Judge Turpin is placidly enjoying an after-dinner whiskey in the parlor. Night pervades, and the fire in the fireplace just provides enough light to navigate the room. He isn't thinking much. One of his anthologies of lewd engravings lies stupidly open on the round side table next to him.
From down the hall, a knock comes at the door; he hears Wentworth open it. Wentworth comes to the parlor and announces "Bamford is here, my lord." Sure enough, the tall, bearded and rotund Beadle appears before his colleague. He takes off his hat and walks across the carpet.
"Bamford," says Turpin without getting up. "Good evening. Are you here on business, or what?"
"Lucy Barker poisoned herself."
Turpin is affected by this news. He sits upright, eyes newly alert. "Are you lying to me?"
"No. I learned it through. . . neighborhood gossip. What do you think of it?"
"I'm offended. Why didn't she recognize a good match when she saw it? I offered her wealth and status and she repeatedly toyed with us, and failed to realize I only wanted her more. She should have known better. And not to mention she had the blindness to marry a penniless peasant!" He sighs grimly. "She can rot in hell after what she put me through. Irish whore." He imbibes more of his drink. Silence.
"My lord, I came here to tell you-"
"What?" snaps the Judge.
"-Mrs. Barker had an infant daughter. Has. She entrusted her neighbor to raise her, but the neighbor absolutely will not do it. How do you feel about that?"
"What does that have to do with it?"
"They're saying Lucy killed herself, and she did it because of what happened the night of the ball. Do you not fear being held accountable if the baby dies? She's practically been abandoned."
Turpin thinks a moment. "What are you saying? You think I should raise Lucy's child?"
"You're a gentleman of prestige. It would be cruel to let your abundance go unshared. And," says the Beadle with a wry chuckle, "foster daughters are a good thing to have." He winks. Turpin, struck by the idea, rises to his feet.
"Well, at least, she would grow to be a proper lady under my watch, unlike her mother." He laughs. "Why not? The rabble will doubtless have little ill to say of me after this."
"Exactly. You'll have to hire a nurse, of course."
"Easily done. I want the child brought to me by next week." Maybe, he thinks, he won't end up womanless after all.
It's the next day now. I'm at my window seat, sewing again. My guardian only lets me out of the house if he's taking me somewhere. We have to link arms when we walk. No-obviously we don't have to, yet I fear disobeying him like I fear a candle setting our house ablaze in the night.
He should be back from the Old Bailey any moment. Our house lies in the heart of Westminster, the only part of London I know.
"YOU!" My skin is prickling, hot with terror. Someone's crying out in the street. I know the voice. There's a strange woman I sometimes see, a lunatic, who stalks about asking passersby for alms. We pass her once in a while, and she calls after me, shrieking "Dearest! Dearest love!" Horrifying. I'm too smart to look a lunatic in the eye.
There he is at the front door. The beggar woman is addressing him; I see it comfortably from the third story. "Let me see her!" she stammers. What in God's name? "Just once! Please! Let me in. Let me IN!" I am so glad I'm safe up here. Does she think I'm someone else, or is she just mad?
"I told you you aren't welcome here!" SMACK. He hit her! There she is, in the street again, cowering and whimpering. "If you ever try that again, I will have you flogged. Do you understand me?" Why is he so angry at someone who is clearly not in her right mind? I knew he didn't think highly of the poor and homeless, but this is disturbing.
Carrying a threadbare knapsack, the hapless matron hobbles away, and I think I see she's sobbing. Hopefully the curtains are hiding me well. She sobs "Baby. . ."
Burning coal paints an airless hell. Monstrous machinery that could swallow a person too easily hums and whirs behind stacked rows of windows; under high smokestacks. In the night, someone is waiting on a corner turning into a narrow, crumbling alley whose cobblestones glimmer dully by the gaslight of the mills. The workers have to come out sometime.
Across the street, women are sewing clothes under terrible heat, struggling to breathe comfortably. When the night has gone on this long, they know they'll be let out soon to sleep for a few hours in overcrowded communal housing ridden with rats. Sure enough, the whistle high above their heads shrieks out of nowhere; deafening and rough on the ears. Steam blows liberally and shrouds the window looking into the street.
The man waiting by the alley hears the whistle; anyone on the block always can. He sees the seamstresses flock out of the doors, some of them prepubescent girls, muttering and clucking to one another. Only another few moments until he sees her. They all wear similarly grey, stain-spotted dresses and white caps, but her features are imprinted in his mind, and he will spring into animation when he sees her bright, shimmering golden tresses. Yes! Now he holds his breath. She has come out unaccompanied, expression vaguely glum.
