Ghost of the Thames (2 page)

Weakly, she tried to raise herself off
the stone pavement. She didn’t have enough strength, though, and
she sank down again.

She was dressed in a man’s shirt and
ragged breeches with no stockings or shoes. She had the distinct
smell of the river to her.

“Open the carriage door. We’re taking
her to a doctor,” Edward ordered.

He tucked the wet wool blanket around
the woman and lifted her off the ground. Even soaking wet, she was
no heavyweight.

The crowd separated, and someone held
the door as Edward settled the injured creature inside the carriage
on the seat across from him. She mumbled words under her breath as
if she were carrying on a conversation. Edward couldn’t make them
out. She was mixing a language he couldn’t identify with English
words.

“Where are we taking her,
Captain?”

“Urania Cottage in Shepherd’s Bush,”
Edward ordered.

He’d learned about the home for
destitute young women a fortnight ago. Set up as charity by his
friends Charles Dickens and the heiress Angela Burdett-Coutts, the
place was intended to be a refuge for young fallen women wishing to
improve their sordid lot in life. Edward had stopped there and
shown his missing niece’s miniature to the matron this past
week.

For weeks now, searching for the
sixteen year old Amelia had been occupying every minute of Edward's
time.

“Kotaai
,” she moaned.

“Go!” Edward shouted to his driver.
Settling into his seat, he peered through the darkness at the pile
of rags across from him. He could smell the muck of the river from
here. What she was and why she was dressed in sailor’s rags was not
difficult to guess. He wondered if she’d intentionally put herself
in front of his horses.

The coach started with a jolt. The
shouts of the driver rang out through the street. Her head lifted
off the seat, and through a blanket of tangled hair she stared
around the darkened carriage.

“Where is she?” She appeared to be
conscious for the first time.

“Who?” he asked, leaning forward. “Who
is it you're looking for?”

“The girl. Please . . . what happened?
Where is . . . ?” She pushed herself up straight. She was shivering
violently.

In spite of the foreign words she’d
muttered, there was no trace of an accent now. In fact, the
refinement of her speech startled him. He removed his cloak and
draped it around her shoulders. From the little he could see of her
face, it was obvious she was young. Her fingers pulled the edges of
the cloak around her. She was burrowing into the newfound
warmth.

As the carriage swung up onto the
Strand, the dim light coming in the windows afforded Edward a
better view of the wounds on her head. He could see she was still
bleeding.

“I need to –” she whispered, looking
up.” I cannot lose her.”

“Who?”

“The girl.” She looked around as if
trying to find her phantom friend. “The girl I was
following.”

“You were the only one on the street.”
“She saved me from the river. Dragged me out. She didn’t have to,
but she . . . she was there.” She wasn’t listening to him. Her
words were slurring, and her head began to sink back onto the seat.
She caught herself and looked up at him. “She knew my name. She
asked me to follow. I need to get out.”

“What is your name?”

Her fingers clutched the cloak around
her, and her head sank back.

“Your name?” he asked.

“She called me Sophy.” The blood was
oozing from the cuts on her head. He reached over and pressed a
handkerchief against the wounds that he could see.

“Bachao
.”

After more than a dozen years of
sailing the seas with the British Navy, he had encountered many
tongues. This one was vaguely familiar. Perhaps Java. Or one of the
dialects of India. But he wasn't sure. “Where does your friend
live? Perhaps I can take you to her.”

Her head was nodding. She was losing
the battle to stay awake. Whatever strength she had in her was
quickly ebbing. She did not respond.

He studied the battered woman.
Faceless, wretched creatures that had only been a nuisance to toss
a coin to before were now real human beings to him since his niece
had gone missing. Imagining the poverty, the violence, the troubled
lives, and bad decisions they’d made—all the circumstances that had
pushed them into this miserable situation in life—only fueled his
fears of what had happened to Amelia. He felt sick whenever he
thought of what her disappearance might have led her to.

And that thought was with him all the
time. It was why he could not give up the search.

The carriage rolled to a stop in front
of Urania Cottage. The woman seemed to have fallen sleep. The house
was dark. Edward stepped out as the driver climbed down and tied
the horses to a post.

“Knock at the door and rouse the
matron,” he directed. “Have the woman decide which room I can carry
this one to. Also, have them send for a doctor.”

Edward started to climb back into the
carriage and stopped short. The barrel of his own pistol was
pointed directly at his chest.

“I want you to take me back to where
you found me,” Sophy said. “Now.”

CHAPTER 2

“Put that down before you hurt
yourself,” the man said quietly.

“I am an excellent shot,” she said,
her throat hurting as she spoke. She could not recall anything of
her past, not even her own name. But she had no difficulty
remembering how to fire the pistol in her hand. “It is not I who
will be hurt.”

It was difficult to string words
together without a stutter. All she wanted to do was to lie back on
the carriage bench and sleep. But she couldn’t. She had to get back
to the girl she’d left on the street. The one person who had some
information about Sophy’s past.

“No one is going to stop you.” He
stepped back. “You are free to go to whatever godforsaken place it
is you wish to return to.”

She watched him warily and kept the
pistol trained on him as she edged along the seat toward the
carriage door.

“That’s not too easy for me to do. I
have no knowledge of where we are or which direction…” She stopped
as a wave of nausea washed through her, and the taste of bile rose
into her throat. The pounding in her head was increasing and she
could barely keep her eyes open with the pain. She pushed his cloak
off her shoulders and tried to climb out of the
carriage.

