The Girl in the Mask

by Marie-Louise Jensen

  ‘I don’t want papers,’ I growled softly, trying to make my voice gruff and hoarse and as unlike my own as possible. ‘Where’s yer purse?’

  ‘If you don’t want papers, then give them back to me and I’ll tell you where my money is,’ Mr Charleton replied, remarkably calmly for a man with a gun at his neck.

  ‘Give us the money and I’ll think about it,’ I said, sliding the papers swiftly into my own coat behind his back.

  I heard Mr Charleton catch his breath, and bit my lip, hoping my voice had not given me away. How could he possibly guess who I was? He thought me at home, safely tucked in bed, not out on the king’s highway with pistols and an accomplice.

  His next words made me even more suspicious that he’d guessed my identity: ‘I fear I’ve hidden my purse in my breeches,’ he said lazily.

  I stood quite still, balanced on the back of the curricle. Mr Charleton was playing a game with me and this was check. I wasn’t about to explore his breeches and he knew it. I blushed hot at the very thought.

  ‘At the front, on the right-hand side,’ he added helpfully.

  Still I made no move. I was torn between calling his bluff and sheer embarrassment, my free hand clenched indecisively at his shoulder. ‘Would you like me to get it out for you?’ he asked, his voice mocking me.

  ‘You keep your hands where I can see ’em,’ I said as gruffly as I could.

  ‘I make no such requirement of you, you see,’ replied Mr Charleton, not moving. ‘Please, help yourself.’

  I didn’t know what to do. Every second we delayed put us in greater danger. I decided to give up on the purse. Reluctant as I was to steal any personal possessions from him, I was forced to do so to make the robbery look real. From his left hand, I drew a gold signet ring. Then I reached into the lace of his cravat, seeking the pin I knew he always wore there and drew it out. These would have to suffice.

  ‘I’ve got you covered,’ I whispered. ‘A man is pointing another gun straight at your head from the side of the road. If you move in the next few minutes he’ll shoot you dead.’

  I prepared to jump back down into the road, but Mr Charleton’s voice made me pause. ‘For pity’s sake, Sophia, if it really is you,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t take those papers. You cannot possibly understand the consequences if you do. I’ll give you what money I have on me. And yours too.’

  I hesitated. Would it be better for Jenny to have whatever sum of money Charleton carried about him, or the five guineas she’d been promised? I decided the risk of exchanging more words with Charleton and the insuperable barrier of those breeches outweighed the possible benefits to my friend.

  ‘I dunno what you’re talkin’ about. Don’t move,’ I repeated and dropped into the road. I ran into the trees at a crouch. Seeing me go, Jenny left Baines and vanished into the shadows. Both men sat still and silent in their places for a moment. But as I reached the trees and turned, I saw Mr Charleton jump down into the road, groping for his pistol. I waited until he straightened up, the moonlight gleaming on his gun. Then I took very careful aim and shot his hat off his head. The horses startled and plunged and Baines cried out in shock. Only Mr Charleton remained quite still in the darkness. Side by side, Jenny and I flung ourselves onto our horses and made off swiftly into the night.

  There was no delighted exhilaration following this robbery as there had been after we waylaid my father. The situation was too dangerous for laughter. ‘He recognized me,’ I cried low-voiced to Jenny as we cantered across the moonlit fields. ‘I have to get home before him, or I’ll be in such trouble.’

  Jenny nodded, tight-faced, and instead of taking me back to the stables, she led the way at a swift trot through villages and across fields until we reached the city walls. ‘Give me the stuff and go,’ she said, riding close to the wall where a tree grew up against it. I stuffed the papers, jewellery and pistols into the saddlebag, and kicked my feet out of the stirrups.

  ‘Watch yourself,’ I told her earnestly. ‘Hide everything where it can’t be connected to you. I think we may have done something more serious than we realized tonight.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Jenny brusquely. ‘Jest get yerself home.’

  She caught the bridle of my horse and held him, while I stood up on his back, and from there swung myself into the branches of the tree. ‘Go!’ I called as I crawled onto the city wall.

