He didn’t know whether they would want him to do anything for them, but he wanted to be there and ready if they did.
* * *
The next morning, the maid who had been charged by Lady Leonore to take a cooked breakfast to the Londoners in the guest cottage was redirected by Tyler to take a jug of thin gruel and some stale bread to the foreigners in the barn.
At a quarter to eleven, Jess and her mother were shown into the court. It had been set up in the long, vaulted-ceilinged room which ran the full length of the Hall. They were instructed to stand by a low, plain wooden bench, which was set at right angles to the large, highly polished table which dominated the room. The table itself was dominated by a thronelike seat, placed in the middle of a row of eight less formidable chairs. A man, not unlike Sir George, occupied the main place at the table. The other places were occupied by the Reverend Henry Batsford and seven men of similar social standing and authority in the Tilnhurst community. Sir George himself sat in a plump brocade armchair in front of, and slightly to the side of the table. Lady Worlington sat in a smaller armchair behind him.
As she sat there, her hands gripped tightly in her lap, it hardly seemed possible to Leonore that this room had been the scene of so many happy gatherings in the past; a place where guests had laughed and chatted with the Worlingtons before going in to dinner. Robert, her handsome, dashing son, had often been the centre of attention at such evenings. But there was no sign of him today.
Nor was there any sign of Joey, but for very different reasons. He had been denied entry to the proceedings and, much to the butler’s annoyance, had insisted on waiting with his pony and cart on the gravel outside the front entrance to the Hall.
The man at the centre of the table, the magistrate, was Arthur Fanshawe, the owner of the neighbouring estate. As the longcase clock in the corner of the room struck eleven, Fanshawe opened the session. He conducted the proceedings at such a fast pace and with such long and complicated words that Rose quickly became totally bewildered.
But Jess was unaffected by his performance. She was not listening to him. He had nothing to say that could be of any interest to her. All she could think of was her child growing in her belly. It had been Robert’s child, but not now. Now it was her child. Only hers. If he didn’t want it, then she would look after it herself. She didn’t hear the Reverend Henry Batsford’s speech either, in which he expounded on the immorality of the London labouring classes. Nor did she attend to Sir George’s invective on the subject of moral degeneracy in girls who made the trapping of decent men their life’s work. He even expanded on his theme by explaining to all present that the girl’s mother had tried to get money out of him – a price for the bastard.
‘That is why the trollop got herself in this state in the first place,’ he boomed, looking portentously round the room, ‘and by God alone knows what poor fellow. Maybe someone in this very village.’
Rose tried to protest that it was Sir George himself who had first mentioned money, that Jess had refused it, and that he knew full well who the father was. But she was silenced.
Leonore never opened her mouth. She remained silent throughout. She did not tell those present that the girl had only wanted her child to be recognised by its father, her own son, Robert Worlington. She never said a word, even though she also wanted the child, her grandchild, to be made legitimate, even though she had seen for herself the vile reality of women living alone with their children in the back-streets of the East End. Yes, she knew all about that. But she also knew what her husband was capable of. She kept silent as it was the best way she could think of to protect Jessie Fairleigh. She would go to her after the farce of the court hearing was over and they had sent her back to London, to starve for all they cared. And she would find a way to help her. Leonore knew that she would, she must, do all she could to make up for the behaviour of the man she was now ashamed to call her son. She was so preoccupied racking her brains for a scheme to help Jessie and her unborn child that she was scarcely aware that Arthur Fanshawe was drawing the proceedings to a close.
‘On the basis of the proof of her moral degeneracy,’ he droned, ‘Jessie, er…’ he checked his notes for her name ‘Jessie Fairleigh is committed to the county asylum for lunatics until such time as she can prove her sanity.’
Rose screamed her denial of what she was hearing. Shocked, Leonore buried her face in her hands. Jess stood impassively by the hard wooden bench.
‘Perhaps after the birth of her bastard she will come to her senses,’ suggested the Reverend Henry Batsford.
