"I thought the slaves were black," he merely said. "Except the odd convict, naturally. Negers out of Africa."
"Aye, Negroe or Irish mainly, although to be an orphan in the port of Liverpool, or Bristol, so I'm told, is a very dangerous thing, an orphan or a bastard or a whore without protection. Our spirit, the one who had his throat cut in Hailsham High Street and my father and my family died for, had a special trick of relieving henpecked husbands of their shrewish wives, or disappearing drunkards and other feckless fellows who had outstayed their welcome in the marriage bed. But mainly innocents. The young and silly and the poor and weak. Poor father would have relished saving them. He was a man for moral things."
The moon was gone, but up ahead of them something was glittering, not constantly but there. Inn lights, maybe, or houses through the trees.
"What o'clock do you suppose it is?" asked Holt. "You do not have a timepiece, do you? I wonder, if Richard Kaye is not on board, if we would be, in fact, too late ourselves." He grinned. "I mean the gay house," he said. "Your old friend Dr. Marigold! Could you stand a little whoring, after all?"
"God, Sam!" said William, covered in confusion. "God, Sam, you are an odd fish! You talk of morals, your father righting wrongs, and then you talk of whoring in one breath! But truly, I know nothing of that pastime, nothing."
"What of that maid, then?" Samuel mocked. "The one you glued to on your horse and couldn't take your eyes off, hot as coals? Deb, was it? There are better whores than Deb at Dr. Marigold's!"
"There you are!" cried William. "First moral talk, then you debase that poor child, you slander her on no excuse at all! You are a cynic after all! Why call her a whore? What of poor Cecily, who has lost her teeth? Is she a whore?"
Sam Holt was not all hard-case sailor man. His cynicism might run deep enough, but he recognised Will's hurt and hurt ability and reined back his exuberance. While marvelling at a Navy officer so naive about so prime a Navy interest.
"William," he said. "Don't take on so, it's only half in jest. Look, man, the flesh and pleasure are not problems, we must take pleasure where we can, and when. It's like sleep to seamen, is it not we must snatch a half a second, however hard the weather, or we'd never sleep. So Cec is not a whore, or if she is, a most unusual one to sell her teeth for five pound once, and not her body, which is a time and time again commodity. How long will five pound last, think you?"
William felt sick at heart. Better, surely, to have sold her body.
"Five pounds?" It came out faintly. Samuel shrugged.
"A guess. Five for her, more for the mountebank, perhaps? More than she would have got him as a toy among the ruffians that we were threatened with. Or perhaps he is a spirit, also. Perhaps the alternative he offered was a cruise to Maryland or Massachusetts. He would sell her, and Deb as well presumably, to the captain of a transport, who would sell them on for servitude or slavery when they reached the Colonies. They realise now, I warrant, they'd have been better stuck in Stockport, making hats."
Will said nothing. The beauty of Deb, in his memory, was faded. His back ached, his behind and legs ached, in his heart just dull regret for both the maids.
"I don't mean Deb's a whore, or Cecily, but if they have to be, what of it, it's the times," said Sam Holt, quietly. "They are maidens, women, just human creatures like ourselves, who must eat or die. What were they doing with the mountebank? How desperate must you be to sell your teeth, how desperate to track down two hundred miles or three to earn a living? A living, Will, think of the word, think what it means, a living. How much do you have in a year? Thirty? Fifty? And the chance to earn some more, even the chance of prizes, although hardly in the Impress Service, but bounties do accrue if Kaye can be rousted into action. Deb and Cecily, even as whores, even with a full set of ivories '
"Sam," said Will. "Enough, I beg of you. Enough." Mrs. Houghton had said they'd left the north to seek adventure, had run away from dull routine. But every awful thing that Sam predicted for them must now be right. Except Sir Arthur Fisher would look after them. He had forgotten that.
Sam agreed, when he put this to him. Smiling, he agreed the maids were saved. But he still insisted ("I am a pedant, and a pedagogue!") that his friend should face the 'fine philosophy of the whole affair, and grasp it'. Which meant, it seemed, that Will must sleep with Deborah.
"You will allow," he told his silent companion, 'that to lie with a girl like that, for her to sell her body, might be quite wonderful, but would in no wise be important. We cannot marry whom we please, can we, but we have to do the other thing; you have to, William, you're a human, you're a man. And such girls, what do they do, such girls as Deb and Cecily? Their aim is not end up in the gutter if they can, but to marry someone rich and powerful, to marry or become the plaything, mistress, concubine, and it can happen, if they have the brains and beauty and the luck. But most of them, they do end in the gutter, don't they? If you lie with Deb, and give her money, you ward off that evil day, you leave her with her chances open, well fed, well dressed, with prospects. It is your duty, man, your duty. To keep her from the gutter!"
No need for answer. Sam, once more, had made himself content by flight of fancy, then moved on merrily. William, slightly ashamed, caught himself in the thought that Deborah was safe at Sir Arthur Fisher's house, and he and Sam had horses that might be returned there, if the time allowed. With the thought a quick remembrance of those eyes, that hair, that face, despite the knowledge that she meant nothing to him, absolutely nothing, and he much less to her, it was all a dream. To Cecily, poor Cec, he apportioned not a thought. Deborah was safe.
Later that night, though, in the pitch-black early hours, Deb left her warm, soft bed with Cecily, still drunk with brandy, still bleeding, still in pain, and crept down through the servants' rooms and out into the dim back yard. Deb had noted earlier where the nearest dogs were, and where the animals, and where the stables, and where she might find an ass or a mule. The run was not an easy one, nor was it particularly hard, although poor Cecily could only stumble clumsily, letting out small cries when jogged. Deb had run before, especially in the last two months, not always with the mountebank directing. Her latest run had been that day, while Cec had screamed and weltered with his cruel hands in her mouth, and Milady had lain silent, white-faced and stoical, waiting for the plugging in of her new teeth. Deb, almost as drunk as Cecily, had known then that she'd never do it, no, not even for a thousand pounds, and seized an opportunity amid the blood and shrieking to slip out and get away. Not far and not for long. Dennett knew he would find her, that she could not leave her friend despite this small betrayal, and he was right. But Deborah could run with Cecily. They were getting good at it.
Perhaps outside the park, both knew, the mountebank was lurking. Perhaps he'd gathered men to hunt them down, perhaps this run would be a short one, not a great escape. But Deb was eaten up with shame at her abandonment, and she had a great determination. After half an hour, with Cecily on the ass and her ahead, they were a mile away at least, heading north, sometimes on the road, more often near the edge of cover. They had liked Sir Arthur's house, and his kindness, and Mrs. Houghton and her girls and men. But the magistrate had paid for more than he had got, and Marcus Dennett would be made to suffer surely, if Deb's teeth should be needed and could not be had. In any way, Dennett would say he owned them, they were his, and he would have somehow come to the great house and got them, by force or trickery, there was no doubt of that.