‘As a judge, I am no stranger,’ he ruminated, ‘to the horrors and pleasures of the noose, and other implements of torture. They are,’ he gently assured me, ‘not suitable for ladies of your skill, and I would not wish you closer contact with them, and neither should you. Do you understand me?’
I swallowed and nodded. His kind voice lulled me. So kind, I could not quite absorb his meaning.
‘Ah, and here is Sir Jocelyn.’
‘Dora!’
I stood up as the man marched towards me with a broad smile, stopping only to place his glass of port on the writing-desk, before reaching out his arms and kissing me firmly on both cheeks. ‘You are safe, dear child! Such a dreadful experience for you to have to undergo. Poor, poor Charles. But you, precious girl, escaped their clutches.’ He slid his palms down my arms, took hold of both my hands, and started to stroke my cracked, calloused palms. ‘Look at these beautiful hands, Valentine. Our little binding angel; she weaves the softest magic for us, from the most unusual wellsprings of inspiration. Hmmm. You, Mrs Damage, are my magnum opus. What a woman we have made of you! I have a gift for you, my angel.’ He let go of my hands to pull from his vest pocket a long golden rope, at the end of which was a faceted honey-coloured drop. ‘Amber, from Africa.’ He smiled, as if at a distant memory. ‘I love amber. For me it is like a woman. Did you know, Dora, that amber has a special scent, a secret scent, yielded only once warm, and rubbed?’ He held the drop tightly in the palm of his hand, and massaged his fingers and thumb vigorously around it, looking at me all the while. Then he knelt down, wrapped the necklace around my neck, and reached behind me to fasten the clasp. ‘Can you smell that, Dora?’ But I couldn’t. I could only smell the spicy smokiness of Sir Jocelyn himself; his velvet jacket yielded a musty perfume, and his mouth the fermenting sweetness of tobacco and fine wine.
‘And you must set these into a binding for me,’ he proceeded, pouring into my hands ten polished amber nuggets.
‘Jocelyn,’ Lord Glidewell interrupted, ‘I was imparting to Mrs Damage the severity of the day’s events.’
‘Indeed, Valentine.’
‘And I believe you have some information for Mrs Damage? I do not wish to hurry you, but we must return to dinner forthwith.’
Sir Jocelyn stared at Glidewell for a moment, before turning back to me. ‘Dora. Darling Dora,’ he repeated. I think he was slightly drunk. He sat down on the couch, pulled me next to him, and rubbed my hand some more. ‘Dora,’ he said again.
‘Yes, Sir Jocelyn?’
‘Dora.’
But I never knew what he wanted to say to me, for all of a sudden, as if taken by something of a more pressing nature, he stood up sharply, picked up his glass, and left. I heard him mutter to Glidewell over his shoulder as he passed, ‘Your dirty work, Valentine, not mine.’ And with that he was gone, and the door clicked neatly shut behind him, like the cocking of a flintlock gun.
Lord Glidewell seemed unperturbed. He paused to sip his drink, then smacked his lips together, and paced the room. When he began to speak again, it was with military precision and care.
‘I may not be a medical man, Mrs Damage, but as a judge I know how to weigh evidence, and as such I am convinced that Sir Jocelyn will be considered to be the most eminent, radical and life-changing, nay, epoch-changing, physician of his generation. I urge you to tender your greatest consideration to what I am about to say.’ I sat, attentive, and waiting. ‘Did you know,’ Lord Glidewell continued, ‘that Sir Jocelyn has found a strong and convincing connection between an individual being subject to an excess of sexual energy, and that same individual suffering from epileptic seizures? Ah, I see I have your full attention now. You did not know that, I can tell. I appreciate that this is a very delicate area, but may I ask if Lucinda partakes in, shall we say, onanism?’
‘I do not understand,’ I eventually said. I had certainly read that term in one of Diprose’s books, but I struggled to remember what it meant.
‘Well, then, I shall call it by its blunter term. Masturbation. Does Lucinda masturbate?’
I remained silent. I was not going to speak on this subject.
