by Mary Hooper
Eliza looked around. There were no gentlemen, true, but the ladies looked to be such terrifyingly grand creatures – all occupied in primping themselves, rubbing oils into their limbs, applying colours to their faces or having their hair dressed, while she herself …
‘I feel too lowly,’ she said, horribly aware of her filthy condition, from her lice-ridden hair down to her rank, sweat-blackened feet.
Ma Gwyn took in the room and its occupants at a glance. ‘Hoh!’ she said, spitting generously on the marble floor. ‘My money is as good as theirs.’
‘But I feel so … so disgusting,’ Eliza said, still shrinking back.
‘That, my sweeting, is why we’re ’ere,’ Ma Gwyn said, and she gave an impatient tug at Eliza’s blouse and then reeled back holding her nose. ‘If you think I’m taking you to my ’ouse stinkin’ like a civit then you’re mistook!’
Embarrassed at the fuss being created, for several ladies were looking across at them curiously, Eliza pulled off her skirt, blouse and undersmock – she had long ago thrown away her bodice – and discarded them without daring to look at them too closely.
A girl appeared and began filling up the bath with jugs of hot water, and then another came in and poured in some flower-scented oil. Eliza, noticing the two of them exchanging amused glances at her condition, was embarrassed all over again.
‘In yer get!’ Ma Gwyn said, when the bath was almost full. Eliza gingerly stepped in and, sliding down into the warmth, felt not only the luxury of clean water lapping against her limbs, but almost instant relief from the multitude of flea bites.
It was certainly, she thought to herself, the first bath she’d ever had. As a child, she’d bathed naked in the brook that ran beside their cottage, and when she’d become too old for that had washed in the mornings using a bowl of water from the well and a bar of rough soap. This was the first time her body had been totally immersed in warm water, however, and though she would have liked the leisure to enjoy the experience there wasn’t time to do so, for the two bath girls were alternately scouring her skin with soap and sponges, then pummelling and dunking her. When they’d finished doing this, and the bath water, she was mortified to see, was a filthy grey, it was allowed to gurgle away though pipes underneath. More warm water was brought and her hair was washed several times over; then, as Eliza sat in the bath, jug after jug of scented rinsing water was poured over her. Squealing the occasional protest, but by and large savouring the experience, Eliza submitted meekly to all this attention. When they were finished and Ma Gwyn had inspected Eliza closely and pronounced herself satisfied, she was helped from the bath and enveloped in towels. Sweet-smelling lotion was rubbed into her limbs and her hair was combed through with rosemary water. The lack of good food inside the prison had not stunted its growth, Eliza noticed, for it was now almost long enough for her to sit on.
At last, all their tasks completed, the maids curtsied and withdrew. A set of clothes had been placed on a nearby chair: a boned bodice, undershift, plain grey linen gown and jacket, and Ma Gwyn indicated that Eliza was to put these on. She did so and finally stood for inspection, her limbs clean and pink, her face glowing, her hair sleek and shiny down her back.
‘Just as I thought,’ Ma said with some satisfaction. ‘Of a ragged colt comes a good ’orse. You’ll do very well.’
Do for what? Eliza wondered, but did not like to ask.
Chapter Six
‘Ma Gwyn’s coming back with a party of folk,’ Susan said to Eliza late the following Saturday evening. ‘She sent a message to say that you’re to make yourself scarce.’
Eliza sighed. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why do I have to?’ Susan didn’t reply, just shrugged. She was Ma Gwyn’s grandchild – the daughter of Rose, who worked with Ma at the Reindeer Tavern next door to where they lived. She was seven years old and would, Eliza thought, have been a pretty child, except that she’d got a monstrous carbuncle on her face which puckered and distorted her right cheek from her eye to the corner of her mouth. The first time they’d met, Eliza had been unable to avoid staring at this disfigurement in fascinated horror. A little later, realising what she was doing, she’d apologised to the child.
Susan had just shrugged. ‘I’m used to folk staring.’
‘But … how did it happen?’
‘Don’t you know that?’ Susan had said. ‘Haven’t you seen anyone with a carbuncle before? Why, when I was in my ma’s belly she was cursed by a witch and this was the result.’
