by Hilly Mason
“Oh, did she?” he said, glancing up at the blushing maid standing by the door. “Is this true, Isabel?”
The head maid bowed her head demurely. “I figured it had been a while since she had some,” she replied earnestly. “They had been made special for the little lady, and I know that she loves them so.”
Alex laughed. “Oh, one here and there won’t hurt. Just don’t eat them every day, Annie, or you’ll get a toothache.”
Annie gave him a rather serious nod.
“I promise, Papa!”
His footman, Marcus, appeared in the doorway and bowed to him before walking over with a letter in his hand.
“Another one?” Alex asked the man. “I believe this is the third letter this morning.”
“Yes, milord. Another letter from London.”
He glanced at the writing on the letter and started. He hadn’t seen that flowery script in half a decade or more. It reminded him of the summers he spent in Mayfair when he would receive these letters almost every day, inviting him out on a walk along Grosvenor Square. He brought the letter to his nose, inhaling, thinking he could still smell the summer roses that always reminded him of her.
“Papa, what is it?”
For a moment he had forgotten that Annie and the maid were still standing in his study.
“Isabel, take Annie outside to play for a little while before we have tea.”
“Yes, milord.” Isabel took the child by the hand and led her out of his study.
Alex felt a pang of guilt as he remembered his poor wife, only six months in her grave. How could he be thinking of another woman, and Sophia Clarke—nay, Lady Gibbs no less? He shook his head as though to clear it and opened the carefully folded letter.
Dear Lord St George,
I hope this letter finds you well...
Because I want you to be able to read how angry I am by what you’ve done to me!
You are a money-snatcher and heartless!
How could you take the home away from a woman who is still deep in grief over the loss of her dead husband?
If you had a heart you would give me my beloved house back, or at least not defile it by turning it into a gaming club!
If you have any bit of conscious left, you will heed my words.
Lady Sophia Gibbs
Alex howled with laughter at the choice words Lady Gibbs called him. Money-snatcher. Heartless. Oh yes, it sounded more like she was talking about herself.
Whatever he felt about Sophia in the past, she was no longer his concern. Just because her husband wasn’t wise with his money didn’t mean he should give away the enormous and potentially profitable Comerford House for free.
Absurd!
And really, it was what she deserved, wasn’t it? He had spent far too much of his young life pining over a woman who had apparently led him on, only to leave him for a better, more fashionable version of himself.
He threw the letter in the fireplace, watching the paper crumple and turn into ash.
Chapter Three
“How does this place look to you?”
Sophia blinked up at the building. After stopping by the postal office to write and send a letter to the insufferable Lord St. George, they had wandered London all day and were now heading east along the Thames. With each step she took, the buildings became grayer and filthier. Haggard men, women, and children, passed her on the street, staring at her fancy clothes with confusion and distaste. The hem of her skirt was now filthy with mud, and her legs were tired and shaking from walking such a distance. She had not thought to wear her boots, and her feet protested the thin slippers she wore. If the ground weren’t so cold she would have probably taken them off and gone the rest of the way barefoot to save her heels from chafing down to the bone.
For the better part of the day they had searched for an inn in the nicer areas London. “But not in Mayfair,” Sophia had said to Joyce. “I don’t want anyone to recognize me and feel sorry for me.” Yet people quite outside of Mayfair knew who she was. And each establishment shut their doors and shuttered their windows before Sophia could fit a word in.
“How could they do such a thing? Do they think I am going to stab them in the eye with a hairpin?”
“Hush,” Joyce admonished, glancing sideways. “Do you want people to overhear such words?”
“Oh, I do not mind causing a commotion,” Sophia said haughtily. “And I’ll have you know that I am not a murderer!” She directed her last words at the innkeeper who was staring at her in shock. Sophia turned around and left the building in a huff.
“There was a time when I could have bought out the entire floor of rooms!” she told her maid once they were back out into the busy street.
“Yes, but that was before,” her maid said quietly.
“Do you think I do not know that?”
Joyce took a side step away from the other woman. Sophia sighed as she sat down at the steps of a tailor shop. She hung her head in her hands, groaning.
“Joyce, I apologize for speaking to you like that. You have done nothing wrong. It’s just that I… I do not know what to do anymore, and I am frightened.”
Joyce thought for a moment. “There are options, y’know. What if we find you work as a maid?”
“Me? A maid?” Sophia just about shrieked at the thought. “I mean no offense to your occupation, of course. It is only that I have no experience doing such menial work. I suppose it would be better than still being in prison. Or living out on the streets, for that matter.”
Joyce shrugged. “Yes, it must seem absurd to a well-bred lady such as you. The work can be tiring, but there’s not much to it. And if it gives you a roof over your head and a bit of money, you can find the time to find something better.”
“I would have to marry someone to find something better,” Sophia said bitterly. “That’s how this world works. The man makes, and the woman takes.”
“Well, perhaps for some. But in my world, the woman can also make. And it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” She waved her hand to the shops down the street. “Many of these shops—like the dressmaker and that bakery on the corner—are run by women. They make a decent wage out of it, too.”