  Jenny nodded her farewell, and led my horse away at a brisk pace, fading into the darkness as I dropped down into the street on the inside of the wall. I was back in the city, but I still had some distance to go to reach my room. By the time I crawled back through my window, I was panting, fighting for breath, my toes and hands scratched from clinging to the stonework. My biggest problem had been what to do with my clothes, for they would be my greatest risk of betrayal. I’d hidden them between the straw bales in the loft of the stable yard and climbed up onto the roof in my shift and bare feet.

  As soon as I dropped into my room, I could hear voices. My father’s was raised in anger. What must he think to be roused in the middle of the night? I shut down the sash window behind me. Dragging my nightgown on over my sweaty shift, I dived between the sheets. Already heavy feet were mounting the stairs. At any minute they would be with me. I lay still, trying to regulate my breathing, trying desperately to quiet my heartbeat, but not succeeding. The door of my room burst open, and my father marched in, holding an oil lamp aloft.

  ‘There you see my daughter, gentlemen. In bed, as I assured you. What trouble could she possibly be in at this time of night?’

  I looked at the men, wincing in the light, feigning sleepiness and confusion. I was aware my cheeks were hot from running and my hair tangled, and so I groaned softly. ‘Father,’ I murmured. ‘I have such a pain in my stomach.’

  He bent over me, resting one cool hand on my brow. ‘You’re burning, child,’ he said pretending unusual fatherly solicitude. ‘You have a fever!’

  ‘I’ve been lying here … too ill to call out,’ I whispered, playing along.

  I was aware of the men taking an involuntary step back from me, fear of contagion in their faces. ‘I shall call a physician at once,’ my father promised. He turned back to the men. ‘As you can see, my daughter is ill. That should satisfy you. Now I wish you to leave.’

  ‘We had very reliable information,’ replied the man in charge. ‘We’re going to search the premises before we go.’

  My father bowed his reluctant assent. ‘Very well, but we’re law-abiding citizens and you’ll find nothing,’ he said. ‘Besides, the front door has been locked and bolted these several hours.’

  The men turned my entire room upside down. Clothes were pulled out of drawers, shoes and gowns out of my closet. My hairbrushes and creams were pushed aside and the floorboards checked for hiding places. The men even climbed out onto the roof to check the tiles with lanterns. That made me certain, not that I needed proof, that Mr Charleton was behind this search.

  Of course they found nothing. No clothes, no papers, no jewellery. But their search made me think frantically about the stolen papers. What was so important and so valuable that Mr Charleton could command a magistrate and his men to get out of bed in the middle of the night? Clearly something momentous, and I feared something legal and above board too. Dear God, what had we done?

  I lay moaning, clutching my belly. I was convincing, for beads of sweat stood out on my forehead with the fear that the men might search as far as the stables and find my discarded clothes. Fortunately for me, they didn’t.

  They left, making only curt apologies to my father. I barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief before the doctor arrived. He poked and prodded at my belly while I pretended it hurt. Finally he left, leaving behind him a prescription for a purge. ‘She’s in no immediate danger that I can see,’ he told my father. ‘But you cannot be too careful with these conditions. Call me back if the fever should recur.’

  My father forced me to drink the doctor’s vile medicine.
My plan to empty it out was thwarted by him standing over me and watching until every last drop had been drunk. I coughed and gagged, but kept it down. I prefer not to think about the consequences it had upon my digestive system afterwards. I lay in bed feeling genuinely weak and ill.

  My mind revolved around Jenny and Mr Charleton all that long day as I lay in bed. I needed to do something. Get a message to Jenny somehow; find out what was in those papers. Perhaps prevent her from selling them on. But I was trapped once again. I had no way of contacting her.

  As for Mr Charleton, I wanted above all to avoid him. My fake illness allowed me to do that at least. Memories of the encounter the previous night haunted me as I lay staring restlessly at my ceiling. I recalled the warmth of his body as I searched him for the papers; the way he had sat so still when I had pressed the pistol against his neck, and the moment when I was sure he’d recognized me. How he had taunted me. My face flushed even at the memory. I would blush again when I saw him, I knew, and betray myself. It was good if some time passed before we came face to face.

