Cast Adrift

T >> T. S. Arthur >> Cast Adrift

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"Ho! it's Pinky Swett!" cried a girl, pressing toward her. "Hi,
Pinky! what's the matter? What's up?"

"Norah pitched her out! I saw it!" screamed a boy, one of the young
thieves that harbored in the quarter.

"It's a lie!" Pinky answered back as she confronted the crowd.

At this moment another boy, who had come up behind Pinky, gave her
dress so violent a jerk that she fell over backward on the pavement,
striking her head on a stone and cutting it badly. She lay there,
unable to rise, the crowd laughing with as much enjoyment as if
witnessing a dog-fight.

"Give her a dose of mud!" shouted one of the boys; and almost as
soon as the words were out of his mouth her face was covered with a
paste of filthy dirt from the gutter. This, instead of exciting
pity, only gave a keener zest to the show. The street rang with
shouts and peals of merriment, bringing a new and larger crowd to
see the fun. With them came one or two policemen.

Seeing that it was only a drunken woman, they pushed back the crowd
and raised her to her feet. As they did so the blood streamed from
the back of her head and stained her dress to the waist. She was
taken to the nearest station-house.

At eleven o'clock on the next morning, punctual to the minute, came
Mrs. Dinneford to the little third-story room in which she had met
Mrs. Bray. She repeated her rap at the door before it was opened,
and noticed that a key was turned in the lock.

"You have seen the woman?" she said as she took an offered seat,
coming at once to the object of her visit.

"Yes."

"Well?"

"I gave her the money."

"Well?"

Mrs. Bray shook her head:

"Afraid I can't do much with her."

"Why?" an anxious expression coming into Mrs. Dinneford's face.

"These people suspect everybody; there is no honor nor truth in
them, and they judge every one by themselves. She half accused me of
getting a larger amount of money from you, and putting her off with
the paltry sum of thirty dollars."

Mrs. Bray looked exceedingly hurt and annoyed.

"Threatened," she went on, "to go to you herself--didn't want any
go-betweens nor brokers. I expected to hear you say that she'd been
at your house this morning."

"Good Gracious! no!" Mrs. Dinneford's face was almost distorted with
alarm.

"It's the way with all these people," coolly remarked Mrs. Bray.
"You're never safe with them."

"Did you hint at her leaving the city?--going to New Orleans, for
instance?"

"Oh dear, no! She isn't to be managed in that way--is deeper and
more set than I thought. The fact is, Mrs. Dinneford"--and Mrs. Bray
lowered her voice and looked shocked and mysterious--"I'm beginning
to suspect her as being connected with a gang."

"With a gang? What kind of a gang?" Mrs. Dinneford turned slightly
pale.

"A gang of thieves. She isn't the right thing; I found that out long
ago. You remember what I said when you gave her the child. I told
you that she was not a good woman, and that it was a cruel thing to
put a helpless, new-born baby into her hands."

"Never mind about that." Mrs. Dinneford waved her hand impatiently.
"The baby's out of her hands, so far as that is concerned. A gang of
thieves!"

"Yes, I'm 'most sure of it. Goes to people's houses on one excuse
and another, and finds out where the silver is kept and how to get
in. You don't know half the wickedness that's going on. So you see
it's no use trying to get her away."

Mrs. Bray was watching the face of her visitor with covert scrutiny,
gauging, as she did so, by its weak alarms, the measure of her power
over her.

"Dreadful! dreadful!" ejaculated Mrs. Dinneford, with dismay.

"It's bad enough," said Mrs. Bray, "and I don't see the end of it.
She's got you in her power, and no mistake, and she isn't one of the
kind to give up so splendid an advantage. I'm only surprised that
she's kept away so long."

"What's to be done about it?" asked Mrs. Dinneford, her alarm and
distress increasing.

"Ah! that's more than I can tell," coolly returned Mrs. Bray. "One
thing is certain--I don't want to have anything more to do with her.
It isn't safe to let her come here. You'll have to manage her
yourself."

"No, no, no, Mrs. Bray! You mustn't desert me!" answered Mrs.
Dinneford, her face growing pallid with fear. "Money is of no
account. I'll pay 'most anything, reasonable or unreasonable, to
have her kept away."

And she drew out her pocket-book while speaking. At this moment
there came two distinct raps on the door. It had been locked after
Mrs. Dinneford's entrance. Mrs. Bray started and changed
countenance, turning her face quickly from observation. But she was
self-possessed in an instant. Rising, she said in a whisper,

"Go silently into the next room, and remain perfectly still. I
believe that's the woman now. I'll manage her as best I can."