‘Do answer me, Mrs Damage,’ Lord Glidewell urged tetchily. ‘We are most fortunate to have such a renowned expert in his field; it is an interesting and credible theory which is shaking the world of medicine.’ He was getting exasperated. ‘Has she confessed to any sexual fantasies? Has she made any untoward advances to her father, or to Jack, or to any other men? Does she frig herself, Dora? Dora, I ask you to be vigilant, for it may bring your daughter closer to a cure for her condition.’
‘A cure?’ For certain, I wanted to know about a cure, but I could not fathom how this course of questioning would lead us to one. ‘Which is?’
‘First, we must diagnose such an excess, as well we might, given the apparent success of her bromide therapy. Bromide reduces sexual desire, ipso facto, if bromide treatment is effective, the cause was likely to be sexual excess. We then – or rather, Sir Jocelyn – will have no choice but to carry out the requisite operation. It is termed a cli-tor-i-dec-to-my, a clitoridectomy, and is, quite simply, the excision or amputation of the clitoris. Constitutional symptoms such as Lucinda’s are increasingly traceable to its irritation and abnormality –’ I think I stood up at this point, trembling as the lecture continued ‘– and the necessity for its removal when much enlarged is increasingly recognised by eminent surgeons in such widely differing cases as dysuria, hysteria, sterility and epilepsy. She will, of course, be thoroughly chloroformed throughout the whole procedure.’ I sat down again, then stood once more. ‘It will positively cure Lucinda of her epilepsy and render her immune to further convulsive episodes. Have you not seen Sir Jocelyn’s treasures?’
‘Treasures, Lord Glidewell?’ I managed to say, my mind reeling.
‘Why, I imagined you two to be more intimately acquainted. He has an entire collection of clitorises pickled in glass jars, along with the renowned “Hottentot apron”. I am sure he will reveal them to you should you wish to peruse them.’
If what Lord Glidewell was telling me were true, then all Sir Jocelyn’s questing for a better world had disappeared up his own fundament.
‘Lord Glidewell –’ I was shaking, ‘Lord – Glide –’ I spat, ‘– well, if you – or he – or any of you! – lay one finger on Lucinda – I will go straight to the police! You can threaten me all you like, but you will keep Lucinda out of this!’ I was shouting now.
Lord Glidewell, on the other hand, stayed unnervingly calm. He was even able to smile at me, as he said, ‘And the police will be convinced of the necessity of the operation, when they discover her mother’s fascination with sordid texts, and will make the appropriate equation that heightened sexuality must be an inheritable trait.’
I could not say a word; I feared I would swoon.
‘Good evening, Dora.’ He seized my hand and raised it to his lips, staring into my eyes all the while. He led me out into the corridor, and made to go back into the dining-room, but the door opened before he reached the handle.
A man I did not recognise, in a blue smoking-jacket, with slick black hair, stood at the door. He looked me quickly up and down, before addressing Lord Glidewell. ‘Ah, Valentine. I trust you have remembered to impress upon our guest that we are still waiting for an assurance of the loyalty of her mahogany journeyman.’
I knew not which of the Noble Savages this man was, but I had ceased listening. For behind him I caught a glimpse of a long, hazy room, a shining table, men in jewel-coloured velvets, a flame lighting a cigar, a flash of gold. It felt tremendously improper for me to witness this male occasion; it somehow felt more shameful than anything I had seen in any book to date. But I could not avert my gaze, and the men within, too, stared back out at me, laughing in a fraternal code that sneered at outsiders.
I had known these men’s inmost desires for months, and yet I was only now seeing them for the first time. My gaze flitted promiscuously from one to the next,
as if it were possible to match their countenances with their proclivities. They all held glasses, thick with bloody liquid, and while Bacchus danced amongst them on the table, Priapus, I knew all too well, pranced beneath. Who was it, then, who was hooded like a king cobra? Which of them had been disrobed by the knife at birth? Whose was the fat purple bishop? And whose the spotted dick? Whose curved like a walking stick? And who inched the pipe-cleaner down into the eye of the snake, and who boasted of preferring a goose-feather quill, bony end first, even, and no trimming of the feathers beside?
