In her dream she began to cry and woke sobbing in Aidan’s bed. She was disoriented and it took a few seconds for reality to take hold. Her eyelids flew open. There was the tester with that great mirror that had reflected her impure actions. There were the curtains, the rude paintings and photographs, and a servant had been in to tend the fire. But it was the sounds that had brought her back from the dream world, similar sounds to those she’d thought she heard coming from the lake – splashing, laughter, girlish cries. They were issuing from an adjoining room.
Angela sat up and swung her legs over the side of the mattress. She was completely naked and her clothing, such as it was, had been left in the rotunda. A robe lay across the foot of the bed. She stood up and reached for it. One of Aidan’s, obviously. It was very grand, made of rich brocade in dark hues, with a sable collar and a girdle with twelve-inch tassels. She shrugged her shoulders into it and wrapped it round her. It was too long and tripped her feet, and the sleeves fell way below her hands, but she folded them back and made towards those intriguing noises.
The door was ajar and daylight streamed through the gap, whereas the curtains in the bedchamber were still closed. Curiosity overcoming trepidation, Angela crossed the threshold. She was in a spacious bathroom, with a massive tub supported on claw-feet. It even had a shower arrangement at one end, and the taps were solid gold. There were padded benches here and there, and a china washbasin that matched the bath. The walls and floor were tiled, and the water and iron radiators heated from a system lodged somewhere deep in the bowels of the house. It was apparent that Aidan never stinted when it came to luxury, or anything else for that matter.
Angela was brought up short by the sight of him performing an act that stunned her. Julian was lying on his stomach across one of the benches, facing her, and Aidan was behind him, gripping him firmly round the hips and driving his penis in and out of the young man’s fundament. Julian was groaning and it sounded as if he was enjoying the experience. She remembered how Aidan had done it to her and how painful it had been. Julian must be accustomed to this. But Aidan! Her once betrothed whom she was thinking might be reconciled to his monetary loss and marry her even now, how could he do such a thing?
‘Dear God!’ she exclaimed, and four pairs of eyes switched to her. Valerie and Maude were in the bath, washing one another, their hands caressing breasts and cunts. It was a scene of such depravity that Angela wanted to turn tail and flee.
‘Ah, awake at last, my love. Come and join us,’ Aidan said, unperturbed, even though his violent pumping movements indicated that he was reaching a climax.
‘I won’t!’ Angela shouted, and the fragile hope that had blossomed in her last night crumbled into dust. He didn’t love her! He loved no one but himself and took his pleasures where he willed.
‘I thought you’d tamed her, master,’ Valerie said, her body arching, head back, eyes half closed as she rubbed her crotch against Maude’s fingers, the water sloshing.
‘I have. The girl loves me. Ain’t that so, Angela?’ he averred, but his face was contorted with the extreme pleasure of Julian’s anus closing round him.
‘You fiend!’ she cried. ‘What do you want with me? Why don’t you let me go?’
He stared at her, and his expression was contemptuous. ‘No one is stopping you. Leave when you like, but remember that you have no money and no friends, except us. Remember, too, that I shall find you wherever you hide. You can’t escape me.’
‘I can manage alone,’ Angela declared, blinded by tears of rage and disappointment.
It seemed that none of them were interested in anything but their own orgasms, and she slipped away, running from the apartment and finding the guestroom allotted to her. Her belongings were there, still unpacked. She flung open the cases, rooting through their contents and finding underwear and a blouse, also a simple black skirt and jacket. She used the toilet, washed quickly and pinned up her hair, then dressed at speed, afraid that Aidan might arrive at any moment and demand that she stay. Disgusted by this latest example of his sexuality, and hurt beyond reckoning by his callous treatment and the way in which he had wrested her virginity from her without caring, she packed more clothing into a valise and added her jewellery. She had hardly any money and was determined to find the nearest pawnshop and turn her trinkets into cash.
Ready at last she peered into the passage. It was deserted and, lugging the heavy travelling bag, she found the head of the main staircase and descended. The servants were obviously taking advantage of Aidan and his guests’ delayed awakening, though the smell of fried bacon and newly baked bread drifted from the direction of the kitchen, reminding her that she was hungry.
