by Anne Bennett
‘Did you never have a baby?’
‘Ain’t allowed no babies,’ Lily said. ‘Levingstone is adamant about that.’ Her voice suddenly sounded sad and Aggie saw the tears in her eyes as she went on, ‘I fell pregnant four times. The first time I was only fourteen. But they was all taken away – aborted, like. After the last time, the woman damaged summat and I never fell pregnant after that. Just as well, really.’
‘I’m sorry, Lily,’ Aggie said. ‘Who am I to judge anyone?’
‘I’m sorry too,’ Lily admitted. ‘I was just like everyone else, you know. I wanted a husband and kids, and a little house with roses round the door, but the dice didn’t roll that way for me. But don’t look down on me, Aggie, because it hasn’t for you either and we just have to make the best of it.’
Then, seeing that Aggie still looked scared to death, she continued, ‘Look, Levingstone is just about as decent as they come in this business and yes, the blokes he has there have the pick of the girls, you included, but he don’t allow no funny stuff. Some of the whorehouses have rooms like bleeding torture chambers, and you’d scarcely believe what they put some of them girls through.’
‘Ooh, don’t. That’s horrible.’
‘So better the devil you know, eh?’ Lily said. ‘When he comes to see you dance tomorrow morning, you put on your best performance. Be nice to him and do what he tells you and he will treat you right.’
Aggie was hardly reassured by that. All this was like a nightmare coming true.
EIGHT
Aggie wasn’t really that keen on Levingstone when she met him the following morning. He was a fairly tall man with very black hair and deep-set dark eyes, and he was clean shaven, which emphasised his large and rather bulbous nose and his wide mouth. But what was really off-putting was the way his eyes were narrowed in scrutiny and his mouth turned down as she began to dance.
They didn’t stay that way, though, for within minutes of watching Aggie, Levingstone saw she was a gifted dancer. There was soon a twinkle in his eyes, his mouth turned up in approval and his foot was tapping along to the music. She was a beautiful girl, almost a child still, and when he spoke to her afterwards, he found her lilting accent so endearing. Despite what had happened to her – for Lily had told him how she had found Aggie collapsed in the street, and later she had miscarried a child – there was an air of vulnerability about her. He knew his club members would pay dearly to see this little girl dance and he was totally enchanted by her.
Had the child been born to affluent parents maybe she could have gone to a school of dance, for she was extremely talented, but what was the point of wishing things were different? He wanted her in his club as soon as possible. That would keep her off the streets for now, which was really all she could hope for in the circumstances.
‘Pack your things,’ he said. ‘I want you in my place from tonight. I will send a hansom cab for you this evening at eight o’clock and you will not be returning. Don’t look so scared; you will not go down in the club until I see fit. I want you for myself.’
Aggie gasped. The man’s words hadn’t made her feel any better. Risking his wrath, she said, ‘I’ve never done things with a man but the once, and then I was forced.’
‘I will not force you,’ Levingstone said. ‘I have never had to force any woman, but if you refuse to do this, what will you do instead?’
Aggie knew there wasn’t any ‘instead’. She had to agree to do what he wanted or be thrown out onto the street, and yet her insides quailed at the thought and she had flushed with embarrassment as she said, ‘I’m sorry. I might not be very good, but I will do my very best to please you.’
‘Good girl,’ Levingstone said, beaming his approval at her. ‘I promise that you won’t regret it. Till tonight then, sweetheart.’ He drew her towards him and kissed her gently on the lips. Aggie willed herself not to pull back.
Lily, who had been shopping, came in just a few minutes after Levingstone had left. She was delighted for Aggie and said if she played her cards right she would be set up for years. The other girls in the house agreed, and were pleased that things were finally going right for Aggie.
‘Do you think so really?’ Aggie asked Lily on the quiet. ‘See, in my wildest dreams I never thought of this sort of life for myself.’
‘Lots of us was the same, ducks,’ Lily said. ‘Life dictates what we do, and that. If I was you, I would forget the life you come from and the family you come from.’
