Among the Fallen

by Virginia Frances Schwartz

  “You knew what she was up to?”

  “Oh, no, sir.” Sesina curtsies at once. “It’s just that she’s always complaining there’s too many rules here.”

  “Hmm!” Mr. Dickens fumes.

  Up the stairs he thumps, opens the bedroom door and slams it.

  “Please give me another chance, sir! I didn’t mean to take it.”

  Then Mr. Dickens’s voice: low, measured, and muffled.

  Suddenly the door swings open. “Bring the dress!” he shouts.

  The matron carries a raggedy gray dress, torn at the sleeve, and a threadbare shawl, upstairs to Mr. Dickens.

  Now we hear him say, “Stealing is against the law. It’s what sent you to prison in the first place. The committee has voted! Out you go!”

  Screeching, very high-pitched. “Give me another chance!”

  Mr. Dickens marches across the upper hallway, disappearing into our rooms. While Sesina taps her fingers on her thighs, the rest of us scurry like mice in all directions, pretending to be busy with tasks.

  “Fanny!” he calls down. “Straighten up here at once!”

  All eyes shift upward. None of us dare look at one another. The matron studies us closely, as does Miss Jane. More than ten minutes later, Fanny shakes her head at us from the landing, signaling that nothing was discovered. Sesina’s shoulders drop.

  Mr. Dickens stomps downstairs into the parlor. Back and forth he paces, hands behind him.

  Jemima drags herself downstairs in her old bonnet and dress, following the matron. Miss Jane hands her some coins. One last time, Jemima swivels around to Dickens. He does not turn. She slams the front door behind her.

  We rush to the front windows to watch Jemima go, wiping her face, her bonnet half sliding off. We girls clutch one another.

  “Where will she go with only a few coins and dressed like that?” Alice sobs.

  “I had to tell!” Fanny blurts out between tears. “That candlestick stuck right out of her mattress this morning.”

  “She got what was coming to her, didn’t she?” Sesina shrieks.

  “Poor thing!” The matron sighs, wiping her eyes. “If only she’d resisted temptation!”

  In the parlor, Mr. Dickens slips behind the curtains and peeks outside. Jemima stumbles on the pathway, searching through her pockets. She shrugs her shoulders and walks off.

  There’s a sigh from behind the curtain. Mr. Dickens emerges, wiping his face with a handkerchief. He plops down in a chair, looking exhausted. The man is pure theater. He has just performed a matinee for all the girls to see. Shivering and tearful, they are, as an audience always is, watching high drama. He created a scene just for us. There isn’t a girl among us who would dare think of stealing from now on. Isn’t he the cleverest actor?

  JULY 1857

  ·• ELEVEN •·

  Dear Miss Wood,

  July 10, 1857

  I’d like to invite you to meet my family in London.

  My driver, John Thompson, will fetch you in his carriage and drive you safely to Tavistock House, my London home. Miss Macartney can be your chaperone for the trip.

  Shall we say the first Monday of August for tea? Most of my family will be in from the Country that day. We will be away from London most of this month.

  Yours truly,

  Boz

  Hannah’s voice hammers away. “Use your whole body to flatten that dough. Give it air…Orpha? You’re not paying attention!”

  “It’s Mr. Dickens…he’s asked—”

  “He’s got his ways. All men do. Don’t pay attention to Sesina’s complaints. Or call him names behind his back as Polly did. His lordship, she mocked him.”

  I stop kneading. “Does he invite all Urania girls to his home?”

  Hannah nods. “He likes to ready us to go out on our own. Some bolt. Like that flighty Isabella last year. First chance she got. Never came back.”

  “Did you ever go to Tavistock, Hannah?”

  Hannah throws back her wide shoulders. “Certainly I went. Even baked custard for his children. They devoured it as if nobody ever fed them. Made me proud!”

  “But weren’t you…afraid of being…on your own?”

  “I was bent on seeing Dickens’s home. Full of oak furniture, velvet drapery, too many rooms to count, and all those children! Why, the little ones even gave me a tour!”

