A Broken Vessel (2 page)

He let her out not far from where he had found her. She decided to go back to the Cockerel and see if she could get some cove to stand her a drop. Of course, she had plenty of blunt now—she wriggled with pleasure, feeling the pocketful of coins and handkerchiefs bump against her knee as she walked—but that was no reason to buy herself a drink, if she could get a man to buy it for her.

She strolled around the taproom, exchanging greetings with people she knew. Many of Toby’s patrons were former boxers like himself, come down in the world and given to the drink. The rest were common enough types in this neighbourhood: street performers, brothels’ bullies, thieves. Some brought their wives; the other female customers were whores, though some preferred to call themselves actresses or dancers.

One woman was making a scene, tugging at a man’s coat and railing at him to come home. In the crook of her free arm, she held a baby about six months old. Sally stared, and a lump came into her throat. Becky would have been just about that age.

She tore herself away and went up to the bar. “Give me a drain of pale,” she muttered to Toby. Seeing him look at her narrowly, she added, “I have the blunt!” While he poured her drink, she leaned on the bar, her chin propped on her hands. What was the matter with her? Almost nineteen years old, and as fly to the game as a girl ever was—and here she was ready to burst out blubbering over a baby that died six months ago! Why, some girls had a kid every other year, and buried them all, and they didn’t take on like this!

Toby clapped her brandy on the counter. She started to fish out a coin, but he shook his head. “That cove there paid for it.”

He jerked his thumb at a young man standing a little way down the bar. He was soberly dressed, like a clerk or shop assistant, in a black frock coat and trousers, a grey waistcoat, and a black cravat. He carried a sturdy black umbrella with a handle shaped like a ram’s head.

She lifted her glass to him, with a broad smile. That’s the ticket, she told herself—business’ll drive the mulligrubs away. Blue Eyes was right: it’s as good a way as any to stop yourself from thinking.

The man came closer and leaned an elbow on the bar, watching her drink. He had a thin face, thin body, thin nose and lips. His hair and eyes were a lacklustre brown. He wore round, goldrimmed spectacles, so Sally decided to call him Blinkers. Those spectacles were the only vivid thing about him. They shone when the candlelight hit them, and threw the light back again, as though defying anyone to get a good look into his eyes.

His fingers were stained with ink, she noticed—most likely he was a clerk. He was certainly a sight too respectable for this place. She wondered what he was doing here.

“You don’t want nothing?” she asked.

“I don’t want a drink,” he amended.

“It’s a bob for the room if we stay here.”

“I can afford it.”

The conversation lapsed.

“Talkative, ain’t you?” she remarked.

“When there’s anything worth talking about.”

She shrugged. If that was how he wanted things—strictly business—it made no odds to her. She finished her drink and asked Toby for a room. Blinkers took the key and led the way upstairs. He must have been here before.

They had the same room she and Bristles had used. Blinkers locked the door behind them and put the key in his pocket. He hung his umbrella on the doorknob, took off his spectacles, and laid them down carefully. Then he turned to her and smiled. In that moment, she knew she had made a terrible mistake.

Screaming would do no good. Nobody would hear her in the taproom two stories below—and anyway, who would want to get mixed up in a row between a doxy and her flat? She was on her own, and she knew it.

She edged toward the door, giving Blinkers a wide berth. He watched her as a cat watches a mouse. All at once he sprang. He grabbed her by the shoulders and flung her against the wall. Her head banged, and she almost fell. He was coming at her again. She dodged and ran for the door. He laughed. After all, the door was locked, and the key was in his pocket.

But it was not escape she was seeking—it was the umbrella he had left hanging on the doorknob. She seized it by the pointed end and swung it at his head. The handle smashed against his left temple.

“You damned bitch!” he cried.

She tried to hit him again, but he caught at the umbrella and wrenched it away. The oil-cloth tore; the ribs broke with a sickening crack. He started beating her with the umbrella. She dropped to the floor and curled up protectively, letting the blows rain down on her back.

