I must get away!
“We’re off!” It is only Mr. Thompson shouting to me.
My body never rises from the floor. Behind me, Luther still stands guard as he always did.
* * *
I stand shivering in Tavistock’s entrance. My cloak is damp and so is my bonnet. Specks of coal from the fog have settled onto my shoulders and gloves. Grease tracks mar my face. Anne lets me in with a gasp.
Inside, in an unlit corner of the hallway, a figure sits so still and motionless, it gives me a start. It seems a statue. Mrs. Dickens does not look up; she stares vacantly into space, her hands idle in her lap.
Anne puts her arm around me, turning me away from her mistress to lead me up the high staircase.
“Poor little miss, looks like you’ve had quite a shock! Whatever has happened? Come to my mistress’s room for some dry clothing.”
Their room is altogether different; it’s been boarded off into two separate bedrooms: one for a man and one for a woman. The scent of nutmeg emanates everywhere in Catherine’s side of the room. Now I can place it. That was the scent on the women’s breath at the end of the night at Silver Feathers, their feet so unsteady they had to be guided up the brothel stairs, after swallowing their black drops. Afterward, they slept for long hours.
As I wish to do.
I rummage through the dresser drawers until I find the little blue bottle, wrapped tightly inside a shawl. The scent is pungent. Alcohol and spice. I can almost taste it without even opening the bottle.
My head spins. I see the two women clearly.
The madam leaning on me, mumbling to herself, out of her body, out of her mind; and Mrs. Dickens, sitting alone downstairs. That same faraway look. That same limp body.
Both betrayed by a man. One fallen. One discarded. Ruined.
My glance falls on the mirror above the dresser. Orpha stares back: her impeccable dress; her hair in disarray; her startled face.
She may be fallen.
She was betrayed, too.
She certainly was discarded.
But I am not ruined. Not like these two women.
I am not alone either. There are Urania and Ivy. And…there’s Mr. Dickens right now, just outside the door, calling for me…
Quickly I slip the bottle back inside the drawer and change into a clean gown, shoving my knife into my carrying bag, then rush out the door.
FROM MR. DICKENS’S PRIVATE JOURNAL
Miss Wood arrives with a Haunted look.
“Poor child,” Anne notified me at once. “She has visited her Ghosts this day.”
Minutes later, Anne stops me on the threshold of his office.
“Nobody goes in there when he’s like that. You must wait now, miss.”
Inside, by the far window, Mr. Dickens sits at his desk in the last light of the day. His sleeves are rolled up and he is without a jacket. He leans forward, quill sailing across the page at gale speed, so still except for his one hand.
Contained, as if within a sheet of glass, he cannot see around him, only the world of his own imagination, while downstairs, in the hallway, Catherine slumps on a settee with unworked needlework upon her lap, in a spell of gloom.
For Dickens, solitude is like stepping into familiar clothes. No wonder his wife keeps black drops in her dresser. She has nowhere else to go.
But I do! I want to rattle the door, smash through the glass, open my mouth wide and scream.
Voices shout in my head. Some of them are mine.
Fool you were to think him gone! Luther did not have to knock on Urania’s door. He does not come in ways you expect. Or open any door to enter a room. That room is inside you and therein he dwells. No matter where I am, I live there with him.
“Tell him everything, even if it hurts!” cries Alice’s thin voice.
Even Ivy has a say. “Dickens promised we could become someone new and start all over again once we confess. Isn’t that what you want too?”
* * *
I have been watching him closely for an hour. He has finally paused for many minutes to stare out the window.
“Help me, sir!” I call to him. “Luther is looking for me!”
His head jolts up.
“Come in, dear girl. I’ve been waiting to speak with you. Whatever happened to you on your way here? Thomas could not explain it to us.”
He does not let go of his quill.
“Sir! Today, I saw the man who binds me…on Tothill’s steps…where he’s waited for me all this time. He is my uncle…Luther!”
His groan fills the space between us. He motions me to sit.
If I’m to get the words out, the ones jamming my throat, I must not look at his face, only his hands. They are manicured and slender.
“I was not yet thirteen when put under his care. Too soon, at night…my aunt asleep…Luther’s fingers roamed. Brushing the buds of my breasts no one ever touched before.”
Mr. Dickens’s free hand forms a fist as he writes with the other.
“Then I bled. That’s when the worst began. In the middle of the night, I woke to him in my cot, his whiskered face too near, his huge hand smothering my mouth and…his…bare body rubbing against mine.”
My breath comes in jagged sips now. The quill squeaks without pause.
“It kept up. Sometimes for nights he did not come and then suddenly he did. His fingers roughly poking me between my legs ‘to get you ready,’ he said. And then one night, though I kicked and shoved…he pressed something into me and there was such pain I thought I would die and be broken forever. But I did not die. Instead, I lived to see it happen again and again.
“Not one word did I tell. The knife was at my throat, sir! Then my monthly bleeding disappeared and I did not guess why. Perhaps he’d stopped it with the pain he gave me, I believed. Mornings, I bolted into the street to vomit.
