Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [157]
“ ’E picks on one sort o’ woman, duck,” Madge said wearily. “The sort o’ woman wot sells theirselves to any man wot ’as the money, ’cos she needs ter eat an’ feed ’er kids, or ’cos she don’ wanna work in the watch factories an’ end up wi’ phossie jaw an’ ’er face ’alf rotted off, or in a sweatshop stitchin’ shirts all day an’ ’alf the night for too little money ter feed a rat! Layin’ on yer back is easy money, while it lasts.” She poured more tea from the pot into the mug, and refilled the others, looking hopefully at Emily.
Emily topped them up again with whiskey.
“Ta,” Madge acknowledged it.
“Course there is danger,” she went on. “If yer wanted life wi’out danger yer should ’a’ bin born rich. Yer’ll mebbe end up wi’ a disease, or mebbe not. Yer’ll get beaten now an’ agin, slashed if yer luck runs aht. Yer’ll get so yer never wants ter see another man in all yer born days.”
She sniffed. “But yer’ll not be ’ungry, and yer’ll not be cold once yer orff the streets an’ inside. An’ yer’ll ’ave a few good laughs!” She sighed and sipped her tea. “ ’Ad some good times, we did, Nora an’ Rosie and Ada and me. Tol’ each other stories an’ pretended we was all fine ladies.” She sniffed. “I ’member one summer evenin’ we took orff an’ went up the river in one o’ them pleasure boats, just like anyone. All dressed up, we was. Ate ’ot eel pies and sugared fruit, an’ drank peppermint.”
“That must have been good,” Charlotte said quietly, imagining them, even though she did not know their faces.
“Yeah, it were,” Madge said dreamily, the tears brimming her eyes. “An’ we tol’ each other ghost stories sometimes. Scared ourselves silly, we did. Course there was the bad times too. But then I s’pose it’s them ’ard times as tells yer ’oo yer friends is.” She sniffed again and wiped her hand over her cheeks.
“That’s true,” Emily agreed. “I’m sorry about Ada. I hope they catch whoever did it.”
“Geez, why should they?” Madge said miserably. “They never caught the Ripper. Why should they catch this one?”
Tallulah shivered. Two years afterwards, his name still chilled the body and sent the mind stiff with fear.
Charlotte found herself cold as well, even with the tea and whiskey inside her, and the heat of the small, closed kitchen. There was no other sound in the house. All the women were sleeping after their night’s work, bodies exhausted, used by strangers to relieve their needs without love, without kisses, as one might use a public convenience.
She looked at Tallulah and saw a whole new comprehension dawning in her face. She had seen one new world with Jago, feeding the poor, the respectable women, downtrodden by hunger, cold and anxiety. This was another world, altogether darker, with different pains, different fears.
“Do you get many gentlemen down here?” she asked suddenly, the words coming out jerkily, as if speaking them hurt her.
“Men wi’ money?” Madge laughed. “Look, duck, any man’s money is as good as any other.”
“But do you?” Tallulah insisted, her face tense, her eyes on Madge’s.
“Not often, why? Yer like gentlemen, yer should go up west. ’Aymarket, Piccadilly, that way. Cost yer ter rent rooms by the hour, though, an’ competition’s ’igh. Yer’d be better ’ere, beginners like you are. I’ll look after yer.”
Tallulah was aware of the gentleness in the older woman and it touched her unexpectedly. Charlotte could see it in her face.
“I … I just wondered,” she said unhappily, looking down at the table.
“Sometimes,” Madge replied, watching her.
“Was it a gentleman who killed Ada?” Tallulah would not give up. Her slender fingers were clenched around the cup with its dark tea and odor of whiskey.
“I dunno.” Madge shrugged her huge shoulders. “I thought as it were Bert Costigan, but I s’pose it couldn’t ’a’ bin, now Nora got done the same.”
“So it could have been a gentleman?” Emily looked from one to the other of them. “But would it be likely? Wouldn’t it maybe be someone who knew them both?”
“Maybe it was a gentleman