Steadfast (32 page)

Her terror turned to puzzlement. “But—”

“I know, a bottle is twice that, and as soon as Dick realizes this, he’ll figure the
man is stealing from Charlie and making money off you, but he’ll be so pleased at
the cheap drink he won’t quarrel with it.”

She nodded, slowly. “And I can hide the money here.”

“It won’t add up to much, but it will be enough you can take a taxi if you need to,
or take care of some other needs you might have. And you’ll be bringing Dick a bottle
of gin every night. If we’re lucky, he’ll drink it dry and leave you alone.” It was
the best he could offer, but her face lit up with such gratitude that he felt ashamed
for not being able to think of more.

“He’s not used to strong drink,” she said haltingly. “Last night he slept like a dead
horse. It might give me some peace.”

“Right then—get yourself across to your room. I’ll find a way to get the bottle in
there tomorrow night.” He listened to the music, to the sounds of footsteps—performers
were utterly predictable; unless there was something wrong they
always
did the same things at exactly the same time backstage, most of them even timed their
actions to the cues they could hear out on stage. Well, they had to. Everything in
music hall ran on so tight a schedule that the least deviation could throw everything
into chaos. When he knew there would be a moment when no one would be in the corridor
or looking out a door, he whisked his door open, shoved her across the hall, and closed
his own door silently.

It wasn’t enough, dammit. It wasn’t
nearly
enough.

But at least it was something.

•   •   •

Katie hurried back to the cottage, running from the ’bus stop, arriving at her own
door slightly out of breath. Dick was waiting impatiently, of course, and yanked the
door open as soon as she set her hand on it.

She shrank into herself, and let him see her fear. Sometimes that helped. This time,
it did.

“’Bout time!” he snarled, and then she saw he was in his favored outfit again, and
his hair had been oiled back. “Oi’m goin’ out! Just ’bout stifled in here!”

“Dick!” she interjected. “I have some good news. I saw how you liked the gin, and
I asked the barkeeper at the hall if he could sell me some, so I could bring it home
with me every night. He said he could only sell me one bottle a night, but that it
would only be sixpence.”

She saw that there were three bottles on the table now, not two; two empty and one
full. So he’d been out, and he’d found out the price for himself—

And the stormy look on his face cleared, as if by magic. “Sixpence!” he exclaimed.
“That’s—”

She nodded eagerly. “It’s a great bargain. It’s cheaper than beer. Can I take him
sixpence a night, then?”

“Aye!” Dick actually patted her on the top of her head, as if she was a dog that had
pleased him. “Aye! Fer once’t, yer thinkin’ sharp!” He barked a laugh. “Yer kin cook,
an yer thunk ’o thet! Yer some use arter all!”

He shoved her inside. “Clean up!” he ordered. “Roight ’n toight. Oi’ll be back.” He
closed the door and locked it, leaving her momentarily alone.

She leaned against the closed door for a long, stolen moment. She was alone. There
was no one watching her.

Then she cleaned as quickly as she could, immediately discovering what it was he had
done for himself for dinner and tea when the sandwiches were gone, for there were
greasy newspapers from a fish and chips shop scattered around the bed. At least that
meant there were no dishes to wash.

Had he slept most of the day? Probably.

She also discovered that he hadn’t been
entirely
idle while she’d been gone. He’d replaced the iron grating over the rear window.
Whether he’d done so out of fear the landlord would find the damage, or to prevent
her from escaping, she couldn’t have said. Probably both.

She swept up the ashes and the butts from the cigarettes he’d smoked, and put them
in the dustbin. She cleaned up the teakettle and the mugs he’d used, though a sniff
proved he’d used them more for gin than tea. She set the milk and cream bottles out,
and left money for the milkman. Then she poured herself the last of the milk—doing
without tea, for that would take too long to make—set out food and the gin as she
had last night, made herself a sandwich for supper, and took the mug of milk and the
sandwich up into the loft. This time she had taken the precaution of leaving the windows
open so it wasn’t so hot in here, and she shoved one of the trundle beds as far from
the edge of the loft as she could get it. Once up there, though there was barely enough
room to kneel on the floor and not hit her head, she got out of her dress, into a
night dress, and ate her supper. Then she lay down on the bed in a curl so that she
fit—it really
was
a child’s bed after all—and waited.