“I do not have the skill to sew bonnets. And people would need to run to their chamber pots if I were to make pies and cakes.”
“But you can scrub floors and dust. That doesn’t take skill—only a willingness to do hard work.”
Sophia stared down at her soft hands and her smooth, hard nails. In contrast, Joyce’s hands were rough and calloused from years of labor. When did she ever hear Joyce complain—or the rest of her servants for that matter? They worked every day without much acknowledgment from either Sophia or Lord Gibbs. To the aristocracy, it was only expected of the servants to do their jobs, but for the servants, they had no other choice if they wanted to be fed.
Guilt crept back into her body, making her shift uncomfortably.
“You’re right, Joyce,” she said. “Let’s find someplace to work.”
It proved easier said than done. When the sun started to set, they began to worry; it was not safe for women to be out and about alone in London, especially near the Thames, where the parlor houses and bordellos were aplenty.
Dusk was falling. By the appearance some of the women—with their bright red rouge staining their lips and cheeks, and their loosely fitting clothing that left little for the imagination—Sophia knew that they had stumbled on a street filled with bustling bordellos.
Did my husband actually prefer these women over me? Sophia thought with dismay as she watched the ladies of the night walk provocatively down the street under the watchful eyes of lustful men who followed after them as if mice trailing the pied piper.
“Are you two pretty ladies looking for work?” Sophia turned around and looked up at a tall woman dressed similarly to the other prostitutes. “My mistress has an opening at the house two doors down from here.”
“Of course not,” Sophia said loudly, taking her m
aid by the arm and leading her away from the prostitute before the woman could say anything more untoward.
“Disgusting,” Sophia said under her breath. Her face felt hot from embarrassment. “Let’s get out of here before anyone happens to recognize us.”
“Well, it is another way to make money,” Joyce remarked. She gave a nervous chuckle. “And you’re pretty enough to make a decent living off of it.”
“Joyce!” Sophia exclaimed, shocked that she would even consider such a thing. “Would you really think I would ever agree to sell my body like that?”
“Of course not, Sophia,” Joyce said, smothering her laughter with her hand. “I’m only teasing you. However, I do think you would make more than a living wage off of it, if you were to give it a try,” she added, under her breath.
“You are insufferable. Let’s move on, shall we?”
“These women aren’t bad people,” Joyce said, as they left the bordellos and made their way to buildings that looked to be houses and storefronts. “And we mustn’t judge them. For many it’s a lonely life, and they have no other options.”
“Are you trying to make me feel guilty? I’ve had enough of that already today.”
“Not at all. I just wanted to give you some perspective on the world outside of Mayfair.”
But Sophia already had a good idea of what went on. It was easy to ignore the suffering and poverty that existed beyond the walls of her own home until it hit her right in the face. When she was told that she didn’t have enough money to pay her jailer to stay under arrest in his house, she was sent to Newgate Prison instead. There was one other woman in her cell—a scullery maid who had been convicted of killing her master a year prior. Unlike Sophia’s case, she actually did murder the man—and she seemed somewhat proud of it. Her master, according to her story, had visited her room almost every night, forcing her against her will. The woman’s voice shook as she told her story, and her hands trembled, making the shackles around her wrists rattle. One night, the woman told Sophia, she couldn’t take it anymore; earlier in the night she had stolen a knife from the kitchen, and when her master was on top of her, she lodged the blade into his heart.
“He was so heavy on top of me,” the woman said softly, tears pouring down her cheeks. However, the smile on her face chilled Sophia to the bone. “I knew what I did will send me straight to Hell, but I have no remorse. I like knowing that he won’t do the same thing to other women.”
Sophia had only spent a week with that woman before she was hanged in front of a crowd of leering onlookers. Sophia heard everything from the woman’s cries, to the sickening thwack! of the rope pulled taut.
She cried herself to sleep that night.
During her time growing up in Calcutta, she had heard horrible stories from the children who had come into the orphanage where she volunteered. She had buried those stories away in her new life, and had naively assumed that such horror could not happen in England.
But there were monsters everywhere.
A portion of Calcutta was cut off from the rest of the society with giant palaces and expensive homes mostly occupied by the British colonists, but once she stepped outside those walls it was hard not to ignore the disparity that existed beyond. Sophia’s parents were both teachers, using the money they had inherited from their wealthy families to build an orphanage in the heart of Calcutta. Sophia would spend her free time as an adolescent tutoring the children in English.
A lump formed at her throat. She hadn’t thought about her time as a tutor in so very long. She missed being with those children, and she felt guilty for having forgotten them. Sophia glanced down at her filthy dress. The intricate floral designs at the hems and sleeves were almost completely obscured by grime and sweat.
Whose clothes are these? she thought. What have I become? Where is Sophia Clarke?
“What about this place?” Joyce pointed, snapping Sophia back into the present. She narrowed her eyes as she read the sign on the storefront of a run-down building.
“Apothecary and Fortune-Telling?” Sophia read with an air of skepticism. “You can’t be serious, Joyce.”
