by DM Bryan
“The parish—” I said, but she interrupted me.
“You may judge for yourself whether or not parish assistance is an advantage in every case.”
Sister, I did judge for myself, and so I said nothing. To be torn from familiar arms and removed to a friendless legal settlement; to be put to the test of naming a father who cannot or ought not be named; to bend to the rule of the workhouse for three pieces of bread and cheese a day; to have a child taken and fostered in some loveless place—I would not willingly undergo even one of these trials, let alone each of them in turn.
Into this silence came a voice I had almost forgotten. “Please,” said the man with the swaddling, “can you help me, for the child is ill.”
“Yes, yes,” replied his sister, her voice catching. “I am doing what I can.” To me she said, “Once he was a man-midwife and made a very good name for himself. We lived west of here, and he attended gentlewomen in their own beds. Even on good streets, he would find the infants abandoned as he walked home in the early hours. I do not know if those small bodies caused him to lose his reason, or if his unreason takes the form dictated by those corpses. It hardly matters. He cannot help himself, and the dead still appear in every part of London.”
I would not look at her and started returning my sad pile of coins to my person. “You understand,” said my companion, and I felt her eyes close upon me, “I am not without sentiment, but it does no good. One day the overseer of the poor will hear of what I keep behind my parlour door, and then I will lose my ale-house license. On that day, I will be glad to leave this house, for it is built on bones.”
Sadie, this time I asked for no explanation, for I wondered if her senses had begun to fray like her brother’s. I did not insult her with further offers of assistance, and I made no attempt to praise her—the sharpness of her manner disinclined me even to like her. Instead, I closed my purse and tied it tightly in my pocket.
She smiled at me as I left that room, but never did I see a face more like a mask.
Well, Sadie, now I have told you everything that a long letter can hold. My adventures for that day were not entirely over, but setting down these events upon the page has wearied me, and so I must truncate my account a little. Suffice to say that after some further adventures, I reached home safely and very gladly returned to the bosom of my dear mistress.
Honesty compels me to add that, since my return, I have not been so well as we both might hope. Sister, I did not say so at the beginning of this letter, for now that you have read it, I hope that you will accept its many pages as a sufficient guarantee of returning strength. There has never been, and is not now, any reason for you to feel anxiety on my behalf. I would have said nothing at all, only my mistress urges me not to hide that I have been ill, so that when I tell you I am greatly improved, I might reasonably expect to be believed. And so, I do expect you to believe me, Sadie, and I know you will.
To ease my convalescence, my mistress procured for me another book, a novel, from one of those persons who provide aprons and lappets for regular washing. I am grateful to this lady, a Mrs. Tanner, for her kindness in providing me with a means to entertain and instruct myself while abed. I am not certain if The History of Glossolalia: Or, Virtues Various will prove entirely to my liking, but I have only just begun to turn the pages. I have every confidence the tale’s chiefest pleasures still lie before me.
Neither have I much time for reading, for I intend to return to work immediately. I can no longer presume upon my mistress’ kindness and tender care, both of which she has dispensed generously, with no thought to any result other than my improvement. Now that my body has fully recovered, I am fit to do battle with the only enduring effect of my illness: a curious check to my sensibilities resulting from some trifling details of my return home. Can you imagine that my visit to the house in Sharp’s Alley has left me afraid of water? What an absurdity in a laundress. My mistress says I must take a boat ride on the Thames, or the thought of water will forever excite my mind, associating that liquid with those fearful sentiments I felt before. On that noble and open-hearted river, she says, I will find the means to overcome this odd and unexpected check to my livelihood. Sadie, I am certain she is correct, and I will submit to her guidance in this matter, as I do in all things of importance.
But an account of my certain cure must wait for a future sending. For now, I can only assure you of my essential well-being, and that I am, as always, your devoted sister, Elizabeth.
Chapter 5
Provides yet another letter to be bundled with the others, like aprons ready for the washtub. In it, Mrs. Veronica continues her investigation into the cause of the Harlot’s death.
