The Linnet Bird: A Novel (13 page)

I
AWOKE ONE COLD
November afternoon to see Chinese Sally packing her carpetbag.

“He’s out,” she told me, seeing me sit up. “Louis is out. He sent word with one of his men just an hour ago.” She stopped folding a chemise, her hands poised in the air. “Well? Are you coming? I sent the message back that I was bringing a new girl. You can’t show up looking like a scarecrow. If you plan to join me, you’d best make yourself up smart.”

I tossed aside the patched coverlet, running my hands over my hair. “Do you really think I could do it?” I said.

“First of all, when we’re up there, remember to call me Miss Sing,” she said, answering my question in a roundabout way. “You can call me Chinese Sally when we’re on our own, but Miss Sing when we’re attending the theater or at a fine eating establishment, or any other social occasion.” She dug through her half-packed bag, pulling out a dress of beige watered gauze and tossing it on the bed beside me. “Here. Put this on. It’ll be too big for you, but it will do for today. I can’t introduce you to Louis in either of your street dresses; you look like a ragged peacock. Louis likes a quality look. You can keep it; Louis will buy us both more clothes.”

I picked up the frock, fingering the fabric. “Why, exactly, are you doing this for me?”

She stared at me. “For you? I’m not doing it for you. Do you think I have that big a heart?” She made a chuckling sound in her throat. “I told you. You’ll be part of the group and that will help Louis. Louis likes when I bring in new girls. He trusts my judgment. And he rewards me very handsomely if they work out, which they usually do. If they don’t . . .” She continued to look at me, although the stare now turned slightly hostile. “Well, that’s not a good thing for anybody then, is it?”

I recognized her warning. The watered gauze was smooth, cool beneath my fingers. I imagined having a wardrobe full of dresses like this one.

“Just give me time for a good wash,” I told her, adding, “Miss Sing,” and was rewarded by her nod and that small tight smile I’d come to know so well.

B
LUE HADN
’
T BEEN HAPPY
to lose both of us but she held no grudges. Every morning, as each of us handed over half our wages, she would assure us, “Now youse owes me nuthin’, and I owes youse nuthin’.” There were always girls, and if she lost one or two, it would only be for a night. “I guarantee youse’ll be back,” she said to me now, frowning. “Just like ’er,” she continued, tossing her head in Chinese Sally’s direction. Chinese Sally stood impassive, looking down the street as if she couldn’t hear—and didn’t care—what Blue was saying. “Youse can’t count on that kind of life, up wif the nobs. It never lasts, believe me. Youse’ll be crawlin’ back to where youse can trust your mates and where youse knows your place. A fancy dress can only cover so much.”

I gripped the now heavy fruitwood box tighter. In it was the money I’d kept hidden under a board in the room on Jack Street, as well as my folding knife and mirror and pendant and Wordsworth. I’d also packed three small books, my favorites, the ones I couldn’t bear to part with.

Wearing the dress Chinese Sally had given me and the warm cape and fancy bonnet she’d lent me, I had left my old clothes behind for Helen. And, like Chinese Sally, I didn’t care what Blue said. I was leaving this place, with its stink and trouble. We walked to the corner of Chester and Roper streets and waited. Chinese Sally kept touching her hair, tying and retying her bonnet, smoothing her skirt. “When you meet Louis, Linny, extend your hand,” she said. “He’ll say that it’s his great pleasure to make your acquaintaince, and you must reply ‘No, oh no, sir, the pleasure is mine.’ He may kiss your glove. Allow him to do this and then say, ‘Why, thank you, sir.’” She glanced at me. “If you don’t make a good impression first thing, it won’t go well for me. So if you don’t know what to do or say, do and say nothing. Watch me.” She was speaking faster and faster. Suddenly I was nervous, frightened at what was expected of me. I hadn’t known this feeling for a long time, and realized I’d fallen into a steady, easy lull on Paradise.

Within a few moments a fancy curricle pulled by two dappled horses drew up. A man emerged and stood by the open door. From all of Chinese Sally’s talk, I had expected Louis to be more imposing looking. And younger. I was surprised at how short he was, and how plain. He was at least thirty; the lines around his mouth were already deep. He had a slightly sallow complexion, longish, dark hair, and yellow-brown eyes with curling lashes. There was almost something of the Eyetalian about him. Quite unremarkable, really; had I passed him on the street I might not have noticed him. I suppose that was important, him being a mobsman, working the crowds. One wouldn’t want to stand out in any way.

He bowed over Chinese Sally’s hand and she giggled, a sound I had never heard her make before. Then he turned to me, his eyes running over me from my bonnet to my boots.

“This is Miss Linny Gow,” Chinese Sally said. “The one I sent word to you about with Dirty Joe. What do you think? Will she do?”

I straightened my shoulders.

Louis kept up his survey of me; after thirty seconds he nodded slowly and then, remembering Chinese Sally’s instructions, I extended my hand. Louis looked at it and smiled, then took it in his and raised it to his lips, although he didn’t actually touch them to my glove.