Eliza nodded. There had been witches in Somersetshire – so it was said. ‘But couldn’t your ma have bought a cure from the witch?’
‘Dunno. But ’tis no matter,’ Susan said carelessly, ‘for ’tis awful good for begging. Sometimes I get two shillin’ in a day!’
Now, as she looked at Susan, Eliza scarcely noticed the carbuncle, but sighed in frustration at the restrictions being imposed on her. ‘Am I always to be hidden away? I might as well have stayed in jail!’ she said crossly.
‘Ma says you’re to go upstairs to the closet and not come out until she says,’ Susan reported. ‘Or if she forgets to say, then you’re to stay there until morning.’
She left and Eliza, grumbling to herself, climbed the ladder to the first floor of the house and went into the closet, a small room used to store linens and rough blankets. It was stuffy in there and she pushed open the high window and stood on tiptoe to lean out and breathe some fresh air. Although, she thought, you could hardly call it that. Fresh air in London was a mixture of coal, cooking smells, human waste and the rancid smell that came off the river, and not a bit like the fresh air in Stoke Courcey. There, at this time of the year, she would have been breathing in the smell of new-mown hay, full-blown roses and lavender.
Old Ma Gwyn lived in several rooms and a cellar in Coal Yard Alley, off Drury Lane. As befitting such an address, the house was dark and dank, flanked on one side by the Reindeer Tavern and on the other by a yard where coal lay in vast sooty piles and carts were loaded with the stuff at all hours. Both inside and outside the rooms of Ma Gwyn the air one breathed was loaded with the smell and dust from coal, and it was impossible to wash smocks or petticoats and have them remain white, for no sooner had they been hung in the backyard than they became specked with coal dust. Eliza, when she’d helped with the washing earlier that week, had had to carry a basket of damp linen to Hatton Garden and drape things over the bushes to ensure they dried spotless. Apart from this one errand, however, she’d hardly been out, for Ma seemed to have a fear that she’d be seen.
‘Be seen by whom?’ Eliza asked, and Ma would reply, ‘the watch’ or ‘a no-good prison turnkey’ and in vain Eliza would protest that she wasn’t known to any of the watch and besides, hadn’t Ma paid for her to get out of Clink legitimately? Ma, however, who was used to being obeyed, would sharply remind her at this point that she would be rotting in a cell had it not been for her and her kindness. Eliza thought for quite some time about this kindness and, as she got to know Ma better, wondered what she’d be called upon to do in return.
There were so many people living at Ma Gwyn’s house in Coal Yard Alley that Eliza did not have a bed to herself, but instead shared with young Susan or one of the girls who worked in the Reindeer. Ma’s two daughters, Eleanor and Rose, came to the house occasionally, but always at night, and though Eliza had heard plenty of tales of them, she’d not yet managed to see them. Eleanor, she knew, was an actress at the theatre, where she was known as Nell, and Rose was married to a highwayman and, when she wasn’t working at the tavern next door, sold oysters in the street or went out begging with Susan. There was a family of gypsies lodging in one room of the house, and several other groups who hired rooms, or space in the rooms, and carried out what Ma called ‘special work’. Eliza had no idea of what this might be, just that Ma ran a number of money-making undertakings and that a constant stream of ill-dressed fellows came and went from the house.
Eliza had got no further in her search for her father. Although Ma didn’t actually l
ock her in the house during the day, she’d made it very clear that she didn’t want her to be seen, and Eliza had so far heeded her wishes, frightened that if she didn’t she might be cast alone on to the streets of London. She thought about her father constantly, though, and on the way back from Hatton Garden with the washing had gone into several places where they were rebuilding after the Great Fire and asked if anyone knew Jacob Rose, the mason. The answer each time had been no, and Eliza had since started to worry that he’d gone home. Had they, perhaps, passed each other unknowingly on the London Road? Sometimes – most times – thinking of the poor life she was leading, of the family she missed and might never see again, Eliza seethed at the injustice of it all. She shouldn’t be here, in this filthy house and living in the meanest of states. It was all her stepmother’s fault …
Now, sitting in the closet, Eliza could hear the kitchen filling up downstairs. Gradually it grew noisy with shouts and laughter and, sniffing the air, she could smell tobacco and ale. It was another of Ma Gwyn’s private parties, she supposed, for she’d held one a few days previously. She heard a fiddler tuning up, then someone began singing one of the new ballads and a score of voices joined in; some with rough London accents, some sounding more polished. When the song finished and there was a call for more of the same, Eliza heard a lady, in refined tones, ask for ‘Another, s’il vous plaît’, which expression, she knew, was French.
