The Autumn Bride

by Anne Gracie

  “Come with us? But . . .” It was going to be difficult enough to smuggle Jane into the Mason residence, let alone this . . . this person.

  “Damaris is the only reason I wasn’t raped,” Jane said urgently. “She has to come with us, Abby!”

  Shocked, Abby stared at the garishly painted girl. The only reason Jane wasn’t raped? Suddenly she didn’t care what Damaris looked like, how much paint she wore, how scandalous her clothing was, what her past was. Whatever she’d done before this moment, she’d saved Jane from rape.

  Daisy shifted restlessly. “Goin’ to stand around all night talkin’?”

  It jolted Abby to her senses. “No, of course not. Here, Damaris.” She unfastened her own cloak and wrapped the shivering girl in it. She tugged the hood up to conceal her face and hair.

  Abby glanced down at Damaris’s narrow feet, pale against the dark mud of the alley. “I don’t have another pair of shoes, but here.” She passed Damaris her mittens. “Put them on your feet. It’s the best I can do.”

  “Thank you,” Damaris said in a soft voice. “I don’t mean to be a burden.”

  The girl’s gratitude made Abby ashamed of her earlier hesitation. “You’re not a burden,” she lied. “You helped my sister and for that I owe you. Besides, I wouldn’t want anyone to return to that horrid place.” They would manage. Somehow.

  She turned to Daisy. “I cannot thank you enough for what you’ve done. I have a little money. It’s not much, but . . .” She proffered a small purse.

  “I don’t want your money!” Daisy stepped back, offended.

  “But you risked so much—”

  “I didn’t do it for money. Anyway, I got me own money. Now, are you lot goin’ or not?”

  Abby stepped forward and hugged her. “Thank you, Daisy.” Jane and Damaris hugged and thanked Daisy too; then, with whispered good-byes, they hurried down the alley.

  Almost immediately Abby heard footsteps behind them. Had they been discovered? She whirled around. It was Daisy, carrying a small bundle.

  “Are they Jane’s belongings?”

  Daisy clutched the bundle tightly against her chest. “No, it’s me own bits. I’m getting out too.”

  “You?” Abby exclaimed. “But why?”

  “Mort’ll flay me alive when he finds out what I did.” She must have noticed Abby’s hastily concealed dismay, because she added proudly, “Don’t worry about me, miss; I can look after meself. Now hurry! They’ll be out lookin’ for them girls any minute now. Valuable property, they are.”

  Slip-sliding as fast as they could down the alley, the girls broke into a run as soon as they reached the street. They turned down the first corner, ran several blocks, turned another corner and kept running. When they had no more breath, they collapsed, panting, against some railings bordering a quiet garden.

  A minute passed . . . two. . . . The only sound was their labored breathing. They watched the way they’d come, ready to flee at the first sign of any movement.

  But no one came. Nobody was following them. They’d escaped.

  “Right, I’ll be off then,” Daisy said gruffly when they’d caught their breath. “Good luck to you.”

  But Abby couldn’t let her go like that.. “Where will you go? Do you have family in London?”

  “Nah, I’m a foundling.” She shrugged. “But don’t worry; I’ll find somewhere.” She went to push past them but Abby caught her by the sleeve.

  “It’s my fault you’re in this situation—”

  “Nah, I was going to leave anyway.” Daisy pulled her arm out of Abby’s grip.

  “Abby!” Jane turned pleading eyes on her sister, but Abby didn’t need any prompting. If she could take a painted prostitute under her wing, she certainly wasn’t going to let this small heroine stump gallantly off into the night, alone and friendless. And bruised.

  She took Daisy’s hand in a firm grip. “You’re coming with us, Daisy, for tonight at least. No, don’t argue. After all you’ve done for us there’s no way in the world I’m going to let you wander off in the dark with nowhere to go. Now come along; let’s get Jane and Damaris into the warmth.”

  Chapter Two

  “A young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family!”

  —JANE AUSTEN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

  “Wait here until I can let you in.” Shivering, the girls waited next to the front entrance of the Mason house while Abby entered through the servants’ entrance down the side steps.

