The Prisoner (33 page)

“There is absolutely no way that I am going to stay here while Haydon's life is in danger,” Genevieve informed them with steely determination. “None.”

Doreen sighed. “If we let ye come, ye'll nae be able to open yer mouth,” she warned. “Not even a cheep out of ye.”

“Fine.”

Oliver looked unconvinced. “Can we do somethin' about those uncommonly white teeth of hers—and maybe find an old hat to hide that bonny hair?”

“A little wax stuck onto her front teeth will make them look yellow and uneven,” Annabelle assured him. “That's what they do in the theater.”

“An' I can brush some ashes from the stove into her hair,” Eunice said, eyeing the red-gold mass piled on Genevieve's head. “Take the color and shine right out, and age her nicely into the bargain.”

“What about her shape?” persisted Oliver. “I dinna want any lads sniffin' after her as we walk by.”

“I've an old gown that'll hang like a sack on her,” Doreen offered. “Make her appear half-starved.”

“And I can smudge her face with burned cork,” suggested Grace. “I tried it once on Annabelle, and it gave her a wonderfully dirty look—like she'd been sleeping under the stove for a week.”

Oliver sighed. “Very well, then,” he relented. “See if ye can fix Miss Genevieve so that no one will have reason to look at her twice, and then fix yerselves up the same. But mind ye dinna take too long,” he warned impatiently. “We've got to get to Devil's Den and find our lad quick, afore those rogues decide 'tis time to finish their work.”

Chapter Fourteen

T
HE DAY HAD WITHERED INTO MURKY COLD SHADOWS
by the time Genevieve and her band were making their way through the putrid maze of Devil's Den. A tattered quilt of clouds was sifting icy snow upon them, fine as salt, which beat against their faces like a thousand sharp pins. It was not thick enough to suffuse the filth and muck that lay in a great, oozing mantle over the haphazard streets, a stinking swill of human waste and sour ale. Shattered glass lay everywhere, a testament to the scores of men and women who crawled home each night with a bottle of whiskey mashed against their mouths, and after licking up the last fiery drop hurled the vessel against the nearest wall, briefly filling the dark with the sound of their impotent rage. The streets were a combination of cesspool, refuse heap, and thoroughfare, and Genevieve had to resist the impulse to instruct the children to make their way carefully as they trudged after Jack. She had sworn upon her beloved father's soul that she would not speak, and therefore she remained silent and concentrated on being as inconspicuous as possible.

In truth, she thought that the transformation in her appearance had been nothing short of extraordinary. Draped in Doreen's stained, shapeless dress, with her hair dulled beneath a generous application of ashes and her face and hands smudged with grime, she looked every inch the miserable young mother she was emulating, right down to the ragged bundle she carried in her arms. Oliver had insisted on her upper front teeth being masked in yellow wax, even though Genevieve had argued that as she wasn't going to speak, it wasn't necessary. The result was a lumpy, uncomfortable mold that pressed between her teeth and her inner lip, giving her mouth a misshapen appearance, almost as if she had been recently struck in the face. Doreen assured her that most of the women in Devil's Den were cuffed with brutal regularity, and that her swollen lip would help her blend better into the surrounding wretchedness.

Smoke spewed in greasy streams from the chimneys, adding the redolence of sputtering fires, wilted cabbage, and charred meat to the fetid air below. Genevieve's throat convulsed as the stench assailed her nostrils, and for a dizzying moment she thought she might vomit. She adjusted her scarf against her nose and forced herself to take tiny sips of air, fighting the quick lurch of her stomach. She had thought herself accustomed to the reek of misery, for she had spent enough time within the walls of the jail to know it intimately. But somehow, the closed stink of the prison was not nearly so overpowering as the noisome odors that assaulted her now. In prison, chamber pots were occasionally emptied and rinsed, and prisoners were required to tidy their cells each day and take a bath once a fortnight. The wretched stew that lined the streets and filled the overcrowded buildings of Devil's Den had been steeping for decades, until the very ground was rotten. As for bathing, Genevieve doubted whether any of the inhabitants here had ever enjoyed that luxury, save for the bairns that were still small enough to be hastily dunked in a battered dishpan of gray water.

“It's that one.” Jack inclined his head toward a crumbling building at the end of the street.

“Ye're sure?” asked Oliver.

