He took up his hat, unbolted the door, and left the room. She followed him. He paused at the foot of the stairs and looked about the noisy taproom. There was an empty table in a far corner. He turned, took the girl by the elbow, and crossed the room toward it. Any customer who was in his path took one look at him, at his fashionable clothes and harsh, scarred face, and instantly moved to one side.
He seated the girl with her back to the room and took the seat opposite her. He instructed the barmaid, who had followed them to the table and was bobbing curtsies to him, to bring a plate of food and two tankards of ale.
“I am not hungry,” the girl said.
“You will eat,” he said.
She did not speak again. The barmaid brought a plate on which were a large and steaming meat pie and two thick slices of bread and butter, and he gestured to her to set it before the prostitute.
The gentleman watched the girl eat. It was very obvious that she was ravenous, though she made an effort to eat slowly. She looked about her when her fingers, which still trembled, were covered with crumbs of meat and pastry, but of course it was a common inn and there were no napkins. He handed her a linen handkerchief from his pocket, and she took it after a moment’s hesitation and wiped her fingers.
“Thank you,” she said.
“What is your name?” he asked.
She finished chewing the bread she had in her mouth. “Fleur,” she said eventually.
“Just Fleur?” He was drumming his fingers slowly on the top of the table. He held his tankard of ale in his other hand.
“Just Fleur,” she said quietly.
He watched her silently until she had eaten the last crumb on her plate.
“You want more?” he asked her.
“No.” She looked up at him hastily. “No, thank you.”
“You don’t want to finish your ale?”
“No, thank you,” she said.
He paid the bill and they left the inn together.
“You said you had no place in which to ply your trade,” he said. “Do you have no home?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have a room.”
“I will escort you there,” he said.
“No.” She hung back in the doorway of the Bull and Horn.
“How far away do you live?” he asked.
“Not far,” she said. “About a mile.”
“I will take you three-quarters of a mile, then,” he said. “You are an innocent. You do not know what can happen to a woman alone on the streets.”
She gave a harsh little laugh. And she hurried along the street, her head down. He walked beside her, experiencing for the first time in his life, though only at second hand, all the despair of poverty, knowing that his own problems, his own reasons for unhappiness, were laughable in comparison with those of this girl, London’s newest whore.
“Please do not come any farther,” she said at last, stopping at a corner outside a dingy shop that advertised itself as an employment agency.
“You cannot find employment?” he asked her.
“No,” she said.
“You have tried?”
She looked up at him with that little laugh again. “Do you think that this is anything but a very last resort?” she said. “It ishard to persuade oneself to starve to death when there is one last thing to sell.”