There was no one on duty at the front door and she succeeded in getting it open. It was nine in the morning and the sound of traffic was like music to her ears. The world was out there, and opportunity to escape from the tyrannical Aidan. Angela made her way down the steps and into the front garden in the direction of the gates.
Suddenly a figure stepped from behind a tree and her heart nearly stopped beating. It was a man and, though he was vaguely familiar, she was petrified. ‘What do you want?’ she quavered, clasping her reticule tightly.
‘Don’t you know me, milady? I’m Jacob. Jacob Taylor, who used to be your groom. Oh, I’m so glad to have found you. I came to London looking for you, just to see if you were safe, that is,’ he answered, and she recognised his boyish face and earnest eyes, his straggly brown hair and sturdy frame.
‘The groom,’ she said, voice shrill with relief. ‘Hello, Jacob, and how is Daisy Belle?’ And the tears rose up as she remembered her mare.
‘Fine, when I left,’ he assured her. ‘But what about you? Are you living here? I’ve been hanging around for ages trying to find out.’
‘No longer,’ she said, shuddering. ‘I’ve had to leave but I don’t know where to go. I need to pawn my jewels to raise some cash.’
‘I’ll help you, milady,’ Jacob said, and his loyalty was heartening. ‘I can even find you somewhere to live while you sort yourself out. I’m working in my uncle’s shop and we live above it. He won’t see you homeless. Come on, let’s get away from here in case Lord Driscol comes chasing after you.’
He lifted her bag with ease and together they hurried down the drive to the road beyond, and there boarded an omnibus. Jacob paid a penny each for their tickets and they sat on the slatted wooden seats and Angela felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her. She had no idea what the future might hold, but it seemed that her guardian angel was keeping watch over her and that Jacob had been heaven-sent.
It was a fine store, one of which any self-made man might be proud. Arthur Taylor rose early each morning, with the exception of the Sabbath, of course, when he went to church, and paced through the upstairs rooms and down the stairs and unlocked the connecting door. He took his time strolling among the goods on display before opening the shop and welcoming in his first customer of the day.
He sold everything for the housewife’s cupboard, including sugar, tea, cocoa and coffee, all in large tins or sacks, ready to be weighed out on the big brass scales. A baker operated down the street but Arthur stocked bread, cakes and biscuits, also candles, nightlights, gas mantles and matches, cigars, tobacco and cigarettes. He kept a few items of haberdashery – pins, needles, sewing thread and darning wool. There was no need for the working class women who lived in that area to go further afield.
His employees had to be skilled in measurements and mathematics, and he was a stern taskmaster, giving them a hard time. They started work at seven-thirty and the shop did not close till six, sometimes later on special occasions, like the run up to Christmas.
Despite his success and comfortable bank balance, Arthur had never married. Years before a village girl had tried to slap a paternity suit on him, but he wriggled out of it, blackening her name in the process and leaving for London. Since then he’d had several other narrow escapes. There had been a middle-aged spinster who fan
cied himself and his shop. Also a ruthless widow who let him know that if he became husband number two she would turn a blind eye if he wanted to seduce her seventeen-year-old daughter. But even the bribe of a young virgin did not sway him. He was tight-fisted and parsimonious. Money was his god. It was his ambition to move from this humble area and open an emporium up West, maybe in Oxford Street, or Regent Street. It was not beyond the realms of possibility.
He was fond of his nephew, Jacob, and pleased he had come to join him. It seemed unlikely that he would have children of his own, and he had resolved to teach the boy all the tricks of the trade and eventually let him take over. In his mind’s eye he could see the frontage of his grand West End establishment emblazoned with the words, A & J TAYLOR, by Royal Appointment.
He studied the clock. Seven-fifteen. The first of his workforce would be arriving any minute. They lodged in a house next-door that he also owned, and this made them obligated to him on several counts. And where, he wondered, was Jacob? He heard the lad go out early. What was he up to? Arthur scratched his balls thoughtfully, easing what he termed his ‘family jewels’ into a more comfortable position in the crotch of his long-legged, white flannel combinations.
