The Proprietor ambled round the bar, and propped the door open to clear the air of tobacco smoke.
Isobel thought it wise to leave. It wasn’t safe for Gregor to come back. She could wait outside. But people would stare. She still wore the oversized doorman’s coat from Parklands, and underneath that, her nightdress. She needed a bath too. But, if she stayed, Gregor’s well-being, even his life, might be in danger. She turned the pages of The Times. Perhaps the workmen would leave before he returned.
“Isobel?”
She jumped at the sound of her name and almost upset her tankard.
A woman stood before her, the curves of her body silhouetted in the light from the open door. Long blond hair tumbled over her shoulders, and curled around the pale flesh where the top of her blouse failed to meet her cleavage.
“Jessica?” gasped Isobel. “Jessica from The Classical Beauties?”
“Well, well, fancy bumping into you.” The blonde Beauty drew up a stool and sat down.
“Oh Jessica, it’s so good to see you.” She reached across and kissed her cheek. Her face tingled as she blushed with relief.
Jessica kissed her back with a quick peck; her surprise at this affectionate greeting all too clear.
“Good to see you too Isobel, and not a bit surprised I might tell you.” She leant forward, one arm braced on the table. “In fact I’ve got a bone to pick with you young lady. What you done with our James? Ain’t seen sight nor sound of him for weeks. Run off together did you?”
Isobel could barely speak. She took deep breaths to calm herself. “No. We were kidnapped,” she spluttered.
“You what?”
“My brother, William.” She feared her heart would never withstand the waves of pure joy coursing through her body. “He found out about The Classical Beauties. He caught us, Jessica, and put us in Bedlam. James is still there.”
Jessica’s disbelief left her mouth hanging open. “Your brother shopped you?”
Isobel took another deep breath, and her heart thumped with less insistence. “He kept me a prisoner in the country. But I escaped.”
“Did you say Bedlam? Oh my God Isobel!”
“I know. I’ve got to get him out.”
“We girls thought it odd, disappearing like that. Not like him at all. Something’s up we said, and then you goes missing as well, and so we puts two and two together. Thought you’d run off, we did.” She adjusted her blouse to expose a little more cleavage, and then glanced across at the workmen. “We haven’t worked in weeks. Money’s tight you know.”
Isobel didn’t want sympathy, but she did want Jessica to know the truth. “My family’s disowned me. I haven’t got a penny to my name. Do you know Gregor?”
“Yeah, came in here a few days back looking for James.”
“He’s promised to help me get him out of Bedlam.” It felt wonderful to talk, it bolstered her plans with a greater sense of possibility.
Jessica fluffed up her hair. “Disowned you, just because you was with James? Bloody ridiculous!”
“I know.” Jessica’s down-to-earth talk filled her with hope. “I’ll rescue James and then we’ll run away, and live together forever.”
Jessica checked her nails. “Where will you go?”
“I don’t know, France perhaps?” It sounded ridiculous, but so exciting.
“France?” Jessica sniffed contemptuously. “Don’t like that place, can’t understand them. He won’t do Classical Beauties there. You really think you’ll go to France?”
Isobel’s joy stalled. What was she thinking? Jessica and the girls relied on James for work. What would become of them if she whisked James away?
“I—don’t know,” she stuttered. “He might have a better idea. I just hope he’s… he’s…” and she burst into tears.
“Ah darling.” Jessica squeezed round the table and took her in her arms. “Don’t cry love. He’ll be all right.”
“I don’t want him to be hurt.” The words gushed out as freely as the falling tears. “I’ve missed him so much and I hate thinking about him being trapped in that place, and I want to be with him.” Days of pent-up anxiety released themselves from her whirling mind.
“Course you do, and you will love, you will.” Jessica rocked her backwards and forwards. “We’ll get him out. After all, he’s not mad is he? Can’t keep him in there if he’s not off his rocker, wouldn’t be right.”
“If that were only true,” Isobel snivelled. “He’s been in there for so long now. They force people to talk. They torture them.”
“Why would they do that? They wouldn’t do that to James. They know what he does. The authorities seen it already.”
Isobel leant back and wiped her eyes. “They do it because they can do it. Bedlam doesn’t care what the authorities think. They do what they want in there.” She attempted to wipe away the damp tear stains on Jessica’s blouse with the sleeve of her coat.
“That’s all right love.” Jessica produced a cotton handkerchief from her skirt pocket. “What we hear about Bedlam is just stories.”
“I had a chain round my ankle, and they hit me if I tried to move.”
“Blimey.”
“I don’t know which was worse really.”
“What?” Jessica dabbed at the stain.
“That, or William giving me opiates to make me talk.”
“No!”
“I didn’t know if I was asleep or awake half the time. How do I know if I didn’t say something to make everything look as if it were all James’s fault, and now he’s in that terrible place being tortured? Just because we fell in love doesn’t mean that he’s to blame for everything I did. I wanted to do Classical Beauties, James didn’t force me, but William can’t see it like that.”
“Sounds like your brother’s the nutter to me. Hey up, look who it is.”
Gregor appeared in the doorway and picked his way through the workmen as he came towards them. He pulled up a stool and sat down.
Isobel gulped and sniffed to clear her throat. The workmen had mellowed. Alcohol fumes and smoke wreathed their slumped bodies.
“Gregor,” she whispered. “Have you seen this?”
She turned the paper round, and pushed it towards him. “British soldiers are in Turkey fighting the Russians. Keep your voice down. If that lot hear you, they’ll lynch you.”
“Oh yeah.” Jessica adjusted her blouse and flicked back her hair. “I hear this all over. Don’t care for it myself. All this fighting. Killing each other. What’s it prove? Just makes for more trouble that someone else has to sort out, and then they starts fighting all over again.”
“I hear about this now.” Gregor pushed the paper back.
Isobel reached across and grasped his arm. “What you going to do? You can’t stay in London.”
Gregor covered his mouth and muttered; “I have safe place. Many Russians there, but no one knows. You come too?”
She released her grip, surprised by this unexpected offer. So far, Gregor’s help had kept her safe. She hadn’t thought about how she might survive in London. Trust to luck and hope for the best, but of course that wasn’t practical. “I—I don’t know.” Jessica had lodgings, but without any money to offer her, it didn’t seem fair.
“You are friend,” Gregor whispered.
His evil lopsided smile looked more like a snarl. She had to keep reminding herself that he couldn’t help it.
“My brothers and sisters help you,” he reassured her.
She squeezed his hand. “I would like that very much, thank you Gregor.” Who were all these brothers and sisters? He had only talked about a brother.
Jessica plumped out her skirt, and the scent of sweet rosewater wafted across the table. “Isobel says James is in the madhouse. You seen him?”
Gregor shook his head.
“Don’t want to leave him in there too long. If you’re not mad when you go in, you will be when you come out.”