Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy

by Kage Baker

  One evening she was strolling the pavement outside the British Museum (an excellent place to do business, judging from all the wealthy clientele she picked up there) when a previous customer recognized her and engaged her services for a gentlemen’s party on the following night. Lady Beatrice dressed in her best evening scarlets for the occasion, and paid for a cab.

  She recognized some of her better-dressed rivals at the party, at which some sporting victory was being celebrated, and they nodded to one another graciously. One by one, each portly financier or baronet paired off with a courtesan, and Lady Beatrice was just thinking that she could do with more of this sort of engagement when she heard her name called, in a low voice.

  She turned and beheld an old friend of her father’s, whom she had once charmed with an hour’s sprightly conversation. Lady Beatrice stepped close to him, quickly.

  “That is not the name I use now,” she said.

  “But—my dear child—how could you come to this?”

  “Do you truly wish to hear the answer?”

  He cast a furtive look around and, taking her by the wrist, led her into an antechamber and shut the door after them, to general laughter from those not too preoccupied to notice.

  Lady Beatrice told him her story, in a matter-of-fact way, seated on a divan as he paced and smoked. When she had finished he sank into a chair opposite, shaking his head.

  “You deserved better in life, my dear.”

  “No one deserves good or evil fortune,” said Lady Beatrice. “Things simply happen, and one survives them the best one can.”

  “God! That’s true; your father used to say that. He never flinched at unpleasantness. You are very like him, in that sense. He always said you were as true as steel.”

  Lady Beatrice heard the phrase with a sense of wonder, remembering that long-ago life. It seemed to her, now, as though it had happened to some other girl.

  The old friend was regarding her with a strange mixture of compassion and a certain calculation. “For your father’s sake, and for your own, I should like to assist you. May I know where you live?”

  Lady Beatrice gave him her address readily enough. “Though I do not advise you to visit,” she said. “And if you have any gallant ideas about rescuing me, think again. No lady in London would receive me, after what I endured, and you know that as well as I do.”

  “I know, my dear.” He stood and bowed to her. “But women true as steel are found very rarely, after all. It would be shameful to waste your excellent qualities.”

  “How kind,” said Lady Beatrice.

  SHE EXPECTED NOTHING from the encounter, and so Lady Beatrice was rather surprised when someone knocked at the door of her lodging three days thereafter.

  She was rather more surprised when, upon opening the door, she beheld a blind woman, who asked for her by her name.

  “I am she,” admitted Lady Beatrice.

  “May I come in for a moment, miss, and have a few words with you?”

  “As many as you wish,” said Lady Beatrice. Swinging her cane before her, the blind woman entered the room. Seemingly quite by chance she encountered a chair and lowered herself into it. Despite her infirmity, she was not a beggar; indeed, she was well-dressed and well-groomed, resembling, if not a lady, certainly someone’s respectable mother. Her accents indicated that she had come from the lower classes, but she spoke quietly, with precise diction. She drew off her gloves and bonnet, and held them in her lap, with her cane crooked over one arm.

  “Thank you. I’ll introduce myself, if I may: Mrs. Elizabeth Corvey. We have a friend in common.” She uttered the name of the gentleman who had known Lady Beatrice in her former life.

  “Ah,” said Lady Beatrice. “And I expect you administer some sort of charity for fallen women?”

  Mrs. Corvey chuckled. “I wouldn’t say that, miss, no.” She turned her goggled face toward Lady Beatrice. The smoked goggles were very black, and quite prominent. “None of the ladies in my establishment require charity. They’re quite able to get on in the world. As you seem to be. Your friend told me the sort of things you’ve seen and done. What’s done can’t be undone, more’s the pity, but there it is.

  “That being the case, may I ask you whether you’d consider putting your charms to better use than streetwalking?”

  “Do you keep a house of prostitution, madam?”

  “I do and I don’t,” said Mrs. Corvey. “If it was a house of prostitution, you may be sure it would be of the very best sort, with girls as beautiful and clever as you, and some of them as well bred. I am not, myself; I was born in the workhouse.

