by Annis Bell
Jane paused at the entrance to the chamber. Inside, a narrow cot stood along the wall. There was a table with a water jug and a washbasin; a chair completed the Spartan furnishings. On the cot was a thin mattress covered by a woolen blanket, which Jane pulled back. Captain Wescott laid the girl gently on the mattress and drew the blanket over her.
Jane set the girl’s book on the table, then she poured water into the basin and took a cloth she found on the chair and moistened it. As she was about to bend down to the sick girl, Wescott took the damp cloth from her. “Let me. In war, one learns how to do such things.”
As if it came naturally to him, he cleaned the girl’s face and wiped down her thin arms and hands. Long blond hair tumbled from the hood of her shawl. Fascinated, Jane watched the captain and the girl. She couldn’t look away from the girl’s emaciated face. Her eyes were moving behind her closed eyelids, and then she suddenly opened her eyes wide and stared at Jane. When the girl saw Wescott, she began to tremble and pushed him away, but from her cracked lips came only unintelligible sounds.
“She’s scared.” Jane sat on the chair by the bed and took the girl’s hand. “It’s all right. No one will hurt you here.”
The little hand in hers was simultaneously hot and cold, and the girl’s cheeks glowed a febrile red. Deep, dark shadows ringed her blue eyes, and with every breath she drew, a rattling sounded deep in her lungs. Jane could feel the life draining from the wasted body with every tortured breath.
“Won’t someone be missing her? We should send for help,” Wescott suggested.
“She’s dying. Can’t you see that? I will not leave her alone.” Full of sympathy for the poor creature that some whim of fate had led into her garden, Jane sat and stroked the little hand.
“Death is no stranger to me. I’ve encountered it far too many times. But you . . .” Wescott paused. Voices were coming from outside in the conservatory. “I’ll deal with that.”
Another woman in her position would doubtless have acted “correctly,” Jane thought, then pressed her lips together and chided herself. She was behaving correctly! It was her Christian duty to tend to this poor soul. No one should have to die alone.
With a sigh, she took the damp cloth and laid it on the girl’s forehead. Her breathing had become somewhat more even, and her blue eyes looked up at Jane.
“Mary, my Mary.” Tears flowed from the girl’s eyes. “They will come for her and . . . they mustn’t do anything to hurt Mary! Please!” The small hand gripped Jane’s. “Find Mary! My only friend . . . you have to find Mary before the men come again.”
The intonation and the way she said her r’s reminded Jane of the Cornish accent of her lady’s maid, Hettie. An attack of coughing racked the girl, and when Jane held the cloth to the girl’s mouth, she saw bloody sputum.
“Which men? What’s your name? You have to help me so that I can find Mary! Where is she?”
The girl’s large eyes were still on Jane, but their blue was becoming translucent and seemed already to see what Jane could not. “The book . . . our book . . . I always read to her from it when the others were asleep.”
The girl reached out into the air with her other hand and, with her eyes wide open, whispered, “The devil is coming for our souls.”
Struggling desperately for air, the starved body jolted upright, then slumped back with a horribly drawn-out sigh.
“May you find peace with God.” Jane crossed herself and stood up.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” asked Wescott softly behind her.
Jane took a deep breath and turned around. “Yes, I think . . .”
She let him by her and watched as he loosened the girl’s shawl and felt her throat and inspected her carefully before closing her eyelids. He tried to pull the shawl quickly around the girl’s throat again, but Jane had already seen the dark bruises ringing her larynx. Wescott looked thoughtfully at the dead girl, and then leaned forward again and raised the body slightly to look at the girl’s back beneath her ragged clothes, which Jane now recognized as the ruins of a maid’s dress. “Did she say anything before she died?” he asked.
It seemed to Jane that neither of them put too much store in social conventions, and she felt strangely secure in the captain’s presence. She was not sure how else to describe the feeling. Normally, the company of potential suitors only bored her, or she felt ill at ease or downright repelled. But that was not the case with Wescott. The man radiated an unshakable calm and self-confidence, far removed from any affectation or arrogance. His expression remained inscrutable and revealed no particular emotion. Not entirely, Jane corrected herself. His eyes had been full of sympathy for the girl, and now that he had turned and was looking at her, she believed she could see in them something like acknowledgment.
