Lady Jayne Disappears

by Joanna Davidson Politano

  “Why are we stopping here?”

  “Because an intelligent, well-spoken girl challenged me to visit the place I had so many opinions on.” Pushing up from his seat, he reached for the door and stepped down with the aid of the footman. “And now I have the finest escort I could have asked for.” His smile was warm as he turned back to help me down. “Won’t you please show me around your home?”

  Odd sensations of warmth spiraled through my chest at the invitation.

  After climbing down, I lifted my skirt hem over the rain that had pooled in the uneven street, one hand on my chest. Memories made my heart pound. Why hadn’t he warned me of his destination? At least I’d worn a soft brown print dress with a simple ribbon hem—the plainest of the dresses created by the woman in Bristol. Imagine if I’d worn the beautiful gold or red gown. I’d be scorned right out of the cell block. A double knock on the little door in the gate brought the guard running, his ratty coattails flapping behind him as he swung out on the gate.

  “Why, lookee what we got.” The heavily whiskered man ran a finger under his crooked nose and sniffed, but stepped back to allow us entry. “Never thought to see you again.”

  “It’s that easy to enter the prison, is it?” Silas whispered the words as we stepped over the threshold and into the muddy courtyard.

  “Easy to enter, not so easy to leave. For the prisoners, anyway.” Flooded with the familiar sights, the tall stone buildings and broken fountain in the center of the courtyard, I hardly knew where to go first. Suddenly beset with the urgency I’d always felt in this place, I glanced around. Who might need a visit most? Which sickness was currently the worst?

  But I was not alone, and I was hardly the same girl who’d left. Would my visits be as welcomed as when I was a daughter of the Mallet?

  My feet directed me toward the tallest building, carrying me on the path I’d walked millions of times. What better place to start than my own home? It was the best cell by far, and perhaps it would ease this poor gentleman into the reality of life in prison. After I’d gauged his reaction to this one, I could decide if I dared take him to see actual prisoners.

  Ducking into the main entry, we climbed the circular stairway, hopping over the broken steps. Halfway up, Silas held a handkerchief to his nose. Not a good sign.

  But when I pushed through the door at the top of the stairs, a sense of home surged over me, purging all other thoughts. I rushed into the empty space, hands out to feel everything I’d once held so dear. The large bed with the three quilts, the one-doored cabinet on the wall, even the vibrant blue curtain meant to brighten the room—everything was exactly as I’d left it. Thank you, Lord, that they have not yet filled this cell. Lynhurst seemed less real in my mind as I wandered from item to item in the cell, running my hand along everything and taking it in. Yes, Lynhurst was a dream, and this place was my reality.

  “We were fortunate to be here. It’s by far the best cell at the Mallet. And these blankets are a rarity as well.” And that’s when Jasper’s words returned to strike me with all their ugly implications. I glanced about this tower at the items I’d always taken for granted. “No one else has furniture, nor such lavish space.” I said the words almost to myself. “We were quite lucky.”

  But luck had nothing to do with it. Not here.

  A wave of truth came crashing across my mind, stealing the sweetness of the moment. As I stood there in that tower cell fitted with the comforts no other cell possessed, I suspected I had found Papa’s savings. Never one to plan for the future, he must have paid the jailer a ridiculous sum for immediate comforts, sentencing us to a lifetime in . . .

  I shook off a building dread and moved toward the stove. I couldn’t bear to sully the tender memories with thoughts such as those. It wasn’t as if he’d purchased anything unnecessary. “We heated tea here, and I slept here.” I ran my hand tenderly along the broken pipe stove and the narrow bench with a high back. Papa’s thick black coat hung from a hook at the top of the bench, covering an oval frame that ought to hold a mirror. “We took our meals here.” My fingertips brushed the three-legged table surrounded by two squatty benches. Then onto the backless chair where Papa sat, pulled close to the stove when he told me stories. We’d cuddled away the winters there throughout my childhood, and although I’d never known what it was to own a new dress, I knew love. Extravagant love. My father’s presence remained there, ingrained in every piece of wood, reflected in the dirty window. They were precious memories, no matter what he’d done with his money. How dearly I wished I could experience those moments in real life again.

