Lady Maybe Page 6

“If I’m not here by half past three, don’t wait for me,” Hannah said. “It means I’m not coming.”

  From there, Hannah had walked directly to Trim Street. How stifling the air in that grim, narrow lane. No wonder the neighborhood was rumored to foster putrid fevers. Hannah’s stomach fisted at the thought.

  She reached Mrs. Beech’s house and knocked on the door. When the eye slit opened, Mrs. Beech snapped, “Who is it?”

  Hannah pushed the coins through the slot, and heard them clatter to the floor.

  “I shall have more. Soon.”

  Mrs. Beech’s eyes appeared in the slit. “Took my advice, did you?”

  Hannah stifled a bitter retort. She could not afford to further alienate this woman. “I took another position. One that pays better.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Please, may I see Danny before I go? I may not be able to return for some time.”

  “Sorry. I told you before. Pay what you owe, or go without.”

  “I just want to see him. With my own eyes. See that he is all right.”

  The woman hesitated. Had she a heart after all? “Oh very well. But just for a moment. Becky! Bring the Rogers boy down.”

  Hannah waited for the door to open, but it remained closed. Through the peephole, she glimpsed skirt and apron as someone—Becky, she supposed—came down the stairs, a bundled babe in arms. Her body ached at the sight. It should be her arms holding him.

  “Let her have a look at him. Through there,” the woman ordered.

  The slight body turned, repositioned the bundle, and then, there he was. That dear little face, awake, alert. The skin so fair that blue veins shone beneath his eyes, making the irises appear bluer yet. Little pursed lips working, already looking for his next meal. The smooth round cheeks, the fine tufts of hair. Hannah’s heart swelled and her eyes stung. In reply, her breasts surged with pinpricks of life, of milk, though she was all but dry by now. Still she longed for him, the touch of him, the feel and smell of her little boy with her whole being.

  “Hello, Danny,” she cooed through the slit, not caring how foolish she must look to passersby or the cruel matron. “Hello, my dear one. Mamma loves you. Never forget she does.” Her voice cracked. “I shall be back for you soon. Just as soon as I can . . .”

  “That’s enough now, Becky,” Mrs. Beech ordered. “Take the boy away.”

  The girl hesitated, then turned.

  Tears streamed down Hannah’s face but she remained bent at her waist, her eyes at the slit, hoping for one last glimpse of him. To tide her over. To feed her soul.

  Glinting eyes reappeared in the slit instead, blocking her view. “And that’s the last you’ll see of him, until you pay in full.”

  With the echoing clack of Mrs. Beech’s door slit still ringing in her ears, Hannah had trudged, weeping, to the Bath Abbey courtyard to see Fred Bonner, who stopped there twice a week on his delivery route from Bristol.

  She found a bench and sat down to wait. Finally, Fred and his wagon appeared. Reaching the courtyard, he jumped down and tied his horse at his usual spot. She rose and walked toward him.

  His face brightened when he saw her. “Hannah!” he called with a boyish grin and bounded toward her. But his grin faded when he neared and saw her tear-streaked face. “What is it, Han?”

  “I need to speak with you.” She steeled herself. She was almost as reluctant to ask him for help, as she would be to ask her father. Almost.

  “That sounds serious.” Fred eyed her valise with a frown.

  “It is. I need help.”

  “You know I’d do anything for you, Han, if I could. Anything.”

  She did know. He had asked her to marry him more than once. If he offered to help her now, she would accept. She explained that Mrs. Beech was refusing to allow her to have Danny. And that fever was spreading through the house.

  The tall young man listened, his brown, hound-dog eyes wide in concern.

  “Freddie, I need money,” Hannah said in conclusion. “It shames me to say so, but there it is. If you want to help me . . . us . . . then that’s what I need. I have never asked you for a farthing, but now I’m asking.”

  He winced. “Oh, Han. I want to help you. Both of you. I had a few pounds put by, but I’ve sunk those into this wagon.”

  Tears filling her eyes again, she turned and walked away across the courtyard, but Fred followed after her.