She landed on the pavement on all
fours, and her stomach emptied. The foul taste of river filled her
throat and nostrils as she heaved.

A pair of men’s boots appeared next to
her head. He crouched beside her.

“You appear to be having a rough
night, I would say.”

She managed to nod and looked down.
The pistol escaped the filth emptying out of her. She picked it up
and, without looking, offered it to him. A large hand wrapped
around hers as he took the weapon.

“So who is this friend that you are so
desperate to get back to?”

“I know nothing of her name or where
she lives. But she knew me. And that is reason enough for me to get
back to her. I cannot recall anything about myself.” Another wave
of retching silenced her.

“Well, you are in no condition to be
dropped off at some street corner.”

He had a deep, soothing voice. It was
the voice of one accustomed to speaking with authority. Others were
gathering around them. She could hear the buzz of voices and
questions. “I think it would be best if you were to stay the night
at this house. It is a safe place. You have wounds that need to be
seen to. By tomorrow, perhaps whatever it is that escapes your
memory now will come back to you. In any case, you will have an
easier time finding your friend in the daylight.”

Sophy wanted to argue, but her body
protested any option but remaining on all fours on the
pavement.

“Mrs. Tibbs, where can we take her?”
he asked someone, making Sophy's decision for her.

Moments ticked by, but they could have
been hours. Sophy couldn’t tell them apart. As more instructions
were given, she clung precariously to consciousness, wavering
between confusion and lucidity. She was able to focus again when
strong hands took her by the shoulders and sat her back. She felt
the heavy cloak draped around her and before she knew it, he had
lifted her into his arms.

As the man moved smoothly up a few
stairs and into a house, something tugged at Sophy’s memory. Images
of struggling to stay alive, of water. Still conscious of how
vulnerable she was, Sophy felt safe in this man’s arms.

“You are too kind, Captain,” she
murmured.

“You’re in this condition because my
driver ran you down with my carriage.”

They were moving up a flight of wooden
steps. A moving candle flickered ahead of them.

“No, I am in this condition because –”
She was sinking again. “I am . . . I don’t know why I am here. Or
what I have done. But you are not responsible for it. I am
certain.”

*

Now that Edward had a moment to clear
his head, he questioned his judgment in bringing Sophy to Urania
Cottage.

What Edward knew about the place was
that the philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts and her writer
friend, Charles Dickens, had specific intentions regarding how the
residence was to function. The Cottage was large enough to
eventually house a dozen girls and two matrons. The girls, most not
yet twenty years of age, would be found in the prisons and
workhouses and allowed to come to the shelter only by particular
invitation. The rehabilitation plans consisted of teaching them how
to read and write and keep house, with the ultimate goal being for
them to migrate to Australia or Canada or to find jobs as domestic
servants, capable of earning their own living or running decent
homes of their own. Each candidate was interviewed by Dickens
personally, each had to receive a letter of invitation, and each
had to agree to the terms of it before they were offered a tidy
little bed in the Cottage. Angela and Dickens had expressed a
specific concern about allowing in girls who would set a bad
example for the rest. No one could walk in off the street and be
offered shelter.

Regardless of his friendship with the
two philanthropists, Edward knew that he was taking advantage. He
would have to make other arrangements for the injured woman . . .
if she did not disappear on her own when the sun came
up.

Edward waited in the parlor, knowing
it was his responsibility to stay around until the doctor saw to
her and gave him a report on the extent of her injuries.

Mrs. Tibbs had gone upstairs to help
Sophy. He had spoken with her last week and shown her the miniature
portrait of Amelia. Older, no nonsense, strongly built and with a
gruff voice, the woman had that quality that was intimidating
enough for most girls, even these fallen denizens of the streets.
He’d seen male versions of the matron running the crews of a dozen
ships over the years.

He heard occasional whispers and the
light tread of bare feet on stairs, but Edward had yet to see the
faces of any of the girls presently living at Urania Cottage.
Finally, the heavy step of the doctor could be heard on the stair,
and a moment later the portly man joined him in the
parlor.

“How does the girl fare?”

“She’s more asleep than awake and
replies with nonsense to whatever I ask. But I should say that the
cause of that is due to the blow to her head she received sometime
during the night.”

“She was dragged under my carriage
before the driver could stop.”

“I dressed the scratches and bumps
from that mishap, Captain Seymour. Those look worse than they are.
But I believe the more telling injury happened earlier.” The doctor
never sat, never put his bag down. He stood near the door with his
cloak on as if he’d already been called to the next patient. “I
believe before she stepped into the path of your carriage, she had
taken a good blow to the head. The blood was crusted around one
good sized gash that is still oozing a bit. I think that is the
blow responsible for the memory loss she is struggling with right
now.”

“She
will
remember whatever it is she’s
forgotten, won’t she?” Edward asked.

“I should think so. But I can’t say
for certain, mind you, whether she shall recall it tomorrow, next
week, or ever.” The doctor looked about the simply furnished room.
“Knowing what some of these women live through day in and day out
on the street, I’d say it may be advantageous for her not to
remember much of her past. She’s definitely young enough to become
one of Mr. Dickens’s charity girls.”

“When she can be up and
about?”

The doctor shrugged. “She’s shivering
like a willow with the onset of fever, all caused by the shock of
her injuries. Seeing the filth on the clothes Mrs. Tibbs stripped
off of her, I’d say the girl has seen not only the surface of the
river but the bottom of it, too. The worst of the bleeding should
stop after another change of the dressings. But she needs to
overcome that fever before you can safely put her back on the
street, if that’s what you’re getting at.”