by M. J. Tjia
Amah and I hear a soft voice from above. I say, “Go attend to Eleanor, Amah. Nothing can be simpler than dragging on a man’s attire.”
The patched trousers are stiff and I hope that no fleas or lice lurk in the threadbare fabric. I pull a rather musty shirt over my head, shrug into a flannel vest and pull a cloth cap over my hair which has been pinned flat to my head. I have to put my own little boots back on but it’s dark outside anyway. Nobody will be looking at me closely. Finally, I tuck my handgun into the back of my trousers and, grabbing a half empty bottle of brandy, I slip through the back kitchen door. I stand very still in the darkness and listen, my ears attuned to the distant voices of drunks and working men plodding home. I creep down the narrow easement between my house and the next, letting out a low whistle as I tread. Almost immediately, Chat pops out from behind a small shrub across the way, and I cross the road to join him.
“Are you sure I am not too late?” I whisper to the boy.
“Nah. I ‘aven’t seen anything yet.”
“Let’s walk up and down so we just pass for a couple of drunks.” I take a swig of the brandy which burns my throat but warms my flesh, and pass the bottle to the boy.
He takes two swigs, screwing up his face. “Cor it doesn’t ‘alf scratch yer throat on its way down.”
We bump against each other as we trudge along the road.
“Why are you around here so late at night?” I ask him.
“Me da’ and I doss down around this corner.” He pulls me along and points to a rickety lean-to huddled in the shadows away from the light of the gas lamp. “Used to be a goat in there,” he says. “Bu’ thankfully it died and we been there ever since.”
“Where’s your father? Is he there now?”
The boy shakes his head as we turn back onto Frazier Street. “No, ‘e sometimes gets work cleaning up at the tannery late at night. Cor, ‘e reeks when e’ comes ‘ome. That’s why I stays on the streets this late. I feel a bit afear’d when I’m by meself in our shack.”
I look at the boy, his gaunt face marked with dirt and privation and I feel sad for him, just one shadow amongst so many.
We trudge along the path again, slurping noisily from the brandy bottle, and then pretend to settle down to sleep on the steps of a boarding house adjacent to my own residence. A good half hour passes and apart from a straggle of men making their way home, heads down, hands shoved deep in their trouser pockets, all is quiet. No lights flicker behind windows, there are no sounds of human movement. A chill breeze tickles my exposed ears and I’m just wishing I’d brought my fur tippet when Chat whispers, “‘Ere comes the gorbellied, ol’ cow.”
We watch a large figure noiselessly leave a house three doors down from my temporary home. The heavily cloaked individual shies away from the gas lamp and then, turning abruptly, makes its way up my path. I pad across the road as noiselessly as a cat, and hear the faint clink of the front door’s letter slot.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” My voice is loud and determined.
The intruder tries to push me aside but is tackled to the ground by Chat, who sits on top of his prisoner. The front door opens and Amah stands in the doorway holding up a lamp. “Did you capture him?”
I take the lamp from her and, holding it over the figure struggling and shrieking on the ground, reveal a plump woman with greying ringlets falling from her crooked bonnet. “Well, we captured her.”
“How dare you hold me like this, you harlot,” screeches the woman.
“How dare you leave nasty notes, you dog-hearted wretch.” I bend over and pick up the note the woman has left behind. Jezebel. Whore. May God pierce you with his sword, and the Devil turn you aflame. I read it through twice, and then laugh. “I cannot believe I was afraid. This is nothing more than nonsense.”
I watch as the woman totters to her feet. I smirk. “‘May God pierce you with his sword,’” I quote, poking the woman in her side. “Is he going to stick his cock in me? Is that what you mean? You saucy wench. Where did you find such filth?”
“How dare you?” gasps the woman. “I only read the Bible like all good people.”
By now the neighbours have awoken to the noise and are peering out their windows.
“There is no cause for alarm,” I call out. “We have just found an intruder. Peeping in on us, she was.”
The woman clasps her hands to her droopy cheeks. “I never was. I never was. You are an evil trollop and you and your like should be punished.”
