Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Life could have been better. Penny couldn’t deny it as he hobbled uncomfortably out of the alley he’d ducked into, nodding to the fussy gent who probably considered himself sophisticated and wise, but who had just made a mess of Penny’s backside.
The red-faced bloke barely glanced at Penny as he darted past, probably in a rush to return to his respectable, middle-class life.
At least he’d paid Penny the full price he’d asked, though a shilling for a fuck was so far below what Penny knew he was worth that it was laughable.
Even more laughable was the fact that he hadn’t even tried to pilfer anything from the man as he’d quickly done his business.
He’d felt too sorry for the bloke, who couldn’t have been more than a few years older than him.
God only knew what troubles the bastard faced in his ordinary life if he was forced to venture into the seedy section of Whitechapel to empty his balls.
Penny winced as he walked on, pocketing the shilling and straightening his jacket as he did.
He hated whoring more and more as he got older, but it was the quickest way to make the blunt he needed to pay Mrs. Hunt.
The rent that the old biddy charged was staggering, considering the size and condition of the room she offered him for the sum, but they both knew that he wasn’t an ordinary tenant.
As much as he wanted to stop into The Oyster and down a pint to drown his sorrows, the larger part of him wanted to head up to Hanbury Street to take care of more important things first. Not to mention that he now needed a good wash.
Unfortunately for him, he didn’t get very far before Branston’s loud bark of, “Oy! Frey! I want my cut!” stopped him in his tracks.
With a heavy sigh, Penny turned back to the broad, beefy man who had stepped out of The Huntsman and now waddled up the street after him.
“Afternoon, Branston,” Penny greeted him with a smile and a tip of his cap. “What fine weather we’re having.”
In fact, it was dreary and grey, and the air hung like soup around them.
Branston huffed a humorless laugh as he came to a stop in front of Penny, crossing his arms over his belly. “No use playing pretend with me, lad,” he said with a salacious smirk. “I saw you take that gent down the alley just now.”
Penny sighed, feeling weary down to his bones. It was bad enough to be reduced to being shoved up against a dirty brick wall and to have his dignity robbed for a pittance. He should have known his activities wouldn’t escape Branston’s notice.
“I don’t suppose I could appeal to your higher nature by saying it’s all going to Helen, could I?” he asked with a friendly grimace, if there was such a thing.
“The rules are the rules,” Branston said, holding out his hand, palm up. “Any whoring done between here and Brick Lane is permitted by fee-payers only.”
In other words, Branston would beat the stuffing out of anyone, man, woman, or child, who dared to operate on his turf without paying him a cut. The tosser had eyes and ears everywhere to make certain everyone complied.
“I’ll tell Helen you took food out of her mouth,” Penny said with a smile, reaching into his pocket and taking out sixpence.
He gazed at it longingly, pretending it was everything the young gent had given him, before placing it in Branston’s palm.
“I’m sure she’ll say an extra prayer for you, if you ask. ”
Branston took the sixpence and frowned at it. “You’re going for cheap these days,” he said, one eyebrow raised.
Penny shrugged. “What can I say? We’ve all been stiffed by toffs who don’t know the true value of things.”
Branston grunted, closed his fist around the coin, then thrust it into his pocket. “You take care of yourself,” he said, touching a finger to his forehead before turning and waddling back toward The Huntsman.
Penny made a rude gesture behind the man’s back before walking on.
If he was being honest, Branston had the right way of things.
It would have been a thousand times easier for Penny to earn his daily bread if he made others do it for him.
He should have taken a greater cut of the spoils his apprentices brought in, but the idea of teaching young people the skills that could either give them a comfortable life on the street or land them in jail or worse was bad enough as it was.
No, truth be told, despite all his bravado and skill, Penny’s heart was too soft to become a gang leader.
And if he was being even more honest with himself, a quiet life in the country as a day laborer was sounding better and better with each bruise and scrape a customer gave him and with each night his belly remained more empty than full.
With that in mind, he stopped by Spitalfields to buy some bread, cheese, and a few apples from the stalls that were just closing up before continuing on to Hanbury Street.
It wasn’t every day that he had the time to stop by the closest thing he had to a home to check on the most precious thing in his life, and he hated arriving emptyhanded.