London, 1732.
Dear Justice Gonson.
You and I have met before, sir, though I doubt you will remember, for I am a lowly kind of person and hardly worth a second look in the street, unless ’tis to avoid stepping on me, sir, for I know you are a gentleman. I am only a poor woman, a laundress, to be exact. Your constables brought me before you and kindly gave me a chair. It was on the matter of a harlot that you called for us, sir—the Harlot in Mr. Hogarth’s printed pictures. You asked us about the colonel and the bawd that chucked the Harlot under her chin. Betty told you, “That’s a book you’re thinking of there, and not the kind of life we watch from the window.” Do you remember that, Justice Gonson? Indeed, you must, for my Betty has a ready wit and most men can recall a jest from out a pretty mouth. Well, I hope you remember Betty, sir, for she is the reason I write to you today—or rather, because I have not myself any skill with letters, you are addressed in the hand of one Mrs. Ezra Tanner, who is a clergyman’s wife and a kind soul, although she bids me not push her to the front of this letter.
But to my point—alas, my Betty is not well. It sorrows me beyond all telling to admit that it is so. I have prescribed for her as best I can—soup is as easily made in a laundry pot as in any other—but that is the extent of my powers, for I am neither physician nor surgeon. I pray soup will suffice, for I have not the coin to bring the medical men into my house, and I do not trust the costly phial, the gleaming lancet. No, my dear poor Betty has been forced to flush, shake, and shiver away the creeping stain of her illness with neither compound nor phial to wash her clean. Still, she fights, Justice Gonson, as only a laundress can. She battles, and her determination, alongside my soup, begins to mend her ragged breathing, her aching head, her bruised limbs. We do see improvements, sir. Her bile, her phlegm, and her blood—if I may be forgiven for mentioning such things in relation to a female person—are not so disordered as they were. Her complexion alters from an ivory silk to a cream-coloured linen, which is to the good. And yet, dear, good Justice Gonson, my Betty is not herself.
What do I mean? I do not know myself, sir, I can only say again and again: she is not the girl she should be. Not the girl she was. She suffers, sir, from a fright of which she will not speak. Her condition makes me think on all manner of physick, and how we might mend what is torn asunder.
You stand accused of a tattered conscience, and do not blame me, Justice Gonson, for stating plain what others most certainly would cover over with ruffles and furbelows. I know you are a justice of the peace and a good man, you need not defend yourself to me. Yet some say the death of Hogarth’s Harlot is a charge upon your bill—that your moral program against harlots makes your reputation at the cost of theirs. They say—those that talk—that your ambition killed poor Moll. Or Poll. Or Maria. Or Kate. Or any of the hundred names that printed lady carries.
Now, I hold no love for those who gossip, but when you sent your constables for Miss Betty and me, you obliged us to consider the truth of the matter, sir. That day, I knew nothing of the Harlot or her situation. But you bid me answer for the denizens of the Bell Inn’s yard, and I take that charge as sacred under the law. Accordingly, I have made it my business to learn what I can, and now that I know more, my honour as a laun
dress bids me to lend whatever assistance is mine to give. On this, Mrs. Tanner concedes my point. If I can help, I must.
And what have I learned? Of whores in general I know as much as any virtuous woman. Up and down Cheapside they go, but whether harlots face east or west, they always walk straight at Newgate. These are the strangest of women, for they are very poor, yet they have all the trappings of ladies: silks and laces, a jewel in each ear, a servant to run before them and to push ruffians away from the wall. Good girls, like my poor Betty, must watch them pass and wonder why virtue never earns skirts near as fine as those on Mrs. Hackabout or her sisters. Once, I stood spellbound in the street while a silken lady held forth on the entertainment to which she had just been treated. In a cracked voice, she painted for us a suite of rooms, each with a service of sparkling plate on linen boiled until it dazzled like snow. Those rooms, she said, gleamed with ranks of men, masked, watching white-painted ladies dancing and feasting. Each room opened into another room, until the last, where danced a golden-haired princess in Turkish dress. Now, I have never entered such a series of rooms as stood host to that sinful lady, and while I have seen boiled linen aplenty, I have never seen the heaped plate that stands upon it. The Harlot described candelabra with as many tapers as she had fingers, but only distantly through windows have I seen such a twinkling.
