“This is my friend,” Elsie said, “Mary Jane.”
The girl thrust out her hand. “I prefer Marie Jeanette,” she said with a touch of reproof. Elsie gave her a light push.
“You’re Mary Jane Kelly, and don’t you go putting on airs, my love,” she said in an indulgent voice.
The girl thrust a dress at me. “Elsie said as you needed something to wear. It’s my second best,” she told me.
“That is very kind of you,” I began, but she waved me off.
“Any friend of Elsie’s. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have my room,” she said proudly. The dress she had brought was rather too short and in a virulent green hue found only in the more lavish jungles. But it was a far sight better than anything I could call my own at the moment, and I thanked her again.
Mary Jane busied herself buttoning me up the back as Elsie plucked the violet-strewn hat from her own head and pinned it firmly into place. “There you are, miss. Proper dressed you are now, although I cannot like those boots with that dress. You ought to have had black kid.”
I peeped down at the audacious scarlet boots she had found for me. “Never mind. I am very grateful to you, Elsie. And you, Mary Jane. You must let us pay for the clothes.”
She waved me off. “Never you mind, miss. We were happy to do it, all of us.”
I was deeply touched. The people who made their living in Whitechapel had little enough, but they shared it willingly. It was the sort of place where tea leaves once brewed would be gladly handed to a friend for a second go. I knew better than to insult her by speaking again of money, but I gave Stoker a significant look and he nodded almost imperceptibly. He understood, as did I, that nothing makes a person feel so rich as the ability to give to another, and to rob Elsie of her generosity would be no kindness. In time, Stoker would ensure Elsie received some little sum more and she would share her bounty, we had no doubt. Clothes were a commodity in that quarter and might be sold or pawned for the price of a meal or a bed. To have been given such riches was a testament to how generous Elsie had been with her friends in their own times of need.
But the clothes were the least of what we were given that night. Elsie sent a boy to the cookshop in the next street and he brought back two covered plates, still steaming.
“I got none for your man Ed,” she said, nodding in satisfaction as she presented the plates, a delectable smell wafting from the thick gravy bubbling through vents in crusts of golden pastry. “He’ll not want food for a while, I’m thinking, but the pair of you should eat up now.”
Stoker stuck a fork into the pastry, sending a river of rich gravy spilling onto the plate.
“Eel pie,” he said happily, falling on the food with gusto.
I ate mine almost as swiftly—as much from hunger as from the fear that Stoker would help himself to it if I did not. We had a little bowl for spitting out the bones, and as we ate, Elsie bustled about, neatly folding our own clothes into a basket.
“Mind you,” she fussed, “I would rather have had the chance to wash them properly, but I think that tunic of yours is fit for nothing but the rag basket,” she warned me.
“I cannot think of when I would possibly have need of it,” I assured her. “Keep them to sell to the ragpicker.” The items were hired and Tiberius had given surety for them, but they were little better than remnants at this point and the tiara was rolling around somewhere in the darkness of the Club de l’Étoile. At least I would be able to return the armillae, I reflected grimly.
Elsie clucked and fretted, as fastidious as a spinster as we mopped up the last of the eel gravy with the bread she had brought. The meal was filling and hot, and that was all that may be said in its favor. In spite of its delicious aroma, the eel pie was greasy and even the bread was unsavory, with a strange, gritty quality.
“That’s the plaster of Paris,” Elsie said when I remarked upon it, pronouncing it “Paree.”
“Plaster?” I asked.
“The bakers add it to the flour to make it stretch further,” she said with a matter-of-factness that told me she expected nothing better.
“They adulterate the bread?”
“And the milk and the meat and the preserves,” Stoker put in. “There’s not a pail of milk between here and Guernsey that doesn’t have chalk mixed in.”
“Lord only knows how I managed to keep my little ones alive on it,” Elsie agreed.
“Unconscionable,” I said firmly, making a note to send her a loaf of the good white bread always at our table in Marylebone. There were many things I took for granted, living in an earl’s household. We ate few meals with his lordship, but his kitchens provided our food, and it was beneath Cook’s dignity to send out anything less than first-rate, even to his lordship’s employees.
Elsie shrugged. “’Tis the way it has always been, miss. No need to get into a bother over it. Now, Mr. Stoker, you eat up the last of that pie and I will take you down the back stairs.”
Stoker shoved the last bite of pie into his mouth and got to his feet. The borrowed boots were clearly too small and painful, but at least he no longer had to traverse London in his stocking feet. He roused Eddy by the expedient of an application of cold water to his face.
Eddy came to with a start, blinking furiously, but he caught sight of Elsie and smothered his protests in the nick of time, contenting himself with a scowl until he noticed his clean shirt. He smoothed it appreciatively and Elsie gave him a smile.
“You’re welcome, lad. That stripe suits you, it does.”
He inclined his head with all the graciousness his breeding had instilled. Elsie hurried us down a narrow staircase clearly meant for the maidservants. A single guttering candle illuminated the dingy enclosed space, and we groped our way carefully down to the bottom, stopping at a small door. Elsie turned to Stoker. She reached beneath her skirts and drew out a long, slender blade. “You’ll want a weapon, Mr. Stoker,” she said flatly.
He shook his head. “Keep it. If you insist on sleeping rough, you will need some means to defend yourself.”
“Lord love you, sir, I’ve got one better,” she said with a grin, producing a wicked-looking knife with sharp serrations. She tucked it away again and gestured.
“Now, this passage leads to the yard. Cross it and in the back wall you will see a door opening onto Flower and Dean Street. Close the door firmly behind you, mind, and turn hard to the left to take you to Brick Lane. Follow that towards the river to Whitechapel High Street. There will be plenty of folk still about so you shouldn’t attract much attention, but keep to the shadows just the same.”
We promised we would and with many thanks on our side and many protestations of embarrassment on hers, we were away, moving into the darkness. We followed her instructions, crossing the yard of the gin palace and finding the little door set into the wall. We slipped through it, into the street. It was a small thoroughfare, scarcely more than an alley, connecting two larger roads, and here and there it was pierced with a pool of warm yellow light from a lamppost. The lamps flickered and I saw that a soft, veiling mist was rising off the river on the cooling night air. It swirled and thickened as we walked, muffling some noises and bringing others startlingly close.