Rushed to the Altar (29 page)

He looked at her askance. “You sure you want to go there, ma’am? Particularly all alone. ’Tis a bad part of town.”

“Positive,” she said firmly, climbing into the carriage and closing the door. Once she was inside he could hardly refuse to take her where she wanted to go.

He shrugged, cracked his whip, and the vehicle rumbled off. Clarissa sat forward, too anxious to lean back and relax as the hackney barreled its way through the streets of fashionable London and then into the increasingly meaner streets of the East End. She watched the passing scene through the window, the river appearing and disappearing as the streets twisted and turned. She recognized London Bridge and the Tower, and knew that they were getting close.

Her heart began to beat faster and her hands were clammy in her gloves, despite the cold. She took off the gloves, flipping them against her knee. The hackney clattered along the river and the jarvey called back, “ ’Ere’s Wapping Stairs, miss. Where to from ’ere?”

She leaned out of the window aperture. “Up Scandrett Street and turn right along the green. You’ll come to Dundee Street on the right.”

A few minutes later the carriage came to a stop. “Well, ’ere y’are. You sure this is what you wants?” The driver sounded incredulous.

Clarissa stepped down from the vehicle, drawing on her gloves, her shoulders squared and her head high. “Yes, this is right. Wait here for me, I won’t be many minutes. As I said before, you’ll be well paid.”

“That’s as may be,” he said, looking doubtfully
around. “You just holler if ’n you needs me, miss. This is no place for the likes of you.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” She gave him a grateful smile. It was comforting to think of his brawny presence waiting at her back. “But everything will be all right, I’m certain.”

“Aye, let’s ’ope so.” He still sounded doubtful.

She turned resolutely to the door and banged loudly. After a few minutes the door opened a crack and the same child as before peered at her. Clarissa regarded her unsmiling. “Is your mother in, child?”

“Who wants ’er?”

“That’s no concern of yours.” Clarissa kept her voice cold and haughty, looking down on the girl with what she hoped was an intimidating glare. There must be absolutely no resemblance to her previous incarnation. “Fetch your mother, if you please.”

The child seemed to hesitate. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, then abruptly scuttled away, leaving the door ajar. Clarissa pushed it open and entered the narrow passage. The same snufflings, whimperings, little cries came from above, and it was cold as ice in the hallway.

Bertha appeared in the passage. She looked at her visitor with a degree of hostility. “What d’you want with me, then?”

Clarissa allowed a chilly smile to touch her mouth. “Are you the woman who is looking after a boy by the name of Francis? He was placed in your charge by his uncle some weeks ago.”

“What’s it to you if I am?”

“I am come to take him away. His guardian sent me to fetch him.”

“I don’t know nothin’ about no guardian.” Bertha pointed to the door. “We don’t want the likes of you around ’ere. You get goin’ now.”

Clarissa stood her ground. “I think, Mistress Bertha—I have that right, I think . . . Bertha? You would do well to hear me out. Shall we go into the kitchen? Is it this way?” She gestured into the dark regions at the rear of the hallway.

Bertha’s air of confident hostility wavered a little. She turned and shuffled towards the kitchen. Clarissa followed her, her heart hammering. She had felt safer in the hallway with the open door behind her, and the jarvey behind that, but she had no choice except to go further into the den.

The kitchen was much as she remembered it, the gin-sodden man still sitting in his rickety chair by the fire. He looked up and blinked blearily. “Who’s this then? Some fine lady come a-visitin’? That’s a turn-up.” His laugh was a cracked rasp and he had instant resort to the brown bottle, then fell back into his chair, his breathing ragged.

Clarissa stood in the doorway, keeping the comforting sense of freedom behind her. “The boy’s guardian has sent me to fetch him home. I am authorized to pay you one guinea in recompense for lost income.”

She reached into the deep pocket of her cloak and drew out the golden guinea, holding it so that it winked in the light of the tallow candle on the table. “Should you find it difficult to produce the child, then of course I shall have no choice but to fetch the beadle. He will remove the child on his guardian’s authority and you will receive not a penny’s recompense. In fact, I would imagine you would find yourself serving time in Bridewell, if there’s any evidence that the children in your care are suffering neglect despite the money paid for their keep.”

