‘I’ve been here six years,’ she said, rolling the little vase of flowers on the table round and round in a wistful fashion. ‘Came in with a debt of fifty and I’ll leave in a box still owing it, no doubt.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s home to me now. I’m free to come and go as I please, as long as I’m back for lock-up. The Careys are the same, and the McDonnells. They run Titty Doll’s, the chophouse upstairs. Tell Mack you know Moll and he’ll give you the better cuts. Oh! I forgot!’ She magicked an envelope from her voluminous skirts and tipped a half-guinea into my palm. ‘She must like you, Mr Hawkins. I’ve never known Moll give money freely to anyone.’
I tucked the coin away. I doubted it was given freely – Moll would call in her debt sooner or later – but I was grateful for it all the same. I nodded at the envelope. ‘What does she say?’
Mrs Bradshaw held the letter out in front of her, leaning back and narrowing her eyes. ‘Please keep watch for a friend of mine, an honest gent fell on hard times,’ she read, mimicking Moll’s low, commanding tone. ‘He’s a tall, fine-looking boy with dark brows, blue eyes and good calves.’
We both studied my legs for a moment, then laughed together.
‘What do you make of that, madame?’ Mrs Bradshaw called out to a dusty old woman muttering to herself in a dim corner. She was dressed all in black and white like a living chessboard: white hair stabbed with black combs and tied up in a series of tiny black ribbons; face powdered bone-white, black velvet patches only half-covering old pox scars. Flecks of spittle clung to the corners of her thin grey lips.
She tilted her head, studying me with the cold black eyes of a raven about to tug a worm from the ground. And then she shuddered, flapping her black lace shawl tighter about her bony frame. ‘Pas beau,’ she sneered. ‘Il est trop pâle. Comme un fantôme.’
Well, that’s rich coming from you, you old baggage, I thought.
Mrs Bradshaw leaned back and raised her eyebrows at Kitty, who was sitting by the fire, bouncing the little boy violently on her knee while he squealed in a mixture of delight and alarm. To my surprise, she translated at once. ‘Too pale. Like a ghost.’
‘A ghost? Well, now… she would know, I suppose.’ Mrs Bradshaw glanced about anxiously, as if the air might be alive with spirits with nothing better to do than listen to her chatter. ‘Madame Migault is a fortune teller, Mr Hawkins. She’ll read your future if you like.’