  “I’ll make more with my own route, see. As soon as I pay off Pa for the horse, all the earnings will be mine free and clear and then I can support you proper.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Half a year. Give or take. And then we can be married. Say you’ll marry me, Han. You know I love you.”

  She did know. Fred Bonner had loved her since they were children, growing up as neighbors in Bristol. But love wasn’t enough.

  “Oh, Freddie. I’m sorry. But Danny and I can’t wait that long.”

  She turned leaden legs north, up Lansdown Street.

  He called after her, “Would your father not help you?”

  “No.” Nor would she ask him to, if she could help it.

  At the top of Camden Place, Fred grasped her arm, forcing her to pause.

  “Let me go and talk to my pa then. Perhaps he might help us.”

  “Would he?” She turned to face him. “When you tell him everything?”

  His jaw ticked, but he did not answer. In a lower voice, he asked, “What do you intend to do, Han?”

  She gently pulled her arm from his grasp. “What I must.”

  She resolutely turned into Camden Place, leaving Fred standing there, downcast and alone. . . .

  In the hired chaise, Hannah awoke with a start. She had fallen asleep and her memories had slipped into dreams. Her hand had fallen asleep as well. Beside her, Edgar snored softly. Nancy, however, sat wide awake, looking at her strangely. Hannah straightened on the bench, sending the girl a rueful smile. Had she muttered something in her sleep? She hoped she had said nothing to give herself away.

  CHAPTER 6

  When they reached the outskirts of Bath, Hannah’s pulse rate accelerated. She’d only been gone a little more than a week, she reminded herself. Surely Danny would still be all right.

  The postilion directed the horses into the yard of the Westgate, an old coaching inn near the heart of the city. There, hostellers relieved him of his duty and led the hired horses into the stables for a much-deserved rest.

  Ben helped Hannah and Nancy down from the carriage. Both women were eager to stretch their legs after the many hours of confinement.

  Edgar asked Ben to wait at the inn and keep an eye on the carriage, while he escorted the ladies. As Edgar gave the young man final instructions, Hannah looked about her, gaining her bearings.

  She took a deep breath and said brightly, “The baths are just there.” She pointed across the street, then turned to Edgar and pressed several coins into his palm. “You cannot bring Nancy all the way to Bath and not show her the Pump Room and Roman baths. I shall go on my own to pick up Danny. I will want a little time alone to explain the situation and Sir John’s condition before I return.”

  Edgar’s brow furrowed. “But Papa said I was to deliver you directly and help with your things.”

  “And you have delivered me as promised and I so appreciate your help,” Hannah said. “I am going just around the corner and won’t have much to carry. Now you two go on, and have a nice time. I shall meet you back here in say . . . two hours time?”

  Edgar frowned and seemed about to refuse, but Nancy took him by the arm and eagerly pulled him across the courtyard toward the Pump Room, grinning and chatting with excitement. Halfway across the courtyard, Edgar turned to glance at her over his shoulder, looking very much like his father at that moment with concern and uncertainty written on his face. Hannah smiled and wa
ved encouragement and watched until they had disappeared through the arched doorway of the fashionable establishment.

  Hannah surreptitiously scanned the courtyard and street beyond for Freddie, though she didn’t think it was one of his regular delivery days. She was relieved not to see him or his wagon anywhere.

  Satisfied, Hannah turned and walked briskly away. Her destination was not “just around the corner.” It was seven or eight blocks away. She crossed Westgate Street and walked quickly up Bridewell, before turning into narrow Trim Street. Arriving winded, she knocked at the door of the old terrace house, her heart tripping from the rapid pace and the fear that Danny had taken sick with fever or met with some other dire fate during her absence.

  A heavy tread shook the floor within. The door slit opened and a pair of eyes beneath bushy brows appeared. A man’s eyes.

  “Yeah? Whaddya want?”

  Hannah blinked in surprise. “I am here to see Mrs. Beech.”

  His eyes roved her face and neck and suddenly the bar was thrown and the door swung wide. Hannah took a wary step back. Her nose wrinkled at the look and smell of the potbellied, unkempt man framed in its threshold.