  I itched to escape the house at nightfall, but my father prevented that too. ‘You shall share your aunt’s bedchamber from now on, Sophia,’ he ordered me that evening. ‘That way there can be no more questions about your night-time whereabouts. That will no doubt reassure you as it does me.’

  ‘Yes, father,’ I said meekly, eyes lowered, feigning obedience while my heart beat fast in horror. How was I going to contact Jenny now?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  As soon as I was ‘back on my feet’, as my father put it, a few days later, my aunt escorted me to the dressmaker’s. ‘It will be touch and go whether she can even have costumes ready for us now,’ she complained as we got into sedan chairs outside the house. ‘Every lady of fashion at the Bath has been there before us, thanks to your indisposition.’

  I tried to recollect what it was we needed costumes for, but failed. There had been some event or other, I was sure, but the adventure of the robbery had wiped it from my memory. It was my aunt’s instructions that recalled the occasion to my mind.

  ‘For the masquerade,’ she was saying to the dressmaker. ‘Sophia is to be Persephone.’

  ‘Persephone?’ I exclaimed, horrified. ‘No one asked me about that! I don’t wish to be Persephone. She gets trapped in the underworld for six months a year and has to marry Hades!’ I shuddered.

  ‘It’s all arranged, Sophia,’ my aunt said, her voice slightly higher pitched than usual. ‘Your father and I agreed it whilst you were unwell.’ She turned back to the dressmaker. ‘I’m to be Demeter and plan to carry a wheat sheaf. It’s the perfect time of year, after all. So a costume to set that off would be perfect.’

  The following two hours consisted of fabrics, patterns, drawings, tape measures and pins. I fidgeted and wandered impatiently around the shop while I waited. It was impossible to take an interest in fancy-dress costumes while Jenny was out in the city somewhere with dangerous papers in her charge. Although by now, I reflected dismally, she had almost certainly sold them on. It was too late to undo whatever we’d done and Mr Charleton would never forgive me.

  That thought shouldn’t upset me as much as it did. But the memory of the walks, talks, and dances together, and even the night at the theatre, insisted on rising in my mind and refusing to be banished. I’d alienated almost everyone in the city and now I’d driven him away too.

  When we arrived home from the dressmaker’s, a chaise-and-four was waiting outside the house. I got down from the sedan chair in some confusion. ‘A few days in the country are called for,’ my father said curtly, appearing in the front door of the house, clad in his travelling wig and cloak, his hat under one arm. ‘In you get, Sophia. Dawes has packed what you need.’

  It was pointless to argue. Bemused, I entered the chaise. Aunt Amelia sat beside me looking unsurprised, so I gathered this plan had been made with her consent. ‘But I don’t wish to leave the city,’ I said to her, low-voiced, so that my father didn’t overhear.

  ‘Nor I indeed,’ she said casting me a resentful look. ‘This is deeply inconvenient for me. But your father feels the city needs a few days to forget the gossip about you. And no doubt he feels his own finances and health will benefit from a break from Harrison’s,’ she added spitefully.

  ‘Cards?’ I asked.

  ‘Cards, the fool,’ she agreed sourly.

  ‘You play too,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I have the sense to win,’ she replied. ‘And I certainly wouldn’t play with the captain … ’ She stopped abruptly to look out of the window as my father joined us in the chaise.

  I looked covertly at him as the chaise rumbled forward over the cobbles. It was true he didn’t look well. I’d been too caught up in my own affairs to notice. But now that I looked more closely, I could see he had a yellow tinge to his cheeks, shadows under his eyes and a look of strain hung about him. I also noticed something else I hadn’t spotted before: his watch and chain were missing from his waistcoat. How deep and recklessly had he been playing these past weeks?

  We stayed at an inn in a village some ten miles outside Bath. My father took long walks, ate well and slowly regained his health. I spent the long days in the inn garden. It was fortunate for me that Dawes had packed the large volume of sermons from my room, inside which I’d secreted The Rape of the Lock. I secretly read and reread the slim volume until I knew it almost by heart. It was the only thing that kept me sane.