“I know this woman. Miss Baxter is old and can’t move around very well. She’ll need someone to help care for her and clean her house. Even if all it does is shelter us, I think it’ll be worth it for now.”
“How is it you know this woman?” Sophia asked, raising an eyebrow. “I never took you for having an interest in the occult.”
“Of course I don’t have an interest.” Joyce looked slightly embarrassed. “Lord Gibbs never sent for a physician whenever the servants became ill, so we had to call on Miss Baxter instead. Her prices aren’t terrible, and she seems to carry what you need in a pinch.”
“Lord Gibbs never sent for a physician?” Sophia asked softly.
Joyce shook her head. “Don’t worry yourself about it.”
“Well, why wasn’t I informed of such things? I would have given you money for proper medicine and not snake oil.”
“Would you have?”
“What do you mean?”
Again, Joyce looked embarrassed. “Well, after you moved into Comerford House you specifically told us you didn’t want to get involved with the ‘trivialities of servitude,’ as you called it.”
Sophia rubbed her temples with her fingertips. Did I really say such things? she thought.
“Dear Lord, I’m a terrible person, aren’t I?”
“No, of course not,” Joyce said, rather too quickly.
“Well, thank you for your support,” Sophia said. “But I am afraid I have a bit to atone for with how I acted as Lord Gibbs’ wife.”
Hopefully I can find my way back to being Sophia Clarke.
She now looked at the dilapidated building and sighed. You are strong, Sophia, she told herself. You won’t perish from sleeping next to a rat or a spider.
But really, she had no other choice. It was either here, or in an alley, where nefarious were wont to lurk. And, without admitting it to Joyce, she was rather curious about the fortune teller. She’d never been to one before, as it was not a lady-like Christian thing to do. However, back in India, she was very certain she had seen a spirit. Sophia closed her eyes, remembering the fear—and excitement—she felt during his appearance.
He had visited her bedroom during the night, when she was up late reading by a single candle. A sudden draft had knocked the window shut and extinguished the candle. Although the window now separated her from the chilled winter night, she could still feel a chilling breeze. In front of her was a glowing apparition, and when Sophia squinted she could see that it was in the form of a man dressed in traditional Indian clothing. He was missing an arm; his empty sleeve swung back and forth in the spectral breeze. With the one hand he did have he reached out and stroked Sophia’s cheek with his fingertips. It felt as though someone was cutting her skin with an icicle.
After Sophia screamed and fled to her parents’ room, her mother and father told her it had been a trick of the shadows—or simply a nightmare. Sophia had never quite accepted that explanation. It didn’t explain how she could feel the spirit touch her. Since then she’d believed her room to be haunted, and begged her parents to allow her to move to the room down the hall. When they relented and she took all of her toys and belongings to the second bedroom, the spirit had apparently followed her.
“Invite him to tea,” her mother suggested with a bit of exasperation, as this was the second time in the night that Sophia had awoken her.
“That’s not going to work.”
“Just try. And please don’t wake me again, my love. I need to be up early tomorrow.”
The spirit did stop coming to her after she offered him some tea and biscuits. Sophia assumed that he was just hungry.
After her parents died of cholera, Sophia tried with all her might to summon their spirits to her. She even went into her old room, into which she hadn’t stepped foot for years, to see if for some reason the veil between the spirit world and
the world of the living was thinner there.
There was nothing. Not even the old spirit that had haunted her years before wanted to visit with her.
Sophia was older then, and since assumed that the spirit of her childhood was just a product of an overly active imagination and the loneliness of not having any siblings to play with.
Indeed, after her parents’ death, there was a lot she stopped believing in.
Joyce knocked on the door to the apothecary. It took a few minutes for it to swing open. Standing in the doorway was a tiny old woman with discerning, milky blue eyes framed by limp, white hair—half of which was tied into a messy knot on the top of her head. She was about a head shorter than Sophia—who was not tall by any means—and she only had one leg; a wooden peg replaced the other, which now tapped on the ground impatiently.
“There are two women here,” Miss Baxter said bluntly with a faded Scottish accent. “One is an aristocrat, an’ the other a servant. Tell me, does the aristocrat want her fortune told? To see who she will marry? To see if she is carryin’ a lad or lassie?”
Sophia’s hands fluttered to her abdomen.
“Oh, I am not with child,” she told the woman. As much as her monthly bleeding was an annoying occurrence, she had been relieved when it came during her imprisonment. The relief in itself was a surprise; she had wanted a child for so long, except the stars had never aligned for her, no matter how often she had tried with Lord Gibbs. Lord Gibbs wanted a male heir, but Sophia knew she would feel blessed with any child. In the beginning they had tried often, but soon the times they spent together were few and far between. And when he did visit her bedroom—which always seemed like an afterthought to Sophia—it was all very businesslike.
He had never told her that he loved her. Of course, that would be a lie. Sophia had soon learned after her wedding that Lord Gibbs wanted to marry her because of her inheritance—which, of course, he quickly squandered. She had said it to him once or twice that she loved him, perhaps thinking that if she said it enough times she would start believing the words, hoping that it would stave off the loneliness she felt whenever he left her for the bordellos.
