Somewhere Safe

The tin sparkled in the mud of the Thames, practically calling out to her. Well, that’s not true; it didn’t sparkle. Urban as it was, London’s river was not precisely well lit. But in her memory, the tin shone like silver in cascades of moonlight. Once she’d tugged it free of its brown-gray prison, it felt rough: battered and worn from the tide, covered in grime and sand and fish turds. But then again, so was Molly.

The tin was too large and heavy for her to hold comfortably with one hand. She considered opening the hinged lid to peek at the contents, but her idle moments would be noted. Instead, she shoved it down the front of her bedraggled shirt, though it would need to be relocated before Bertie patted his sweaty palms across (almost) all of her best hiding spots at the end of the day. The tin lay startlingly cold against her belly, where it had settled atop the knot of her makeshift twine belt. It created an awkward bulge, and felt as if it would tear the cheap fabric or snap the twine at any moment.

“Oy!” Bertie called from behind her, up on the drier, sturdier mud where his boots wouldn’t sink in.

The sludge seeped between her toes as she bent back down to her work.

She didn’t know why, exactly, she had stolen the tin away. Maybe it was just the heft of it; its contents had to be valuable. Or perhaps it was the temptation of surprise in a life otherwise bereft of possibility. Some excitement to stave off the numbness of a constantly sore back and no time of her own to think thoughts, or dream dreams. Someday, she would take up whoring just as Mum had, though she’d delay as long as possible. She’d spent too many nights curled up beneath their shared bed, in their one-room flat, listening to the disgusting noises that men made.

For now, Molly didn’t eat much, so she could survive this way. And anyway, it was easier, when you were young and scrawny, to work with a gang instead, even if Bertie was a “great, big arse,” as Jon always said. That seemed to be the only insult Jon knew, but it still fit.

Molly pondered where else she might stow the tin. The only aid she could hope for would be Bertie’s stupidity.

“Jon,” she whispered to her colleague. “Can I have your coat?”

“Go on,” Jon said. “My fingers are numb already.”

She’d have to come up with something else. She shook her hands free of all but the most stubborn specks of grit and headed for the bank, though at a steep angle, away from Bertie.

“Oy!” Bertie said, again.

“Gotta piss!” she called over her shoulder.

“Piss quick or I’ll beat your brains out.”

She crouched down in the rank-smelling grasses clumped along the less-trampled bits of shore. She scooped up handfuls of rock and sand and cast them aside. Her shoulders hugged her neck, as if she could brace for Bertie’s reprimand as well as hide her treasure. The tin went down as deep as she could dig in twenty seconds. She prayed that neither human hand nor tide would interfere before she could return.

*

Molly clutched the tin to her chest, although she pretended she was hugging away the cold night’s chill. She panted, ducking in and out of shadow-filled alleyways, avoiding people. She couldn’t read, and so she didn’t know what the tin’s tiny black notebook said. She couldn’t count above twenty. But she understood the tightly coiled, water-wrinkled roll of pound notes as well as the compact mountain of coins.

She needed someone educated. Another child might have thought of going to a church, but Mum hadn’t trusted men of God. She hadn’t trusted much of anyone, truth be told. But there was one establishment in London that she had gone to in desperation.

Molly knew what the sign above the paint-chipped door said, because Mum had read it aloud with derision: “Whitechapel Home for Fallen Women.”

Mum had died there. A fancy-talking lady in a lacy dress had held Mum’s hand for hours and read aloud as Mum wasted away to nothing. The lady had given Molly sweets and biscuits. When Mum had finally gurgled out her last breath, the lady had told Molly she could stay at the home. But Molly wasn’t dying. She didn’t need to rely on the kindness of strangers, not when she had her health. She’d darted out into the smoggy streets as soon as she was left alone.

The lady opened the door at Molly’s knock. “Yes?”

Now that Molly was here, she wasn’t certain how to explain. Instead, she opened the tin, clutching it as tightly as she could in case the lady tried to snatch it, and held it out for inspection.

“What’s this?” Even in the dim gaslight, the woman must have seen the contents, for her eyes widened.

Molly snapped the lid down again and hugged the tin between crossed arms.

“You’d better come in,” the lady said.

She led Molly through black and silent halls lined with doors, behind some of which the sounds of sighing and snoring emitted. Once they arrived at an office toward the back of the building, the lady produced a short, squat box of chocolate biscuits from her desk drawer and offered it to Molly, who began to shove them into her mouth indiscriminately, the tin nestled safely in her lap.

“Would you like some tea?”

Molly shook her head.

The lady turned on a lamp and lifted her eyes to Molly’s. “It is you. I wondered if you might return someday.”