  But suddenly they choked me. Loss gripped my throat, striking a vague panic. Never again would I live here. Never again would I see him.

  It was too much. I had to leave. I’d suffocate.

  Bunching the blankets and coat to my chest, I hurried from the room, hoping Silas Rotherham had the sense to follow.

  I stumbled down the steps, forcing my trembling legs to hold me up. I’d been doing so well these past weeks, thinking only positive memories and hopeful thoughts, but in a matter of minutes, everything had been undone, like a corset with the ribbons yanked out.

  Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.

  The shadow of death loomed heavily over me in the narrow tower stairwell. I reached the bottom and shut my eyes. In those few seconds alone, I drew deep breaths and let the painful tingles pass over and then leave my body. Silas’s footsteps slowed on the final steps and approached from behind. Warm arms encircled me. His heart beat against my shoulder blades as he drew me back against his solid chest. How inappropriate and scandalous. How unladylike.

  But I couldn’t break away. I counted the rhythmic beating to one hundred and my muscles relaxed. There was nothing wanton about the way his arms supported me, offering strength from his soul to mine through this simple physical contact. My own father could have held me so. A few more deep breaths, and my emotions normalized.

  I turned my head to look up at him. “Have you seen enough?”

  “Hardly.” Endless patience softened the planes of his chiseled face so near mine. “I’d like to see everything, to leave knowing exactly what this place is like. Whenever you’re ready to show me.” He took the coat and blankets from me and held out a hand to indicate that I should direct him.

  Lifting my skirt hem above the mud and securing my hat with the other hand, I led him out to the courtyard and then toward the building in the far east corner, nearest the back wall. The door hung on one hinge and opened into a damp little hovel lit with meager light pouring through small windows. Four rooms filled the space with debris littering the floor. And now, after weeks at Lynhurst, I stepped down into the pungent, stale air of the cells afresh. This is what it must be like for Silas, visiting for the first time. It softened my judgment toward him.

  “Step down here.” The doorway, worn down by hundreds of pairs of feet, had become a rutted mess. “Rosa lives here. She has had four infections this year and has not been completely well in ten years at least.”

  Silas had to duck in the low rooms as I led him toward one of the doorless cells. The familiar pile of rags moved, a bony hand rising from the mass.

  “My own dear Aura Rose, is it?” The raspy voice had surprising strength.

  I grasped the hand, squeezing gently, and helped her stand. The rags fell about her, covering her form in the shape of a pieced-together tent-like dress.

  “Ah, you’ve brought a guest! Won’t you make the introductions so I can begin flirting with this handsome man?” She cackled gleefully.

  “Rosa, this is Mr. Rotherham. He’s a houseguest at my aunt’s home.”

  He bent to shake her hand, but she drew him toward her. “None of this, none of this.” Pulling him down to her level, she threw her arms about the man, leaving a dusty imprint across his black suit.

  Please don’t pull away. Don’t be disgusted.

  But he smiled a little
, a rare occurrence that revealed the dimples above his mouth.

  “I was a fine-looking woman once. Afore all this mess happened to me. Age, and sickness. Avoid it at all costs.”

  “My body ages, but I hope my heart does not.”

  She cackled, shaking her head. “Good boy, good boy.”

  “Can I bring you anything while I’m here?” I felt the woman’s turban-wrapped head for fever, and found she had only a slight one at worst.

  “A lemon-balm cake with custard sauce.” She said the words slowly, deliberately, as if they held the flavor she spoke of. Her tongue snaked out and licked her lips.

  “How about a blanket?”

  Her high-pitched grunt of approval led me to pull one of the blankets from Silas’s arm and drape it over the woman’s shoulders. If only it were warmer and softer. What had made these rags seem so lavish to me only weeks ago? Just a handful of nights under a thick, whole comforter had altered my attitude.

