Vintage Love (153 page)

The dwarf looked intently at the hedge and then seemed to change his mind. He moved away, allowing her to breathe again. Joining the tall man he said, “No use staying here! She won’t come back! And there’s at least a hundred pounds in that purse!”

“Good night’s work!” Martin said approvingly as the evil couple made their way slowly out of the small cemetery.

Fanny didn’t move until long after their voices and figures had faded away in the fog. At last she crawled out from her hiding place, wet, miserable and afraid. She gazed at the various headstones, crypts and monuments all about her and shivered. She did not much relish the idea of spending the night among the dead!

But her common sense told her that she had less to fear from them than she did from the living outside the fence. She stood there, still thoroughly fear-stricken, as the clock in the church tower sonorously struck the hour of one. She gazed at one of the flat-topped grave markers and debated stretching out on it to spend the night on this hard bed with the cold, yellow fog penetrating her body. It was a long way from her former warm room at Brenmoor. But there was no use feeling sorry for herself. She had brought herself to this unhappy state!

As she stood there she heard a slight creaking sound, like the movement of rusty hinges. It made her heart almost stop. Then she wheeled around in the direction of the sound and to her utter horror she saw the doors of the largest crypt moving. As they opened a fearsome apparition emerged, a thin man with a deathly white face in which were two sunken eyes, burning fiercely as they stared at her from the shadows of his gaunt face. The man wore a black top hat from under which flowed wild strands of iron-gray hair reaching to the shoulders of his black, worn frock coat and shabby trousers. She could only think of the creature as one risen from the dead!

“Girl!” The apparition was addressing her.

She drew back, terrified. “Who are you? What are you?” she quavered.

The ghostly one chuckled, showing gray uneven teeth in an equally gray, gaunt face. “The last question is of more moment than the first, I vow! What am I? A creature of the night! A wastrel of the streets, seeking comfort with my friends in this resting place of the dead.”

“Your friends?”

“I have several,” the apparition assured her. “From our vantage point in the tomb we saw you run in here followed by those two evil fellows.”

“I saw them commit a murder,” she said tensely, realizing that this was no spirit, but a human being like herself. “They wish to kill me!”

“No doubt,” the ghostly figure said in his courtly way. “But they have gone now. So you are safe. I have emerged from the tomb to invite you to join my friends and me in a hot cup of tea and a warming fire!”

“Don’t make fun of me!” she wailed, more conscious of the cold than ever.

“I assure you I’m not,” the apparition intoned. He waved a claw-like hand gracefully. “Come a step further and observe for yourself.”

Hesitantly she moved a little closer so that she was able to see down into the tomb and sure enough, there was a small blaze in the middle of the floor with sticks set up to hold a pot over it to boil. Gathered by the fire were three other figures, two very elderly women dressed in ragged clothes and a young girl of about her own age and in not so ragged a condition. The girl had jet black hair and a rather pretty face.

“There is a very good draught at the top which allows the smoke to go out and the fire to burn nicely,” the apparition said.

She stared down into the eerie depths and in a low voice said, “I must be dreaming!”

“On the contrary,” the gaunt-faced man said, “you are being rescued from your nightmare. Come along with me to a place of warmth and safety.”

“What will they say?”

He assured her, “We have already discussed it among ourselves and decided that you should be given sanctuary. The church would normally be the proper place, but unhappily in the Anglican tradition the verger has locked it. So we have to make do with the hospitality of those who have gone before us.”

As he went over this preamble Fanny carefully picked her way down the moss-covered steps and entered the tomb. The wave of warmth gave her a new feeling of hope. She deliberately ignored the shelves on either side with their dusty coffins and the cobwebs which streaked up from them to the level of the roof.

The two old women were huddled by the fire with their eyes closed. But the girl smiled up at her and said, “We’re not spirits, though we may seem to be so.”

“Thank you for allowing me to join you,” she said. “My name is Fanny Hastings!”

The dark-haired girl laughed and said, “More likely it would have been mud if those two blokes had caught up with you. Mine is Moll! The last name don’t count!”

