The Ragged Heiress Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Dilly Court

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Copyright

  About the Book

  On a bitter winter’s day, an unnamed girl lies dangerously ill in hospital. When two coarse, rough-speaking individuals come to claim her, she can remember nothing of the events that brought her to her present state, not even her name. According to the men, she is their young sister, Lucy. As her health improves and her memory gradually returns, she realises she’s been kidnapped. But she has no means of escaping the hideous confines of the filthy basement room in which they have imprisoned her in.

  They are hoping to claim her fortune as a ransom – for she is really Lucetta Froy, the daughter of a prosperous importer. Tragically her parents were drowned on the return voyage from Bali when their ship went down, but Lucetta survived as did the two villains. She is unable to prove her identity, especially when her uncle refuses to recognise her and claims her father’s business for himself. But despite being virtually destitute, and her spirit almost broken, Lucetta is determined to reclaim what is rightfully hers . . .

  About the Author

  Dilly Court grew up in North-east London and began her career in television, writing scripts for commercials. She is married with two grown-up children and four grandchildren, and now lives in Dorset on the beautiful Jurassic Coast with her husband and a large, yellow Labrador called Archie. She is also the author of Mermaids Singing, The Dollmaker’s Daughters, Tilly True, The Best of Sisters, The Cockney Sparrow, A Mother’s Courage, The Constant Heart, A Mother’s Promise, The Cockney Angel and A Mother’s Wish.

  Also by Dilly Court

  Mermaids Singing

  The Dollmaker’s Daughters

  Tilly True

  The Best of Sisters

  The Cockney Sparrow

  A Mother’s Courage

  The Constant Heart

  A Mother’s Promise

  The Cockney Angel

  A Mother’s Wish

  Dilly Court

  arrow books

  For my cousins Celia and Barrie

  Chapter One

  The London Fever Hospital,

  Islington 1874

  The cold passionless light of early morning filtered through the narrow windows of the female ward, and the overpowering smell of carbolic floated in a miasma above the freshly scrubbed floor. The eerie silence was broken by an occasional feverish moan and the rasp of laboured breathing from the regimented rows of iron bedsteads. Following in Sister’s brisk footsteps, a young houseman struggled through a haze of sheer exhaustion to complete his ward round. He had already been on duty for seventy-two hours and had at least another twelve to survive before he could even think of sleep.

  ‘Is there any hope for this one, Dr Harcourt?’ Sister stopped by the next bed and tidied the tumbled sheets, smoothing them to pristine glassiness with a practised hand.

  Dr Harcourt studied the patient’s temperature chart and he frowned. ‘It’s too early to say, Sister, but I’d say her chances are slim.’

  Inclining her head slightly, the nurse was unsurprised. She had seen many patients succumb to the dreaded typhoid fever. ‘We can but hope and pray for her, the poor soul.’

  ‘Have any relatives come forward to claim her?’ Dr Harcourt brushed a stray lock of dark hair from his eyes, forcing his tired brain to concentrate. ‘Do we know her name?’

  ‘No, doctor. There were few survivors from the sunken vessel and she was only wearing her night-clothes when she was taken to Bart’s. They said that there was nothing about her person which would identify her.’

  ‘All alone in the world,’ he murmured. ‘That is sad indeed.’ He lifted the girl’s wrist, examining the palm as he took her pulse. ‘This is not the hand of a working woman. I’d say this girl has never done a hard day’s work in her short life.’ Gently he laid the limp hand back on the coverlet, and he suppressed a sigh. It was difficult to remain detached and professional when faced with such a tragedy. He had three sisters of his own, the youngest of whom was probably the same age as this survivor of a collision on the river in which more than fifty souls were known to have perished. The schooner Caroline, laden with cargo from the East Indies and just an hour or two from port, had been struck by a steamship in thick fog, and had sunk within minutes in the polluted water near the Beckton sewage outfall. Bodies were still being washed up on the foreshore, most of them totally unrecognisable.

  Dr Harcourt noted the patient’s temperature on the chart and hooked it over the rail at the foot of the bed. Slowly he dragged his scattered thoughts back to the present, but as he observed the outline of the girl’s emaciated body beneath the covers he could not help being affected by how pathetically small and vulnerable she looked. Despite her sickly pallor and sunken cheeks, the heart-shaped face retained traces of her youth and undoubted former beauty. He glanced at the nurse’s rigidly controlled expression, noting with some surprise that her lips were moving as if in prayer. They had done everything known to medical science in order to save the girl’s life – now it was up to a higher power. Despite his strict Protestant upbringing, Giles Harcourt had seen too much suffering to be able to believe unconditionally in a merciful God. Even so, he too offered up a silent prayer for the girl. It seemed such a criminal waste for a young life to be snuffed out before it had barely begun.

  ‘The next few hours will be critical, Sister,’ he murmured in answer to her unspoken question. ‘Should anyone come to see her you may allow them in.’

