Chapter 20 #3
For nearly a year, I’d been sent out to sew for Mrs. Beck, bringing home three shillings a week, which I deposited in a tin cup on the shelf.
Ma had said it was needed for rent, and I felt a child’s pride in helping to provide for us—until I returned home one night to find the tin cup empty, with every shilling spent on gin that turned Ma into a witch with hard brown eyes and a bitter tongue.
I wasn’t soft the way Sarah was. I had a temper, and I sassed her, which made her furious, and she pinched my shoulder and shoved me into the cupboard, turning the key in the lock.
I beat my fists against the door and screamed.
Then she snatched up Sarah—sobbing and crying for me—and left, slamming the door behind her.
In some respects, it was the kindest thing Ma could have done, for the moment I was alone, I halted the fruitless banging of my fists, sat down, and began to think.
I reached into my pocket and found my sewing kit. The scissors were too big and the needles, even three together, were too small to turn the key she’d left in the lock.
I searched the clothes pockets, the tattered boxes, the shelf. Nothing of use.
The air was so thick with the smell of wool and rot and mouse droppings that I began to gasp.
I pressed my nose along the floor, near the crack at the bottom of the door, drawing deep breaths.
The knowledge that I wouldn’t smother to death slowed my heart and let me think again.
As I swept my fingers along the sides and the back of the cupboard, something pointed pricked my thumb.
I put it in my mouth and tasted blood. This time, I crept my fingers slowly forward until they encountered a metal shard.
A bit farther along, they found a few inches of thick wire.
Using the two pieces together, I manipulated the key.
I groaned in frustration at my failures.
I bent the wire into different shapes, squinting in the bit of light that wasn’t anywhere near bright enough to see by.
To this day, I don’t know what caused me to close my eyes.
But the moment I did, my fingers moved more surely.
My mother may have foisted darkness upon me, but this was a darkness I chose.
I pleated the wire twice more. Patiently, I inserted it with the piece of metal, feeling the resistance of the key.
There was a catch, like a needle caught on a fiber, a scrape, and the key twitched. The second time, it twitched again. The third time, it turned, and I escaped, hours earlier than Ma would have returned.
I learned important lessons that day. To breathe. To slow myself rather than hurry. To manage the conditions of my trap. To take stock of my resources. To fashion a tool.
Where was the shard of metal and the piece of wire I needed now?
I drew a deep breath.
I knew where to find one of them.
I arrived at my room to find it empty. With all that had happened, it felt as though it should be midnight at least, but it was just striking nine.
Still, Mary’s absence put a lump of fear into my throat, especially when I noted her coat tossed on the bed.
It was nighttime and cold outside—why would Mary have gone out without her coat? Had Maggie abducted Mary as well?
But why? She knew Sarah would be enough to compel me.
Had Mary fled? Believed she was in danger?
I yanked open the drawer where Mary kept her things and saw her undergarments, neatly folded, and the framed picture of her mother that she never would have left without.
Behind me, the key turned in the lock.
Mary stared in surprise at me, the open drawer, my hand inside it. “Kit? What are you doing?”
She wore a coat I’d never seen.
Relief made my voice hoarse. “Oh, thank God. Where did you get that coat?”
Bewildered, she replied, “I borrowed it from Bea. Why?”
I shut the drawer with a whine of wood against wood, peered out into the hallway and closed the door. Then I rolled a towel and stuffed it along the crack at the bottom.
“I need to talk to you,” I muttered and began without even letting Mary unbutton her borrowed coat.
Perched on the side of her bed facing me, Mary had listened silently as I told her everything Maggie had done, from tagging us at Pickford’s to Sarah’s kidnapping and Maggie’s dodge. She was already wide-eyed, and I hadn’t even said a word yet about her mother’s murder or Tim Lowry.
“Mary?” I reached for her arm. “Are you . . . all right?”
“I’m not falling into a faint, if that’s what you mean, but bloody hell, Kit.” She shivered, as if she was cold to the bone. “It’s wickedness, pure wickedness, taking Sarah.” Her eyes drifted toward the window, caught on her dresser, and returned to me. “Why were you going through my things?”
“I just wanted to see if they were still here. I was afraid she’d taken you, too.”
“Oh, Kit.” Mary’s brow knitted, and she took my hand in hers. “What are you going to do? You can’t do the dodge the way it’s laid out. Not with Billy. He’s—”
“I know.” I laid my other hand on top of hers. “But there’s something else, Mary.”
“Go on.” Her eyes were steady.
“This part is about you.” I drew a breath. “When Maggie was caught in the jewelry store, her sentence was doubled to fourteen because one of her jennies ratted her out about another theft. A snooze, in a hotel.”
She looked puzzled. “Your mother?”
I shook my head. “She was the jenny the day Maggie was caught. But your mother was Maggie’s jenny at the hotel.”
Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. “You think my mother . . .”
“There was a man named Tim Lowry, who your mother fancied, but he fancied Maggie, at least for a while. And . . .”
“My mum turned copper’s nark over a man?” Mary’s expression was horrified.
“And over you,” I said softly. “Possibly. If Tim Lowry was your father, she’d have wanted him for you.”
She dragged her hand from between mine. “Are you sure?” Her voice was ragged.
“Not sure, but Amelia says you were born early, and you look like him more than your da. Fair hair and blue eyes.”
Mary’s face was pale to the lips but resolute. “Tell me the rest.”
I made my voice as gentle as I could. “Maggie came back from Australia for revenge, Mary. For two revenges. Your mother and the jeweler.”
Her chest rose and fell with an uneven gasp. “But Maggie would have had to be here months ago to . . .”
“She’d arrived by early March.” I touched her arm. “Given what she’s put in place, I suspect she’s been here even longer.”
“Jesus, Kit.” Her hands went to the soft area below her ribs.
“I know,” I said again. “I’m sorry.”
She stared unseeing at the bare wall opposite for a moment, her chest rising and falling. At last, she looked at me. “And now she has Sarah, and you have to do this thing to get her back.”
“Yes.”
“What do you need?” she asked simply.
The sheer generosity of it cracked my heart clear across.
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice wobbling. “I need a plan, and . . . I don’t have one yet. Can you come with me? To James’s?”
“Of course. Anything.” Mary rose from the bed. “But if I’m to help you, we should make a sign of us parting ways. We don’t want Maggie thinking you have any allies here. I’ll put out that I found you poking through my drawers.”
I never admired her more than at that moment. Despite everything I’d told her, she was still shrewd and quick, for my sake. But why was I surprised? She’d been my jenny dozens of times, and she’d never lost her head when I needed her.
“Where will you go?” I asked. “Maggie won’t let you stay in any of the others’ rooms.”
“There’s a room to let at Mrs. Watson’s, next to the bakery. I’d be leaving soon anyway.” She eyed me. “You won’t be staying in the ring after this, either.”
“No.”
I watched Mary as she tugged the second drawer out of its track and slid her hand along the back, removing a knife with a leather sheath. She put it in the pocket of Bea’s coat.
“I’ll meet you on Blackfriars,” I said. “You go first.”
As she left I pulled out a drawer of my own, slid my hand underneath, and withdrew my own knife, concealing it in my pocket.
I retrieved both of my money pouches and followed Mary a few minutes later, catching her on the bridge.
She took my hand and together we went to find the two other people I could trust.