A Rational Proposal (Furze House Irregulars Book 1)(49)

“One moment.” Verity could not bear the other woman’s silent shivering any longer. She crossed to Hannah’s chair and wrapped her own shawl around her. “Please, take this if it will help.”

Hannah looked up, fearful and startled. Verity was shocked at how young she was, younger even than herself. “Thank you, miss,” she whispered.

Susan Norris looked across with good-humoured impatience. “And now I’ll have to stop them robbing her of it, no doubt. Never fret, you meant well, miss. Plenty don’t.”

“Your story, Miss Norris?” asked Charles again. “Why are you here?”

“Vagrants, they are.” The warder spat on the floor.

“Vagrants nothing. Temporarily without a situation is what we are, on account of a fire at old Mother McCarthy’s last week and us losing all our worldly goods.”

“You were at Mother McCarthy’s? The...” Charles darted a wary look at Verity. “The, er, accommodation house in Hart Street?”

Susan gave a broad grin. “That’s the one. Very accommodating we are. Not that I wouldn’t rather be dressing hair, given half a chance, but there you are. You have to take what’s slopped out to you in this life, don’t you?”

Verity was forcibly reminded of Molly Turner and thus had a suspicion of what might go on behind the doors of an accommodation house, but nothing could have prepared her for the tale Susan told.

“It’s like this. Two years ago, I was a lady’s maid in a country house down in Kent and if I’d known then what I know now, I’d have stayed that way, no matter how much I was sweet-talked by him as was courting my young lady. Mr Weston, his name was, a bit older than you, sir, lovely looking. I don’t think there was a female in the place whose heart didn’t race that bit faster when he smiled at them. He was after my young mistress and her money, of course, but it was me he really wanted. Talked a great deal about when they was married and in a nice house, he’d do his duty by her, then him and me could have an arrangement on the side. It wasn’t wicked, my mistress would never know, and that way I’d have a place for life.” She sighed. “He could charm the cream right out of the milk, could Mr Weston.”

Huddled in Verity’s shawl, Hannah gave a dismal sob.

“Well, the master was aiming much higher for my young lady. He saw which way the land lay and forbid Mr Weston the house. Mr Weston came to me laughing that evening, and says he can bear losing my mistress, but his heart was awful sore at leaving me behind. Would I come with him, he said? We could go to London. He’d show me St Paul’s. He’d take me to Vauxhall and Ranelagh and we’d dance the night away under the stars. We might even get married, what did I say to that? Well, you can imagine what I said. Nobody ever packed a bag faster. I ran away with him that very night. We rented a room at Mother McCarthy’s and were as happy as two partridges in a pie - and then a week later, off he goes to find work and I never saw him again.”

Verity, who had sat up straight at the mention of Vauxhall and Ranelagh, felt her mouth make an ‘ooh’ of surprise.

Susan shrugged. “After another week, Mother McCarthy comes up to my room. Said she needed rent right now or I was out on the street. Alternatively, if I wouldn’t mind obliging a gentleman friend of hers, the same way I’d obliged Mr Weston, she’d take the rent money off him and give me what was left over. I figured I was pretty much ruined by then, so why not. By the time I found out just how many gentleman friends she had, and talked to some of the other girls who rented rooms off her and realised what sort of a house it was, I was swelling with the babe here and it was too late to get a respectable position.”

“That’s dreadful,” said Verity, horrified.

“I had a few harsh words in my head for Mr Weston, that’s for sure. Anywise, come forward to three or four month ago. I’d waved off my latest gent and was just going down to tell Mother McCarthy to give me an hour to feed and change the babe, when the street door opens and who do I see at the bottom of the stairs but Mr Weston, with Hannah here tucked into his arm. I drew back pretty fast, you can be sure of that. ‘Have you got a room free, Mother?’ he asks, and she starts to show them up to the one opposite mine. Well, I shuts my door so as I could think, and gets on with sorting out my little one. Bless me, but it was only two hours later when I heard the door opposite open and close quietly and then there were footsteps on the stairs. I crept to the stairwell and listened to what he was saying to Mother McCarthy. They was talking openly in the hall, but she’s so stingy with the candles, neither of ’em could have seen me up above.”

“And what did they say?” asked Charles.

Hannah wept a fresh volley of sobs into the shawl.

“Give over, do,” Susan told her. “He’s lost to both of us now. Don’t you want him to get what’s coming to him?” She looked back at Charles. “I heard him clear as anything. He tells Mother McCarthy Hannah’s asleep, a soft enough handful but nothing much to recommend her, and he’d take his usual ten guineas, please, and he’d clear off out of her way.”

“The monster!” gasped Verity.

“Old McCarthy started Hannah on the gentlemen the very next night. She didn’t take to it like me, so Mother figured if she was going to weep the whole time, she might as well give her to the vicious ones who like a bit of pain. Not right, it wasn’t. Fair turned my stomach to hear it. She could’ve put Hannah to the scullery or kitchens where she’d have been happy enough skiving, but no. Those gents pay more, see?”