A House of Repute

by E M Jones

  Lizzie rarely uttered an obscenity, even though she was frequently surrounded by those who used them as social niceties, but the occasion called for one. “Bloody hell, Charlie. Did she pay you double?”

  “Not quite, but I got some extra for my trouble. I deserve a medal if you ask me, but I doubt I’ll get one.”

  “You did get an eyepatch. And I’ve lent you my blanket. Which is nicer than yours.”

  Charlie grinned and winced at once. “Yes, that’s because you also find me irresistible. Well, what about you? What did Mr Soldier do to impress you?”

  Lizzie was about to launch into a more placid anecdote than Charlie’s when a boom gushed up the stairs. Mrs Henry had evidently decided that it was time to get to work.

  ***

  Monday was laundry day, and the girls set to their scrubbing boards and mangle with gusto. Lizzie had placed some ointment on Charlie’s eye, and although Mrs Henry viewed her suspiciously, the pile of notes Charlie pressed into her hand that morning drew her attention away from the suspicious bruise. Dina, with her height and reserve, scrubbed as well as any of the new laundry machines. Lizzie joined her, and Charlie stood ready to work the mangle. Dina touched Charlie’s arm when she saw her face; Charlie tried to smile and whispered “Later” under her breath.

  Mrs Henry stayed in the yard to direct operations, even though the women had been doing the laundry for over a year and fending for themselves before that. Mrs Henry’s was a clean house in more than one sense, and the girls worked hard to maintain her standards. Lizzie enjoyed the sensation of water on her arms and the rhythmic scrubbing as she and Dina worked. Water splashed around to break the humidity.

  After barking a few corrective commands and insisting that Dina was scrubbing the wrong way, Mrs Henry disappeared into the house “to start things inside”. She was soon asleep, and the girls had an opportunity to speak.

  Once Dina was reassured that Charlie would survive to work another night, all attention turned to Lizzie. She found it difficult to explain exactly what had happened the previous night.

  “He was … nice, pleasant, a gentleman, I suppose.”

  “You are not in love with this man?” Dina’s face crinkled with concern for Lizzie.

  “No, I’m not in love! I’ve only met him once. And he was a customer! He was just… nice. That’s the word to describe him. He spoke to me and was actually listening when I answered his questions. For a minute I thought… As customers go he was just nice; that’s all.”

  Dina’s French cynicism remained marked on her face. “What does nice mean? Why do you say nice?”

  “She just means nice.” Charlie stepped in to defend Lizzie once more, though her swollen brow was also a little furrowed. “Compared to my night, I bet it was nice as well. Jolly well nice.”

  Dina seemed unconvinced but dropped the subject.

  “What about you, Dina?” Charlie asked. “No black eyes, I see?”

  “Nothing interesting. Business is business.”

  All three fell to their chores in quiet companionship. Once Lizzie and Dina had finished scrubbing, Lizzie fed cloth through the mangle as Charlie whirled like an engine. Dina collected the cloth.

  Their orderly industry was broken by a timid cough from the back door. Mrs Henry stood in the doorway, looking thoughtful. “Are you alright, Charlie?”

  Everything stopped. What was wrong with Mrs Henry?

  “I’m very well, thank you.” Charlie wore her best smile. “Just got a bit carried away with my acrobatics.”

  ***

  Charlie had been scratched and bruised like an alley cat when she first turned up at Mrs Henry’s house. Following a perky knock at her door, Mrs Henry had almost closed it in Charlie’s face at the sight of the rough and prematurely marked young woman before she had even greeted the mistress of the house. But the alley cat was swift, and Charlie’s dainty foot in filthy shoes held the door ajar.

  “Mrs Henry?”

  “Please leave. I have a house of repute.” The old woman’s strength could not shift Charlie’s stubborn foot.

  “I know. You have a reputation about town. The best, apparently.” A raised eyebrow from Charlie, inflaming a red cut high on her forehead, had been returned by an interested glance from Mrs Henry.

  “And what of it? I run a private, clean house.”