Which one rampaged for little boys? And who for young maidenheads? Which ones gave, and which received, and who was the lucky one who always found himself in the middle? Who had fucked what of the feast that spread between them? Who had impaled the turkey while its neck was wrung, and who preferred stuffing the ducks? Which one lowered horses onto his ladies, and which one had watched the breath pressed out of one poor unfortunate by a pot-bellied pig?
I exaggerate not. They were all here, I knew, for I had read their diaries, their letters, their stories, and they knew it too, as they watched me watching them. Who wrote the diaries, and who the treatises? Who was tickled by galanteries, and who the prints and photographs?
The only one I could place with any certainty now was Valentine. He was the one who hung himself nightly on a silken rope above his desk, in order to elicit forth an orgasm of especial violence, while a valet stood by with a sharpened knife ready to cut the cord at the critical moment.
And was that a woman in there with them, and if so, how many other dusky-eyed houris trembled in the shadows? But no, I was mistaken. It was a man, with flowing, oiled, yellow locks and rouged lips, but he looked so young, and had not the supercilious air of the Noble Savages, that I had to surmise that he was, like me, nothing more than hired help.
And standing in the midst of them all was Sir Jocelyn Knightley, glass still in hand, staring directly at me, surrounded by smoke. When my eyes finally came to rest, they came to him, and I held his gaze with defiance, like an angry, betrayed lover, until and beyond the closing of the door.
The vision of the smouldering room disappeared, and I was alone in the hall, until the butler came for me and deposited me on the doorstep outside, where no cab awaited me, and none troubled me either on my journey home to Lambeth. I may have been leered at, propositioned, threatened, followed even; I knew someone was chasing me, but I outran him, and gave him the slip after Westminster Bridge. But it was as a ghost floating above the streets themselves that I navigated the horrors of London at night. The poisons that coursed through the veins of our society from its crown to its very toes seemed to run through my body too; I felt drugged, and dazed. The king is sick, I wanted to cry, but I had no breath for it, and besides, so are his attendants.
I ran up Ivy-street, oblivious to twitching curtains, and pushed my own front door open. Greeting me was the improbable sight of Jack in my apron, pan in hand, serving hashed meat to Peter, who sat at the table; Lucinda was carrying the milk jug to the table in her nightdress. They broke off the moment they saw me and rushed at me with words of concern – all except Peter – and Lucinda and I embraced in a moment of peace amid the hubbub.
When she had had enough of being held, the child led me to a chair, and Jack brought me a glass of warm milk.
‘There’s brandy in it for you, Mrs D.’
‘Where’ve you been, mama? Where’ve you been?’
‘Oh child,’ I cried, and stroked her hair. ‘Are you well? Your health? Are you well?’
‘I’m very well, Mama.’
And I could see that she was. Despite the strains of prolonged absence from her mother, Lucinda had not fallen fitting. For that, I had to be grateful to the man responsible for my absence and pains: Sir Jocelyn Knightley. But I swore that night that I would die before I let that man take his knife to her; his were idle threats only, nothing more, I told myself over and over, and that such brutality would remain the stuff of fantasy in the fictions of his books in such a gloriously free country as ours, under Her Majesty’s rule. This was London, not the barbaric outer reaches of her Empire where mutilating little girls was considered normal. This was London; fine, clean, noble London. Wasn’t it?
I could not sleep for what was left of the night. I watched Lucinda breathing far away in her dreams for an hour or so, and then I glided into our bedroom. I pulled back the bedclothes at the corner, so as not to disrupt the portion that covered Peter’s body, and I lay next to him, trying not to touch him, and to keep my breathing quiet. But I stared at his face in the moonlight, pitted and red like the complexion of a lover of the bottle, so misshapen was it, and I tried to remember what it was like to feel in love with him. Then I got up again and went back to Lucinda, and kept watch, as if I knew my love was not enough to protect her, and that I would have to be vigilant now too.
Chapter Fourteen
Hey diddle dout,
My candle’s out,
My little maid’s not at home;
Saddle the hog,
And bridle the dog,
And fetch my little maid home.