  ‘Yes, doctor.’ The nurse made a move towards the next bed, hesitating and glancing over her shoulder with one winged eyebrow raised when the doctor did not immediately follow her. She too was tired and hungry. It had been a long night and her feet ached miserably. She yearned for the relative peace and quiet of the tiny ward kitchen where she could enjoy a refreshing cup of hot, sweet tea and a slice of buttered toast, but she was too well schooled in the rigid discipline of her profession to allow her impatience to show in front of the young houseman. She was, after all, just a nurse and must always defer to the superior intellect of the male physicians, even the junior doctors like this pale-faced young man who looked as though he was going to collapse at any moment. She stood with her hands folded meekly in front of her and her eyes cast down, but in her imagination she could hear the singing of the kettle on the gas ring and smell the heady fragrance of Darjeeling as boiling water was poured onto the tea leaves.

  In spite of his desperate need to sleep, and entering an almost dream-like trance, Dr Harcourt found himself wishing that the girl’s delicate, translucent eyelids would flutter open to reveal what he was certain would be a pair of blue eyes. But they remained stubbornly closed as if weighed down by the crescents of thick, corn-coloured eyelashes that rested on bruised smudges above sweet cheekbones. Her hair had not been shaved, as had been the custom in past times, but had been confined to a white linen cap, an
d escaping tendrils of sunlight-gold gave a tantalising clue as to what this fragile creature must have looked like before the shipwreck that had almost cheated her of life.

  The sister could stand it no longer and she tut-tutted beneath her breath, hastily covering her lapse of etiquette by tucking the girl’s stick-thin arm back beneath the covers. ‘I doubt if anyone will come to see her after all this time, doctor. It’s been nearly three weeks since the accident.’

  Dr Harcourt came back to earth with a jolt. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Just make certain that she is kept well hydrated, Sister. I’ll stop by again before I go off duty this evening.’ He forced his weary legs into motion and he moved on to the next bed where another woman, this time much older and almost certainly terminal, lay moaning softly in her delirium. She was, the doctor decided, noting the sickly colour of her skin and the shallowness of each painful breath, much closer to meeting her maker than she had been when he had examined her last evening. ‘I think this one will not see the light of another day, Sister. Have her bed moved nearer to the door so that when the inevitable happens the other patients will not be disturbed.’

  ‘Yes, doctor. It will be done immediately.’

  In the echoing cathedral-like reception area of Bart’s hospital in West Smithfield, an irate man hammered his fist on the polished mahogany desk, glaring at the clerk. ‘Come off it, mate. There weren’t that many survivors from the Caroline; you must have a list of them as was admitted that night.’

  The clerk swallowed hard and his fingers twitched nervously as he flipped through the pages of the admission book. ‘I wasn’t on duty that night, sir.’

  ‘Well someone was. You can’t tell me that it ain’t wrote down somewhere. I’m looking for me sister and I won’t budge until I get some information.’

  ‘Perhaps if you told me your name I might be able to assist further.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Er – there’s no need to take that tone with me, sir. Without a name I can’t help you.’

  ‘Stranks,’ the man growled. ‘Me name is Stranks. Now are you going to help me or do I have to choke the information out of you?’

  The clerk gazed round the busy atrium of the hospital, raising his hand to attract the attention of a passing porter. ‘Er, Mr Simms, could you spare a moment?’

  Flexing his muscles, Simms strode over to the desk. ‘Having trouble, Mr Blunt?’

  The clerk took a step backwards even though the high counter stood between him and the angry man who had marched in off the street making unreasonable demands. ‘This gent seems to think we are keeping something from him, Mr Simms. I’ve told him that I’m not in a position to give out the information he requires.’

  ‘Look, mate …’ Stranks modified his tone as he stared up at Simms’ lantern jaw and beetle brows drawn together in a warning scowl. ‘I’m looking for me young sister. We was both passengers on the ship what went down in the river three weeks ago, and I been searching for her ever since. I been round every hospital in London making enquiries and someone told me that you’d taken some of the survivors in here. It ain’t much to ask, is it? I just want to know if little Lucy was one of ’em.’

  Simms glanced at the desk clerk and his expression softened slightly. ‘Seems a reasonable request, Mr Blunt. Have you anyone on your books answering to that description?’

  ‘Like I told the gent, I wasn’t on duty that night, Mr Simms. But if the person would give me his sister’s full name, I’ll see if there’s a matching entry.’

  ‘Lucetta Froy, that’s her name. She’s about so high.’ Stranks raised his hand to the level of his shoulder. ‘Pretty little thing she is, with yellow hair and blue eyes. You wouldn’t forget her if you’d seen her.’

  ‘No family resemblance then,’ muttered the clerk, flicking through the pages of the tome.

  ‘I heard that, cully,’ Stranks said, fisting his hand. ‘Any more lip from you and I’ll …’

  Simms tapped him on the shoulder. ‘No need for that, mister. Let the man do his job.’

  Blunt flicked through the pages of the admission book, studying the entries with the tip of his tongue held between his teeth. ‘Nothing in that name, sir.’ He looked up, his face alight with curiosity. ‘You say her name is Froy, and yet yours is Stranks.’

  ‘She’s me half-sister,’ Stranks muttered through clenched teeth. ‘Any more quaint remarks from you, mister, and you’ll be sorry.’

