Wasp (6 page)

Nightingale returns to her bed. Kingfisher is bringing a new girl. He has sent word ahead and will arrive with the Kitten tonight. That is the second newcomer this month. Nightingale must ensure the proper order of things is maintained. She intones her prayers, leans over to kiss the crucifix then throws herself into the rich, silken swaddling of her bedclothes.

The Gilded Cage

Beth opens her eyes. A flat plaster ceiling. Cream walls topped by elaborate coving. Junk everywhere. Wooden crates, coils of rope, an old broom, other things she doesn’t recognise. She tries to turn her head. Everything aches.

Footsteps. Heavy, measured. A face bends over her. That bald head again. Glittering blue eyes. The nose sliced by a puckered white scar. A hand cups her chin and turns her head one way, then the other. He fingers her cheek. She sinks her teeth into his wrist.

He steps back, hand clamped around the bite. Blood seeps between his fingers. She waits for him to strike her. He shakes his baldy head and walks over to a dresser. He pours water into a basin, bathes the wound and binds it with a strip of linen.

She casts about. A pair of shears lies on top of a canvas bag just a couple of feet away on her side of the bed. She flexes her hands. They aren’t bound. Good. She glances at Baldy. His back is still turned. She gauges the distance and gets ready.

‘If you’re fixing to stick me with those things,’ he says, ‘the base of the neck’s the best place.’

She wants to ask him if he’s got eyes in the back of his head but the words won’t come. She falls back on the mattress. Baldy turns and watches her. He’s taken his jerkin off. He sponges down his chest and under his arms. The marks on his body resemble scars.

The room has one window and one door. The window is small and square. The glass is grimy and she can’t see anything outside. The door’s made of barred wood and looks like a bull couldn’t smash it down.

Baldy stops washing and comes over to sit beside the bed. He doesn’t bother putting his jerkin back on. Droplets ripple over his chest. More slide down his forearms.

‘That’s the only way in and out of here, and I’m keeping it locked, at least for now. You can’t open the window so don’t try. Stay away from it. If I’m outside in the alley and see your face anywhere near that glass I’ll put the shutters across and you can sit in the dark.’

He waits for that to sink in. She manages a nod.

‘You’ll still be wondering where you are. All that will come. You’re safe as long as you don’t cause trouble.’ He leans forward. His breath smells of onions and hot mutton. ‘When you’re allowed outside you might think about running away. The man who brought you here knows the ins and outs of this town and can sniff your trail better than any hunting cur. Don’t make him fetch you back or I’ll have to tie you to this bed. I’ve got a few days only to get you fixed then you’ll be taken to see the Abbess. She owns the house and will explain what’s wanted from you.’

He dabs fresh paste on her bug bites then brings a pan from the hearth. ‘Herb-infused broth,’ he explains. ‘My own recipe. Whatever shit you’ve been fed before, it’s done your belly no good. We have to be careful or you’ll bring this up as quick as you can swallow it.’

He goes away often. Sometimes for a little while. Other times longer. She hears him outside, talking, moving things around. Other voices reply. Sometimes it is the dark man. Usually it’s women. When alone, she sits and learns every crack and cranny of the roof and walls. She doesn’t go near the window or bother to try the door. Usually when he returns his face is grave and he doesn’t say much. He feeds her before eating his own dinner.

At night she lies in the dark. It can be a long time before she gets to sleep, if at all. He says he can’t trust her with a candle. It might fall off the table and set something alight. The fire is stoked up. It has a metal door with a grate on the front, which he’s bolted. It traps most of the heat. ‘I’ll fetch an extra blanket if you’re cold,’ he says.

Mice scurry inside the walls. Sometimes when she closes her eyes it’s like she’s in the Comfort Home again. Baldy is snoring somewhere nearby. The noise seems to rattle through the rafters. She wonders what he’s dreaming about.

In the morning, when he brings breakfast, she has a question for him.

‘Am I supposed to thank you for all this?’

He puts down the trencher. She smells hot coffee. A treat. ‘D’you reckon you should hate me instead?’