I wouldn’t have noticed her through my bleary eyes if I hadn’t let the milk boil over again. The smell was so horrible I thought it was worth letting a bit of London’s stink and cold in to compensate, so I went over to the parlour window, took the plants off the ledge, and opened the sash. And there I saw her little urchin face, and her stick-and-bones frame perched on the door-step, as dirty as the step itself which I had not whitened for weeks. She had no coat, no shawl, no scarf even, and her skin was grey and cracked.
‘Good morning,’ I said to her, half-choking with the dust descending from the window struts.
‘Mornin’,’ she replied. ‘I’m ’ere for the job.’
‘The job?’ I had all but forgotten in the cruel events of yesterday. ‘Oh, the job!’
The poor little scrap scarcely looked older than Lucinda, but I reckoned she must have been about fifteen. She stood up quick as a rake that had been stepped on, and I unbolted the front door and let her in. She hovered on the door-mat as I closed the door behind her.
‘You’d better follow me in to the kitchen,’ I said, waving my hand in front of my nose. ‘Sorry about the smell. I forgot to scald the milk from yesterday. I’m a bit preoccupied, so I’ll have to ask you some questions as I work, if you don’t mind.’ She moved forward the length of one room, and stood in the door-way of the parlour, watching as I wrung out a cloth to clean up the top of the range. I scrubbed with one hand; with the other, I threw the pan into the corner where the beetles and spiders were winning their siege.
‘Now, something clean to make the breakfast with. What’s your name, dear?’
‘Pansy.’
‘Pansy. That’s a nice name.’
She said nothing, but watched as I busied myself in the kitchen. Unused to a witness at this hour, I muttered under my breath like an old forgetful woman. ‘Now where’s the . . . ah there it is . . . Put some water in . . . mustn’t forget the . . .’ As usual, within a trice I had the water boiling, the laundry steeping, the floor swept, and a few bugs moderately intimidated. I thought of going to wake Lucinda, but I knew it was to calm my own fears, and not for her sake.
‘Beg pardon, mum, but I was wonderin’ if you could say if I ’ad the job or no.’
‘Oh, Pansy, forgive me, but you’ll just have to wait until I’ve got the house going a bit. It is early, love, and I was awful late last night.’ I poured the boiling water on to the tea-leaves.
‘Yes, mum, sorry mum, only I got to go now or as I’ll be late for the day shift so as I need to know now.’
‘The day shift? Where?’
‘Remy’s. I need to go now and I’ll still be late most like.’
I saw Lucinda standing behind Pansy, clutching Mossie, and eyeing the new arrival. Her hair was still tangled, and her feet were bare.
‘Good morning, lovely.’ I crouched down and held out my arms to her. S
he came to me and kissed me, then went to play in the parlour.
‘Well, I’ll try to keep this brief then. Do you have any references?’ I started to butter some bread for Lucinda, and pour her some milk.
She shook her head.
‘How long have you been at Remy’s?’
‘Six months. Three months on nights, now I’m on days.’
‘Is this your first employ?’
She shook her head. ‘Nah. I was at Lambard’s before then.’ I knew them; a very large industrial bookbinders, larger than Remy & Rangorski.
‘Bible work?’
She nodded. I whistled through my teeth as I took Lucinda’s breakfast through and placed it on the dining table. Everybody knew Bible contracts paid woefully, and treated you even worse. It’s a rum world, I thought, where white men preached the Bible to chained folk and free, in America, in the colonies, across the Empires. They might say slavery is bad, or they might turn a blind eye, but in order to press a Bible into the hands of the heathen they relied on slave labour back home. Frederick Douglass, I remembered, had words to say on this matter.
‘Eat up, Lou. Your bread and milk’s here.’ I turned back to Pansy. ‘What did you do there?’
‘Days, first. Then days and nights.’
‘Both?’
‘Christmas. They make you do it all when it’s Christmas. Or just busy.’
‘I meant, what work did you do for them?’
‘Oh. Sewin’.’
‘And at Remy’s?’
‘Sewin’.’
‘Why did you leave Lambard’s?’
‘I had to, mum. They was bringin’ in them new sewin’-machines, an’ I din’t knah how to use ’em.’
‘Why couldn’t you get a reference from them?’
‘Wouldn’t give me none. Said they could pay a girl less than they could pay a woman, so I had to go.’
The Journal of Dora Damage Page 24