  Blunt closed the book with a snap. ‘No mention of Froy or Stranks,’ he said triumphantly, but on seeing the look on Stranks’ face he changed his tune. ‘But there was a young woman who might fit the description. She developed a fever and was sent to the Fever Hospital in Islington.’ Blunt shook his head. ‘Typhoid, I believe – you might be too late.’

  But he was speaking to thin air. Stranks had raced from the building, barging through the half-glassed doors and almost knocking down a woman and child in his haste.

  ‘Well!’ Simms said, shaking his head. ‘He’s a rum ’un and no mistake.’

  ‘I’d say the young lady would be better off in the next world than living with a brute like him,’ Blunt said, adjusting his spectacles with the tip of an ink-stained index finger.

  ‘You wasn’t as close to him as I was,’ Simms said, grimacing. ‘He smelt like a midden and I’ll wager he’s a stranger to soap and water.’ Simms leaned across the desk, speaking in a low voice. ‘I heard that there was prisoners being brought back from the East Indies for trial on board the Caroline. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he weren’t one of them.’

  ‘Well, we’ll never know, Mr Simms,’ Blunt said, glancing nervously over his shoulder. ‘Don’t look now, but Matron has just come out of her office, and she’s coming this way.’

  Stranks erupted into Duke Street and was immediately seized by the scruff of the neck. ‘Did you find her?’

  ‘Let go of me, Guthrie.’ Stranks jerked free from the hand that held him. ‘She ain’t there.’ He glanced up and down the street. ‘There’s a copper over the road – best move on afore he spots us.’ Shoving his hands in his pockets he put his head down and crossed the busy street with Guthrie hobbling along as fast as his gammy leg would allow.

  ‘For God’s sake, man,’ Guthrie said breathlessly. ‘I can’t keep up with you. Anyway, they ain’t looking for us. We’re dead – drownded in the Thames. We’re free men.’

  Stranks dodged in between a costermonger’s barrow and a brewer’s dray where a couple of burly deliverymen were unloading barrels and rolling them down a ramp into a pub cellar. ‘Shut up,’ Stranks muttered. ‘D’you want the whole of London to hear you?’

  Guthrie stopped by the open trapdoor and he inhaled the smell of beer with a gasp of pleasure. ‘I say let’s stop for a jug of ale. It’s what I missed the most out there in that heathen land.’

  ‘No time for that,’ Stranks said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him down the street. ‘And no money until we’ve got the heiress safe and sound.’

  Guthrie fell into step beside him. ‘All right then. Have it your way, but where is the little trull?’

  ‘Looks like they took her to the Fever Hospital in Liverpool Road. Hurry up, mate, there’s no time to lose. The silly cow went down with typhoid. We’ve got to get to her before she croaks or there’s no money in it for us.’

  ‘You’re so sure of yourself,’ Guthrie grumbled. ‘How do you know that her family will pay up?’

  Stranks stopped for a moment, breathing hard. ‘We’ve been over this a dozen times, you idiot. Her pa was a wealthy merchant with a house in the best part of Islington and she was his only child.’

  Guthrie grinned, revealing a row of broken and blackened teeth. ‘And we know the parents didn’t survive, don’t we, cully? You saw to it that they never come up for air.’

  ‘Keep your voice down, you fool,’ Stranks hissed. ‘I never touched his missis. She went down like a stone, but her old man was made of t
ougher stuff. I thought he was going to pull me under, so I had no choice. Anyway, there was no witnesses so we’re in the clear.’

  ‘If you say so, Norm. You’re the boss.’

  ‘That’s right, you keep that fact in your thick head, Guthrie. Remember that we’re officially dead so we’re free men, and when we collect from the family we’ll be set up for life. There must be a fortune to be had from the Froys for the safe return of their little angel.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to be rich,’ Guthrie said, sighing. ‘They used to call me a clodpole in the workhouse. They said I’d never amount to nothing, but I’ll show ’em.’

  ‘Come on then, mate. What are we waiting for? Let’s get to the hospital and find out if we’ve got the right girl.’

  Half an hour later, having decided that it was too risky to claim the unidentified girl as Lucetta Froy, Stranks decided that it would be safer to refer to her as Lucy Guthrie, just in case the police became involved, as his name was synonymous with crime and a sure giveaway.

  ‘Are you certain that this is your relation?’ the ward sister demanded, unconvinced. She did not like the look of these two men, whom she deemed to be ruffians of the worst order, and her sensitive nostrils twitched as the rank odour of their bodies overpowered the strong smell of disinfectant.

  A lady of breeding, Sister Eugenia Demarest had trained at the London Hospital in Whitechapel, and she was used to dealing with people from all walks of life, from the high-born to the lowest of the low. She knew instinctively that these two men fitted into the latter order, but as the young houseman had pointed out, the girl was of a different class altogether.

  ‘She is our little Lucy,’ Stranks said, baring his teeth in what he hoped was a pleasant smile. ‘We had almost given her up for lost, and now she’s found.’

  ‘Thank the Lord,’ Guthrie said piously. ‘Us will go to church to give thanks for her safe return to the bosom of her loving family.’