by Joan Smith
While the dame was smiling, Corinne put in her request to speak to Fanny Rowan. Mrs. Bruton’s eyebrows rose half an inch, but in the end, she agreed without argument. “I’ll get her.” Corinne thought she would ring a bell to summon a servant for this errand but she went herself. It popped into Corinne’s head that the girl was to receive some instructions, or warning.
When Mrs. Bruton returned, visibly panting from the exertion, she said, “Fanny will be down in a moment. You can speak with her in the visitors’ room.” She indicated an austere room behind her own alcove. It was furnished with two hard sofas, a sofa table and two hard chairs. The only access to it was through her office. Like the virgin’s bedroom in old homes, Corinne thought, located behind the mistress’s bed chamber to protect the maiden from harm. Coffen and Corinne waited and Mrs. Bruton led the others away.
As she walked them along at a brisk pace, she spoke of the home, with many sideways compliments to Doctor Harper, herself and Reverend Morgate. “We can handle twenty-four girls at a time,” she said. “We’re usually filled up, with a waiting list. We can’t undertake to raise the children. We put them up for adoption right away. The girls know that when they come to us. Well, how could they raise a poor child, when they can’t keep out of trouble themselves?
“In payment for their keep, they do the work about the home. Cleaning, laundry, gardening, cooking, and so on, while they’re able. Toward the end of their nine months, they’re allowed to rest and read worthwhile books, take little walks about the garden at the back, and of course attend chapel. We have Bible readings at each meal and before retiring. Doctor Harper comes for services and a sermon as often as he’s available.”
Young girls, some obviously pregnant, some just beginning to show, worked about the place, pushing floor polishers, dusting, carrying trays. They all wore the same costume, a simple gray gown, immaculate white apron and cap. Mrs. Bruton described the meals—three meals a day of good, simple food—and took them to the kitchen to show the meals in preparation, again with the girls doing the work, supervised by a couple of older women. They were shown the laundry and the garden at the back where the girls walked. Prance and Byron made suitable compliments and asked a few not too hard questions.
As they were returning below, Prance stopped on the second landing. Two girls in the gray uniform were rushing down a corridor. Their hasty pace suggested they were not yet far along in their pregnancy. When they reached the end, one of them drew out a key and unlocked the door. “I don’t believe we were down that corridor, were we?” Prance asked.
“That is the birthing facility,” she said. “It’s set off from the bedrooms so the girls won’t be frightened by the screams. They’ll find out the wages of sin for themselves soon enough.”
“Why is the door kept locked?” he asked.
“There are some drugs stored there, when the facility is not in use, it’s kept locked. Those girls are in charge of cleaning the place and preparing it for the midwife’s work.”
As she led them back to the lobby, Byron said, “Are they allowed visits from family and friends?”
“Not as a rule,” she said firmly. “Nor do we very often get such a request. If their families and friends cared for them, they wouldn’t be here. We hope to detach them from the evil influences of their past. Of course if parents change their minds and want to take a daughter back home, we oblige them. We make an effort to place the girls in a good position. Doctor Morgate has many friends who help along that line.
“Speaking of help, in what way did you feel you might be able to help us, gentlemen?” Her steely eye suggested it was time to repay her kindness. “I have a check book in my office, if you don’t happen to have yours with you,” she added, to make her meaning perfectly clear. She ushered them back to her alcove.
* * *
Chapter 9
While Coffen and Corinne waited for Fanny, Coffen had a snoop around Mrs. Bruton’s desk for clues, but without discovering anything significant except a taste for lurid fiction. A copy of Lewis’s The Monk was open face-down in her top drawer. At the sound of flying footsteps, he darted back to his chair, moving with amazing agility for an ungainly man. Corinne gave a silent groan at the moonish smile that settled on his face when he first clamped his eyes on Fanny Rowan.