Because it seemed important to the girl, Jane repeated word for word what she had said. “The book!”
She took the book from the table. The thin leather cover was worn and the pages discolored and tattered from being read many times. The Vampyre. By John Polidori was stamped into the cover in faded gold letters. She opened it and found the letters P and M on the first page. Underneath, someone had drawn a rose in a childish hand.
“The M could stand for Mary, and the P for the girl’s name. What do you think?” Jane asked.
“Possibly.” Wescott looked at her earnestly. He was standing one step from her now and was a head taller. His dark-blue dress uniform accentuated his powerful frame. She could see the muscles of his jaw tighten. “She has been abused.”
The bruises on her throat, of course. As if wandering through the countryside in winter wasn’t torture enough for the girl.
“Someone has strangled her, and her back is covered in wounds that might have been made by a whip. Considering the cold, it’s a miracle she lived this long.” Wescott pointed to the girl’s wrists, where dark discolorations and abraded skin were also visible. “She’s been tied up, too. My God, what . . .”
“Captain?” came a cautious voice from the door. A man wearing a brown suit was standing there. There was something unsettlingly intense about his eyes. The olive tone of his skin bore witness to a life spent under the southern sun.
“What is it, Blount?”
“Someone is asking for the lady,” the man replied. He seemed to be the captain’s valet. Perhaps a former adjutant? thought Jane, immediately noticing the camaraderie between the two men.
“Who is asking for me?” she asked.
“A Mr. Devereaux. It seems he was promised a dance.” Blount smiled cautiously.
“Please extend the gentleman my apologies. I withdrew from the party because I was not feeling well.”
“Very well, my lady,” said Blount, and disappeared as quietly as he had come.
“Captain?” She looked inquiringly at Wescott.
“My apologies, my lady. Captain David Wescott. Your uncle was nice enough to invite me tonight, Lady Jane.” He smiled at her, and she felt her heart beat a little faster, but his expression darkened again quickly. “The appropriate thing to do would be to inform the authorities.”
“It would. But I don’t want my uncle to be bothered with something like this, not this evening. He is terribly ill, and any excitement could damage his heart. Please, Captain Wescott. You know what high society’s like. They pounce on scandal like a pack of hyenas. A mysterious dead girl in the park at Rosewood Hall will have them gossiping to no end. It would kill my uncle!”
Instinctively, Jane took hold of Wescott’s hand, but released it instantly, as if she had burnt her fingers. “Forgive me! You must take me for someone with no . . .” Tears welled in her eyes.
Wescott took a handkerchief from his uniform jacket and handed it to Jane. “No. Far from it. I consider you an extraordinarily brave young woman. And society?” He laughed bitterly. “I don’t give a damn about society! But I do hold your uncle in high rega
rd, like you.”
“He is my family,” whispered Jane and wiped her eyes. Wescott looked at her. He seemed thoughtful.
Jane crumpled the handkerchief into a ball in her hands and said with determination, “She’ll have a decent burial, and I will find out who Mary is. She seems to be in danger.”
“I don’t want to destroy your illusions, but that will be practically impossible. We know nothing about this poor girl.” Wescott turned away from the cot and laid one hand lightly on Jane’s back. “We should go out.”
The warmth of his touch came as such a surprise that Jane stepped into the hothouse faster than she had intended and nearly stumbled over a box of earth.
“If we want to avoid a scandal, we shall need to come up with a plausible explanation for where we’ve been,” said Jane. Lost in her thoughts, she moved toward the glazed connecting door that led back into the conservatory, and then stopped when she noticed guests strolling around the room. “My God, they’re everywhere!”
“A ball is always a social event, and what could be more social than sniffing around other people’s homes?” said Wescott with a mischievous smile.