  “She ain’t here.” The man continued his perusal of her face and figure. “But I wager I can help ya.”

  “Not here?” Hannah’s breath caught. “But . . . she has my son. I am here to collect him.”

  “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Hannah Rogers.”

  “Ah.” His eyes lit. “The girl what owes Bertha a great deal of money.”

  “I have it, sir. When will Mrs. Beech return?”

  “She won’t. But I’ll take it in her stead.”

  Hannah was instantly suspicious. “Pardon me, sir. But my business is with Mrs. Beech.”

  “Then your business is with me. I’m her brother. Tom Simpkins is the name. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

  A shiver of revulsion passed over her. The panderer who led desperate girls into a life of prostitution for his profit.

  “She has mentioned her brother, but—”

  “That’s me. I’m running the place now.”

  No . . . She didn’t dare trust him. But had she any choice? She had to get Danny back. At any price. She opened her reticule and handed him the money she owed.

  He accepted it eagerly. “Is that all of it? Are you certain?”

  It was all she was prepared to give the man. She wasn’t about to suggest he check his sister’s books or mention she’d threatened to increase her rates yet again.

  “Yes,” Hannah said. “Now please bring me my son, or allow me inside and I shall collect him myself.”

  He pocketed the money and crossed his arms, leaning on the threshold. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  Panic and anger rippled through her. “Why not?”

  Behind the leering man, Hannah glimpsed a woman in only shift and stays traipse past, pulling a man up the stairs behind her.

  Simpkins shrugged. “He ain’t here. None of them brats are. Wet nurses neither. I told you this is my place now. Bertha landed in a spot of trouble, see. Spending a bit of time in the lockup at present, awaitin’ trial.”

  Hannah stared, uncomprehending. She could believe Mrs. Beech had been discovered for the corrupt matron she was, but this? She sputtered, “But where are the children?”

  “Oh, parceled out here and there.”

  Her heart pounded. “But where? Where is Daniel Rogers? Surely you have a record?”

  “Nope. All I know is, her charges has been split up. Some sent to the Walcot Poor House on the London Road. Some to the workhouses in Bradford or Bristol.”

  Hannah lifted her chin. “I don’t believe you.” She pushed past the greasy man, and stormed through the hall and up the stairs to the nursery. She threw back the door, and recoiled at the sight of a man and woman in bed. No cradles. No babies.

  Nerves jangling, she ran to the next door and did the same. Inside, a frowsy woman gaped up at her from a dressing table. Her lined face was heavily powdered and rouged, in an effort to look younger—and less used—than her years.

  “Where are the children?” Hannah asked her. “The babies?”

  The woman shook her head. “No babes here, love. This is Tomcat’s place now. Did he not tell you?” She surveyed Hannah with bloodshot eyes. “I hope you’re not looking for work. You’re no great beauty, but he’d replace me in a heartbeat for someone young and fresh like you.”

  “I am only looking for my child.”

  “You’re too late, love. The last stragglers left this morning.”

  Too late? God in heaven, no . . . Oh, why had she dawdled? Why had she taken Dr. Parrish’s advice and waited? What was an arm compared to her child . . . her flesh and blood, her life?

  Trembling in terror, Hannah hurried back down the stairs and past the grinning menace at the door, ignoring his offer to stay and enjoy a life of luxury in his care. She had to get out of that house before she was sick. Before she lost her last thread of self-control and fell into a heap of futile sobs on the man’s nasty floor.

  She all but leapt from the front stoop, and dashed around the corner of the house into the alleyway between two tenements. She drew in desperate breaths of fresh air, trying to stay the nausea, but it was no good. Her stomach wrung with molten dread, and bile climbed her throat. She bent over to wretch.

  For a moment afterward she stood hunched there, clammy with perspiration, mind whirling. Now what? She could walk to the poor house on the London Road, but she didn’t think the place took in such young inmates. The workhouse in Bristol had a nursery, she believed. Would she have to accept a ride home with Fred, confess all to her father, and beg him to help her? She would if she had to, to save her son. Though she doubted her father would come to their aid. How mortified he would be to do so.

