The Strange Adventures of H

by Sarah Burton

  After the first surprise of hearing my lady speak of her niece “H”, little by little, from conversations between Frederick and herself, I have been able to piece together your relationship to them and I must tell you, my dear H, and this may be a shock, that they believe you to be dead. Both evidently harboured the most tender affection for you and it is strange to hear them speak of you as though you are no longer living.

  Dearest H, you may be sure that I have said nothing to them about you, and would not do so without your consent. However this situation cannot obtain indefinitely. I beg you to share with me all your history and let us see if there is not some way in which you and your family could be reconciled, or at the least let them know that you are yet alive and well. Frederick questioned young Joe and me most thoroughly about “the little painted lady” your aunt believed he had sent to bring her out of Cheapside, and both are puzzled at how this same young lady had custody of Puss. (Puss thrives and is naughty; Joe thrives and is good.)

  Please send word when we can meet.

  Your loving friend and obliging servant in all things, Godfrey

  However good and kind Aunt Madge and Frederick were, I could not imagine them happily re-admitting a common prostitute to the family fold, even if I proved able to face relating how I had lived since Evelyn’s death. I knew I could not tell my aunt the cause, as to learn what Roger did to me would surely break her heart and yet do no good. As for her dead grandsons, I could barely think on that subject, let alone imagine speaking of it. The lasting unhappiness and shame my story would bring her, I knew, would outweigh any brief joy occasioned by my reappearance. As far as Aunt Madge and Frederick were concerned, it was imperative that H remain in the plague pit with Evelyn.

  Godfrey, however, was another matter. He had discovered too much to be fobbed off with a tale and I dreaded the explanation which I now felt I owed him. H and Doll were drawing uncomfortably close already; telling Godfrey my whole history would close the gap. It was time to think of becoming someone else.

  43

  Some weeks later, I was awoken in the middle of night by Janey telling me the baby was coming and I must say I believe I was almost as excited as she was. I roused Mother Cresswell and she made up her own bed for Janey while I comforted the mother-that-was-to-be. I knew that Janey had been pregnant before, more than once, but she told me little about it and I sensed I shouldn’t enquire too much as the subject seemed to give her pain and all I gathered was that there had been no babies in the event. She had remained convinced that she carried her sweet William’s child and his abandonment of her made the child dearer, if anything, to her. She knew better than to talk of William to me anymore but I still sensed her weakness for him and dreaded his reappearance, for both our sakes.

  “For a girl what’s helped so many children into this wicked world you don’t half put up a fuss, Janey!” said Mother, for indeed Janey had woken everyone in the house with her shrieks and curses when the baby was well on its way. But after Frenchie had filled the basin in Mother’s closet with warm water, she and the other girls were excluded, as Janey was mighty proud for a girl of our profession and did not want them all “seeing everything”.

  “It’s different when it’s your own!” shouted Janey. “And it ain’t that bad – ” here she paused to give vent to an almighty yell, then subsided into weeping, “ – making a noise just makes me feel better.”

  “Almost there now,” said Mother Cresswell. “Come on Janey, push! Think that you’re shitting a melon!”

  This made Janey laugh through her tears, and then she squeezed my hand so tight I too howled and in a few moments the baby came out. It was a bawling girl, and while Mother took her into her closet, soothing her, I kissed Janey and told her she had done well.

  I don’t know what made me go into the closet, but the baby had stopped crying, and I went to the doorway and saw Mother standing very still with her hands in the basin, and I looked down and saw water on the carpet, and was suddenly back in the home of my childhood. What was I doing there? I was bathing Tibbs’s kittens of course. Till they were clean enough. Till they were dead enough.

  I leapt forward and snatched the child out of the basin, pushing Mother backwards. The child was motionless and so pale it seemed blue. I patted its back. There was no change. I turned it upside down, hanging it by its heels with one hand and patting its back with the other. Finally, she made a choking noise and expelled some water before she finally took a great gasping breath and began to cry again, most angrily.

  “I was only bathing it!” Mother protested, but her face, white with fear, told me everything.

  “Get out!” I hissed.

  “I was only bathing it!” Mother repeated, but she backed away towards the door. “I’ll go and tell the girls the good news,” she said, and went.

  My hands shook as I wrapped the baby up. I took her in to Janey, who was too preoccupied with her little darling to notice the state I was in.

  “Don’t let her out of your sight,” I said, and just managed to quit the room before I vomited.

  I retched and shivered all that night, and each time I drifted into exhausted sleep, woke with a jolt of horror, recalling what I had seen. For hours I kept at bay the longer, darker story behind the night’s events, pushing away the remembered words of the girls, words which, though spoken in innocence, now told me what I half knew. Janey’s disbelief at the loss of both my babies. No thriving babies born at Mother Cresswell’s for ever so long. Until Winnie had Rose. And Rose was born during the fire, on the day of the riots against foreigners. And Mother had been out of the house, looking for Frenchie. My little boys…

  It won’t seem it now, she had said, afterwards. But it’s for the best.