  “When I was five years old they sold me to a pin factory. Little hands are needed for the making of pins, you see, and little keen eyes. Little girls are preferred for the work; so much more painstaking than little boys, you know. We worked at a long table, cutting up the lengths of wire and filing the points, and hammering the heads flat. We worked by candlelight when it grew dark, and the shop-mistress read to us from the Bible as we worked. I was blind by the age of twelve, but I knew my Scripture, I can tell you.

  “And then, of course, there was only one work I was fit for, wasn’t there? So I was sold off into a sort of specialty house.

  “You meet all kinds of odd ducks in a place like that. Sick fellows, and ugly fellows, and shy fellows. I was got with child twice, and poxed too. I do hope I’m not shocking you, am I? Both of us being women of the world, you see. I lost track of the years, but I think I was seventeen when I got out of there. Should you like to know how I got out?”

  “Yes, madam, I should.”

  “There was this fellow came to see me. He paid specially to have me to himself a whole evening and I thought, oh, Lord, no, because you get so weary of it, and the gentlemen don’t generally like it if you seem as though you’re not paying proper attention, do they? But all this fellow wanted to do was talk.

  “He asked me all sorts of questions about myself—how old I was, where had I come from, did I have any family, how did I come to be blind. He told me he belonged to a club of scientific gentlemen. He said they thought they might have a way to cure blindness. If I was willing to let this Gentlemen’s Speculative Society try it out on me, he’d buy me out of the house I was in and see that I was physicked for the pox as well, and found an honest living.

  “He did warn me I’d lose my eyes. I said I didn’t care— they weren’t any use anyhow, were they? And he said I might find myself disfigured, and I said I didn’t mind that—what had my looks ever gotten me?

  “To be brief, I went with him and had it done. And I did lose my eyes, and I was disfigured, but I haven’t regretted it a day since.”

  “You don’t appear to be disfigured,” said Lady Beatrice. “And clearly they were unable to cure your blindness.”

  Mrs. Corvey smiled. “Oh, no? The clock says half-past-twelve, and you’re wearing such a lovely scarlet dressing-gown, miss, and you have such striking gray eyes—quite unlike mine. You’re made of stern stuff, I know, so you won’t scream now.” Having said that, she slid her goggles up to reveal her eyes.

  Lady Beatrice, who had been standing upright, took a step backward and clutched the edge of the table behind her.

  “Dear me, you have gone quite pale,” said Mrs. Corvey in amusement. “Sets off that scarlet mouth of yours a treat. House of Rimmel Red No. 3, isn’t it? Not so pink as their No. 4. And, let me see, why, what a lot of books you have! Sartor Resartus, Catherine, Falkner—that’s her last one, isn’t it?— and, what’s that on your bedside table?” The brass optics embedded in Mrs. Corvey’s face actually protruded forward, with a faint whirring noise, and swiveled in the direction of Lady Beatrice’s bed. “Nicholas Nickleby. Yes, I enjoyed that one, myself.”

  “I do hope I have proven my point now, miss.”

  “What a horror,” said Lady Beatrice faintly.

  “Oh, I shouldn’t say that at all, miss! My condition is so much improved from my former state that I would go down on my k
nees and thank God morning and night, if I thought He ever took notice of the likes of me. I have my sight back, after all. I have my health—for I may say the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society has an excellent remedy for the pox— and agreeable employment. I am here to offer you the same work.”

  “Would I pay for it with my eyes?” Lady Beatrice inquired.

  “Oh, dear me, no. It would be a crime to spoil your looks, especially when they might be so useful. You were a soldier’s daughter, as I understand it, miss. What would you think of turning your dishonor into a weapon, in a just cause?

  “The Society’s very old, you see. In the old days they had to work secretly, or folk would have burnt them for witchcraft, with all the astonishing things they invented. The secrecy was still useful even when times became more enlightened. There are all manner of devices that make our lives less wretched, that first came from the Society. They work to make the world better still.

  “Now, it helps them in their work, miss, to have some sway with ministers and members of Parliament. And who better controls a man than a pretty girl, eh? A girl with sufficient charm can unlock a man’s tongue and find out all sorts of things the Society needs to know. A girl with sufficient charm can persuade a man to do all sorts of things he’d never dream of doing, if he thought anyone else could see.

