The Ragged Heiress (13 page)

‘No!’ Lucetta cried. ‘No, I don’t believe you. You’re lying.’

Stranks made a move towards her, fisting his hands. ‘No one calls Norman Stranks a liar.’

‘Leave her be,’ Guthrie said, grabbing him by the arm. ‘She’s just a slip of a girl.’

Stranks shook off his restraining hand and he leaned towards Lucetta, thrusting his face close to hers. ‘You’d better believe me, Miss Lucetta Froy, because you are coming into a fortune and your loving aunt and uncle are going to pay handsomely for your return.’

‘I know you now,’ Lucetta said slowly. ‘You’re the escaped convicts.’

Stranks grabbed her by the throat. ‘And there’s no search party looking for you now, girlie. As far as the world is concerned you’re dead along with your mum and dad and the rest of the passengers and crew.’

Lucetta huddled against the damp brick wall, turning her head away from the disgusting stench of his foetid breath. She did not want to believe him, but in her heart she knew that what he said was true. The horror of the shipwreck was slowly coming back to her, and she knew that Stranks was speaking the truth. Neither of her parents would have been able to survive for long in the water. Her past life flashed before her as if she too were drowning, not physically, but in sorrow. She had been desperate to regain her memory while she was in hospital, but now she
wished wholeheartedly that it had not returned. She longed for the oblivion of fever to wipe away the pain of losing both parents in such a tragic way. She hung her head, not wanting her captors to see the tears that coursed down her cheeks.

‘That’s shut her up,’ Stranks said triumphantly. ‘Let’s get out of here, Lennie. I could do with a drink after all this.’

Guthrie eyed Lucetta warily. ‘Should we leave her like this, Norm? I mean she’s just come out of hospital. We don’t want her to get sick again.’

‘Stop acting like an old woman,’ Stranks said impatiently. ‘She’ll be all right for an hour or two. Maybe a spell on her own with the rats and mice for company will quieten her down a bit.’ He made for the door and unlocked it. ‘You’d best behave yourself, girl. There’s no way out, so save your strength. C’mon, Norm. Don’t stand there like a fool.’

‘I’m coming,’ Guthrie said, taking off his jacket and wrapping it around Lucetta’s shoulders. ‘We’ll bring you back something to eat and drink.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I ain’t forgotten how you looked after me in that bloody jungle. I might have lost me leg if it weren’t for you.’

Stranks wrenched the door open. ‘If you don’t come now I’ll lock you in with your little friend.’

‘Leave it out, Norm,’ Guthrie said, limping across the floor to retrieve his walking stick. ‘She’s just a kid.’

Stranks’ reply was lost as the door closed on them. Lucetta threw Guthrie’s jacket off in disgust at the mixed odours of stale tobacco, beer and sweat, but it
was cold in the basement and she was still very weak. Reluctantly she picked up the garment, which still retained some of Guthrie’s body heat, and she draped it around her shoulders. The coarse material scratched her skin but as warmth began to seep into her chilled bones she felt strong enough to stand. Getting to her feet she walked slowly round the dingy room, peering into dark corners where fungi sprouted from the damp walls, and moss grew in cracks on the flagstone floor. On the far wall there were two wooden beds with straw-filled palliasses and coarse woollen blankets left in untidy heaps. A rickety deal table in the centre of the room was streaked with snail trails of dried gravy where the resident rodent population had carried off the remnants of a meal, and the dirty plates were thick with flies.

Wrinkling her nose, Lucetta picked up a chipped enamel jug, hoping that it might contain water, but a cloud of blowflies rose angrily from the sticky puddle of sour ale at the bottom and she dropped it with a cry of disgust. She was hungry and thirsty and she was still very weak. She walked slowly to the window but it was barred against intrusion from outside. The panes were thick with grime both inside and out and festoons of spiders’ webs hung like curtains from the beams above her head. She could see daylight through the railings on top of the area wall, but little else. She tried the door in the vain hope that Stranks had forgotten to lock it, but it held firm. She was a prisoner, and there was nothing she could do about it. Beyond tears, and overcome by sheer exhaustion, she
stumbled over to one of the wooden cots and lay down, covering herself with a tattered blanket which smelt suspiciously of horses. Her mouth was dry and her head ached miserably, but she drifted off into a fitful sleep.

It was pitch dark when she opened her eyes, awakened by the sound of loud voices and drunken laughter as Stranks and Guthrie barged into the room. She stiffened, hardly daring to breathe.