‘They would probably not want to know me after this anyway.’
‘Best way,’ Lily said. ‘They would barely recognise you and wouldn’t want to acknowledge you. You know I went on the streets to put food in my brothers’ mouths and give them a start in life, yet my brother doesn’t want me to be part of his life in America. He is married and has a couple of kids, but I wasn’t invited to the wedding and have never been asked over since either.’
‘Doesn’t that hurt you terribly?’
‘Bab, it’s life,’ Lily told her. ‘The gin and drugs helps when life gets up and kicks you in the teeth. But you, ducks, should be happy. The club is for the real nobs, you know. You have to be rich and have a certain status to go there. It’s still in
Edgbaston and yet it might be a million miles away. Levingstone has rooms above the club, so they say. Plush rooms, I mean, a proper apartment and with maids and all. If he wants you for himself, then, girl, you have it made. And it is one hell of a lot safer for you there, bab. Levingstone will look after you and it’s better you keep off the streets as long as you possibly can.’
‘Won’t I be able to stay at the club for always?’
‘Always is a long time,’ Lily told her. ‘Like most blokes, Levingstone likes to surround himself with young and pretty girls. Don’t do anything to annoy or offend him, and you might last longer than most.’
It didn’t sound very promising, but the girls thought it the best possible news and decided to throw an impromptu leaving party for Aggie that lunchtime.
Aggie liked all the girls because they had been kind to her, especially Susie. She was much younger than Lily, no bigger than Aggie, and full of fun. She confessed that she was twenty-five. She had an arresting appearance with her mop of black curls she was constantly trying to tame, skin light as alabaster and a rosebud mouth.
‘You’re a lucky little cow,’ she said good-naturedly to Aggie, after they had all toasted her health. ‘Tell you, I would have given anything to go in such a place, but my wonky eye put paid to that.’
Aggie felt sorry for Susie, for though her eyes were so dark they were almost black and very alluring, there was a cast in one of them. ‘Is that all Levingstone rejected her for?’ Aggie asked Lily quietly when Susie had moved away and was joking with one of the other girls.
Lily nodded. ‘It’s sad, I know, but when you pay as much as the punters do that Levingstone pulls in, I suppose they demand perfection.’
‘That’s horrible!’
‘So it is, bab,’ Lily said, ‘but it ain’t your fault. Now hand me up a glass and I’ll fill it for you.’
Aggie, still apprehensive of the future and mindful of Lily’s advice on dealing with it, drank the gin in a few minutes and was ready for another. She liked the taste of it, for it was nothing remotely like poteen, and Lily was right: after her third glass it made her feel as if nothing mattered and all was right in her world. In the end, though, she drank so much she was unable to stand, and Lily had to help her to bed.
Four hours later Aggie opened her eyes and thought she had dropped into Hell. She felt sick, had a raging thirst, a thumping head and the room refused to stay still. Suddenly into her mind, which seemed filled with cotton wool, came the memory of her dancing for Levingstone that morning.
By screwing her eyes up she could focus on the clock across the room and saw that it was already six o’clock. Levingstone’s cab would be here in two hours and she felt like death warmed up. That was what she told Lily when she came in just a few minutes lat
er.
‘You just got a hangover, bab, that’s all,’ Lily said to her. ‘Bet it is your first.’
Aggie thought back to how she had felt when she woke up the morning after the rape, but that was all mixed up with her sickening for the measles as well.
Lily laughed gently at her. ‘Won’t be your last, Aggie, not in this business. Where you are heading, drinking and encouraging the punters to drink is part of the culture – what Levingstone will expect you to do.’
‘I really don’t think I will be able to stand it,’ Aggie said.
‘You’ll get used to it in the end,’ Lily said. ‘And you will stand it all right, because you are not stupid and you know what the alternative is. Now I am going to get you a big drink of water, and when you have drunk it I want you on your feet, washed and changed, and ready to please and charm Levingstone.’