“Well, if you . . .” Only then did she look at him and see the irony on his face. She sighed. “My maid, Hettie, is completely trustworthy. We’ll say this girl was a distant relative of hers coming here for a visit . . . she lost her way and, unfortunately, she died.” Jane thought of the rose drawn in the book she still held in her hand. “Rosie. Her name was Rosie.”
“Good. I will instruct Blount to let no one into the room until tomorrow. Then we’ll see where we go from there.”
Relieved at having deflected a potentially life-threatening fuss from her uncle’s attention, she suddenly felt exhausted, and so cold that her teeth began to chatter. “My shoes . . . I’m afraid I shall have to desert you, Captain.”
Unbidden, Wescott took her by the arm and escorted her to the door. “The honor was mine, Lady Jane.”
Jane left the conservatory like a sleepwalker, ignoring the curious looks of the guests there and paying no heed to the questions that came at her from all sides. In the entrance hall, she found her uncle deep in conversation with several gentlemen, one of whom was Mr. Devereaux. Lord Henry immediately broke off his conversation and approached her.
His custom-tailored black suit fit perfectly, and his posture gave no indication whatsoever of the state of his health. But Jane saw the deep lines that had formed beside his nose and mouth in recent weeks, and the haze of blue beneath his eyes. She realized that this evening had cost him more energy than he could afford.
“Aren’t you well, my dear Jane?” Lord Henry asked his niece.
To which Mr. Devereaux unnecessarily added, “We were worried, my lady.”
Charles Devereaux was certainly a good-looking man, tall and slim with fashionably trimmed light-brown hair and intense gray eyes, but Jane was unimpressed by his piercing gaze. She seemed to feel a natural aversion to the gentleman with his air of excessive self-confidence. She may have been doing him an injustice. High society was hard, and particularly remorseless when it came to the nouveau riche. It was therefore no surprise that someone like Devereaux had developed a thick skin. Still, Jane was quite sure that Devereaux’s only interest in her had to do with her title.
“Just a little chill. I went out for some fresh air with Lady Alison. My shoes . . .” As evidence, she lifted the hem of her skirt to reveal the wet toe of one shoe. “We have more snow on the terrace than I realized.”
She laid one hand on her uncle’s and spoke so quietly that only he could hear, “I will find some dry shoes and come right back down. But are you all right, Uncle?”
He patted her hand and nodded. “Don’t worry about me. I actually wanted to introduce you to someone. Where has he got to?” Lord Henry looked around, and then shook his head. “A marvelous young man. Somewhat headstrong, but I believe you would like that in him . . .” His eyes sparkled. “Well, I will have harried him out of wherever he’s hiding by the time you return.”
Jane had an inkling she knew whom her uncle meant, and suppressed a smile.
“Don’t forget our dance, Lady Jane!” she heard Devereaux say behind her as she made her way to the stairs.
3.
Mary
The shrill clang of the morning bell was followed by a general muttering and yawning and the shuffle of dozens of small feet on bare floorboards. Mary joined the girls lining up for the washroom. She was a little faster than the day before, which meant that only about twenty girls had washed in the tub by the time she reached it. If you were too sleepy and ended up last in line, you would have to climb into a stinking broth scummed with hair, snot, and bugs. And because Sister Susan insisted that the children immerse themselves up to their necks, it was better to be quick.
Mary scratched her head and arms. Lice and bedbugs felt right at home in the orphanage’s dormitory, which made them the only creatures inside those drab, dank walls able to derive any enjoyment from their situation.
The sharp cut of a cane caught Mary on her upper arm. “Stop scratching at yourself, Mary! If you ever want to find a respectable position in a good household, you must learn a little self-control,” Sister Susan snapped.
She was called “Sister” even though she was not a trained nurse and had only rudimentary medical knowledge. Master Ledford never took on qualified staff. That would have been far too expensive. Sister Susan was coarse and bony and had spent many years working on her parents’ farm before she took the post in the orphanage. Unfortunately, she had a very short fuse and was notorious for boxing the children’s ears. Her hard hands could grab hold of a child with brutal strength, and it was common enough for an orphan to show bruises in the evening. It was only after she grabbed you that you knew you had done something wrong or annoyed her.
