Chapter Seventeen
Once out on the stairs and with Abner’s door safely closed behind them, Gabriel removed the bag of money from his inner pocket and handed it to Phoebe.
“You stow it away inside your coat. There’s a special pocket sewn in on the left-hand side, up under your arm.
The idea is it’s an unpickable pocket. If anyone’s been watching us come in and out of Abner’s they’ll think I have the money.
No one’ll suspect you.” He grinned. “Probably.”
“You’re very confident of that,” Phoebe whispered, but she did as she was told and found the inner pocket which turned out to be more of a small bag stitched under her left arm.
The bag of coins slid into it easily and her arm came down on top of it, which was a little uncomfortable but she could live with it.
And yes, it would take an accomplished pickpocket to extract that bag without her noticing.
“Keep your arm close to your body and there’ll be no tell-tale jingle of the coins,” Gabriel said. “Now, time to move on. Never a good idea to linger too long anywhere round here.”
Fortunately for Phoebe, who felt as though she had a flag on the top of her head emblazoned with “I have money” in large letters, Gabriel led her, unerringly as befitted one who knew the rookery like the back of his hand, out of the crowded alleys with greater speed than they’d entered.
They crossed the High Street near where the church of St Giles-in-the-Fields, its namesake fields now nonexistent, rose up before them, and before she knew it they were somewhere she recognized.
Denmark Street. A haven of much-needed security.
Gabriel indicated with a nod of his head. “We need to leave the money at the orphanage on our way home. And I’d like you to meet some of the children we have in our care.”
Phoebe swallowed. Children were not something she’d ever had much to do with. Not since she’d been a child herself. She’d never even met her Uncle Robert’s three small sons, and had felt no inclination to do so. Well, there was always a first time.
Gabriel led the way to the neatly painted front door of the house she’d first seen, what felt like a long time ago now, in the dark middle of the night.
It had not been prepossessing back then, and the grim, sunless light of day did little to improve it.
Like the rest of the street, its construction from soot-covered bricks bestowed on it a rather sinister appearance.
However, by comparison with where they’d just come from, it was at least in good repair.
It stood on a street mainly devoid of litter and dirt, and had smoke issuing from its chimney pot.
Bright curtains hung in windows that were clean, and the front step had been scrubbed only that morning to judge from its pristine whiteness.
Despite its forbidding appearance, the orphanage had a look about it of being well-cared for that she’d not noticed by night. What more could one ask for?
Gabriel rapped on the door with the horseshoe shaped knocker.
After less than a minute, this door was opened a crack by the person Phoebe least wanted to see—Eliza Thorogood, leaning heavily on her wooden cane and peering out at them, suspicion etched across her plain face.
This suspicion was quickly vanquished when she spotted Gabriel, although not before she’d flashed Phoebe an annoyed glare.
Could she have recognized her, even in her guise as a boy?
Or did she just resent anyone who turned up with the object of her desire? Highly likely.
Phoebe stood up a bit straighter as Eliza swung the door open.
She had to lean on her stick to do so; odd that someone so young should need one.
The bits of her Phoebe could see looked quite normal, so perhaps her legs, hidden by her drab brown gown and apron, were not.
For all she knew poor Eliza might have legs as bent and twisted as Abner’s under her gown.
She’d better think more charitable thoughts about her. Difficult.
“Why, Mr. Booth, how kind of you to call on us.” Eliza fairly beamed at Gabriel, clearly much more at home with him in his disguise than she was when he looked like he’d come straight from a Mayfair ball.
Perhaps it was because in his workman’s clothes he looked more like her than he had that fateful night.
If you were a girl like Eliza, you might dream of a handsome young gentleman like Gabriel, but actually securing one would be nigh on impossible.
Surprised at her own insight, Phoebe took a better look at Eliza, who might not yet have equated the scruffy boy before her with the young lady of the other night.
If someone did her hair for her in a more ladylike style than the way she had it now, scraped back from her face in a tight bun, and put her in a pretty gown, she wouldn’t look too out of place in a ballroom.