Justice Gonson, as everybody knows, the rewards harlots enjoy never last, and in the end, they are punished—perhaps far more than they deserve. Harlots only play out the world’s contradiction, whereas doctors benefit by ’em. For want of a coin, my Betty lies untreated, save for my thin soup, while doctors flock to visit anyone with coin. A harlot may call for a surgeon with his lancet, but a woman of modest means must moulder, fester, boil, and ooze. A poor clergyman’s wife must face death, her passage eased only by her husband’s prayer. A washerwoman will certainly breathe her last without a medical man to wash her inside-out with clysters.
These are the reflections I entertained while contemplating the meaning of Mr. Hogarth’s modern moral subject on his Harlot’s progress. It was then that I had an idea, Justice Gonson—a way to set right your sullied name. In short, why do you not moralize doctors, good sir? Why waste your labours on whores, whose situation you only worsen with incarceration in Bridewell? Why not aim for those who come at their gold second-hand, enriching themselves on the innocent sins of country girls? Reform those rapacious mercury-merchants, bidding them to tend to those who need them most, regardless of the rule of gold. Then hear the world sing your praises, dear Justice.
Consider how completely that class of men deserves the name of quack, which suits them so well, they should be a flock of ducks. What is their reputation in both town and city? Why, they always come too late, with physic that never answers. They bring mercury, and lavender oil, and clysters by the carriagefull. They will cup you or bleed you or stare sadly at your suffering—all this they do, and then they depart, but not before you’ve paid them for your pains. Live or die, you must pay.
Full of these thoughts, I decided to see for myself how doctors are like harlots, easing the body for a palmful of coins. I asked the housekeeper at one of those fine houses where I ply my trade for the name of an excellent doctor, a physician who serves fine folk, not a barber-surgeon that shaves men and bleeds women dry. But, my informant played me a trick, knowing me only a laundress, for she did not send me to the sort of man I sought.
The address, near to the great hospital, fooled me, and I prepared for my visit, first taking the precaution of assuming a costume that was not by rights my own. As a laundress, I have easy access to such a variety of skirts and petticoats that it was only the work of a moment to assemble that combination of garments that might make me a respectable tradeswoman, a prosperous mercer’s wife. Accordingly, I dressed me in a satin gown, heavy and glossy. Sleeves I borrowed in quantity, and a fine cloak to cover my head. When I was done, I could not see myself, for I own no glass, but Betty told me I looked the very person of a Mistress Mercer, with one eye for the shop and the other for my own comfort.
“Fie,” said I. “A change in dress does all that?”
“It does,” said Betty, but with less vivaciousness than before her illness. “Do you have a wish to marry again, mistress?”
I could not contain my astonishment. “Nay,” I told Betty, “I do not dress to find myself a husband. You should know me better, child.”
“I know so very little,” said Betty, her pale face meek.
I hated to see her so, in this blanched state. But I would not lie to her. “Mrs. Betty,” I said, “I cannot let you into the secret of my excursion today. An apprentice must remain innocent of some parts of her mistresses’ business or else she would be apprenticed no longer.”
“I am content to hold my half of my indenture forever, Mrs. Veronica.”
“What? Are you also unwilling to marry?”
Justice Gonson, to this raillery she only smiled sadly. Watching her, I hoped I had hit upon some truth more soothing to think of than a disorder in trunk and limb. I remembered me her curious fear of water and of the trips out upon the Thames she’d taken to remedy this distress, so fatal in a laundress. Now, her sad demeanour and bloodless complexion appeared to me in a different light. Was it love that ailed her?