“So you’ve decided to show your face again, have you?” Mrs. Hunt greeted him almost as soon as he walked through the door of her boarding house. “I thought we’d seen the last of you.”
It was as warm a greeting as Mrs. Hunt was capable of. She probably did expect him to leave one day, never to return. He wouldn’t have been the first man to abandon his responsibilities.
“You know I’ll always come back as long as you’re providing for Helen’s keep,” Penny said, smiling. Though exhaustion and soreness dampened his smile quite a bit.
Mrs. Hunt humphed. “She belongs in Bedlam, that one.” She jerked her head toward the stairs. “With the rest of her kind.”
It took everything Penny had not to glare at the woman or verbally cut her down to size. Instead, he fished in his pocket for the shilling and handed it over with as sweet a smile as he could muster.
“Come now, Mrs. Hunt,” he said. “You know Helen is the loveliest creature God put on this earth. She wouldn’t harm a fly.”
Mrs. Hunt hummed dubiously and pocketed the shilling. Then she turned and walked back into her parlor without another word.
There was no use in sighing or complaining about the way things were. Penny had learned long ago that people rarely changed and that it was wise to believe who they were when they showed you the first time.
He hurried up to the second floor and knocked on the door to his and Helen’s rooms before entering.
“Hello, love,” he greeted his sister with a broad smile as soon as he stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him and putting down the sack with his purchases from the market.
“Penny!” Helen shouted, scrambling up from where she’d been sitting in the middle of the floor with her dolls in a circle around her.
“Am I interrupting teatime?” Penny asked, holding his arms wide so Helen could throw herself against him, pressing her cheek to his shoulder.
Penny hugged her blocky form tightly, his throat squeezing with love and desperation.
“I missed you,” Helen said, hugging him tighter, then stepping back. “Miss Kitty doesn’t like sugar in her tea and Miss Boo wants more milk.”
“Then we should see to them,” Penny said, removing his jacket and reaching for the sack.
Helen moved back to her dolls and flopped down to sit with them.
By outward appearances, she was a woman well into her twenties and older than Penny, but one look at her was enough for anyone to know she was different.
Her body was stocky and her face had a strange fullness to it with small eyes and a large jaw.
She was beautiful to Penny in every way, but there was no denying she had the mind of a child.
Penny took a seat on the floor with her, taking the food he’d brought out and placing it on the bit of linen on the floor where the imaginary tea party was taking place.
“An apple!” Helen cried out joyfully, picking one up as if it were a mythological prize. “My favorite.”
“I know they are, love,” Penny said, brushing a hand around her face. “I brought them just for you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Helen said with her cherubic smile, just the way he’d taught her to address anyone who wanted to help her.
If only he could have helped her more himself.
“And what did you do today?” he asked as he helped himself to some of the bread and cheese.
“Tea party,” Helen said, turning the apple over in her hands before taking a bite. She hummed happily as she chewed, but her smile faded quickly. “Mrs. Hunt gave me a bath.”
“I thought you looked as fresh as a daisy,” Penny said cheerily, reaching over to brush the back of his fingers across her cheek.
Helen hated bathing and it was probably more trouble than Mrs. Hunt wanted to go through.
The woman was cold, but at least she cared for Helen the way Penny paid her to, though she only did the bare minimum.
“Then I stuffed,” Helen went on.
“Oh, I see.”
Mrs. Hunt might have taken care of Helen, but she was also constantly searching for profitable tasks she could coax Helen into doing that lined her own pockets even more.
She’d recently discovered Helen was able to follow instructions to stuff cushions and bedding for the side business of selling old as new Mrs. Hunt had concocted.
“I don’t like it,” Helen said, dropping her shoulders.
“I know you don’t, love,” Penny said, reaching across to ruffle her hair. “But we all have to earn our daily bread.”
“Give us this day our daily bread,” Helen said in a loud, strong voice. She knew the Lord’s Prayer by heart and could sometimes earn a few coins from toffs on the street by praying for them.
Though Penny hated putting his sister out on display like that. And Helen didn’t like being out on the noisy, crowded streets for very long at any rate.