by Edie Cay
The ticking of the jump rope ceased. Bess looked up to find the rest of the girls staring at her. “Without boxing, I’d been left for dead in a rubbish heap long ago,” she said, looking at each of her pupils. “If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand the world.”
Violet’s eyes became glassy with tears. Her da said one thing but the world showed another, so who was Violet to believe—Bess or her da? Bess had pushed Violet too far on her loyalties. Because Bess always went too far.
“I’m here to help,” Bess insisted, doing her best to soften her tone to one that wouldn’t scare a child. But she did scare children—gargantuan, angry, hard woman that she was.
Instead of melting, Violet marched herself out of the gym, through the curtain, and out of the pub, her head still held high. Bess watched her go, a dark feeling of failure seeping throughout her body. The girl would wind up dead, beaten to death, her father unable to remember doing the deed. Why couldn’t these girls see what was in front of them? The fight was coming to them, whether they wanted it or not. Life did that to little girls whose parents wouldn’t protect them. Hell, even those with parents to protect them could still end up that way.
All she wanted to do was bury her face in her hands, railing against the unfairness of it all, wanting to stand in front of these girls to take the blows that would be dealt to them. At least she knew what to expect. She looked down at her leathery hands, scarred as Violet’s would become, gashes from knives and glass, broken fingers healed in strange ways. These two hands were her only possessions of value, the only ones that kept her fed and kept her safe.
The excitement in the gymnasium had evaporated, the girls uncertain and motionless. The hour was almost up. Best to start again fresh next session.
“Go home, girls,” Bess announced. “We’ll train longer next time.”
The girls looked at each other, and Prinny coiled her jump rope neatly around her hand. They filed out of the gym and into the pub one at a time, and from behind the curtain, Miz Penny exclaimed her surprise, not yet ready with the tray of food. Lucy took a moment, soft-hearted creature that she was.
“S’all right, Miss Bess. Violet’s just upset that her da’s in Newgate right now.”
The man could be in Newgate for all kinds of reasons. Theft, assault, public drunkenness—she wouldn’t even put it past him for worse crimes. “When did he go?”
Lucy shrugged her tiny shoulders. The girl was so malnourished she looked three years younger than her nine. “I’m not sure,” she said, her eyes wandering around the gym as she thought. “But I saw Violet begging out behind the baker’s last Friday, so sometime before then.”
He could have put those bruises on her. Bess was fairly certain that the man had scraped enough money to let rooms somewhere in Paddington. Surely Violet was safe enough there. “Lucy, do you know where Violet stays?”
The girl frowned, her face creasing into concerned lines that made her look less like a little adult and more like a puppy hunting down a new smell. “Not exactly. But I only ever seen her near the baker’s and the tavern that has the big lion on it.”
“Thank you, Lucy. Do you know where I live? In Mrs. Martin’s place?” Bess asked.
Lucy nodded, her face relaxed and clean of lines.
“Good. If you see Violet, I want you to come get me. Or, if you can talk to her, I want you to tell her to come to me at Mrs. Martin’s. She isn’t safe by herself. If she’s hungry, I’ll feed her.”
Lucy nodded again, and Bess suppressed an urge to hug the wee thing.
“Good girl. Go on, then.” Bess stood. Now she at least had a purpose so she could fight the feelings of failure that dogged her. She knew that she couldn’t save everyone. Watching Lord Denby die last year was not any of her doing, and there hadn’t been one thing she could have done to make it otherwise. Still, the ugly face of death haunted her. But she could try to keep Violet from seeing it before her time.
Bess stepped past the curtain and into the pub, watching over the girls as they maneuvered through without harassment. Many of the men standing at the tall tables eyeballed Bess instead, watching the protector instead of the flock. Without taking her eyes off the girls, she asked Miz Penny, “Did you see which way Violet went when she left?”
Miz Penny wrapped a couple pasties in paper and handed them to a customer. “Violet is the one that went running out earlier?”
