anatomical models in ivory. There was one there in which you could take out muscles and blood vessels and nerves. It made her shiver. "I do know just how you do feel, matey," she joked to it before she returned to the cab.
This meeting with Proctor was in the nature of a preliminary skirmish. Clark's report to the Board of Health had only just been published, and the deplorable state of Bristol's sewers, though for long known to the noses (and the undertakers) of the city, had only now achieved official recognition. It would be some years yet before the first sod of the first new drain was dug; but that was none too soon for the possible main parties to the transaction to get to know one another. That afternoon, John had taken the precaution of driving out to the alderman's house between Clifton Down and the Whiteladies nursery garden, so he was able to compliment him on a fine residence with a splendid view
"But a very muddy drive, if I may say so," he added.
"The bane of my life," the alderman agreed.
"Why not talk to whoever does this sewerage scheme of yours and see if he can't lay you some gravel or hardcore out there while he's working in the city?"
"D'you think he would?" It sounded so innocent.
"I'm sure of it. You'd do him a favour, in fact. In my experience, one always ends up with too much spoil. One is always rather glad to have someone willing to relieve one of a bit. As I say, you do him a favour."
So now both men knew where they stood. That was what the whole visit to Bristol had been about. The rest of their half-hour meeting was padding.
Back in the cab, Walter seemed a bit glum. "I suppose it's necessary," he sighed. "The world couldn't keep turning without it. But it does leave a nasty taste around. Public life should have its standards."
"Sewers do worse than leave a nasty taste. I tell you, Thornton: If we get this sewerage contract in the end, there's fifty pounds waiting for you by way of a thank-you for the introducing."
"Oh, I couldn't think of taking it. I couldn't."
John nudged Charity. "Why not? Why ever not? What's young Becky and Annie going to cost you now?"
"A few bob. I'll give more if they're kind."
"See? Tonight's work would pay for several hundred such romps."
"You don't understand. It's a question of standards, old fellow."
Beckie and Annie were waiting in the church porch and took him at once to the little garret their mother rented for their trade.
John chuckled and Charity joined in.
"I do know he," she said.
His spirits fell. To be sure, it was only to be expected, Bristol being as small as it was and Walter's Irish toothache being so great.
"Do you recognize him? You gave no sign."
She looked pityingly at him, as well as he could tell by the flickering carriage lamp.
"I recognized his voice. He'm one o' they men do talk an' talk."
"What about?"
"Dunno. About everythin'. An' he do fuck funny too. He do—"
"I don't really want to hear of it." John smiled. "I want t
o tell you about tonight."
She wriggled excitedly.
"Mrs. Thornton, Mr. Thornton's wife, is intending to open a Refuge for the rescue of fallen women…"
"Yur!" she interrupted. "I be'nt goin' into no place like that."
"Of course not."
"I done fourteen years in the orpheling. I be'nt goin' back."
The Rich Are with You Always Page 57