Page 62 of Miss Devoted
Michael wanted nothing so much as to be alone, to think through the day’s disaster. He’d have to warn his family about what was afoot. First, he needed to gather what remained of his wits.
“Your sister is being well cared for,” he said. “Your mother made a very hard decision, but your sister is safer because of it.”
“I asked Ma to leave me on the church steps. She said I were too ornery.”
“I suspect she needs you, and the foundling homes aren’t interested in fellows old enough to begin an apprenticeship.”
The lad scuffed a cracked boot on the walkway. “I’m too slow fer pickin’ pockets, too big to be a climbin’ boy, and Ma don’t want me to get the sooty warts. I try not to eat much, because I don’t bring in coin. The mud larks guard their turf something ferocious, but I found a pair of boots once. They were the same size too. A true pair.”
Had he found them on a sleeping drunk? On one of the corpses occasionally gracing London’s meaner alleys?I do not have time for this. I do not have the patience for this.
This child is not my burden.“What’s your name, lad?”
“Mickey. Me real name’s Michael, for the soldier angel, but nobody calls me that.”
Of all times for the Almighty to indulge in irony. “Come with me.” Michael threaded his way across the intersection, keeping his pace modest in deference to Mickey’s shorter legs. “Where do you live?”
“Holy land. Our alley don’t have a name, and Ma says that’s a good thing, because it would be a curse word.”
The boy likely knew his way around St. Giles in pitch darkness, but he’d strayed considerably from home turf.
“You were looking for dropped coins?”
“Don’t nobody have coins to drop where I come from.”
“Do you know of Colonel Sir Orion Goddard?”
“I’m not working in no molly-house, Preacher.”
The boy couldn’t be more than nine years old. “Sir Orion manages the Coventry, a fancy gaming hell that puts on an excellent supper buffet for the sake of appearances.” Also to attract discerning clientele and keep them on the premises. “His wife is the head chef, and they do not believe leftover food should go to waste. They also don’t believe children should be wandering the streets alone at night.”
Mickey stopped. “I’m not going to no poorhouse. You die there, get the consumption, and worse. It’s like prison, but they work you harder, and you’re supposed to be grateful for that. Ma said she’d lie down with the devil before we go on the parish, and I never heard o’ no buffay.”
His mother had likely already lain down with numerous devils, half of them diseased. “I’m showing you where the Coventry is. No child who comes to the back door is turned away hungry, but you must also be willing to take on any errands assigned. Check the water buckets of the horses in the mews, for example.”
“I know how to fill a bucket.”
“You know how to deliver messages. You know how to find a coachman and tell him to bring his team around to the front door. You know how to watch a pot to see when it comes to a boil and then count off five minutes on the clock, or you can learn.”
Michael cut down an alley, not the safest choice in the growing darkness, but Mickey came along without a qualm.
“I can sing all the pub songs,” Mickey said. “I get paid in beer for singing.”
“That is clever of you, but a fellow needs the occasional meat pie or baked potato, unless he’s to sing himself into a stupor.”
“What’s a stupor?”
“When you drink so much you fall asleep.”
“Ma’s like that with the gin.” Said with a complete lack of rancor.
Half of St. Giles was like that with the gin. Half of Mayfair’s gentlemen’s clubs were like that with the brandy. Only the denizens of St. Giles were regularly instructed on the evils of inebriation.
“Come along,” Michael said as they neared the well-lit back entrance to the Coventry. He did not send children here often—Sir Orion and his lady had enough mouths to feed—but this was the best Michael could do on short notice.
Mickey stopped at the garden gate and peered over. “Smells good.”
The tantalizing aroma of a beef roast wafted on the evening air. “If you haven’t eaten for a time, don’t bolt your tucker, lest it make a reappearance.”
