The Beggar Maid by Dilly Court Page A

‘That’ll do for now, but I want a proper one when we get back. I fancy you, young Charity. You could have all the free beer you can drink if you’d be nice to me.’
    A wave of nausea threatened to overcome her but she swallowed hard and backed away. ‘We’ll talk about that later, Mr Chapman. You’ve got what you wanted so please let’s get Mr Dawkins to hospital before the laudanum starts to wear off.’
    Bert followed her through the shop and out into the street. ‘With a bit of luck the misshapen monster will die and go to hell. That’s where his sort belongs.’
    Charity said nothing and she quickened her pace, heading towards Gray’s Inn Road.
    Jethro was kept in hospital for six weeks. As its name implied, the treatment was free for the poor and destitute, but being a man of significant means Jethro had to pay in part for the care he received and Charity had to find the money. She would have been hard pressed to raise such a sum from the shop takings, but, quite by accident, she had found a secret stash concealed behind a false back in one of the kitchen cupboards. She had discovered it when cleaning up spilt sugar, a small luxury she allowed herself now that she was in charge of the housekeeping money. The wooden plank had fallen down to reveal a cocoa tin, which on further inspection was found to be crammed with five-pound notes. It must, she thought, be Jethro’s life savings, and although she would not take a penny for herself she used some of it to pay for his stay in hospital.
    It was a relief to be on her own, and she took full advantage of the unexpected freedom to do as she pleased, but she did not neglect her duty as far as the shop was concerned. She opened each day on time and closed at six o’clock in the evening. It was dark by then and winter was on its way, but she resisted the temptation to close at dusk and placed an oil lamp in the window to make sure that passers-by realised that they could still call in and browse or purchase a book on their way home from work. With Jethro safely ensconced in his hospital bed she was able to visit Doughty Street twice a week to have supper with Wilmot and Daniel, who had now resumed his studies. He would sit at the desk, supposedly working on his latest thesis, while Wilmot listened to Charity’s account of what it was like to live on the streets and beg for money. When she had exhausted her own experiences she had many stories to recount of the dispossessed forced to live rough and dependent on the charity of others, or eking out a living by selling bootlaces or matches. Even worse off were the toshers who risked their lives searching the sewers for anything of value that might have been swept into the drains, and the pure finders who collected buckets of dog faeces which they sold to the tanneries.
    Wilmot made copious notes and encouraged her to talk, and for her part Charity felt that she was the one who benefited most from these quiet evenings. The strange thing was that she had begun to speak in the well-modulated tones that came so easily to Wilmot and Daniel. She had gradually dropped the strident cockney tones she had adopted at a young age in order to melt into the background of her new surroundings. She had learned early on that to use a style of speech and an accent foreign to the denizens of the back streets led to trouble, and she had become one of them. Now, with the benefit of Wilmot’s coaching, she had put the recent past behind her and had reverted to the ways of her childhood. Memories of her grandmother’s strict edicts on table manners and etiquette came flooding back, and she wondered how she could have forgotten so much in so short a time. She felt as though she had been masked and wearing a cloak of invisibility, and now she had cast it aside and remembered who she was, but this also brought problems. She might be able to converse on almost equal terms with Wilmot and