by Janet Todd
In the gloom she could see her way solely by the flaring carriage lamps. She had no idea where she was going but she knew she must not stop in this strange place. The stares were even bolder now, despite her muffled appearance. One man brushed against her, then seeing her timid look, raised his hat, and moved away.
Then she was conscious of another. This one again pushed against her. She rushed on, pulling at the hood of her cloak to hide her face as much as possible. Her flimsy shoes were soaking and heavy and, as she tried to hurry, she slipped. When she steadied herself her dark hair fell out of her hood.
The person who had jostled her drew away but almost at once her arm was grasped firmly from behind.
‘What is a little miss like you doing out alone?’ said a deep voice close to her ear.
She tried to pull her arm from his clutch but he held firm. She caught a glimpse of a tall, older man. He swung round to look at her, a slightly mocking expression on his face.
She yanked at her arm. ‘Let me go,’ she cried.
‘Now now. Where are you off to in such a hurry? There’s no need to be afraid’.
‘Leave me alone. Oh please, sir, leave me alone.’ She was sobbing now. But his grip remained firm and he was pushing her along as if he’d taken control of her steps. She tried to stifle her sobs. ‘Please, please sir, let me go.’
As suddenly as he’d grabbed her arm he now dropped it. ‘Of course, of course,’ he said.
Both of them stopped. She looked at him through her tears.
‘I merely inquired where you might be going?’ he said more gently.
She began to stammer in reply, ‘I d-d-don’t …’ then hesitated. ‘Oh please, sir, it is none of your business, I must go.’
‘Nothing stops you, my dear.’ He paused and looked straight into her face. She tensed. ‘But you know what I think. I think you are a runaway, from your family, your school perhaps, going to meet a lover.’
She was vexed despite her fear and she flushed. ‘No, no, really. I m-m-ust, I really must …’
‘Must what?’
‘I must go.’
‘Indeed so.’ He was laughing at her now. ‘Yes, dear girl, you must go, but you don’t know where you are going. Or is Harry or Frank or Johnny waiting for you round the next corner?’
‘No, no one,’ she began to sob again, ‘it’s not like that.’
‘Come,’ he went on, ‘you’re cold. There’s a tavern near the theatre. Let me get you something warming and then you can think what to do. You’re not dressed for roaming the streets. Your feet must be soaking.’
All the novels she’d read told her now to run and run and not stop. Strange men were always the danger, always the threat. Often they merged into each other – you could never tell – perhaps this was Sir James in disguise, or his agent.
Yet there was something about the man, the way he spoke of a ‘warming’ drink, something which, against all her proper reasoning, she found comforting. She was tired, confused, miserable, cold and hungry. So for a moment she forgot how many shapes the villain took.
Before her thoughts clarified, the stranger caught her wavering and propelled her forward. She found herself walking with him, his hand once again firmly on her arm guiding her towards a tavern.
At the entrance she was overcome by the dank smell of bodies coming deep from within. Then, as they crossed the threshold together, she grew alert: she was going into the dangerous place, against which any number of novels and romances had warned her. She pulled back. ‘No no,’ she pleaded as if to the crowd surrounding her, but her words were drowned by the general noise.
Only the man guiding her heard her. ‘Don’t be a silly girl,’ he said abruptly. ‘You need something inside you and a place to get warm. You’re cold and tired.’
Pushing his way through the standing people he found them both a wooden bench against the distant wall. A boy was sitting on a stool opposite the bench, looking sadly into his tankard. The stranger gave him money and said a few words she couldn’t catch, then the boy went off, returning soon with a flagon of wine and some wooden mugs which he placed on a stool. He gave something to the older man, possibly his change.
‘Sit,’ said the stranger as if Frederica were a family pointer. ‘Sit and stop trembling. There’s nothing to be so frightened about now.’
‘Please, sir, let me go,’ she replied in her faint voice; then she made a slight attempt to get up.
‘Of course, of course,’ he said again less roughly. ‘But drink this first, then tell me your name.’
He had his back to her as he poured them both out some wine, then turned with the mug to Frederica.
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered, her eyes filling with tears again.
‘Don’t know your name?’ said the man smiling, catching the glance of the boy, who grinned.
‘I mean I d-d-don’t—’ She stopped.
‘Drink up, it will warm you.’
She sipped from the mug, spilling a little since the edge was thicker and coarser than she was used to. The liquid looked dark red in the dim light. It tasted sweet, a bit rough and strange. She had had wine with her father and recently with Lady Susan, usually with dessert, but this was different, a bit like the posset that Nanny had sometimes brought her at bedtime when she couldn’t sleep. Yet there was a bitterness below the thick sweetness. She sipped again, then drank more deeply.
She felt soothed, yet still wary, and she clutched her purse tightly. The tears were drying on her face in the fusty air.
She saw the boy looking at her in a way she didn’t like and started to move a little.
‘That’s better,’ said the man.
Looks were exchanged which Frederica felt, but only vaguely. The boy seemed to be leering as he got up to fetch more drink. Two giggling young women with scarlet lips took his place and seemed to know the man she was with since they pushed their faces close to him. Frederica’s fear surged up within her but she couldn’t hold on to it. It slithered through her mind.