The man with the skull-like face and long gray hair smiled as he settled down by the fire after having carefully closed the doors to the tomb. He said, “Her reason for not giving you her last name is because she does not know it.”

Moll was pouring out a cup of tea and she stuck her tongue out at the gaunt man in black. “That for you, Mr. Hodder!” And she handed the tea to Fanny.

“Thank you,” Fanny said gratefully. She sipped the tea and felt she’d never tasted anything so good.

“My name is Silas Hodder,” the man with the burning eyes said. “I am a beggar by profession. And so is Moll. The two old ladies are somewhat beyond even this lowly profession and so live largely on our bounty.”

“Share and share alike,” Moll said piously. “Charity is a grand thing!”

“Amen!” Silas Hodder said, nodding.

Fanny stared at them in amazement. “But doesn’t it hurt your pride to beg?”

“Not at all,” the man said. “I consider myself tops in my profession.”

“Oh, he’s very good, he is, I promise you that,” Moll agreed, her hands clasped around her knees and a smile on her pert face.

Fanny said, “Can’t you get regular work?”

“None that would pay as well and be respectable,” Moll told her.

“London is a cruel city,” Silas Hodder warned her as the two old ladies continued to sleep by the fire. Fanny now noticed the gin bottle on the ground between them, empty as she might have suspected. The two old ones had downed it without doubt and were now blissfully at rest.

Moll followed her glance and laughed. “No tea for them! Gin is their mother’s milk and nothing else will do.”

Silas Hodder said, “I was once a businessman of some wealth and great respectability. I was swindled out of my fortune by scoundrels and I made a vow to even the score with the world by extracting a good living from it. And I have!”

Moll gave him an admiring look. “He’s really brainy, Mr. Hodder is. He put me on my game as well.”

“I’ll explain my own tactics first,” Silas Hodder told the dark girl. And then to Fanny, he continued, “I sleep rather late in the day. Then I make the rounds of the best taverns. I am, as you can see, shabby and peculiar-looking; I also smell rather high. When I enter these respected places I conduct myself most quietly and gentlemanly so there can be no excuse to evict me. I seat myself amid the most prosperous looking group and look as doleful as possible. Naturally I make them very uncomfortable.”

“And then?” Fanny asked.

“One of them will query me about my business there. I tell them I have come merely to sit in my haunts of yesteryear. To be a shadow at the feast and think of more prosperous days. I note that I once had a suite of offices in the City and then I bring out a box of matches (without offering them for sale). Most of the fat-bellies have a fit of conscience and thrust coins in my hand as I leave. All I do is sit there dull-eyed. When I’ve made all I can in one tavern I move on to another.”

Fanny said, “Don’t they become familiar with your routine?”

“Makes it all the better,” the skull-faced man said. “I become a sort of charge to them. If I don’t appear they worry that my health has broken completely or I have taken my life as I’ve frequently threatened, and my demise will be upon their conscience. I make the same rounds in the evening until about ten. Then I return here.”

She listened in amazement. “And this makes you a good living?”

“More than that, it allows me to bank a little each week,” Silas Hodder said with satisfaction. “Soon I shall be able to retire and take up my status as a true gentleman!”

“Ah, you never will!” Moll told him. “Not you! The greed has got you! You won’t ever give it up.”

“What about you?” Fanny wanted to know of the girl.

Moll said, “I don’t know. Mr. Hodder made me what I am. He showed me how to turn over a few pounds a week. He reads the death notices and he picks out names of married gentlemen in good circumstances. Then I makes a call on the dead man’s widow. I tell her what a dear gent he was and how he made love to me on the quiet and promised to marry me. I sniffle a lot at losing him but tell her there’s a good side. I will have the child he gave me. And it’s then they bring out their purses and give me a little something to keep quiet and go on my way.”

Fanny was shocked. “But that is so cruel! You make those poor widows unhappy by thinking their husbands were unfaithful. And you do harm to the reputations of the dead husbands!”

Moll chuckled. “There’s more to it than that. Some of those widows didn’t have much use for their husbands in any event. And they’re properly surprised many a time that the poor old gent was able to get me with child, since he hadn’t been able to do it for them. The way I see it, I give those dead chaps a gamy reputation that should make them happy!”

