A month went by, and a miserable Christmas had come and gone before anyone heard again from Nancy. Jack had fallen into a bitter and black mood that cast a pall across them all and in the Benton household Nancy’s name was never mentioned. Poor Sarah suffered in silence. She would not speak of her daughter, not even to Molly, but the pain was in her eyes. It was one early day in January when the silence was at last broken.
The day was foggy; a wreathing blanket of yellow smothered trees and houses, pressed to windows, muffled the sounds of the streets. Molly, holding a Danny whose ever-increasing size and weight made him more difficult for her to handle every day, gazed into the shrouded street, thankful for the glow of firelight that lit the room behind her. Ellen was out and the house was preternaturally quiet. She laid her cheek against the soft, bright head as the baby dozed on her shoulder. She moved gently, swaying, crooning to him in a singsong voice.
Beneath the dripping, fog-swathed branches of the plane tree the muffled figure of a child paused, looked at the number on the gate and lifted her eyes doubtfully to the house. She hesitated, her hand on the gate, obviously debating whether to enter, then scurried up the path. Molly laid the almost-sleeping Danny in the little day crib by the fire and went into the hall in time to see a crumpled piece of paper pushed through the letter box. Puzzled, she picked it up and took it into the light to read. From the street outside came the sound of running footsteps, swiftly smothered by the fog.
There was an address on the grubby paper, printed in pencil, the letters oddly formed and distorted: “16, Old Dock Rd. Silvertown. Upstairs.” Underneath were scrawled the words “for God’s sake help me. N.”
Molly stared at the thing. She had no doubt whatsoever as to its sender. The desperation embodied in the scribbled scrap of paper appalled her. She had to get it to the Bentons at once. Surely even Jack, faced with this, could not refuse to help his sister?
The baby stirred in his cot. Outside the fog was thickening with every moment as early darkness closed upon the crowded streets; and as fires and ranges were lit heavy, soot-laden smoke rolled from the chimneys to mingle with and sink through the choking atmosphere that already had people coughing into their scarves and mufflers. Not even for Nancy could she take the baby out in this.
Where was Ellen? In such an emergency even she could not refuse to help, surely?
She ran to the window, strained her eyes into the infuriatingly blank wall of fog, glared into the murk as if willing Sam or Ellen bodily to appear. From the street came a happy, tuneless whistling. The boy next door – an urchin of ten who was the only person Molly knew who detested Ellen Alden as much as she did herself – tossed his satchel over the hedge of the house next door, followed it with a skip and a jump and still whistling disappeared up the path.
Of course. Mrs Johnson, next door. She was a motherly, obliging woman who had happily looked after Danny before in an emergency. Molly flung on her coat and gathered up the protesting baby, muffling him against the fog.
It took an interminable time to get to Park Road. The foggy streets were chaotic with traffic jams that made it quicker to walk than to take the horse-drawn omnibus. The sense of urgency that drove her, half-running through the streets, was unabated when she turned the corner of the Bentons’ road. But when she reached the house her heart sank. The windows were dark; no glimmer of light showed. She flew down the path and hammered on the door; the sound of the knocker echoed emptily. No one was there. She stood on the shadowed step for a moment longer before burying her chin in her collar and her cold hands in her pocket and setting off for Jesse Street, where Charley and Annie lived.
Jack was there. She heard his voice as Annie opened the door. Annie, flaming head silhouetted against dull yellow gaslight, stared at her in astonishment “Molly! What the blazes are you doing here? Is something wrong? Come in, love. Gawd, what a night—” She ushered Molly into a small, cozy room. Two pairs of surprised blue eyes were turned upon her; Jack and Charley, awkward in the confined space of the little, cluttered room, scrambled to their feet.
“I went to Sarah’s—” Molly began. She was breathless, and her bare head was netted with beads of moisture.
“She’s visiting. She’ll be back in an hour or so.” Jack waited.
“What’s up, love?” Annie asked quietly.
Molly was watching Jack. “I-I’ve heard from Nancy. At least, I think – I’m sure – it’s from Nancy.”
Jack turned away, his face like granite.
“—She’s in trouble, Jack. Asking for help. Please! Look at it at least—” She pulled out the note and held it out. Charley took it glanced at it in silence, then passed it to Jack who, after a momentary hesitation, took it and stood for a long time, studying it. When he lifted his head his eyes were chips of ice in a face harsh with anger. “Get your coat Charley.”
