“Well, Imustbe going soon,” Joan said. “Are you coming with me or not?”
There was no point in staying. Sterling had gotten there first. Even if she managed to sneak inside and speak with Emily, her father would insist on sending her home. It was no good.
Margaret sighed. “Looks like I am.”
Joan echoed her sigh. “Well, come on, then.”
Staying to the shadows, they crossed the square and returned to the thoroughfare. Joan urged her to hurry, and soon Margaret’s thoughts were consumed with dodging flower carts, barrels, carriages, and horse droppings. And with trying to keep sight of Joan’s blue frock as she scurried ahead. Soon, Margaret’s feet were aching and her side cramping.
Joan turned only long enough to hiss, “Hurry! We’ve got a long way to go, and it’s getting late.”
Margaret eyed the passing hackney carriages with longing but knew she should not spend the little money she had. She bit back a groan and kept trotting along, the carpetbag swinging against her leg. Ahead, Joan strode smartly on, ever eastward, her heavier valise apparently no burden at all. Thirty or forty minutes later, they turned south onto Grace Church Street.
The street narrowed and darkened. The cobbles gave way to uneven paving, refuse-filled gutters, and smells that compelled Margaret to breathe from her mouth.
Finally, Joan turned down a lane signposted Fish Street Hill. There, they passed several old tenement buildings before Joan pushed open a narrow door. Margaret breathed a sigh of relief. Her next inhale brought salt air and the rank odor of rotting fish. They were close to the river here, she guessed. And the docks.
Too tired to care, she followed Joan inside and up two rickety flights of stairs. She stood, numb and mute, as Joan knocked softly on the door of number 23.
While they waited, Joan turned and whispered, “I’ve had all the trouble I care to from your Mr. Benton. I think it best we don’t tell my sister your name or who you really are. Peg has never been good at keeping secrets.”
Margaret nodded.
A few moments later, shuffling and grumbling came from the other side of the door. Then a woman’s hoarse whisper. “Who’s there?”
“Peg, it’s Joan.”
The lock clicked, and the door was opened by a frowzy woman very like Joan in appearance, though several years older and a stone heavier. She might have been pretty once, but her skin was rough, her face too careworn for her years.
“Good heavens, Joan. What’s happened?”
Joan answered calmly, “I’ve lost my place.”
Her sister’s face crumpled. “Oh no. What did you do?”
“Nothing. Look, it’s late. We’ll talk in the morning, all right?”
The woman nodded over Joan’s shoulder. “Who’s this, then?”
Joan flicked Margaret a glance. “She’s with me. She just needs a place a sleep for a night or two. Come on, Peg, let us in. We’ll help with the children and give the place a good cleaning—whatever you like.”
The woman frowned. “Oh, very well. But keep it down. The children are already asleep.”
They stepped inside the dark room, which smelled of cabbage and soiled nappies. Margaret could see little, as their reluctant hostess spared no candle for them to get settled by.
“Candles are dear, they are,” Peg explained as if reading her thoughts. “There’s a bit of light from the window, if you need it. And embers in the stove.”
Joan disappeared into the apartment’s only separate room. She returned a moment later and tossed something onto the floor. Margaret realized with sinking dread that she was meant to sleep on an old blanket on the floor.
Margaret stood there, waiting for Joan to help her undress. But Joan followed her sister back into the bedchamber.
Margaret whispered after her, “Joan?”
“You’re on your own now, miss,” Joan said. “I am a maid no longer.” She shut the door behind her.
Well. She needn’t be so snippy,Margaret thought, oddly chastised as well as annoyed. She decided she was too tired to undress in any case and settled down atop the thin scratchy blanket on the floor, hoping no mice or rats decided to join her there.
Margaret awoke on her side, stiff. Her hip bone ached from being pressed against the hard floor. Sunlight, filtering through sooty windows, shone on the grey wool blanket she had pulled over herself in the night. Likely it had once been the golden hue of boiled wool. As she pushed it away, something furry brushed her hand. She gasped and bolted to her feet. A dark, hairy form fell from her shoulder to the floor. She shrieked, only to realize it was not a rat, but her wig. She quickly bent and pulled it on. Another creature appeared before her and she reared back and nearly shrieked again. This creature had a small pale face, curtained by stringy ginger hair.
