“babies,” I suppose. “Breakfast, indeed. I’m not finished, I’m not.” I heard her thump off after her sister, slamming the hothouse door behind her.
Leaving me hidden, yet trapped, in a great deal of asparagus, where once again I started trembling.
Enola, this will not do.
But—the brusque, almost offhand mention of killing, and of Dr. Watson—
Think about that later. Think now how to get out of here.
My shaking increased.
In order to calm myself, as I had done so often before I closed my eyes and envisioned my mother’s face. Of course she was saying, “Enola, you will do quite well on your own.” Blessedly, the thought of her no longer hurt my heart, only warmed it, and stopped my quaking at once, so that I was able again to think clearly, to plan what to do.
It was, after all, not so difficult. I merely sat up amidst the asparagus, removed my boots so that I should be able to walk silently in my stocking feet, then got out of the asparagus, which grew in quite a massive, eight-foot-long galvanised steel container supported above the floor by several sawhorses. This I saw after I had climbed down and stepped softly away. I saw also the hole I had made in the roof by my involuntary entry, and broken glass scattered on asparagus, red hawthorn, white poppies…but I could not spare much attention for the hothouse, because I found myself swaying on my feet—understandably so, I realised. I had not eaten in twenty-four hours. And, reaching into my skirt pockets for the strengthening sugar candies I customarily carried with me, I found none; I had been in too much of a hurry, and had forgotten them.
Confound everything. I needed to make a quick escape, before I keeled over.
Carrying my boots, I padded—as silently as I could, in my wobbly condition—to the hothouse door, where I halted and listened.
As I had hoped, I could hear the two sisters’ quarrelling voices below. As long as they continued to berate one another, I would know where both were. And any servants would no doubt be busy eavesdropping.
Although, on second thought, I doubted there were any servants. If Flora was all that she seemed to be, Pertelote could not risk having “’elp,” lest someone find out too much.
Very quietly I opened the hothouse door, then slipped out and down the stairs.
In a front room somewhere Flora was clamouring, “Ye’ll always take care of me, won’t ye, Sissy? Answer me. Ye’ll always take care of me.”
Except the time the rats ate her face.
Feeling very cold as well as very shaky, I crept down more back stairs, through an empty kitchen, out a back door, and then I ran, tottering, not caring that the stones bruised my feet or that I was fleeing into the worst thug-rookery in London City.
C HAPTER THE F IFTEENTH
Q UAINTLY ENOUGH, MY DIRTY AND DISHEVELLED appearance served to protect me in these low, swarming streets. Last night’s drunkards groaned in the gutters. A girl in a grimy pinafore and not much else huddled in a doorway, her bare feet blue with cold. Boys in shabby shirts and trousers enormously too big for them, rolled up like life-preservers around their twiggy limbs, ran after a well-upholstered woman, begging for pennies. Wives emptied slops, flannel-vested workmen trudged about their business; a man with a push-cart shouted, “’Ot buns, sausage, suet pudding! ’Ot fat pudding fer yer breakfast!” No one paid me any attention as I sat on the kerb of a pavement to put my boots back on, or as I purchased from the street vendor an unspeakably vile sausage at which I gnawed while I limped along. Had the lovely Miss Everseau minced into these brawling thief-ridden streets, she would at once have been set upon, robbed, stripped of her fine clothing and let go naked if at all. But a frowsy-haired, wild-eyed, cut and bruised young woman who looked as if she had been in a fight was not noticed whatsoever.
When I arrived back at my lodging, however—the one on Dr. Watson’s street,
Leaving me hidden, yet trapped, in a great deal of asparagus, where once again I started trembling.
Enola, this will not do.
But—the brusque, almost offhand mention of killing, and of Dr. Watson—
Think about that later. Think now how to get out of here.
My shaking increased.
In order to calm myself, as I had done so often before I closed my eyes and envisioned my mother’s face. Of course she was saying, “Enola, you will do quite well on your own.” Blessedly, the thought of her no longer hurt my heart, only warmed it, and stopped my quaking at once, so that I was able again to think clearly, to plan what to do.
It was, after all, not so difficult. I merely sat up amidst the asparagus, removed my boots so that I should be able to walk silently in my stocking feet, then got out of the asparagus, which grew in quite a massive, eight-foot-long galvanised steel container supported above the floor by several sawhorses. This I saw after I had climbed down and stepped softly away. I saw also the hole I had made in the roof by my involuntary entry, and broken glass scattered on asparagus, red hawthorn, white poppies…but I could not spare much attention for the hothouse, because I found myself swaying on my feet—understandably so, I realised. I had not eaten in twenty-four hours. And, reaching into my skirt pockets for the strengthening sugar candies I customarily carried with me, I found none; I had been in too much of a hurry, and had forgotten them.
Confound everything. I needed to make a quick escape, before I keeled over.
Carrying my boots, I padded—as silently as I could, in my wobbly condition—to the hothouse door, where I halted and listened.
As I had hoped, I could hear the two sisters’ quarrelling voices below. As long as they continued to berate one another, I would know where both were. And any servants would no doubt be busy eavesdropping.
Although, on second thought, I doubted there were any servants. If Flora was all that she seemed to be, Pertelote could not risk having “’elp,” lest someone find out too much.
Very quietly I opened the hothouse door, then slipped out and down the stairs.
In a front room somewhere Flora was clamouring, “Ye’ll always take care of me, won’t ye, Sissy? Answer me. Ye’ll always take care of me.”
Except the time the rats ate her face.
Feeling very cold as well as very shaky, I crept down more back stairs, through an empty kitchen, out a back door, and then I ran, tottering, not caring that the stones bruised my feet or that I was fleeing into the worst thug-rookery in London City.
C HAPTER THE F IFTEENTH
Q UAINTLY ENOUGH, MY DIRTY AND DISHEVELLED appearance served to protect me in these low, swarming streets. Last night’s drunkards groaned in the gutters. A girl in a grimy pinafore and not much else huddled in a doorway, her bare feet blue with cold. Boys in shabby shirts and trousers enormously too big for them, rolled up like life-preservers around their twiggy limbs, ran after a well-upholstered woman, begging for pennies. Wives emptied slops, flannel-vested workmen trudged about their business; a man with a push-cart shouted, “’Ot buns, sausage, suet pudding! ’Ot fat pudding fer yer breakfast!” No one paid me any attention as I sat on the kerb of a pavement to put my boots back on, or as I purchased from the street vendor an unspeakably vile sausage at which I gnawed while I limped along. Had the lovely Miss Everseau minced into these brawling thief-ridden streets, she would at once have been set upon, robbed, stripped of her fine clothing and let go naked if at all. But a frowsy-haired, wild-eyed, cut and bruised young woman who looked as if she had been in a fight was not noticed whatsoever.
When I arrived back at my lodging, however—the one on Dr. Watson’s street,
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