Among the Fallen

by Virginia Frances Schwartz

  From the porch, Miss Jane shouts my name. As I run to her, her face lights up. She’s the kind of person who lives in the background like a minor character in a play, highlighting the others, never taking center stage. As we head inside, my step slowing to match hers, how I wish she were Ivy calling me in, calling me home.

  “There’s so much for you to learn here.” Her voice is calm and slow, like smoke to bees. “And you will heal. As I myself did.”

  “You…did?” I stare at her. Even with her limp, she moves with certainty and stillness.

  She nods. “Someday, I will tell you of it. I believe it is possible, very possible, that a girl as young as you are can go on, in spite of everything.”

  That lights up my mind for days. Every so often, I think of what she said, pulling those words out like medicine to soothe a wound.

  DICKENS’S CASE BOOK

  It is already halfway through the month and I have yet to visit Urania other than through Correspondence that flies back and forth between Mrs. Marchmont and myself, often daily. The widowed matron, as capable and kind as the day I first hired her, is still no match for the tricks of the Virgin Charges.

  You could lose yourself in those girls. Untamed as stray Kittens.

  CD

  One evening in the parlor, we work on our tasks: knitting, embroidery, hemming, drawing, or reading. Alice demonstrates a smooth running stitch for the hem of a sky-blue dress, which will be mine to wear once done. It’s the color of innocence, of virgins. The Virgin Mary wore a dress of such a shade.

  Mrs. Marchmont has been bustling from task to task while we sew. She’s always in motion, her plump face flushed. Now she falls breathless into a chair to read aloud from Sidney’s Emigrant’s Journal. The ladies’ column is the girls’ favorite part and they beg to hear it again and again, bringing a smile to the matron’s lips. The journal talks about how good husbands can be found in Australia and how “in the towns there is as much gaiety as in England.” Rather more!

  Sesina smirks at that last part. The others discuss husbands.

  “What if a suitor in Australia asks about our life in London?” Alice wonders, pulling my threads out yet again. “What shall we say?”

  Fanny lifts her head. “What if they find out who I was before?”

  The matron’s voice rises. “Girls, you know that once you go to the colonies, you must keep your past to yourself. That is the rule. You must act as if it never happened. That’s what Mr. Dickens advises.”

  “Mum’s the word!” Jemima mutters, knitting rows of her shawl.

  Then Fanny asks, “But ain’t anyone fearful of leaving England and going to the ends of the earth?”

  Leah calls from the kitchen. “Ma’am, kitchen’s clean! Miss Jane’s ordering supplies. She’s asking if you need to add anything.”

  The matron puts her magazine down. “We’ll continue later, girls.”

  Crossing the room, she suddenly stops. “Come now, Alice, you’ve worked long enough. Go to bed this instant. Tomorrow’s another day.”

  Alice looks up from her sewing, the circles beneath her eyes dark as storm clouds. She pushes her hands on the arms of the chair to help herself stand, then slowly trudges upstairs.

  “Ever seen the hulks?” Sesina whispers as soon as the matron is out of earshot. “Ships waiting on the Thames jammed with convicts waiting for transportation. The Floating Academy, they call it. That’s who you’ll be meeting in Australia. Thieves! Murderers! Rapists! They’ll swarm the place. It’s them that’ll bring all the gaiety.”

  I have seen the men on those ships. Filthy as beasts. Lined up shoulder to shoulder like stinking animals. Their shouts and curses travel to shore. Some are even murdered on board. If ever there was a fitting prison for Luther, it would be there.

  “If Mr. Dickens were here right now”—Sesina turns to me—“you’d have to tell him everything once he caught that look on your face. Penny for your thoughts, Orpha!”

  Words freeze in my throat.

  “Been to see Dickens yet?” Fanny asks. “The man’s a force of nature. A blizzard, I tell you! He can move people. He got us all here, didn’t he? If only I’d met him sooner. He’d have knocked my Jed down a notch or two.”

  “I told him things I never dared tell nobody.” Hannah nods.