Until she sees him. Lucy McSweeney hurries across the street as quickly as she can without drawing attention to herself-already her enthusiasm for his company has incited gossip. The other seamstresses enjoy calling her names.
"Lucy," he rejoices as she comes to his side. They dare not press hands.
"I did not expect to see you tonight, sir. You are exceptionally kind."
"Still 'sir?' Not Benjamin?" He is only teasing; she uses his name only when she knows no one can hear them.
"Come," suggests Benjamin, "You must walk with me." He leads her down the alley, a decidedly unromantic venue, but the nearest flower garden, he supposes, is miles away.
"All right. I have six hours until I must go back."
"Don't you want to sleep?"
"Sleep?!" she laughs. "What's sleep? I don't mind a walk in the least. I've been sitting all night and day, so much that it hurts." She removes her cap, revealing the hair he so adores, messily braided. He wants to endlessly run his fingers through it. Fed up, Benjamin summons all the courage he can muster, draws a deep breath, and stops walking.
"Lucy," he repeats, this time more solemnly. She turns back to see him standing upright with his hands behind his back. "Lucy, I cannot bear to see you suffer like this. You don't deserve to be made to act like a machine night and day in an inferno like that. There's dark under your eyes and you're red as an apple. I've heard what happens to those children. Working there is ruining your health."
She only looks at him and sheds a tear.
"I-I-Oh God, forgive me, my love, but I can't hold back any longer. Lucy, I've been managing to bring in good business in my shop as of late, and I can finally provide for myself well. I want to provide for you, too." He seizes both Lucy's hands, and her mouth falls open. Now they're both red in the face. "You don't deserve to live as a wage-slave. Will you end our mutual torment and become my wife?"
Lucy staggers. It's too good to be true. Benjamin lets go of her hands and she covers her face, in bashful, swooning ecstasy.
"I'll buy you new dresses and a warm shawl and anything you want. You'll never work again. You'll get a good night's rest every day, I promise-" He doesn't want to cry. What will Lucy say to him?
"If you don't kiss me, Ben. . . I think I'm gonna die." She falls into his arms. For the first time in their year's acquaintance, they kiss, and wildly. Lucy thinks she'll faint.
From the other end of the alley, Nellie Lovett has seen all of this. She stands still in disbelief, preparing for the onset of bereavement; letting her shopping basket slide off her arm and onto the pavement. Whenever Benjamin comes to the industrial part of town to meet Lucy, Nellie follows in secret. She is too late. To save herself embarrassment, Nellie picks her basket back up and scurries away. All three are weeping now.
"What was that?" asks Lucy all of a sudden. She caught a glimpse of Nellie just before she disappeared. "I think that was your neighbor, Ellen."
"It's Nellie. She was actually christened as Nellie." His arms are firmly clasped round her waist.
"Oh! Wait until she hears we're to be married, she'll be so happy! Let's go tell her!"
The next months are a harrowing blur for Nellie. Somehow, it doesn't really sink in until the day Lucy comes downstairs into her shop visibly pregnant. After switching residences, Lucy has lost the dark circles under her eyes and achieved silkier, brighter skin. And she looks on Nellie as the dearest of friends.
Today, though, she sits down before the counter in a disgruntled huff, and her pregnancy is not the reason for it.
"Afternoon," says Nellie. "Have you eaten yet?"
"No. Have you got anything in the oven at present? I need meat, and quickly." Nellie agrees to head to the cellar and check on the batch of pies in there, wondering why Lucy's Irish accent hasn't disappeared yet.
Between bites of pork, Lucy intimates her problem. "There's this man that's been hanging about our street lately. Looks rich as a Jew, from his clothes. Whenever I go out shopping, he smiles at me in a way I don't like. He's got a friend, too, an ugly one; almost a giant. Have you seen them around?"
"I sure have. Judge Turpin and Beadle Bamford! Lucky you!"
"You know who they are? And why 'lucky?'"
"Well, like you said, 'e's rich. Far richer than Benjamin, I should say. A pretty lady like you would be a good match."
"Nellie," cries Lucy, "Do you not even remember that I'm married? I love Ben devotedly; I don't care who has more money! And. . ." A sour, uncomfortable lump forms in her stomach. ". . . men of his standing don't think well of the Irish. You should remember that. Those two, I wager, see me as more of a gentleman's diversion than a potential lover to serve and protect." Lucy shoots Nellie a dirty look, then, when nothing more is said, pensively strokes her round belly. Many women she has known have died in childbirth or soon after. She rarely allows this starkly depressing fact to shake her faith that she will survive, but in moments where negative thoughts hang over, fear surfaces and she needs to tell her husband. Every morning and evening she prays to Mary and St. Bridget for a safe delivery and a child she'll see grow up.
