PROLOGUE: An Education.
Nancy had found her way to the kidsman when she had been 7 years old. A Mother who couldn't afford to feed herself, or any of the 11 siblings she had been raised with. Always hungry, she had fallen into a bad crowd. Beginning to spend time with the boys in the neighborhood and traveling to and from London, where she stole tarts and apples from the vendors in the city with her new 'friends'.
Finding her thievery skill to be natural the leader of their little band of misfits had led the little redheaded and freckled girl to Fagin's place. Upon being fed sweets, and regaled with happy tales of doing whatever she pleased, and only needing to take some wallets, and watches and scarves along the way, she made a very adult decision.
Never again would she return home. This fairyland of no bedtime, or real chores had dazzled her. In her excitement she failed to notice the filth of the floors, the gaunt features of some of her fellow housemates, and the wily sneer of her new friend Fagin.
Taking to her new life well, the first few years of her life were without incident. She was a pretty thing, and when she was younger Fagin took to dressing her in a blue dress and bonnet. No one questioned a pretty little girl when she accidentally brushed by. They never thought to check their pockets, and the children she lived with and her greedy overseer profited from her successful outings.
The streets of London became her school, and Fagin and his gang of criminal youths from five on up to their teens were her instructors. She learned how to evade the police, and to be wary of soldiers, and other criminals.
As she aged Fagin thought it best to conceal the fact that she was a girl, and had cried when he had sat her before the fireplace and sheared her long red curls, and tucked a stained hat from one of the other boys on her head. " It's not so bad, my dear." He had promised, patting her cheek affectionately. "Anything to keep the boys away a few more years, eh? Don't be so eager to grow up, Nance." His cautions fell on deaf ears, and she had cried herself to sleep on the little cot in the corner.
With her change in attire, her pick-pocketing had become more noticeable. At 12, the swells of womanhood busting at the seams of the patched and ragged shirt she wore, the curve of feminine ankle and calf showing beneath the hand-me-down britches she wore as pants, she stood out again. Her red hair grown, but still tucked under a hat. She had grown too, the duress of puberty tugging her from the chid urchin she had been and propelling her toward a far darker fate.
The day she was caught was a mild september in the waning days of her twelfth year. She was looking forward to being a teenager and the meeting that Fagin had promised her when she was old enough. A man was walking with his two sons, and she slipped past the smallest and reached into his pocket. The eldest of the boys sounded the alarm. "THIEF! Papa! He stole your wallet!"
Racing around the stalls in the market place and through the crowd she had barreled straight into a police officer when she had turned the corner. Cuffing her, he had brought her to the prison, and interrogated her. Fearing the consequences of ratting out her friends she said nothing.
She was sentenced to the workhouse for two months, and that's where she spent her thirteenth birthday. Hunched over a machine, pulling a lever and coughing. The coal that powered the factory made all of the young wards of the prison system ill. She had given them a false name, and when she had served her time she was again released to society.
Waiting a couple of days and sleeping in alleyways until she was certain she wasn't followed she returned to Fagin's. The boys were happy to see her. In her absence a new little giro had joined, and was now wearing the blue dress that Nancy had worn when she had begun stealing. Bet, her name was, and Nancy was glad for another girl to be among the group even if she was only 7 or 8. It would be nice to have a friend to talk too, that wasn't one of the boys.
After lunch Fagin guided Nancy into his office, closing the door behind her. She moved to sit down on the sofa, and was startled when he sat directly beside her. Blinking and peering up to him. " I didn't say nothing', Mr. Fagin. I swear. I kept quiet." Fear beginning to grow in her. She had seen what had become of the boy from when she was little that Fagin swore had ratted them out. The reason they had to leave their earlier boarding house. His broken nose and black eye. And Mr. Sykes had comet take them away and no one ever heard another word of him. Her heart was racing as she began to fear the worst.