  “I hear you have space for a new girl. I might know someone who could fill that place.” Charlie’s self-satisfied smile softened her scratches, and Mrs Henry saw how young she was. Beneath the dirt was a strong young woman whose eyes held a strange mixture of mirth and challenge that Mrs Henry had not encountered before, and nor would her customers.

  “Well, if there is a girl who wants a good place, I would be pleased to meet her. She would have to follow the rules of the house.”

  “Of course. You need to maintain your standards, your reputation.”

  Mrs Henry had nodded at this and opened the door further.

  Charlie had daintily removed her foot from the door. “Could I come in and tell you about her?”

  “I think you should.” Mrs Henry had nodded again, mirrored this time by Charlie, and the wounded young woman had followed her new mistress into the house.

  ***

  “Did any of you hear anything about the dead girl last night?”

  A chorus of “no” answered Mrs Henry.

  “A few of the girls were shaken up, Mrs H, but we’re soldiering on.” Charlie gave Mrs Henry another reassuring wink; she was unusually concerned today.

  “Business is business,” added Dina, for the second time today, to lend confidence to Charlie’s stoicism.

  “It happened once when I was out working,” Mrs Henry said. “Must have been twenty-five years ago now. They never found who killed her.”

  Mrs Henry sharing her personal history voluntarily was unsettling; she rarely mentioned her past and only did so to lament its higher standards and exemplify the flaws in Dina’s foreign habits.

  “She was a nice girl. Friendly.”

  “Well, that’s that for another twenty-five years then, isn’t it?” Charlie put her arm through Mrs Henry’s to end the conversation and spun her around. “Cup of tea, Mrs H?”

  “Yes, please, Charlie. Was it a woman you came home with last night?”

  “Yes, Mrs H, and a very nice lady too. Did you see there was a bit extra with the notes?”

  “Oh, yes. I don’t really know what you do with them, Charlie, but they always pay, and do leave the house neater than men.”

  Dina and Lizzie exchanged glances and finished the laundry.

  5

  When Lizzie went to her room to change that afternoon, a bunch of ragged geraniums were on her bed, on top of a neatly folded eyepatch and her blanket. Charlie had scrawled a thank-you in her childlike hand on an old piece of paper.

  Lizzie sat on her bed briefly and breathed. She was clammy again. No amount of washing cleared the heat of the day for very long, and her work on the laundry had undone any benefit of the cooling water. She had a funny feeling in her stomach, and she didn’t like it. It was similar to how she had felt when she had first come to London—like all the points of the compass were jumbled but she was walking on regardless.

  ***

  Lizzie had grown up in Kent and worshipped her grandmother. Her grandfather was a miller, and her grandparents lived next to the mill. She had loved visiting them, studying her grandfather at work and helping her grandmother bake and keep their modest home pleasant. Lizzie’s grandparents were not rich, but they made a steady income and were prudent in their spending.

  Lizzie’s mother had married young and had secured a social coup in marrying a local farmer’s son. She spent her own money, her husband’s and what she had of her parents’ on clothes and trinkets and dances and dinners. She did not, or did not want to, see the careful calculations that took place to maintain their pleasant home.

  When Lizzie was born, her father doted on her and her mother bought all th
e most fashionable clothes and equipment for her baby. Initially, she had enjoyed parading her daughter in her dresses and her perambulator around the local area. Once the baby became a toddler and needed exhausting care and attention, Lizzie’s mother lost interest. Unable to afford a nurse, Lizzie’s grandmother increasingly took care of her granddaughter, and while the toddler enjoyed her time spent in less-fashionable clothing and a warmer household, Lizzie’s parents floundered. Her father died of a heart attack—local people claimed from trying to keep up with his exhausting wife. Lizzie’s mother lived in as much luxury as she could afford, and the farm eventually fell to ruin. Lizzie was another unnecessary expense, and her mother swatted her away.

  Lizzie loved spending time with her grandparents but wouldn’t be a burden in their old age. On her sixteenth birthday, she set her course to fend for herself. So she got up early, packed the scarf and blanket her grandmother had given her as a child and walked towards London. Or at least in the direction she hoped was towards London.