She closed her eyes and concentrated with all her might. She wouldn’t call her Elementals,
but Lionel had said that
wanting
something badly enough was enough to make it happen, sometimes. She wouldn’t pray
for this—praying for her husband to find a whore was so utterly wrong that even considering
it must make Jesus weep. But she could wish for it, and think hard about it.
Just like last night,
she thought feverishly.
Let him find women just like last night.

This ploy of getting women, of course, was not going to work forever. It might rain,
and he would refuse to go out. Eventually, he would discover that word about him had
spread, and only a truly desperate woman would come with him. Or none at all. This
was holiday time, and the women of the streets had plenty of customers at this season.
But for now, he was good looking, in that brutish way, and he had money. He should—

There was only the drunken laughter of a single woman at the front of the cottage
this time. The key turned in the lock, and the two of them stumbled inside.

She stuffed the waxed cotton into her ears and gritted her teeth, and pulled the pillow
over her head to further block out the sounds.

At some point she fell asleep, worn out by the past two days. When she woke, it was
dark.

She eased herself out of the trundle, pulled out one of the earplugs, and looked over
the edge. There was only the sound of one person snoring, and there was only the shape
of one person in the bed below her. Dick had learned his lesson that if he let a whore
“sleep” with him, she was likely to get up while he was sleeping and steal; he must
have sent the whore on her way as soon as he was finished with her.

She crept back up into bed and lay there, staring up into the darkness.

So . . . this was how life was going to be. Terror that Dick would murder people she
cared for, if she somehow put a foot wrong.
Knowing
that if he ever found out how she felt about Jack, he would kill Jack without thinking
twice about it. Working to exhaustion to have him steal her money and drink and whore
it away. Slaving to his every whim, every waking moment. Being beaten if she didn’t
satisfy him. Being beaten if she
did,
but not well enough. Being beaten if something made him out of sorts.

How was this life at all?

•   •   •

Dick only growled at her a little in the morning, and when she tried an experiment
and brought him the teacup full of gin instead of tea, he drank it and didn’t chuck
it back at her. He demanded tea with his breakfast, however, and she made it for him.
Then she took two pennies and sixpence from the dresser, and escaped.

How Lionel managed to get the bottle into her dressing room, she had no idea, but
there it was, after the last show, in a cloth bag. She knotted the sixpence into the
end of a scarf that she draped casually across the chair, took her sponge bath, and
hurried away to catch the bus with the bottle in the cloth bag at her side.

Dick didn’t seem in quite as much of a hurry to leave tonight, which filled her with
dread. He waited while she made him some sausages, and sampled the gin, smacking his
lips over it. She was careful with the cleaning, internally begging him to leave while
he drank his liquor.

“Oi don’ see wy ye din’ act like this all along,” he finally said. “Oi’m yer ’usband.
Oi make sure ye don’ get mucked about by yer boss’r other fellers. Oi got roights.
Oi married yer, even though yer look loike a skinny goat an’ yer Traveler get. Oi
married yer, when nubuddy else would’a. Oi take care’a ye, yeah? Oi got roights, an’
ye niver show no respect fer ’em.”

He banged the cup down on the table, making her jump.

“Lissen—” he said, harshly. “Oi’m yer ’usband. Wut’d thet Traveler yer mum say ’bout
that? Yeah? ’Usband, ’e’s allus roight! ’Usband, yer give ’im wut ’e wants afore ’e
asks fer it! ’Usband, ye smile an look noice fer! Yeah? Yer
belong
t’yer favver afore yer married, an’ yer ’usband arter! Yer
belong.
Same as a dog or a ’orse. Thet’s God’s Will!”

He continued on in this vein for some time, occasionally refreshing his mug from the
bottle. And . . . it began to wear her down, because she
could
remember her mother saying things like that. That the wife was to utterly depend
on her husband. That she was never to disagree with anything he said or wanted. That
the husband was to always be deferred to, waited on, and come first in the family.

That all this was God’s will, and once God had put two people together, that was it.
There was no leaving a marriage, ever.

She had never thought her mother wrong in anything before . . . but here was Dick
saying exactly what her mother had said.

