Too late now.
"I aren't sure, mind," the girl said.
"What name did they give you at—Eccles?" he asked.
"Charity Bedfordshire!" The girl smirked. "Next girl was Diligence Berkshire, an' the next was Earliness Buckinamshire." She giggled and then laughed, Alice's laugh, a warm, rich, infectious invitation. A peal of bells.
He was lost. What could he do? He could not leave her here. If she really was Alice's child, she was his child too. It was ridiculous—preposterous to think it. But it was just possible. Possible, he kept telling himself. Yet where could he take her? Not home. A pretty, vulgar little whore off a Bristol quayside? How to explain that! Even if he told Nora everything and she accepted it, the child would be a constant sore between them.
No, no. It was unthinkable. Leave her! It was trouble.
No. He had to find out more about her. "Listen, Charity," he said. "I believe I knew your mother. At least you are the very living image of someone I… once knew. Now, I can leave you here if you wish it. I do not want to harm you or disturb your…way of life if it contents you." Her lip curled in scorn; or it could be cynical disbelief. "I do not want anything of you, not the favours you are selling. But if you want it—
if
you want it—I can help you. So tell me honestly—and as God is watching you, I want the truth—do you enjoy this work? Do you do it for choice?"
She spat on the cobbles; an answer and yet not an answer. He tried another approach.
"How often do you go with men? Every day?"
"Dunno. When I do lack money, I s'pose."
"And if you could get money any time you wanted without having to go with a man, would you stop going with men?"
"Dunno. S'pose I might."
Her willingness was beginning to fade. The smile was going. He played idly with the guinea, where she could see it. "What goes on—what d'you think about when you are with men?" he asked.
"Dunno. Dresses mostly, I s'pose. An' dancin'."
"Have you a family? Are you married or living with anyone?"
"Dunno."
"I see." He sighed. "You make it very difficult to know whether to help you or not, Charity. Whether you want it."
She smiled, knocking him sideways again. "I'll be thy missy," she said sweetly, making it seem the most natural offer in the world. "Put I in a nice li'l house, out Clifton Hill"—she began to toy with his waistcoat buttons—"wi' a maid, an' a guv'ness cart, an' give I pretty dresses…"
That smile again!
"Is that all you want?" he asked. "Nothing more in life than that?"
"Dunno. I ain't thought 'bout it, really."
"Suppose," John suggested with a sinking heart, unable to hit upon anything better, "suppose I did all that for you, not here, but in London. Suppose I came and saw you once or twice a week—not to lie down with you but just to talk and read books and—I don't know—dance…whatever you want. Would you prefer that to this?"
"'Course I would!" she said, finding affirmation at last. "If you was generous." She kissed him quickly on the lips, a flesh-and-blood ghost of a kiss that floored him entirely.
"Well, listen," he said when he had rallied. "I'm stopping here in Bristol with a man called Mr. Thornton, who at this minute is going mad in a cab on Under the Bank, round the corner here, thinking I've vanished. You'll come back with me now and stop the night at his place. I'll take you to London tomorrow. All right?"
"Me guinea?" she said.
He gave it to her.
"An' you must buy I off of Billy." She held up a hand in the gaslight.
Someone came running over the street.
"Don' give he more'n ten pound. Tha's all he bought I for, an' he've 'ad good value since."
The running figure turned into a squat, powerful man, something the cut of a sailor. He had a badly healed scar down his right cheek.
"'Tisn't trouble, Billy," she said quickly. "He do want to buy I."
Billy smiled. "What for, matey? Pretty 'un, isn't she?" He winked. "For a French house, is it? What's the offer? I'm reasonable."
"Something of that sort," John said, also smiling.
Unseen by the man, he was reaching his arm around in the shadows, feeling for something heavy that had made the man run lopsidedly, clutching his pocket. He found it. Quicker than thought he gripped it and tweaked it up and out.
A poker. A heavy, stout fire poker, of slightly wrought drawn-iron bar.