The girl was pretty, no more than that, yet even another woman could see she was a walking temptation to a man like Coffen, who preferred a woman’s charms to hit him in the face. “A buxom, provincial miss,” Prance would have called her. She had healthy pink cheeks and lustrous eyes. A few wanton blonde curls escaped around the edges of her white cap. In her hand she carried a large black book which turned out to be a shiny new Bible. Her swinging hips endowed even the regulation gray uniform and white apron with a touch of seduction. Perhaps it was her small waist, accentuated by a lavish swell of breasts above and flare of hips below, that did it. She was well rounded all over, not yet noticeably more so below the waist than above.
She looked at them with frank blue eyes and said in a girlish voice, but with an air of pique, “I don’t know you. Why do you want to see me?”
“Have a seat, m’dear,” Coffen said, rising and showing her to one of the hard chairs. “We don’t want to harm you. In fact, we want to help, if we can. We’re here to ask you a few questions about Henry Fogg.” Her face went blank, as if he had suddenly begun speaking Latin or Greek.
“You have heard of his death?” Corinne asked.
“Yes, I heard.”
“Who told you?” Coffen asked.
She turned from one to the other as they spoke. She gave Coffen a mutinous glare. “I read it in the journal, didn’t I?”
“If you say so. I thought you might know who did him in.”
“No. I don’ t know anything about it. It has nothing to do with me.”
“We thought it might, you see, because of your—er, situation,” Coffen said.
“Because I’m enceinte, you mean,” she said, dropping her eyes demurely. “I don’t blame Henry for that. I don’t blame anyone. It was my fault.” Her head lifted and she said in a quiet but not humble or regretful voice, “I listened to the temptation of Satan.”
“A thing like this is the fault of two people,” Coffen said gently. “Don’t take all the blame yourself. It’s Henry’s as well. Mostly Henry’s, I daresay.”
Fanny cast a long, sideways look at him from her big blue eyes. Corinne had a distinct impression the girl was acting. The gaze she languished on Coffen was far from innocent, with just the hint of a satisfied smile forming at the corners of her lips.
“I didn’t say it was Henry who did it,” she said. “I have a passionate nature that I can’t always control, but with God’s help, I am trying.” The eyelids fluttered down for a moment. Then they lifted again, and she said, “I don’t believe Henry’s murder had anything to do with me or my situation. He had many enemies, you know. I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but he was–not a very nice man.”
“What enemies?” Coffen barked. Fanny drew her bottom lip between her little white teeth and looked frightened.
“I don’t know! I don’t know anything about it!” she said, flustered now. “But if you think my Papa killed him, well, he would never hurt a flea. And all my friends now follow the teaching of Reverend Morgate, and he abhors violence.”
“How about your cousin Robert?” he asked.
“Robert Rowan?” She looked stunned at the suggestion. “Good gracious, what would it matter to him? He cares nothing for me. I only met the man once, at grandpa’s funeral a dozen years ago. He and Papa don’t speak, because of Grandpa’s will. So you see, Henry’s murder has nothing to do with me.” After a moment’s silence, she said in a different tone, “Would you like some tea? We can ring for tea when we’re allowed a visitor. They serve little cakes with it, like a tea party,” she said, smiling like a child.
Corinne sensed that Fanny wanted the tea herself. She could still pity the girl, despite her cunnin
g way. She was young, and the papa who “wouldn’t hurt a flea” had not hesitated to cast his own daughter out of the house. “By all means, let us have tea.”
Fanny pulled a bell chord and a young girl in the familiar gray outfit appeared. This inmate had dark hair and a pale, classically proportioned face that would have been beautiful, but for the harried expression it wore. She looked frightened as she bobbed a curtsey. She didn’t look a day over fifteen. Fanny gave the order, the girl bobbed another curtsey and left without uttering a word.
“Who is that?” Corinne asked.
“That’s Beth Kilmer. She’s new here. An orphan, I believe. I don’t know much about her. She doesn’t live in the annex, though she’s not really a commoner.”
“The annex? What is that?” Corinne asked. Fanny’s last remark suggested the girls from a higher class were segregated from the “common” girls.