  Sesina looks up. “Why that Dickens wants to hear such stories, I’ll never know. You should see his quill fly when I give him juicy tidbits about my boyfriends.”

  Giggles circle around the room. “Tell us some!” Fanny begs.

  Sesina tells about a boyfriend who kissed her hair and fondled it for hours in ecstasy, sniffing it with deep groans and sighs, falling to his knees and keeping her waiting for a single kiss.

  “Such worship!” Sesina crosses her legs, rocking them back and forth, with a satisfied smile.

  Hannah sighs. “Don’t you think it weighs on Dickens, though? He comes in all buttoned up in his crisp white shirt and stiff jacket. But when he leaves, he sags like an old man.”

  “That man is hell-bent on getting something out of me.” Jemima sets her lips flat. “And he’s not getting one word.”

  * * *

  Like a chess piece, men have marked my every move. Mr. Dickens is small and bristles with unknown purpose. His sharp eyes sliced, yet how they lingered: clay for him to mold.

  * * *

  The next afternoon, when Mr. Dickens enters the Home, his presence is felt at once. Backs straighten. Hands flatten skirts smooth. All murmurs cease. The matron summons me to the back parlor, where Mr. Dickens waits.

  At once, he begins the interview. “Welcome to Urania, Miss Wood. I want to complete a case history of your life so we know best how to guide you over the next months. Let’s get started, shall we?”

  Jemima is right. The man tracks a scent like a hound on the hunt. Mr. Dickens removes a maroon leather-bound book, thick as a Bible, from where it is kept under lock and key inside a glass cabinet and flips it open. At his right elbow are quills, all with sharp tips, and a bottle of dark blue ink. He fingers one quill after another, examining each with a critical eye.

  Now he dips one. “What kind of work did you first do?”

  “Theater, sir. The one my pa directed. I fetched costumes for his actors, even played at dressing for the part all on my own. Each costume had a speech and a story to tell: the ivory Cornelia gown; the Fool’s jiggling coxcomb; and a sparkly headdress fit for a queen. For hours, I listened to the actors’ voices lifting from the stage. When it was my turn to step onto the stage, my costume was like a charm.”

  “Did other children work there also?”

  The long, snow-white goose feather sails across the paper. Short dabs into the inkpot without a turn of his head.

  “Only the daughter of the man who owned the theater. She rigged curtains and set the stage.”

  “Her name?”

  My breath catches. “Emma.”

  To name is to conjure: across the gangplank, hands outstretched to catch me, the daring in her dark eyes burning like fire. “Leap!” she yelled. And so I did.

  Mr. Dickens looks up at once. “What happened to her?”

  All the breath leaves me then. Her heart-shaped face reddened from crying, her wave frozen in the air as I was dragged away.

  “That last time I saw Emma, Pa had just died and I was whisked to the workhouse. I never saw her again.”

  “Would you wish to see your friend again, Miss Wood?”

  The question stands in the air between us as if it had feet. Her letter is tucked between the wooden slats of the chicken coop, safe from prying eyes. How many times have I read it? Countless!

  “Someday. If I felt proper again.”

  He scans my cheeks, where the blood pumps hard. His pen lifts.

  “Tell me about the workhouse next.”

  “I was sent t
here to pay my father’s drink debt after he died. Every day, I worked with a gang of children under charge of two horrid old men called the Barclays.”

  “What kind of work?”

  I grit my teeth. “The Barclays led us to the banks of the Thames where the sewage pipes leaked out so we could scoop up circles of fat floating on top and set it upon a cork, rolling it round and round to make a ball of fat. Its stink was awful.”

  The river appears before me. Bitter cold drilled into my hands as I grabbed the slimy fat, feet sliding down the muddy bank. Never far from the nudge of a boot at my back if I didn’t work quick enough.

  “Do you know what they did with this…material?”

  “Why, sir, they called it mud butter. The workhouse sold it for soap and candles and to thicken bread. And also to make butter. Mild Dorset Butter. I could never eat it after that.”

