Loving Julia (3 page)

“You. Just what do you think you’re doing?” The young gentleman was protesting in vain at being force-marched down the street between Jem and Mick. The three were nearly of a height, but their burliness and rough clothes overwhelmed his slender, fashionably dressed person.

“I say now, this isn’t quite-quite cricket!” He was struggling, but the effort was wasted. Jewel watched in consternation as Mick wrapped his burly arms around the toff in a bone crushing hug, lifted him from his feet, and bore him back into the sheltering darkness of a narrow alley.

“Let me go, ya ol’ windbag,” Jewel hissed at the whore, who was gaping at the now empty alley entrance. When the woman was slow to obey, Jewel shoved her so hard that she stumbled backward and, tripping over a loose cobblestone, sat down hard in the gutter that was running over with filth.

The woman howled as she struggled to her feet, but Jewel scarcely spared her a glance. She picked up her voluminous skirt in both hands and sped down the street. Even before she reached the alley, she heard the sickening thud of blows and the groans of someone in pain. By the time she rounded the corner into the narrow, shadow filled darkness, the toff was lying on his back behind a heap of garbage while Jem wrestled his purse away from him. Despite, or perhaps because of, his drunken state, the young man was determined to hang onto his purse. He and Jem engaged in a fruitless tug of war until Mick settled the matter by aiming a vicious kick to the toff’s ribs. The gentleman cried out, doubling up as Jem quickly stuffed the purse into the capacious pockets of his coat. Then Jem ran his hands over the still groaning, writhing victim, quickly extracting his watch, fobs and other gewgaws and storing them in his pockets alongside the purse.

“C’mon, c’mon, the two of ya!” He gestured to them to follow him, then scuttled furtively away without waiting for either one of them. Jewel, watching Mick gloat over the moaning, curled up man on the ground, seeing the blood that was the same color as her dress drip from the toff’s battered face to speckle the cobblestones, felt her stomach heave. There had been no need for such brutality; as drunk as he was, they should have been able to take this pigeon’s purse with no trouble at all.

“Bloody thieving bastards!” the toff groaned.

To Jewel’s horror he came up off the pavement, lunging upward with his clenched fist leading the way. He caught Mick square on the nose; Mick groaned and jumped back, while the toff’s momentum sent him staggering off balance against the brick wall of the alley. Blood spurting from his nose, Mick jumped toward the toff, who was trying to get away on unsteady legs. Jewel saw the glint of a knife in Mick’s hand as it plunged toward the other man’s back.

“Stop!” Jewel screamed, running toward the fused pair. But even as she reached them Mick stepped back. The knife in his fist was red to the hilt with blood. Dark crimson welled from a slit

in the gentleman’s claret coat; his hands clawed against the smoke darkened brick as he sank down slowly, so slowly, to lie on his side on the cobblestones.

“You’ve done for ’im, ya bloody idiot!” Jewel screeched as she knelt beside the man, staring at his inert body with horror.

Mick glared at her for a moment, then bent down to wipe the bloody knife on the tail of his victim’s coat. He straightened, sliding the knife inside his coat before turning those hard black eyes on Jewel.

“You’d best keep yer tongue between yer teeth about this if ya know wot’s good fer ya.”

Jewel nodded jerkily, knowing that Mick wouldn’t hesitate to use his knife on her if he even suspected she might peach on him.

Mick grunted, apparently satisfied with her response. “C’mon then, let’s get the ’ell away from ’ere. The watch’ll be along soon.”

Before she could even get to her feet, he was walking rapidly away. As Jewel stared after him, he began to run.

She was just about to follow him when the man at her feet groaned. Looking down, she saw that he was moving his arm. So he was not dead—yet. But if he did die, what Mick had done would be murder. And she and Jem were involved up to their necks. Damn Mick anyway! He’d be the death of them all!

Jewel blanched as she recalled the exact penalty for murder. Oh, God, she didn’t want to die after watching her intestines being burned before her eyes! Would she be considered responsible for the toff’s death, though she had not wielded the knife? She thought of their lay, and her mouth went dry. Sure she would. She had lured the pigeon … Then the toff groaned again.