Another mug was put before her. She was even more thirsty now though sleepy. It was the noise, the fetid warmth, everything together that was making her drowsy. Always she was aware of the man close to her. His face smiling, sneering, threatening, soothing, changing from one instant to the next. At one moment it seemed safe like her dear papa’s, at another like the slack face of the hated Sir James.
As she sank further into a state that seemed like sleep and yet was somehow different, she knew nothing else except that she wanted her papa and Nanny and the dappled pony and all the life she’d left. She wanted them with such intensity that her desire blacked out the world as her purse slipped from her hand.
Chapter 14
When in the evening Madam Dacre returned to her school from a very pleasant stay with an old friend on the Weald of Kent, she was informed by a flustered Annie Dick that Miss Vernon had disappeared at the very moment that a young gentleman had come calling for her. The disappearance was not Annie’s fault for she had kept a close eye on the girl and, if a miss wanted to escape and throw herself into the streets, there was nothing any of them could do about it. The caller was a fine gentleman. How could they have known he would have this effect on miss? For if it wasn’t him that had set her a-running, then what was it? Till then miss had been as quiet as a mouse, with her nose in a book.
Madam Dacre gave her housekeeper a contemptuous look but, aware of her own remissness, repressed the words she was about to speak. Instead she remarked that they had better start looking for Miss Vernon. But, first, the household should be lined up for questioning. One of them might know something about the girl or have an idea whether she had friends in the neighbourhood. Miss Vernon had little spare money – Madam Dacre knew that for certain – but it remained possible that she’d bribed a servant or under-teacher to help her escape.
All roundly denied the charge, and, after some severe words, intended to reduce any guilty person to tears, Madam Dacre concluded that none knew more
than she admitted. Yet it was hard to believe a timid girl like Frederica Vernon had left school alone, without anyone aiding her or providing a refuge.
The servants were now sent out severally to ask people in the neighbourhood if they had seen anyone leaving the school around the time the gentleman had arrived. Joe was dispatched alone to search the local inns. Madam Dacre, meanwhile, had the painful duty of writing at once to the girl’s mother to tell her what had happened.
She wondered about mentioning her own absence: there was no reason why she should not occasionally feel the need of a little country air. But it didn’t sound well, so she decided not to allude to the fact. She had, she wrote, followed all Lady’s Susan’s instructions concerning Frederica, trying her best to teach the girl how to comport herself in a ladylike manner, but, sad to say, she’d had little success. She had also done as Lady Susan requested, made Frederica feel the difference between an institution and a comfortable home. As she wrote, she hoped she was not implying that she’d overdone this, so contributing to the girl’s escape by any ill treatment.
In one area she could attack. She wasn’t absolutely sure that Frederica’s absence was due to Sir James’s visit but the servants seemed to be. They swore she was in the house in the morning and a book was left open on the library table where the upper housemaid noticed it had not been earlier that day. It seemed reasonable to associate the sudden and seemingly impetuous disappearance with the young gentleman’s arrival.
Now she, Madam Dacre, had been told of the existence of Sir James but had not been warned of any visit; so she could not have prepared her charge for it or arranged a chaperone. Hers was not an establishment that encouraged the pupils to have gentlemen guests, even those sanctioned by parents.
She’d just finished a second version of her letter and had it ready for dispatching to the post office when Joe returned. He’d discovered nothing useful. In the inns men felt inclined to say they’d seen such a girl if they wanted to chat and perhaps get a free drink. But Joe had no money to distribute and they’d returned to their tankards. The women stayed out longer combing the streets but again brought no news. No one had seen a girl of Frederica’s description – or rather, several people accosted said they might have seen someone in a dark blue cloak, probably they had. In the gloomy afternoon, colours looked much the same.
When the servants were all back in the house and Joe sent to the post office with the letter for Lady Susan, Madam Dacre set about learning more about Sir James and his visit. She heard that, after kicking his heels for an hour or so in the fireless drawing room – Mrs Dick reminded her employer that she’d followed instructions with such economy – he had left in no very good mood. He’d come down into the kitchen where Cook told him outright that miss had most likely bolted. At that point Annie Dick had returned from searching the attic and questioning the child Fanny, who was too stupid to remember if she’d seen Frederica with her cloak on or not. She then tried to manoeuvre Sir James back upstairs, offering refreshment in the drawing room. But it was too late to mollify him: he was cold and cross.
‘What do you mean, bolted?’ he’d exclaimed. ‘You said she was here and now she’s not.’
Annie Dick tried again to placate him as she eased him up the stairs ‘Sir, she was here a while ago but she seems to have gone out, perhaps to a friend, perhaps for a walk. Please do call again tomorrow when Madam Dacre, our headmistress and proprietor, will be happy to receive you and I am sure Miss Vernon will be ready.’
‘I don’t care sixpence for Madam Dacre,’ Sir James had replied. ‘I want Frederica. Her mother said she was here and I want to see her.’