Molly’s mouth was coated with flour, gummy without any liquid to help it along, but her stomach reveled at being occupied. Sitting in a cushioned chair felt forbidden, as did the relative warmth of being indoors, even if the coal wasn’t lit. Having something in her belly would have made her eyelids heavy if she did not hold such precious cargo. After a few more hurried bites, she closed the biscuit box and set it atop the proprietress’s desk. Then she fetched out the tiny bound book from her tin and extended it outward.

“You didn’t speak much before, either,” the lady said as she took the book. She donned spectacles, then leafed through the pages. “I’m guessing you can’t read your letters or numbers?”

Molly shook her head.

“Well, it’s a ledger of some sort. ‘Two pounds, sixpence: May 12, 1880.’ ‘One pound, eighteen shillings: June 21, 1880.’ Someone kept quite a meticulous record. The last total given is...” She swallowed. Her voice grew more and more breathless as she recited the number. “119 pounds, six shillings, four pence, and...three farthings.”

Molly’s mouth went even drier. She couldn’t even fathom that amount. She’d known it would be a great deal, given that she’d never touched a pound coin in her life, let alone anything so lofty as paper money, or a whole bloody wad of it. Molly took the book back from the woman and surveyed its markings. Each line was neat and orderly. She recognized a number here or there, but couldn’t have recited them.

“We could bring it to a constable and tell him we’re hoping to find the money’s owner,” Molly’s hostess said.

Molly scowled. She didn’t know much, it was true, but she knew policemen were the enemy.

The lady smiled as if they’d shared a private joke. “Is that not what you had in mind?”

“I ain’t got much chance of keeping it,” Molly said. “It’ll be stolen as soon as I falls asleep.”

“I see.” The woman regarded Molly quietly for a moment. She picked up the biscuits and placed them back in her drawer. “Did you know your mother came here when you were about to be born?”

Molly’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“It’s true. She started feeling pains at her boarding house, and didn’t have the money to pay a surgeon or a hospital. She practically crawled here. My brother is a physician, and he helps birth any babies who come to us, free of charge. You didn’t cry, which scared all of us near to death. But here you are, fit as a fiddle, if a little skinny.”

Molly said nothing.

“I tried to convince your mother to stay. I don’t have infinite resources, it’s true, but I can always use a helping hand in exchange for room and board. The same offer could be extended to you, my dear, if you’re interested.”

“I’d have to say prayers.”

“Yes, you would. But prayers aren’t so bad in exchange for a full stomach, are they?”

Molly picked at the hinge of her tin with a mud-ringed fingernail.

“You can think on it, if you like,” the woman said. “And you can always come back.”

“I was thinking, maybe I could...leave it here,” Molly said. “Since you were kind to me mum. And you could have…” She swallowed. “Some. For other ladies what need it. And when I’m older, I could come back for the rest.”

The woman sat forward, her brow creased. “You don’t wish at all to find the money’s owner?”

Anything found in the dregs of the Thames was the rightful property of the finder. Every mudlark knew that. Molly shook her head.

“If I’m to keep that for you, I should like to at least send an advertisement to the papers about it. Someone must have worked very hard to save all this money.”

“But...” Molly bit her lip.

The lady gestured for her to continue.

“If you use your half — I mean, your bit — to put up whores, isn’t that good?”

“Well, of course, Molly. It is Molly, isn’t it? I’m Margaret.” She paused as if waiting for Molly to say something, but continued when Molly didn’t speak. “Someone else owns that tin, Molly. We ought to at least try and find them.”

This meeting wasn’t happening how Molly had planned. She didn’t understand why adults made everything so complicated.

“Thanks for the biscuits,” Molly said, hopping down from her chair.

Margaret spoke to Molly’s back. “Perhaps the owner would be so grateful to have the tin returned that they would offer you a portion as a reward. That would still be a great deal more money than you had before.”

Molly placed her hand on the doorknob.

“Or, if you hid it here, you could stay and watch over it.” Margaret’s chair scraped against the floorboards as she rose to her feet. Her gentle footsteps followed Molly to the door. “Then we could decide whether to seek the original owner later.”

Molly paused and tilted her head to one side. It felt so nice to have eaten, even if it was only biscuits. But she didn’t like the idea of sharing, even with a windfall such as this. She could buy all the hot pies and pickled eels she wanted. Maybe she could even start a shop and never have to endure the things her mum had.

Margaret said: “I could teach you how to read, so you could understand the numbers on the ledger yourself.”

The tin had become heavy all of a sudden, weighing down Molly’s skinny arms. She thought of how nice it would be to set it down somewhere safe.

“I have a spare bed down the hall, and there are other girls your age to play with.”

Molly fiddled with the tin’s lid, pulling it open and then shutting it, hearing the grit of sand buried in the hinges. She thought of the ever-present sludge buried beneath her fingernails. She heard Bertie’s caustic voice.

“And, best of all, you could have chocolate biscuits anytime you like.”

Molly turned back.

Margaret smiled at her.

“I s’pose that wouldn’t be so bad,” Molly said.