Almost as quick as thought, Mrs. Dinneford vanished through a door
that led into an adjoining room, and closing it noiselessly, turned
a key that stood in the lock, then sat down, trembling with nervous
alarm. The room in which she found herself was small, and overlooked
the street; it was scantily furnished as a bed-room. In one corner,
partly hid by a curtain that hung from a hoop fastened to the wall,
was an old wooden chest, such as are used by sailors. Under the bed,
and pushed as far back as possible, was another of the same kind.
The air of the room was close, and she noticed the stale smell of a
cigar.

A murmur of voices from the room she had left so hastily soon
reached her ears; but though she listened intently, standing close
to the door, she was not able to distinguish a word. Once or twice
she was sure that she heard the sound of a man's voice. It was
nearly a quarter of an hour by her watch--it seemed two
hours--before Mrs. Bray's visitor or visitors retired; then there
came a light rap on the door. She opened it, and stood face to face
again with the dark-eyed little woman.

"You kept me here a long time," said Mrs. Dinneford, with
ill-concealed impatience.

"No longer than I could help," replied Mrs. Bray. "Affairs of this
kind are not settled in a minute."

"Then it was that miserable woman?"

"Yes."

"Well, what did you make out of her?"

"Not much; she's too greedy. The taste of blood has sharpened her
appetite."

"What does she want?"

"She wants two hundred dollars paid into her hand to-day, and says
that if the money isn't here by sundown, you'll have a visit from
her in less than an hour afterward."

"Will that be the end of it?"

A sinister smile curved Mrs. Bray's lips slightly.

"More than I can say," she answered.

"Two hundred dollars?"

"Yes. She put the amount higher, but I told her she'd better not go
for too big a slice or she might get nothing--that there was such a
thing as setting the police after her. She laughed at this in such a
wicked, sneering way that I felt my flesh creep, and said she knew
the police, and some of their masters, too, and wasn't afraid of
them. She's a dreadful woman;" and Mrs. Bray shivered in a very
natural manner.

"If I thought this would be the last of it!" said Mrs. Dinneford as
she moved about the room in a disturbed way, and with an anxious
look on her face.

"Perhaps," suggested her companion, "it would be best for you to
grapple with this thing at the outset--to take our vampire by the
throat and strangle her at once. The knife is the only remedy for
some forms of disease. If left to grow and prey upon the body, they
gradually suck away its life and destroy it in the end."

"If I only knew how to do it," replied Mrs. Dinneford. "If I could
only get her in my power, I'd make short works of her." Her eyes
flashed with a cruel light.

"It might be done."

"How?"

"Mr. Dinneford knows the chief of police."

The light went out of Mrs. Dinneford's eyes:

"It can't be done in that way, and you know it as well as I do."

Mrs. Dinneford turned upon Mrs. Bray sharply, and with a gleam of
suspicion in her face.

"I don't know any other way, unless you go to the chief yourself,"
replied Mrs. Bray, coolly. "There is no protection in cases like
this except through the law. Without police interference, you are
wholly in this woman's power."

Mrs. Dinneford grew very pale.

"It is always dangerous," went on Mrs. Bray, "to have anything to do
with people of this class. A woman who for hire will take a new-born
baby and sell it to a beggar-woman will not stop at anything. It is
very unfortunate that you are mixed up with her."

"I'm indebted to you for the trouble," replied. Mrs. Dinneford, with
considerable asperity of manner. "You ought to have known something
about the woman before employing her in a delicate affair of this
kind."

"Saints don't hire themselves to put away new-born babies," retorted
Mrs. Bray, with an ugly gurgle in her throat. "I told you at the
time that she was a bad woman, and have not forgotten your answer."

"What did I answer?"

"That she might be the devil for all you cared!"

"You are mistaken."

"No; I repeat your very words. They surprised and shocked me at the
time, and I have not forgotten them. People who deal with the devil
usually have the devil to pay; and your case, it seems, is not to be
an exception."

Mrs. Bray had assumed an air of entire equality with her visitor.

A long silence followed, during which Mrs. Dinneford walked the
floor with the quick, restless motions of a caged animal.

"How long do you think two hundred dollars will satisfy her?" she
asked, at length, pausing and turning to her companion.

"It is impossible for me to say," was answered; "not long, unless
you can manage to frighten her off; you must threaten hard."

Another silence followed.

"I did not expect to be called on for so large a sum," Mrs.
Dinneford said at length, in a husky voice, taking out her
pocket-book as she spoke. "I have only a hundred dollars with me.
Give her that, and put her off until to-morrow."