‘Light a candle for God’s sake, Lennie,’ Stranks muttered in a voice thickened by drink.

‘Hold on a minute, Norm. I can’t find the vestas.’

A tin plate fell from the table hitting the flagstones with a resounding clatter and Guthrie swore beneath his breath. Lucetta huddled beneath the blankets, waiting for inevitable discovery when Guthrie eventually managed to strike a match. After several attempts he succeeded and Stranks swore loudly. ‘Hold the damn candle up, Lennie. Where’s the little bitch gone?’

Guthrie raised the candle above his head and he chuckled. ‘She’s made herself comfortable, mate. Over there.’

Stranks tottered over to stand beside the bed, glaring down at Lucetta with his square jaw out-thrust. ‘Get up. You ain’t a little princess now.’

‘Leave her be,’ Guthrie said mildly. ‘She ain’t doing no harm.’

‘It’s your bed she’s taken, mate,’ Stranks muttered. ‘You can sort her out.’

Lucetta pulled the covers up to her chin. ‘I’m not
sleeping on the floor, and if I die in this dreadful place you won’t get a penny from my family.’

Stranks raised his hand, scowling. ‘Shut up. You’ve got too much to say for yourself.’

‘Never mind her,’ Guthrie said, wiping one of the plates on his sleeve. ‘Come and get your grub.’

‘All right, but she can go without. She won’t be so cocky when her belly is empty.’ Stranks turned away from Lucetta and scuttled crabwise over to the table. He slumped down heavily on a stool, and snatching a meat pie from its wrapping of newspaper he sank his teeth into it, munching noisily and smacking his lips as he gobbled the food.

‘She’s right though, Norm,’ Guthrie said, chewing thoughtfully. ‘We need to keep her in good health if we’re to get the ransom money. Starving her ain’t the answer.’ Ignoring Stranks’ muttered protests he put a slice of pie and a generous helping of pease pudding on a plate, and heaving his bulk from the stool he limped over to Lucetta. ‘Get this down you, girl, and no turning your nose up at good vittles, because it’s all you’re getting.’

Lucetta struggled to a sitting position and took the plate from him, trying to forget that not so long ago it had been a skating rink for flies. ‘Thank you. Could I have something to drink, please?’

‘Would your ladyship like champagne or claret?’ Stranks muttered through a mouthful of pie.

Guthrie went back to the table and filled a mug with ale. ‘You’ll have to make do with small beer, Lucy. The water in these parts will kill you.’

‘If I don’t do it first,’ Stranks said darkly. ‘You’re turning into a real old woman, Lennie. Sit down and eat, for God’s sake.’

Guthrie resumed his place at the table. ‘It weren’t her fault we was caught, and she was good to me in the jungle. I don’t forget a favour.’

‘That’s it. I knew you was turning soft.’ Stranks thumped his hand down on the table top. ‘We’re off to Islington to start negotiations with the family first thing in the morning. The sooner we get rid of her, the better.’

‘Yeah,’ Guthrie agreed enthusiastically. ‘We’ll be rich, Norm. We’ll live like lords for the rest of our naturals.’

After the bland hospital diet the meat pie lay heavily in Lucetta’s stomach and her captors’ combined snoring made the rafters shake, but despite this she managed to sleep reasonably well on Guthrie’s palliasse. He had retired to the pile of sacks and Stranks was so drunk that he collapsed insensible on his bed without any further arguments. She was awakened by what she thought at first was the sound of torrential rainfall, but when she opened her eyes she was horrified to see Stranks relieving himself in a bucket placed in the far corner of the room. The stench of strong urine laced with alcohol made her feel physically sick and she pulled the blanket over her head. She covered her ears with her hands, but moments later the covers were dragged from her head and she looked up to see Stranks bending over her with a knife clutched in his hand.

‘Scream and I really will slit your pretty throat,’ he
hissed, cutting a lock of her hair with one swipe of the blade. He held it up to the daylight that filtered hazily through the windowpanes. ‘This should be enough to convince your family that you’re alive and kicking.’

Lucetta raised herself on one elbow. She was trembling with fear but she was desperate to escape from this hellish place. ‘Why should they believe you? Take me with you so that they can see I am alive.’

‘Do you take me for a fool? They’d set the coppers on us straight away. While we got you prisoner they won’t take no chances. Ain’t that right, Lennie?’