My eyes narrow. “I will summon the police right now if you do not leave my doorstep. And do not deliver me any more of your nauseating notes or I’ll tell all the neighbours you’re harassing me ‘cause I stole all your best johns.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I endeavour to sleep through the rest of the night in the sitting room upon the lumpy sofa, but only manage snatches of rest ‘cause I can’t straighten my legs or turn over on my side in the improvised bed. When I do finally sleep, I dream that my gun fails – that I need to, am desperate to, shoot a dark shadow of a man who’s intent upon attacking me, but my gun refuses to shoot. A short knock on the front door, followed by its opening squeak, wrenches me from an uneasy sleep and I peer over at Amah, who’s slept on the carpet in front of the fireplace.
“That must be Agnes, the chargirl from Silvestre’s,” I whisper. I collapse back onto a cushion and rub at my bleary eyes. “Agnes,” I call. “Agnes.”
The girl pops her head around the door and gasps and ducks back when she sees Amah, who’s groaning as she sits up.
“Who’s that, miss?” Agnes asks.
“That is my maid. You may call her Amah. Don’t stand there gawping at her. It’s rude.” I press my hands on the small of my back to stretch. “And I have a lady guest upstairs in my bedroom. We are a full house this morning. Would you put some water on for tea, please?”
“Yes, miss,” says Agnes. “For ‘er too?” she asks, nodding towards Amah.
I frown upon the girl. “Tea for everybody, thank you, Agnes.”
“Yes, miss.”
Once she’s left, I grin at Amah. “Still scaring the natives, I see.”
“Pah!” She shakes her head, straightening her blouse. “I will never be bothered with what the likes of her think of me, Heloise.”
“I know,” I say, pulling on my peignoir. “That’s what’s so amusing.”
We trudge up the stairs to the bedroom and I push open the door slowly. Eleanor’s sitting up in bed, and she has opened the curtains so that weak sunlight filters unevenly into the room.
“How are you this morning, Eleanor?” I ask.
“I am well,” answers the girl, although there are dark smudges under her eyes and her face is pale. She smiles shyly at Amah and watches as the older woman takes a pale celeste-blue gown from the cupboard and places it on the bed at Eleanor’s feet.
“I had this brought for you to wear, madam,” she says to Eleanor. “It is one of Heloise’s day dresses, but she has grown too large for it.” She throws me a sly look which I note but choose to ignore. “The colour will suit you nicely.”
Eleanor kneels forward and strokes the shiny taffeta. “It is beautiful.” She continues to watch Amah, as she unpacks further toiletries from a trunk. “Are you Spanish, Amah?” she asks curiously.
“No.”
Eleanor picks up the blue gown and holds it against herself. “Maybe you are from India?”
“No, I’m from a land further away than that,” Amah says. “You would not have heard of the place.”
“I might have,” says Eleanor. “I was born in Delhi, you know. That’s where my mother died, so they sent me home to boarding school when I was twelve years old. Father returned to London not many years after that.” She stares at a spot on the blanket, plucking at the weave with her fine, tapered fingers. “I was so happy in India.”
Amah stares at the girl for a few moments and looks to say something, but thinks better of it.
“
Has there been any word from Sir Thomas or my father?” Eleanor asks me.
“No. I believe we have them at a standstill,” I answer. “Not to worry. I’m sure between the two of us, we can arrange something you might be pleased with.”
Amah helps us dress. With me, she’s merciless, hauling in the stays of my corset, her bent knee pressed firmly into my back as she pulls. But she’s gentle with the girl.
“How far along are you now, Eleanor?’ I ask.
Blotches of red flush Eleanor’s face and neck. “I’m not entirely sure. Four months maybe?” She places her hand on her slender stomach, the slightest of firm curves the only hint that she is with child.
I watch the girl as Amah tugs away at my hair. I wonder if Eleanor knows of her options; if she knows she might have had a chance to rid herself of the child. In her days being passed from one place to another in Waterloo, surely someone had mentioned the possibility of an abortion to her.