Aggie knew Lily was right: how she behaved in the next few hours could shape the next few years of her life. She couldn’t look further than that, and so she took the glass from Lily, downed it immediately and then gingerly got to her feet and tried to ignore her pounding head.
Despite the water and the wash, Aggie wasn’t quite sober when the cab arrived to take her to Levingstone’s club. It was a beautiful cab, she could see even in the dim light from the hall. The horse was dark, though his mane was coffee-coloured and she saw with surprise it was plaited.
The driver was dressed in a dark green uniform, and was extremely smart. He called her ‘miss’ very correctly and doffed his cap to her. Aggie wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. She was going to a club where she would be expected to sleep with a man who was almost a stranger to her and this cabman was treating her with the utmost respect.
Aggie would have enjoyed the drive more if she hadn’t been so scared about what awaited her at the journey’s end. She did note though that the area they were travelling through was nothing like the area she had come from. Lily was right, it might have been a million miles away, for they had left behind the mean streets and the houses squashed together. The street they were travelling down was wide and lined with trees, and they shared it with other vehicles, some pulled by horses, some powered by the noisy, smelly engines. Aggie saw too that there were the rails of the tram track at the edge of the road. And the houses were large and set in their own grounds. In fact, some couldn’t be seen at all from the road, and that increased Aggie’s apprehension still further.
After about twenty minutes they approached the club from the back. A young maid answered the coachman’s knock and Aggie was taken up the carpeted stairs and into a hall of sorts, where the maid helped her off with her coat and bonnet. She then led the way to a dining room where a table was beautifully laid for dinner. Aggie’s feet sank into the dark red carpet and as she approached the table she felt her heart thudding in nervousness. She had never seen so many knives and forks in all of her life, nor so many glasses, which sparkled in the light of the two glass chandeliers set in the sculptured ceiling. The room itself had gold-varnished wood halfway up its walls, another thing Aggie had never seen before. Above the wood the walls were covered with pretty paper with a gold leaf design.
Then Levingstone came in, took Aggie’s trembling hand and led her to a seat at the table, while he sat opposite. The maid Levingstone addressed as Mary, dressed in a black dress and a white apron, served them delicious food, which Aggie was almost too overawed to eat. She was also worried about using the wrong knife and fork, and copied Levingstone meticulously, but was far too agitated even to make a stab at any sort of conversation. Levingstone seemed to know that, however, and chatted away to her instead.
He served her wine with the meal. He said it was white and fairly sweet because wine was an acquired taste, but Aggie found she liked it and had quite a few glasses of it. Soon she was feeling pleasantly woozy. Then Levingstone took her hand and led her to a chair beside the cosy fire blazing in the grate.
She didn’t like the brandy that he insisted she have with the coffee, which she found quite bitter.
‘It will help you relax,’ he said. ‘You’re still incredibly nervous, aren’t you?’
Aggie didn’t trust herself to speak because she was having trouble stopping her teeth from chattering. When Levingstone saw that the brandy, which she’d downed with a grimace, had made little difference, he rang the bell and told Mary to prepare a tincture for the young lady.
It was the sort of drink Lily would mix for her, but slightly stronger. Aggie drank it gratefully, knowing the numbing effect it would soon have on her.
So, when she had drained every last drop of the drink and Levingstone extended his hand, she took it without hesitation, though she staggered so much when she was on her feet that he put an arm about her instead and helped her into the bedroom, which he said he kept for guests.
Again the room was carpeted and softly lit with lamps. Aggie saw with surprise the sheets were silk and the colour of the midnight sky, and turned down ready. Lily had packed her prettiest nightdress for Aggie to wear, but she suddenly sensed that she would never have the occasion to put it on.
She knew she had to block out what McAllister had done to her, so that she could truly submit to Levingstone, for her very survival rested on her pleasing him. Anyway, a pleasant lethargy was seeping through her body so that now she worried about nothing. Though her head was spinning slightly, it was not an unpleasant sensation, and she felt no shame as Levingstone undressed her.