She had no idea whether that was true, indeed she strongly suspected that the authorities wouldn’t care twopence for the fate of these abandoned children, but it sounded threatening enough, and she was fairly certain Bertha would do anything to avoid any contact with the law.

She waited, the coin still winking its largesse in her hand, her eyes cold and steady on Bertha’s face, praying that the woman couldn’t sense her fear, her desperation. They said animals could smell fear; perhaps this dreadful creature had the same ability. And Clarissa was very afraid.

“Oh, give ’er the sprat, Bertha.” The man in the chair roused himself as the reality of the guinea broke through his stupor. “ ’Tis not worth the trouble, an’ you’ll never see the likes of that guinea by keepin’ ’im. ’Ow long d’you think ’e’s going to last?”

Bertha stretched out her hand. “Give it ’ere, then.”

Clarissa shook her head. “Bring the child to me first. I need to see that he’s alive and well.”

Bertha glared, and the man in the chair pushed back his chair. “If you won’t fetch ’im, I will . . . an’ I’ll ’ave that guinea fer it too.”

“Over my dead body.” Bertha pushed past Clarissa and headed for the stairs. Clarissa followed her, praying that nothing would go wrong, that Bertha wouldn’t try some trick.

She stood at the bottom of the stairs as Bertha tramped up them. Her voice drifted down. “Eh, you, boy. Come ’ere. Yes, you. I’m talkin’ to you . . . Francis, or whatever yer fancy name is. You gone deaf or summat?”

Clarissa forced herself to stay where she was, although every muscle strained to race up the stairs and kick Bertha down them, one step at a time. She held herself very still, and finally Bertha reappeared, pulling Francis by the arm. She pushed him in front of her. “There . . . someone’s come fer you. Get down them stairs.”

Francis’s scared eyes gazed down at his sister and at first he didn’t seem to know her. Wordlessly she held out her arms to him and with a squeal that made her heart turn over, he hurtled down the stairs and jumped into her arms. He was so light, so frail beneath the ragged shirt and britches, she wanted to kill someone. Luke first, very slowly. And then the large woman descending on her with her powerful forearms and her face red with gin blossoms.

Clarissa tossed the guinea to the bottom step and turned and ran from the house, Francis held tight in her arms. What if the hackney had gone? But of course it hadn’t. The man wanted his fare. He was sitting on his box, smoking a corncob pipe, as if he had not a care in the world.

“Get in.” Clarissa thrust her brother up into the dark interior of the carriage, still terrified something would go wrong . . . Bertha would explode from the door yelling for a hue and cry . . . the streets would fill with angry faces, all intent on stopping her.

But it didn’t happen. She climbed in after Francis, pulled the door shut, and the carriage started off immediately. There were no sounds of pursuit, no angry cries. Just Francis’s soft sobbing in the opposite corner of the hackney.

She reached for him with trembling hands, pulled him across onto her lap, holding him tight, smoothing his ragged, ill-smelling hair, crooning softly as she rocked him.

After a while his tears ceased and he pushed himself upright, looking at her. “Why didn’t you come before?”

The accusatory tone made her want to weep herself but she said gently, “I couldn’t, love. I came as quickly as I could. Luke wouldn’t tell me where you were. It took me a long time to find you.”

He seemed to consider this, chewing his lip, which was already red and sore. “I’m hungry.”

“Yes, I know. As soon as we get out of the hackney, we’ll find a pieman.” She cradled him against her again, hardly daring to believe that at last she had him safe, and he seemed content now to lie close to her, as the carriage clattered over the cobbles.

“Where d’you want me to let you down, miss?” The jarvey leaned down from his box and shouted through the window aperture.

“On Piccadilly . . . where you picked me up.”

“Right y’are. Comin’ up in a minute.”

Francis sat up again. “What’s going to happen to Uncle Luke? He’s evil, ’Rissa. Why did he take me to that place and leave me?”

“We’ll talk about that later, darling.” She lifted him off her lap as the carriage came to a halt.

The jarvey opened the door for her and lifted Francis out, holding him for a moment in the air. “Poor little mite, what ’appened to ’im then? He’s just skin an’ bone.”

Clarissa bit back a sharp retort. The man had been kind, and without knowing he was at her back she would have had much less courage on Dundee Street. She smiled instead. “I know, but he’ll be all right now. Thanks in no small part to you.” She handed him a gold sovereign.