He nodded. “They took him through that door. I waited a bit, then slipped in after them. I think they went to the second or third floor, but before I could be certain they had disappeared into one of the apartments. It was too noisy for me to try to make out which one. Lots of screamin' and bawling goes on in these places.” He gave Genevieve a hard look, trying to prepare her.

“Look!” gasped Jamie, pointing at a shifting pile of rotting scraps.

“Stay back,” Doreen warned, protectively grabbing him by his shoulders. “It's a rat. The streets here are full of them.”

“Really?” Jamie stared in fascination at the moving refuse. Suddenly a little orange-and-vanilla-striped head emerged from the slimy mound.

“It's a cat!” He watched with delight as the mangy creature shook off an errant bit of onionskin. Its fur was matted with grease and filth, and one ear had been torn into two pink flaps.

“Poor thing—she looks half-starved.” Charlotte leaned upon her crutch and held her hand out to it. “Here, kitty.”

The cat lifted her nose into the air and studied Charlotte, trying to ascertain if there was something of interest in her palm.

“Here now, dinna go touchin' that vermin-infested creature,” scolded Eunice. “Lord knows what kind of nasty things are crawlin' in its fur.”

Charlotte smiled as the cat came close enough for her to kneel down and stroke its sticky head. “Poor thing—she must be hungry.”

“Well if she is, 'tis no concern of ours,” Eunice informed her, shepherding Charlotte forward. “We've enough to worry about today without having some skinny, louse-ridden beast traipsin' after us.”

Charlotte regarded her unhappily. “But if we leave her here she's going to die.”

“Nonsense,” scoffed Doreen. “Between the mice and the rubbish there's enough here to feed her for a year.”

“Does everyone remember what our plan is?” demanded Oliver in a low voice.

The little group nodded solemnly.

“All right, then. Stay tight, and none of ye speak unless ye have to. Doreen and I will do any talkin' that's to be done. Let's go.”

They trudged across the street, which was now covered with a fine, sandy snow, and bitterly cold against their roughly shod feet. Each of them had been garbed in the dullest of rags, with crushed hats and frayed coats, and they all carried a satchel of some sort. The exception to this was Genevieve, who was feigning carrying a bairn in her arms, and Charlotte, who was hobbling along with the crutch she typically tried not to use. They gave the appearance of a destitute family limping through the cold, desperately searching for a place to stay. It was far from an uncommon plight in Devil's Den. No one troubled them or asked them any questions. If anything, the people they encountered on the street made a point of quickening their pace and looking away as they tramped by. It occurred to Genevieve that they probably feared being asked for a crust of bread or a place where the bedraggled family might be able to rest and get warm.

A sickening brew of odors assailed them as they opened the door to the building. The stink of guttering fires and overly full chamber pots melded with the immediate stench of burned meats and vegetables, but there was a thicker underlying smell that permeated the very walls and floors around them. It was the reek of decades of bodies existing without benefit of bathing, a near-choking aroma of sweat and skin and scalp, and all the accompanying bodily fluids that had seeped into the clothes and mattresses and furniture around them. It was the smell of poverty and misery, but it was also the smell of defeat. Jamie wrinkled his nose in disgust. None of the others seemed to react to it. Perhaps, Genevieve reflected, they had each known that stench too well at some point in their lives to be easily offended by it.

“Yer pardon, sir,” Oliver began, addressing a pinch-faced young man who was swiftly descending the stairs. “I'm lookin' for my son—”

“Go to hell.” He shoved past the group and heaved open the door. “Bloody Christ!” he swore as the scrawny striped cat darted in between his legs. He drew his foot back to kick it, causing Charlotte to cry out in dismay.

“Leave it be!” snarled Jack, leaping forward to scoop the scabby creature up.

The man's eyes narrowed into dark slits. “Are ye thinkin' t' order me about?”

“Here now, we dinna want trouble,” Oliver said, deftly inserting his spindly frame between Jack and the glowering tenant. “That's the lad's cat, is all. Nasty wee thing, to be sure, but good for the mice, all the same. Ye'd nae want to be rid of a good mouser, now, would ye?”

The man scowled. “Just keep the skinny bastard the hell away from me.”

“I will for sure,” Oliver said, not certain whether the man was referring to Jack or the cat.

The tenant stomped out the door and banged it shut behind him.

“Here,” said Jack, depositing the writhing cat in Annabelle's arms. “Hold that for Charlotte.”

Annabelle's eyes widened in horror as she struggled to restrain the twisting little beast. “But it's so dirty!”