This caused a stirring in his loins, sluggish, but there nonetheless. He ruminated as to whether the maid-of-all-work had arrived yet. She did not live in, which he considered a pity for she was easy game, but arrived most mornings around this time. If he went to the basement now he might be able to finger her before anyone started bothering him with business matters. He could almost smell her strong odour and imagine those rough-skinned hands rubbing his cock. He left the shop, escaping down the dark stairs to the lower floor, encouraged by the rumpus she made raking at the kitchen range.
Angela had never before ridden on a bus, nor walked through narrow streets or rubbed shoulders with commoners. It was not that she was a snob, simply that she had never been called upon to be any other than a titled lady, with all the perks this entailed.
The busy people going about their errands would have alarmed her had she not had her hand in the crook of Jacob’s elbow. Street cries dinned her ears, where hustlers strove to sell their goods, either from stalls or trays that they carried on a strap round their necks. They sold everything from medicine to bootlaces. The language used in this part of the city was ripe. Angela had never heard so many expletives, and they seemed to be adopted in ordinary parlance, to illustrate a point or draw attention to a bargain, not necessarily in anger or abuse.
‘Take no notice, Lady Angela,’ Jacob said. ‘It’s just the cockney way of expressing themselves. There’s rhyming slang, too… apples-and-pears for stairs, syrup-of-figs means a wig, like they might say, “he’s wearing a syrup”. Whistle-and-flute, for a suit. There are loads more, and I haven’t been here long. Met a couple of girls, though, and one of ’em taught me some. Her name’s Tilly.’
‘Are you walking out with her? Will you introduce me?’ Angela asked, swinging along by his side, gaining confidence with every step.
‘No, milady, I’m not, and she isn’t the kind of person you’d want to meet, not really,’ Jacob replied, and he flushed to the roots of his hair. ‘Come along. We’re nearly there. Uncle Arthur will be pleased to see you.’
‘The pawnbroker first,’ she reminded.
‘Of course, though there’s no need; I have money,’ Jacob stated.
‘I want to be independent,’ she said, as kindly as she could. He was already doing too much for her.
A bell clanged as they stopped outside a pokey little shop with grimy windows. Objects of all kinds could be seen through the dimpled glass, once belonging to proud owners but now in hock. Jacob held the door opened for her and she preceded him. The interior smelled musty and was lit by a single, flickering gaslight. Its proprietor crouched behind a counter protected by a metal grill. He was a bearded, wizened man wearing a skullcap, and he gazed at Angela shrewdly, summing up her neat appearance and cultured voice. She handed over her jewels and he pawed at them, but delicately, as if bewitched by anything of grace and value. He made an offer. Jacob argued. Angela accepted, and left the pawnbroker’s with sovereigns in her purse and her heart filled with the firm resolution to redeem her baubles as soon as possible.
They turned along Fleet Street and followed the road. It had shops and dwellings on either side. Jacob paused before a large, double-fronted building with plate-glass windows where goods were on display. There were customers coming out and going in and trade seemed to be booming. He took her down a side alley, and opened a door.
Angela stepped into a dingy passage. It was behind the shop and smelled strongly of cheese and coffee beans, carbolic soap and beeswax. Just for an instant she wondered bleakly if this had been such a good idea.
‘Let’s find uncle,’ Jacob urged, and poked his head round a door behind which the commercial activity was taking place. ‘Oi, Bob!’ he carolled. ‘Is Mr Taylor about?’
‘Gone to have his lunch,’ a ginger-headed youngster replied, pausing in working the bacon-slicer, catching a glimpse of Angela and staring.
‘Upstairs,’ Jacob said, smiling at her and leading the way. ‘That’s where we live, apart from the basement where Kate sometimes cooks, though mostly we have meals sent in from the pie shop.’
‘Kate?’ Angela questioned, bemused.
‘She “does” for us, cleaning and scrubbing and that. Though we take our washing to the Chinese laundry down the street.’
It was lighter on the landing; the walls had been given a coat of white paint, though it looked as if this was done some years ago. Jacob entered a room in front, calling out, ‘Uncle Arthur? Are you there? I’ve brought a young lady along.’
