“Emily says you’ve been looking for alternative accommodation?”
“It went no further than that, Madame. I was hoping…” She tried again. “I thought perhaps Hugo might have sent something.”
Madame shook her head. “I’ve received nothing. However, that doesn’t mean correspondence and succour hasn’t been delayed.” Her tone gentled. “I don’t believe he has forsaken you, Charity. But practicalities must be attended to. Hugo’s cousin, Mr Cyril Adams, is here. Now, I am well aware of your feelings towards him but he says he has received news from his father. He thought perhaps you might be interested in seeing him.”
“Madame!” Charity stared wildly around the room, then down at her threadbare blue dress.
“You can borrow something finer,” said her employer as if that were a matter of concern, but Charity shook her head.
“I’m not entertaining this Mr Adams or...anyone else. I’ll leave if I have to. If you want me to. But Madame, I have three days remaining here.” Since her last terrifying encounter with Madame she’d made sure to work out how far her rent would last — to the last minute. Madame would know it, too.
“Which is why you’d do well to speak to Mr Adams and find out what his father has to report. His father is with your young man, after all. I thought you’d be only too eager to hear what he has to say.
Of course she did. But not when he’d find other ways to put Charity at a disadvantage. “Tell him to come back when...I have gathered my wits. I have questions, yes, but I’m not yet ready to see him.” Charity thought of what she must achieve in the interim so that he would be under no illusions that he could pressure her. She needed a plan that would see her safe and secure. So that regardless of what Cyril offered her or however much he coerced her, she could refuse. Yes, in the morning, she’d find a lodging house or work as a milliner. There must be something she could do that would bring in a little money. Just for as long as it took Hugo to send something. She knew Hugo would be true to his word. It was possible he might not come home to her in two years’ time but she did believe three months was too soon for him to have given her up.
Madame came round from the desk and ran her fingers through Charity’s hair as she slowly circled her. “You could be one of my most popular girls, Charity. You have the looks and bearing. I’ve had interest you know. Not just from Mr Adams. Mr Cyril Adams,” she amended, her tone thoughtful. Slowly she contoured Charity’s bare arms from the wrists up to her decolletage. Charity held her breath. It was just what Madame had done the first night Charity had arrived on her doorstep, late at night, having been sent by, as it transpired, a procuress Charity had met on the coach during the last leg of her long journey from Dorset.
Barely eighteen, Charity had ceased to be useful when her aunt had succumbed to her various maladies and her grandmother had taken in a fourteen-year-old distant relative to look after her in her old age. She’d said it was time for Charity to make her own way in the world.
Little did Charity know what was in store for her when she’d arrived, friendless, in the vast city. She’d thought she’d found a safe haven at Madame’s.
Madame was speaking again, Charity realised. But in the brisk tone she usually did. She sounded distant, her thoughts far removed from Charity’s concerns, it seemed. “My daughter arrives tonight from France where she has been educated most of her life.”
“Oh!”
“You did not know I had a daughter?” Madame smiled. “I haven’t seen her in many years. It’s true I’ve missed her but this was no place for her to grow up. Not when I have such plans for her. I’ve provided well for her and she is a beauty with her rich, auburn hair and her creamy skin.” Madame’s hands were stroking Charity’s neck. “I’ve become fond of you, Charity, since you’ve been here. You’ve touched me with your innocence, reminding me what it must be like to have such faith in the goodness of others. Of that one important person. I’d have liked my Arabella to be soft and innocent like you but she’s not. She’s proud. She doesn’t want to be here, of course. Doesn’t want to see her mother, and that pains me.” She took a hank of Charity’s long, loose hair in each hand and drew it away from her head, assessing Charity as if she were an object.