“Yes, Sister Susan,” said Mary softly. She did not look up.
Susan hated it if anyone stared at her. She had a knobby nose and yellowing teeth, which made her look like an old mare. She knew the children called her the “old camel” behind her back, and if she caught them looking at her too long, she quickly wiped any smile off their faces.
At six thirty, a washed and hungry Mary stepped into the refectory, which was even colder than the dormitory. None of the orphans owned more than two sets of clothing, and usually both were equally worn out. Clothes were washed once a week, and the unpleasant, stale odor of dirty laundry hung in the air permanently. The same was true of the rancid stink of oily, unwashed hair. Soap was a luxury reserved only for official visiting days. From time to time, representatives from the Poor Law Union came by, but such visits were always announced well in advance, so in the orphanage they saw, there was never anything to complain about.
The refectory was filled with low murmurings. The hungry children stood in rows at the counter where the food was dispensed, and then took their bowls and cups to one of the long tables. Mary sat on a bench next to Fiona, a girl with fiery red hair. Fiona had been living on the streets before being brought to the orphanage six months earlier. She didn’t know where she had been born or how old she was. Her face was marked by her life on the streets, and her body was wiry and muscular, with no trace of a feminine curve. Because she was exactly as tall as Mary, she held fast to her claim that she could not be a day over ten.
Ever since Polly had gone away, Mary had forged an alliance with the streetwise Fiona, who knew how to defend herself from the assaults of Mr. Cooper and the night watchman better than the other girls.
“Good morning, Fiona,” Mary whispered. Speaking during the meal was forbidden. She set her cup, which contained a whitish mixture of water and milk, onto the table and placed the bowl of porridge beside it. She stuffed the chunk of bread into the pocket of her skirt, saving it for later when the hunger would start to claw at her stomach.
“’ave you seen the master this morning, Mary
? ’e’s in a wicked mood. Something’s up,” Fiona whispered and glanced sideways, toward the end of the hall where Master Ledford and the mistress stood in conversation with Miss Fannigan and Mr. Gaunt.
Mary slurped her porridge and swallowed the hard barley down without chewing it. “Mr. Gaunt’s so nice. I hope they’re not throwing him out!”
“Nice don’t suit the master. Nice means a waste of time and money.” Fiona lifted her cup to her mouth, but the slash of a cane smacked it viciously from her hand.
“On your feet!”
The girls sitting opposite Fiona and Mary went on eating with their heads down, not daring to raise their eyes. When Mr. Cooper, the master’s right-hand man, swung his cane, no one wanted to stand out. Fiona stood at the table, her hands folded in front of her.
“Talking at table means you’re not ’ungry. There’ll be no midday meal for you. What’s your name?”
“Fiona.”
“You’ll be at the workhouse. It’s the ropes for you today,” Cooper ordered. The man had the build of a former boxer. His eyes were close set and low beneath a square forehead that flaunted a deep scar. The lines of his face bore witness to a violent life.
Unraveling old hawsers was one of the standard jobs of the poorhouses, and was especially unpopular among the women. The ropes had become hardened by seawater, and twisting and pulling them apart left deep cuts in the skin. After a few hours of it, your palms were bloody and raw. The hemp material was then sold to shipbuilders, who mixed it with tar and used it to stuff holes in the hulls of ships.
Before Fiona climbed over the bench, Mary secretly pushed her chunk of bread into the pocket of Fiona’s skirt. A working day was long, and the meager dinner wouldn’t be served until six. With her head held high, Fiona moved around the end of the table, cast Mary a grateful glance, and left the refectory. The worst thing about Cooper was that you could never tell if he was close by or not. The man could creep around with terrifying silence. Mary observed the way Miss Fannigan shook her head and looked at Mr. Gaunt, but he simply shrugged. She quickly shoveled in the last of her own slimy porridge, rinsing it down with the milky water.