She couldn’t just leave him. Cursing, uttering every foul word she had ever heard under her breath, she dropped to her knees beside him. His eyes opened for a second.

“Call the watch,” he muttered before his eyes closed again.

Jewel shuddered. The watch might come along at any moment. They might even have heard the fight. If she saw them coming, she could run, knowing that he would not be left to die on the street alone. But all hell would break loose if the toff was found bloody and dying on the street. If he died, it would be murder. If he didn’t, he could identify them all.

Jewel’s blood ran cold. She had to do something fast. Wetting her dry lips, she caught the collar of the toff’s fancy coat in both hands, and heaved. He was senseless as she began to drag him away, scant inches at a time, his passage marked by a trail of blood. For all his slender build, he was heavy, and again Jewel considered leaving him and running away like Mick and Jem. But surely it was better, whether he should die or live, to have him do so off the street and out of sight.

II

Two days later Jewel stood at the foot of a rusty iron bedstead, chewing on her lower lip as she watched Father Simon, the old priest who roamed the back slums of Whitechapel in search of souls to save, administer the last rites to the fair haired boy who lay as one already dead. Pale as a wax figure, dark rings circling sunken eyes, breath rattling stertorously through colorless lips, he no longer looked like a toff. He looked about sixteen, and Jewel’s eyes burned as she watched the ritual movements of the priest.

Death was nothing new to her; she had seen it before, from the time she held the cold and still corpse of her mother, dead of the wasting disease and too much drink, in her seven-year-old arms, to her present day frequent encounters with old winos curled in the gutters in death as they were in life. But this—this healthy young man for whose dying she had to shoulder some share of blame—was different. Though she had schooled herself to care nothing about him, she found that despite everything her heart was not yet that callous.

The flat they were in belonged to Willy Tilden. She had brought the toff to it because it was close, and because she had thought Willy might dare to go against Jem and help her. If Willy hadn’t agreed to shelter her, she didn’t know what she would have done. She was grateful he had, although she had no doubt that Willy would eventually expect to be paid. He had been eyeing her sort of funny for the last two days, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was in his mind. To Willy, it probably seemed like the most natural thing in the world for her to pay for putting him out of his bed by putting herself in it. That was a problem she would have to deal with once the toff was gone.

At first she had thought that she herself could return to the warehouse as soon as the toff passed over. But in the hours and days since she had dragged him off the street, she had come to realize that returning to Jem’s fold after this might not be the wisest thing she had ever done: She was a witness to what would be murder when the young man died, and Mick wouldn’t like knowing that there was someone who could testify against him if he was ever brought before Old Bailey. Mick was bound to be sweating now, wondering what had become of her and the toff. He was probably lying low, keeping off the streets in case the Bow Street runners were already searching for him, as they would have been if Jewel had been taken by the watch and had peached. Knowing Mick, she could not be sure that he was not thinking of another murder—hers. And maybe Jem was, too. You never knew about Jem. But she did know that she was a threat to their safety, and they didn’t like any kind of threat. And the knowledge scared her.

So she had stayed in Willy Tilden’s one room flat, stuck with a dying toff who had succeeded in almost making her cry for the first time in years. Father Simon, who had had some experience with wounds as a young corpsman at Waterloo some twenty-seven years before, said it wouldn’t be long now. Probably in less than a day the young man would be dead. And Jewel would be left with no money, no home to go back to, no friends she could trust. She would have to disappear—only she hadn’t quite figured out where she was going to go. The City was a bleak, unwelcoming place when one had no money and no friends.

The toff groaned, which he had been doing intermittently since she had wrested him out of his coat and boots, bandaged him up and put him to bed. His eyes opened, and he peered blindly around the room. Both of his eyes were swollen almost shut from Mick’s blows, and a deep bruise purpled the right side of his jaw. Except for the blood stained makeshift bandage she had contrived for him from one of Willy’s shirts, he was naked to the waist. His skin, except for a faint sprinkling of fair hairs, was nearly as white and soft as her own. Clearly he had been pampered and indulged all his life.

As Jewel watched him now, he kicked fretfully at the thin, grimy blanket covering him, muttered something, and closed his eyes again. He had been out of his mind ever since he had lost consciousness right after the stabbing. But Father Simon didn’t know that the toff had been rambling deliriously off and on for two days, so he leaned over the boy, saying, “Yes, my son?” There was no response from the toff, as Jewel had foreseen. She shook her head, and moved to the side of the bed to touch the priest on his black-clad arm.