  Back outside in the gloomy daylight, I looked Silas over. He hadn’t brushed the dirt from his jacket, but worry shadowed his features.

  “Are all the cells this way? This . . . dirty and bare?”

  “This building is one of the nicer ones. Only one inmate per cell. I’m easing you into the reality of Shepton Mallet.”

  He said nothing, but his face clearly asked, So it gets worse?

  “Rosa is fortunate enough to have former neighbors who care for her and send her little tokens. That’s how she has her own small space.”

  “And whom does she pay for these privileges?”

  “The man who let us in. This is not his civic duty, you know. It’s a business.”

  Silas’s Adam’s apple bobbed as we crossed the courtyard again. Even after that glimpse, he still wanted more, so I would give him what he asked. Crossing to the long ivy-covered building to the west, I pushed open a door and stepped into another dim room. The high voices of children greeted us in the dark.

  “What a shame these poor children must suffer for the debts of their fathers.” He whispered these words. “What of the children who have other relatives? Are those few lucky enough to at least be shipped off to live with them?”

  I paused in the corridor and faced him. “Yes, they are shipped off. And they are unlucky enough to grow up without their parents.”

  Stalls without doors lined the long building, the barred walls dividing one family home from another. The tiny rooms reeked of disease and human odors.

  I turned into the first cell. “Good morning!”

  Mrs. Shipton and her four children turned dirty faces in my direction, wide eyes a stark contrast against grimy skin. “Ahhh, Aura Rose. Aura Rose come back to the Mallet.” She stood to throw her arms around me, her back warped into the sitting position she often assumed all day. The youngest, three-year-old Micah, catapulted himself toward Silas, welcoming the stranger in the way of young children. His dirt-encrusted body landed against the man’s legs, his arms cinching around his knees.

  The actions stunned the onlookers into frozen silence, including Silas. Then Gerta, the eldest, broke the moment. “Have you gotten an ending to the story of the frog yet, Miss Aura?”

  “Of course I have. That ending has been rattling around in my mind, waiting to spill out.”

  The girl smiled shyly and a younger child charged at me, arms open. Collapsing together onto the bed, sinking the mattress to the floor, I dove into the story. But a quick glance at Silas jarred my momentum. He’d lifted Micah into his arms, carefully wiping a stark white handkerchief across the dirty sores on his face. His tender smile put the boy at ease, and soon Micah sank onto Silas’s shoulder, playing with his neck cloth. Silas wrapped his arm more securely around the tiny frame, as if exuding the same comfort to him that he’d tried to give me moments ago. Wonder poured from his eyes toward the tiny boy.

  The sight fractured my heart. Taking in the scene in quick sips, I permanently embedded the image in my mind. Whatever his flaws, the man had a heart. One remarkably like my own.

  After the story, I lifted the Danish from my pocket and set it on the table before Mrs. Shipton. “For the family.”

  “Why thank you, Aura Rose.” She set upon the pieces greedily, shoving a piece into her mouth and handing the remaining ones to her children. “Lucky for us Father is in the courtyard at the moment or this would have to be divided six ways instead of five.”

  We finished our visit and stopped at the next cell, home to the Eides. A couple in their late sixties, they’d come up short one month when the meat business had been bad for more than a year. I quietly explained to Silas the struggles that had landed them in this place, where they clung to each other still.

  Mrs. Eide huddled under the same plaid shawl she’d worn into the Mallet six years earlier, though the body underneath it had grown considerably weaker and more bent. She leaned on her tall husband on their shared bench.

  “I’d like you to meet Silas Rotherham. He’s a friend of mine.”

  “Oh, Aura Rose!” Tears pooled in the woman’s eyes as she struggled to rise, holding out a hand. “What a delight. Come let me love on you.”

  I hugged the couple together and then nudged the woman’s sleeve up to inspect her arm. “Have you changed the dressing?”

  “Until I ran out of clean strips. But it does feel much better now. Really.”

  Lifting the hem of my skirt and locating a clean section, I ripped a strip from my garment and wrapped it around the woman’s arm, pinching the open wound together.

