Page 38 of Miss Devoted
“Delancey where are you taking me?” Ingram glanced at the houses and shops, which weren’t quite shabby, but neither did they exude the staid refinement of their Mayfair neighbors.
“I’m taking you to hell, of course, one of the busier corners of our fair metropolis.”
“This is why you said to carry no coin, because we’re bound for one of those gambling dens you used to know so well. Please tell me you don’t attempt to preach redemption at such a venue?”
“I don’t preach anything to anybody.” Michael took another turn and another, into progressively more malodorous, sad, and dark streets.
“How can you find your way without any lights or signs?” Ingram asked. “And why come here?”
“Because it’s the season, Natty. If you were one of those ladies on that corner back near the theater, when would you see the best business?”
“Late spring. Town is full of the great, the good, and the randy, the weather lovely. Everybody off to the theater to see and be seen. What has that to do with this midnight constitutional and my freezing ears?”
Michael knelt by a reeking pile of rags and newspaper. “O’Malley, wake up.”
The rags mumbled something about God’s hairy balls and damned Englishmen. Michael shook O’Malley’s shoulder, glad for any sign of life.
“You’ll freeze out here, old man. Wake up, and we’ll get you to Meg’s.”
“Meggy?” The pile of rags sat up, newspapers swirling away on the arctic breeze. “Meggy’s here?”
“She’s not,” Michael said, taking out the flask MacKay had given him. “Have a nip, and then we’ll get you on your feet. You’re not two streets over from where you doubtless intended to end up.”
O’Malley took a long pull from the flask, began wheezing and coughing, and thumped his sternum with his bare fist.
“Fine brew, you have there, Preacher,” he said as Michael neatly retrieved the flask. “The good stuff. It’s night. Why do I always wake up in the night?”
Ingram watched this little drama, one Michael had participated in a thousand times on a thousand dark, dreary corners.
“Lend a hand,” Michael said. “O’Malley is steady enough once he gets to his feet.”
“Meggy will kill me,” O’Malley muttered as Michael and Ingram levered him upright. “Stop for a little nap, and now it’s nightfall. I smell like cat piss. I do enjoy the sight of our Megs in a temper, but from a prudent distance, you unnerstan?”
“Have we far to go?” Ingram asked, letting go of O’Malley’s arm.
“Two streets,” Michael said, keeping hold on his side. “Remain upwind, but stay with us. As long as you’re with us, you’ll be safe enough.”
“Preacher’s a good sort,” O’Malley said. “He don’t preach. Very courteous of him not to preach in hell. Might I have another nip from the flask?”
“When we get to Meg’s, she’ll fix you up. Not far to go now.”
“He’s devious too,” O’Malley said, as if Michael hadn’t spoken. “Smells good. though. Like Christmas and Cumbria. Good sheep country, Cumbria, but they still have their forests too. Don’t tell the Royal Navy.”
O’Malley went on in that vein, waxing bitter on the topic of the navy, but remaining more or less ambulatory until they reached a dank pub oozing weak light and the mingled scents of ale and old sweat.
“Home, sweet ’ome,” O’Malley said, casting his arms wide and nearly backhanding Ingram. “Meggy, I’m home. Kill the fatted keg and rejoice in your prodigal papa’s return.”
Michael helped him over the threshold, caught the gimlet eye of the young-old woman tending bar, and deposited O’Malley on an unoccupied chair. A few of the denizens nodded at him. Squinty MacGuire lifted his mug a few inches in greeting and passed a mildly inquisitive glance over Ingram.
A warning glance, for all that it had been polite enough.
Michael touched the brim of his hat, took a goggling Ingram by the arm, and returned to the chilly, though not quite as aromatic, night air.
“This is what you do all night?” Ingram asked as Michael set off again.
“That is part of what I do. Once the pubs close, we’ll have to get any sleeping drunks we find to St. Osmond’s. It’s not the drunks who worry me.”
“They worry me. If that fellow wasn’t a walking foul miasma… And you are his bosom bow, Delancey. Does Helmsley know you’ve raised befriending the downtrodden into a high and dangerous art?”