When Amah’s finished with my hair, having fixed it in a more intricate manner than I could ever achieve by myself, she starts on Eleanor’s. The old harridan brushes Eleanor’s hair softly, as if her fair locks are a sacred halo. I roll my eyes as I slide my silk hose onto my feet and up over my knees. I slip my feet into white, kid boots and go to the kitchen in search of breakfast, finding Taff seated at the table having a cup of tea with Agnes.
“Ah, Miss Heloise, I have returned because I have’m a missive for ye,” he says, handing me a neat, square card. I recognise the writing on the egg-shell white, stiff paper at once.
“Agnes, could you please take some tea up to Miss Eleanor and Amah?” I ask as I take a seat at the table. I wait until the girl has left the room before I open the letter.
I’m shining with excitement when Amah joins us in the kitchen. “I have left Agnes to moon over Eleanor,” she says, pouring herself a black tea. “She is admiring the girl’s prettiness and helping her with her toilette.” She pauses. “What do you look so pleased about?”
“I have a message from Lord Hatterleigh. He is back from the country and wants to take me to the opera tonight.”
“Is that where he’s been?” she says. “I wondered what he thought had become of you. You’re not thinking of going are you? You cannot leave Miss Eleanor.”
“But it’s Faust, Amah. You know how much I’ve been longing to see Faust ever since Sir Berry described it to me.”
“But what about Miss Eleanor? I will have to stay with her.”
“No, I’ll need you to help me prepare,” I say, biting my lip. “And I’ll need to go home to Mayfair for the night, of course.”
“We can take Eleanor.”
“Take Eleanor? Amah, we cannot take Eleanor. How strange she would find it when she sees that Lord Hatterleigh is to stay the whole night, and how strange he will find it that I have an unfamiliar girl in the house.” I worked bloody hard to get where I am. I’m also well aware that it’s been a small miracle I’ve pulled it off. So the idea of sharing my Mayfair home with another fair beauty… No. I won’t share the attentions of my lover and patron, Hatterleigh, just yet, either.
Agnes and Eleanor descend the stairs. Agnes is regaling Eleanor with a story about Mme Silvestre’s cat. “Vomited the pearl right up on Silvestre’s bosom, it did,” she finishes, triumphantly.
I swivel around in my chair to face the chargirl. “Agnes, I will not be able to keep Miss Eleanor company this evening. Neither will Amah. We’ll both be out for the entire night. Do you think Mme Silvestre can spare you? So you can stay here with Miss Eleanor?”
Agnes looks pleased. “I’m sure she’ll allow it if you was to ‘ave a word with ‘er.”
I smile broadly. “That will not be a problem. I will write a short note to her right now and you must deliver it at once.”
Eleanor seems so wan I decide to take her for a walk, ensuring we each carry a parasol to guard our complexions from the sun. I try to set a quick pace but Eleanor pauses to admire every flower or pat every dog or talk to each small child. Eventually I have to draw her arm through mine so I don’t leave her too far behind. As we pass Mme Silvestre’s establishment, Eleanor averts her gaze, but once at the corner we both look back on hearing a commotion. Mme Silvestre herself, as well-stuffed and tightly buttoned as an ottoman, bellows obscenities from her front doorway while Mr Critchley holds her back from pounding a young policeman over the head with a shoe.
Spying Tilly standing by the front gate I leave Eleanor for a moment and approach her. “What’s she carrying on about?” I ask.
“The pigs have come around looking for Henry.” She points at my purse. “You have a cigarette for me?”
I bring out my cigarette case, hand her one. “Where is he?”
“Don’t know,” she shrugs, blowing out smoke. “But they’re heading around to Mordaunt’s now.”
This I want to see. If the police are going to take in that rat Mordaunt, I want to be there. I race back to Eleanor, and tug the girl behind me all the way to the doctor’s cul-de-sac. We’re just in time to see Mordaunt led out through the front door between two constables. Crowded upon the front terrace are several surprised patients. The doctor’s assistant is so shocked he can only gabble noiselessly, rubbing the palms of his hands down the shiny breast of his suit-coat.