  Mr. Dickens holds his quill in midair like an exclamation point. I stop talking and can’t go on. I never told this story to anyone. Not even my aunt or uncle knew of it. That was the place where my tears ran into the reeking Thames, joining the filth from the sewers.

  A dreadful idea twists in my mind—what Mr. Dickens hears will sway him to let me stay or make me go. My lips press together as I clutch the bottom of my chair. I’ve already decided what to do with Mr. Dickens since the day we met: hide my past like Jemima and never let it loose.

  DICKENS’S CASE BOOK: NUMBER 98

  As usual, Miss Wood shuts tight as an Oyster shell. Shifting into secrecy in some dark underwater Refuge as soon as I steer her toward some facts. No doubt she is hiding much of her story.

  She serves her words to me on a Pauper’s plate. I shall persist.

  CD

  Mornings, upon awakening, images brew in a fog of dreams, thick and slow. Sometimes I’m walking Old Pye Street, calling Pa’s name with no answer. Then the corner appears, where Luther could always find me. My bloated belly flashes, and I am running through the labyrinthine alleys away from him.

  On the day I passed the brothel that winter, I was stone cold from sleeping in the graveyard. So I stepped inside, begging for a bite to eat and a touch of warm. The women eyed my belly and felt it, telling me that a baby was surely coming, just as my aunt had accused me of. You’ll do. They nodded. To cook and clean here. So I stayed on for two months. They said a man came around once. One to watch out for, they warned. Looking for a young girl that ran away, one named Orpha. Couldn’t be you, could it?

  I never dared give them my real name. And so I pushed brooms, brewed tea, and cooked soup. There were girls there younger than me, faces pinked and eyes circled in kohl. Older ones with rose-petaled lips, the flesh of their bosoms exposed. Some with purpled eyes. Another who coughed all day and night. And the madam, who called out loudly, awakening me at dawn when the women’s work was all done.

  “Gimme my black drops, child, lord knows I need ’em!” She reached out her trembling hand to open the bottle, releasing the scent of nutmeg into the air.

  The day I ran from there was the day they caught me.

  * * *

  We take turns pressing our ears to the closed back parlor door after the trustees march inside for the committee meeting. Hannah keeps Miss Jane busy in the kitchen with endless babbling. Inside, Mr. Dickens is speaking.

  “I know what you’re going to tell me—that I’m being extravagant again. But I want those parlor curtains replaced. Since Urania opened eleven years ago, they’ve faded. I’ve spotted emerald moiré in a shop and bargained for it. Alice will sew it up. Agreed?”

  “Dickens, you always find a way to get what you want,” booms a deep voice.

  “If only I could transform a girl as easily as a curtain, Dr. Brown!”

  Laughter fills the room. Hands bang on the table. The men are so near, I can picture them clearly.

  “Shall we continue?” The matron clears her throat. “On the subject of Jemima!”

  “What’s Sticky Fingers up to now?” Dickens roars loudly.

  “That temper of hers! She insulted Hannah’s delicious lamb stew. Kicked the door of her room when banned from the table. As of this week, she has no marks left.”

  “Give her warning. If she doesn’t earn marks this week, tell Sticky Fingers she’s on trial and can’t stay on. That might rouse her.”

  Another voice joins in, cutting and loud. “You knew she was borderline when we took her in.”

  Dickens sighs. “Against my better judgment, I brought her here, Chesterson. She was headed straight back to the streets otherwise. I’d give her a month before she was caught stealing again.”

  “We’ll reassess whether she’s made progress at our next meeting,” Chesterson responds. “I’ll vote her out if she hasn’t.”

  “How is Alice faring?” asks someone else. “Miss Coutts is letting her stay on past her time. I am grateful for that.”

  “Too quiet, Reverend Illingworth.” The matron tuts. “I caught her lying on her bed, muffling coughs in her pillow. She’s still recuperating.”

  Dickens’s voice again. “Once the Little Mouse gets over the consumption, off she goes to a warmer climate. Better for her lungs. And Hedgehog seems to be doing rather well in the kitchen, I must say. It’s the perfect den for her. Now call in the new one.”