  Hannah covers the dough for rising.

  “That man has a heart,” she sighs. “When he found me, at sixteen, scrubbing Clerkenwell’s stone floors, he cried to find out how I lost my mother. No one ever cried for me before.”

  Mr. Dickens does not expect custard from me. It’s my story he’s after. Last time we spoke, I gave him tidbits: fish bait. He didn’t press. Of that time past the cemetery, and well before, I cannot, will not, tell.

  * * *

  In our darkened bedroom, hissing with candle smoke, Sesina is whispering. We crouch on either side of her.

  “What would you two say if I told you I was leaving here?”

  “You will! But I’m going first,” Leah protests. “The matron says you’ll sail after me in late spring.”

  “Well, I’m not waiting for that.”

  Sesina lifts her head to look out the window at the road in the distance, the one leading to London. Shivers run down my back.

  “I’m running off. Soon as I can. You and I have been best friends for a year, Leah. Won’t you come with me? I could teach you lots.”

  Leah tightens her lips. “I’ve got prospects in Australia. A real position! And maybe a chance to marry. All I want is to leave this country behind. And everything else too—”

  Sesina studies Leah closely. Perhaps she has heard the venom snaking through Leah’s voice, how she spits out her answer.

  “All right.” She sighs. “But I don’t want to leave on my own. What about you?” Sesina turns to me, smoothing my hair in her fingers. “You don’t want to be a nanny or a governess either. You’re much too clever to be a maid.”

  Her hands clutch mine. “If you come with me, you’ll be your own girl, Orpha. Do what you want. We know you’ve been writing. London’s the best place for that. Theater. Books. Everything you want is there. Besides, Reuben’s got plenty of boyfriends lined up for you.”

  Leah and I exchange a look. How does she know my secret desires? Not like hers. Except for one thing: freedom to be myself.

  * * *

  For weeks after Jemima leaves, it is impossible to pass by Fanny’s room without a peek inside at the empty bed, its soft pillow waiting. If only Ivy would come! Haven’t I asked and been given no answer, not even a single word in a letter?

  Downstairs, the trustees call July’s committee meeting early. Fanny and Hannah plaster their ears flat to the door.

  Inside, a voice rises: “Polly ran off once ashore in Australia! So says the very chaperone we hired to keep a close eye!”

  Mrs. Marchmont clears her throat. “What shall we tell the girls?”

  “Tell them nothing!” booms Dr. Brown.

  “We can’t do that,” Reverend Illingworth says so softly that Fanny must mouth his words. “They hang on what the others do. We must cover it up—”

  Mr. Dickens interrupts. “Tell them the letter was sent to me. Say both arrived healthy. If anyone wishes more, let them come to me.”

  “They won’t dare!” Chesterson shouts in a thunderous tone.

  “Precisely!” Mr. Dickens agrees.

  “Can you assure us that the next ones emigrating won’t bolt, my dear Dickens?” Dr. Brown now inquires.

  “The Hedgehog is a rather sturdy one. She will follow a straight path, as will the Little Mouse. As for Leah, she’s a Lamb who follows.”

  Hannah grins proudly at that speech.

  “Now, on to Urania’s next recruit. Who’s on the list?”


  The voices blur. Name after name is said. I can’t hear them all.

  “Sarah?”

  “In the darks for biting a matron. Not very promising news.”

  “Ivy?” My back straightens.

  “Not to be released until August. Awaiting a behavior report.”

  “Martha?”

  “She’s the one at St. Pancras workhouse. Very young. I’ll stop by there soon to see what she’s like.”

  “We’ll wait for the right girl,” Chesterson announces. “A girl we can mold. Write to me by month’s end what news you find.”

  So many names said. Did they linger more on one girl’s name?

  The matron’s protesting voice next. “…you invited Orpha to your home, sir? She might be overwhelmed to be out in the world just yet. It’s much too soon.”

  Mr. Dickens’s loud voice heads straight my way as if he knows I am listening. “I beg to differ with you. The girl’s been locked away in prison and now here. If we overshelter her, she’ll never be ready for the real world once she leaves Urania.”