Bess nodded as she watched Prinny disappear out the door.
“I’m not sure,” Miz Penny said. “I was pulling ale.”
“I think she went to the left,” the young man across the counter said, his voice colored with a touch of a French accent.
Bess glanced over, taking in his slim stature and broad shoulders. He had dark hair with a bit of a curl hanging in his eyes. He held the wrapped pasties in his hands, and she couldn’t help but notice the soot under his nails and the coal dusting his hands. “You saw her leave?” Bess asked.
“She was leaving when I entered.”
“Can you show me?” Bess asked. She was trying hard to focus on Violet and not think of this possible connection to the smug. The blacksmith seemed like a man who could help solve problems like this, the problem of keeping a child safe.
The Frenchman nodded and led the way out of the pub. Bess followed him, not bothering to glance at the rough men parting for her.
“This way,” the young man said, directing them to the left, up the street towards Mrs. Martin’s, towards Harrow Street, towards the old Barnsworth foundry.
“What’s yer name?” she asked as they walked, glancing in every alleyway, looking in every shop.
“Jean Fabron,” he said, his French accent clear when pronouncing his own singsong name.
“You the smug’s apprentice?” she asked.
Jean Fabron broke out into a big smile as she asked. “The very one. And I believe you are Miss Abbott?”
“The same,” she said, trying not to grin back at him. The apprentice had an infectious sort of joy in him, very unlike the pervasive calm she’d seen in the blacksmith.
They reached Harrow, finding no sign of the girl. The clatter of horses ambling by obscured the view of the side roads at the intersection. Jean Fabron waited for the traffic to pass and then started across the street.
“Are you not coming?” he asked when he noticed Bess hadn’t moved.
“Are you sure she came all this way?” Somehow crossing Harrow felt like she was doing more than looking for Violet. To breach this area of the neighborhood, to go near the foundry, seemed like she was putting off the search somehow.
“No, but I can ask my master if he’s seen her. He keeps the doors open all day.”
Bess glanced down the street, as if Violet might pop out of one of the alleyways at any moment. “Fine.”
Jean gave her a puzzled look. “It isn’t far.”
“Lead the way,” she said, although she already knew how to find the foundry. She’d thought of it frequently in the last week, as if it called to her. As if she could conjure this blacksmith who liked her ears, who was gentle in all the ways she was not.
They walked in silence, passing shop after shop of people Bess recognized—those who had aged, grown into adults. It wasn’t that she avoided this place, it was merely that she had grown busy with training and working and living. This neighborhood that she used to run in as a child was now as foreign as if it were across the world.
“Who is this little girl?” the apprentice asked.
“A student,” Bess said. “Her father is in Newgate and she needs someone to look after her.”
“And you would be her guardian?” Jean Fabron asked.
The question put a hitch in her stride. She hadn’t thought of it in formal terms. Nothing legal, of course, no reason to get a solicitor involved. Who had the money for that? Bess had bounced from house to house as a child with no formal arrangement in any place she stayed. Who cared where the strange-looking gangly girl slept, as long as it wasn�
�t in the street?
The yard in front of the foundry was alive with chickens and an old hound dog who looked to have been first owned by Methuselah. A few cats prowled the area looking for mice. Two big doors gaped wide, eliminating the front wall of the foundry, opening it for the whole neighborhood to see. The anvil was centered, the weak sun streaming in to highlight it.
Her blacksmith had to be in there, tinkering, stoking a fire. Her stomach turned. She hadn’t felt this nervous since she was a child, entering her first real set-to. Her palms sweated and she flexed her fives without thinking.
Jean led her around the chicken fence and into the foundry. The blacksmith stood at a counter with his back turned, laying out a set of old tools, inspecting each carefully, running his thumb along every groove. He wore no proper shirt, having no sleeves on. Bess couldn’t help but evaluate his powerful shoulders and back, no doubt developed from the long years of an apprenticeship. Even most of the fighters she knew were not so well-formed as this man. A dark leather apron was tied at his neck and his waist, shielding his clothing from his work.
