Victorian Taboo

by Bryn Colvin

  “Myles,” she crooned, “be gentle. You don’t want to exhaust a mother to be.”

  “What…you are?”

  The news almost halted him in full flow.

  “Yes, Myles. That hidden money in your column must make a future for three of us.”

  * * * *

  Sir Jasper could not believe it. He sat in the library at the House of Commons reading the day’s newspapers. There, on the second page of The Times, was the news of the horrible incident. All the grisly details had been carefully recorded in circumspect terms. He read again. Akenfield was appalled by the story but even so it brought him considerable satisfaction. His lips moved as he read quietly to himself. He wanted to hear the words.

  “Mr. Gabriel Waterburn has been found dead in the Lake District, near to the town of Cockermouth. The minor painter”-Sir Jasper loved that-”was found dead last Friday. The police have detained two women.”

  “Dreadful business.” He turned Roger deCovelet stood behind him, his mischievous face beaming.

  “Did you know him, Akenfield?”

  “Vaguely,” Sir Jasper lied.

  Roger walked around in front of Akenfield, pulled up a chair and with a wicked, surreptitious smile, drew close.

  “Of course it doesn’t give the full details in the newspaper. There are certain things they cannot print.”

  “Oh, what are they?”

  “I have a friend at Scotland Yard who told me in complete confidence what the crime scene looked like.”

  Sir Jasper knew the confidence was about to be spread around.

  “And that was?”

  “Awful, dear boy: Waterburn was lying face down on the bed with some girl stuck beneath him, screaming apparently. It is said that his paramour, in a jealous fury at his infidelity, had used two brushes from his easel. One went straight into his neck-severed the artery, quite a feat by all accounts.”

  “What about the other one?”

  “Unbelievable. It is said it was almost buried in his posterior.”

  Roger deCovelet strolled off to find someone else to gossip with and tell his salacious little tale.

  Sir Jasper stood up, called over the porter, Lighthouse, and said in a firm voice.

  “Double brandy for me, Lighthouse. And then bring me another one in five minutes.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Without Caroline Terrington to command his services, the footman had little to do. There were no social gatherings to attend and no leisurely rides in her carriage to take the air. He knew full well that considerable effort had been made to hide her absence, with friends being told she was staying with obscure relatives, and relatives fobbed off with tales of new friends they did not yet know.

  Lady Amelia was doing her best to be discreet but O’Shea’s ears were sharp, and he had been present for the frantic search on the morning of her disappearance. Fearing the worst, he had scratched his lean body to bleeding by crawling through hedges and ditches in search of some clue, fearing at every turn to stumble upon her body and praying endlessly for some innocent conclusion to the drama. There had been no explanation and his mistress’s companion had seen fit to keep him in the dark.

  Like everyone else, Lady Amelia and her peculiar friend treated him with a mixture of contempt and suspicion. What was their reason? He was Irish. The English did not seem to require that a person possess any quality other than not being English to merit that sort of treatment. They had been kicking the inhabitants of the Emerald Isle about for six hundred years. Kings had come: some English; some, like William of Orange, Dutch with a retinue of foreign mercenaries; even the Lord Protector himself, that bastard Cromwell, had treated the Irish as if they were of no consequence.

  Brendan put it down to history, but then the Irish had long memories and short tempers. Now he had to deal with her ladyship and her ladyship’s lady-friend, and he had a good idea what that probably meant. It was enough to send anyone to the bottle.

  All he knew was that the poisonous atmosphere in the Terrington household made him want to escape. Most days he wandered down to a tavern and tried to drink himself into forgetfulness, but in his inner consciousness he could not deceive his own thoughts. He was a servant with deep and perplexing feelings about Caroline. Was it love? How could it be with the difference in nationality and status between them? How, then, could it be anything else, when pictures of her face haunted his waking hours and fear for her safety made him restless and angry. There seemed to be nothing he could do. With the whole world for a woman to hide in or be hidden in as a prisoner, what could one lone servant, with neither money nor connections, hope to achieve?

  Brendan was racked with the feeling that The Invincibles were behind Caroline’s disappearance. The thought that he had led them to her tormented him but his efforts to find his old cronies had born no fruit–they were notable only in their absence from their old haunts. There was no reason to think they would use her kindly. Snooping at doors in his own abode had gleaned him fragments of information that made no sense to him; fantastical debates about magic and possession. It seemed like demons to him; and O’Shea had been raised a good Catholic boy with a healthy fear of such practices.

  He had heard that the English gentry got up to all sorts of no good, and this Frederica woman seemed to be no exception. He supposed she was probably about what the snobbish Amelia deserved. Even though he did not really believe in the nonsense they talked, it had a troubling tone. He hated to think of Caroline muddled up with such dubious people. Only the thought of seeing her again kept him from giving up his post and seeking better employment elsewhere.

  Brendan had been returning from a late night keeping his ear open in the taverns, when he had seen the two women who now treated his mistress’s house as their own. They had staggered from a cab, both struggling to walk and dressed, quite shockingly, as young men. The following day he had managed to catch glimpses of them both, with their obscenely short hair, bruised faces and troubled airs. He could not begin to imagine what sort of mischief they might have found themselves in, or how it was supposed to help Caroline.