He bit it, nodded, and touched his forelock. “Good luck to ye, then, ma’am. An’ to the little lad. He needs to put some flesh on ’im.”

“I intend to see to that immediately.” Clarissa took
Francis’s hand. “We’re going in search of a pieman.”

“That’ll set you up good an’ proper, laddie,” the driver said, patting the boy’s bony shoulder before climbing back onto his box. He clicked his tongue and the hackney moved off down Piccadilly.

The streets were relatively quiet, as befitted a Sunday, but Clarissa steered them across Piccadilly into Green Park, where they found a man selling pasties and a milkmaid tending two cows, her yoked wooden pails filled to the brim. She bought a pasty and a cup of milk for Francis and watched as he devoured them both. Then she had the cup refilled and watched him drain that, before gently guiding him into the trees in search of a private spot where they could talk. They found a bench under the bare branches of a copper beech.

“I’m still hungry,” he complained.

“Yes, and you shall have a proper dinner very soon. But now I have to explain some things to you.”

Francis perched on the bench, shivering in his thin shirt. “What happened to your clothes?” Clarissa asked, wrapping him in her cloak.

“Don’t know. That Bertha took ’em off me an’ gave me these instead. They smell,” he added with a wrinkled nose. “They always did.”

“Well, we’ll find you some decent clothes soon enough.” She looked at him, trying to think of how best to start . . . where to start, indeed. “We have to hide from Luke, Francis, you understand that.”

He nodded vigorously. “I told you, he’s
evil.
”

“Yes, he is, and as soon as he knows you’re gone, he will be looking for you . . . for us both. Now, I have found us a place to stay where he will never think to look. But you have to be clever, Francis. As clever as I know you can be.”

Francis watched his sister intently, listening. He was no longer famished and was warm enough now to concentrate. Some of his old spirit that had not been extinguished by the hardships of the last weeks was returning. His sister was telling him that he would live with her in a house near here. It was owned by a gentleman, but he would not know the gentleman, might not even meet him, and if he did he was to bow and disappear quickly.

“Who is the gentleman?”

“He’s the Earl of Blackwater, darling.”

“But how d’you know him, ’Rissa? He’s a lord.”

“Yes, and so was your grandfather.” Clarissa immediately regretted that. The last thing she needed was for Francis to behave like an earl’s grandson. She took a deep breath and started again.

Francis listened. “I was a chimney sweep?” He interrupted the narrative with a tiny squawk of laughter that warmed his sister’s heart even as it accentuated the need to impress upon him the gravity of the situation.

“You almost were,” she said. “You have to understand one thing, Francis. Luke
must
not find you again.
You have to keep quiet about who you are, who I am, about everything to do with the family. Do you understand that?”

Francis nodded, serious now. “If he finds me I’ll go back to that place. I’m not going back to that place.” He kicked his legs thoughtfully. “Per’aps I should be dumb, pretend I can’t speak. That would work, wouldn’t it?”

“It would,” Clarissa agreed with a smile. “But I doubt you could keep it up for long, and once you drop the act it’ll cause more questions.”

“I suppose so. I might accidentally speak, almost without knowing it, an’ then everyone would wonder.”

“They would.” She stood up, holding out her hand. “Come on, let’s go home.”

As they walked she told him about Sally and Mistress Newby. “And there’s a boy called Sammy who does the rough work in the house. You’ll need to help out a bit, love. It might seem strange at first, but just imagine it’s like helping Silas with the tack in the stables. If you do as you’re asked cheerfully, and don’t make a fuss about anything, we’ll brush through this somehow.”

A niggling little voice told her she was probably being overly optimistic about her brother’s ability to turn himself into something he wasn’t, but she would be on the lookout and forestall as much as she could. And if the worst came to the worst, then they would have to leave and find somewhere buried in the country
where she could keep him hidden until she gained her majority.

“Here we are.” She stopped outside the house. “I’ll have to take back the cloak for a moment, love.” She slung it around her shoulders and took a step to the door, then stopped, realizing for the first time that she didn’t have a key to the door. That would have to be remedied, unless, of course, the privilege of keys to this house was not as a matter of course accorded to temporary occupants. If that was so, Jasper would have to make an exception in her case. She banged the lion’s-head knocker.