Page 59 of The Business of Blood
“Well, we can always count on him for that.” Phillips touched his hat. “Dying is the only thing people do with any regularity.”
I went to extract my hand from his, but he held fast, boring into me with his ice-blue gaze. “Miss Mahoney…I want you to be careful out there until we sort all this out. I am very distressed by your encounter in that alley.”
His concern melted me. “That is kind, Doctor. But I’m not the Ripper’s type, nor am I a denizen of Whitechapel. I am not afraid.”
“Yes, you are,” he argued gently but with alert perception. “And you should be.”
I hesitated, supremely uncomfortable under his observant eye. He was right, of course. I was not fearless, but I could be brave.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” he rushed to correct any sense of undue impudence. “You possess good instincts. Fear is wisdom in the face of danger. Intuition is merely the brain assimilating actualities faster than the conscious mind can process. Just…step lightly, Miss Mahoney. For my peace of mind, if nothing else.”
“I will,” I promised, impulsively planting a kiss on his bristly cheek.
An ear-splitting shriek shattered our fond moment as a petite, harried woman carrying an infant swaddled in a patched shawl limped up the walk toward us. The commotion, courtesy of the little creature in her arms, was enough to set the local stray dogs to barking.
“Wot’s going on?” She blinked up at us from watery, dark eyes, sensing the increased police presence. “Is Miss Riley in there?” She tried to peek around us, desperately rocking from one foot to the other. “I need to tell ‘er I changed me mind. That I cannot do this anymore. I ‘aven’t got all the money, but I can pay ‘alf now.”
“What’s your name, child?” Dr. Phillips seemed more likely to retreat back into the odiferous house than deal with a hysterical woman.
“Mary. Mary Jean McBride.” She greedily eyed my dress and Dr. Phillip’s smart, tailored suit and expensive silk cravat. “Do you be one of ‘er couples?”
Dr. Phillips met my wide-eyed gaze with a look, his expression as aghast as mine.Couples?He was almost twice my age. More likely to be my father than my husband. Though, I supposed wealthy men took young wives with alarming frequency these days.
Tears streamed down the woman’s grimy face as she both leaned toward usandclutched the squalling child tighter to her. “Do you want a li’il girl? This is Teagan, but you can call ‘er wot you like. She’s usually a right angel, perfect li’il fing. She’s just so ‘ungry. I dried up after a week an I can’t afford the powdered stuff.”
Dr. Phillips held up his hands as though to protect himself from the baby. “I’m sorry, miss, but we’re not—”
“I know. I know. Ms. Riley told me most childless couples want a boy. But think of ‘ow sweet she’d be, take’n care of you when you’re old. And keep’n your young missus comp’ny when you’re gone. She’s got all ‘er fingers, she does. And toes. And look, er hair might be red as yours one day.” She uncovered a tuft of copper matted to the little thing’s head. “No one would even know you din’t squirt her out yourself.” The woman—girl, as I deduced she could be no older than twenty—sobbed uncontrollably now, shoving the increasingly distraught child toward us.
“Take ‘er, please! You seem like such nice folks. Dandy an proper. She’s even ‘alf Irish, like you, missus. She won’t survive one night where I’m go’n. The work’ouse in’nt no place for ‘er.”
Dumbfounded, I actually took the child from her, only because I feared the poor girl would collapse, which she did. Crumpled to her knees right there in the walkway, a skinny pile of bones and rags.
I turned to a gawking constable and sent him after Aberline. He’d want to hear this.
A glowering Hao Long darted up to me, reaching for the baby, scowling with all the disapproval of a thousand ancestral grandparents.
Gratefully, I passed the babe to the perpetual father, and he produced a curious amber-colored shard from the pocket of his silk tunic. The moment it touched the child’s lips, she quieted, emitting slimy suckling noises.
Dr. Phillips and I looked on in stark amazement. What had he given her? Some sort of hardened sugar, I hoped. Or maybe honey. Whatever it was, I could have kissed him for it.
Now for the wails of the mother. I smoothed my skirts beneath me, perching on the stoop as I rested a hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “You were bringing your daughter to Katherine Riley so she could place her with a childless couple?”
“I got ‘er name from Jane Prentice wot sews in the factory. She got ‘erself in trouble but couldn’t take care of it because she’s Catholic, so she brought ‘er boy ‘ere. Said Ms. Riley put ‘im with a well-to-do miller’s family in Southwark.”
“Does she perform this service for a lot of women who…find themselves in trouble?” I asked.
“I’m not like ‘em. I gots morals,” she insisted, misreading the reason for my inquiry. “I was a married woman, respectable like.” Blowing her nose on a dingy handkerchief, she eyed Hao Long with open suspicion bordering on hostility. “Who’s ‘e? What’s ‘e gonna do with ‘er?”
“He is my employee and father to many children of his own. Your daughter’s quite safe.”
The woman nodded, trying desperately to compose herself, but she didn’t let Hao Long out of her sight. Whatever desperate circumstances had driven her to seek placement for her child, she did it out of love for little Teagan.
“You want ‘er?” Mary’s dark eyes shone with a mother’s desperate, consuming adoration. “Look at ‘er now. She’s so easy to love. ‘Ardly makes a peep if she’s fed, see? I think you two live even more west than Southwark. Might could send ‘er to school. Teach ‘er ‘ow to speak proper like. Give ‘er a ‘ome, yeah?” She hadn’t stopped nodding the entire time.
“Mary?” I asked. “Where is Teagan’s father?”
It took her so long to reply, I wondered if she concocted a lie. “My Joseph, ‘e died last week in an accident at the docks.” She crumpled again, curling in over her middle as she dug into an apron pocket with filthy, trembling fingers. “I ‘ave ‘is last wages an’ me weddin’ ring to give to Ms. Riley to place Teagan for me. But they’re yours, if you want to cut ‘er out of the deal.”