  “But, sir, how can you take the chance after Australia?”

  “I insist on it. Let’s see what Ophelia’s made of!”

  I bolt from the door, tumbling with a bang to the floor, forcing all the other girls to rush off. My whole body flushed when he said that name: Ophelia! A troubled girl who lost all her innocence. I knew whose nickname it was at once: it was mine!

  * * *

  I run straight to the garden afterward, my throat pumping her name: Ivy! If you don’t come, I am lost. I’ll have no true friend. What am I doing here without you?

  From across the miles, words ache to be said between us.

  “Ivy! I can’t wait for you any longer! Come!”

  I must have been hollering, for Miss Jane raises the hall window and looks out. She sees a girl crying, her arms raised to the sky. She can’t know that the girl is heaving her voice across the expanse that is England, all the way to a small cell on the north side of Tothill. Miss Jane gestures for me to come in for my interview at once.

  * * *

  As I stand in front of him, her name still heats my lips. But I can’t say it aloud. If I push too hard, he might never let Ivy come. So I let her name sit.

  Besides, he is already lifting his white quill and dipping it.

  “Do you feel ready to go on with your story? You were telling me last time how you ran from your aunt’s house. Where to? How you ended up at Tothill, I would like to know.”

  I sit bolt upright and push the words out.

  “I hid in a church cemetery near the west end of the rookery, sir. A forgotten place. Untended. Where dead flesh rots and molds in open graves and corpses are piled on top of one another with a shovelful of dirt. When it pours for days on end, the dead are uncovered. The stench is awful.”

  “Why did you pick such a forsaken place?” He busily jots it down in his book.

  “I had nowhere else to go, sir. Come dark, I was hidden.”

  “How long did you stay?” he asks.

  “Until winter’s cold forced me out.”

  A reeking odor now fills the room: flesh rotting on decaying bones. Mr. Dickens raises his head at once. He jumps to his feet to pry open a window. As he sits back at his desk, his eyes widen.

  “Your words give me great grief, Orpha. London teems with girls like you with no safe place to live. And still no one sees.”

  Not a word does he say about the stink that seeped into the room. It has vanished as if it never were here.

  “Your story needs to be told.” He glances up from the Case Book. “It can help heal you to share it with another soul.”

  Mr. Dickens swiftly writes as if his fingers are greedy to take my story down. He leans so far over the Case Book, he could almost fall into it. Urania’s girls live in our confessions hidden in that book, kept under lock and key. No one has the power to open us but him.

  I have closed my eyes to think about this.

  “Ophel…?” Mr. Dickens’s eyes light on me. “Ah…Miss Wood, will you join us soon at Tavistock? You never wrote back.”

  I find myself nodding. August is a long time to wait to see him again. Waiting is all I do. It has not brought Ivy any closer. Sesina says she can’t stay on longer. Why should I?

  It is dusk now. The matron enters with a knock and lights the lamp, leaving Mr. Dickens in lamplight and me in the dark. I jam my lips together and lower my eyes so he cannot read me. Reverend Illingworth comes in to say he will lead our evening prayers now. I jump up at once to follow him out.

  DICKENS’S CASE BOOK: NUMBER 98

  How many Homeless girls creep into cemeteries and alleyways to hide from harm? Or worse, are found there, alone, with no one to shield them? Of the few we Rescued, even those we cannot always count a success. Nothing could be done to save Jemima. Likely we will hear of her at Coldbath soon.

  It wasn’t just her Wildness, as Chesterson insists, that spirited Polly away. What part was our own failure? The times she was difficult and foulmouthed—was I too hard on her? Did we judge wrong when we Pigeonholed her as a domestic? Perhaps her wildness needed a more Creative outlet. Now we will never know.

  And then there’s Ophelia. A great shame clouds her as it does me.

  Do we ever heal our wounds? They dive so deep, away from the light.

  I return from Shepherd’s Bush this night, like Lot’s wife, after she became a pillar of salt.