Guthrie rose from the sacking, stretching and groaning. ‘Another night on that bloody floor and I’ll be crippled. Let’s get on to it right away, Norm. The sooner she’s back with her folks the better for all of us.’

Lucetta watched them leave with a feeling of relief tinged with a certain amount of trepidation. She did not relish the idea of being left on her own in the bleak basement room for any length of time. She crawled out of bed and, as there was no alternative, she was forced to make use of the bucket in the corner. She could hardly believe she had sunk so low, but the will to survive was stronger than her fear of what the future might hold. She comforted herself with the knowledge that Uncle Bradley and Aunt Eliza would be certain to pay the ransom demanded by her kidnappers. Uncle Bradley would complain, as he always did when he had to part with money, and Aunt Eliza might be a bit put out to have her niece foisted on her, but they were
family and Papa had always said that families must stick together. Hopefully Stranks and Guthrie would return with good news. She would just have to put up with this awful place for a while longer.

Focusing her thoughts on a positive outcome of their dealings with her aunt and uncle, Lucetta decided that she must be ready to leave as soon as they returned. What she needed desperately was a wash and some clean linen, but that was out of the question in this sordid bolt-hole where the rats only ventured out to steal leftover food before scurrying back to their nests behind the rotten skirting boards. She shuddered as a flea crawled out from beneath her sleeve and latched onto the skin of her wrist. She brushed it off with a cry of horror and began stripping off her clothes, shaking them and draping them over the stools until she stood naked and shivering in the middle of the floor. She crossed her arms over her breasts, shuddering at the sight of angry red lumps where the parasites had feasted on her blood during the night. She thought longingly of the days when Naomi had been at her beck and call, bringing scented water for washing and assisting her to dress in freshly laundered, sweet-smelling undergarments made out of the finest cambric and trimmed with lace. She had taken so much for granted then, but it had all changed in that split second when the two vessels collided on the river.

If only she could turn back time and return to the life that had been stolen from her, she would tell her parents how much she loved them and how bitterly she regretted having been the cause of Papa’s apoplectic
fit. The return of her memory had brought with it a crushing feeling of guilt. None of this would have happened had she not been so wilful and headstrong, and yet she did not regret a moment that she had spent in Sam’s company. At least he was safe in Bali, and she had Mama to thank for that, even though she had railed against her mother’s decision at the time. Had Sam been on board the
Caroline
he might have drowned, but when the news of the disaster reached across the oceans he might believe that she was dead and find someone else to love. They had only known each other for such a brief time, and yet she knew for certain that he was the one man in the world to whom she could give her heart and soul.

Lucetta gulped back tears as she pulled the coarse calico shift over her head. Sam would scarcely recognise her now. If he returned to London and discovered that she had survived, would he love a girl whose bones stuck out like white marble beneath her skin? Would he be attracted to someone who undoubtedly smelled as bad as her captors and her stinking surroundings? She was not at all certain of the answer. Sam Cutler had fallen in love with a spoilt young girl who had been petted and cosseted and told that she was beautiful from the cradle onwards, and, until now, she had had no reason to doubt it.

Lucetta slipped her arms into the yellowed-cotton blouse but her fingers were shaking so badly that she found it almost impossible to do up the buttons. With a great deal of effort she managed to finish dressing and her hand flew automatically to her hair. It hung
around her shoulders in a mass of knots and tangles and she had neither a brush nor a comb. It was, she thought with a touch of her old humour, a good thing that Stranks and Guthrie did not possess a mirror. She dragged her hair back from her face and tied it with a strip of material torn from the hem of her shift and then she began a methodical search of the room, looking for something which might help her to escape.

Perhaps there was a spare key hidden somewhere under a loose brick, or beneath the palliasses on the wooden cots? There was plenty of dust and dirt piled in the corners of the room which might have been used to conceal something as small as a key. She took a spoon from the table and began digging as if prospecting for gold, but she found nothing other than nests of woodlice and crawly things with dozens of legs. In desperation she tried to open the window, even though the bars on the outside were too closely set together to allow anything bigger than a cat to slide through them, but the window was nailed shut and the door remained firmly locked. There was no way out and she was both hungry and thirsty. She went back to the table, but if there had been anything left after last night’s meal, the rats and mice had devoured the last crumb. The jug was empty except for the flies forming a moving crust in the bottom as they feasted off the dregs of small beer. The stale smell made her retch and she pitched the jug at the wall. The violent action did nothing to assuage the pangs of hunger or thirst that tormented her, but it went some way to relieve her feelings.