Then she sighed. “But you’re not fiery and proud. You want to stay here, in the only home you’ve known since you’ve been in London. I’ve always prided myself on putting business considerations above all else but I will allow you some latitude, my dear. I, too, like to believe Hugo will return to claim you and his inheritance. I, too, like to believe that his next payment for your upkeep is only days away. If it’s not, I’ll grant you a week’s extension. But that is all. For you have great potential.” She smiled at Charity as if she truly were fond of her. “If Hugo comes back, he will want you, regardless of what you have had to do. For though he is a dreamer now, he must understand the practicalities of life. He will understand that a girl has to live.”
Charity lay curled up on her bed, staring at the ceiling.
“Come in,” she said dully, in response to the knock on the door. She needed whatever crumbs of friendship Emily or Rosetta could offer her right now.
But instead, Cyril stood upon the threshold.
“What a cosy little nest you’ve made yourself here,” he remarked after a cursory nod in greeting. “My cousin does love his domestic comforts, it appears. The crossing was not kind to him, my father tells me. But then, no one fared well. It was a very rough crossing. May I?” He indicated the chair against the far wall upon which he lowered himself without waiting for a response from Charity.
She, in the meantime, had swung her legs over the side of the bed and was staring at him in outrage.
“Madame said I’d find you here,” he said. “Now! Down to business. Hugo tried to send you money but my father suspected as much and is diverting his wages and paying only his necessary in day to day expenses. Sorry.” He smiled, clearly not sorry in the least.
“Which means you will need to find a means of survival, won’t you?”
Charity’s throat went dry. She’d truly not expected this. Not something so utterly dire. She felt the sting of tears at the back of her eyes and tried to speak.
Cyril held up his hand. “I can see that you are overset so just let me speak. I’ve been thinking of you a great deal, Charity my dear, and I would like to help you.”
“Profit by my misery, you mean. Trade on my vulnerability.”
He nodded, quite equably, as he pulled a large envelope from his satchel. “Dry your tears, Charity. They won’t do you any good, but these should make you happy. At least it proves your Hugo was thinking of you, even if he wasn’t able to provide for you.”
The joy at seeing nearly two dozen drawings and paintings spill onto the bed made her cry out. And there were letters, too! She picked one up and began to read but Cyril snatched it away. “There’ll be time enough for that later. In the meantime, I want to talk to you. Who is your father?”
Charity put her head on one side. “Why is it of any concern to you?”
“If you’re so reluctant to petition him, then I will do it.” A crafty grin split his face. “I rather thought that I could fashion a very appealing little spiel whereby his honour or his pride might be jeopardised if he wasn’t forthcoming with a little succour for his needy daughter.” Looking very satisfied, he added, “And I might claim a portion of that.”
“Of course there had to be something in it for you.” Charity paused in the midst of a wonderful poem Hugo had composed during a couple of days spent ashore.
“I’m a businessman. Unlike your dreamy Hugo, I’m finding a practical means of solving your immediate problems. Now, what’s his name?”
“I’m not telling you that.”
“It’s not Edwin Riverdale, by any chance?”
“How did you —?”
Cyril burst out laughing at her tone of shocked horror. “Because I see you have addressed an envelope to a gentleman of that name and, since
you’re desperate, this would be a likely bet.”
“I wasn’t going to send it.”
“I think you might have to, if push came to shove. Ah, my poor girl. He will be a tough nut to crack and I suspect you’d have gone about the matter with a touch too much desperation. But I do like a challenge and am a better negotiator than you.” He rose and turned for the door, reaching over to pat Charity’s shoulder as he passed. “Leave matters with me. You shall hear something in the next couple of days, I promise. I feel sure there’s a way we can all benefit from this mutually interesting connection. And, by the way, who was the stunner in Madame’s study as I passed? I nearly fell over when I thought Lady Margaret Ponsonby was being interviewed by our most esteemed brothel-keeper. But I heard Madame call her Arabella as she slammed the door. Dead ringer for the earl’s daughter, I thought I must be losing my mind.”
Charity blinked in surprise and nearly spoke unwisely before she shook her head. “I don’t know.