  “And I can’t see, of course, or so he thinks, for I never let my secret slip. When a man is a cabinet minister it reassures him to believe that the lady proprietress of his favorite brothel couldn’t identify his face in a court of law. All the easier for us to trap him later. All the easier to persuade him to sign a law into being or vote a certain way, which benefits the Society.

  “You and I both know how little it takes to ruin a girl, when a man can make the same mistakes and the world smiles indulgently at him. Wouldn’t you like to make the world more just?

  “You and I both know how little our bodies matter, for all the fuss men make over them. Wouldn’t you like to put yours to good use? There are other girls like you—clever girls, well-bred girls. They did one unwise thing, or perhaps, like you, they were unlucky, and the world sent them down to the pavement. But they found they needn’t stay there.

  “You needn’t stay there either, miss. We can offer you a clean, quiet room of your own, with a view of St. James’s Park—I never tire of looking at it, myself—and a quiet life, except when working. We need never fear being beaten, or taking ill. We are paid very well. Shall you join us, miss?”

  Lady Beatrice considered it.

  “I believe I shall,” said she.

  And she did, to the great relief of the other streetwalkers.

  FOUR:

  In which she Settles In and learns Useful Things

  LADY BEATRICE DISCOVERED that Mrs. Corvey had spoken perfect truth. The house near Birdcage Walk was indeed pleasant, commodious, and adjacent to St. James’s Park. Her private room was full of the best air and light to be had in London. It had moreover ample shelves for her books, a capacious wardrobe, and a clean and comfortable bed.

  She found her sister residents agreeable as well.

  Mrs. Otley was, near Birdcage Walk, a rather studious young lady with fossils she had collected at Lyme Regis and a framed engraving of a scene in Pompeii in her room. At Nell Gwynne’s, however, she generally dressed like a jockey, and had moreover a cabinet full of equestrian paraphernalia with which to pander to the tastes of gentlemen who enjoyed being struck with a riding crop while being forced to wear a bit between their teeth.

  Miss Rendlesham, though quiet, bespectacled and an enthusiastic gardener, was likewise in the Discipline line, both general and (as needed) specialized. As a rule she dressed in a manner suggesting a schoolmistress, and was an expert at producing the sort of harsh interrogatory tones that made a member of Parliament regress to the age of the schoolroom, where he had been a very naughty boy indeed.

  Herbertina Lovelock, on the other hand, was a very good boy, with the appearance of a cupid-faced lad fresh from a public school whereat a number of outre vices were practiced. She wore male attire exclusively, cropped hair pomaded sleek. She also smoked cigars, read the sporting papers with her feet on the fender, and occasionally went to the races. At Nell Gwynne’s she had a wardrobe full of military uniforms both Army and Navy, all with very tight trousers with padding sewn into the knees.

  The Misses Devere were three sisters, Jane, Dora and Maude, blonde, brunette and auburn-haired respectively. Their work at Nell Gwynne’s consisted of unspecialized harlotry and also, when required, group engagements in which they worked as a team.

  They alone were forthcoming to Lady Beatrice on the subject of their pasts: it seemed their Papa had been a gentleman, but ruined himself in the customary manner by drinking, gambling and speculating in a joint stock company. Depending on whether one heard the story from Jane, Dora or Maude, their Papa had then either blown his brains out, run away to the Continent with a mistress, or become an opium-smoker in a den in Limehouse and fallen to depths of degradation too appalling to describe. Jane played the pianoforte, Dora played the concertina, and Maude sang. They were equally versatile in other matters.

  All ladies resident at the house near Birdcage Walk proved good-natured upon further acquaintance. Lady Beatrice found it pleasant to sit in the common parlour after dinner on Sundays (for Nell Gwynne’s did no business on the Sabbath) and attend to her mending while Herbertina read aloud to them all, or the Misses Devere performed a medley of popular songs, as Miss Rendlesham arranged a vase of flowers from the garden. It was agreed that Lady Beatrice ought not alter her scarlet costume in any respect, since it had such a galvanic effect on customers, but Mrs. Corvey and Herbertina went with her to the shops and the dressmaker’s to have a few ensembles made up, in rather more respectable colors, for day wear. Mrs. Otley presented her with a small figure of the goddess Athena from her collection of antiquities, for, as she said, “You are so very like her, my dear, with those remarkable eyes!”