“Please, Annabelle,” implored Charlotte. “I'd hold her myself, but I don't think I could manage with my crutch.”

“I've an idea.” Simon removed his scarf and wrapped it tightly around the cat until the filthy creature resembled a small mummy. “That should keep it from moving about.”

“If we're quite finished playin' with cats, could we get on with it?” demanded Doreen, growing agitated.

Oliver quickly scanned the hallway and selected an apartment that was situated close to the stairs. The sounds of children wailing and fighting could be heard behind the door, and, somewhere deeper within, a woman was screeching at them to clapper their bloody traps.

“Over here,” Oliver said, directing his ragged family around him. He raised his fist and rapped upon the door.

“Dinna open it!” the woman inside shouted, but it was already too late. The door swung open and six dirty little faces stared up at them.

“I told ye nae to open it, ye bleedin' wee buggers!”

A heavily pregnant woman waddled forward, lugging over one hip a delicately boned child of about a year of age. She swatted the children away, then glared at Oliver and the others with naked hostility. Her eyes were small and set close together, and the skin around one of them bore the faded blue-and-purple mottling of an ugly bruise.

“What do ye want?” she demanded sharply.

“Forgive me for troublin' ye, missus,” said Oliver, politely removing his cap. “My wife and me are lookin' for my son, ye see—”

The door slammed shut.

Unperturbed, Oliver herded the group to the next door. This time a gaunt woman of about twenty answered. Her narrow body had been squeezed into a tight corset so that her small breasts were plumped up like two lumps of boiled dough, and her ashen face was heavily smeared with rouge. She had arranged her oily hair into a drab coiffure, and the sickly sweet odor of cheap perfume wafted from her, intermingled with the smell of old perspiration. Surprise registered upon her face as she opened the door. It was clear to Genevieve that she had been expecting someone else.

“Yer pardon for troublin' ye, miss,” Oliver began again, “but my wife and myself are tryin' to find our lad, and last we heard he was livin' in this building. Perhaps ye've seen him,” he rushed on, sensing that she was about to close the door. “Built like an ale barrel, Harry is, with a nose laid flat from his taste for brawlin'. Or mayhap ye've seen his mates—George is a big brute with a belly like a swine's, while Ewan is skinny as a weed, with hair the color of smashed turnip.”

A flash of insight lit the girl's wary gaze. Clearly she knew something about the men Oliver was describing.

“This is Harry's wife and bairns,” Oliver pressed on, pointing to Genevieve and the children. “This poor wee bugger has never seen his da,” he added, gesturing at the ragged bundle in her arms. “Harry dinna ken that he's gone and made another,” he added, slipping into a broader Scots than he normally used. His bony shoulders were hunched with defeat as he finished, “I'm old, and canna go on carin' for her and her brood. 'Tis time Harry come home and did right by them.”

The children stared at her mournfully, except for Jack, whose sullen indifference seemed entirely appropriate for an abandoned lad of fourteen. Even the motley cat let out a pitiful meow as it tried to extract itself from Annabelle's tight hold.

The girl hesitated, debating whether or not to speak. Suddenly a door banged open on a floor above them, causing her to jump.

“I dinna know nothin',” she blurted out, her eyes flitting nervously toward the staircase. She hurled the door closed.

“She knows where they are,” Jack said, infuriated. He raised his fist to pound upon the door.

“Aye, o' course she does,” hissed a crackling voice.

A decrepit old woman with a sparse scraggle of white hair peered at them speculatively from a doorway across the corridor. “The scurvy hoor knows every pair o' trousers that rubs together in all o' Devil's Den!” She laughed, revealing a dark cave of slippery gray gums, like snails, intermittently spiked with the occasional yellow tooth.

“A shame.” Oliver shook his head as he shuffled over to her. “That's what happens to a lass when she's got nae family to help. I dinna know what'll become of these wee cubs if I canna find their da. End up on the street, most like.”

“Filled yer belly and left ye to rot, did he, dearie?” The woman's watery eyes were nearly swallowed beneath the limp folds of her eyelids as she studied Genevieve. “Poor lassie. Lads today have nae honor. A quick toss of the skirts and they're off again, never mind the mess they've left behind. 'Tis a disgrace, to my way of thinkin'. If 'twere my son, I'd nae spare the whip!” She glared at Doreen, as if she bore responsibility for the transgressions of her supposed son.