  The other servants had gone to bed; the butler was just locking up for the night. He gave her a curious look as she came in but all he said was, “Just in time.”

  While he was still occupied, Abby sped to open the front door. The three girls slipped quietly inside and hurried up the stairs to Abby’s bedchamber. When Abby shut the door behind them there was a moment of complete silence. Then . . .

  “We did it!” Jane exclaimed, hugging Damaris, who was half laughing, half crying in reaction.

  “Softly, softly!” Abby cautioned them, hugging, laughing and weeping a little herself. “We mustn’t let anyone hear us.”

  Jane hugged Abby again, then sat on Abby’s bed with a thump, as if her legs had collapsed. “We’re safe, Damaris,” she whispered. “Safe!”

  “I know. I can hardly believe it,” Damaris whispered back. “I keep thinking that any minute someone’s going to throw open that door and it’ll be Mort come to fetch us back.” She glanced at the door and shivered.

  “I told you my sister would help us.”

  “Yes, without her and Daisy . . . Thank you both,” Damaris whispered fervently.

  “Oh, Daisy, you were so brave!” Jane leaped up to embrace Daisy again.

  Daisy squirmed and protested and wriggled out of the hug as soon as she could.

  Abby had a thousand questions, but the girls needed a bath and something to eat. A proper bath wasn’t possible, not at this hour, not for a governess, and not without raising a lot of unwelcome curiosity downstairs. But warm water in which to wash—and bathe their chilled and dirty feet—that she could manage.

  She fetched towels and a kettle of steaming hot water from the nursery.

  “Give ’em here, miss,” said Daisy, relieving her of her burden. “A wash is just what the doctor ordered. Them two is frozen.”

  “No wonder, with the little they had to wear! And, Daisy, please call me Abby.”

  “Is there anything to eat?” Jane asked. “I’m starving.”

  Even as Jane spoke, Abby’s own stomach rumbled, and realized she hadn’t eaten since the apple she’d had for lunch. “I’ll see what I can get.”

  All was quiet downstairs. Abby crept to the kitchen. In the pantry she cut half a dozen slices of bread and a large chunk of Wensleydale cheese—Jane’s favorite. She filled a large cup with fresh milk, took a handful of ginger nuts from the biscuit tin and slipped two oranges into her pockets.

  A large meat pie, freshly baked, still warm and untouched, sat on a shelf in the larder. She cut a generous slice. There would be hell to pay in the morning, but Abby didn’t care. The pastry was light and flaky and the filling oozed out a little, fragrant and delicious. Her stomach rumbled again.

  “Is that all?”

  Abby whirled around. Blake, the butler, stood there.

  “I . . . I’m hungry,” Abby said with a defiant air. Servants were not allowed to eat outside mealtimes.

  The butler sniffed. “Give it here.” He took the knife from Abby’s resistless grasp, sliced a much larger chunk of pie—fully one-third of it—and slid it onto the plate. “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”

  Abby gave him a puzzled look.

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Your sister won’t thank you if the two of you have to share that mingy little slice.”

  “My sis—” Abby gasped. “How did you know?”

  He snorted. “I heard the Masons refuse to let her stay. Heard you open the front door after you came in toni
ght, and put two and two together. How many years is it since you’ve seen your sister?”

  “Six.”

  “Then it warrants a little celebration.” He placed a bottle of wine and two glasses on the tray. “Be careful; the cork is only lightly replaced.”

  He saw Abby’s amazement and winked. “Old skinflint docked your wages a full day, didn’t he? So take it in kind.”

  “It’s very good of you, Mr. Blake. Thank you,” Abby whispered, a little overwhelmed by the unexpected kindness. She carried the tray upstairs, feeling a little guilty.

  What would he think if he knew that as well as her sister, she’d smuggled in two complete strangers? And that all three of them had come directly from a brothel?

  By the time she returned, the girls had washed and changed into Abby’s warm flannel nightgowns. “You don’t mind us borrowing your things, do you, Abby?” Jane asked.

  “Of course not, silly. Now, here’s supper.” She set down the tray in front of the fire and spread the food out on the cloth, like a picnic.

  The girls fell on the feast with delight.