It was not quite a quarter past eleven. The whole proceedings had taken just twelve minutes.
* * *
The butler was instructed by his master to see that Rose left the grounds of Worlington Hall immediately. Tyler dragged her cursing and shouting from the room and dumped her brutally on the stone steps where she had stood so expectantly the night before.
‘You should have listened to me,’ Tyler said sarcastically, looking down at her. ‘I told you. Sir George doesn’t give charity to beggars.’
Joey dropped Daddler’s reins and rushed to help Rose to her feet. ‘Rose?’
‘They’ve put her away, Joe,’ Rose wailed disbelievingly. ‘They’ve put my Jessie in the bin.’
Joey did not say anything. He lifted Rose on to the cart and covered her legs with a rug. Then he started up the stone steps, two at a time. He had not quite reached the top when Theo the measurer came up behind him and stuck the muzzle of a double-barrelled shotgun in his back.
‘Master says as how he wants you to leave. Now.’
Joe still did not speak, but turned round and slammed the full force of his fist into the man’s face, sending him somersaulting down the steps. He stepped over the unconscious measurer and climbed rigidly on to the cart and shook the reins, signalling Daddler to walk on.
They were almost at the turn in the drive, the point where the Hall disappeared from the view of departing guests, when Leonore shouted to them from the porch.
‘She’ll be all right. I promise you,’ she called after them. ‘I really promise. I promise there will be justice.’
Whether they heard her or not she didn’t know, but they didn’t look back.
Chapter 14
A Taste of Better Things
The Gothic architecture of the county asylum, standing high on the Kent hillside, dominated the skyline for miles around. It had been designed that way in order to impress and intimidate those who were committed to be contained within its walls. And impress and intimidate them it did. The design and the running of the interior of the establishment were equally successful at their task of imposing authority on the unfortunate inmates. From the bare, cold walls to the hard, ungiving dormitory beds, the asylum inflicted its rigours of routine and harsh discipline on its stiffly clad prisoners. Few of the staff ever bothered to adhere to what they considered the pretence of calling them patients.
A sense of blame ensued from every rule, regulation and punishment thought up by the stony-faced matron who wielded most of the power in the institution. It was she who decided on rations, workloads and accommodation. It was she who was feared by inmates and staff alike – all, that is, except the visiting doctors and the more senior resident staff, who saw nothing of the real Mrs Roberts. They saw only the mask, her pretence of being an enlightened believer in treatment and cure.
Mrs Roberts did not particularly enjoy being cruel, although she had no qualms about being so; she simply saw it as the most efficient way in which to run the establishment. And efficiency meant profit. She had been accumulating an increasingly large nest egg, siphoned off from the economies she introduced into the asylum, since the first day she had been employed by the county. And as long as she kept the board of governors happy with her neatly scripted accounts ledgers, there was no one who would challenge her system.
Jess quickly learnt, like the others who had on admittance protested and resisted, that there was no escape from t
he regime except by retreat into blank passivity. That was the only way any of them had found to avoid the worst of the viciousness of the staff.
At first Jess could not understand why, as far as she could tell, so few of the women with whom she shared the long, bleak dormitory, appeared to be suffering from any form of madness. She soon came to realise that what they were actually suffering from was poverty, desperation and a lack of power. But she also came to know about the other wards, those with extra guards at their double-locked doors, where the real lunatics were incarcerated. And she also found out about the existence of the prettily decorated individual rooms where the discarded wives of rich men languished in madness-inducing isolation.
Nobody knew where the information about the other wards came from, and nobody talked of those other places in front of the asylum staff. Somehow these things just became common knowledge. The women in Jess’s ward considered themselves well off compared to some, and did not want to risk being punished or losing the few privileges that they did have. So they did their work as instructed, without complaint about the harsh toil in the fierce heat and steam of the laundry rooms. Day in, day out, they washed and mangled, starched and ironed the never-ending mountains of soiled sheets and clothing. They laundered not only their own and the staff’s uniforms and bedding, but also the linen and lace of many of the wealthy families in the district – yet another ingenious way which Mrs Roberts had found to add a few extra pounds to her miser’s hoard.