“ ’e can’t ’ear ya, Father.”

“No.” The priest sighed, turning to look at her out of red-rimmed eyes. The bottle was Father Simon’s vice, and the effects of it showed in the old man’s florid complexion and bloodshot eyes. But his hands as they administered the sacraments were steady, and when he was not blathering on about hellfire and damnation he could be kind.

“Who is he? Has he a family to be notified?”

“I—I don’ know,” Jewel answered nervously, looking down at the patient as he tossed upon the bed. “Like I tole ya, I, uh, I foun’ ’im like this, jest lyin’ in the street. I-I couldn’ jest leave ’im. But ’e ain’t got no purse … uh, not that I was lookin’ for it, mind, ’cept for somethin’ to identify him with.”

Father Simon snorted. “Robbed, no doubt. Well, someone will come looking for him most likely. He’s one of the nobs, or I miss my guess.” His eyes narrowed on Jewel thoughtfully. “Mighty Christian of you, to take care of him like this.”

Jewel shrugged, taking care not to meet the priest’s eyes. “I tole ya, I jest couldn’ leave ’im lay.”

“Hmmm.” Jewel wasn’t sure what that meant, and she thought it safer not to ask. But Father Simon continued. “Word’s out that you’ve left Jemmy. Word’s out he’s looking for you.”

“Is ’e?” Jewel looked at the priest now, wide-eyed. What she saw there made her relax a little. He seemed to be concerned for her, and she remembered that he had always seemed to like her. But she remembered, too, that things ain’t always what they seem. She wasn’t sure just what his lay was, but she was sure that she wasn’t going to go all soft and weepy and pour out her troubles to him. If he knew, he could go to the Bow Street runners—or even Jem or Mick—and give her up. And then where would she be? But before she could frame a reasonable reply, the toff groaned again, and the priest turned back to him.

“Who the devil are you?” The toff spoke in a barely audible whisper, staring straight at the priest as he did so. His pale blue eyes looked awake and aware despite the pain that filled them. Father Simon, to whom the words were addressed, replied softly with the information that he was a priest.

“What happened? Where am I?” There seemed no doubt that the toff had regained his senses at last. Jewel moved around to the other side of the bed, eyes wide and heart knocking against her ribs. Would he remember her? Would he guess the role she had played in what had happened to him?

The toff’s eyes swung to her. Jewel’s own golden eyes met the pale blue stare, and locked. He seemed to be trying to remember…. She prayed frantically that he would again be overcome by unconsciousness as his eyes slid over her disheveled black hair, her pale face, and then down to her too slender body, still clad in the low cut red silk dress. Then his eyes came back up to hers again.

“Ah, yes,” he said, still in that hoarse whisper. “I do remember you. The persistent who-, uh, young lady I met on the street just before I was attacked by those bloody brigands. You’ve been taking care of me, haven’t you?”

Wordlessly Jewel nodded. He didn’t seem to connect her to his attackers—yet. Already his eyes were clouding. He looked as if he would fade out of consciousness at any moment.

“What is your name? Do you have any family that we can notify?” The urgency of Father Simon’s voice seemed to bring the young man to himself once more.

“Name’s Stratham. Timothy Stratham.” He smiled faintly, a bitter stretching of his mouth. “As to family, believe me, they don’t want to hear anything about me.”

“Nonsense, my son. Of course they want to know what has become of you. They are probably worried half out of their minds right now.”

The glazed look was coming back into the toff’s eyes. “You don’t know … my family,” he whispered. Then, “Stay with me, Father.” And he closed his eyes.

Father Simon did stay. Except for a few short periods, he watched with Jewel far into the night. Willy looked in briefly, seemed displeased to find the toff still alive and in his bed, and left again with a sour sniff. Father Simon looked at Jewel after he had gone. She was curled up in a sitting position on the cold board floor, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders against the damp and chill. A tiny fire sputtered fitfully on the hearth, but it was not enough to add more than a smidgeon of warmth or cheer to the grim surroundings.