“How lovely to meet you, my dear,” he said, his head bent over my hand and yet his eyes studying me from under those long lashes.

“It’s my pleasure, sir, I’m sure,” I said, with what I hoped was my prettiest smile.

He let go of my hand as if reluctant to do so. “Has Miss Sing instructed you of my expectations?”

I licked my lips. “Well, not in so many words. But I’ve been at the game since I was only a girl, and—”

He stepped closer and I saw the beginnings of veins on his nose. “I’ll collect all your earnings directly. You’ll take the customers I bring to you and never turn any away. You may be expected to entertain large numbers, with another girl, at one time. Do you understand?”

“Large numbers? You mean more than one customer at once?”

“Really, Sal. She looks like a scared rabbit,” he said, turning to Chinese Sally.

“She’ll be fine. I’ll keep her in line,” she said, as if I weren’t standing in front of her.

Scared rabbit? I pushed the wool cloak Chinese Sally had lent me back from my shoulders, suddenly too warm. “Did I hear you correctly in that I won’t be seeing any of the money I earn?”

“You’ll have your own room and clothing—good clothing, like Sal’s. You won’t need money for anything. All your meals will be brought to you. You won’t be going out except for the entertaining I plan.”

I swallowed. There was something about him that suddenly made me think of Ram and his control over me. What was I doing? I would lose the freedom I now knew. I imagined myself a prisoner in a locked room, the door only opening to allow in a man, and then locked again. And if the man proved foul in his requests, or even caused me pain, there would be nobody to protect me, no means of escape. I took a step back. “I think not,” I said.

Louis looked at Chinese Sally, and then they both looked at me. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice turning nasty.

I took off the cloak and bonnet and handed them to Sal. “You can come back and collect the gown, if you wish,” I told her. “It’s not for me. I won’t be any man’s possession.”

“Are you completely mad?” she said. “Don’t you see? Nobody gives a toss about you down on Paradise. Nobody cares if you live or die. You’re just another doxie on the street, with nothing to live for.” Her voice had become harder, angry, and she reached forward and shook my arm like a terrier with a rat in its jaws. The fruitwood box fell to the street, and I heard the tinkle of breaking glass. “Don’t make me look a fool, Linny.”

I picked up the box and held it against my chest, stepping further away from her. The November wind chilled me to the bone without the warm cloak. “At least I work for myself and make my own decisions. I choose my customers. I eat what I want, when I want. Blue looks out for me. I do as I please. You may see your life with him”—I tossed my head in Louis’s direction—“as all very well, Chinese Sally, but to me it sounds little more than a bird in a cage.”

“Fine, then,” she said, hooking her arm through Louis’s. “Stay on the street. Stay there and rot. Before you know it you’ll find you’re nothing but a used-up old whore who can’t even give it away for a pint of ale.”

Louis ignored me, helping Chinese Sally into the carriage. The door slammed and the horses moved forward, and still, I stayed where I was, thinking about what I’d just given up and what I had to go back to. Had I made the right decision? Chinese Sally had been right about no one caring whether I lived or died.

My feet and fingers grew numb with cold; my back ached from standing stiffly so long in one position. Eventually I heard the cheery whistle of the gaslight man with his ladder. The lamps were illuminated, one by one. The street glowed with a soft, deceptive light and I knew what I must do.

As I began the long walk back to Paradise I thought of the broken mirror in the box under my arm and imagined the knowing wink Blue would give me when I showed up back on the corner.

A
ND SO LIFE WENT ON.
Winter blended to spring and spring to summer, summer to fall. I passed my sixteenth birthday, and then my seventeenth. The customers came and went like the seasons. I grew older, and my desire to leave this life grew stronger.

Chapter Eight

H
E HAD HANDS THAT SMELLED OF FISH.
T
RYING TO PASS HIMSELF
off as a gentleman with his fine black wool coat and top hat, I knew by the putrid odor ingrained in his thick fingers that he was no more than a fishmonger wearing a rented outfit for the evening. Well, we both play the game of pretending then, don’t we, I thought, supporting the man’s weight as he steered me into an alley, his arm draped heavily over my shoulders.

It was late October and I went about my job with weary and practiced movements. I had been with Blue for well over three years now, having had my seventeenth birthday in August. I didn’t enjoy my time with the other girls as I once did, and I’d even lost the joy of reading. There seemed no time or privacy, and the energy and passion I had once felt in holding beautiful books, reading their magic and studying how they were made, had somehow trickled away.

Nor did I worry much about my appearance; I realized none of the customers cared one way or another. For the last few months thoughts of my mother came more often. As I waited for a customer to finish some nights I closed my eyes and envisioned the life she had so desperately wanted for me, away from the filth and stench of Back Phoebe Anne. I tried to picture myself at a table like the ones I remembered from the dining room with the man I called Uncle Horace, like the ones I had once read about. I saw myself among sparkling glass and china so delicate to be almost transparent; I envisioned reaching for the fish fork, the butter knife, the soup spoon, knowing when to pour the port and when the wine and when the sherry.