Jemmy was standing in the dark just outside the door and I nearly crashed into him.
“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!” I said, only just managing to say it in a whisper. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you asleep?”
He ignored this, looking into the dim light of the bedroom and the humped shadow on the wall, a deeply troubled look on his face.
“What happened to Fanny’s sister, Grannie?”
I hesitated, looking down at him. He was only nine. And surely it was his parents’ place to tell him what they thought he should know. But Fanny was his friend—and God knew, she needed a friend she could trust.
“Come down with me,” I said, turning him toward the stair with a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll tell you while I make more tea. And don’t bloody tell your mother I did.”
I told him, as simply as I could, and omitting the things Fanny had told me about the late Captain Harkness’s habits.
“Do you know the word ‘whore’—er … ‘hoor,’ I mean?” I amended, and the frown of incomprehension relaxed.
“Sure. Germain told me. Hoors are ladies that go to bed with men they aren’t married to. Fanny’s not a hoor, though—was her sister?” He looked troubled at the thought.
“Well, yes,” I said. “Not to put too fine a point on it. But women—or girls—who become whores do it because they have no other way to earn a living. Not because they want to, I mean.”
He looked confused. “How do they earn money?”
“Oh. The men pay them to—er—go to bed with them. Take my word for it,” I assured him, seeing his eyes widen in astonishment.
“I go to bed with Mandy and Fanny all the time,” he protested. “And Germain, too. I wouldn’t pay them money for being girls!”
“Jeremiah,” I said, pouring fresh hot water into the pot. “‘Go to bed’ is a euphemism—do you know that word? It means saying something that sounds better than what you’re really talking about—for sexual intercourse.”
“Oh, that,” he said, his face clearing. “Like the pigs? Or the chickens?”
“Rather like that, yes. Find me a clean cloth, will you? There should be some in the lower cupboard.” I knelt, knees creaking slightly, and scooped the hot stone out of the ashes with the poker. It made a small hissing sound as the cold air of the surgery hit the hot surface.
“So,” I said, reaching for the cloth he’d fetched me, and trying for as matter-of-fact a voice as could be managed, “Jane and Fanny’s parents had died, and they had no way to feed themselves, so Jane became a whore. But some men are very wicked—I expect you know that already, don’t you?” I added, glancing up at him, and he nodded soberly.
“Yes. Well, a wicked man came to the place where Jane and Fanny lived and wanted to make Fanny go to bed with him, even though she was much too young to do such a thing. And … er … Jane killed him.”
“Wow.”
I blinked at him, but it had been said with the deepest respect. I coughed and began folding the cloth.
“It was very heroic of her, yes. But she—”
“How did she kill him?”
“With a knife,” I said, a little tersely, hoping he wouldn’t ask for details. I knew them and wished I didn’t. “But the man was a soldier, and when the British army found out, they arrested Jane.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Jem said, in tones of awed horror. “Did they hang her, like they tried to hang Dad?”
I tried to think whether I should tell him not to take the Lord’s name in vain, but on the one hand, he clearly hadn’t meant it that way—and for another, I was a blackened pot in that particular regard.
“They meant to. She was alone, and very much afraid—and she … well, she killed herself, darling.”
He looked at me for a long moment, face blank, then swallowed, hard.
“Did Jane go to Hell, Grannie?” he asked in a small voice. “Is that why Fanny’s so sad?”
I’d wrapped the stone thickly in cloth; the heat of it glowed in the palms of my hands.
“No, sweetheart,” I said, with as much conviction as I could muster. “I’m quite sure she didn’t. God would certainly understand the circumstances. No, Fanny’s just missing her sister.”
He nodded, very sober.
“I’d miss Mandy, if she killed somebody and got—” He gulped at the thought. I was somewhat concerned to note that the notion of Mandy killing someone apparently seemed reasonable to him, but then …