He was a skilled lover and not an impatient one, and he was very attracted to the slight and beautiful little Irish girl. He really liked virgins, but Lily had told him that Aggie’s only experience had been forced upon her and therefore was hardly enjoyable. He intended to show her a different side of sex, because when he deemed she was ready and she was introduced to the clients, he imagined that she would be in great demand. He wanted to make sure that she knew what was expected of her and would give the men good value.
So that night, he gave himself up to pleasing Aggie. The drugs and drink had successfully dampened down any embarrassment she might have felt as the last of her garments fell to the floor and she lay totally naked before a man for the first time in her life.
When that man fondled her breasts, gently at first and then more vigorously rolling her nipples between his fingers, she couldn’t have held back the moan of desire that escaped from her any more than she could have prevented the sun from shining.
Many times that night Aggie groaned and moaned in an agony of lust that Levingstone induced in her until, when there was no area of her body that he hadn’t explored, and often followed with his lips, and when he eventually entered her, she cried out in thankfulness.
The joy and rapture of it went on and on, wave after wave rising higher and higher, and Levingstone felt her responding to him and knew he had a gem in Aggie. She was a sensual woman and, with her inhibitions loosened, one who would enjoy sex and in time endeavour to please him as much as he pleased her. She would remain his and only his until he tired of her.
Aggie knew none of Levingstone’s thoughts, of course. She just knew that when he kissed her gently, tucking the sheets around her as he slipped from the bed, for he had a club to run, she turned over with a sigh of satisfaction and remembered nothing more.
When Mary came in the next morning to open the curtains, Aggie groaned, for even the light of the grey day stabbed at her eyes. Levingstone had given instructions that Aggie was to have anything she required and so when the maid asked her if she would like any breakfast and Aggie said that she could eat nothing but she would like a large tincture, the maid just bobbed her head in acquiescence. And if she thought a mixture of gin and opium was not a terribly good way to start the day, she kept those thoughts and feelings to herself.
Aggie badly needed the drink because, as the memories returned, the shame crept in and she didn’t know how she would be able to look Levingstone in the eyes. She felt so degraded and dirty, and she needed to make those memories hazy so t
hat they could be pushed to the back of her mind. The tincture also got rid of the pounding headache and she had to fight the desire to ask for another. After a few minutes she felt well enough to get up. Mary brought her a jug of hot water to pour into the basin already there and with the most beautifully scented soap, Aggie lost no time in washing herself and drying herself on the soft fluffy towels, amazed at how much better she felt after that.
When Levingstone came in a little later, she was glowing from the invigorating wash, but he knew from her slightly glazed eyes that she had taken opium. He wasn’t surprised. He knew that the previous night had been her first true sexual encounter and maybe she had needed some help coping with that when she remembered it this morning. And yet when he held his arms out, she went straight into them and snuggled against him.
He so desired her at that moment that he almost took her again, there and then, as she had shown him plainly that she was willing, but he had further delights in store for her first and so he dampened down his ardour and whispered his plans for the morning in her ear.
‘Clothes!’ she cried in delight. ‘You are going to buy me clothes?’
‘Yes, pretty things for you to wear in the club.’
Aggie eyes clouded. ‘Am I to go down to the club then?’
‘Not yet,’ Levingstone told her. ‘For the moment I want you to please just me. Think you can do that?’
‘I will do my best,’ Aggie said, mightily relieved that the ordeal of meeting other men who would take her to bed and do unmentionable things to her was to be deferred.
‘Can’t ask for fairer than that,’ Levingstone said, and Aggie smiled at him.
He had been so considerate of her nervousness and so gentle the previous night that any memory of McAllister’s clumsy fumbling and savagery in his haste to satisfy his own need had fled from her mind. If she was honest she had enjoyed sex with Levingstone very much. She knew, though, it wouldn’t be like that with every man and if some encounters reminded her of the rape, then that was a problem she would have to deal with on her own.