  Oh, Danny, where are you? Who has you?

  How confused he must be, how abandoned he must feel. Oh God, is this my punishment? Forgive me! I deserve it, but Danny does not. He is innocent; please preserve him. Please help me find him. Hannah’s lungs burned, shrank, until she could hardly breathe. Silent shudders wracked her body.

  She heard something then. . . . Sobbing. For a moment she thought her own grief had burst forth. But no—it was coming from somewhere farther down the alley. Another mother who had discovered her child gone? How many women were crying at that moment?

  Hannah looked down the dim alley and saw a figure sitting huddled on a back stoop, head bent, hugging her knees.

  A flicker of recognition penetrated Hannah’s grief. Tentatively, she called, “Becky?”

  The trembling figure looked up, her face pale in the shadowed doorway. Becky’s eyes widened. Her shaking stilled.

  Hannah walked toward the girl, a tendril of hope rising in her battered heart. Perhaps Becky would know where Danny was.

  “Becky, I’ve just come from Mrs. Beech’s. Where is Danny—do you know?”

  The girl’s mouth parted, but she said nothing. Hannah took a few steps nearer and saw the girl hugged not only her slender self, but also a swaddled bundle.

  Hope tangled with revulsion. Had the girl reverted to carrying around a swaddled doll to deal with the loss that sometimes unhinged her grip on reality?

  “Becky . . . ?” she prompted.

  The girl rose to her feet. “Miss Hannah, I . . . I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” she faltered. “Mrs. Beech said you wouldn’t come back.”

  “I said I would return and here I am.” Hannah pointed at her splinted arm. “I was injured in a carriage accident, or I might have come sooner.”

  But Becky didn’t seem to notice her arm. “He’s my favorite, you know,” she said, staring vacantly ahead. “Mrs. Beech said I weren’t fit to take care of a child and that’s why God took mine away. Said the workhouse would be far better fo
r ’im.”

  Hannah’s raw stomach twisted again. “She took Danny to the workhouse? Which one?”

  “Planned to. But I took ’im afore she could. Played up like I was gonna work for that Mr. Simpkins and they let me back in.”

  The bundle in her arms whined and Hannah’s pulse leapt. Danny? Hannah hesitated. How should she handle this—how could she pry the child from the girl’s arms without injuring either of them?

  She forced a smile. “Becky, have you rescued Danny for me? Is that what you’ve done?”

  The girl stared at her.

  “Oh, Becky!” she enthused. “Mrs. Beech was wrong—see how good you are with children! Why, you have saved Danny.”

  She held out her arms to embrace Becky, heedless of her tender limb. Becky stiffened. Hannah gingerly wrapped her arms around the slender girl, Danny between them. At least she prayed it was Danny. She had yet to get a good look at him.

  “Dear, dear Becky. How will I ever thank you? When I returned to Mrs. Beech’s and found all the children gone—I thought my heart would tear in two. You remember how that feels, I know, poor dear. Having lost your own little girl.”

  “My little girl,” Becky repeated.

  “Yes. Gone to heaven. Safe with God. And now you have saved my son. My Danny. How grateful I am.”

  Becky looked down at the child, now squirming in her arms.

  Hannah’s heart surged to glimpse the dear face. “Hello, Danny! How glad I am to see you again. What good care Becky has taken of you. Let me see how big you are.” She placed tentative hands on each side of the little body, clamped tightly to Becky’s midriff.

  For a moment the thin arms remained locked.

  “He must be growing heavy, Becky. I’ll give you a rest, shall I?” Again she forced a smile and inserted her fingers between child and slender girl.

  Finally, Becky yielded and Danny was in her arms at last. Ignoring the pain, Hannah held the boy awkwardly in the crook of her splinted arm and turned him toward her, hungry for a good look at him. His face, pinched in discomfort, his nearly bald head, and blotchy cheeks were a masterpiece of beauty to her. It was all she could do not to crumple to the ground in relief. Thank you, God, thank you, God, thank you, God. She molded his small warm body to hers, patting his back, instinctively beginning to sway in the ancient dance of comfort. Thank you!