“My aunt shouted, ‘I might have guessed. Your secrecy. Your paleness. Sick every morning. You’re with child, are you not?’
“I shook my head. Even then, I did not understand.”
Mr. Dickens leans forward, mouth fallen open, and looks through me as if awakened from a nightmare. I turn away.
“She beat me and when done, she rolled my belongings into a ball and threw them into the alley. Straight to the cemetery I ran to hide. If it weren’t for the prostitutes, I would have had nowhere to go that winter. I cooked and cleaned at Silver Feathers. Never did I step into the street, for fear of Luther. Until that man, their regular customer, cornered me.
“His fermented breath stank of gin. That man was always full corned, just like Luther, straight from the tavern. One day at the brothel, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me to him—‘Let me warm up with this young’un.’ Behind his back, he never felt the madam’s delicate fingers tooling his wallet. For that, he came after me. I had no choice but to bolt.”
“He chased me through icy streets. I had a hard fall on wet cobblestones, a pumping in my belly pushing up to my throat. From between my legs, wetness gushed and I ran again until I dropped. When I awoke in a pool of blood, constables stood over me and that man was screaming about his wallet.”
Mr. Dickens stops writing. Silence fills the room. His head drops upon the table and his hands thrash through his strewn hair.
Oh, what have I said, what sins and what horrors have I unleashed here in this fine house?
From between his clenched teeth comes a deep moan. And then, slowly, he lifts his head to look at me, his eyes very wide and dark. Suddenly, a tear drops down his face, big, and so bitter, I can almost taste it.
“Dear, dear girl!” he whispers. “You have been sorely used by those who should have cared for you. I should have known but dared not guess.”
All the breath leaks out of me. “The baby, sir! In the hospital…they swore I did something terrible to it! B
ut I can’t remember.”
“My child, I never had the chance to tell you what I learned just recently. The baby was not born alive. Indeed, it was not fully formed. The theft you have explained. So you are innocent of all charges. Dreadful I feel not to have had proof soon enough to free you from Tothill.”
Shimmers ripple over my body. Heat waves in my belly.
Leave me! I told it over and over again. I am not fit to mother you! Better you go! It would have been impossible to hide with a baby or run fast enough. Sooner or later, he’d find us.
Suddenly I remember. When I awoke on the cobblestones, the baby was blue, its tiny fists clenched as if holding my orders secret. How I howled to see that. It had to be my fault, I believed then, for I had wished it dead.
I didn’t kill the baby! Boy or girl, it fled on its own, while it still could.
“Oh, sir! I should have confessed to you sooner. But he swore he…he’d cut me if I told the truth!”
“Your wounds were too deep, Orpha. But you have told your secrets now and it will bring you some relief.”
Beneath my ribs, my lungs open wide as wings.
* * *
The Woman in White is performed that weekend. Wilkie Collins’s eyes light up when I rehearse, surprised I have memorized my speech after reading it twice. He gives me a speaking part, the ghostly woman herself, and a wondrous costume too: a high-waisted dress, flowing skirt, and woven cape, all of thin white gauze so that I float ghostlike across the room, lost and tragic. It’s a trick, you see, hiding behind a voice and a disguise, a way of becoming someone else and disappearing. It fills my mind so full and bright that I forget everything that has happened to me. For a time.
When I take my bows, Miss Coutts, in an ivory gown with tiny pearls sewn all over it, is the first to give me a standing ovation, her shining oval face wondrous to see in the small audience. The others all follow her lead, Plorn standing upon his chair, clapping the loudest.
DECEMBER 1857
·• SIXTEEN •·
DICKENS’S CASE BOOK: NUMBER 98
Dare we say the words Rape or Incest in our society? Never! Yet it happens behind too many a closed door.
The cries of such abused girls rival the fierce cutting screams of the steam engine’s whistle. Yet still, no one hears. Who will tell of such girls? The Haunting they endure. The girl’s story is a weight that could sink one to the bottom of the Thames.
CD
That Saturday, Miss Coutts is waiting for me in Urania’s parlor in pale pink and gray woolens. Her outfit is so soft and warm it’s impossible to believe it’s winter. Clothes have power. To disguise, surprise, and project.
“What a performance at Mr. Dickens’s!” she congratulates me. “You outshone them all. You seemed…reborn. Everyone agreed how convincing you were, as if you truly inhabited the ghost character. I was completely in awe of you. How did you do it?”
“Mr. Collins wrote the part so clearly, I just followed his directions.”
“Nonsense. As a writer, he still has a great deal to learn. He is not our Mr. Dickens. He admits himself that the play needs some reworking. It was your voice, your bearing and costume that brought it to life. Mr. Collins even called you a muse, saying your acting inspired him to think more deeply of his character.”
My whole body flushes to hear that.
“I know you love the theater as I do. How wonderful that you were brought up in one and received some training. Do you miss it?”
“I once belonged there and thought to stay forever. But—”
“Dear girl, the theater is part of you. It’s there in your love of words, the way you read a book or script aloud. Your sensitivity. No one can take that away from you. People, yes.” She sighs. “They come and go. It’s them we miss. Tell me again of your friend in the theater. Do you still think of her?”
