The Prodigal Hero Read online

  Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him … and bring the fatted calf... for this my son was dead, and is alive again, he was lost, and is found.

  LUKE 16:22-24

  Fancy gloves wears old MacHeath, dear...

  BERTOLT BRECHT

  The Threepenny Opera

  THE PRODIGAL HERO

  Nancy Butler

  Chapter 1

  Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...

  With a muted growl, MacHeath shook off the words of the old carol that kept repeating inside his head. In the dank, chilled warrens of London’s East End, he doubted if even the geese were getting fat. If there was one thing the men and women who loitered on the cracked pavement and straggled out of the gin shops had in common, it was that they were lean. Wolfishly lean. Made gaunt by the gnawing, perpetual hunger of poverty, and worn down by the bleakness of life in this unholy backwater of the thriving metropolis. Even the youngest of the children who gathered at the street corners, trying to cadge a penny from every passing stranger, bore haunted expressions in their pinched faces.

  He hiked up the collar of his ragged greatcoat against the icy dampness, and then fingered the coins in his pocket with his left hand. He could eat or he could drink. The few shillings he possessed would not let him do both.

  As he passed the entrance to a tavern with the dubious name of the Doxy’s Choice, the decision was made for him. Alf Connor, and his mate, Bully Finch, were huddled inside the doorway, well out of the stiff wind that was blowing like frozen daggers off the nearby Thames. Connor owed him five pounds, a sum that would be most welcome considering his current financial situation.

  He did a half turn back to the two men and saluted them with a crooked grin that held little mirth. Connor’s narrow face fell when he recognized MacHeath.

  “Mackie,” he muttered, ducking his head once in acknowledgment. “You know Bully Finch?”

  “Aye,” MacHeath said. “We’ve met in passing.”

  Finch’s broad cheeks tightened into a smile that was more of a grimace. “Haven’t seen you in a dog’s age,” he said, before blowing hard on his fingers to warm them. “Been out of town?”

  MacHeath nodded. “I found myself an easy berth as valet to a rich Cornish cub. I passed the spring and summer with him.”

  Finch chortled, rapping his knuckles on MacHeath’s shoulder. “That’s a fine joke, Mackie, you as a gentleman’s gentleman. Your cub ever notice you was missing one of your paws?”

  “It occurred to him eventually,” MacHeath drawled. “He wasn’t the most wide-awake of fellows.”

  “Hard to miss that stump, eh?” Finch said. “Even for a gentry cove.”

  “Not a stump any longer,” Connor pronounced with a wink. “Look closer, Bully.”

  Finch leaned forward, his eyes widening when he beheld MacHeath’s right hand. It was gloved, as the left one was, in tan leather. The fingers beneath the glove were set in a relaxed pose, half curled toward the palm. It wouldn’t fool anyone upon close examination, but MacHeath knew there were plenty of people who never guessed the glove covered nothing more than a carved wooden facsimile. But in spite of this clever ruse, he usually kept the hand in his pocket or tucked inside his coat front while he walked, fearful always of the despised epithets ... maimed, crippled, deformed.

  “Gor,” Finch murmured as he raised the false hand into the spill of light from the tavern’s lantern. “It’s like a bleedin’ miracle.”

  MacHeath resisted pulling back as the other man examined the hand. Bully Finch was not someone you wanted to wrestle in a doorway. He was six and a half feet of bulging sinew arranged over a big-boned frame that would have done a prizefighter proud. MacHeath was not a small man, nor was he lacking in courage, but he’d think twice about crossing Finch, at least over something as trifling as this. He gritted his teeth and stood still while the man poked and prodded the shaped glove.

  “He had it made in Scotland this fall,” Connor pronounced with a knowing look. “Some young doctor up there messing about with soldiers who lost their arms and legs in the war. I ran into Mackie directly he got back from there.”

  “And lost five pounds to me at cards,” MacHeath muttered to himself.

  Finch whistled in admiration as he released the hand, which MacHeath promptly tucked into his coat front. “Ain’t that a pip. My da’ lost a leg in a wagon accident. Dragged half a mile, he was, behind his team. Poor old git hobbled around on crutches till the day he died. He sure could have used that Scots doctor.”