It gave the matron intense, almost sensual pleasure to slip into the asylum chapel late at night and take the chest from its secret place hidden beneath the altar cloth. The feel of the key turning in the lock and the lid of the coffer opening silently on its well-oiled hinges made her draw in her breath with pure delight. Sometimes she would count her treasure over and over again. At other times she was content merely to add her latest coins to those already stacked in neat piles. That cash box represented everything in which Mrs Roberts believed.
It was the public face, the benevolent, caring version of Mrs Roberts, however, who received Lady Worlington in her immaculately ordered matron’s office on a cold January morning. She might, after all, become a new customer for her very reasonably priced laundry service.
‘I am afraid that unless you are a relative of the girl,’ Mrs Roberts explained with sweet rationality, ‘you will not be able to visit. The rule is there to prevent sightseers. I’m sure you understand.’
‘Sightseers?’ Leonore was not sure she had heard correctly. ‘But this place is so…’ She tried to find the least offensive term in which to describe the horrific surroundings in which she had so unexpectedly found herself. Even the asylum’s forbidding exterior had not prepared her for what she had seen so far of the inside.
‘Oh yes, Lady Worlington,’ Mrs Roberts continued, ’there are still those who believe these unfortunate souls to be merely a source of amusement. Usually, if I might be so bold, it is ladies who are bored and who think that visiting the lunatics is an appropriately Christian act of charity. With a little – how can I put it – diversion? yes, diversion, thrown in for good measure.’ Mrs Roberts allowed herself a thin-lipped smile. She was pleased with herself, feeling she had achieved the right balance between putting off a potential busybody’s prying into her strictly ordered regime, without offending a potential customer for her laundry services.
Leonore did not return her smile. She raised her chin and addressed the unpleasant woman before her with all the aristocratic aloofness she usually abhorred. This woman brought out the worst in her.
‘If I might clarify my own interest, Matron. I am not here to pass some idle moments. I am here with a very specific interest. Jessie Fairleigh.’
Mrs Roberts ran her finger down a list in one of her ledgers. She nodded.
‘She was a seasonal worker at Worlington Hall, a hop picker. There was, as I am sure you know, a hearing which resulted in her being brought to this place.’
Mrs Roberts nodded again. She said nothing but she was assessing the possible impact of this woman’s visit to the smooth running of her asylum.
‘I have been shocked, deeply shocked, by the villagers’ indignation against the girl. I have heard that there has been much vicious gossip about her and her unborn child. She has no one living locally who might support her, so I simply wanted to see if I could help her in some way. You appeared to be questioning the motives behind my visit, but believe me, Matron, I am no meddling do-gooder. Merely a wellwisher who would like to do her duty to a past employee.’
Mrs Roberts nodded her head yet again. ‘An admirable sentiment, Lady Worlington. If only there were more people showing such concern about our unfortunates.’ She had decided to let the silly woman have her say; she didn’t want to risk antagonising her. She could never tell who these rich women might know. It wasn’t worth making an enemy of her, and thus a potential threat to her profits.
‘It was during the harvest that she became pregnant and, as I am sure you know, she is a Londoner. Her family are poor. She has no one to visit her. The purpose of my visit is to ensure that all is well, so that I can write and reassure her mother.’
Mrs Roberts’s eyes flashed. It had only been for a moment, but Leonore had seen her bristle at the hint that something might be other than well in her establishment.
‘I really don’t know what you’re implying, Lady Worlington, I’m sure,’ she said hurriedly, confirming Leonore’s fears. ‘What could possibly be other than well?’
‘You seem rather put out, Mrs Roberts. Is there some other reason why I may not see her?’
