As to honest, I can see what I can discover.”
The person would, of course, be honest. I have ways of dealing with those who are not.
We spoke a bit longer then retreated to the first pub we found, where she and I sat in the larger room, one filled only with men and an occasional woman dressed in a way that convinced me that some professions are the same in any country.
I told her that I had already eaten, though in truth I was famished. I tried not to focus on my savior too closely, watching instead the men at the bar. Most were drunk or nearly so. When one stumbled out the door, I said I needed to step out back where the privies were built on the wharf. My partner shrugged and continued to devour her stew, gripping her spoon with her fist the way the men in the tavern did.
The building backed nearly up to the water, and there was no way to get to the front but through the pub or over the roof. Fortunately, the latter is not so difficult for one such as myself. Mist-like, I moved from back to front, finding my prey just as he was about to enter one of the foul-smelling hovels your poor call homes.
Too drunk to scream, he instead looked at me with wide eyes as I took form before him. Perhaps he even thought me some image of his sodden brain. No matter, he was mine in an instant. I moved his inert body into a narrow space between his building and the next and drained him. Even through his blood, I could feel the heat of the alcohol, so strong that I wondered if it would affect me. But I was not so foolish that I did not slit his throat before I left him.
His blood did give me a headache by the time I said goodbye to my evening’s companion. But that was later, far after we left the public room.
Hunger gone, I could be more genial, enough that she eventually found the courage to say, “I am not what I seem.”
I smiled, closed mouth, afraid that were I to open it I would laugh and she would notice my teeth and likely guess why. “I know,” I said.
“So I thought. Thank you for being silent.”
“And why such clothes?”
“I have reasons,” she replied then looked at me, frowning, weighing my discretion. I must have passed, for she explained them.
I do not presume to understand her whispered lecture about women working in terrible conditions, living with brutes for husbands, denied land and a say in governing. But I did understand that last, the part that had her in so much trouble. “It is the same everywhere,” I replied when she had finished. “Women have large families. They work too hard. They die young. At least here they have food to eat.”
“And would have far more if they limited their children to two or three.”
That was the number that would likely be left after plague and misfortunes and an occasional famished creature such as myself took their weaker offspring but I kept silent, believing that such a statement would not be well-received by the woman. She went on, in a voice so close to silence that even I had to strain to hear her.
“I and my sisters came here to help as we have helped many in London with information on how to limit children. I have pamphlets that explain the basics to those who can read. To those who cannot, we hold lectures.”
“And what do their men think of this?”
“Many approve. Others don’t. But the government needs their soldiers and laborers and they do not approve. Nor does my husband. He forbade me to continue this work. I do not have his support in this endeavor.”
“And why not?”
“He is a banker. They have reputations.”
I killed a fair number of bankers when I ruled, and rarely pleasantly. “All bankers have reputations,” I said, pleased when she understood the joke and laughed.
“So I waited until he left for business on the continent, then came here with my friends from London. But they were arrested for public lewdness. Now I give the lectures, always ahead of the authorities looking for me.”
“And so the clothes?”
“Exactly. But now I must return to Mayfair… that is, to London, by whatever means I can before my husband gets home on the 18th. Since my money was with my sisters I have no means. And I thought…”
She could not continue. Women, no matter how they play at independence, are not good at bargaining. “You thought one foreigner with a similar need might help?”
“A train ticket. Some money for food and I will help you get all your boxes safely to London,” she said, leaning close to me as if we were partners in some crime. I needed the help. I agreed.
We were just leaving the establishment when some unfortunate woman found the remains of my night’s meal. She screamed, drawing a crowd. My partner took a step toward the group, then moved back close to me. “It is good I have someone to walk with tonight,” she said.
Ah, yes, this is not Romania. With luck it will stay so.
* * *
Such a charming woman, intense Sarah Justin. And she might not know how to bargain well but she got a fair enough price for the gold bracelet and ruby ring I gave her, and by the next evening all my boxes save three were being shipped to London through the efforts of the Billingtons, father and son.
Fifty boxes left my hands, but I am no fool. Fifty might be listed on Billington’s records, but I kept the remaining three with me.
Those and my partner pulled out of Whitby a day later, on an afternoon train. I was safely resting in one of my boxes in a baggage car, not asleep but well aware of the train’s motion; the faint, pleasant rocking as it headed west and south.
Would that I had been more aware of my companion. In truth I should have been wary. I have had a history of choosing the wrong sort of servant. Now that I have even more need for such loyalty, the matter has gotten worse. That lunatic Renfield, screaming out his fantasies in the charnel house you call an asylum, is the worst of any. But it matters little. Servants can always be replaced.
My thoughts wander and I only have the night to tell this story. You see, while I slept in the station warehouse, Sarah used the money I gave her for a first class ticket to pay the fines of her sisters in crime. They had means to leave and so all managed to catch the same train I was on, getting the lowest sort of tickets and sharing a section of one of the cars, plotting their next attack like the devil on All Hallows’ Eve.
We pulled into Sheffield two hours before sunset. They were ready, leaflets in hand, departing the train for the meeting they had hurriedly arranged with one of those wire machines… telegraphs I believe Mr. Harker called them.
I can only conclude that the women thought they had right on their side and so were careless, because while Sarah in man’s clothes had eluded them for days in Whitby, three women in skirts could not manage the same for even a few hours.
I was first alerted to the situation by loud-voiced men entering the baggage car. An employee of the railroad pointed out that the boxes—my boxes!—were not the property of the women they had arrested, but it made no difference to the local police. I heard one of them walk close to me, heard the workers argue with him one final time, then the pounding of an ax… thankfully on the box nearest the door.
Splintering wood. Creaking hinges. A man’s voice, demanding, “What is the meaning of this?”
By which he meant, of course, what was the meaning of the earth inside. It was only then that I heard quick-minded Sarah reply, “Earth, sir. My traveling companion is… is a… a wealthy man. He has brought plantings from his native land and thinks that they will do better in their native soil.”
Plantings! How well she put it.
I heard the policeman mumble something back, then the railroad official repeated his warnings. “And where can I find this man who pays good money to ship dirt, Mrs. Baxter?” he asked Sarah.
Clever woman! She never used her real name. “I believe he is in a private compartment.”
“First class is at the front of the train, sirs,” the railroad official added, no doubt trying to get them to leave the baggage car before they did more damage.
“Are we free to leave now?” one of the women, not Sarah, asked.
“Your fine was paid, and Mrs. Morgan’s, but Mrs. Baxter’s to be sent back to Whitby to see the magistrate with my blessing. Glad to get rid of the lot of you troublemakers.” Not acceptable, of course. I see to my servants.