"I will do the best I can with her," replied Mrs. Bray, reaching out
her hand for the money, "but I think it will be safer for you to let
me have the balance to-day. She will, most likely, take it into her
head that I have received the whole sum from you, and think I am
trying to cheat her. In that case she will be as good as her word,
and come down on you."

"Mrs. Bray!" exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, suspicion blazing from her
eyes. "Mrs. Bray!"--and she turned upon her and caught her by the
arms with a fierce grip--"as I live, you are deceiving me. There is
no woman but yourself. You are the vampire!"

She held the unresisting little woman in her vigorous grasp for some
moments, gazing at her in stern and angry accusation.

Mrs. Bray stood very quit and with scarcely a change of countenance
until this outburst of passion had subsided. She was still holding
the money she had taken from Mrs. Dinneford. As the latter released
her she extended her hand, saying, in a low resolute voice, in which
not the faintest thrill of anger could be detected,

"Take your money." She waited for a moment, and then let the little
roll of bank-bills fall at Mrs. Dinneford's feet and turned away.

Mrs. Dinneford had made a mistake, and she saw it--saw that she was
now more than ever in the power of this woman, whether she was true
or false. If false, more fatally in her power.

At this dead-lock in the interview between these women there came a
diversion. The sound of feet was heard on the stairs, then a
hurrying along the narrow passage; a hand was on the door, but the
key had been prudently turned on the inside.

With a quick motion, Mrs. Bray waved her hand toward the adjoining
chamber. Mrs. Dinneford did not hesitate, but glided in noiselessly,
shutting and locking the door behind her.

"Pinky Swett!" exclaimed Mrs. Bray, in a low voice, putting her
finger to her lips, as she admitted her visitor, at the same time
giving a warning glance toward the other room. Eyeing her from head
to foot, she added, "Well, you are an object!"

Pinky had drawn aside a close veil, exhibiting a bruised and swollen
face. A dark band lay under one of her eyes, and there was a cut
with red, angry margins on the cheek.

"You are an object," repeated Mrs. Bray as Pinky moved forward into
the room.

"Well, I am, and no mistake," answered Pinky, with a light laugh.
She had been drinking enough to overcome the depression and
discomfort of her feelings consequent on the hard usage she had
received and a night in one of the city station-houses. "Who's in
there?"

Mrs. Bray's finger went again to her lips. "No matter," was replied.
"You must go away until the coast is clear. Come back in half an
hour."

And she hurried Pinky out of the door, locking it as the girl
retired. When Mrs. Dinneford came out of the room into which he had
gone so hastily, the roll of bank-notes still lay upon the floor.
Mrs. Bray had prudently slipped them into her pocket before
admitting Pinky, but as soon as she was alone had thrown them down
again.

The face of Mrs. Dinneford was pale, and exhibited no ordinary signs
of discomfiture and anxiety.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"A friend," replied Mrs. Bray, in a cold, self-possessed manner.

A few moments of embarrassed silence followed. Mrs. Bray crossed the
room, touching with her foot the bank-bills, as if they were of no
account to her.

"I am half beside myself," said Mrs. Dinneford.

Mrs. Bray made no response, did not even turn toward her visitor.

"I spoke hastily."

"A vampire!" Mrs. Bray swept round upon her fiercely. "A
blood-sucker!" and she ground her teeth in well-feigned passion.

Mrs. Dinneford sat down trembling.

"Take your money and go," said Mrs. Bray, and she lifted the bills
from the floor and tossed them into her visitor's lap. "I am served
right. It was evil work, and good never comes of evil."

But Mrs. Dinneford did not stir. To go away at enmity with this
woman was, so far as she could see, to meet exposure and unutterable
disgrace. Anything but that.

"I shall leave this money, trusting still to your good offices," she
said, at length, rising. Her manner was much subdued. "I spoke
hastily, in a sort of blind desperation. We should not weigh too
carefully the words that are extorted by pain or fear. In less than
an hour I will send you a hundred dollars more."

Mrs. Dinneford laid the bank-bills on a table, and then moved to the
door, but she dared not leave in this uncertainty. Looking back, she
said, with an appealing humility of voice and manner foreign to her
character,

"Let us be friends still, Mrs. Bray; we shall gain nothing by being
enemies. I can serve you, and you can serve me. My suspicions were
ill founded. I felt wild and desperate, and hardly knew what I was
saying."

She stood anxiously regarding the little dark-eyed woman, who did
not respond by word or movement.

Taking her hand from the door she was about opening, Mrs. Dinneford
came back into the room, and stood close to Mrs. Bray:

"Shall I send you the money?"

"You can do as you please," was replied, with chilling indifference.

"Are you implacable?"

