I had been studying Gabriela, but she was watching me too, her eyes a warm, coffee brown, fringed with thick lashes. She looked very much like Sam, but she was less awkward, more comfortable in company. ‘The wine is good?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘Is what they give on the road to Tyburn.’ She drained her cup, sucked the wine from her lips. ‘Last drink of the damned. You stare at my scar, Mr Hawkins. Calma, calma,’ she laughed as I flustered my apologies. ‘I know why you have come. I am not bird-witted.’ The last word was pure St Giles, the tt lost somewhere in the back of her throat. She leaned forward. ‘There are men downstairs. I call them, they slit your throat. So we speak quiet and you leave. Yes?’
I stared at her. I had not ventured a single word about Joseph Burden, or the brothel in Seven Dials.
She touched a finger to her scar, traced the line down her ruined cheek. ‘This is my life. My story. I know when a man want to hear it.’ She tucked her bare feet beneath her gown. ‘I am a Jewess, you know this? My family lives in Portugal for hundreds of years. We convert,’ she fluttered her hand, showing the shallow extent of that conversion. ‘The Inquisition does not trust we are faithful. You know what they do to such people? Burn. Torture. So we run – sail for England and freedom. My mother and father, my two brothers. My sister. This is… twenty-one years ago. I am thirteen.’ She gazed into the fire, eyes hollow. ‘There is a storm. They die.’
She stopped. It had taken a great deal of strength to say those few stark words. Her loss hung between us, unspoken. After a moment, she continued.
‘I am thirteen and alone in London. Pretty. No one to care for me. I have only a few words of English. What do you think happens to such a girl?’ She shrugged at the ways of the world. ‘I am starving and afraid. A kind woman take me in. “Poor little Gabby. Call me Auntie”.She gives me clothes and food, a bed. And then she make me work for them.’
‘Aunt Doxie.’
She poured us both another glass of hot wine, blood-red liquid splashing from the jug. ‘You hear of Joseph Burden, I think?’
So much venom in her voice when she spoke his name. ‘Ned Weaver told me…’
A sharp tilt of the chin. ‘His son. Yes. I know this.’
‘He said Burden worked at a brothel in Seven Dials. Charles Howard told me the same story last night.’ I frowned at the memory, and reached for my pipe.
‘I remember him. He used to visit.’
‘He said it was different from other brothels. Nothing was forbidden.’
She curled her lip, mimicked her old bawd. ‘Whatever you want, sir. If you can pay. Whatever you want. And Mr Burden standing out on the front step, so tall, his arms like this.’ She clutched her own slim arm and gripped hard, as if it were solid oak. ‘A bully should protect the whores, you understand? He is paid to stop the customers when they grow too wild. Mr Burden, though – he takes money from the customers and he lets them do whatever they wish. Sometimes he watches. Sometimes he joins them.’
‘He cut you.’
‘This?’ Gabriela touched her scar again. ‘No, sir – let me tell you what Mr Burden did.’
But then she stopped and said nothing for a long while. Her breath was shallow and very fast. A slick of sweat shone on her face, though it was still snowing. She pressed her palms together and held her hands to her face as if in prayer. When she looked up once more, she had returned to herself. Calma. ‘There was a man. I will not say his name; he does not deserve to be remembered. He was old, very ugly. Very cruel. All the girls are afraid of him. He likes to frighten them, you understand?
‘One day he ask for me for the first time. Points at me as if I am some animal at Smithfield. That one. Aunt Doxie does not want to sell her little Gabby – some time he leaves marks and I am so pretty, worth so much to her. But… Whatever you want, sir. If you can pay. She names a fee – enough to buy every whore in the brothel. He laughs and pays double. It is a game to him. He likes to play games.’ She closes her eyes for a second. ‘He takes my hand. He feels that I am shaking all over and he laughs again. He likes that I am afraid. He knows I have heard the stories.
‘Aunt Doxie leads us to this man’s favourite room. It is high up, very high at the back of the brothel, very quiet. She tells to Mr Burden – stand outside the door and call if there is trouble. Then she leaves and we are alone. The man gives Mr Burden half a guinea. He says, keep your mouth shut.’
She picked up the poker and pushed it deep into the fire, turning over the coals and building the flames higher. She did not turn back to look at me, but kept her eyes always on the light. ‘This man. He ties my hands. He ties a cloth over my eyes. I stand like this for a long time, so afraid, waiting in the darkness. Then I feel a blade, here.’ She touched her throat. ‘He whispers in my ear, tells me all the things he will do with it. I start to cry. He strikes me so hard I fall to my knees.
‘I shall not tell you, sir, what he did to me then. Only… Before him, I would fly from my body, you see? Always. Like a bird, until it was done. But I cannot escape him. The pain and the fear, I think he will kill me. I dare not fly away. I am trapped. And I begin to think no, Gabriela, no. You are strong. You are not a child. Your family drown but you survive. You live. And I take my fists like this, still bound, and I push him away. I kick and shove until I am free. I pull off the blindfold and I run to the door, screaming, screaming.
‘Mr Burden stands there. He looks angry. He tells me I am a stupid whore, that I must not make trouble. I run past him towards the stairs, towards life. I am bleeding but I am free. Then I feel his arms about my waist, pulling me back. I try to fight, but he is too strong, like a nightmare. He carries me back up the stairs to the room. He throws me down on the bed. He puts his weight upon my back, pushes my head into the pillow and I can barely breathe. He says, “Be quiet, slut. Earn your keep.”
The other man thanks him. He points to his face – there is a small cut on his brow, just a light scratch. He takes his knife and says, “Hold her down. The bitch will pay for this.”’
Gabriela pulled her knees up beneath her chin, wrapped her arms around her legs.
‘When it was done they left me to bleed. I was too weak to move, too shocked. One of the maids found me. When Aunt Doxie saw, she cursed me. Cursed me. I was ruined, close to death. Worthless. She pushed me out on to the street. I don’t remember no more. I must have staggered into St Giles – I don’t know how. I should have died in the gutter. I think I wanted this. But see, here I am.’ She turned to me at last. ‘I survive.’
‘How?’
She smiled, like an angel – her eyes shining. ‘James. He found me. He carried me to his brother’s friend, Dr Sparks. He saved my life.’
Nathaniel Sparks – Samuel Fleet’s great friend. Kitty’s father had saved Gabriela. ‘Gabriela… you know that Kitty…’
‘His daughter. Of course! I know Kitty, when she was very tiny. My God the noise. She cry, cry, cry. I think I go deaf. That’s why we save you last night. For Kitty. What – you think I fall in love with your legs?’ She smiled again. A light had returned to her face, now the worst of her story was over.
If I were a wise man, I would have left her then. Everything I had feared was true. So leave, now - and quickly. Run from this world of butchery, murder and revenge. Grab Kitty’s hand and flee the city and let this tragedy play to its end without you. But I didn’t move. I stayed quite still, pressed into the chair. I must know it all.