The man backed away, still smiling. "Don't be daft, matey," he warned softly. "You'd never get off the quay alive."
But John was not grasping the poker in a menacing attitude. Instead, he held it level in front of him, one huge gloved fist around each end. He prayed it had not been too work-hardened. His arms began to tremble. His breath grew strained. Nothing happened.
The man, who had put his fingers to his tongue to make a whistle, now lowered them again and began to laugh. "Oh no, matey!" he said. "Never in a month!"
John's whole body shook. His neck bulged in his collar. His eyes seemed to be extruding from his head. The man was right. The pain from his tortured hands was intense.
Then suddenly the bar gave. It bent a whole ten degrees at once. Quickly, before it could cool and harden, John redoubled his grip and bent it further. Now it went smoothly and easily round. His hands did not even tremble. He brought the two ends into contact. "Enough, Billy?" he asked.
"No, no." Billy said. He'd forgotten Charity completely and was fascinated at this exhibition of strength. "See if you can go right round."
John laughed. To complete the circle was even easier. He handed back the poker, now much shorter and with an o in its middle. At the same time he pulled out his wallet and from it drew a ten-pound note. "I wouldn't cheat you, Billy," he said. "But I didn't want any misunderstanding. She's mine now, right?"
"Too right!" Billy said. He looked again at the poker. "Gawd help us!"
Charity took his arm and walked proudly round onto the quay. "Here!" she said. "You be some proper man, be'nt ye!"
What have I done?
John thought.
The cab was at the far end of Under the Bank, with Walter standing beside it, searching.
"Thornton!" John waved.
Walter climbed back at once and the cab came rattling down the quay toward them.
"Oh, I see!" Walter said when he saw Charity. "I forgive you utterly."
"This is Mr. Walter Thornton," John said. "Miss Charity Bedfordshire. I think I have Mrs. Thornton's first charge."
Walter's face fell at that. "You can't be serious!"
"Serious enough to hand over a tenner to her bully boy. Come on! Strike while the iron's hot!"
"Not in my house!" He was both frightened and angry. "They must buy their Refuge first."
John laughed. "I'm joking, old fellow. I'll take her to the London Refuge tomorrow. Mrs. Cornelius can come too."
"Oh, that'll be good!" Walter said, unthinkingly relieved.
"So she may stay the night?" It was all John had really wanted to wring out of him.
"Yes, yes, yes," Walter said.
Charity waited outside while Walter took John into the Philosophical Institute to introduce him to Alderman Proctor. They were gone about half an hour. She got down from the cab briefly to look in the workshop window of James Gordon, who carved, among other things, anatomical models in ivory. There was one there in which you could take out muscles and blood vessels and nerves. It made her shiver. "I do know just how you do feel, matey," she joked to it before she returned to the cab.
This meeting with Proctor was in the nature of a preliminary skirmish. Clark's report to the Board of Health had only just been published, and the deplorable state of Bristol's sewers, though for long known to the noses (and the undertakers) of the city, had only now achieved official recognition. It would be some years yet before the first sod of the first new drain was dug; but that was none too soon for the possible main parties to the transaction to get to know one another. That afternoon, John had taken the precaution of driving out to the alderman's house between Clifton Down and the Whiteladies nursery garden, so he was able to compliment him on a fine residence with a splendid view
"But a very muddy drive, if I may say so," he added.
"The bane of my life," the alderman agreed.
"Why not talk to whoever does this sewerage scheme of yours and see if he can't lay you some gravel or hardcore out there while he's working in the city?"
"D'you think he would?" It sounded so innocent.
"I'm sure of it. You'd do him a favour, in fact. In my experience, one always ends up with too much spoil. One is always rather glad to have someone willing to relieve one of a bit. As I say, you do him a favour."
So now both men knew where they stood. That was what the whole visit to Bristol had been about. The rest of their half-hour meeting was padding.