"I am not used to suspicion, much less denunciation and assault. A
vampire! Do you know what that means?"

"It meant, as used by me, only madness. I did not know what I was
saying. It was a cry of pain--nothing more. Consider how I stand,
how much I have at stake, in what a wretched affair I have become
involved. It is all new to me, and I am bewildered and at fault. Do
not desert me in this crisis. I must have some one to stand between
me and this woman; and if you step aside, to whom can I go?"

Mrs. Bray relented just a little. Mrs. Dinneford pleaded and
humiliated herself, and drifted farther into the toils of her
confederate.

"You are not rich, Mrs. Bray," she said, at parting, "independent in
spirit as you are. I shall add a hundred dollars for your own use;
and if ever you stand in need, you will know where to find an
unfailing friend."

Mrs. Bray put up her hands, and replied, "No, no, no; don't think of
such a thing. I am not mercenary. I never serve a friend for money."

But Mrs. Dinneford heard the "yes" which flushed into the voice that
said "no." She was not deceived.

A rapid change passed over Mrs. Bray on the instant her visitor left
the room. Her first act was to lock the door; her next, to take the
roll of bank-bills from the table and put it into her pocket. Over
her face a gleam of evil satisfaction had swept.

"Got you all right now, my lady!" fell with a chuckle from her lips.
"A vampire, ha!" The chuckle was changed for a kind of hiss. "Well,
have it so. There is rich blood in your veins, and it will be no
fault of mine if I do not fatten upon it. As for pity, you shall
have as much of it as you gave to that helpless baby. Saints don't
work in this kind of business, and I'm not a saint."

And she chuckled and hissed and muttered to herself, with many signs
of evil satisfaction.

CHAPTER VIII.

_FOR_ an hour Mrs. Bray waited the reappearance of Pinky Swett, but
the girl did not come back. At the end of this time a package which
had been left at the door was brought to her room. It came from Mrs.
Dinneford, and contained two hundred dollars. A note that
accompanied the package read as follows:

"Forgive my little fault of temper. It is your interest to be my
friend. The woman must not, on any account, be suffered to come near
me."

Of course there was no signature. Mrs. Bray's countenance was
radiant as she fingered the money.

"Good luck for me, but bad for the baby," she said, in a low,
pleased murmur, talking to herself. "Poor baby! I must see better to
its comfort. It deserves to be looked after. I wonder why Pinky
doesn't come?"

Mrs. Bray listened, but no sound of feet from the stairs or entries,
no opening or shutting of doors, broke the silence that reigned
through the house.

"Pinky's getting too low down--drinks too much; can't count on her
any more." Mrs. Bray went on talking to herself. "No rest; no quiet;
never satisfied; for ever knocking round, and for ever getting the
worst of it. She was a real nice girl once, and I always liked her.
But she doesn't take any care of herself."

As Pinky went out, an hour before, she met a fresh-looking girl, not
over seventeen, and evidently from the country. She was standing on
the pavement, not far from the house in which Mrs. Bray lived, and
had a traveling-bag in her hand. Her perplexed face and uncertain
manner attracted Pinky's attention.

"Are you looking for anybody?" she asked.

"I'm trying to find a Mrs. Bray," the girl answered. "I'm a stranger
from the country."

"Oh, you are?" said Pinky, drawing her veil more tightly so that her
disfigured face could not be seen.

"Yes I'm from L----."

"Indeed? I used to know some people there."

"Then you've been in L----?" said the girl, with a pleased, trustful
manner, as of one who had met a friend at the right time.

"Yes, I've visited there."

"Indeed? Who did you know in L----?"

"Are you acquainted with the Cartwrights?"

"I know of them. They are among our first people," returned the
girl.

"I spent a week in their family a few years ago, and had a very
pleasant time," said Pinky.

"Oh, I'm glad to know that," remarked the girl. "I'm a stranger
here; and if I can't find Mrs. Bray, I don't see what I am to do. A
lady from here who was staying at the hotel gave me at letter to
Mrs. Bray. I was living at the hotel, but I didn't like it; it was
too public. I told the lady that I wanted to learn a trade or get
into a store, and she said the city was just the place for me, and
that she would give me a letter to a particular friend, who would,
on her recommendation, interest he self for me. It's somewhere along
here that she lived, I'm sure;" and she took a letter from her
pocket and examined the direction.

The girl was fresh and young and pretty, and had an artless,
confiding manner. It was plain she knew little of the world, and
nothing of its evils and dangers.

"Let me see;" and Pinky reached out her hand for the letter. She put
it under her veil, and read,

"MRS. FANNY BRAY, "No. 631----street, "----

"By the hand of Miss Flora Bond."

