The portal vanished the instant we stepped onto Westminster Bridge, and apart from the rhythmic sloshing of the Thames, the bridge was eerily silent. We had decided to arrive late to minimise the chance of anyone seeing us. A distant clock struck midnight, and yet another hard day began for the less fortunate in London.
The prosperous middle classes lived in comfortable houses and ate well; the upper classes lived on great estates and ate magnificently; modest clerks would have at least one house servant; and the aristocratic upper classes with inherited titles and vast swathes of inherited land employed legions of domestic servants to be at their call day and night for a pittance of a wage.
Most employers regarded the people who made their fires and scrubbed their floors as sub-human and quoted their often-unwashed appearance as evidence of a lower species. In truth, servants worked so hard and so long that they had little time or access to proper bathing facilities or even the opportunity to launder their clothing.
However, it is possible to argue that they were the lucky ones. Their employers gave them food and shelter, compared to the many who lived in hovels or on the streets, where depravity and vice characterised a short and often brutal life. A shameful state of affairs for a hugely wealthy Christian country with a worldwide reputation for upholding high moral standards of justice and decency.
I raised the collar of my overcoat in a token gesture to separate myself from the hypocrisy of this world and vowed to leave as quickly as possible once we found David Copperfield.
The mist was not yet a full fog, but the air was so damp and filthy that it was more difficult to bear than the cold. We wore thick clothing and scarves wrapped around our lower faces for protection and disguise, and we pulled our wide caps down low. When we were sure that our arrival had not raised an alarm, Jack signalled that we should start walking towards the Lambeth end of the bridge. We crossed the bridge in silence and reached the other side without seeing another person.
Jack had told me it was a thirty-minute walk to the Sheep's Head, and we kept in the shadows and away from the lights of streetlamps. It was very dark, and I unwittingly stumbled against the body of a woman sitting on the steps of a large warehouse.
"Sorry."
I apologised automatically, but she didn't even look up and stared resolutely at the floor, too weak and disheartened to even raise a word of protest. Her clothes were old and shabby, and she clutched a bundle of clothing close to her chest.
"A crawler," said Jack dismissively. "Come on, Peregrine; we need to keep going."
"But we can't just leave her," I protested.
"What do you want to do? Bring her with us? There are a hundred like her on these streets tonight, 'crawlers,' as we call them, mostly women who have sunk so low that they don't even have the energy to beg."
I bent down beside her and saw that her eyes were flickering like a person on the verge of sleep.
"They never sleep properly," said Jack, but doze like that all the time, which is another name for the poor sods, 'dozers,' or 'dossers.' They live inside their heads, a safe place where they can forget their worries until hunger or thirst wakes them up. A boot from a copper likely serves the same purpose, or some lush on the town, mistaking her doorway for a privy."
I put my arm around her shoulders, and she managed to raise her face and look at me.
She was not frightened but resigned to her fate.
Let the world do what it wants.
The bundle in her arms squirmed, and she pulled back her shawl to reveal the face of a malnourished child of about six months. It, too, had lost its ability to protest, and only a dry whimper escaped its lips.
The woman reached into her shawl and pulled out a dirty bottle of milk, half full. Taking off the top, she dangled a scrap of thick material into the milk and allowed it to absorb the liquid.
Trying not to spill any of the precious milk, she transferred the wet thread into the mouth of the baby, who sucked at it feebly. She then wrapped the baby back into her shawl and resealed the milk bottle without taking a drop to dampen her own cracked lips.
"How can this be allowed to happen?"
Jack shrugged his shoulders and said, "Bad luck mostly. I have seen it all before. A month ago, a widowed woman down Leith Street threw herself and her baby into the river. Her husband fell off a rotten plank and killed himself while painting an upstairs window in a factory. She had no money to pay the rent, so the landlord evicted her. She had no relatives, and she preferred taking a jump off Westminster Bridge to the workhouse. It happens all the time."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a sovereign to give to the woman, but Jack stopped me.
"Not a sov. Governor. They will take it off her and say she stole it. Something smaller if you've got it."
