William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger

down. She swung her legs to the floor and stood up, aware now of the girl on the other bed only yards away from her, eyes open, face so white it seemed hardly warmer than the pillow.
    “Don’t move,” Hester said gently. “You’re safe here.”
    “I’m all broken inside.” The girl breathed the words rather than spoke them. “Heavens, I hurt!” Her voice was soft, her diction clear, not that of the streets.
    “I know, but in time it will ease,” Hester promised, hoping it was true.
    “No, it won’t,” the girl said with resignation. “I’m dying. That’s my punishment, I suppose.” She did not look at Hester but stared up at the ceiling with blank eyes.
    Hester put her hand over the girl’s, touching it very lightly. “Your bones will heal,” she told her. “I know it hurts now, but it will get better. What shall I call you?”
    “Alice.” Suddenly her eyes filled with tears, but she was too weak and too tired to sob. She was also too broken to be held in anyone’s arms.
    “Just rest,” Hester said, aching to be able to do more for her. “You’re safe here. We won’t leave you alone. Is there anyone you would like me to tell?”
    “No!” She turned to look at Hester, her eyes frightened. “Please!”
    “I won’t if you don’t wish it,” Hester promised. “Don’t worry!”
    “I don’t want them to know,” Alice went on. “Let me just die here and be buried . . . wherever they put people no one knows.” She said it without self-pity. She was asking for an end, privacy, not help.
    Hester had no idea whether the girl would recover or not. She was uncertain how to help, or if she could. Perhaps the best thing would be to leave her, but she could not do that. She was compelled by her own inner will for life not to allow someone else to give up. To be beaten was another thing, but she was not there yet.
    “Who did this to you?” she asked. “Don’t you want to stop them? Before they do it to someone else?”
    Alice turned her head a little. “You can’t stop him. No one can.”
    “Anyone can be stopped, if you know how, and if enough of us try,” Hester said decisively. “If you help. Who is he?”
    Alice looked away again. “You can’t. It’s legal. I owe him money. I borrowed too much, then I couldn’t pay it back.”
    “Who? Your pimp?”
    Alice stared up at the ceiling. “You might as well know. There’s nothing more he can do to me now. But I don’t know his name, not his real name. I was respectable then, a governess! Can you imagine that? I used to teach gentlemen’s children. In Kensington. I fell in love.” There was immeasurable bitterness in her voice and it was so little above a whisper that Hester had to strain to hear her. “We got married. We had six months of happiness . . . then I realized he gambled. Couldn’t help it, he said. Maybe he was right. Anyway, he didn’t stop . . . he began to lose.” She took a deep breath and gasped with pain. It was a moment or two before she could continue.
    Hester waited.
    “I borrowed to get him out of debt . . . then he left me,” Alice said. “Only I still had to pay back the money. It was then that the moneylender told me he could get me looked after on the streets . . . especially . . . if I went into this brothel. It caters to men who like clean girls . . . ones who speak nicely and carry themselves like quality. Pay a lot more for it. That way I could pay off my debt and be free.”
    “And you went . . .” Hester said slowly. It was so easy to understand—the fear, the promises, the escape from despair. The price might not seem any worse than the alternative.
    “Not at first,” Alice replied. “Not for another three months. By then the debt was twice as high. That was two years ago.” She fell silent.
    Bessie came over with a cup of beef tea, her eyes questioning.
    Hester looked at Alice. “Try a little,” she offered.
    Alice did not bother to answer. Her thoughts were inward, remembering pain, defeat, perhaps humiliation more than she would ever forget.
    Hester put her arm around Alice’s shoulders and eased her up a few inches. The girl gasped with pain, but she did not resist. She lay as leaden weight against Hester, her splintered arms stiff, her body rigid.
    Bessie held the cup to her lips, her own face crumpled with concern, her hands so gentle her touch could hardly be felt as more than a warmth.
    It was a quarter of an hour before the tea was finished, and Hester had no idea