"Flora Bond," said Pinky, in a kind, familiar tone.

"Yes, that is my name," replied the girl; "isn't this----street?"

"Yes; and there, is the number you are looking for."

"Oh, thank you! I'm so glad to find the place. I was beginning to
feel scared."

"I will ring the bell for you," said Pinky, going to the door of No.
631. A servant answered the summons.

"Is Mrs. Bray at home?" inquired Pinky.

"I don't know," replied the servant, looking annoyed. "Her rooms are
in the third story;" and she held the door wide open for them to
enter. As they passed into the hall Pinky said to her companion,

"Just wait here a moment, and I will run up stairs and see if she is
in."

The girl stood in the hall until Pinky came back.

"Not at home, I'm sorry to say."

"Oh dear! that's bad; what shall I do?" and the girl looked
distressed.

"She'll be back soon, no doubt," said Pinky, in a light, assuring
voice. "I'll go around with you a little and see things."

The girl looked down at her traveling-bag.

"Oh, that's nothing; I'll help you to carry it;" and Pinky took it
from her hand.

"Couldn't we leave it here?" asked Flora.

"It might not be safe; servants are not always to be trusted, and
Mrs. Bray's rooms are locked; we can easily carry it between us. I'm
strong--got good country blood in my veins. You see I'm from the
country as well as you; right glad we met. Don't know what you would
have done."

And she drew the girl out, talking familiarly, as they went.

"Haven't had your dinner yet?"

"No; just arrived in the cars, and came right here."

"You must have something to eat, then. I know a nice place; often
get dinner there when I'm out."

The girl did not feel wholly at ease. She had not yet been able to
get sight of Pinky's closely-veiled features, and there was
something in her voice that made her feel uncomfortable.

"I don't care for any dinner," she said; "I'm not hungry."

"Well, I am, then, so come. Do you like oysters?"

"Yes."

"Cook them splendidly. Best place in the city. And you'd like to get
into a store or learn a trade?"

"Yes."

"What trade did you think of?"

"None in particular."

"How would you like to get into a book-bindery? I know two or three
girls in binderies, and they can make from five to ten dollars a
week. It's the nicest, cleanest work I know of."

"Oh, do you?" returned Flora, with newly-awakening interest.

"Yes; we'll talk it all over while we're eating dinner. This way."

And Pinky turned the corner of a small street that led away from the
more crowded thoroughfare along which they had been passing.

"It's a quiet and retired place, where only the nicest kind of
people go," she added. "Many working-girls and girls in stores get
their dinners there. We'll meet some of them, no doubt; and if any
that I know should happen in, we might hear of a good place. Just
the thing, isn't it? I'm right glad I met you."

They had gone halfway down the square, when Pinky stopped before the
shop of a confectioner. In the window was a display of cakes, pies
and candies, and a sign with the words, "LADIES' RESTAURANT."

"This is the place," she said, and opening the door, passed in, the
young stranger following.

A sign of caution, unseen by Flora, was made to a girl who stood
behind the counter. Then Pinky turned, saying,

"How will you have your oysters? stewed, fried, broiled or roasted?"

"I'm not particular--any way," replied Flora.

"I like them fried. Will you have them the same way?"

Flora nodded assent.

"Let them be fried, then. Come, we'll go up stairs. Anybody there?"

"Two or three only."

"Any girls from the bindery?"

"Yes; I think so."

"Oh. I'm glad of that! Want to see some of them. Come, Miss Bond."

And Pinky, after a whispered word to the attendant, led the way to a
room up stairs in which were a number of small tables. At one of
these were two girls eating, at another a girl sitting by herself,
and at another a young man and a girl. As Pinky and her companion
entered, the inmates of the room stared at them familiarly, and then
winked and leered at each other. Flora did not observe this, but she
felt a sudden oppression and fear. They sat down at a table not far
from one of the windows. Flora looked for the veil to be removed, so
that she might see the face of her new friend. But Pinky kept it
closely down.

In about ten minutes the oysters were served. Accompanying them were
two glasses of some kind of liquor. Floating on one of these was a
small bit of cork. Pinky took this and handed the other to her
companion, saying,

"Only a weak sangaree. It will refresh you after your fatigue; and I
always like something with oysters, it helps to make them lay
lighter on the stomach."

Meantime, one of the girls had crossed over and spoken to Pinky.
After word or two, the latter said,

"Don't you work in a bindery, Miss Peter?"

"Yes," was answered, without hesitation.

"I thought so. Let me introduce you to my friend, Miss Flora Bond.
She's from the country, and wants to get into some good
establishment. She talked about a store, but I think a bindery is
better."

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