Walking behind is Inspector Kelley, who’s mightily officious in his black frock coat and helmet. Then comes Bill, his bowler hat in hand, and Henry, who’s shed his gown and is dressed in his plaid brown suit, hands manacled behind his back. Bill acknowledges me with a nod and they all climb into a police buggy which is parked in the road.
Eleanor clutches my arm nervously so I lead her away. I choose a route that’s in the opposite direction to The Old Trout and we walk in silence for a few minutes.
“I’ve seen that man before somewhere, the one in the brown suit,” says Eleanor.
“Yes. He’s the barman at Silvestre’s.”
“There was no barman on the night I was there.” The memory of the place quivers across her soft features.
“Yes, he was. You cannot remember a rather big lass tending bar? Wearing a frock and an over-abundance of rouge and powder?”
“With brown hair?”
“That’s him. He was dressed as a woman. Those rich ringlets on his head were from a very tidy hairpiece, I wouldn’t wonder.”
Eleanor stops walking for a moment, a look of aghast wonder on her face. “He was dressed as a woman?”
“Yep,” I grin.
A small crease puckers the girl’s eyebrow. “I am sure I have seen him somewhere else, though.” She straightens her shoulders. “Although I was not thinking clearly the night I was in that horrible place. I was so dizzy I was sure I was going to faint.”
She looks so upset I direct her notice to a mangy cat sitting atop a fence post but then I have to spend the next bloody minute deterring her from fondling its patchy coat.
I buy us each a plum from a street vendor and we wander onto a scrap of parkland and settle on an old log that’s lain here so long the grass and weeds snake over its bark. I bite into the tart skin of the plum catching the sweet juice with my hand. Its nectar runs down my chin so that I have to bend well over my billowing skirt. I suck the juice stain from my lace gloves. Eleanor doesn’t bite hers, just holds the plum lightly in her lap with one hand and, with the other, snaps up pieces of grass.
“What is to become of me?” she asks.
“What do you want for yourself, Eleanor?”
She shrugs her thin shoulders and the tip of her nose becomes red with the exertion of holding back tears. “Do you know what I’d really like?” she eventually whispers.
I shake my head.
“I would like to live in a cosy little cottage. Somewhere I could just stay and be left alone.” She lifts her face to the sun and shuts her eyes. “Somewhere like Cornwall. I went there once before on an excursion with my school, you know, to stay by the sea. Oh, it was so lovely, Heloise. And by the water there were qua
int little cottages, whitewashed with thatched roofs. I would dearly love to live in one of those cottages with my baby. Just me and the baby.” Her eyes open again and she stares ahead.
“No gentleman?”
“No,” she answers immediately. She rests her chin on her hand and watches an ant crawl across her boot. “No gentleman. Although I think I would be happy with a maid. A maid like your kind Amah.”
I laugh, a snort escaping my nose. “Even Amah would be surprised to hear herself described as kind.”
A light mist hangs in the top branches of the young plane trees muting the light.
“How did you know the French man you tried to find in Charing Cross?” I ask her.
“Oh, Mathis? He was my viola teacher. Of course I was supposed to call him Monsieur Baudin, but he became my Mathis when we fell in love.”
“You were in love with him?”
“Yes. He was so sweet. He was not exactly handsome – his nose was too large and he was too stout to be considered handsome – but he had lovely, brown eyes. I loved him and he loved me too.”
“So… why are you not with him?”
“Well,” she says, a grim smile on her serious, little face. “I cannot believe he was terribly thrilled at the idea of being saddled with a pregnant girl.” Her face becomes sad again. “But he was going to do the right thing by me, which is more than the others were willing to do.”
“So, he didn’t throw you over?”
“Oh, not at all. He was willing to marry me and take me to France.”
“Then why in heaven’s name did you not take him up on his offer?”
The mist lifts from the trees and silvery sunlight clears the air again, but Eleanor trembles and covers her face with her hand.
“It is not his baby. And although I do not know what I am to do, I could not make such a good man pay for my sins.”