He ushered Angela into the parlour. It was stuffed with florid furniture, and had garish wallpaper and a brightly patterned carpet. A man slumped in a wing chair by the fire, a newspaper covering his face, obviously snatching forty winks. He jumped, snorted and snatched the paper away, scowling at his nephew.
‘What? What? Who’s there? Ah, it’s you, my boy,’ he said, coming awake and blinking at Angela. ‘You’ve brought a lady visitor? You might have warned me, lad.’
‘Sorry, uncle, but I wasn’t sure. You see, I’ve been looking for her since I arrived. She was staying with a toff in Mayfair. Don’t you remember her? She’s Lady Angela Bayswater of Lairdland Manor. I told you that her father died recently, didn’t I?’
‘You did indeed,’ Arthur said, struggling to his feet and bowing over Angela’s hand. ‘I can remember your birth, your ladyship, and how there were celebrations in the village, then I left shortly after. I’m sorry to hear Sir Barnaby has passed over. God rest his soul. And you are visiting here, perhaps? I see you are still in mourning.’
‘And shall be, sir, for at least a year,’ Angela stated flatly, taking a dislike to this stout individual with his receding hair, bushy moustache and brows like untrimmed hedges.
His suit was black and well pressed, his shirt collar and cuffs pristine. Even so, there was something unwholesome about him. The look in his beady eyes, the way his pursed his thin lips as if wanting to taste her, and those stubby fingers with the none-too-clean nails. How horrid to imagine them making free with her.
‘Of course, my dear lady. It does you credit. How may Jacob and I help you?’ he said, his obsequious manner doing little to endear him.
‘No doubt Jacob told you that I have lost my inheritance,’ she stated coolly, and when he pulled out a chair for her, perched on the edge, unwilling to give the impression that she intended to delay there long.
‘He did, indeed. I was shocked and very surprised,’ Arthur answered, sitting down again.
‘Not as much as I. There had never been any indication that he was financially embarrassed. I was engaged to Lord Driscol, but unfortunately when I lost my dowry he lost interest in matrimony,’ she said. It no longer hurt so much, though Aidan’s latest example of his sexual inclinations still appalled and puzzled her. That he should p
refer Julian to Valerie or Maude seemed the height of perversion. The men had been performing lewd acts together at the party, but it had never occurred to her that he would take part. How little she knew him! And now there was Jacob who, kind though he was, no doubt had his own agenda where she was concerned. As for his uncle? She wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him!
‘What a pity,’ he said, staring at her with watery blue eyes. ‘How could he be so unkind to such a, dare I say it, beautiful young woman?’ Then he changed tack, turning to Jacob and saying, ‘Ring for Kate. Lady Angela would like some tea, I don’t doubt.’
Jacob did as he was told and within a short time a slatternly woman appeared at the door, took her orders, sniffed loudly and disapprovingly and humped off to the kitchen. ‘She is your wife?’ Angela asked, though sure this was not so.
‘Oh, no, I’m not married,’ Arthur said with a laugh. ‘She works for us.’
‘I need to work,’ Angela put in. ‘I’m seeking a post as a teacher, perhaps a governess or companion.’
‘I’m certain you’ll find something.’ He grinned at her ingratiatingly and laid a presumptuous hand on her knee. ‘Meanwhile, you are welcome to stay here with Jacob and me. We’d be honoured. Wouldn’t we, Jacob? He’s my heir, you know, and will come into the business when I’m gone.’
Tea arrived and there was cake as well. Angela wasn’t hungry, as Jacob had already treated her to lunch. The conversation was stilted, though Arthur was trying to impress her, and Jacob appeared to admire his achievements.
‘He did it all by himself,’ he put in, when Arthur drew breath and poured some tea into his saucer, then slurped from it. ‘That’s something, isn’t it?’
‘Very commendable,’ she commented, averting her eyes from Arthur’s tea-stained moustache.
‘And now, my lady, what would you like to do tonight? Shall we go to a music hall?’ he suggested, smiling roguishly.
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