Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(45)
Hero waited until the turnkey left to fetch the doomed prisoner, then said, “You’ve met this girl before?”
Alexi nodded. “I try to come every week or two to visit the women and children here and provide what medical attention I can. Needless to say, they don’t care if I’m officially licensed or not; they’re simply thankful for any help they can get. Amy hasn’t been at all well, and she’s so terribly frightened.”
“How old is she?”
“Seventeen.”
Hero stared up at the room’s single small barred window, which looked out onto a soot-stained brick wall. “Dear God. That’s so young to die.”
“One of the worst parts is that because she’s from Devon, she has no family or friends here. She’s utterly alone.”
“Whatever possessed her to come up to London?”
“Ignorance and desperation, I suppose.”
The turnkey came back then with a heavy tread, pushing a thin slip of a girl ahead of him with a harsh “Get in there, then. Don’t want to keep the ladies waiting.”
The girl, Amy Hatcher, walked awkwardly, thanks to the heavy leg irons she dragged. She was pasty white with fear and ill health, her hair hanging in unkempt clumps, her dress a filthy, tattered rag. In her arms she held a tiny infant that mewed faintly as the young mother clutched the child tight. Then her terrified gaze slid over Hero to the Frenchwoman, and her haunted blue eyes lit up with hope.
“Oh, Mrs. Sauvage, it’s you. They didn’t tell me it was you.”
Alexi went to take the girl’s arm and draw her over to one of the benches. “Here; sit and eat. I’ve brought you bread and ham.”
The girl tore into the food as if she were starving—which she doubtless was, for provisions in Newgate were notoriously meager. While she ate, Alexi introduced Hero and explained her interest in the girl’s story.
Hero began by asking about Amy’s family—her parents were dead—and about her life in Devon. Then, slowly, she worked around to the night Amy’s husband was captured by the press gang.
“They got him one evening when he went to meet some friends at the pub,” Amy said. She’d finished eating now and was simply holding her baby with her head bowed. “I’d heard the press gang was in the village and begged him not to go out. But it was his best mate’s birthday. He swore he’d be careful. Only, he never came home. It wasn’t until I went out the next morning looking for him that I found out what’d happened. They got Mic Tiddler—his mate—too.” The girl fell silent, her gaze on the infant in her arms.
“How old is your baby?” Hero asked quietly.
“Four months.”
Hero had thought the babe much younger, for the child was painfully thin and wan-looking. But Hero smiled and said, “She’s lovely.” The girl’s answering smile cut Hero to the quick. “When was your husband impressed?” she asked.
Amy Hatcher sucked in a quick, painful breath that shuddered her chest. “Last July. We’d only been married a few months. After he’d gone, I didn’t know what to do. So once Hannah here was born, I came up to London looking for him. I know now it was foolish, but . . .”
“You walked all the way from Devon to London? Carrying your baby?”
“Yes, m’lady. I didn’t have no money for the stage. Sometimes a wagoner would stop and give me a ride, but not often.” The girl’s face crumpled, her lips quivering as they pulled back in a rictus of fear and gut-wrenching pain. “My baby’s gonna die, isn’t she? Without me to feed her and hold her and take care of her, Hannah’s gonna die.”
For one uncomfortable moment, Hero’s gaze met Alexi’s. What could they say? Your baby might survive? Everyone knew the death rates for children thrown on the parish ran as high as sixty percent, if not more. For an infant this young, already ailing, the chances were slim to none.
“I’ll leave money with the Keeper,” said Hero. “You’ll have good food and a bed tonight.”
The girl murmured her thanks. But Hero could tell they were half-hearted, for Amy Hatcher was moving beyond concerns for such earthly comforts.
“Last night,” said the girl, “they took us into the chapel and made us sit in the Black Pew with a coffin on the table in front of us while the chaplain read our burial service and told us how we’re being punished for our sins just the way God says we should be.”
The girl sucked in a quick, frightened breath. Hero thought it a senselessly cruel thing to do, to force condemned prisoners to listen to their own funeral service and a bloodcurdling description of the flames of hell awaiting them.
“I always used to believe in God,” the girl was saying. “But I don’t no more. Why would a God who’s truly good and kind let that press gang take my Jeremy away from me like that? We were so happy. We thought we had our whole lives ahead of us.” Tears began to slide down the girl’s dirty cheeks, but a rush of what looked like raw anger now glittered in her eyes and hardened her features. “I don’t care what the chaplain says. I won’t pray to God and ask him to forgive me. For what? For trying to keep my baby alive? Why should I have to ask God’s forgiveness for that? If there is a God and he did this to us—to my Jeremy, to my Hannah—then I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to go to heaven and live with somebody who’s that cruel and uncaring.”