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She smiled with bitter humor when she remembered how Rathbone had exercised legal skill and some considerable guile in maneuvering Squeaky into yielding his ownership of the brothels, and then taking on the bookkeeping of his own premises as a shelter for the very people he had once owned. Rathbone had left Squeaky no acceptable choice. It had been wildly daring, and from Rathbone's point of view, totally against the spirit of the establishment he had spent his adult life serving. It had also brought him acute moral and emotional pleasure.
But then Hester had also allowed Squeaky little choice in his decision, or as little as she could manage.
Now she was at the kitchen door. Her quick, light step on the wooden boards had alerted Margaret to her coming. Margaret turned with a vegetable knife in her hand. At home she had servants for everything; here she could put her hand to any task that required attention. There was no one else in the room. Hester was not sure if it would have been easier or harder had there been.
“Good morning,” Margaret said quietly. She stood motionless, her shoulders square, chin a little high, eyes direct. In that one look Hester knew that she was not going to apologize or offer even the suggestion, however tacit, that the verdict of the trial had been unjust. She was prepared to defend Rathbone to the hilt. Had she any idea why he had chosen to champion Jericho Phillips? From the angle of her head, the unwavering stare, and the slight rigidity of her smile, Hester guessed that she did not.
“Good morning,” she replied politely. “How are our stores? Do we need flour, or oatmeal?”
“Not for three or four days,” Margaret said. “If the woman with the knife wound in her arm goes home tomorrow, we might last longer. Unless, of course, we get anyone else in. Bessie brought some ham bones this morning, and Claudine brought a string of onions and the bones from a saddle of mutton. We are doing well. I think we should use what money we have for lye, carbolic, vinegar, and a few more bandages. But see what you think yourself.”
There was no need for Hester to check; that would have made the most delicate of implications that she did not believe Margaret capable. Before the Phillips affair neither of them would have thought such conspicuous courtesy necessary.
They discussed the medical supplies, simple as they were: alcohol for cleaning wounds and instruments, cotton pads, thread, bandages, salve, laudanum, quinine for fevers, fortified wines to strengthen and warm. The cautious politeness was in the air like a bereavement.
Hester was relieved to escape to the room where Squeaky Robinson, the short-tempered, much-aggrieved ex-brothel-keeper was doing the accounts and guarding every farthing from frivolous and unnecessary expenditure. One would have thought he had labored for it personally rather than received it, through Margaret, from the charitable of the city.
He looked up from his table as she closed the door behind her. His sharp, slightly lopsided face under its long, moth-eaten-looking hair was full of sympathy.
“Made a mess of it,” he observed, without specifying whom he meant. “Pity that. Bastard should've ‘ad ‘is neck stretched, an’ no mistake. The fact we got a lot o’ money in't much comfort, is it! Not today, any'ow. Mebbe termorrer it'll feel good. Yer can ‘ave five pounds ter get more sheets, if yer like.” That was an extraordinarily generous offer from a man who begrudged a penny, and regarded sheets for street women as being about as necessary as pearl necklaces in the farmyard. It was his oblique way of trying to comfort her.
She smiled at him, and he looked away, embarrassed. He was slightly ashamed of himself for being generous; he was letting his standards slip.
She sat down in the chair opposite him. “I shall do that. Then we can launder them more often, and keep infection down.”
“That'll cost more soap, and more water!” he protested, horrified at the extravagance he had apparently let himself in for. “An’ more time to dry ‘em.”
“And fewer people infected so they'll leave quicker,” she elaborated. “But what I really want is your help. That's why I came.”
He looked at her carefully. “You seen Mrs … Lady Rathbone?” His face was carefully expressionless.
“Yes I have, and dealt with the kitchen accounts,” she replied, wondering how much all of them knew about the trial and the verdict. It seemed to be quite a lot.
“Wot can I do? The swine is free!” He said the words with a sudden savagery, and she realized with new pain how much she and Monk had let them all down. They had used every avenue they knew and given Hester the information, and she had failed to get Phillips hanged.
“I'm sorry,” she said quietly. “We were so sure he was guilty we weren't careful enough.”
Squeaky shrugged. He had no compunction about hitting a man when he was down. Indeed, it was the safest time to do it! But he could not hit Hester; she was different. He did not want to think how fond he was of her; it was a decidedly serious weakness.
“Oo'd've thought Sir Rathbone'd ‘ave done that?” he demanded. “We could see if we got enough money to ‘ave someone stick a shiv in ‘is gizzard. It'd cost, mind. Get bedsheets for ‘alf the ‘ores in England.”
“Oliver?” She was horrified.
He rolled his eyes. “Gawd, woman! I mean Jericho Phillips! Wouldn't cost nothin’ ter do Sir Rathbone. Except yer'd ‘ave every cop in London after yer, so I s'pose yer'd dance on a rope in the end. An’ that's kind o’ costly. But Phillips'd be another thing. Like as not ‘e'd get yer first. Right nasty piece o’ work, ‘e is.”
“I know that, Squeaky. I'd rather get him legitimately.”
“Yer tried that,” he pointed out. He pushed a pile of papers across the desk, further out of his way. “Don't want ter rub it in like, but yer didn't exactly get ‘im justice, did yer? ‘E's better off now than if ye
r ‘adn't bothered. Free, ‘e is, the piece o’ turd. Now even if yer could prove it an ‘e confessed, yer can't touch the sod.”
“I know.”
“But mebbe wot you in't thought of, Miss ‘Ester,” he said very seriously, “is that ‘e knows yer after ‘im, an’ ‘e knows ‘oo can tell yer wot, an’ they're gonna ‘ave ter tread very careful from now on. ‘E's a nasty piece o’ work, is Jericho Phillips. ‘E in't gonna forgive them wot spoke out o’ turn.”
She shivered, chilled in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps that was the most serious failure of all: the danger to others, lives now shadowed with fear of Phillips's revenge, when they had been promised safety. She did not want to meet his eyes, but it was cowardly to look down. “Yes, I know that too. It is going to be even harder to do it again.”
“In't no point in doin’ it again, Miss ‘Ester!” he pointed out. “We can't ‘ang the bastard anymore! We know ‘e should be ‘ung, drawn, and quartered an’ ‘is guts fed ter the birds! But the law says ‘e's as innocent as them kids wot ‘e sells! Thanks ter Sir bloody Rathbone! Now none o’ them wot spoke agin’ ‘im in't safe, poor sods.”