I had come well-equipped with a large amount of currency, and I took out a handful of silver and copper.
"That's better," said Jack. "Stick it in her pocket; she will find it soon enough. There we go," he said, throwing in a coin of his own.
"A bob for the baby. For all the good, it will do the little basket. The truth is, it would be better off dying now than the life it's got in front of it."
"Things have got to change, Jack. . . "
I never got the chance to finish my sentence as two thugs brandishing cudgels came out of the darkness and threw themselves upon us. I managed to deflect the blow aimed at my head, but the cudgel hit my arm, and the pain was intense.
"Don't go down, Peregrine. Stay on your feet!" shouted Jack, who had side-stepped the man attacking him and now viciously struck his would-be assailant on the back of the neck with a weighted cosh.
The man went down, but his partner struck out at me again, and I fell into a heap. In an instant, he was upon me with his knees pressing me to the ground and his cudgel raised to finish me off for good. From the corner of my eye, I saw Jack running to help, but it was too late, and I braced myself against the coming blow that would surely kill me. Then there was a thud and the sound of breaking glass, and my assailant toppled backwards.
I scrabbled to my feet and saw the vagrant woman standing over the thief with the neck of the broken milk bottle still in her hand and the baby clutched to her chest. She was barely twenty years old.
"Well, missus," Jack said, "I reckon we owe you one for that."
"It was nothing," she said. "I was paying back your gift. It's the first act of human kindness I've felt in a long time. Now you'd better be on your way."
"She's right, Peregrine; the mug hunters ain't foxing, but they'll be awake soon enough. Thanks again, Missus," he said to the woman. "Do the same for you sometime."
I stood my ground.
"Wait, Jack, we can't just leave her here on her own."
"Peregrine," said Jack, "ain't you got no sense at all? These coves have mates looking out for them, and we won't be so lucky next time."
I heard a horse-drawn cab coming, and I hailed it down without thinking. The driver stopped but started to move off again when he saw the two bodies on the ground. I grabbed the horse by its reins and pulled it to a halt.
"Now, mister," said the Cabby, "I don't want this sort of business. Just let my horse go, and I'll be on my way."
"You don't understand, sir," I said, doing my best to sound like a gentleman.
"The cab is not for us, but for this young lady. These villains were assaulting her before my manservant, and I floored them for their impudence. We now await the arrival of the constabulary. I sent my servant to summon them post-haste. The lady wants no part of this, and I want you to drive her to the Imperial Hotel in Lanchester Lane. Here is a guinea above your normal fare for any inconvenience."
The cabby hesitated, then touched his cap and took the coin.
"Thank you, sir; if the lady will get aboard, we will be on our way."
The fog was still dense enough to prevent him from seeing her appearance in any detail, and I quickly bustled her into the cab.
"What is your name, ma'am?" I asked.
"Milly, sir," she replied.
"Well, Milly. On your arrival at the hotel, ask for the proprietor and say that a friend of Mr Wickfield and his daughter, who left recently, requires that he give you full board and lodging and offer five guineas in advance until his return. Here is the coin for your fare and more for your purse. There is no time for questions. Will you do as I say?"
"Yes, sir," she said wide-eyed, "and may I ask your name, sir?"
"Peregrine",
I noticed that she was shivering uncontrollably in the chilly night air.
"Here", I said. "Take my cloak and wrap it around you for warmth and to cover your stained dress. Ask the manager to send visitors up to your room for you and the child when you arrive. Tomorrow, you must shop for respectable clothes for yourself and the baby. Take time to rest at the hotel. Ask for anything you want and put it on my account. Speak as little as possible and say nothing of your circumstances; only that I will explain everything on my return."
"But sir…"
"Safe journey, Milly."
I hailed the cabbie to drive on, and I watched from the pavement as the single red lamp hanging on the back of his cab disappeared into the darkness.
"Well, you are a mystery, and that's the truth, Peregrine. What are you doing, giving your cloak away? Now you're going to freeze to death."
"This jacket is warm enough for me, Jack. Now less of your lip and get us to the 'Sheep's Head' as quick as you like."