‘Rules are rules,’ said Mrs Roberts, standing up from her desk and fussing with an already orderly pile of papers. ‘I am sorry, but I have explained to you already. And, as you are not related to the girl…’ She shrugged regretfully, indicating that the matter was out of her hands. ‘Now if you would excuse me, I have to see to my many administrative duties.’
‘I see,’ said Leonore, not even attempting to leave the depressing little room. ‘In that case, I would like to speak with Sir Ralph Hamley.’
‘Sir Ralph?’ The colour faded from Mrs Roberts’s already pallid cheeks.
‘A family friend,’ said Leonore. She smiled to cover her growing suspicions that there was a hidden, and not altogether pleasant, side to the good matron’s character.
* * *
‘Leonore, how good to see you. Come in, come in.’ Sir Ralph Hamley, the county medical officer in charge of the asylum, welcomed Leonore into his luxuriously appointed office, with its delightful views over the extensive grounds. ‘Thank you, Matron, that will be all.’
Mrs Roberts hovered in the doorway, her reluctance to leave obvious to Leonore. It only added to her suspicions that all was not well.
‘Perhaps,’ he began.
‘Yes?’ Mrs Roberts said eagerly, hoping for even the slightest chance to stay and hear what this woman was really doing in her asylum.
‘Perhaps you could arrange for some tea for us, Mrs Roberts? I’m sure Lady Worlington would like some. And some of those excellent shortbread biscuits.’
‘That would be lovely, Ralph,’ said Leonore, settling back into an armchair beside his very grand desk.
Mrs Roberts left without comment. The next official rounds were not due for another three days. If this woman was going to poke her nose around, she would have to get to the laundry, the kitchen and the dormitories. She would have to arrange things, hide things away, and all because this nuisance of a visitor had turned up. And she had to ‘arrange for some tea’ into the bargain. Why did people have to interfere, why couldn’t they leave well alone?
‘I really cannot begin to think what you are doing here, Leonore.’ Sir Ralph smiled. ‘But, as ever, I am enchanted to see you.’
‘How very gallant you are, Ralph,’ said Leonore, extending her gloved hand for him to touch to his lips. ‘I was wondering if you would give me the benefit of your experience.’
‘My professio
nal experience?’ he said, settling into the imposingly large leather chair behind his desk.
‘Yes. I would like to discuss in particular a case of moral degeneracy.’
‘Heavens,’ he teased, raising a neatly clipped grey eyebrow. ‘Trying to get your rake of a husband put away, are you?’
‘Ralph, you are wicked!’ Leonore smiled charmingly at him from under the wide brim of her fashionably large hat. She knew how to flatter men like him. She had even dressed especially for the occasion. ‘No, it isn’t George’s behaviour I wish to discuss.’ She lifted her chin and looked directly at him. ‘I’ll be blunt with you. There was a girl brought in here about a month ago. Jessie Fairleigh.’
‘Can’t say I know of her,’ he said, shaking his head. He reached across his desk to the carved ivory humidor. ‘Mind if I smoke?’
‘Of course not. I’ve always loved the smell of a good cigar.’ She let him cut and light the long Havana, waiting for him to relax. Then she said, ‘She’ll be about five months pregnant.’
‘Ah. One of those cases,’ he said carefully. ‘Don’t really come into my jurisdiction, I’m afraid. Mrs Roberts – the matron – tends to run things in that area. Not a lot we can do for them, you see. The mental degeneracy is more a product of poor breeding than any curable condition.’
The rapping on his office door prevented Ralph Hamley from noticing Leonore’s expression of anger at his easy dismissal of Jessie Fairleigh and ‘those cases’ like her.
‘Come,’ he called officiously.
‘Mrs Roberts sent me with the tea, sir.’
* * *
As they sipped their Earl Grey, Leonore tried to persuade Ralph that Jess Fairleigh would benefit from leaving the asylum and becoming gainfully employed as a servant at the Hall.
The Cockney Girl Page 21