  44

  I needed time to consider what to do and took refuge in sickness, though perhaps I really was ill. I refused to come out of my room, in case I infected the baby, I said, and at that time there was still sufficient fear of plague for the girls to respect my wishes. They left food and drink at the door, and asked how I fared, and told me how Mary, Janey’s child, did, and otherwise left me alone.

  Little Mary was doing well, and I did not now fear for her safety, as, I reasoned, Rose had survived. Mother Cresswell’s strategy had been to strike early, before the child drew breath, if possible, when malice would be least suspected, and when such sad events were not uncommon. In any case she would not dare do anything, I judged, now that I had discovered her crime. She had not been near me except once, the morning after Mary was born, to say (through the door) that she and I should have a little talk. I had not answered her, and she had gone away.

  As long as I knew her secret, she could not consider herself safe, as if I told the girls what had been going on, they would surely tear her to pieces at worst, or at best turn her in to the magistrates. But equally, my knowledge put me at risk, for what lengths would she not go to to prevent the truth coming out? These were my rational thoughts. My instinct, which I fought every minute at first, was to kill her, and I am not ashamed to admit that I gave this serious consideration, and only the thought of ending up on the gallows myself prevented me taking this course. Whatever I did, I knew I had to act quickly. I began to formulate a plan.

  I wanted to get away from Clerkenwell, and to take Janey and Mary with me, but Janey was yet too weak and uncomfortable to bear such an upheaval, so our departure needs must be delayed until she was up and about. I also felt it was cowardly to merely clear out, without doing something to prevent Mother Cresswell making away with more babies, or without warning our sisters about her. But my plan depended on giving her no hint that I planned to leave. It was a problem. Finally, I hit on a solution, but it depended on Mother Cresswell being out of the way. I would put everything in place, and then bide my time, ready to make my move when the moment of opportunity presented itself.

  Knowing I had to tarry in Clerkenwell a little longer, I decided I had to come to an understanding with Mother Cresswell, for I coul
d not avoid her for ever. I went to her door, but as I was about to knock, heard voices. I put my ear to the door. She had Pris Fotherington with her. Mother Cresswell’s growing deafness meant that she and her companion were obliged to converse quite loudly, and Mother’s stage whisper was perfectly audible.

  “Whatever I done,” the old bitch was saying, “I done in my girls’ best interests. This is no life for a mother, Pris, and no place for a child, neither.”

  “They wouldn’t have fell for them in the first place, if they had a choice,” Pris said. “They often enough try to get rid of ’em themselves in the beginning.”

  “Just so, my dear. I makes it easy for ’em, that’s all.”

  “You do what has to be done,” said Pris. “You’ve nothing to reproach yourself for.”

  “I ain’t proud of it!” continued Mother Cresswell, “And I don’t say as how I like it. But there it is. It’s for the best.”

  “So what about Doll? What will you do? I can take her into my house if it suits. Till she cools off and sees sense.”

  “No need,” Mother Cresswell assured her. “Coin will serve. It’s what makes her tick.”

  I came away from the door, shocked at her opinion of me. Then, on reflection, I saw that it was true. Money was all my interest, winning it and keeping it. But to believe that I would collude in her crime for base profit! Yet, I reasoned, on the other hand, if she believed she could buy my silence, I would be safe at Clerkenwell a while longer. I made a point of going back to see her that afternoon.

  “I’m glad you’ve come, my dear,” she said. “We need to have words.”

  And she ushered me in and offered me a glass of sack, which I took.

  “Are you feeling better, Doll?” she asked. “You still look a bit pale.”

  “I’m much better, thank you, Mother,” I said. “But to tell the truth I don’t remember much, after Janey had her baby. I think I may have been overcome. By emotion. I think I may have been… mistaken. In some way. I seem to recall I was worried you might drop the baby.”

  Mother Cresswell considered me.

  “Good girl,” she said at last. She drew a purse from her pocket. “I want to give you a little bonus, Doll. No, don’t refuse, now, I insist.” She pressed the shining guineas into my hand. “There now. We understand each other, do we not?”

  “Yes, Mother,” I said, and bobbed a curtsey and moved to leave.

  “Haven’t you forgotten something Dollie?” she said. I knew what was coming and braced myself for it. “What about a kiss for your old mum?”

  I made myself kiss her, though at the moment my lips touched her cheek I had to check an almost irresistible urge to bite her savagely. The effort to control myself had been such that when I left Mother Cresswell I ran straight out of the house, and kept running, to a place where I was not known, and gave the guineas away to any poor people I met, and when they were all gone I went to the nearest pump and washed and washed my hands and cheeks and lips till they were sore.

  45

  “I don’t fancy the game no more,” bawled Janey one day shortly after this episode. “I look at her little face and I wonder how I’m ever going to tell her how I kept her fed. And what are the chances of her – raised in a bawdy house – going the same way? I don’t wish this life on her, Doll. I want out.” Her expression, as she bent over her little daughter, was a heart-rending blend of the earnestness of her wish and the acknowledgment of the futility of wishing.

