AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll walk yer to yer carriage,” the big man offered.
Livia looked startled, then relieved. A flash of light crossed her face which could even have been humor. “Thank you,” she said, then went out of the door into Coldbath Square, followed by the man.
It was ten minutes later that Bessie returned with Lockhart, tired and disheveled as always, but perfectly willing to help.
“You don’t eat proper!” Bessie chided him, as she had apparently been doing ever since she had found him. “Steak and kidney pudding, you need!” She went over to the stove. “I’ll get you some ’ot tea. Best I can do. But it’s yer own fault!” She did not explain what she meant by that, and Lockhart shot a wry look at Hester, but there was affection in it. He understood Bessie better than she understood herself.
Hester explained what they had done for the girl and took him over to her.
He looked at her carefully, for a long time, but he could not tell Hester the one thing she needed to know, whether there was internal bleeding or not.
“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head and looking at the girl with pity. “I just don’t know. But if she’s still no worse by morning, she might survive it. I’ll come back midday or so. Until then, you can do as much for her as I can. You’ve made a good job of the bones.”
It was a little after seven, and full daylight, when Hester awoke to find Bessie standing over her, her eyes bright, her hair struggling out of its fierce knot, her dress even more rumpled than usual.
“She’s come ’round!” she said in her penetrating whisper. “Don’ look too good, poor creature. Yer’d better see to ’er. Kettle’s on. Yer look like summit out o’ the morgue yerself, an’ all.”
“Thank you,” Hester said a trifle dryly, sitting up and wincing. Her head throbbed and she was so tired she felt worse than when she had lain down. She swung her legs to the floor and stood up, aware now of the girl on the other bed only yards away from her, eyes open, face so white it seemed hardly warmer than the pillow.
“Don’t move,” Hester said gently. “You’re safe here.”
“I’m all broken inside.” The girl breathed the words rather than spoke them. “Heavens, I hurt!” Her voice was soft, her diction clear, not that of the streets.
“I know, but in time it will ease,” Hester promised, hoping it was true.
“No, it won’t,” the girl said with resignation. “I’m dying. That’s my punishment, I suppose.” She did not look at Hester but stared up at the ceiling with blank eyes.
Hester put her hand over the girl’s, touching it very lightly. “Your bones will heal,” she told her. “I
know it hurts now, but it will get better. What shall I call you?”
“Alice.” Suddenly her eyes filled with tears, but she was too weak and too tired to sob. She was also too broken to be held in anyone’s arms.
“Just rest,” Hester said, aching to be able to do more for her. “You’re safe here. We won’t leave you alone. Is there anyone you would like me to tell?”
“No!” She turned to look at Hester, her eyes frightened. “Please!”
“I won’t if you don’t wish it,” Hester promised. “Don’t worry!”
“I don’t want them to know,” Alice went on. “Let me just die here and be buried . . . wherever they put people no one knows.” She said it without self-pity. She was asking for an end, privacy, not help.
Hester had no idea whether the girl would recover or not. She was uncertain how to help, or if she could. Perhaps the best thing would be to leave her, but she could not do that. She was compelled by her own inner will for life not to allow someone else to give up. To be beaten was another thing, but she was not there yet.
“Who did this to you?” she asked. “Don’t you want to stop them? Before they do it to someone else?”
Alice turned her head a little. “You can’t stop him. No one can.”
“Anyone can be stopped, if you know how, and if enough of us try,” Hester said decisively. “If you help. Who is he?”
Alice looked away again. “You can’t. It’s legal. I owe him money. I borrowed too much, then I couldn’t pay it back.”
“Who? Your pimp?”
Alice stared up at the ceiling. “You might as well know. There’s nothing more he can do to me now. But I don’t know his name, not his real name. I was respectable then, a governess! Can you imagine that? I used to teach gentlemen’s children. In Kensington. I fell in love.” There was immeasurable bitterness in her voice and it was so little above a whisper that Hester had to strain to hear her. “We got married. We had six months of happiness . . . then I realized he gambled. Couldn’t help it, he said. Maybe he was right. Anyway, he didn’t stop . . . he began to lose.” She took a deep breath and gasped with pain. It was a moment or two before she could continue.
Hester waited.
“I borrowed to get him out of debt . . . then he left me,” Alice said. “Only I still had to pay back the money. It was then that the moneylender told me he could get me looked after on the streets . . . especially . . . if I went into this brothel. It caters to men who like clean girls . . . ones who speak nicely and carry themselves like quality. Pay a lot more for it. That way I could pay off my debt and be free.”