After some while, greatly intrigued to see what sort of persons attended Ma Gwyn’s parties, Eliza stealthily came out of the closet and made her way towards the ladder. She hadn’t thought to do this at the last party. Then, newly arrived and anxious to please Ma, she’d merely fallen asleep in the closet. Surely, though, she thought, there’d be no harm in seeing what was going on?
She slipped silently along the passageway and, on reaching the opening where the ladder hung, was immediately struck with how much fun everyone seemed to be having. The room was still mean and bare, but the colour and gaiety of the party guests seemed to have brought about a vast change to it. Apart from the fiddler there were equal numbers of men and women – about eight of each. The girls were wearing silks and satins in bright rainbow hues, had elaborately curled hair and small black patches on their cheeks, and the men wore coloured shirts and beribboned breeches. Everyone seemed to be having a rare good time – even Ma Gwyn, sitting on a kitchen chair in the corner with a clay pipe in one hand and a jug of ale in the other, was chortling about something. People swayed to the music, tapped their feet, clapped and sung, and in the centre of all this was a girl dancing a jig. Eliza stared in admiration at the slim, pretty figure with red curls who was dancing so well – as light as a dandelion clock, twirling around and showing a froth of white petticoats, faster and faster as the fiddler played. As her feet lifted in time to the music her skirts exposed slim ankles and shapely calves, drawing the eye of every man there.
‘Nell!’ the party-goers called. ‘Nelly, Nelly, Nelly!’ and the girl twirled and kicked and finally collapsed, laughing fit to burst, while her audience surrounded her, clapping and calling for more.
Nelly, Eliza thought. This must be Eleanor, Ma Gwyn’s daughter.
Eliza watched the scene for several moments, fascinated by the girls and admiring of the young men, all of whom seemed dashing, handsome and elegant. Not quite as handsome, she decided, as her hero with the curving mouth, but there were one or two who came close, and she dearly wished she could be dancing amongst them and not upstairs confined to a poky closet.
After a while one of the ladies – a small, voluptuous woman with a red silk dress – made towards the ladder, and Eliza jumped up quickly to hide herself. Reaching the room where she usually slept, she was struck by the notion that she should just go to bed. Why did she have to go into the closet? No one was going to come looking for her in her own bed, surely?
As she reached the threshold of her room she looked in and gave a little gasp, immediately aware that someone was already there. But not Susan, nor any of the tavern girls she sometimes shared with. No, this was a man, for by the light of the candle placed on the window sill she could see his surcoat hung over the door and his plumed hat resting on the chair.
But it wasn’t just a man there. As Eliza hesitated, peering round the doorway, there came the low murmur of voices and a woman crossed the room, completely naked. She climbed on to the bed where the man was lying and they both began laughing, rolling over and over on the rough wool blanket.
Eliza felt herself flush. She knew what must be going on – and hadn’t she heard one of the prison turnkeys speak about a bawdy house? Here was the proof right under her nose.
The woman in red silk now arrived at the top of the ladder, closely followed by a man, and Eliza fled to the safety of the closet. Here she made herself a nest on the floor with some linens, pulled her cap over her ears and tried not to listen to what might be going on outside.
It proved impossible not to listen, however, as several couples climbed the ladder and used each of the three bedrooms as they became vacant. As she lay there trying – and failing – to sleep, Eliza’s thoughts went to home. To Stoke Courcey. She missed her brothers and sisters; were they, too, missing her? Was even her stepmother missing her and regretting having turned her out? No, Eliza concluded, she thought not. Her stepmother was a plain-speaking, no-nonsense woman who’d hardly seemed to miss Eliza’s father when he’d gone away. If her stepmother missed anything about Eliza not being there, it was probably her help with the little girls. Eliza thought of them now with affection: Patience and Margaret, the twins, with their blonde curls, wide smiles and own special twin-language that no one else understood, and Louise – a baby still, not yet walking, but already with the blonde curls and dimpled smiles of the other two. Her elder brothers were very fair, too, with thick, straw-like hair that was only flat and neat on a Sunday when their heads were stuck under the yard pump as part of the ritual of being made tidy for church.