“I’m coming too,” Molly said. The resolution had formed as she had run through the wreathed and dripping streets. Nothing was going to shake it.
“Don’t be daft, lass. You don’t know what—”
“I’m coming. Nancy sent the note to me. She might need me. You’ll not stop me, Jack Benton.” Stubbornly she held his blazing eyes with her own. “If you try, I’ll just follow you. I’m coming.”
Jack caught the coat that Charley tossed to him from across the room, held it for a moment watching her. “Fair enough,” he said at last quietly, “there’s no time to argue. But stick close, lass. If Jake Aster’s around this’ll be no social visit.”
Old Dock Road was as quiet as the grave, and about as enticing. The black and ugly terraces of houses edged the narrow pavements, crowding together in hostile, fog-wreathed silence.
Somewhere, very faintly, a piano played; a thin, jangling, nervous sound.
“Number sixteen,” Molly said, with an effort preventing her voice from dropping to a whisper. “It must be on that side.”
The street was a dark funnel of swirling mist patches. For a moment the air thinned and Charley, counting along the houses, said, “That’ll be it, I reckon. Just beyond the lamp.”
“Right.” It was almost the first word Jack had spoken since they had set out.
The door of the house, one of a three-storeyed row of six, opened directly down three steep stone steps to the pavement, along which ran dilapidated and rusty iron railings that leaned at a wild angle to the wall. There was neither bell nor knocker.
Jack lifted a fist like a hammer, and sound thundered through the house.
Nothing happened.
Charley rattled the door. “It’s bolted from the inside. There must be somebody there.”
Jack knocked again, hard. Molly glanced nervously over her shoulder. They seemed to be making enough noise to waken the dead. As she opened her mouth to say so a weak light moved beyond the dirty glass fanlight above the door, yellowing the fog, making of it something solid and oppressive over their heads.
“’Oo is it?” A querulous voice, old, bad tempered.
Jack hammered on the door again. “Mates of Jake’s. Open up.”
“All right, all right. Keep yer ’air on.” A bolt was rattled back and the door opened a crack. “’E ain’t ’ere.” A bald head appeared, small, crafty eyes, an unshaven face that looked as if it had not seen soap and water for a week; the old man peered suspiciously into the foggy gloom, “You’ll ’ave ter come back later.”
“No.” Jack’s hand was on the door, pushing inexorably, his solid working boot planted itself in the widening gap, “We won’t.”
Something in the voice, in the hard eyes, encouraged discretion. The old man stepped back from the door and it opened wide. He was small – only a couple of inches taller than Molly herself – his dirty shirt overhung patched and filthy trousers. In his hand he carried an oil lamp that smoked and smelled and filled the hall with leaping shadows.
“What d’yer want?”
Molly, silently, indicated a dark stairway that rose from the corner of the hall.
Jack jerked his head at the man who held the lamp. “We’ve come to see the girl. Show us.”
The man shook his head. “Jake won’t like that. No one’s allowed up there.”
“Jake,” Jack said quietly, “isn’t going to like a lot of things. Show us.” He moved threateningly and the old man backed away. “No need fer that, Mister.”
He led the way up the stairs. The passage above was lit by two wall brackets; he put the lamp he was carrying on a small table beside a solid-looking door and fished in his pocket for the key. Jack’s face in the guttering light was stone white.
As the door swung open Nancy lifted her head and looked at them; and for one moment there was nothing but terror in her eyes.
“Jesus Christ,” Charley said thickly.
“Get a cab, Charley.” His brother’s voice, scraped raw with rage, was still quiet. “Quick as you can.”
Charley stood stock-still for a moment, staring, then he turned and clattered, cursing, down the stairs.
Molly was on her knees beside Nancy, holding her hand, stroking it, whispering.
“Oh, Nancy, Nancy dear—”
The girl’s dazed eyes lifted from Molly’s bent head to her silent brother who stood by the door.
“Jack? Jack?” Her voice was strained with incredulity, the fear of hope. Her bruised face and tangled hair, the angry welts on her body hardly hidden by the dirty robe that was her only garment were not the only signs of ill-treatment; she was paper-thin, her eyes dark holes in a haggard face. “I didn’t think you’d ever come.”
In two steps Jack was by the bed, had lifted her bodily and crushed her to him, his face over her shoulder a sharp-boned delineation of pain, his eyes closed.