Back in the cab, Walter seemed a bit glum. "I suppose it's necessary," he sighed. "The world couldn't keep turning without it. But it does leave a nasty taste around. Public life should have its standards."
"Sewers do worse than leave a nasty taste. I tell you, Thornton: If we get this sewerage contract in the end, there's fifty pounds waiting for you by way of a thank-you for the introducing."
"Oh, I couldn't think of taking it. I couldn't."
John nudged Charity. "Why not? Why ever not? What's young Becky and Annie going to cost you now?"
"A few bob. I'll give more if they're kind."
"See? Tonight's work would pay for several hundred such romps."
"You don't understand. It's a question of standards, old fellow."
Beckie and Annie were waiting in the church porch and took him at once to the little garret their mother rented for their trade.
John chuckled and Charity joined in.
"I do know he," she said.
His spirits fell. To be sure, it was only to be expected, Bristol being as small as it was and Walter's Irish toothache being so great.
"Do you recognize him? You gave no sign."
She looked pityingly at him, as well as he could tell by the flickering carriage lamp.
"I recognized his voice. He'm one o' they men do talk an' talk."
"What about?"
"Dunno. About everythin'. An' he do fuck funny too. He do—"
"I don't really want to hear of it." John smiled. "I want to tell you about tonight."
She wriggled excitedly.
"Mrs. Thornton, Mr. Thornton's wife, is intending to open a Refuge for the rescue of fallen women…"
"Yur!" she interrupted. "I be'nt goin' into no place like that."
"Of course not."
"I done fourteen years in the orpheling. I be'nt goin' back."
"There's no question of it, I promise. It's just a story we'll pretend so you can have a room there tonight. I'll tell her—we'll tell her—that you are a penitent woman and I'm going to take you to the Refuge in London. All Mrs. Thornton will want to do is to talk with you tomorrow for a little while. She's never talked to a gay woman—and she ought to. She ought to know how she may help."
"Help!" Charity said witheringly.
"Well, there are people she could help. You know there are. Poxed old meat-flashers hawking peppered and pickled carrion in doorways at fourpence upright…"
"Oh,
they
!"
"Yes, they. They are the ones who really need help. Mrs. Thornton and all these other goodhearted ladies think their task is to take pretty young girls like you off the streets—"
"An' put us back in factories an' the scullery!" She opened out her purse and tipped out a handful of coin. "Seven pound," she said. "That's what I earned today. And that's what I earned in a year when I was scullery maid."
"Very good. You tell exactly that to Mrs. Thornton. Show her why she would be wasting her time trying to rescue many girls like you. Then tell her about those others—the fourpenny uprights." She pulled a face. "You do that," he said. "Pretend you are different. Pretend you are willing to try to be rescued and that's why you have agreed to come to the London Refuge with me—but tell her what I've told you. If you do that, you'll soon find yourself in your own pretty little London house and only me to call on you and be nice to."
She stood up suddenly and threw herself onto his lap, putting an arm around his neck and kissing him—only stopping when she found her own cool, observant eyes staring into a pair equally cool and observant. She escaped from them by leaning on his shoulder. "Tell I about that there house," she begged.
And, playing her game for the moment, he told her.
Even as he spoke, he knew how impossible it was. This entire episode was a momentary act of folly that could never be sustained. In the morning, he would bring her back to the quayside, give her some money, and turn her back to her way of life. Even if she was his daughter (and the chances against it were pretty astronomical), she was too set in her way and he too set in his, for there to be any meeting ground between them. In fact, why not release her now? Back onto her pitch. Say it had all been a joke.
Just a minute more,
he told himself, holding her to him and enjoying the feeling that she might be his and Alice's own flesh.
Then I'll do the sensible thing.
But before the minute was out Walter sprang zestfully into the cab and told the driver to head for home. John nudged Charity secretly. "Wake up!" he said aloud, and then, to Thornton: "Poor child—exhausted."