“Well, it was dark and perhaps Lady Margaret just happened to be on my mind, being such a bosom buddy of my own sweet Miss Mabel, whom you will soon help me to woo. Because you will have to compromise your stubbornly held principles, my dear Charity, and start dealing with me a little more kindly if you’re to save yourself from having to deal with the world’s sordid problems on your back.”
Chapter 11
“Spring is here!” Rosetta looked blooming as she blew into the breakfast room and took a seat in front of a pile of steaming crumpets. “Madame must be in a good mood!”
“Her daughter is home and Madame has high hopes for her,” Emily said, spearing one of the rare delicacies that were usually Madame’s preserve but which cook had said were for everyone, today.
“Did anyone ever see her daughter?” Agnes asked, her mouth full and her eyes still bleary from lack of sleep. Many girls who’d not normally make the effort to be up before noon had made an exception when they’d heard there was a table laden with good, hot food other than the usual sparse fare.
Everyone shook their heads.
“I suppose Madame doesn’t want her tainted. She thinks she can set her up as better than the rest of us.”
Charity blinked in surprise and nearly spoke unwisely before she shook her head in corroboration of knowing nothing.
She wondered where Arabella was now living as she reflected on Cyril’s words of a few nights before. Perhaps Madame really was working behind the scenes to concoct some form of respectability for her daughter in order to see her elevated in society.
The reflection put her own sorry situation into stark relief. How was any successful kind of future to be fashioned if a girl was a bastard as she and Madame Chambon’s daughter surely were? Society was unforgiving of those who transgressed.
Charity had no hope of rising above the detritus of life. She’d fallen to the lowest rung of the ladder. No one could get her out of the swamp. The best for which she could hope, quite simply, was that she’d not starve.
But Madame had connections and, clearly, her daughter Arabella was a beauty. A proud, enterprising beauty. Enterprising…unlike Charity.
“You’re looking very gloomy, Charity, my dear.” Madame’s entrance brought a hush to the table and a guilty look to Rosetta’s face as she held a half-eaten muffin in mid-air.
“Please, help yourselves, girls! Cook told you, I hope, that I’d ordered them as a special treat for you! Things are looking up, as they say.” She pursed her lips into a smile that gave her heavily painted face a very prune-like look. But as her mood was clearly genial, Charity — and no doubt the rest of the girls — were relieved.
Silently they waited for her to elaborate. One didn’t question Madame directly if one could help it. Charity wondered if perhaps she’d had some success on her daughter’s behalf. If Madame’s daughter was as beautiful and well-educated, Madame was cunning enough to pull strings in the background to set her up in a way she’d not do for the girls who made her money.
Clearly, something had pleased Madame who was only ever ebullient if business was good.
Perhaps there was a new girl arriving for whom she had high hopes.
“All of us here have felt sympathy for Charity’s plight and the fact she’s heard nothing from her young man in nearly four months — is that not so, Charity? Living like a scullery maid must be hard.”
Charity looked around the table where the twelve girls currently working for Madame were seated. Each one of them sent her looks of sympathy. And their sentiments were genuine. A pang of gratitude swept through her. These were her true friends. Girls who had offered kind words — words of hope — when she needed them most.
Others, like Rosetta and Emily, had gone out of their way to try and effect a plan that would bring Charity the loving reunion with Hugo that she was beginning to accept was just a pipe dream.
She blinked as a wave of shame swept through her. These girls were like her in that they, too, were on society’s lowest rung. They survived the only way they could — yet they could still laugh and offer mutual friendship and support.
Charity had never had to sell herself as they did every night. What right did she have to sink herself in misery and decry her lot in life?
“But now Charity, matters have become dire. Your young man has not been able to send you the maintenance he promised. I have been generous and offered you a roof over your head with little demand in return.” Madame paused. “But I am not a charity, and I do apologise for the unintended pun. I, too, have rent to pay and food which must go to those who are prepared to work for it.”