Many of their neighbours had made idle comments on the fact that Eliza, by contrast with her brothers and sisters, was so dark. Once, years ago when her mother had been alive, a jolly peddler had come to the house and, after selling a dozen clothes pegs, had paused in the cottage garden where Eliza and her brothers had been playing. He’d studied Eliza for a moment, and then lifted her aloft.
‘I think you’re a changeling child,’ he’d said, sitting her on the gate.
‘What does that mean?’ Eliza had asked.
‘It means, my pretty babe, that when your ma and pa weren’t looking, faeries came to the house and changed their own mortal child for a faerie one.’
‘Did they?’ Eliza had said, her eyes glowing. ‘And is that me?’
The peddler had nodded.
‘But how do you know?’
‘Well, you’re of the quality,’ the old man had said. ‘It’s writ all over you. And besides, only changelings have green eyes. But you must be ready with your bundle packed in case they ever want you back!’
Eliza, thrilled at the thought of being a faerie child, had run to tell her mother what he’d said. Her mother had been annoyed, though, saying that she shouldn’t have listened to such nonsense. Besides, she’d added crossly, seeing Eliza’s obvious delight in the idea, wasn’t her own family good enough for her? She wouldn’t have that peddler at the door again, indeed she wouldn’t, if he went round telling such silly tales.
Remembering it now, Eliza smiled. A changeling child indeed …
At last, sheer tiredness overcoming both her uncomfortable surroundings and the constant merrymaking both downstairs and up, Eliza fell asleep. Before she did so, however, a dreadful thought struck her. All these girls coming and going from the rooms – was this what Ma Gwyn had planned for her? Did she intend Eliza to work in the bawdy house, too?
Chapter Seven
When, a few mornings later, Eliza rose and went downstairs, Old Ma Gwyn gave her a beaming, toothless smile and asked not only if she’d slept well, but if there
was anything she needed.
Eliza shook her head, mystified at this sudden concern, then went to the conduit on the corner to draw water for washing. When she returned there was a fellow in the kitchen conversing with Ma Gwyn, and both were puffing at clay pipes so that the dim room was already half-filled with smoke.
‘’Ere she is,’ said Ma as Eliza came in. ‘What do you think to ’er?’ And she bade Eliza put down the tin bowl of water on the table and walk up and down.
Eliza did so, immediately suspicious as to what was going on. Since the night of the party she’d been waiting for something like this.
‘Smile at the gentleman, sweeting!’ said Ma.
Eliza, embarrassed and uneasy at being shown off like a prize-winning cow at market, did as she was bid.
‘And let yer ’air down, girl!’ Ma Gwyn added.
Again Eliza obeyed, taking out the pins and letting her dark tresses tumble down her back. She eyed the man nervously. He was fat and ill-dressed, with a face that ran with sweat even though the sun was hardly up. If Ma Gwyn was making some sort of bargain with him, if she was planning that Eliza should …
No! She gagged at the very thought of it. She’d run away. She would! Even if she was friendless and penniless in London, she’d run away and live in the fields … in a pig sty if she had to.
‘Excellent … excellent,’ the man said approvingly. Even his voice was fat, Eliza thought, as if he was speaking through a mouthful of blubber.
‘See the ’air,’ Ma Gwyn said. ‘Black and slippery as seaweed!’ She beckoned Eliza to come closer. ‘And the eyes on ’er! Green as em’ralds.’
‘Green as the sea, you mean,’ the man said, tapping his nose, and they both laughed as if he’d made a fine joke.
Eliza was dismissed then and went away. Going upstairs to turn her mattress, however, she could still hear him and Ma discussing something in low voices, and once – though maybe it was just her fearful imagination – seemed to hear the chink of money exchanging hands.