  “Still all right?” I turned to Silas as I worked.

  “Actually, I’d welcome a small break. Something’s come up that must be attended. I will see to my errands and return for you shortly. Would that be all right?”

  My heart plummeted. But like a drowning man, he needed to surface for air sometime. The misery and reality were enough to overwhelm any outsider. I nodded, dismissing him, and turned back to the task. Even if he did surrender early, he’d done remarkably well. Better than I’d anticipated. I needed to focus on that.

  But I suspected there was no errand awaiting him.

  15

  Too often we cut away essential elements of ourselves to fit into a mold and discover those elements were vital to who we are, and our improvements have only made us more ordinary.

  ~Nathaniel Droll, Lady Jayne Disappears

  Silas Rotherham stepped down the dank hallway and out into daylight. Was it really still daytime? It seemed like eternal night in that dungeon. Approaching the carriage waiting outside the gate, he tossed the coat onto the seat and flipped a coin to the coachman. “Go to the Briar Avenue bake shop and bring me a lemon-balm cake with custard sauce. And throw me your handkerchiefs. Here’s another piece to get yourself some new ones.” He flipped a second coin, then retreated back into the prison.

  Walking into a building identical to the one he’d just left, he moved down the row of cells, glancing at the husks of humanity trapped in each. Inmates stared at him with empty faces as he passed. So different than when Aurelie had swept through these same halls. She’d lit up the space, infusing life into worn-out bodies.

  Finally he stopped at a cell with several dirty children lolling about. The smaller ones rolled over each other with squeals. A hairy man with thick, overgrown muttonchops hovered in the back corner, a lifetime of failure weighing down his shoulders.

  “Good morning, sir.” Silas smiled at the man, then his children. “Would you like an orange?” He pulled the fruit from his wide pocket, eternally grateful he’d placed it there, yet wishing he’d overloaded his pockets with them. No, overloaded the carriage with them.

  A small girl took the orange gingerly, but the father smacked it onto the floor. “Take nothing from strangers, Hattie. We haven’t the money to pay for tokens.”

  “It’s a gift. From Aura Rose.”

  Her name worked like a password. The man’s eyes brightened. “Aura Rose?” He retrieved the fruit from the floor and considered the orange tre
asure.

  “Does everyone here know the girl?”

  He nodded. “She prayed my beautiful Lily into heaven last year, sang to her the whole time.” A tear made a path through the dirt on his cheek. “She came through every day to check on her, cleaned the infection, and gave her food.”

  Silas tried to swallow past the huge lump in his throat.

  “Then she told them wild stories of hers. Just wild enough to keep my little ones afloat when they lost their mama.”

  “What of Aura Rose’s mother? Who was she?”

  The man paused, blinking at the straw on the floor. “Don’t believe I ever heard tell of her having a mother. I suppose she must have at one time, but heaven knows who she is.”

  Silas traveled down the row of cells, stopping at some, talking to the residents about their illnesses and about the enigmatic Aura Rose. Two things struck him—that the residents had been flooded with preventable diseases and unnecessary infections, and that no one knew anything about Aura Rose’s personal life. A few told snippets of her stories or described the healing touch of her hand, but none knew anything about the girl herself. How amazing, how humble, was this girl who broke herself into a million pieces and distributed them to any who had need.

  Finally Silas emerged into the courtyard again. Before he could choose the next course of action, the guard flagged him down and handed him the requested delicacy from the coachman. He thanked the man and turned to the building containing Rosa’s cell. The woman had asked for such a small item. For this day at least, Silas would ensure the woman got her simple wish.

  He ducked back through the door and into the cell where the moving pile of rags huddled in the corner.

  “Rosa, are you awake? I’ve brought you something.”

  The warted face appeared in the dim light, blinking at him. “Ah, the handsome one, back for a second date. Come in, and shut the door behind you.” She pushed herself up onto her legs. “Can’t have the chickens getting out again.”

  “Of course.” He made a motion to shut the nonexistent door and held out the treat. “Your dessert, madam.”