" 'Course. Wot else can I do wif 'em? Can't carry no passengers 'ere."
The bell was answered by a child of about ten, and the woman sent her off to fetch three girls she named.
"Now, Mr. Meacham," she resumed. "Let's talk money. This place don't run on fresh air. An' like you said, I gotta feed the useless ones as well as the ones wot'U find places."
"Let's see them first," he argued. He could not bear to think of the wretched children who would be paraded in front of him, like farm animals for him to bid on; he knew he could take none of them. "How long have you been here?"
"Thirty years. I know me job, Mr. Meacham, never you fear."
"That's what I heard. But I want to be sure what I'm getting. I don't want any unpleasant surprises... when it's too late to bring them back."
"You won't!" she said sharply, narrowing her eyes. "Wot you 'eard, then? Someone blackenin' me name?"
"I heard you took in some pretty badly deformed girls in the past... real freaks." He hated using the word.
"When was that, then?" she demanded. " 'Oo said that?"
"Long time ago... more than twenty years," he replied.
"So I did, then," she agreed reluctantly. "But it was then-faces wot was twisted up. See it as quick as look at 'em, yer did. Didn't fool nobody fer an instant."
"Why did you take them?" he pressed, although he knew the answer.
" 'Cos I were paid!" she snapped. "Wot jer think? But it were all legal! An' I don't cheat no one. No one can say as I did. Sold 'em for exactly wot they was-ugly and stupid- both. I were quite plain about it."
"No one has said you weren't," he replied coldly. "So far as I am aware. I should still like to know what happened to the Jackson girls. I am acquainted with their only living relative, who might be... obliged... if they were located." He rubbed his fingers together suggestively at the word obliged.
"Ah..." She was obviously considering her possible advantage in the matter. She glanced at his polished boots, his beautiful jacket, and lastly at his face with its keen, hard lines, and judged him to be a man with a sharp eye to money and a much less discriminating one to principle-like herself. "When they was old enough ter work, I sent 'em ter the kitchens at the pub."
"Coopers Arms?" he said hopefully.
"Yeah. But they din't keep 'em. Too ugly even fer 'im. I dunno wot e' did wi' them, but you could ask 'im."
"How long ago is that? Ten years?"
"Ten years?" she said scornfully. "Yer think I'm made o' money? Fifteen years, an' I waited even then. They was six an' eight. That's plenty old ter fetch fer yerself. I'd 'a sent 'em sooner if they 'adn't bin so daft. Thought they might grow out of it an' 'ave a better chance." She prided herself on her charity.
"Thank you." He stood up, straightening his coat.
Her face fell. "Wot abaht them girls? Yer'll not find better anyw'ere, nor at a better price!"
"I've changed my mind," he said with an icy smile. "I've decided I'd like plain girls after all. Thank you for your time."
She swore at him with a string of language he had not heard since his last visit to the slums of the Devil's Acre. He walked out of the door with a positive swagger, until he saw the girls lined up in the passage, scrubbed clean, their hair tied back, their thin faces alight with hope. Then instead he felt sick.
"I'm sorry," he apologized. "You're fine. I've just changed my mind." And he hurried away before he could think of it anymore.
It was close enough to noon that he could comfortably walk up to the Coopers Arms and order luncheon and casually make enquiries about the Jackson girls. Could it, after all, be so ridiculously easy that they were still in the immediate neighborhood? It was foolish to hope, and he was not even sure if he wanted to. It might easily bring Martha Jackson more distress. But it was not his job to foresee that and make decisions for her.
Was it?
He had knowledge she could not have. In telling her or not telling her, he was in effect making the decision.
He walked briskly in the bright sunlight up Putney High Street. It was full of people, mostly going about their business of buying or selling, haggling