At last he threw the umbrella aside. He dragged her up, kicking and flailing, and shoved her against the wall. Very deliberately, he punched her in the left temple, just where she had hit him with the umbrella. The pain exploded through her head; the candlelight splintered into stars.

His hands moved to her throat. He pushed her down on the bed, his grip on her neck tightening. She beat on his arms with her fists and tried to bite him. Her eyes bulged, she gasped for air, and clawed at his hands. A red mist came up in front of her eyes, she groped in her mind for a prayer—

He laughed and let her go. She gulped the air, wailing with relief and pain. He pulled up her skirt. She was past resisting. But after a while, out of sheer instinct, she felt in the tail pocket of his coat.

There was nothing to steal but a handkerchief—a poor revenge, but better than nothing.

He got up, tossed some coins on the bed, and left her. She sat up dizzily. Her stomach heaved. She groped her way to the washstand and retched. Finding water in the pitcher, she splashed some on her face. Her rouge ran down in little pink rivulets.

She burst into tears. “Bastard!” she sobbed. “Pox take you, you stinking sod, you frigging son of a whore!”

She pounded on the washstand. She felt so helpless. It was not as if the like of her could go and complain to a watchman. It was only at times like this that she wished she had a fancy-man to look after her. But she knew she could never have borne that: giving some man control of her money, accounting to him for her comings and goings, keeping house for him by day and walking the streets for him by night.

She cried and cursed for a long time, wiping her eyes and nose on her sleeve. No sense soiling any of the handkerchiefs: they were worth money. She stuffed Blinkers’s in with the others. It was of grey silk, plain and nondescript like everything about him—till you knew him better.

She rose, stiff and aching, and examined her red dress. The bodice was badly torn at the neck, but the skirt could be saved. At least her bonnet was all right. She put it on, wrapped her cloak around her, and hobbled downstairs, stopping at each landing to rest and hold her sore back and sides.

She went into the taproom and moved slowly to the bar. “Give us a drop of warm flannel,” she said to Toby.

He looked her briefly up and down. Then he poured her a glass of hot gin and beer, flavoured with sugar and nutmeg. “Keep your money,” he said curtly, when she would have paid him.

For Toby, it was an extravagant gesture. “Thanks,” she said huskily.

She sipped her drink slowly, letting the heat and comfort flow through her. She had had enough for one night. She was fit for nothing now but to go home to her lodging in the labyrinth of dirty streets and squares known as Seven Dials. There she could rest and lick her wounds—

And use up her small supply of coal, she reminded herself. And sit in the dark all alone, and throw her shoes at the mice to drive them back in their holes, and listen to the couple upstairs curse and knock their children about, then tumble into bed to make more. No: she must have been off her head even to think about going home. Anything, even picking up another flat, would be better than that. At least then she would have company, warmth, someone to snuggle with for a while.

She went out again, back to the Haymarket. The night was colder than before, or perhaps it was only that her bruises made her feel it more. She searched among the game girls for a friend she could have a gossip with, but there was nobody she knew. So she cast an eye over the men. Coves is mostly all right, she told herself firmly—there ain’t many like Blinkers. She must not let him make her afraid. That was one victory she was damned if she’d give him.

But she would be careful whom she approached. That boy, for instance—the one walking just ahead, with a light, springy step. He was small and slender; she should be able to fight him off if he cut up rusty. She summoned all her courage, caught up to him, and slipped her arm through his. “Hullo, sweetheart! How about a bit of a lark?”

He stopped, stared, took her by the shoulders. She started to jerk away—then she stared, too. With one accord, they stepped under a gaslamp to see each other better.

“Is that you, Sal?” he breathed.

“Well, I’ll be blowed!” She flung her arms around him, laughing and crying at once. “Dipper!”

CHAPTER
2

T
hey hugged, drew apart, drank in the sight of each other, hugged again. Several bystanders cheered lewdly, not realizing they were brother and sister.

“I can’t hardly believe it’s you, Sal! How long’s it been? Two years?”

“I dunno.
Too
long!—that’s all I knows about it!”