  CD

  One afternoon, all my chores done, I settle down on an old blanket in the coop. Nearby, Freckles clucks, pleased with her carrot peelings. A little window above my head gives a view to skywatch. Way up high, clouds form shapes that break apart just as I name what they look like: a bearded, scaled dragon with a high back and a goat stretching its legs to jump.

  Images of Tothill pass through my mind just like those clouds: the young howling girl, A11, whose real name I will never know; a redheaded crown debtor last seen in the darks; and the suicide banished to Bedlam.

  Leaning against the wall, breathing in and out, I listen to voices call from a far-off place. One must be very still to hear it. Suddenly, there’s a tug, something shifting inside, ready to float to the surface. Tothill’s girls speaking to me, Ivy among them. Fingers leap to write it down at once.

  Dear Charles,

  Your proposal for the next Urania recruit coincides with Miss Coutts’s suggestion. It will be considered along with the rest of the proposals. This time, we must be sure of our girl and take no chances. God knows what we have to work with.

  It is becoming disheartening, I must say. We never know for sure when these homeless girls might turn away from what we offer or which ones will do so. Even after a year’s education, there is still no certainty. There is a wildness in many a street girl that propels her body before she uses her mind.

  What is our success rate in rehabilitating them over all these years? I daresay not more than half the girls have success. Surely Miss Coutts could make a better investment in any other charity than Urania if she so chooses.

  Your partner,

  George Chesterson

  AUGUST 1857

  ·• TWELVE •·

  Twirling in front of the hallway mirror, a young woman in a blue dress and bonnet, hair tucked neatly into a bun at the nape of her neck, looks back. She seems a lady on her way to afternoon tea in London.

  At last, Thompson knocks at the door. “Afternoon, miss. I’ve come to drive Miss Wood and her chaperone to Tavistock.”

  In the next moment, Miss Jane and I are off. Lulled by the trotting of horse’s hooves, my body rocks back and forth. Miss Jane’s accustomed to carriage rides; she takes out a magazine to read. But the whole world suddenly appears in front of me and I have to stop myself from hanging my head out the window. Farms. A forever road. Cornfields
.

  Wide-open spaces are then swallowed by houses crammed together like crooked teeth in a mouth. Thompson swerves to avoid puddles and racing boys. Shouts and grinding wagon wheels fill the air along with whiffs of dung and piss, as we pass through London’s narrow lanes thronging with crowds. Behind us, to the south, Tothill looms.

  Men with broad backs pass by. The glance of a stranger leaning in a doorway slices through me. I sink into a corner of the carriage. Someone from the rookery might recognize me. Some think me still in prison.

  Luther may.

  He doesn’t give up easily. He had me trained. With just a nod, I slunk down before him like a beaten alley dog. The back of my bodice soaks with sweat.

  “We’re here, Orpha!” Miss Jane tugs my sleeve.

  A uniformed maid, introducing herself as Anne, opens the door.

  Above me, five curly heads peek between the banisters upstairs.

  “She’s here!” one boy shouts while the rest cheer.

  Sweeping past them on the stairs must be Mrs. Catherine Dickens. She descends, hand on the oak banister, as if it took great deliberation. All lace, ruffles, and wide skirts, everything jiggles: her dark ringlets; full bosom; and her enormous waist.

  “Come down, everyone. Miss Jane returns for a visit. Give her a nice bow. And meet my new charge: Miss Wood.” Mr. Dickens stands beside me. “The one I told you about—the actress!”

  As the boys barrel past her, his wife pauses, frozen as a butterfly pinned between two panes of glass. After introductions, she wanders away, leaving behind a strong odor of spices.

  Alfred begs me, “Play with us! Our sisters are away in the country. Without them, we’re always getting into trouble.”

  The tribe of boys drags me upstairs on a tour, just as Hannah said. I get a glimpse of their father’s study, quiet and dim, and their own rooms with shelves and shelves of books.

  “We make up our own beds ourselves.” Alfred points. “Papa inspects them each morning. If we want playtime, we must be neat.”