Charity bowed her head. Her time was up and Madame was making a public announcement of it in the least sympathetic way she knew how. It was impossible to look at the faces ranged about the table.
“So, Charity, this evening you will see a gentleman who has shown a particular interest in you.”
“Not Hugo’s cousin!”
Madame shook her head. “Do you really think I would be so cruel?” She made a tutting sound, as if she really did wonder that Charity could ask her such a question. “No, Mr Cyril Adams will be seeing Rosetta this evening.”
A collective gasp of outrage went around the table before Madame banged on the table top for silence.
“I, in fact, suggested Rosetta since this young gentleman evinced a particular desire to be tutored by someone who would show him what would please a woman between the sheets. Apparently, he intends that Charity should help him with his penmanship, or rather, his way with words. Thanks to this unlikely quarter with what he terms his desired rehabilitation, he believes he will be a better husband than he might otherwise be were he not to gain some understanding of the potentially curious desires of his future wife.”
Emily let out a derisive snort and the other girls giggled. Madame held up her hand for silence once more. “Does any girl here have a complaint against Mr Adams that I should know about?” She glanced at Rosetta. “You know I do not tolerate violence of any kind in my establishment.”
“He’s a selfish lover,” said Emily.
“And he’s parsimonious,” said Ghislaine.
“And he’s a cheat,” muttered Molly.
Madame nodded as she silently digested this. “But he’s never shown tendencies of a vicious nature? No? Well, that’s all I need to know. The fact is, he seems to recognise that he is in need of a little tutoring, so we shall hope Rosetta can transform our Mr Adams from selfish lover to winsome bridegroom in just a few weeks.”
She nodded decisively while Charity waited in trepidation for Madame to elaborate on the details of her own situation.
The time had come at last, she thought dully. Why had she not gone ahead and found an alternative situation before it was too late? She’d always been too passive. A bold, fiery girl with gumption would have found a way to survive without having to sell her body.
She stood up suddenly. “I’m not entertaining a strange gentleman. One day Hugo will come back! Whether that’s in two yea
rs or five, he will find me still waiting. And I will have been true to him. I shall leave this house today, Madame. I’ll find some other employment. But I will not entertain any gentleman who is not my Hugo.”
Madame nodded. “Very well. No one is a prisoner here. I shall inform Mr Riverdale that you will not meet him for dinner at Claridges Hotel, after all.” She pursed her lips and lifted an eyebrow. “He’ll be disappointed, of course. Emily, it appears Charity will no longer be needing to borrow the new gold and cream striped gown I had made for you, after all.”
If Hugo had been here, he’d have squeezed her hand, told her she couldn’t fail to entrance him, and then he’d have borne her company to the secluded corner table between two luxuriant potted palms.
But Hugo wasn’t here and Charity had only herself to rely upon.
It was a weighty responsibility. She needed to win over her father. She needed to strike the right note so that he’d not think her grasping. She had to hope he’d be overcome with fond memories of her mother, or even guilt at his abandonment of them.
What she must not do was appear desperate and needy.
At least, that’s what Emily had counselled. “Be proud. Walk in with an air of assurance so that the hotel staff think you’re gentry. But the moment you sit down, you must look like you’re deferring to him. Be appreciative. Grateful, but not cow-towing. Respectful. A little bit in awe yet still bright and winning. Do you think you can do that?”
Charity didn’t think she could at all but the moment she’d been deposited at the table by the respectable woman Madame had employed to chaperone her to such a public place, she found that, strangely, all the lessons she’d unconsciously learned about how to behave, came back to her.
“Good lord, but you’re the spitting image of your mother!” the tall, handsome bewhiskered man opposite her exclaimed as he rose to greet her. And, yes, he was indeed her father. There was no mistaking the roguish look in his eye and the square-cut chin and angular nose that had first struck her when she’d been eight years old.
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