  My aunt was restless. She found it difficult to sit still, jumped at sudden noises, and tossed and turned in her bed at night. I lay locked into the bedchamber with her, also wakeful, unused to so much time to sleep, wondering if Jenny was safe and well and wishing I had some way to reach her. But six interminable days passed before we were on the road back to Bath.

  Our costumes had been sent home in our absence ready for the ball in a week’s time. Meanwhile there was to be a Tuesday ball at the Guildhall. My father gave me a lecture beforehand: ‘We’ve almost reached the end of the season, Sophia, and still I haven’t received one tempting offer of marriage for you. If you don’t exert yourself to please some gentleman in this next week, I shall be forced to consider other options for your future. They will not be appealing alternatives.’

  ‘Father, anything would be more appealing to me than marriage,’ I assured him earnestly.

  ‘You’re gravely mistaken,’ he said abruptly. A swift glance showed me his face had reverted to its usual impenetrable mixture of dislike and inflexibility.

  ‘But, no, father, indeed, I should like to work … I should like … ’

  ‘There is no work for such as you that would not disgrace our family name!’ he said. ‘No! Women of family do not work.’

  His voice dropped and became silky with menace: ‘There are other ways of being rid of unwanted and unmarriageable daughters that you can scarcely imagine, girl. I suggest you think long and hard about that.’ His voice grew still softer: ‘I have lived in dark corners of the world where English law doesn’t reach; where no one knows nor cares what becomes of an insignificant girl. It is not only Africans that can be sold, Sophia. You would fetch a good price. But you wouldn’t find that life congenial.’

  I managed to force a whisper from my suddenly dry mouth: ‘You would not … you could not … ’

  He walked to the door, paused and turned to look at me. ‘Believe that I would. Remember, Sophia. You have one more week. I will not be answerable for the consequences otherwise.’

  The door closed behind him. I looked down at my hands where they rested in my lap and saw they were trembling. When I tried to rise, my legs wouldn’t carry me, and I had to sit back down. I knew of the miserable cruelty with which African slaves were treated. I remembered the years my father had lived in the West Indies and imagined the tortures he no doubt enjoyed inflicting on his own slaves. I felt sick. I didn’t think he was bluffing. There was no doubt in my mind he meant what he said or that he would be capable of going to any lengths.r />
  This battle between us was no longer a game. Perhaps it never had been. It was something far darker than I had ever understood. No less than a deadly duel of wits and courage with my own survival at stake.

  The ball at the Guildhall was the usual mix of bright lights, sparkling, rich costumes, and empty gossip. It felt false and unnatural to me next to my possible future. But, for tonight, I myself was a part of the glitter and glamour of the ballroom in a pale blue gown over a profusion of white petticoats. My hair had been dressed and powdered, with a few curls allowed to fall down over my shoulders.

  My aunt stayed close by my side, until Mr Nash presented me to some elderly gentleman for the minuet. In the country dances she insisted I take Captain Mould as my partner. My heart sank, but he didn’t trouble me greatly. He seemed preoccupied, and spoke little to me, bowing after the second dance and turning away. I breathed a sigh of relief, turned to look for my aunt, and stopped dead as I found Mr Charleton before me, as immaculately dressed as ever, this evening in crimson and cream. ‘Good … good evening, sir,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘I hadn’t seen that you were here tonight.’

  ‘I’ve only just arrived. Will you give me the pleasure of the next dance?’ His voice was cold. A slight shiver ran through me. I had enemies every way I turned.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m tired, sir,’ I told him, ‘I don’t wish to dance.’

  ‘You’re mistaken, Sophia,’ I heard my father’s voice say behind me. ‘You have no wish to give offence to Mr Charleton.’

  I was forced to lay my hand on Mr Charleton’s arm and suffer myself to be led into the next country dance. ‘You’ve been out of town,’ remarked Mr Charleton curtly as we took our first steps.

  ‘Yes, my father wished to take us out of the city for a spell … for his … for our health,’ I stammered, uncomfortably aware of my father’s watchful eyes on me from the side of the room. Mr Charleton cast a glance at my father.