The only thing she couldn’t accept so easily was the manservant’s eerie mental silence.
“How is your mother?” Sarah asked, since yesterday Nan had confessed that Aggie been “on a tear” and had consumed, or so Nan feared, something stronger and more dangerous than gin.
Nan shook her head. “I dunno,” she replied reluctantly. “Aggie didn’ wake up when I went out. Tha’s not roight, she us’lly at least waked up t’foind out wha’ I got. She don’ half loik them baskets, ’cause it means I don’ go beggin’ as much.”
“And if you don’t beg money, she can’t drink,” Sarah observed shrewdly. “You hate begging, don’t you?”
“Mostly I don’ like gettin’ kicked an’ cursed at,” Nan temporized. “It ain’t loik I’m gettin’ underfoot . . .”
But Sarah’s questions were coming too near the bone, tonight, and Nan didn’t want to have to deal with them. She got to her feet and picked up her basket. “I gotter go,” she said abruptly.
Sarah rose from her seat on the bench and gave Nan a penetrating look. Nan had the peculiar feeling that the child was looking at her thoughts, and deciding whether or not to press her further. “All right,” Sarah said. “It is getting dark.”
It wasn’t, but Nan wasn’t about to pass up the offer of a graceful exit. “’Tis, that,” she said promptly, and squeezed through the narrow opening Karamjit had left in the gate.
But she had not gone four paces when two rough-looking men in shabby tweed jackets blocked her path. “You Nan Killian?” said one hoarsely. Then when Nan stared at him blankly, added, “Aggie Killian’s girl?”
The answer was surprised out of her; she hadn’t been expecting such a confrontation, and she hadn’t yet managed to sort herself out. “Ye—es,” she said slowly.
“Good,” the first man grunted. “Yer Ma sent us; she’s gone t’ a new place, an’ she wants us t’show y’ the way.”
Now, several thoughts flew through Nan’s mind at that moment. The first was, that as they were paid up on the rent through the end of the week, she could not imagine Aggie ever vacating before the time was up. The second was, that even if Aggie had set up somewhere else, she would never have sent a pair of strangers to find Nan.
And third was that Aggie had turned to a more potent intoxicant than gin—which meant she would need a deal more money. And Aggie had only one thing left to sell.
Nan.
Their minds were such a roil that she couldn’t “hear” any distinct thoughts, but it was obvious that they meant her no good.
“Wait a minnit—” Nan said, her voice trembling a little as she backed away from the two men, edging around them to get to the street. “Did’jer say Aggie Killian’s gel? Me Ma ain’t called Killian, yer got th’ wrong gel—”
It was at that moment that one of the men lunged for her with a curse. He had his hands nearly on her, and would have gotten her, too, except for one bit of interference.
Sarah came shooting out of the gate like a little bullet. She body-slammed the fellow, going into the back of his knees and knocking him right off his feet. She danced out of the way as he fell in the nick of time, ran to Nan, and caught her hand, tugging her towards the street. “Run!” she commanded imperiously, and Nan ran.
The two of them scrabbled through the dark alleys and twisted streets without any idea where they were, only that they had to shake off their pursuers. Unfortunately, the time that Nan would have put into learning her new neighborhood like the back of her grimy little hand had been put into talking with Sarah, and before too long, even Nan was lost in the maze of dark, fetid streets. Then their luck ran out altogether, and they found themselves staring at the blank wall of a building, in a dead-end cul-de-sac.
They whirled around, hoping to escape before they were trapped, but it was already too late. The bulky silhouettes of the two men loomed against the fading light at the end of the street.
“Oo’s yer friend, ducky?” the first man purred. “Think she’d loik t’come with?”
To Nan’s astonishment, Sarah stood straight and tall, and even stepped forward a pace. “I think you ought to go away and leave us alone,” she said clearly. “You’re going to find yourselves in a lot of trouble.”
The talkative man laughed. “Them’s big words from such a little gel,” he mocked. “We ain’t leavin’ wi’out we collect what’s ours, an’ a bit more fer th’ trouble yer caused.”
Nan was petrified with fear, shaking in every limb, as Sarah stepped back, putting her back to the damp wall. As the first man touched Sarah’s arm, she shrieked out a single word.
“Grey!”
As Sarah cried out the name of her pet, Nan let loose a wordless prayer for something, anything, to come to their rescue.
Something screamed behind the man; startled and distracted for a moment, he turned. For a moment, a fluttering shape obscured his face, and he screamed in pain. He shook his head, violently.
“Get it off!” he screamed at his partner. “Get it off!”
“Get what off?” the man said, bewildered. “There ain’t nothin’ there!”
The man clawed frantically at the front of his face, but whatever had attacked him had vanished without a trace. But not before leading more substantial help to the rescue.
Out of the dusk and the first wisps of fog, Karamjit and another swarthy man ran on noiseless feet. In their hands were cudgels which they used to good purpose on the two who opposed them. Nor did they waste any effort, clubbing the two senseless with a remarkable economy of motion.
Then, without a single word, each of the men scooped up a girl in his arms, and bore them back to the school. At that point, finding herself safe in the arms of an unlooked-for rescuer, Nan felt secure enough to break down into hysterical tears.
Nor was that the end of it; she found herself bundled up into the sacred precincts of the school itself, plunged into the first hot bath of her life, wrapped in a clean flannel gown, and put into a real bed. Sarah was in a similar bed beside her. As she sat there, numb, a plain-looking woman with beautiful eyes came and sat down on the foot of Sarah’s bed, and looked from one to the other of them.
“Well,” the lady said at last, “what have you two to say for yourselves?”
Nan couldn’t manage anything, but that was all right, since Sarah wasn’t about to let her get in a word anyway. The child jabbered like a monkey, a confused speech about Nan’s mother, the men she’d sold Nan to, the virtue of Charity, the timely appearance of Grey, and a great deal more besides. The lady listened and nodded, and when Sarah ran down at last, she turned to Nan.
“I believe Sarah is right in one thing,” she said gravely. “I believe we will have to keep you. Now, both of you—sleep.”
And to Nan’s surprise, she fell asleep immediately.
But that was not the end to the story. A month later, Sarah’s mother arrived, with Grey in a cage. Nan had, by then, found a place where she could listen to what went on in the best parlor without being found, and she glued her ear to the crack in the pantry to listen when Sarah was taken into that hallowed room.
“—found Grey senseless beside her perch,” Sarah’s mother was saying. “I thought it was a fit, but the Shaman swore that Sarah was in trouble and the bird had gone to help. Grey awoke none the worse, and I would have thought nothing more of the incident, until your message arrived.”