“Oi, you see a little girl go by?” the apprentice asked.
The blacksmith didn’t raise his head, just continued his work. “No.”
Jean shifted his feet. Bess’s mouth went dry. “We’ve a guest.”
The man lifted his bald head as he turned, slow and powerful. When his dark eyes rested on her, his face melted into a gentle expression. “Miss Abbott,” he greeted her.
“Blacksmith,” she said.
“You’ve come to my foundry,” he rumbled.
Bess weighed the statement. “Your apprentice has taken me to your foundry,” she said, biting her lip to keep her features neutral.
“Is that something I should reward him for, or dock his pay?” The blacksmith laid down the tool he was holding and instead took up a rag, cleaning his hands.
“But—” Jean protested.
“Not to worry,” Bess said. “He promised you would help me look for a little girl.”
The blacksmith raised his eyebrows at his assistant. “Making promises for me?”
“You couldn’t get her to come here,” Jean said, folding his arms.
“The floor needs sweeping,” he told his apprentice.
Bess stifled a laugh as Jean heaved a dramatic sigh and slunk over to the broom.
“Tell me what you need,” the blacksmith said, closing the gap between them.
He stepped so close that she could smell him, charcoal and a bit of metal, and, somehow, salt. Strange that the combination should seem heady to her, but it was. She’d liked men before, but this was a new sensation, as if she’d been knocked in the breadbasket before walking inside the foundry.
Had he really been earnest with his attentions, and she’d told him he was being false? By questioning him like that, pulling all his actions into the air between them, had she ruined it all before it had begun?
“I’d like your name, please,” Bess said.
He stood not quite a full head taller than her, which was unusual. There were few men who could look her in the eye, and even fewer that made her tip up her chin. He must have understood that because he smiled then, his teeth straighter and whiter than any she had seen in these neighborhoods, and the gesture itself seemed more earnest than any she’d ever witnessed before. “My name is Os Worley,” he said.
The methodical sound of the broom sweeping the floor made it seem as if there was a clock ticking, a way to remind her that she didn’t have time for flirtation.
“Os?” she asked. “Nickname?”
He made a noise instead of saying yes, a deep rumble that echoed in her chest.
“What’s yer Christian name, then?” she asked.
He closed his mouth but the smile remained, a sly grin instead. “You don’t get that name so easily.”
“I won’t bother asking what I have to do to earn that one,” Bess said. When the implications of what she said dawned on her, she blushed.
Os laughed, a short spasm of low pitched humor. The steady sweep of the broom halted. The apprentice stared.
“I’m looking for a little girl,” Bess said, interrupting the awkward moment with business. “Your apprentice said you might be able to help.”
“What does she look like?” Os asked.
“Tall for her age, about twelve years old, or maybe nine? Sort of dishwater hair, brown eyes. What you might imagine I looked like that young.” Bess glanced out the big double doors, as if she might see Violet walking by at that very moment.
“I can’t imagine,” Os said.
The look on his face was so intense it made her want to take a step back. She shifted her weight instead. “Well, her name’s Violet, and she’s in trouble.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for her,” Os said, also turning to look through the foundry doors.
“Thank you,” Bess said, feeling as if she could breathe for the first time.
“What should I do if I see her?” he asked.
“Either send for me and I’ll come get her, or tell her to come find me. I’d prefer the first, though.” Violet might fight for her autonomy, foolish as it was.
“Will she come to you?” Os asked.
“I don’t know,” Bess admitted. “But I can hope.”
“Sometimes that’s the best a person can do,” he said.
They stood in companionable silence for a moment, the apprentice on the other side of the foundry resuming the methodical swish of the broom. She barely knew this man, just learned his name, but she felt an impulse to lean into him and rest her head on his shoulder.