  I was glad Janey was ready to move on but not ready to tell her my strategy, for she had a habit of blurting things out at inopportune moments or before inappropriate company. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she weren’t such an incorrigible loud-mouth, but when Janey said the wrong thing, the whole world knew about it. So all I said was, “Don’t fret, Janey. Something will turn up. Look at Kat. Who’d have thought she’d find a kind keeper?”

  As it had turned out, we were not the only ones thinking of moving on, as Kat had informed us she was being taken up by a gentleman who was going to keep her in a house in King Street; she was to have servants and a carriage, and he was even settling a portion on her.

  All her sisters were very happy for her, as drudging for one man is infinitely preferable to drudging for all-comers if the money is the same, and she should have leisure and clothes and servants besides – everything, in fact, a young bride might expect from a good marriage, saving of course, the miseries attendant on the station of wife. (That was the theory, in any case.) The cause of her good fortune was the recent marriage of her inamorato, Gerald, to an heiress. He had not been able to afford to reserve Kat for his exclusive attentions previously, but now the writings were drawn up and signed, Gerald’s young wife had his ring and his name, and he had her considerable fortune at his disposal. We all wished Kat great joy of her news and not a few of us envied her.

  “There’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip,” Kat said. “You never know, I may be back some day.”

  It was because Kat was such a level-headed girl and because I needed an accomplice to carry out my plan that I decided to share with her alone that I had discovered Mother Cresswell had been doing away with our babies. I made sure we were both away from the house when I told her, as I feared her immediate reaction might undo my plans. To my surprise she accepted my revelation calmly and said she had suspected something of the kind. Still, the confirmation of her suspicions had turned her very pale and we took a glass or two together to steady ourselves before returning to Clerkenwell. In that time she agreed to assist me by whatever means she could in accomplishing my design. Though I found Kat reliable and trustworthy, she was icy round the heart; she was never my bosom friend, but she was – perhaps even as a result of her coolness, for what is a flaw of character in one situation may often prove a strength in another – the most dependable instrument at hand. Her new situation also gave me the idea of how to achieve my own independence. I decided I too would become a kept woman.

  As I intended entirely to abandon my life as Doll, I gave notice at the playhouse. Mr Killigrew was angry and Nell was sorry, but Janey was plainly baffled.

  “I thought you liked it here! I thought we were getting out of the game together!”

  “We will. It’s not that I’m not happy here,” I said.

  “What is it then? You’re not a-breeding are you?”

  “No, nothing like that. I’ve been taken up by a gentleman, that’s all.”

  For a rare moment Janey seemed struck dumb.

  “I know I should have told you,” I said.

  “Well I can say nothing to that.” And she coloured slightly, as we both remembered how long it had taken her to tell me she was with child. “You are a dark horse, Doll. Well, you’re wasted here, in truth. An appealing little phiz like yours, and a tidy shape too. I can’t say I’m surprised. Anyone I know?”

  “No,” I replied.

  “What are your terms?” she enquired.

  “A coach and six, liveries of my choosing, four servants besides and three hundred pounds a year,” I said.

  Janey’s mouth fell open.

  “Fuck me, Dollie! What you got then, a duke?”

  I laughed and said I didn’t know what he was, but that he had a good deal of money and that was the main thing.

  “I just thought… ” Janey swallowed hard. “I hoped… ”

  “Janey, listen,” I said. “This isn’t the end of our plans. It’s the beginning. You’ll see. Just trust me. And when I send for you, just come.”

  46

  Godfrey and I had arranged to meet at a coffeehouse in Holborn, as he had no wish to get an earful from Mother Cresswell about his unreliability. I had asked Godfrey to dress up, although to be fair he always looked most handsome, and he had done me proud, appearing quite the wealthy gallant, in a pale blue brocade coat and waistcoat, velvet breeches, and silver buckles on his shoes. As a finishing touch his hat was trimmed with great pale blue feathers.

  “Very fine,” I said, curts
eying to him.

  “I wore it in The Wild Gallant.” He bowed. “You don’t think the hat is too much?”

  “The hat is perfect,” I said. If anything was too much, it was the silver-topped cane, fluttering with blue ribbons, but he had gone to such trouble I did not like to mention it.

  “You’re very pretty yourself,” he said. “Pink suits you.” I too had pulled out all the stops and was in a gown of my own making, shell-pink silk trimmed with cream lace. “Who are we today?”

  “We are husband and wife. That is to say, we are to appear husband and wife, but in fact we are lovers. We are looking for rooms in which you are to install me.”

  “I am to be a keeper! That is a part I have never played. Am I a kind keeper?”

  “Very kind. You can’t do enough for me. Why are you staring at me so?”

  “I am in my character. I am looking at you admiringly.”

  I took a carriage for the day as we had a deal of ground to cover, and we set off for the first of three addresses I had found. I had thought to go out of town, as I had a fancy to live in the country, but the first house, in Hammersmith, was too large even for my ambitions, and the second, in Chelsea, was dark and ill-appointed. The last was in a pleasant part of town by St James’s Park. The landlady, a Mrs Snags, showed us up to a set of rooms on the first floor.