  All in all, Lady Beatrice thought her new situation most agreeable.

  MAJOR, SIR, you wouldn’t cane me, would you?” squeaked Herbertina. “Not for such a minor infraction?”

  “I’ll do worse than cane you, you young devil,” leered the Major, or rather the Member of Parliament wearing a major’s uniform. He grabbed Herbertina by the arm and dragged her protesting to a plush-upholstered settee. “Drop those breeches and bend over!”

  “Oh, Major, sir, must I?”

  “That’s an order! By God, sir, I’ll teach you what obedience means!”

  “Look through this eyepiece and adjust the lens until the image comes into focus,” said Mrs. Corvey in a low voice, from the adjacent darkened room. Lady Beatrice peered into the camera and beheld the slightly blurry Major gleefully dropping his own breeches.

  “How does one adjust it?” Lady Beatrice inquired.

  “This ring turns,” explained Mrs. Corvey, pointing. Lady Beatrice turned it and immediately the Major came into focus, very much in flagrante delicto, with Herbertina looking rather bored as she cried out in boyish horror.

  “Now squeeze the bulb,” said Mrs. Corvey. Lady Beatrice did so. The gas-jets flared in the room for a moment, but the Major was far too busy to be distracted by the sudden intense brightness, or the faint click.

  “Have we produced a daguerreotype?” inquired Lady Beatrice, rather intrigued, for she had just been reading about them in a scientific periodical to which Miss Rendlesham subscribed.

  “Oh, no, dear; this is a much more advanced process. Something the Society gave us.” Mrs. Corvey slid out the plate and slipped in another. “It produces an image that can be printed on paper. That shot was simply for our files. We’ll have to wait until he’s a bit quieter for an image we can really use. Herbertina will give you the signal.”

  Lady Beatrice watched carefully as the Major rode to his frenzy and at last collapsed over Herbertina. They ended up reclining on the settee, somewhat scantily clad.

  “
Now,” said the Major, wheezing somewhat, “Tell me how enormous I was, and how overpowered you were.”

  “Oh, Major sir, how could you do such a thing to a young man? I’ve never felt so helpless,” said Herbertina tearfully, making a sign behind her back. Lady Beatrice saw it and squeezed the bulb again. Once more the lamps flared. The Major squinted irritably but paid no further heed, for Herbertina quite held his attention over the next five minutes with her imaginative account of how terrified and submissive the young soldier felt, and how gargantuan were the Major’s personal dimensions.

  Sadly, neither Mrs. Corvey nor Lady Beatrice heard her inspired improvisations, for they had both retreated to a small room, lit with red de la Rue’s lamps and fitted up like a chemist’s laboratory. There they had fastened cloth masks over their mouths and noses and were busily developing the plates.

  “Oh, these are very good,” said Mrs. Corvey approvingly. “Upon my soul, dear, you have a talent for photography.”

  “Are they to be used for blackmail?”

  “Beg pardon? Oh, no; which is to say, only if it should become necessary. And if it should, this one—” she held up the second photograph, with the Major lying on the settee— “can be copied over onto a daguerreotype, and presented as an inducement to cooperate. For the present, the pictures will go into his file. We keep a file, you see, on each of the customers. So useful, when business is brisk, to have a record of each gentleman’s likes and dislikes.”

  “I expect it is indeed. When does it become necessary to blackmail, if I may ask?”

  “Why, when the Society requires it. I must say, it isn’t necessary often. They’re quite persuasive on their own account, and seldom have to resort to such extreme measures. Still, one never knows.” Mrs. Corvey hung the prints up to dry. She turned the lever that switched off the de la Rue’s lamp and they left the room, carefully shutting the door behind them. The two women walked out into the hidden corridor that ran between the private chambers. From the rooms to either side of the corridor could be heard roars of passion, or pleading cries, and now and again the rhythmic swish and crack of a birch rod over ardent confessions of wickedness.