‘Why not? I’m a prisoner just the same. You’re not feeding me out of compassion.’

He points to the ugly marks on his back and chest. ‘See these? I showed a young woman compassion. I fetched a beating and lost what little I had.’

He strokes her forehead. Nothing much, but she pulls away. How many other women have those hands touched?

‘Where’s my dress?’

‘I burned it. The thing was stinking and riddled with bugs. I brought you something else.’

A linen gown. Brown with a cream apron. Something a milkmaid might put onto go to a harvest dance.

‘The fit looks about right,’ he says. ‘Might have to tuck it in here and there. There’s a pair of slippers too, and some woollen stockings.’

‘Where’d you get them? From someone else you kidnapped?’

His cheeks pink. ‘You can do without if you prefer.’

She wears the garment and he brings supper. Real food. A strip of beef, potatoes in butter. A smattering of carrots.

‘You can feed yourself,’ Baldy says. He places a chair in front of the table and a set of wooden cutlery beside the trencher. It’s the most Beth’s had in a while and she has to struggle not to bolt it.

‘What’s your name?’ she asks between mouthfuls.

‘My name isn’t any of your concern.’

‘I have to call you something.’

He laughs. ‘I’m the Fixer, and right now I’m the only father you’ve got.’

Bethany finishes the meat and the last of the potatoes. ‘Why are you so bald?’

‘Sometimes I have to work with filthy people. Lice get in your scalp, your eyebrows, under your arms, in your breeches. Shaving’s the only way to keep them off.’

‘Filthy like me?’

He nodded. ‘Like you.’

‘Why am I here?’

‘You’ve been bought and I’ll deliver you on time.’

‘Bought for what?’

‘That’s not for me to tell. Be glad you’re alive.’

He goes out again. Bethany naps for a while. Afterwards she gets up and wanders about, picking things up and putting them down again. She feels itchy and foul. Pulling the brown linen gown over her head, Bethany tosses it on the bed, kicks off the slippers, bends over and peels off the stockings. Standing naked in the middle of the room, she picks up a sponge and starts bathing herself with water from the Fixer’s ewer. She wipes her arms in long, lazy strokes, dabs her breasts and slips the sponge between her thighs. Water dribbles down her legs and pools at her feet. It’s like being caressed by angels.

Beth’s so lost in herself she fails to hear the Fixer come back. He’s standing in the doorway, looking at her. Three long strides bring him across the room. His face is black with anger.

‘Put your clothes back on.’

‘You’ve seen me naked before, tended my wounds, cleaned up my blood. Why should it trouble you now?’

He scoops up her crumpled garments in his fist and holds the bundle under her face. ‘That was different naked. Put on your clothes.’

She takes the gown and slips it back on. He waits, back turned, until she’s dressed.

‘I don’t know why you’re angry. I was bare enough when you slapped those ointments on me.’

‘If I need to doctor you then that is an agreement between us. Otherwise you will treat me like a gentleman, whether you still believe yourself a lady or not.’

It’s the end of her last day in this room and the sun set an hour ago. The Fixer sits in front of the hearth. Bethany is perched on the edge of the bed. They don’t say anything. They don’t look at one another. He has the iron doors on the fire open and flames paint his face orange. He stares right into them but Beth doesn’t know what he’s really seeing. She’s wearing her smock. A trencher of bread and cold meat sits on the table beside the bed but there’s no hunger to satisfy. Instead she’s fidgeting as if a nest of ants lies under her rump. She opens her mouth to say something then closes it again.

Footsteps outside the door. A knock. The Fixer rises from his stool. ‘Your Sisters are here to bathe you properly and provide fresh clothing. Do whatever they say and don’t pay any heed to their japes. They like a little blood sport with the new girls.’

The Fixer is gone in a breath. Two young women dressed in plain smocks carry a sloshing tin tub into the room. They are maids, the girl supposes. Her ‘Sisters’? Is that her future? Working as a servant in a big house? At Russell Hall she’d been little higher than a kitchen wench anyway, and ripe for teasing from the other staff. Pepper in her tea, nettles in her bed, even a toad from the ornamental pond stuffed into her shoe. That had sent her screaming down the hall and out the front door.

