“what type of people?” he’d always liked asking questions, even if they got him into trouble, which more often than not, they did. he was greatly appreciative of the fact that she hadn’t asked more questions about his own profession. he was afraid she’d think he terribly improper; though he was also quite sure from this interaction alone, she already had thought so.
“then i’d call you the lucky one,” he chuckled as he picked another card from the deck and handed it over to her without looking at it. “but it builds good character, i’d say.” he added as an afterthought - but if one were to ask him, he’d say very little on his own character. russel street did not make him the man he was today - his past did.
her words slipped through his ears and he laughed, shaking his head. “i’ve a feeling you’re correct.” but emory was used to it; he’d made a nasty habit of smoking the herb since coming to london and the effects weren’t nearly as strong as they used to be. “hit or pass?” he asked again, itching to look at his own cards but fighting the urge.
“Oh, Lords, Ladies, the sort of people who will pay for their vanity to be encouraged.” She shrugged as she said it, as if casting off the mantle of her own title and distancing herself from such things. “Money makes our world what it is, as I’m sure you know.”
It was money, for example, that allowed her to have knowledge of Russel Street. Money which let her buy the bodies of others for a few hours, and position them in the way she needed. Money which let her walk away when those hours were up and leave the slum behind. Money which forced those women and men to work there, and to ply their flesh like it was product. As he spoke, she could not help but disagree with him, and her hackles raised as she looked at her card. Jack of Spades. Fifteen.
There was a looseness about her that she had not often felt before, one that was no doubt encouraged by sherry and smoke and strangeness. She rolled her tongue around in her mouth in a moment of hesitation, and then, throwing all to the wind, decided she would very much like to speak her mind.
“I hope you’ll permit me to say, Mister Em’ry, and not think it overstepping my bounds, that what is often said of places such as Russel Street is that the Good do not profit or succeed, and that rather it is Cunning and Villainy which are cultivated.” That said, Catherine stuck the bit of the pipe back within her mouth, and puffed upon it til she fell again into coughing and spluttering.
Of those she knew in Russel Street and Greek Street and the other, cheaper houses through London, it was not the Good who found keepers. it was not the Good who were happy, or healthy, or whole. It was the Ruthless, and the Smart, and those who would step on another to reach their goal. Oh, perhaps they would not be it with pleasure, and perhaps they would be reulctant, but in the end they would, and it was what let them survive.
It was strange. For all that people of her family’s rank thought the poor almost a different species from them, she was constantly struck by the similarities between the society of the rick and the society of the destitute.
Once she was quite done coughing, she passed the pipe onwards. Her head spun for a moment, and she decided then and there that she would not take any more from it. Then, looking again at her cards, she nodded. “Another card, please.”