The old man by the door moved, sly as a weasel.
“Jack!” Molly flung herself forward, too late to prevent the man’s escape but at least quick enough to foil his obvious intention of slamming and locking the door behind him. With surprising agility he ran for the stairs.
“Leave him,” Jack said, setting Nancy carefully on her feet “He can’t stop us now. Charley’ll be back in a minute. Come on, lass, we’re taking you home.”
Like a child Nancy allowed herself to be ushered down the stairs to the front door, but when Jack opened it and rolling yellow fog drifted like poison into the hall she shrank back.
Molly tightened her arm about her. “Come on, darlin’. It’s all right. Charley will be here with the cab—”
They left the house, not bothering to close the door behind them. Jack was on the pavement, his hands held up to help Nancy down the steep stone steps, when the voice rang out.
“And where the ’ell,” Jake Aster asked pleasantly, “do you think you’re goin’?”
He was leaning against the lamp post a, nebulous figure half-obscured by drifting fog, his teeth gleaming like an animal’s as he smiled. There were men standing at his back; Molly saw the wet shine of a blade, the solid hefting of a cudgel. A bald head and old, crafty eyes caught the edges of the pool of light cast by the lamp. The old man grinned at her.
Jack’s hands dropped to his sides and he turned slowly to meet the other man’s bright and baleful gaze.
“Seems you thought I was away from ’ome,” Jake said thoughtfully. Then, after a pause, threw in, “Seems you was wrong.”
The old man cackled, some of the others grinned. Jake pushed himself upright with easy grace. “An’ I thought you loved me, Princess. Disappointed, I am. Disappointed.” He was shaking his head sorrowfully, his eyes narrowed upon Nancy.
Nancy shivered. Molly stepped closer, slipped her hand into the other girl’s. Jake smiled fiercely. He studied Molly, deliberately offensive, from head to toe. “Bit on the small side fer a big lad like you, Jack, ain’t she? ‘Ow do you manage? Use the kitchen table, do yer?”
More laughter. Molly felt her cheeks burn; Jack neither moved nor spoke.
“Well, look at that, will yer? Cat’s got ‘is tongue. Not like you, Jackie boy, not like you at all. Quick enough ter speak out when you’ve got yer gang at yer back, eh? Quick enough ter stick yer bleedin’ fingers into other people’s business, too. Well, you ain’t got so much to shout about now, Big Jack, ’ave yer? ’Ow dyer like yer sister, eh?” His voice dropped to a caressing murmur; “Shame really. Jumped the gun you ’ave. Another week’d ’ave done it nicely. Never mind, mustn’t be greedy. I’ve ’ad me fun.”
Jack stirred; the light glittered on the drops of moisture that had formed on his hair and skin. Jake’s thin, brigand’s face sharpened with pleasure as he watched him. He was tall as Jack, but slighter; his hair was long, straight, gypsy-black. He stood like a dancer, limned in light in the shifting mist. “End of the fuckin’ road, Jack Benton,” he said softly. “I’ve ’ad yer sister, and now I’ve got you. You won’t stand in Jake Aster’s way again—”
One of his companions pushed forward, a burly man who carried in his hand a long, shining knife. “Come on, Jake, cut the cackle. Get on with it.” He made a deft pass with the weapon, smiling widely. “I bin lookin’ forward to this fer a long time. You ain’t the only one with a grudge, you know. This sod got me thrown off the wharves.”
Jack shifted his weight slightly, ranging himself as best as he could before the two girls. Something caught Molly’s eye; she let go of Nancy’s hand and moved very carefully towards the railings beside the steps.
The man with the knife danced closer, light on his feet despite his bulk. Jake Aster watched, the wolf-smile on his lips. When another of his companions would have joined the advancing knife-wielder he held up a barring arm, shaking his head slightly. Jack watched the coming man intently. The man showed yellow teeth, cut a silver arc in the air inches from his intended victim’s face. The watching men murmured, laughing. The man moved again; Molly’s heart almost stopped as the knife, flickering in the lamplight, sliced the space where a second before Jack had been standing; so fast was Jack’s movement that it blurred the eye. The blade, shaken free from a suddenly helpless hand, flew into the air and Molly heard a nerve-grating crack as bone broke beneath Jack’s hands. The man he held shrieked, fell to his knees as he was released, clutching a grotesquely dangling arm. But he had served his purpose; the violence of Jack’s movement had taken him across the pavement and within reach of waiting hands. Jake Aster jerked his head and half a dozen men, two of them wielding heavy clubs, leapt forward and their weight bore Jack, fighting savagely, to the ground.