He was somehow immovable, imperturbable, and that gave her peace. Standing in the doorway of the foundry, looking at the chickens pecking, the grizzled dog snoring, the apprentice sweeping, she felt safe. Safe enough to let her guard down, if she was so inclined.
4
“But d’you miss it, is what I’m asking,” Jean pressed.
The cold fall of rain muddied the yard and the foundry’s doorway. Keeping the smithy closed while they worked was unthinkable. The air was too close and smoky. Yet when Jean rolled open the two barn-sized doors, the cold invaded without mercy. Jean rubbed his bare arms.
“Makes a lad wish he was on a sunny island,” he said.
“I prefer the cold,” Os grumbled. The humid air and the painfully sharp sun were memories he didn’t want to dwell on right then. The feelings were too caught up in other webs.
“But you lived there, didn’t you?” Jean asked. It was the most forward the boy had ever been. “West Indies? Barbados?”
Os grunted, warning the boy to leave it alone. The boy should know not to press, but he did anyway. There was no forgetting the place, or missing it either, because that would take the good and mix it together with all of the bad.
Sometimes he wondered if he’d invented those memories: his mother’s humming, the gentle touch of her swollen, calloused hands. In the past months, he’d visited a few London taverns and public houses where men of color gathered, but he’d not yet had the courage to start asking after Thomasina the seamstress. It galled him that he’d moved all this way only to be frozen in fear. Because if Thomasina the seamstress wasn’t his mother, then what would he do?
“Quiet,” Os said more to himself than to Jean, pulling his mind back to the present, the gray London skies pressing down through the wide doors.
Jean sighed and heaved the long-handled hammer over his shoulder. Os poured a small amount of tool-grade steel to cover the crack in the head of the chisel. Os straightened his arm, nodding at Jean to strike.
The hammer came down with a steady clank. Another clank sounded as the hammer connected. Os inspected the chisel head. The crack was no longer noticeable, but while the metal was warm they might as well square up the sides and straighten it out.
Repositioning, Os held the chisel lengthwise. Jean let the hammer fly. Os turned it while Jean reset his stance, and however brief, Os appreciated the times they didn
’t need to talk. They were like appendages of the forge, blacksmith and apprentice.
A clearing of a throat brought Os’s attention away from the anvil. A boy stood there, a satchel slung across his shoulders.
“Royal Mail,” he said, licking his lips. “A Mr. Os Worley.” Freckles splashed across his nose and his shoulders were broad, but he had no meat to him yet. When he grew into himself, he’d be a large man, but as of yet, he was just a boy.
Os grunted. “Who from?”
“The Chitley estate in Manchester,” the boy said, straightening, glancing back and forth between Jean and Os. “Three pence.”
“Deuces,” Jean swore.
Os glanced up at him as he put down the pincers. The chisel would cool before they could temper it.
“That’s a lot of money for a piece of paper,” Jean complained.
“It costs what it cost,” Os said. “Stay here.” He went inside to fetch the money out of his purse that he kept hidden in the cupboard. When he returned, the mail boy was following Jean around the foundry. When the boy noticed Os looming, he startled.
“I didn’t hear you,” the boy gasped, gripping his chest.
“Light on his feet,” Jean said, pride evident in his eyes.
Os stepped closer, holding out his hand.
“Three pence,” he said.
The boy managed to hold out his hand to accept the coins. With the other hand, he held out the letter, addressed to the foundry.
So Willrich knew he was here. It wasn’t surprising that he kept watch over him, but it still grated.
“Thank you,” Os said, taking the missive.
“Merci,” Jean said.
The boy startled again at hearing French and ran out the front of the foundry through the chicken yard. The ancient hound dog raised his wrinkled head at the commotion before settling back in for a morning nap.
Os pocketed the letter underneath his leather apron, picking up the pincers to release the cooled chisel.