“That’s where we go when we’ve proved to be good workers,” Fanny said, but she said it in a rehearsed way that didn’t change Corinne’s mind. “We’re allowed a little more freedom than the newcomers. We can have a candle until nine o’clock for reading.” She nodded to the Bible she had set aside. “And for sewing, of course. We make all our own uniforms. If you have any gowns you’re through with, milady, it would be kind of you to give them to me.”
Corinne looked alarmed. “But surely you wouldn’t be allowed to wear them!”
“Oh no! We have a bazaar at Christmas to raise funds for the Home. We make things to sell,” she said. “Mostly handkerchiefs and tea towels, but with such fine stuff as a lady wears, we could make cushions or perhaps shawls or table runners to sell to the parishioners who come to the sale.”
Corinne nodded her approval. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“That’s dashed clever of you, Miss Rowan, Coffen said, smiling at Fanny as if he were the proud papa of a prodigy. Or worse—as if he were a beau!
Beth brought the tea and little cakes. As she placed them carefully on the table, Corinne noticed some bruises on her forearms. She also noticed, when she left, that she walked with a slight limp. “What is the matter with her?” she asked Fanny.
“I believe she fell downstairs yesterday, but she didn’t lose the baby.” Like Fanny, Beth’s condition was not yet apparent.
They talked about the home while they had their tea. Seeing that Fanny was enjoying the cakes, Coffen restrained his lusty appetite and ate only half of them. Fanny was loud in Doctor Harper’s praise. “Doctor Harper is like a papa to us. Much nicer than Mrs. Bruton,” she added, with a certain sting in her tone that suggested that dame was no favorite with the girls.
Coffen tried again to learn something about Henry and who his enemies might be, and just what Fanny meant by saying he was “not a nice man,” but she just shook her head firmly.
She adopted a pious expression and said chidingly, “It’s not nice to gossip, Mr. Pattle.”
The return of Byron and Prance brought the private talk to a conclusion. Prance darted over to meet Fanny. After one speculative, lingering look at Byron, Fanny saw that Mrs. Bruton was leading him to her alcove and she cast her eyes down demurely.
“You won’t forget about bringing me your old gowns, milady,” she said to Corinne. “For as I was reading in the Bible just before you came, ‘The Devil finds work for idle hands’.” She spoiled this demure speech by adding, “And a little lace and ribbons would be handy, if you happen to have any you don’t need.”
“I’m sure I might find something to keep your hands busy,” Corinne said. “Will I be allowed to see you when I come?”
“Oh yes, milady. I’m in the annex. I’m not allowed to go out, but I can have an occasional visitor. Especially when she’s bringing sewing. I had best go now.” She bobbed a curtsey.
Before she left, Coffen stopped her for a few words. Corinne didn’t hear what was said, for Prance, who had been listening, turned to speak to her.
“Fanny forgot her Bible,” Corinne mentioned. Prance picked it up and began to thumb through it. When Fanny was leaving, he handed it to her, just as Byron came out of the alcove. “Five pounds seems entirely acceptable,” Byron said in a low aside.
The others each went into the alcove to pay up their share. Mrs. Bruton thanked them courteously and saw them out.
“Well, what did you think of the place?” Byron asked, looking to the others as they went to the carriage. “It seems well run, for that sort of establishment, don’t you think? The girls are well clothed, well fed, and well read–in the good book, at least. A Bible in every room. I doubt you would find a copy of your Rondeaux there, Prance, or my own wretched stuff.”
“Did you see any journals about?” Coffen asked.
Byron frowned. “Why no. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering.” So how had Fanny read of Henry’s death, if there were no journals in the place?
Prance was gratified that Byron had heard of his Rondeaux, but he had other things on his mind. He gave a sly smile and said, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. An utter banality, of course, but a propos. The Bibles are provided gratis. Alas, I doubt the girls make use of them. I noticed Fanny’s pages were uncut past the first ten or twelve pages. And by the by, did you notice what she said about idle hands, Corrie? That quotation—actually misquotation—doesn’t occur in the Bible. It was Isaac Watts, in his harangue against Idleness and Mischief, who said, ‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.’ Am I not right, Byron?”