Molly reached for the broken railings.
Jack was hauled to his feet. Blood seeped from his cheekbone, his mouth, matted his thick hair. Distantly through the fog came the click of a horse’s hooves on the cobbles.
“Get that little ’un,” shouted Jake, just as the heavy railing came loose in Molly’s hand. She turned, swinging it like a flail, and more by luck than judgement caught the man who was advancing on her clean and hard across the chest. With a bellow of pain he backed away.
“Take ’er,” snapped Jake, his tone vicious. “Fer Christ’s sake, man, you goin’ ter let a bit of skirt stand you off?”
Jack stopped struggling. “Let her be, Jake. It’s me you’re after. I’m here. Let her alone.”
Molly, her back to the wall, swung the iron rail in a lethal swathe before her, watching her would-be attacker with wary and defiant eyes.
“Try it,” she said, “if ’tis a broken head you’re after.”
Jake threw back his head and laughed. “Irish, is it?” He walked to just beyond rail-swinging distance and regarded her with his head on one side. “Well, all right, Kitty-o, we’ll come to you later. It’ll be my pleasure.”
“Leave her!” Jack made one violent, wrenching attempt to free himself, then stood still, recognizing the futility of it, pinioned as he was by four men.
Jake walked to him, silent and balanced as a cat. “Shut up, Benton,” he said quietly, “no one’s askin’ you.” His hand crashed hard against Jack’s already damaged mouth.
Jack spat, very accurately, blood and spittle and a piece of tooth.
“Son of a bitch—” Jake’s arm was raised again; then Charley hit him, coming out of the foggy darkness like a thrown stone. Jack’s face split into a wide and bloody grin. Molly swung her iron bar and caught someone a satisfying crack on the back of the head before she grabbed for Nancy’s hand. The dark bulk of the hansom loomed beyond the light.
“’Ere, ’old on,” an aggrieved voice said from the driver’s box, “I ain’t ’avin’ no part in a rough ’ouse—”
Charley, using one opponent as a club to beat off another, swung closer to the cab and leapt onto the seat beside the cabby. “Won’t be a minute, mate,” he said, cheerfully, and above the tumult Jack’s voice rang like a bell.
“By God, if any bastard takes another step I’ll slit Aster’s bloody throat—”
In one hand he held the long, razor-sharp blade the burly man had dropped, in the other a huge handful of straight black hair, held excruciatingly close to the scalp. Jake Aster was nearly on his knees, his head drawn painfully back, his long throat open, defenceless, to the threat of the knife that no one there doubted that Jack would use.
“Tell them.” Jack jerked Jake’s head brutally. “Tell them, Jake.”
Jake in reply gave his captor an instruction from the gutter so explicit that Molly held her breath; the point of the knife drew blood from the stretched throat and Jack twisted his other hand until it seemed that Jake must choke. The effect was the required one: the men – two were already on the ground; the big man with the smashed arm was sitting on the curb cursing monotonously – gathered beneath the lamp post, none of them unscathed, none of them ready, in the face of the iced blaze of Jack’s eyes, to risk Jake Aster’s life; or their own.
“Get in the cab,” Jack said to Molly and Nancy. Molly nodded swiftly, pulling Nancy towards the vehicle. The bedspread had dropped from the girl’s shoulders and been trampled underfoot; she was shivering violently.
“’Ere, I don’t know abaht this—” the cabby half-stood in his seat.
Affably and with a hand like half the side of a barn Charley pushed him back. “Take it easy now, squire. There’ll be five bob in it for you.” The cabby opened his mouth to argue, looked at the breadth of Charley’s shoulders, the blithe grin, and changed his mind.
By his hair and the scruff of his neck Jack dragged Jake to the door of the cab.
“In,” he said.
Jake made no move. His eyes, contemptuous, were on the knife. “Sod you,” he said, “use it.”
The glinting blade lifted, the needle point held steady as a rock just an inch from his right eye. “Say that again, lad,” Jack said savagely, quietly. “It’ll be a pleasure.”
Nancy, in Molly’s arms in the cab, moaned a little and turned her head; her face was slick and shiny with tears that ran as if they would never stop.