In one of her mother’s magazines she’d read of a house for fallen women in London where harlots were scooped out of jail and reformed into seamstresses or washerwomen. A humble new life, her mother supposed, but better than dying of the pox.

The maids are watching her. One has a look that could slice butter and a prancing horse, painted all black, tattooed on her cheek. The other is softer about the face and sports a red flower design. They lower the tub to the floor and the woman with the horse motif beckons.

‘Off with that sacking, Kitten.’

Beth is confused for a moment, then starts to tug at her smock. The maid snorts. ‘Too slow, too slow, you are as idle as you are ugly.’ She grasps the top of the gown and splits the fastenings from neck to hem. Cool air wafts over the girl’s body. She crosses both arms over her breasts but the maid bats them away. ‘No tomfoolery. Get in the bath.’

Warm, scented water envelops Beth’s feet and she sighs despite herself.

‘Another one from the madhouse,’ the maid remarks to her companion. ‘Where does Kingfisher get this refuse?’

‘From the gutter, the same place he found us.’

The woman laughs. ‘Looks like he cut it fine with this one. I don’t know why I should be tasked with pampering her.’

‘We all take our turn, Ebony Mare. ’Twas the same when you first arrived.’

‘Oh very well, let’s turn this weed into a blossom.’

For all their scorn, the maids’ hands are as soft as butterflies. Face, hands and body are carefully cleaned. When satisfied, they dry Beth with a thick towel that smells faintly of jasmine. Her smock is exchanged for a linen gown that matches their own.

‘Now,’ the flower-cheeked woman says. ‘I think you are ready for the Abbess.’

A Good Prospect

Bethany’s parents waited until she’d turned sixteen before they sat her down at the kitchen table and laid out her future. Beth was forced to admit she hadn’t given much thought to the matter. She considered her education a lure to attract a well-appointed banker or corn merchant. Certainly she hadn’t foreseen pegging her future to the village and Russell Hall.

‘Lord Russell’s had an eye on you since you were a lass,’ Mother said, while Father folded and unfolded his hands. ‘You’ll do right by him and his family.’

‘You said we should mind our place.’

‘Our place just got bigger. Your father paid good coin to have you lettered. Lord Russell wants you at the Hall and that’s where you’re going. He’s too old to be running after children, his housekeeper’s a prune and his lad can barely keep a leg out of a hunting saddle. It’s time you chased the butterflies out of your head and put the things you’ve been taught to some use.’

Mother was a woman you did not argue with unless you were ready to let a month pass and still not hear the end of it. She lifted a hand to no one, but her ability to wear a body down with words was as persistent as the tide. Though professing to be a fervent disciple of God she also believed that to spare the rod was to spare the body unnecessary hurt. Unlike her fellow parishioners, who beat their servants and children with equal impunity, Mother believed the doorway to contrition lay in the will.

‘You can blacken a rump with a leather strap but you can’t knock pride out of a person,’ she often asserted over the supper table. ‘Pride is the chief cause of disobedience. Some of those village boys think it a mark of bravery to suffer a beating at their father’s hands. They show off their bruises as if they were honours from the king. Only through humility can you find repentance and humility can be taught just like anything else.’

She did charity work for the Wesleyans, giving out dead children’s clothes to the local urchins from a huge wicker basket tied to the back of her husband’s wagon. Sometimes these garments were little better than the rags the youngsters already wore, but their mothers could work patchwork miracles with the material, and many rainbow-coloured breeches were seen scurrying around the lanes outside the village. Most Saturdays mother and daughter spent the morning loading up the basket before taking it around the farms. Local children — a whirl of bare feet, bad haircuts and missing teeth — tumbled into the yard as the wagon squeezed through the gate. Beth’s ears were soon filled with whispered secrets, and forests of small fingers opened to reveal treasures gleaned from the fields surrounding their fathers’ steadings. Ever-in-a-hurry Mother kept her peace over this because it made the job go more easily.