  “They wouldn’t let us eat yesterday or today,” Jane explained between mouthfuls of pie.

  “Why ever not?”

  Jane and Damaris exchanged glances, then laughed. “Damaris made me sick.”

  “What? Why?” Abby glanced at Damaris. With her face freshly scrubbed and her shiny dark hair hanging loose down her back, Damaris looked as young and innocent as her sister. And perhaps she was. If Jane could be stolen away, drugged . . .

  Abby felt ashamed of her earlier prejudice.

  “It’s how she saved me, Abby. She made this nasty-tasting tea and soon I felt terrible, and when they took me down for the auction I—”

  “Auction?”

  “Yes, for my first time. Men will pay a lot for a virgin, apparently, so they hold an auction,” Jane said matter-of-factly.

  Sick outrage filled Abby’s throat. “What happened?”

  Jane shuddered. “It was horrible—all these men staring, and me with hardly anything on—they just let me have a length of gauze, like some Greek statue—but suddenly the stuff Damaris gave me worked and I threw up—all over the men standing in front.” She chuckled. “The starers. I was feeling too sick to notice, really, but they were furious. And so was Mort. He gave Damaris a whipping—”

  “It wasn’t too bad,” Damaris assured her quickly. “He didn’t want to mark my skin.”

  Abby swallowed. She’d so misjudged this girl.

  “—and they took me away and put the auction off for another night.” Jane started shivering again, but it wasn’t the cold.

  “Tonight,” Daisy said into the silence. “In about an hour.”

  “So that was why . . . Oh, thank you!” Abby hugged the little maid again. “I cannot thank you enough, Daisy.”

  Daisy blushed and muttered an embarrassed, “Weren’t nuffin’.”

  “No, you’re a heroine!” Abby insisted. “You saved Jane and Damaris at the expense of your own job.”

  Daisy snorted. “I was leaving anyway. I hate what that place has become. When Mrs. B ran the brothel it was a happy place—nobody doing nothing they didn’t want to, and all the girls there of their own free will. Nobody was ever drugged or locked up, and nobody made to whore unless they wanted to. But since Mrs. B retired and her son Mort took over . . .” She shuddered. “He’s a bad lot, Mort.”

  Daisy glanced at Damaris and Jane and added bitterly, “One of the girls told me yesterday that Mort had promised me to one of his gentlemen—one of those as likes to hurt girls. Fancies hisself a little cripple, so he said, and Mort won’t take no for an answer.” She touched her bruised cheek gingerly. “All those years I worked for Mrs. B, from a little girl, and never once did she try to sell me—and she could’ve, believe me. She asked me once, and I said no and that was that. But Mort . . . he didn’t care.”

  She cut herself a slice of cheese and said to Abby, “So you don’t owe me nothing, miss; I was doing it for meself as much as these two. And you’re puttin’ me up for the night and fed me, so I reckon we’re square.”

  Abby didn’t agree. She owed Daisy much more than that, but right now she wanted to find out about her sister. “Jane, how did you end up there in the first place? You were on your way to Hereford.”

  “I know, and I have no idea how it happened. I did set out.”

  “On the stage?”

  “No, one of the governors of the Pill—the Pillbury Home for the Daughters of Distressed Gentlewomen,” she explained to the others. “That’s the place where Abby and I were sent after Mama died. Well, Sir Walter Greevey—he’s one of the governors; he’s ever so nice—he arranged the placement at the vicarage in Hereford, and he sent a carriage to convey me there. We stopped at an inn to change horses and I had a drink and something to eat and after that . . . I don’t remember a thing until I woke up wearing nothing but a chemise—and it wasn’t even mine!—and Damaris was in the room with me.”

  “That’s terrible,” Abby exclaimed. “What about the coachman—why didn’t he stop them? Or was he in on it?”

  Jane shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think he was drunk. He was drinking from a bottle every time I saw him.”

  “He deserves to be sacked.” Abby turned to Damaris. “Were you kidnapped too?”

  She looked away. “My situation was different.” She looked uncomfortable.