  With one step into that room, facing those stares and all that silence, it seems I am back at Tothill. I slide my hands behind my back and curtsy. My eyes find my boots and stay fixed there.

  “This is Miss Wood.” The matron introduces me. “She is fitting into our routines nicely. She not only knows her letters but is coaxing our girls to learn them too. You’ve been a big help to us, Orpha.”

  I curtsy again.

  “How do you like Urania, Miss Wood?” asks Dr. Brown.

  “It’s…very good, sir.”

  “Is there anything in particular that you enjoy here?”

  If one of the girls had asked, a long list would have fallen from my mouth: the new green leaves, every meal, my sky-blue dress in the making, even Richard the Third. But all I can squeeze out is “Everything, sir.”

  I keep my eyes on my boots. They are scuffed and need shining. Throat clearing and silence fill the room.

  “Well, fine then. You may return to your work,” Dr. Brown mutters. “And do have those boots polished next time we meet.”

  I shut the door tight and lean in with Fanny. The men’s groans echo in our ears.

  “Why they all suddenly grow quiet and humble when they come into this room, may the devil tell me!” exclaims Chesterson. “They keep their hands behind them, a sure sign of holding back.”

  “Even the new one does it, as if they belong to some kind of club!” the deep voice of Dr. Brown protests.

  The two of us rush away as fast as our boots can go, Fanny’s curls bouncing, hands over our mouths. Laughter threatens to explode from our lungs. We stop to breathe out in a roar that bursts loose at the other end of the house.

  APRIL 1857

  ·• EIGHT •·

  I awaken in a pool of hot stickiness. Blood soaks the bleached white sheets. Deep in my belly, there’s a heartbeat of cramps.

  “Didn’t you guess it was coming?”

  Sesina slides her eyes my way as she gathers the sheets for soaking, her eyebrows rising.

  She’s the one I want to ask. But I can’t tell her or anybody else, least of all Mr. Dickens. A girl doesn’t speak to a man of that.

  Perhaps they did not sew me up as they swore they did. And Luther did not finish me as I believed he did.

  * * *

  From the top floor of the cottage, there is a view of draft horses plowing the fields, farmers following behind, shouting. In their wake, boys gather stones into baskets. Their work begins at dawn and continues as I dust, wash windows, and carry laundry from the line. Long after supper the men’s yells echo far a
cross the fields.

  Each day, the sun’s rays shine stronger and deeper yellow. They stretch farther into the rooms, awakening me earlier. After breakfast, while we learn arithmetic lessons, the parlor beams with sharp spring light.

  To watch Sesina then can take your breath away. She sits exactly where the morning sun spreads long rays through the eastern windows, sighing into her chair and lifting her glowing coppery head from a page of sums to smile at the sun as if it were her secret lover. She cranes her neck like a sleek cat to stare past the fence into the street that leads to London.

  There are questions I want to ask her. Sesina will be the one to know, the only one who’d dare say such things. There will be a price to pay if I ask.

  * * *

  We sit for morning lessons. On the parlor wall hangs Alice’s embroidered sampler, a garden of colors. It’s a record sewn of all the letters and numbers we must learn. Alice’s B is bold in red thread; M marches in mourning black; and N trembles like a dancer in pale pink on pointed feet.

  My head is bowed as I read. Words in a book are a cave to fall into. But there are no words for what happened. It can never be told. For it occupies all of me. Once it comes over me, nothing else is real.

  “Miss Wood?”

  Mrs. Marchmont must have been calling my name to announce the end of the reading lesson. The other girls’ heads are already bowed to their sums. Fanny is counting out loud on her fingers.

  Suddenly Jemima explodes. “Why the hell do we have to learn division? What bloody difference will it make once we’re in that cursed shithole Australia? It’s full of bastards anyhow!”

  Her words clap like black thunderbolts across the room.

  “Quite a sauce-box that girl is!” Hannah teases.

  The matron frowns. “That’s quite enough, Jemima! Five marks lost for swearing. No more warnings! Your score is now in the minus. Mr. Dickens will be informed at once. You are officially on trial.”