“Emma! When I thought of her at Tothill, it hurt like a wound.”
She tilts her head. “And now?”
“I will always miss her. And wonder if she—”
“Have you tried to contact her?”
I shake my head.
“Think about it, won’t you? Ivy’s done you so much good. Emma could too.”
Then she hands me a parcel with an expectant look. “Open it!”
Robinson Crusoe! How can she know of that day when they tugged this book out of my hands?
“You mentioned you never finished it.” She smiles shyly. “It’s very good writing. What a journey he took. Transporting!”
How long ago I must have told her. How carefully she listens. And remembers even the smallest of things.
* * *
I fly out to the chicken shed after Miss Coutts leaves, sending Richard the Third leaping into the air.
Emma’s letter is shredded and so faded now, its words are no longer legible. I know them by heart. My fingers trace the blurred lines.
Tell me the truth and I will come.
I never wanted to tell her. But just now, passing my reflection in the window, I gasp. From my hair bun to my smart boots, I look respectable. The sky-blue dress reminds me of what Ivy saw: my innocence. It’s the kind of afternoon, gray and quiet, that bids me to curl up in a corner. The words arrive whole.
Dearest Emma,
Do not think I have forgotten you. It’s only that I could not admit to you that I was at Tothill.
You were looking for me then. I wonder if you still are. If so, please write back to this address in Shepherd’s Bush. My new home is called Urania. You would be amazed by it. And by the story I need to tell you.
Your old chum,
Orpha
Mr. Dickens arrives that day with deep circles beneath his eyes. Breathless he is, just walking across the room. That scent of violets makes me gag.
“Sir, I’ve been writing about the girls at Tothill. To know their story, as you do ours. Sometimes, I hear them speaking to me and then I write down what they say.”
He holds my gaze with bright eyes.
“That’s a good start. Even better is that you have spoken your own story aloud. Have you told another soul of it besides me?”
“Only Ivy.”
He nods. “A friend to trust. How did you feel afterward?”
“We both cried, sir. It felt so natural and healing.”
“It’s essential to release our pain.”
“Is that why you write, sir?”
“You’ve always been curious how I create my novels. Perhaps I should share my novelist’s secrets with you now.” His head tilts to the side. “Most likely. Most probably. Yes, certainly. Impressions of a lifetime are dropped into my pages. I’ve borrowed, begged, and stolen material from everyone I’ve met. But most of all, I’ve concealed my own self deeply inside them like a bug in amber.” That makes me gasp. “What book would I find you in, sir?”
“All! None! I have never written directly about myself. Yet you will find me in every line and every word—with every secret I’ve kept my whole life, even from family and friends. Between the pages of my novels are the best possible hideaways for their safekeeping.”
“How do you write of yourself then?”
“Whomever I write of—David Copperfield or Oliver—becomes a vehicle. A metaphor. I write about myself through them, as if I were another person. A character. That gives me freedom to spill my secret pain. It’s like hiding behind a mask. Surely, as an actress, you should understand that.”
“Indeed. When I act, I can pretend to be most anything I am not—the Woman in White; Ophelia; Hamlet. None of them is really me, yet somehow when I speak through them, I am more myself than ever.”
“That is exactly what I do when I write.” Mr. Dickens nods. “Plant in my character’s heart and mind whatever I need to confess. Not that I plan it. It often leaps into the words without my say. That’s my method.”
/>
He starts pacing, hands behind him. The back of his jacket is deeply wrinkled, as if he has slept in it.
“There is so much more I wanted to share with you. But we…might not have much more time to do so.” His hand flies to his chest. “My own ghosts have been chasing me my entire life. I never rid myself of them. But you have the chance to face yours now, Orpha, and be free of Luther forever.”
He says he has a proposal for me.
“Sir, I would do anything to be rid of him. Tell me how.”
“Luther still lingers inside you. I sense him there. You might write of him in a personal journal. As a way to release him. To transfer him out of your heart and soul. Writing is my salvation. It could be yours too.”
Shivers run through me. The rookery looms: its dead-end rattraps of alleyways. Luther will know!
“Orpha, make a clean sweep of it. As I never did. Never told my mother how betrayed I felt by her. It haunts me still that I never spoke up—to her or anyone. She died without knowing. And it has never left me.”
He continues speaking in a monologue, looking out the window, as if I am not there.
“The novel I’m writing now is about political upset. Yet it yanks out of me exactly what I endure at this very moment—a situation that divides, changes everything, speaks about love, upheaval, betrayal, and all I cannot ever reveal except through it! Dare I write it?”
He whirls around to face me, coattails flying. His eyes look swollen and red. I am afraid for him.
“Yes, sir, if you can, if…if it doesn’t make you ill. It sounds rather exciting. Shall I read it someday?”
“Certainly, I must write it. It’s called A Tale of Two Cities. For that is exactly where I live now. Everywhere and nowhere.” He points at me then. “You will do better than me. You are ready to write directly of your pain. You could be free as I never am. Or will be.”
Among the Fallen Page 17