Although instinct told Phoebe Eliza would undoubtedly feel as out of place as she did.
The door from the parlor opened and Violet came out accompanied by a tall young man in the somber garb of a man of the cloth. Both of them looked more than surprised to see Gabriel and Phoebe.
Violet recovered herself first. “Eliza, take Mr. Booth and his brother through to the kitchen and give them a cup of tea and some pound cake. The Reverend Reed is just leaving. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
The Reverend Reed? Could he be the clergyman Gabriel had told her about who’d secured royal patronage for his orphanage for the upkeep of children from middle-class families?
The Reverend ran his curious gaze over Phoebe, who kept her head down again and slunk past him as close to the wall as possible, trying her best to walk like a boy.
She had the uncomfortable feeling this clergyman might be more observant than all the denizens of the St Giles Rookery put together.
But they were past now and following Eliza into the furthest recesses of the house and through a door into a warm and cozy kitchen.
Six small children were sitting on benches around one end of a large table, drinking milk from horn beakers.
These must be the children Gabriel had already rescued. None of them looked older than four or five, although that was a rough guess on her part, not being well-used to gauging the age of small children, or even seeing them up close.
Eliza’s mother, Bessie, was seated at the other end of the table caught in the act of slicing and thinly buttering bread.
She looked up with a welcoming smile. “Gabriel.” Her eyes narrowed as she took in Phoebe.
“Another of your brothers, eh? I’m thinking this one’s the young lady who brought you here the other night, if I’m not mistaken.
I never forget a face, still less such a pretty one.
You make far too pretty a boy, my dear.” And she chuckled.
More astute, then, than the Reverend. But then, she’d probably already met Cecilia in similar garb also pretending to be one of Joe’s fictional brothers.
A sudden worrying thought struck Phoebe; did Gabriel make a habit of bringing young ladies to the rookery and his orphanage?
Was he in the process of educating more young ladies than her as to what the dark side of London looked like?
The thought that she might just be one in a long list of young ladies whose eyes he’d attempted to open disturbed her.
She very much wanted to be the only one.
“You can wash your hands at the sink, miss,” Bessie said, all practicality.
“Then you can get on with the bread and butter for these six, if you don’t mind, and I’ll make the tea for us all.
Eliza, you go and see if the babies are awake and need changing and feeding.
If one wakes when the others don’t and starts to screaming, we’ll have them all awake at once and it’ll be chaos if we haven’t finished feeding these little ones.
” She winked at Phoebe. “I rather doubt this young lady’s ever had to give a bottle to a baby, and I know Gabriel’s only done it once or twice.
So we don’t want six babies down here all wanting bottles at once.
Not to mention needing their nappies changing. Which they’ll all need for certain.”
Phoebe couldn’t help her recoil at the unpleasant thought of having to help change a baby’s diaper.
Bessie ran her eyes over Gabriel. “As for you, young man, you’re looking a trifle pasty if you don’t mind me saying so.
You sit down with the little ones and miss here can butter you some bread as well as them.
You look like you could do with something inside of you.
” She shook her head as though in despair.
“I daresay you’ve been into the rookery again, haven’t you? ”
Phoebe peered at Gabriel. As she’d been spending most of her time with her head down trying not to walk like a girl and attract anyone’s attention, she hadn’t really paid much heed to his face.
It was indeed somewhat pale and drawn under the now-yellowing bruises.
At least his right eye now opened fully.
Guilt over his broken arm resurfaced. Nothing she could do about that now.
So she quickly washed her hands in the stone sink and sat down in the seat Bessie had vacated.
Eliza, it had to be said with a disgruntled look on her face, departed, presumably in search of those six hungry babies.
How many children lived here? Just the twelve or were there others somewhere?
She began to butter the bread, which was easy as it was clearly slightly stale and the butter rendered quite soft by the warm kitchen.
However, as she’d never been called upon to slice bread before, this proved a challenge she wasn’t up to.