Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [158]
Madge finished the last of her tea and set the mug down with a bang on the hard tabletop.
“Don’t you go startin’ talk like that ’round ’ere,” she said sharply, pointing her finger. “Yer’ll only get everyone all scared witless, an’ it don’t do no good. We all gotta work whether there’s a lunatic out there er not. Yer go see Ma Baines. She knows ’er job. She’ll find yer a place. An’ don’t yer go makin’ a noise as you leave. My girls is still sleepin’, like yer’d be if you’d worked all night.” She looked at Emily. “Ta fer the drink. That were nice manners of you.” Her face softened as she looked lastly at Tallulah. “I’ll ’old the room for yer till termorrer, duck. Can’t ’old it arter that, if I gets an offer.”
“Thank you,” Tallulah answered, but as soon as they were outside beyond the alley she shivered violently, and walked so close to Emily she almost pushed her off the narrow footpath into the street.
They followed directions up to Chicksand Street and found the huge shambling tenement where Ma Baines kept her establishment. They had expected someone else like Madge—obese, red-faced, suspicious. Instead they found a cheerful woman with a large bosom, but narrow hips and long legs. She had rather a plain face and a mass of fading yellow hair tied up loosely in pins which were in imminent danger of falling out.
“Yeah?” she said when she saw the three young women.
“We understand you might have rooms,” Charlotte began without hesitation. It was getting towards the time in the afternoon when women began to work.
“This is a workin’ ’ouse,” Ma Baines said warningly. “Rent is ’igh. I got no place fer sweatshop girls. In’t even enough fer a night, let alone a week.”
“We know that,” Charlotte replied, making herself smile. “Do we look like seamstresses?”
Ma Baines laughed, a sound of generous amusement without bitterness.
“You look like West End tarts ter me, ’cept fer yer dress. They look like maids on their day orff. Terrible respectable, an’ abaht as darin’ as a vicar’s wife.”
“We’re off duty,” Emily explained.
“Aren’t never orff duty, luv,” Ma Baines responded.
“Are if you haven’t a room,” Charlotte pointed out. “I don’t do my business in the street.”
Ma Baines stepped back. “Then yer’d better come in.”
They followed her. The place was narrow and stale-smelling, but quite clean, and there was an old carpet on the floor, making their footsteps quiet as they were led to a small sitting room at the back of the house, again reminding Charlotte ridiculously of the housekeeper’s room in the house where she had grown up.
Ma Baines invited them to sit, and she herself took the largest and most comfortable chair. It was as if she were interviewing prospective servants. Charlotte felt the desire to giggle coming back, a sort of wild hysteria at the insanity of it. A few years ago her mother would have fainted at the very thought of her daughter’s even knowing about such a place, let alone being there. Now she might conceivably understand. Her father would simply have refused to believe it. Heaven only knew what Aloysia FitzJames would think if she knew Tallulah was here.
Ma Baines was talking about rent and rules, and Charlotte had not been listening. She tried to look as if she were paying attention, fixing her eyes on Ma’s face.
“That sounds all right,” Emily said dubiously. “Although we’re not absolutely sure about the area.”
“Cost yer more up west,” Ma pointed out. “Yer can always go up west from ’ere, long as yer bring back yer share o’ yer take an’ don’ cheat.” Her face was still pleasant, but there was a relentless ice-gray in her eyes, cold as a winter sea.
“It wasn’t that,” Charlotte explained. “It was the murders you’ve had here. We’d want a place where if we got a bad customer there we could be sure there were other people about to hear us yell.” She did not add that she knew there were other people close enough to have helped Ada and Nora, but no scream was heard, and no one came.
“Don’t make no difference w’ere