  ***

  Lizzie leafed through her clothes. What should she wear this evening? The girls would go out again since none of the regulars were back. Would they go to The Alhambra again? Would Ted be there?

  Lizzie paused. She mustn’t think about Ted. But what had happened? He had been kind and attentive, taken an interest in her and her life—or had he just been checking her temperament before he paid for her?

  She gently pushed one dress after another from right to left on their rail. In one evening, Charlie had been punched, Lizzie courted and Dina had conducted her business with her usual professionalism. What sort of life was this? Who was to say that Ted would not fall in love with Lizzie? Lizzie imagined herself the wife of a soldier, living in an army barracks and preparing hearty dinners for her husband’s return from the most recent skirmishes. She would keep a neat and pretty home and care for her husband when he returned from the front bruised and exhausted.

  A knock at the door interrupted Lizzie’s dreaming. Dina’s head appeared high up between the door and frame.

  “Are you OK?”

  “I’m fine, thanks. Just trying to cool down in this heat.”

  “I wanted to find out what you’re going to do tonight. Do you think Charlie will be OK to go out?”

  Lizzie smiled at Dina’s pragmatic concern. “She’ll be fine. Somebody’s bound to like that sort of thing, or at least not mind it.”

  “Yes, but they are not very nice, the people who like girls with bruises.”

  Dina was right, Charlie did not need to be known as a girl who regularly walked out sporting a bruise or she would build up a very unpleasant trade.

  “We’ll help her with her rouge,” said Lizzie. “Are you out with us tonight?”

  “Yes. Sir Glynne is still busy somewhere. He will call on me when he wants to see me again.”

  “Where do you think we should go? Back to The Alhambra?”

  Dina looked at Lizzie for so long that Lizzie became uncomfortable under her gaze. “Lizzie, I do not want to upset you, but please be careful. This soldier man does not love you. Do not try to love him back.”

  Lizzie was taken aback. Dina hardly ever shared her thoughts on the activities of the other two women.

  “I… I know that, Dina. Thank you, but I do know.”

  “OK. When I came in, you looked like you were dreaming. And then you want to go back tonight. It makes me worry.”

  Lizzie blushed as Dina’s words hit the mark, and she turned to fold the already neat clothes on her bed. “I just thought there might be some customers there since lots of people are away. I don’t mind where we go—we could try Piccadilly Circus or the pleasure gardens in Chelsea?”

  “That’s fine. Lizzie, don’t be angry with me—I don’t want your heart to be broken, that’s why I speak to you in this way.”

  Lizzie turned and saw Dina’s sad smile. “Did you fall in love with Sir Glynne?”

  “No.” Lizzie thought the conversation was closed but then Dina continued. “Sir Glynne, I think he loved someone, once. Not one like us. He spoke once of almost moving to his estate in the North. I think he was going to marry someone there.” Lizzie raised an eyebrow. Dina shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps I am wrong. We do not discuss feelings. No, for me it was a long time ago. I had been working one or two years. A handsome French man—a rich man—met me at a ball and we danced all night. He said I was the most beautiful woman in the room. Like you said about Ted, he was… nice. We met lots of times, and I thought he would ask me to marry him. He told me he was engaged to the daughter of a lord after spending the night with me. I ran away as far as I could go to make sure I never saw him again, and I arrived here.”

  Tears stung at the corners of Lizzie’s eyes for the young Dina. The two women stood there close but separate until Lizzie touched Dina’s arm.

  “Do not be sad for me. I am fine. And I learned to be careful. Be careful, Lizzie.”

  “Thanks, Dina. I will, I promise. So, where to tonight?”

  “Why not try these new pleasure gardens? If the name is right, we should do good business. I will tell Charlie and see if she wants help with her paint. We will leave at seven?”

  “Yes. And, Dina, thanks.”

  Dina smiled her sad smile once more and crossed the corridor to Charlie’s room.

  Lizzie turned back to her wardrobe and continued to leaf through her clothes. Warm tears slipped from her eyes, and she cried for Charlie and Dina and herself, and that poor dead girl Charlie had read about in the paper.

