Beatrice watched the face of the feverish man. Had she done enough to sanitize the wound? If there was fever, infection must be present. Could it be stopped in time? She thought of her father’s garden in Italy. The herbs she had grown there could stop the infection, but where would she find them in England? She remembered the Italian sun and the hills around Padua, with their vineyards, their orchards of fig and olive trees. How different from this city, where it was always cold and wet. Would she ever be warm again? Once, she had wanted love and joy, but those were gone. She no longer expected them of life. All she wanted now was freedom. If she had that, it would be enough.
Catherine remembered another ship, bearing her away from the island where she had been made. Pretending to be an Englishwoman although she had never seen one, guessing how she was supposed to act by what seemed to be expected of her, what the captain and his sailors were startled by in her behavior. She had learned quickly: not to climb the rigging, to eat her food with fork and spoon as well as a knife, to agree that the heat of the sun made her feel faint and accept a seat in the shade. Anything unusual in her behavior, she explained as loss of memory from the trauma of being shipwrecked and having to sustain herself on a deserted island. And then the long voyage to England as the ward of Sir Geoffrey Tibbett, wearing white cotton dresses he had bought for her in Lima, carrying a parasol to shield herself from the sun. He was half in love with her but unwilling to admit it to himself. She was not surprised that when he introduced her to his wife, on the doorstep of his house on Curzon Street, the woman had welcomed her with a frown and said, “Do come in” as though meaning the exact opposite. Then scrounging on the streets of London, like one of the stray cats that lived on refuse. Would she have to go back to that life? Or was this a new life waiting for her, a life with these . . . other monsters, for weren’t they monsters, after all?
Mary was thinking of the handcuffed man who sat in the back of the boat. This small, crooked man with the sneering face—was he truly the tall, respectable Dr. Jekyll? The father who had perched her up on a laboratory chair and shown her the different colors of the Bunsen burner flame in response to various chemicals? He had not acknowledged their relationship except by a careful nod, which could have meant anything but felt significant somehow—as though he were afraid of going too far, of making a gesture that would be rejected. As it would be, she thought. I could forgive him betraying me, but betraying Mama—never. Diana might accept him as her father, but Mary never would.
Justine, if she had been anyone other than Justine, would have been thinking of that day’s events. Of how she had been kidnapped by the Beast Men and taken to the creature who had loved her so long, with such a cruel, sick love. She would have been thinking of how she had been rescued by Holmes, Watson, and the other women. But she was Justine, so she was thinking about whether or not there was a heavenly resting place where Adam’s tortured soul would find peace at last, or oblivion. And she was probably quoting something from Goethe. . . .
JUSTINE: I was, in fact. I was thinking about Goethe’s idea of the soul. It resembles the sun, which seems to go out at night, but is simply diffusing its light elsewhere and will return again when day comes. We cannot see it, but that does not mean it doesn’t exist. So, too, with the human soul. Faith is knowing that the soul is eternal, whether we see it or not—as God is.
DIANA: Whatever. Can we get back to the story? This is the interesting part.
Far away, across the city, Diana was being important, and a boy. She was telling the fire marshal that she and Charlie had seen a fire and thought it should be reported before any more buildings were burned.
DIANA: See? You have no problem writing as me, when you have to.
CATHERINE: When I absolutely have to!
“You rascals probably set it yourself!” said the fire marshal, frowning down at them. “I should have you both arrested. What were you doing down by the docks, anyway?”
“Oh no, sir,” said Diana. “See, we was following this gentleman, thinking he might give us a few coppers, like. He looked rich enough, and we thought he might be going to one of them dens of iniquity, as me mum calls them. And he wouldn’t mind parting with a few coppers. But he went into that warehouse, and there was another gentleman waiting for him, and they started shouting at each other and going at each other something terrible. ‘I’ll kill you for that, Prendick!’ the other man shouted, and then he hit him, and the one named Prendick hit back, and they was circling round and round each other, grappling like wrestlers, and it was a grand fight! But then they fell on top of the lamp and knocked it over, and soon the whole room was on fire. Like the picture of Hell in the Child’s Own Bible. That’s how it started, sir.”
“And how did you see all this, unless you went in after him?”
“Why, we watched it through the window. We didn’t want to miss such a grand rumble. And then the Prendick one came running out, and the other fellow, he just lay there, and before you could say Jack Robinson, the building was up in flames, to the second floor! So we come to tell you, and maybe you’ll give us some coppers for being such good citizens, eh?”
“Nothing for you! I know what you were about, following a gentleman. Planning to pick his pockets, likely as not. If you’d done so, you’d be going to gaol right now. All right, call out the men, Jensen. There’s a fire down by the docks, though precious little we can do about it. Those old warehouses are about falling down anyway. And you two, get yourselves out of here. Someday, I’ll see you both swinging from nooses, and I’ll say good riddance.”
Diana and Charlie watched the men come out of the fire station, the horses pulling the wagon, the men in their uniforms with metal hats gleaming in the light of the street lamps. Then they headed back toward Soho. It would have taken them hours, had they not caught a ride in a wagon heaped with cabbages that was most likely, Diana thought, heading to Covent Garden Market. In this, she was right.
DIANA: As usual.
She did not bother to ask the wagoner’s permission, of course. She grabbed the back of the cart, hoisted herself up, and climbed in among the cabbages, crouching down so the wagoner would not notice. Charlie followed her up and into the wagon, catching his foot on the edge and falling against the side, but the wagoner did not hear or turn around. Even if he had, what could he have seen in the dim light? Their clothes quickly became permeated with the smell of cabbage, but they were so tired and dirty that it scarcely bothered them.
They slipped out of the wagon just before it reached Covent Garden. The stalls were not yet open, but vendors were already piling up their produce: turnips and onions that had wintered over, lettuces and peas sown early, strawberries grown in greenhouses, peppers and aubergines brought in ships from warmer climates. As they walked through the market, following the narrow alleys between the stalls, a pale yellow sun rose over the buildings of London. Suddenly, the flower girls began their chant: “Flowers for sale! Loverly flowers, fresh from the country!”