He was blustering but unsure. Was this the way young ladies behaved in boarding schools, running round the streets by themselves? He had no experience but he doubted it. Were they hiding the girl from him? Could they be in league against him? Or was this the damned modesty again? He felt wrong-footed. So he glared at them all, turned on his heels and went back up the stairs.
Mrs Dick motioned Joe to run to open the door for him. The two arrived at the same time and Sir James pushed the boy out of the way. He left with a curse, refusing even the customary tip. He would, he said, be back after he had contacted Lady Susan. Then they would understand this was no way to treat a man of his substance.
Seated once more in his comfortable coach, he had turned the matter over in his mind. If it was not the servants – and now he was out of the house he hesitated over this – then the girl herself was playing with him. Was she after all the kind of little minx his dead mother had warned him about? He contemplated this as Ned trundled the coach over the cobbles. It was possible, he supposed. He had little knowledge of girls of her rank, but he imagined they might think it amusing to toy with their suitors. Miss Manwaring had been coy at times but had never played these sorts of tricks on him. He started to feel angry with Frederica. The girl had been as good as promised to him. What was she about?
He wished his mother were still alive. She would have known what to do. Now Lady Susan must help him. But she was away with some relatives in the country – her last letter had been from there. It was frustrating. She’d assured him that Frederica would easily be brought round. What would she say when she heard this?
Had she been awake, Frederica might have asked herself much the same question. But by the time Sir James was drinking a morning tankard of light ale at Tattersalls, where he’d returned to cheer himself with some good manly horse talk, she was lying drugged in an upstairs room in the tavern close to the Haymarket theatre.
By the middle of the afternoon she had begun to stir. And in due course she partially awoke. A confusion of sensations and impressions assailed her. She had no idea where she was. She felt heavy, her lips full and bruised, her skin puffy and hair tangled. Her body seemed not to be her own.
As consciousness more fully returned, so did fear. The numbness originally dampening down her mind gave way to a panic. Abruptly she tried to sit up in bed but the heaviness increased and a dizzy blackness forced her back down.
She realised she was lying in her linen petticoat and chemise and that her outer garments and cloak were on a chair close by. The blood rushed to her face. What had happened? She didn’t remember taking her clothes off. If she hadn’t done it herself, then who had undressed her? Could the worst have befallen her? Was this why she felt such heaviness in her limbs?
She tried to think back as her head cleared. She remembered a boy on a stool. What was he to her? She recalled some women with red mouths. Who were they? Then slowly, almost as if her gaze were really travelling the scene, she took in the figure of a large imposing man who had taken her arm. She could not remember his face but she felt again his pressure.
‘Oh heavens,’ she gasped aloud, ‘oh please, no, no.’
Again she tried to sit up and managed it this time. She could not yet quite feel her legs. Were they numb? If they were, was there a reason? What could have happened? She dared not think.
She lay back down. Did that man, the taller, older one, the man who had probably brought her here, whatever place this was, have her in his power? All the novels she’d been reading so recently swam into her mind, the fates of the many Sophias and Matildas and Emmelines, all of them powerless, threatened, humiliated, tortured even, reduced to fainting and brain fevers. But they were never quite destroyed, were they? Then she remembered Clarissa.
The worst had happened to this angelic woman, though again what exactly the ‘worst’ was remained unclear to Frederica. But it had to be horrid, so horrid that it was a miracle she survived at all. Lovelace had said so. But she’d died in the end. She had to. What had happened to her was so bad there would have been no proper life after it.
Could something like this have been done to her, Frederica? Was it possible? Was she ‘ruined’? Did this result in the stupor of her senses, the dizziness? The room swam round her again as she tried to gather her thoughts. Tentatively she felt between her legs.
They
were hot and limp but there was nothing else wrong with them. Was there some other sign? She wished desperately that the novels had been more explicit. Surely if she had been ‘ruined’ she would have felt quite different all over. She remembered reading about a girl’s mind being tainted. Could the dizziness suggest this tainting? It was so puzzling. Surely most of the knowledge would be in her body: how could she bring it to her brain?
Certainly something horrid must have happened. How else could she be here in this bed with her outside clothes draped over the chair? Or perhaps the terrible thing had not occurred and she’d had a brain fever. But in that case where were the women who usually attended at the bedside of sick girls? And how long had she been in bed? She had absolutely no sense of time.
She returned to the notion of ruin. Why else would she be here alone? She felt the tears well up into her eyes and spill over; they were hot as they rolled down her cheeks and into her ears. She pulled the coarse linen bedclothes up to her chin, then covered her face with the blanket.
Through the covers she heard sounds. There was movement outside her door. So she was not in some isolated house where she could be killed at any time – or worse. But where on earth was she?
She pushed the blanket off her face and felt the dizziness begin to wear off. She struggled to get her legs out of bed, to the point where they touched the bumpy wooden boards of the floor. Her shoulders were bare where the straps of her chemise had fallen down. She felt exposed and naked. She must get to her clothes lying on the chair.
There was a knock. Frederica froze.