  Eventually, Lizzie chose an off-green dress that was reasonably light and clean, although faded with age. She put up her hair so that it didn’t make her nape even hotter, and she wore some cheap but shiny beads. She collected her paints and went to knock at Charlie’s door.

  “Hello. Any rouge needed?”

  Charlie was sat up on the bed, also wearing a frock—an old yellow one of Lizzie’s. She chuckled. “Yes, please. Do you specialise in bruised damsels?”

  “As it happens, I do. Would you like another bruise so you match?”

  “No thanks. Can you sort me out so I look decent?”

  “Of course I can. And you won’t just look decent—you’ll be lovely.”

  “One of the pleasures of the garden, eh?”

  “Yep, we all will be. Are you OK to come out?” Lizzie asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

  “Dina’s coming too. We’ll all be pleasures for the garden. Let’s hope there are some customers there. Hold your head still and look up a little.”

  Charlie followed Lizzie’s instructions like a supplicant at prayer, and Lizzie looked at Charlie, her veneer of experience completely removed. She gently started to cover Charlie’s face with paint. “You are lovely.”

  Charlie smiled quizzically but held still and silent, and Lizzie painted over her open good nature, ready for the night ahead.

  Dina strode into Charlie’s room like a pharaoh. Her hair was drawn together at the top of her head and she wore a peach dress that made her seem naked at first glance.

  Charlie whistled her appreciation. “Going for the try-before-you-buy tactic tonight, Dina?”

  Dina gave Charlie a wry smile. “And you look almost normal. Lizzie has done a good job.”

  “Ah, almost normal, I’ll have them queuing up all around the gardens.” Charlie chuckled to herself, causing Dina to smile. “No Sir G tonight, Dina?”

  “No, he has business out of town.”

  “Well, he’s missing out on your business in town.”

  Charlie and Dina’s teasing gave Lizzie a note of comfort as they completed their final preparations for the evening.

  Charlie started again. “I wonder if I’ll meet a peer of the realm tonight? Maybe he’ll fall in love with my black eye and decide to have me live in as a curiosity.”

  “You are a curiosity, that is certain.” Dina smiled at Charlie. “Right, what is the plan tonight?”

  “Pleasure in the garde
ns for them, a few bob in the kitty for us, and then home and a quiet night for me.”

  Lizzie smiled and nodded her agreement. “How about you Dina?”

  “I will see what happens. I’m sure I will find a customer.”

  “In that frock, they’ll think the sculptures have come alive to play with them.” Dina ended the repartee with a professional smile. “Ready?”

  All three filed down the stairs and out of the door.

  “Take care, girls!” Mrs Henry called after them.

  The three women walked towards Chelsea in the heavy twilight, ready to earn their place in the feverish city.

  6

  Cremorne Pleasure Gardens was an unusual haunt for Lizzie, and an air of adventure surrounded the three women as they walked purposefully westwards. Lizzie had only been there once before, last summer when trade was equally slow. She enjoyed walking away from the centre of the city, even though her dress already clung to her thighs, absorbing the cloying heat that remained. She looked at young couples ambling along in a similar direction and smiled at them sadly. Any who met her eye looked away quickly or gazed salaciously, scruples presented by one person and cast aside by the next strolling past.

  She felt a kind pat on her arm and turned to see both Dina and Charlie looking at her quizzically.

  “Are you alright?” Charlie’s concern was clear in her searching eyes.

  Lizzie smiled. “Yes, fine. Sorry, just having a think.”

  Charlie seemed unconvinced, but Dina brought the conversation back to work. “I think we can stay together when we go in. We need people to see why we are there.”

  “You don’t think it’s blindingly obvious?” Charlie’s good humour and quick wit were returning.

  “Obvious, yes. Blindingly, no. With your eye, the men might think we are one of the entertainments, no?”

  Charlie chuckled before answering. “We are one of the entertainments.”

  “Oui. I concede you are right, Charlie. But anyway, we are far from home and we must try to stay together.”