. . . was he, were they, right? Was she meant to be a possession? Were Dick’s beatings
nothing but his right, to drive her back into the path God intended?

Finally he got tired of lecturing her; she was afraid he was coming over to the sink
to beat her again, but instead he just grabbed her chin and wrenched her head around,
forcing her to look at him.

“God’s will,” he said, and dropped the cup into the dishwater, turned, and lumbered
out the door. “Yer mine. Ferever.”

She escaped up into the loft, and lay curled on her side like a leaf made of misery.

Did she deserve all of this?

Had she actually been doing what he claimed, driving him to beat her for her own sake?

Was this all her fault because she hadn’t been a good enough wife?

Part of her still rebelled, but that part was getting crushed by the weight of Dick’s
words and the law—for the law said the same thing. That a wife was a man’s possession,
as his daughter was until she became a wife. That a man could do whatever he cared
to with his possession.

So if the law of the land and God’s law were saying the same thing—

How dared she even have
thought
about Jack?

There was one way to end this—and end the threat to Jack, Lionel, and Suzie . . .
because if she was dead, Dick would have no reason to go after them.

She cried into the pillow so hard she exhausted herself, and was so drowning in bitter
sleep that she never even heard when Dick and his conquest of the night came home.

•   •   •

Lionel opened the door to find Mrs. Buckthorn waiting for him. “This arrived by special
post, for Master Jack,” she said, holding out a letter, “And I knew you would both
want to see it immediately.”

He snatched the letter from her hand, startled her by planting a kiss on her cheek,
and turned on his heel to trot as quickly as the heat would allow to Jack’s flat.
He actually caught Jack on the very doorstep, and sped up his pace, waving the letter
over his head.

Jack gaped at it, as the light from the streetlamp reflected from the white paper.
“Almsley?” he asked, breathlessly.

“Addressed to you, so I assume so,” Lionel replied. Jack unlocked the door and they
both hurried inside. Jack lit the lamps, while Lionel poured a couple of brandies—just
in case the news was bad—and placed the envelope on the table between them.

Jack’s little sitting room was as tidy as his own would be messy if it wasn’t for
Mrs. Buckthorn. Everything was arranged with military precision; the two worn leather
wing chairs were placed on the hearthrug just so, the clock was square in the middle
of the mantelpiece, there was a small table precisely beside each chair. There were
magazines neatly stowed in a rack, newspapers neatly stacked on a table under the
window, books precisely arranged in bookcases. The little writing desk was firmly
closed, the chair tucked precisely beneath it. Not for the first time, it struck Lionel
that this sitting room looked more like a display than some place someone actually
lived.

Jack lit the gaslights, then stumped over and took his seat, and stared at the letter
for a moment. Then, with a shaking hand, he picked it up, lifted the seal with his
penknife, and opened it.

“My good Master Prescott,”
Jack read aloud.
“I remember you very well, though we were both scarcely more than boys, and I remember
your father as well. You and your father did me and mine a very great service all
those years ago, and I am eager to repay the debt I owe you.”

“That sounds promising . . .” Lionel offered.

“We do have some extreme difficulties to overcome, however. I am sure you have thought
of them already, but indulge me, for I feel I would be remiss if I did not point them
out. The first is, of course, that this young magician is another man’s wife. The
man is a brute, he certainly does not deserve her, and he will almost certainly trigger
the sort of event that none of us wishes to see if he keeps abusing her, but he is
her husband, and in the eyes of the law, his rights are absolute over her.”

Jack uttered a little moan, and started to put the letter down. Lionel, however, was
having none of that. He snatched the letter out of Jack’s hand, and picked up where
Jack had left off.

“Another great difficulty lies with the man himself. I have known many such cunning
brutes in my time; if we attempt to pay him off and send him elsewhere, like the beast
that he is, he will smell blood, and open his jaws, and attempt to extract more rather
than taking what he is offered and going away. We find ourselves on the horns of a
great dilemma, for he will also keep coming back to the same well from which he got
such satisfaction, and these days, not even being shipped off to Canada or Australia
is likely to keep him from returning. And if we cease to pay, he can easily ruin us
all. Society, when being told that one man is paying another man for that man’s wife,
is likely to place the worst possible of conclusions on the situation.”