  MacHeath nodded toward the nail-studded door. “You going inside?” The icy needles of wind were having no trouble penetrating his ancient greatcoat.

  The two men exchanged a furtive glance, then Connor said, “We be waiting for someone. Business and all.”

  MacHeath knew better than to inquire after the nature of their business. In this part of London, when two men waited out in the cold to meet someone, chances were pretty fair that any commerce at hand was of the illegal variety. He shrugged and brushed past them. “When you are finished,” he said over his shoulder to Connor, “come inside. We have some business of our own to discuss.”

  Connor winced. His voice rose an octave. “I bin meaning to come to you, Mackie. You know I am good for what I owe. And if this cove ever shows up, why I’ll have—”

  Bully Finch elbowed him hard in the ribs. Connor’s mouth snapped shut, and he looked stricken for an instant. “I’ll come inside,” he assured MacHeath. “I’ll need a dram after waiting out here in this perishing cold.”

  MacHeath passed into the dark, smoky interior. He studied the layout of the place for a moment before claiming a seat on the high-backed settle beside the fireplace, where he stretched his long legs out toward the hearth with a sigh of relief. He noticed with a sour grin that someone had hung a ragged garland of pine boughs over the mantel in a failed attempt to add a bit of seasonal cheer to the seedy tavern. Christmas was coming, but the merriment and gaiety that would spread through the prosperous sections of London would never permeate the mean walls of the Doxy’s Choice.

  The barmaid, a wraith in faded muslin, brought him a bottle of gin and lingered a moment to smile down at him, displaying her discolored teeth! At least she still had most of them. But he was impervious to the open invitation in her eyes or the brazen posture of her angular body. When he refused to respond to her whispered offer, she took herself off, muttering loudly about men who acted above themselves.

  He was just beginning his onslaught on the gin bottle when he heard Finch’s gruff baritone come drifting up from over the high back of the settle. “I promise you, we’re safe as houses. They know me and Connor here ... know better than to bother us.”

  Connor’s reedy voice added, “There’s no point in us freezing our tails off outside. Just sit yourself down there, against the wall. All cozy and private.”

  MacHeath shifted on his seat until he was at the end of the settle nearest the wall. Tucking his head back into the corner, he pretended to be asleep.

  Another man was speaking now, his voice a sibilant whisper that MacHeath was barely able to make out. When the man raised his voice at one point, the hair on MacHeath’s nape stood right on end.

  Good God! He’d recognize that voice in the farthest reaches of hell. Even though it had been ten years since he’d heard it, it had been seared into his memory. Darwin Quincy, the only man MacHeath had ever taken the trouble to hate, was sitting behind him with two of the rookery’s most unsavory denizens. Like always harkened to like, he knew, so it was no surprise that Quincy was trafficking with Connor and Finch. What did surprise him was that Quincy, who had been a notorious nipfarthing all those years ago, had chosen these two as accomplices. Their services never came ch
eaply.

  He hitched closer to the tiny opening between the wall and the settle, listening intently.

  “You have to make sure she’s terrified once you’ve gotten her away from the coach,” Quincy was saying emphatically. “Though I don’t want her actually harmed. I trust you two know the difference.”

  “Happens we do,” Finch said. “But how can we put the fear o’ God into her, if we don’t manhandle her a bit?”

  Quincy laughed softly. “She is a gently bred young woman, Mr. Finch. I expect the mere sight of you two will be quite enough to send her off into a swoon. She’s a plucky chit, but her father’s kept her well away from riffraff.”

  “Plucky, eh?” Connor said, and then asked, “What if she puts up a fight?”

  “Can we cosh her?” Finch’s tone was almost anticipatory.

  Darwin Quincy sighed. “Take whatever measures it requires to frighten her out of her wits. Shoot one of the coachmen, perhaps ... that should set the proper tone. And then, once you’ve made off with her, you can tie her up or gag her if you must. But don’t mark her. She is to be my wife, after all.” He paused and added silkily. “I hope you take my meaning, gentlemen.”