“Afraid you’re asking the wrong gent, Prance. I haven’t read my Bible since leaving school. The words sound Bible-ish, but I shouldn’t think the phrase occurs in the first ten or twelve pages at least. Not many idle hands or idle anything else in Genesis. The creation story, if memory serves, is followed by a series of ‘begats.’ No idleness there! I should take up my Bible reading again, for it’s demmed fine literature, once you get to the meat of it.”
When they were settled in the carriage, he looked at Corinne and decided to make his move. “Will you be attending Lady Crozier’s party this evening, Lady deCoventry?”
“No, I think not,” she said. “I shall be busy elsewhere.”
Coffen glared at Byron and said, “Lady deCoventry’s fiancé, Lord Luten, can’t get about. Busted ankle.”
“Forgive me. I hadn’t heard of your engagement,” he said to Corinne, in a soft voice that blended apology and infinite regret.
Coffen mistrusted the mooning way they were looking at each other. He said, “As I was saying, that busted ankle, it happened when Luten jumped out a window while trying to save Corinne’s—his fiancée’s, life.”
“That sounds a marvelously amusing story,” Byron said. “Pity you gave me the ending before the beginning, Pattle. Let us hear the rest of it.”
“Prance is the story teller,” Coffen said.
Prance indulged himself in a detailed exposition of this harrowing adventure, in which he featured as the hero, overcoming all obstacles, omitting only that he didn’t realize at the time he was dealing with a murderer. This passed the time until they reached St. James’s Street, where Byron was let down.
“I’d like to hear how this business of Henry Fogg’s murder works out,” he said as he stepped down. “Keep me informed, eh Prance?” With a nod to Coffen and a charming bow to Corinne, during which she and Byron gazed into each other’s eyes for too long to suit Coffen, Byron limped away.
Prance was delighted that the acquaintance was to continue, despite his having concealed that Corinne was engaged. Having done his duty by Luten, Coffen turned his mind to the mystery.
“Well, what did you make of the visit?” he asked, pitching his question to them both.
“I think it a great waste of talent that Mrs. Bruton has the charge of only a couple of dozen young girls,” Prance replied. “She could manage the Dragoons.”
“A regular bruiser, ain’t she? She could floor Gentleman Jackson with one fist tied behind her back. Demmed n
ear broke my hand when she shook it. But Fanny is all right. A regular little saint is what she is. I can’t imagine what ailed Henry Fogg that he didn’t leap at the chance of marrying her.”
Prance and Corinne exchanged a speaking glance. It seemed Coffen had tumbled into love again, and with a little hussy who was no better than she should be. Even if she had not been pregnant, Corinne would not have been happy at this new object of his indiscriminating affection.
“I thought her dead common,” was Prance’s opinion.
“Coffen was always partial to actresses,” Corinne reminded him. “I had the impression Fanny was performing for our–or at least his–benefit.”
Coffen’s brow furrowed, but when he spoke, they saw it was not Fanny that he was fretting over. “Did you say two dozen girls, Prance?”
“Yes, that’s what Mrs. Bruton said. Why do you ask?”
“That’s a pretty big place. I figured it must hold twice that many.”
“You’re forgetting all the facilities of laundry and so on, along with the birthing facilities.”
“Yes, but it’s big as a castle. Four floors, there must be eighty rooms there.”
“More like forty or forty-eight. I expect Mrs. Bruton would know, and she said two dozen girls,” Prance insisted.
“Fanny mentioned something about an annex as well,” Coffen muttered, as the carriage drew up in front of Luten’s house, “Do we tell him?” he asked. No one was in any doubt as to his meaning.
Corinne adopted a nonchalant tone, but her heart was pounding. “Tell Luten about Byron, you mean? It’s up to you.”
“If we mention him at all, it’s you who ought to do it, Corinne,” Prance said.
“Why me? You’re the one who invited him.”
“Yes, but you’re the reason he accepted.”
“Why didn’t you tell him I’m engaged?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“No matter, he knows now and since he’s a decent Christian, he won’t keep pestering Corrie,” Coffen said. “We’ll keep it under our hats. No point upsetting Luten when he’s already blue as megrims with that busted ankle.”