  The following Monday morning he was drawn back to the London home of Lord De’Lisle, where he had met Sean O’Neil and Terence Reardon. Brendan did not expect them to be there, but he had to start somewhere. As he walked along the street, the early morning traders were finishing deliveries. A heavy horse drawn milk cart up from the country was clip-clopping along. As he looked toward the house, Brendan saw one of the maids appear from the basin area and vigorously shake a mat. He recognized Polly Archer. She had been at a Christmas party held in the Terrington servant’s quarters last year while wealthier folk indulged themselves above stairs.

  “Good morning to you, Polly. Would it be too early for a strong cup of tea?”

  “Brendan!” she gasped. “You fair gave me a start, creeping along like that. Quickly, come on in.”

  Down in the basement, Polly hastened Brendan into the large kitchen and shut the door.

  “I haven’t seen you about for a good while, Brendan. You should come and see me more often.”

  He managed a smile. His thoughts were too absorbed to detect the warmth of the invitation.

  “What about that tea?” he whispered.

  “No need to worry about them upstairs or the rest of the servants. Lord and Lady De’Isle have gone to their country home in Scotland and taken everybody with them for a while. There’s only me and old Henderson, the gardener, to keep the place up together, and he couldn’t hear the Dragoons if they came up behind him firing their cannons.”

  She smiled, not just at her own remark, but at the handsome man standing close to her.

  “But this won’t do,” Polly said and bustled over to the table. “I have muffins to make for one of her Ladyship’s friends who is sending someone to collect them this afternoon. I don’t know why she can’t get her own servants to bake for her, but she will come troubling me.”

  Brendan moved over to her and perched
himself on the edge of the scrubbed table.

  “That’s the rich for you. Nothing they do makes a drop of sense. I was wondering, have you seen much of those two other Irishmen who used to hang about here? Sean and Terence, I think?” he said, assuming a casual air.

  “Didn’t think you’d come to see me,” Polly shrugged and flicked her light brown hair away from her eyes, with floured hand. Brendan still did not pick up the signal, although he grinned as she had flour on her face. He stretched over and wiped it away. The pretty young woman flushed and momentarily stopped mixing the ingredients.

  “What are you putting in the muffins, Polly?”

  “You men! Haven’t got a clue what us women do. My mother taught me how to make good muffins. You take ale yeast and good white flour and mix with warm milk and water. Keep you hands out of that bowl, Brendan.” She mockingly slapped his hand as he dipped a finger in the bowl to taste. For a moment, their hands touched, held and then she lowered her eyes and went back to the task.

  “Perhaps I should be making you a cockle bread instead.”

  Her tone was so teasing and suggestive that Brendan realized there must be something on her mind.

  “What’s a cockle bread?” he asked, unable to resist the temptation.

  “Something my old Gran taught me. You make bread dough, but you don’t knead it with your hands, oh no…” she paused, blushing slightly, and he interjected.

  “What do you use?”

  She responded by wriggling her bottom at him, and Brendan laughed aloud.

  “You’d make a right mess of your skirts.”

  “Oh no, you take the dress off to make it, its bare skin you need for cockle bread. My Gran said you bake a cockle bread and give it to a young man, and after that he can’t resist you at all.”

  “Does it work?”

  “I’ve never made one, but maybe I should.”

  Polly finished kneading the mixture and after rolling it into shape, set them out to stand and rise. Brendan caught the aroma. The smell of dough brought back an image of a farmhouse in Ireland. His mother was singing as she made bread and out in the yard, his younger brothers were chasing the chickens around. He recalled the tune but not the words. He saw his mother but the sound of the voice kept stealing away.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Polly said.

  His mind came back.

  “So you haven’t seen Sean or Terence?” he asked, trying to cover any trace of sentimentality he might have had in his expression.

  No,” her answer was sharper than intended, “Terrance worked here awhile, but the butler caught him helping himself to the port, and that was him out. Haven’t seen either of them in weeks, and good riddance to them, they were nothing but trouble those two.”

  A silence came between them. A man lost and confused in his emotions. A woman sure hers were being rejected. The noise of a clattering cart going by in the street echoed down through the pavement grill and around the kitchen.

  “What’s happened to Mrs.Terrington?” Polly’s question broke the frozen moment.

  Brendan was not surprised to find that she knew something about it. While the wealthy people sat in their libraries and drawing room reading the news, down in the bowels of London, words and gossip flashed from basement to basement. Servants were respectful in front of their Masters and Mistresses, but in the world of the underclass, they knew most of their employer’s secrets and took their enjoyment from all that happened to the privileged.

  “We don’t know,” Brendan shrugged.

  Polly thought she saw uncharacteristic sadness in his face. She rubbed the flour from her hands and held them out to him. Brendan almost forgot about his melancholia. Polly was a pretty young woman. It would be a diversion to spend some time with her and it might soothe his soul, if not heal it. Their hands met and grasped tight. Brendan pulled her close.