"Shhh, now, my dear." His words soft as his hand began to run up and down her back. " I know you ain't no rat, Nance. This isn't about that… This is about something else."
She tensed further at the feeling of his hand on her spine. Trembling a little and asking in a wary voice. "What did I do wrong? I'll do better."
He laughed and his hand moved to stroke through her long tangled red curls. "You didn't do anything wrong. You grew up. You're not my little girl anymore…"
Blinking she peered up to him. The way he was speaking, and how his hands were touching her made her extremely uncomfortable and she fidgeted away from him, inching to the other side of the stained sofa.
" I been savin' this for you." He added. Rising to his feet and crossing to the closet in his office. Taking from it an emerald green dress with black lace around the low cut bodice and the bottom of the hem. It was much shorter then any dress that a lady of good breeding would wear. It reminded her of what she had watched the dance hall girls wear, and the working girls too. Her stomach sank with the realization.
"It'll be a big big yet, I wager. But we're 'bout to find out. Stand up. Take off those clothes."
Paling, she stared at him. Trying to determine if he truly meant what he said, and seeing no sign of humor she shakily got to her feet. Undoing the buttons of the shirt that was even tighter now then when it had been taken from her upon incarceration. Removing it and lowering her eyes. Dropping it to the ground and moving to step out of the britches too, that were uncomfortably tight. Kicking them away and moving one arm to drape around her budding breasts and the other to hide the front of her lower half. Tears of shame burning in her eyes. No man had ever seen her naked before and she knew instinctually that he would be far from the last.
Fagin approached, the dress draped over his arm. Studying the girl before him with an appraising eye, a hand moving to slide down her back to the curve of her rear. Chuckling lightly and giving her bum a little smack before handing over the dress.
"You'll do. Bill prefers 'em new. Can get more money that first time, unless he decides he wants it for 'imself. "
Digesting his words she struggled with the dress before finally managing to pull it over her head. Surprised by how low it draped around her ankles, but the front fit well, her bust having grown in captivity.
"Bill?"
She asked, her voice sounding foreign to her.
"Bill Sykes." He confirmed. "You're gonna go live with him and his girls, Nance. Don't look so sad. You were always so eager to grow up.. and now you have."
His hand returned to her cheek, as it often had in her childhood, and he patted her skin softly.
"We're gonna go see him now, and you won't be coming back. Maybe for visits and errands, but you won't sleep here again. So go say your goodbyes."
Numbly she made her way out to the main room, ignoring the hooting and hollering from the boys she had grown up with, seeing her in such a dress and moving to the little trunk where she had kept her things. Grateful to find the undisturbed she took the red shawl Fagin had given her one Christmas and unwrapped it. Inside a porcelain doll she had stolen and kept for herself from a store when she was 9. She had barely played with it, afraid to have been discovered for not turning in the porcelain lady with her panted golden curls and painted blue eyes. The dress she wore a purple velvet. Concern for consequences long since past ignored she rose to her feet and moved to the little mouse of a girl with her stringy brown hair and thrust it into her hands.
Bet smiled up to her and asked in a quiet little voice. "Mine?"
"Yours." Nancy confirmed, giving the girl a smile and moving to the door to wait for Fagin. Giving a final glance around the combined seeping area she had shared with them for half of her life. Studying Bet and her embrace of the blonde doll. A yearning in her heart for that innocence. That joy.
Now the time for childhood things was over. Her future lay ahead of her full of dark clouds and stormy weather. With Fagin by her side she walked down the steps of her home for the last time and stepped outside into a stranger London. A place she didn't know. Bill Sykes was feared by all who knew him and now she was to become his property. The fear of that, and the future to come left her gripping onto Fagin's arm for the latter portion of the journey.
She walked, her limbs wooden, up the steps to a run down little house just within the slums of the Eastern side. She trembled as she heard stomping footsteps approach and gripped tighter to the man who had essentially raised her and was now throwing her to the lion.