Jake took a long, uneven breath. He had dealt with men enough to know true threat from bluff. Awkwardly he climbed into the cab.
“Tell your pack of hounds to stay put,” Jack said.
Jake lifted his voice. His eyes did not move from Jack’s face. If looks could kill, thought Molly, Jack would not have lasted one second. “Leave it, boys.”
The cab pulled away, rocking and bumping across the uneven surface of the street. Nancy was sobbing into Molly’s shoulder; Molly, her hand stroking the other girl’s hair soothingly, watched the two men on the seat opposite. Their hatred of each other was almost a tangible thing. It howled through their eyes, concentrated itself in the lethal gleam of the knife Jack held. Neither spoke. Ten long minutes passed, Molly guessed, before Jack lifted a hand and rapped on the flap that communicated with the driver’s seat.
“All right, Charley. This’ll do.”
The vehicle rolled to a stop. Dense fog still drifted through silent streets. Almost all transport, it seemed, had finally been halted by the weather.
Jack leaned across and unlatched the door; it swung open. “Out,” he said to Jake, but the dark head stayed rigid, in his face the finality of death. He had no doubts as to what he would do in Jack’s place.
“What’s the matter, Benton,” he asked, “don’t you want the ladies to see the blood?”
“Don’t tempt me. Just get out of my sight.” There was a sick weariness in Jack’s voice, and Jake finally slid along the seat, watching all the while the knife in Jack’s hand. Then he was out and standing in the road.
“Shut the door,” Jack said tightly.
In a darkness lit only by the hansom’s own lamps Jake’s eyes shone venom through the closing door, and then Jack was calling to Charley. The cab lurched forward. Through the window Molly watched the slim, still figure as it receded into the murky darkness, then turned back to see Jack, with a gesture of disgust, toss the knife into the corner of the seat and lean his head back on the scuffed upholstery, his eyes closed. Up on the box Charley was talking cheerfully to the driver, encouraging him as he grumbled his way slowly through the shrouded streets. Within the confines of the cab’s interior there was nothing to be heard but Nancy’s quiet sobs until Jack at last sighed, as if waking, and turned his head to find wide grey eyes fixed upon him still.
He attempted a smile, a tired grimace. There was blood on his face. “Tha did a reet fine job there, lass,” he said, broadening his accent, “I’d wish ta ’ave thee at me back in all me fights.”
She could not smile back. “It isn’t over. Is it?”
“No,” he said simply. “It isn’t.”
They finished the journey in silence, to find that the shocks of that night were far from over.
Annie was at Sarah’s. Unable to wait alone she had, understandably, taken the tale to her mother-in-law and they had shared the vigil together. Annie it was who opened the door to them, whose eyes went not immediately to Nancy, but to Molly.
“Sam’s here,” she said. “He’s bad, Moll, real bad.”
“Sam?” Molly stared stupidly, as if she barely recognized the name.
“He came looking for you. He had to walk. The buses had stopped. With his chest, in this weather. He was taken bad—”
Molly was past her and into the back room before she could say more; Sam was propped in a chair, the colour of his face ghastly, the front of his shirt patched with blood, fresh stains on old, his cough the bark of death. He could not speak; there was nothing that Molly could do but take his hand and hold it tight.
The doctor who had been called to tend to Sam took one look at Nancy and ordered her upstairs to bed. When he came down from seeing her he spoke quietly to Sarah in the scullery before attending to Jack’s cuts and bruises. On his way out he asked Molly to accompany him to the front door. On the doorstep he turned.
“I’ve left instructions with Mrs Benton regarding your husband. The sooner he’s got to his own bed the better. What possessed him, Mrs Alden, to wander the streets on a night such as this I cannot imagine. He must, surely, know that he is a very sick man?”
Molly rubbed her forehead with a weary hand. “Shouldn’t he be in hospital then?”
“There is nothing,” the man said quietly, “that a hospital could do for him that his own bed wouldn’t do better. I repeat, I cannot think what he was doing on the streets tonight in such a condition.”
Molly’s mind had been slow to register not the words he had spoken but the emphasis in his voice. She lifted her head. “What do you mean? What condition?”
The doctor looked at her with eyes that had seen too much suffering to allow themselves to care deeply. “He is dying, Mrs Alden,” said the doctor. “Almost certainly, dying.”