  Finch guffawed. “You don’t want us tumbling her. Now, that’s a pity . . . always hankered to bed a lady.”

  Quincy made a disparaging noise. “Trust me, Mr. Finch, they are never worth the trouble. Though the woman in question is hardly a real lady ... her father is nothing more than a glorified merchant, a shipbuilder who puffs himself up like a gentleman.”

  MacHeath’s head jerked up slightly in surprise. The shipbuilder had to be Quincy’s uncle, Alexander Prescott. MacHeath had worked for him a time back in Exeter. He knew full well that the man only had one child, a rag-tail hoyden of a daughter, who hardly had the makings of a gently bred lady. He’d always suspected she’d end up disguising herself as a boy and sailing off on one of her father’s merchant ships. Somehow he doubted the passing years had turned the minx into a paragon of virtue.

  She had to be, what … twenty-five now. And she’d obviously never married, not if Darwin Quincy was plotting to make her his wife. Or perhaps she’d been widowed. Alexandra Prescott was exactly the sort of female to drive a man to an early grave.

  The men behind him let their conversation lag when the barmaid came over to refill their glasses. While Finch bantered with the woman, MacHeath let his mind wander back thirteen years, to the fateful summer’s day when he’d first met Alexander Prescott’s daughter.

  She’d been ambling along one of the piers where her father’s tall ships were berthed, a black-and-white spaniel puppy capering beside her. The spaniel kept nipping at her long skirts and making her laugh. MacHeath was testing the lines on one of the new ships, and when he heard a workman call out to her in greeting, he’d gone to the ship’s rail to watch her pass by.

  Everyone who knew Alexander Prescott had an opinion about his daughter. They swore she was a miracle child, borne to two people both well into their forties. They also proclaimed her a changeling—this being the usual explanation when fair-skinned, towheaded parents brought forth a swarthy, black-haired child. Some whispered that she was the devil’s own spawn, reckless and spoiled, and yet as full of impish charm as Old Nick himself.

  MacHeath had worked for her father for nearly a month, but had not yet set eyes on the remarkable Alexa. He’d watched her progress down the dock with a dawning smile. There was surely nothing conventionally pretty about her. Her dark curls were tangled into an unruly mop, and her wrinkled white pinafore looked as though she’d had it off a vagrant. But there was a spirit there—in the way she danced along the wooden planking and in the boyish lilt of her voice as she playfully chided the puppy. It showed in the tilt of her head and the bright gleam in her eyes. He felt his heart swell.

  In spite of her unkempt appearance, she moved with assurance and grace, a child secure in the knowledge of her own consequence. Neither proud nor arrogant, merely at ease. Since MacHeath rarely felt at ease, he’d found himself envying this girl. Not for her father’s wealth or for her bright future, but for her sheer, brimming confidence.

  As she drew even with the side of his ship, his pleasure in watching her turned to dismay. The gamboling puppy had finally managed to trip her, and she stumbled onto her knees, perilously near the edge of the pier. When she scrambled to her feet, he saw that the hem of her skirt was still caught beneath her slipper. He leaned forward and called out to warn her. As she spun to look up at him, she staggered. The next instant, she overbalanced backward and tumbled into the water with a startled cry.

  MacHeath didn’t hesitate. He vaulted over the railing in one fluid motion, aiming his dive for the few feet of clearance between the ship’s side and the dock. He hit the water in the exact spot where the girl had gone under, praying he could find her in the murky river water. A pale billow of white floated below him, and he reached for it. His fingers closed tightly over her arm, then he tugged her swiftly to the surface, stroking with his free arm, while she struggled against him.

  A small crowd of workmen had gathered at the edge of the dock. Eager hands reached down to draw the pair from the water. MacHeath knelt there on the sun-warmed planking and swiped his wet hair back from his brow. The girl was on her feet now, surrounded by her father’s men. In the distance, the commanding figure of Alexander Prescott could be seen hurrying along the dock, his nephew, Darwin Quincy, trailing behind him.

  MacHeath rose and took a step toward the girl. “Are ye all right, miss?”