He peered at her more closely in the lamplight. “You’re in half-mourning!”

She lifted a hand to her left eye and tried to smile. “I picked up a curst cull as tipped me a facer.”

“You all right?”

“It ain’t nothing. Pa served me worse sometimes, when he was lushy.” She stood back, gazing at him in wonder. “Look at you, Dip! You look so nobby, I’d never’ve knowed you! Where’d you get them duds?”

“I’m in service.”

“Go on!”

“It’s true, Sal—God strike me blind if it ain’t. I’m valet to a gentry-cove.”

“Some gentry-cove’s spider-brusher? And you the best fingersmith as ever picked a pocket?”

“Not no more, Sal. I’m on the square.”

“What for?”

“’Coz I want to be. I never had me heart in the old life, Sal—you knows that. But I couldn’t get no reg’lar work, on account of I didn’t know how to do nothing, and there was nobody to give me a character.”

“How’d you get this job, then?”

“I met up with this gentry-cove. I lifted his ticker, and he had me up before a beak. But then he changed his mind and let me off, and we talked awhile, and he asked, did I want to have a try at being his slavey, and I said yes.”

“He must be off his head.”

“He ain’t, then. He’s Mr. Julian Kestrel, and he’s a very great swell.”

“Bender! Your master’s Mr. Julian Kestrel? Cor, everybody knows who
he
is. I seen a drawing of him in the window of a tailor’s shop.”

“He’s a go among the goes, is Mr. Kestrel. He’s only got to sport a new kind of topper, or tie his crumpler a new way, and every gentry-cove in town does just the same. But what about you, Sal? Where you been? I was always asking after you, but I couldn’t hear nothing about you nowhere.”

“I knapped a quarter stretch in a bridewell—that must be how we lost touch.” She was matter-of-fact about it. Any game girl got sent to a house of correction now and again. “Then I went and lived in Ratcliff Highway. I liked it there. Sailors is bob culls, and their women was dolly pals to me. But in the end I piked back here.” She stopped abruptly. She could not bring herself to talk about Becky.

“I’m that glad I found you, Sal! Come on, we’ll find some snug crib where we can have a drop and talk.”

He drew her arm through his. But after a few steps he stopped in dismay. “Oh, Sal. You can’t walk.”

“’Course I can! See?” But her back and sides cried out in protest. Hobbling was the best she could do.

“Stow faking, Sal. We’ll take a hack.” He thought for a moment. “You’d best come home with me. You has to be looked after.”

“To Mr. Kestrel’s? That’d be something like! I never seen inside a gentry-cove’s ken before!”

Dipper considered. “I expect it’ll be all right. Mr. Kestrel’s out to dinner with some of his pals, and he ’most never comes home till lightmans.”

“Suits me. Then I can have a good look round.”

“I can’t let you pinch nothing.”

“Who says I would?”

“I knows you,” he said reasonably.

“Oh, all right!” she grumbled. “You’d think we was going to bloody Carlton House while King was out.”

“The King’s things ain’t my look-out. Mr. Kestrel’s is.”

“I don’t care
that!
for Mr. Kestrel.”

“You ain’t met him,” Dipper said.

The hackney let them out in front of a grey brick house in Clarges Street. Blocks of white Coade stone formed a striped pattern round the archway of the door. Just above the fanlight was a white moulding of a woman’s face, framed by snake-like hair.

Dipper unlocked the street door, putting a finger to his lips. “I don’t want to wake up Mrs. M.”

“Who’s that?” whispered Sally.

“Mrs. Mabbitt—her as owns the house. She lives on the ground and kitchen floors, and lets out the first floor to Mr. Kestrel. ’Cept they hardly ever sees each other, ’coz she’s al’ays up at lightmans, which is mostly when he goes to bed, and when he gets up it’s after mid-day, and she’s gone out. So then he goes off to one of his clubs, and by the time he comes home to put on his evening togs, she’s ’most ready for bed. A very nice lady, is Mrs. M., and a deep ’un, too—knows what’s what, and no mistake.”