The Angel of Bishopsgate: Book One in the Darker Cities Trilogy by Eloise Reuben

Author:Eloise Reuben [Reuben, Eloise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpening the Quill
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

In the evening the girls lit their lanterns, moving around Tessie's pallet to shake out their cushions and pillows, preparing a sultry welcome. She woke in the haziness and hidden in a veil of shadow she sat up. Looking at the girls, now preened and plumped with shiny faces, she had the instinct to slip out the back door without a word, but she still had unfinished business.

Shaking off the cobwebs of sleep and wrapping her cloak around her, Tessie weaved her way through the girls in the front room and headed upstairs to Aileen's room. Hearing a rasping burst of coughing and spluttering, Tessie pushed open the door to see Aileen folded over, beating on her chest.

"Close the door," Aileen barked, and flung herself back again, catching her breath.

"Are yer sick?"

"No. It's like this when I wake up."

"Yer need to rest and stay out of the cold with a chest like that."

Aileen stood out of the bed in a drab and shapeless nightdress and drank from a cup on the nightstand. “Thanks for yer concern and keen medical advice. It's called getting old, love."

Tessie looked down at her mother's bedside knick-knacks. A small figure of St. Brigid had toppled on the bed stand, lost amongst the stray pennies and rubbed out cigarettes. It was like the one she had left at the docks for Finn.

Aileen had never taken Tessie to church, even when some of the girls went every Sunday, though St. Brigid was as familiar to her as the rest of their house. She had been born a slave, so Aileen had told her, and it had been St. Brigid's prayer that Aileen repeated over Tessie's bed at night. Memories of a watchful mother clashed with those of being dragged across the cobblestones by her hair. Of Aileen marching forward without mercy and without explanation, flinging her at the workhouse gate. Watching Aileen now gasping for breath in a stained nightgown, a sour taste flooded her mouth.

Aileen's small room was one of many in the crumbling box of damp wood and floorboards. For whatever money Aileen made, none of it showed in this establishment. She had a newish bed, a plush quilt for herself and a few odd pieces of furniture about the place, but there was little to distinguish the building as anything more than a dilapidated and ignored whorehouse.

"What?" Aileen accused, seeing Tessie's inquisitive eye. "Not fancy enough for yer?"

"My home in London was much the same if it makes yer feel any better."

"Aye. The poor never have money, even when they do. Remember that." Aileen picked at the cut on her hairline, dabbing at it with a rag as she looked at her reflection in a fogged up broken mirror. "What do yer want then?"

"Yer have to call it off. In London I mean. Yer have to stop it."

"Stop it?"

"Stop the Angel coming after us. Finn and I. He's out there and I can't find him. Call it off before it's too late."

"I told yer. What the Angel does in London has nought to with me.

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