  She pushed past the men encircling her, came right up to him, and swung her small fist at his face. The blow connected with his nose hard enough to make his eyes water.

  “Aow!” he cried, staggering back more in surprise than in pain. “What th’ devil was that for?”

  “For making me look like a fool,” she said between her small white teeth.

  He rubbed gingerly at his nose. “What else was I tae do? Ye gave me such a fright, pitchin’ into the water like that.”

  “I gave you a fright?” she exclaimed hotly. “How do you think I felt when something grabbed onto me under the water and wouldn’t let go?”

  “I was trying to save yer life,” he muttered, fighting to restrain his temper. As usual it didn’t work. “And if ye had better manners,” he growled, taking a step toward her, “ye would thank me for not leaving you there tae drown.”

  “I wasn’t drowning,” she proclaimed with a scowl.

  Prescott now loomed over them, his shaggy white brows bristling with concern. He wrapped an arm around his dripping daughter and tucked her tight against his side. She looked up at him, into eyes that were the same shade of clear, bright blue. “Tell him, Father. Tell him I wasn’t drowning.”

  “She swims like a fish, actually,” Prescott said with overt pride. “Learned how three summers ago in Barbados. But I believe you’re one of the new lads, so you wouldn’t know that. As for her manners ...” He tugged on one of the girl’s wet tendrils. “She is young yet. There’s plenty of time before I need to spoil her nature with propriety and such.”

  He smiled at MacHeath then, and held out his hand. “But it’s never safe to be in the water so close to a ship, so I will thank you for your efforts, Mr.—”

  MacHeath offered his name to the man, the name he had been born with. The one he hadn’t dared to use in the past ten years.

  Prescott shook his hand enthusiastically. Behind them Darwin Quincy fussed with the watch fobs on his elegant waistcoat and muttered to his uncle that they would miss their luncheon if they tarried.

  “You go on to the house without me,” Prescott said, motioning to the carriage that waited at the end of the pier. “And take Alexa with you. I’ll stay here and get this young fellow cleaned up.”

  As he turned to follow Prescott, MacHeath didn’t miss Quincy’s piqued expression. He couldn’t resist smiling when Alexa tossed her wet hair over one shoulder, spattering her cousin’s pristine coat with a shower of w
ater droplets.

  Prescott had taken him back to his office and given him one of his own shirts and a pair of dry breeches, all the while engaging him in conversation about shipbuilding and hull design and rigging. He’d listened calmly while MacHeath spoke of his life with his late father, a shipwright in Clyde, and of his own dreams of designing fast ships.

  The old man must have liked what he heard, because from that day on MacHeath had advanced rapidly in the shipyard. Before a year had passed, he found himself working with the old man’s select team of shipwrights, designing the fleet merchant ships for which the Prescott name was famous. For the first time in his life, he felt as though he’d found a safe harbor.

  In some strange way, his success had been due to that willful child.

  He’d tried to befriend her, even brought bones for her spaniel whenever the old man required his presence at the manor house on the hill above the village. But whenever he and Alexa Prescott were face-to-face—and she always seemed to be underfoot after the incident on the dock—she would just glower at him and refuse to say a civil word. Eventually they achieved a sort of truce, but she was likely to dart away from him in a temper at the slightest provocation.

  Connor and Finch would have their work cut out for them, he reckoned, if they really planned to carry her off. Especially if she’d retained that pugnacious streak.

  Behind the settle, chairs scraped on the oak floor. He heard Quincy utter a few final instructions, and then he watched as the slim blond gentleman crossed the floor of the tavern, holding his arms close to his sides. From the back, Prescott’s nephew hadn’t changed much, still the delicate tulip of fashion. MacHeath suspected his face would have shown the passage of time—the bland handsomeness now marred by ten years’ worth of excessive drinking, Quincy’s own particular vice.

  MacHeath waited until the blond man was through the door before he moved from his seat. He scuttled away from the fireplace, keeping his head below the raised settle, and found a deserted table near the tavern’s back door. He eased into a chair and resumed his onslaught on the gin bottle.**