“No one is really hurt,” Silas Hodder said. “I carefully select the cases. No grieving young widows are ever included.”

“And all four of you sleep here every night?” Fanny said.

“We do,” Moll replied. “The old girls spend most of the day under an arch on the embankment not too far from here. But come nightfall we all head for our tomb.”

“A touch of the vampire, you might say,” the weird old man said with amusement. “Naturally the church people are not aware of our making such good use of the facilities or they would evict us. As yet, our dead comrades have made no complaint of any sort.”

She glanced warily at the dusty coffins with their cobwebs and said, “I can tell that. Is it healthy down here?”

“As healthy as most places in London,” Silas Hodder said. “My physician assures me no disease lives on in such places. The coffins are well-sealed and the tomb makes a comfortable place for us on nights such as this.”

Moll said, “We have just room for one more. You can join us if you like. You’ve got to keep out of the way of those two blokes!”

Fanny gave a deep sigh, thinking of all that had taken place since she ran away from Brenmoor on this eventful evening. She said, “The tall one will kill me to silence me if he ever finds me again.”

“I wouldn’t trust the dwarf either,” Silas Hodder advised. “He has a wicked look.”

Fanny’s pretty face was shadowed with the evil memory of what had happened. She said, “I saw those two murder a man only a few blocks from here.”

“Many such murders occur here in London every night,” the man in shabby black warned.

Moll stared at her with interest. “How do you come to be in London on your own?”

“It’s a complicated story,” Fanny said, staring wistfully into the fire.

“You’re nursing a broken heart! I’ll vow to that!” Moll declared.

Fanny gave her a surprised look. “How sharp you are to realize that!”

“Part of my trade,” Moll said proudly.

“Have either of you heard of the Marquis of Brenmoor?” Fanny asked.

Silas Hodder replied at once, “He has a large estate just outside London. I think he has three sons and a fine stable of race horses.”

She told the odd, old man, “You’re right on all points.” And then she went on to explain about her mother dying, her cousin Lily being the cook at Brenmoor and how she came to be there. She also told them of her stage ambitions and of meeting young George Palmer.

In a moment she had lost herself in the pleasant reverie of her second meeting with Viscount George Palmer. It had happened on a night in mid-April. The Marquis, who held many shares in the British East India Company, was having an entertainment to honor a certain Prince Aran, the Oxford-educated son of a Maharajah in the northwest of that vast and mysterious country.

Cousin Lily was in a state about the food, since the Marquis had commissioned a special menu for the Prince who was a Hindu and would not eat any beef dishes. Fanny herself was busily involved with the preparing of extra rooms for overnight guests. The great ballroom was festooned with colorful garlands and other decorations. There was to be a dinner, dancing and a musical entertainment.

The only one in the house who was not excited was the Reverend Kenneth Palmer, who disapproved of the Marquis catering to a man he felt was a heathen. Fanny had overheard him in conversation with his father in the lower hallway.

The young curate had informed the old man, “I shall be absent from the party, father. I trust you will understand.”

The Marquis had leaned on his cane and said tartly, “I expect you to attend. My guest of honor, the Prince, may be offended if you are not present.”

“I do not share your enthusiasm for heathen royalty,” the young man snapped back. “The Bishop is putting me up for a few days. I shall return here when this pagan orgy is over.”

“I call that most inconsiderate of you, Kenneth,” the Marquis had rebuked him.

But, as Fanny had expected, the rebuke had done no good. The bigoted young man was not influenced by his father’s words. On the other hand, Captain Charles and the Vicount George entered into the preparations with enthusiasm, as did Dora Carson, a daughter of a distant poor relation of the Marquis whom the old man had adopted as his daughter.

Several times Fanny had been assigned to act as personal maid to the pleasant young woman. And on the evening of the party for the prince Fanny found herself acting in this capacity for Dora once again.

Dora was slender, twenty-two, quietly attractive. Her large brown eyes and olive skin were her best features and she wore white as often as possible to emphasize her coloring. On the exciting night Fanny stood behind her fastening her gown as Dora studied herself in the mirror.