Ah, but the problem vexed me. Such fond suspicions might prove misleading, for I had not myself the skill of diagnosis, and Betty lodges so very close to my heart. Only a doctor might say if a doctor were needed. It was a puzzle.
“I must go as far as St. Bartholomew’s, and I will be some time,” I said, lifting my hood over my cap. “Do no work, and do not wait on me. Rest yourself.”
“But you cannot go on foot.” she said.
“Indeed, how else should I go?”
“If you are not you, and I see from your skirts and your cloak that you are not, you must suit your means of travel to your disguise.”
I stopped and immediately felt the unfamiliar rustle of fine fabric about my legs. Indeed, such elegant stuff did not belong in the street. “Mud,” said I, “should be brushed when dry and removed from silk by the assiduous application—”
“Hush,” said my good Betty, adding, “you must choose your chairmen with care.”
“A chair, dear Betty?”
“Do not choose any from the Bell, for they will certainly be drunk. You will be set at the transept doors in a heap.”
Betty imagined I meant to go to St. Bart’s own church. That was well enough—I would not have her guess where I went.
“I shall walk as far as Cheapside, but I will ride from there.”
“Have you ready coin, mistress?” said Betty, her hand already upon the opening of her pocket, but I waved her hand away, taking myself to the door. There, I turned and kissed her upon the cheek, which took both of us very much by surprise.
We walk a spiral path, Betty and I, and can only walk together a short time. Her road is new and loops wide, while my way curls tight upon itself. How lucky we are that our different paths ran side-by-side, even for so short a time. One day we must part, Justice Gonson, and that sad foretelling is a stain I cannot remove.
Mrs. Tanner, my scribe, applauds my sensibility, but she says such pensées, though fine, prove unwelcome in a letter of business such as I desire to write. She bids me hasten to my purpose, and so we resume our mutual tale.
I sallied forth to the doctor’s in a sober chair painted black and with a sashed window that would not lower. The chairmen carried me gently and set me down no little way along a narrow artery, not far from the great hospital. With much deference to my skirt and fine cloak, I was handed out before a dim, shadowed doorway and there the chairmen left me, having first satisfied me that this was indeed the address I sought.
A reeking flight of stairs led me upwards, past the first turn and past the second, to the very top of that undesirable residence. The room alarmed me beyo
nd all measure, for it was poorly lit by a dirty window and decorated with oddities such as I hope never to see again. Wonders there were, but also awful objects whose purpose I could not easily understand. Through the half-open doors of a little closet, I could see bones, pale in the gloom and rotating slightly as if gallows-tied. Above that, some finned creature depended, with its quilted hide and teeth like lace picots. More teeth, these made of metal, distinguished an infernal machine that consisted of many oily parts, gears and screws and a frame—a press or a rack, I could not tell. Bulbous bottles, lettered phials, and snakelike ropes coiled beneath the ceiling, but worse by far was a terrible head, sitting on top of the cabinet. ’Twas a leering, grinning face with wide eyes that looked out at nothing. I could not tell if it was a bust made of stone, or if it was a carved mask, intended for grim masquerades. Perhaps it was what it seemed: a man’s skin, preserved and stuffed with sawdust. At this supposition, I looked away in shame—what kind of man keeps another on display?
My answer stood by a covered table where a further artful arrangement of a book and a skull conveyed the impermanence of life, an odd theme for the decoration of a physician’s chambers. The man himself was pinch-jawed, with a peaked wig like the claw of a crab. He saw me and commenced shining his glasses with a filthy cloth and a thumb on one lens. I did not speak, nor did he expect me to. Instead, he clapped his smeared lenses on his nose and circled me once, sniffing, pausing directly behind me, but for what purpose I could not tell. At last he came fully round to his starting point, and resumed his nonchalant posture by the table. “Well, Mrs.,” he said at last, croaking genially and commencing to polish his glasses again. “ ’Tis not the predations of Venus that brings you here to me today. Neither have you the plague.”