  Abby bit her tongue, annoyed with herself for embarrassing the girl, but Daisy chimed in unexpectedly. “Mort bought her off a ship a couple of days before your sister come in. I saw them bring her in after dark. She was struggling, weren’t you, miss?”

  “Not that it did me any good,” Damaris murmured.

  “Mort wasn’t too happy with her,” Daisy said. “Sickened the day she arrived. He was worried she’d brought some foreign illness in, but you’re a sneaky one, aren’t you?” Daisy grinned at Damaris. “You made yourself sick, didn’t you? With tea, like Jane said?”

  Damaris nodded. “But Mort caught me picking more of the weeds in the backyard and put two and two together. He had Jane and me stripped and locked up together, and given no food, only water.” She glanced at Abby. “I was due to appear downstairs tonight too. That’s why I was all painted up. The golden-haired virgin and the Chinese whore.”

  “Chinese? You’re not Chinese,” Abby said.

  “No, but I’d just arrived from China,” Damaris explained. “My parents were missionaries there. They died,” she added, anticipating Abby’s next question.

  “And you were forced into a brothel? It’s . . . it’s iniquitous!” Abby said fiercely. “We must inform Bow Street first thing in the morning!”

  “No!” Three voices spoke at once.

  Abby stared. “Of course we must report it, else these atrocious practices will continue.”

  “No!” Daisy insisted. Jane and Damaris nodded in urgent agreement. “You can’t, Abby; you can’t.”

  “Why not? I don’t understand.” To Abby it seemed unquestionable that they ought to seek help from the authorities, but the others’ fear was palpable.

  “I told you before, miss,” Daisy said. “If you go telling the law about us, we’ll be done for. Mort’s got spies everywhere—even Bow Street—and the minute he gets a sniff of any of us, he’ll send blokes to fetch us back—and after that it won’t be pretty.”

  Jane shuddered. “It’s true, Abby. You don’t know what kind of man he is.”

  “I would rather die than go back,” Damaris added with quiet intensity.

  Abby frowned. “But how could he possibly find you? This Mort fellow doesn’t know anything about me, and nobody knows of my connection with any of you—”

  Daisy said, “Anyone who reports something to Bow Street has to give their name and address, right?”

  Abby nodded. She supposed so. She’d never actually reported a crime before.

  “We share the same name,” Jane said. “And Chantry isn’t a
common name.”

  “And then they’ll come after us,” Daisy finished.

  “Who will?”

  Daisy shrugged. “Someone. We won’t know who. But they’ll get us, and they won’t be friendly-like.” She shuddered. “Better we just disappear, miss, with no ripples.” Jane and Damaris nodded in fervent agreement.

  Abby looked at them helplessly. It went very much against the grain to do nothing, but she was ignorant of the criminal world. She hadn’t experienced what the girls had. And Daisy had grown up in that environment. Abby would be foolish to ignore her advice.

  “Very well. I don’t like it, but I won’t go to Bow Street,” she said reluctantly. “But what if I send an anonymous letter?”

  Daisy shrugged. “Won’t do no good. Mort’ll know about it two minutes after it gets there, and by the time anyone gets to the brothel it’ll be sweet as pie. But if writin’ a letter makes you feel better . . .”

  “It will,” Abby said.

  * * *

  Exhausted and emotionally drained, they went to bed soon after they’d eaten. Jane shared Abby’s bed, as she had when they were children. Daisy and Damaris slept on a trundle bed brought in from the nursery.

  The three girls fell asleep in minutes, but Abby lay there, wide-awake. So much to think about. How had Jane ended up in that frightful place? Why had the coachman not reported her disappearance? Why hadn’t the vicar reported Jane’s nonarrival at the vicarage? Or Mrs. Bodkin at the Pill—surely she would have been informed, so why hadn’t she written to Abby? Over and over her mind turned over possibilities, and yet nothing, no explanation came to her.

  And now that she had her sister safe, what to do next? Jane couldn’t stay here; that was certain, and yet, Abby didn’t want to send her sister away.

  She ought to. Her own meager savings wouldn’t support the two of them for long. It would be the sensible thing to send Jane back, either to the Pillbury or to the vicarage in Hereford, to take up her position as a companion.