  Kissing her lips gave him comfort. He could tell by the way she pressed into his body that she would willingly submit to more adventurous advances. It would have been easy to caress her skin and show her how passion felt. She waited in his arms, already committing herself to whatever he wanted. Although Polly was only nineteen and not very experienced, she knew what her desires were. Brendan kissed her once more, tasting the sweetness of her mouth and the dry flour upon her skin. He saw Polly close her hazel eyes, felt the curves of her body, and realized how much he wanted a woman.

  The image in his head, however, was of Caroline Terrington. The memory of her would not leave him even when his hands wandered over Polly’s small, shapely breasts. The scent of lusty womanhood percolated his being but failed to stir him as it once would have done. For the first time in his life there was one particular female he wanted and no one else would do. He remembered the way Caroline had touched him and the feel of her mouth yielding so utterly to his.

  He cursed love. He hated foolish emotion and had thought himself beyond its influence. This damn Caroline was English, wealthy and untouchable. Brendan longed for the enemy.

  * * * *

  Amelia submerged herself entirely in warm water, letting it cover her head and carry away the filth that seemed to be clinging to her soul. Sophie had filled the bath dutifully for her and it occurred to Amelia that her once slim conquest was starting to look a little stout about the waist. She had been half tempted to tumble the pretty girl into the water with her, just for old time’s sake, but she had not.

  For the first time in her life, Amelia felt old and careworn. She had spent too many days and nights wandering the streets in search of news and clues, seeing the very worst that the city had to offer. Several young men she had encountered on her travels claimed to have bedded the most exquisite whore they had ever seen and been taken almost beyond endurance by her demands on their virility.

  It was just this sort of rumour that Freddy had said they should be alert to, but none of the talkative youths could recall where their encounters had taken place and half seemed like pure fantasy. Not for the first time, Amelia wondered if she was chasing phantoms and false hopes. There was a light tap on the bathroom door, and she surfaced from the water.

  “Who is it?”

  “Me.”

  It could only be Freddy for she had summoned no servants.

  “Come in.”

  Frederica Cadwell was swathed is a silk dressing gown, her short hair giving her a boyish look. She looked apprehensive but determined.

  “You are still bathing?”

  Amelia resisted the temptation to say something clever and hurtful at this obvious remark.

  “It does make me feel terribly dirty, all those public taverns,” Freddy confessed.

  Amelia sighed deeply. Since Caroline’s disappearance, their fledgling relationship had been in tatters. Frederica’s considerable attempts to undo some of the havoc she had wrought were starting to make an impression on Amelia and wear away the steely hardness of her anger. The searching, the short hair and the manly clothes had left her feeling bruised and dirtied to the core of her being. She needed something gentle and warm to soothe away the worst of her recollections and reinvigorate her.

  “There is room for two in this tub, I think–if you care to join me?”

  Freddy smiled with unashamed delight, pushed the door closed behind her, and dropped her robe to the floor. Her skin still showed harsh bruises from the beating she had taken and her beautiful eyes were ringed dark from sleeplessness. She moved gracefully, stepping into the bath and lowering herself into the steaming water, her dainty feet settling against Amelia’s inner thighs.

  “I had a letter today,” Freddy said, “about Charles. He’s dreadfully ill and wasting away, they tell me. His Doctors can find no reason for it, save for the mad way in which he abuses himself whenever he is left unbound. They think he cannot live or that he must go to some place for the insane.”

  Amelia felt no pity for the man that had ruined her friend, but the sorrow in Frederica’s eyes touched her deeply, and she empathized with the woman
.

  “He has caused you nothing but pain and difficulty.”

  “He is still my brother.”

  “Is it your wish to go to him?”

  “There is nothing I can do. He knows no one. I am not sure I want to see what has become of him.”

  “This is a dark road we have found our way upon,” Amelia observed grimly.

  “I do not know how much more I can bear.”

  “Oh, Freddy, do not lose heart.”

  “I have lost everything else, why not that? My brother is mad and the woman I love hates me.”

  “I do not hate you.”

  “Truly?”

  “I swear it. I may be enraged by what you have done, I may feel positively murderous towards your vile brother, but I could not hate you if I tried.”

  She stroked her toes against Frederica’s hips, reinforcing her declaration. In response, she felt skin against her thighs, rubbing against her and gradually moving towards more sensitive regions. Frederica slipped lower in the water, making waves that overflowed the bath. Her toes brushed against Amelia’s sex, gently stimulating her.

  “I’d gladly trade a few good kisses with you and forget this whole sorry mess for a time,” Freddy suggested.

  Kisses from Freddy meant more than just a meeting of lips and tongues, but the press of mouths against secret openings, to lick and orally caress into pleasure. Amelia could feel pleasant warmth kindling in her stomach – the first flickering of a lust that could flame wildly with the right kindling to sustain it. She stroked the soles of Frederica’s feet, and along her slender ankles towards the delicate skin behind her knees. She had placed kisses there once before, but now her fingers played eagerly as she contemplated the delights to come.

  “I’ll make you forget everything except me,” she promised.