Daughters of Night

by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

  They had reached the outskirts of the city, passing the gates to the Foundling Hospital. It made Caro think of Pamela and her necklace. The carriage headed north on the road to Highgate and Muswell Hill.

  In the bag at her feet was a volto mask, which would cover her face entirely. In her panniers were candles and a tinder-box. And in her hand was the satyr invitation that would gain her admittance to the Priapus Club.

  *

  Torches blazed at the gates to Stone’s estate. With no footman to fit the steps, Caro alighted unsteadily from the carriage, landing heavily in the mud. She paid the coachman, and offered him a guinea if he’d wait for her at a tavern they’d passed a quarter-mile back. Putting on her mask, she approached the gates.

  A porter emerged from the lodge. On the other side of the gates she could see two groundsmen, each armed with a fowling piece. She passed the porter her invitation, and he looked her over. ‘Why didn’t you come with the others?’

  Remembering that Sir Amos had said that harlots emulated the manners of ladies, she spoke haughtily, in her normal voice. ‘I forgot my invitation and had to go back for it.’

  Sighing, he unlocked the gate. ‘Take her to the bathhouse,’ he said to one of the groundsmen. ‘Make sure someone vouches for her.’

  She had planned to slip away into the woods once she was out of sight of the gates. But the groundsman stayed close to her side, seeming to enjoy her proximity. The house was a blaze of light in the distance, and she glimpsed many carriages drawn up outside. There were more lights across the lake, voices and laughter carrying from the bathhouse. Moonlight shone on the water, reflecting the stars.

  A figure was walking towards them, coming up from the house. A well-dressed gentleman in a Pantalone mask with a hook nose and slanted eyes. He carried a bottle of brandy in his pudgy hand.

  ‘Well now,’ he said, in a rich Scottish burr, not a voice she recognized. ‘Late to the party too, my dear?’

  ‘All the best guests are.’ She gave an elegant curtsey.

  He stood back, appraising her. ‘I’d never have taken you for a harlot. I wish my daughter had half your manners.’

  She spoke pertly: ‘No, you don’t.’

  He laughed again, delighted, and offered her his arm. ‘Allow me to escort you, madam.’

  ‘You can vouch for her, then, sir?’ the groundsman asked.

  ‘We have met before, sir,’ she said. ‘I was here another time.’

  ‘I thought you seemed familiar,’ he said, which made her heart sink. ‘Remind me of your name again, my dear?’

  ‘Clara.’

  ‘That was it. Clara.’ He slid an arm around her waist, running his palm over her rump, making her squirm. Turning to the groundsman, he spoke peremptorily: ‘I’ll take her from here.’

  The groundsman bowed and headed back towards the gate.

  The voices and laughter grew louder as they walked through the woods, towards the bathhouse. Wind stirred the lake and the trees whispered. The Scotchman kept a tight grip upon her waist.

  They emerged from the trees, the bathhouse only yards away. Flanking the path that led to it were a pair of stone statues of satyrs coupling with goats. Naked girls were splashing around in the stone bathing pool that Kitty had described, watched by gentlemen in masks from the bank. The girls turned to stare at Caro, evidently wondering who she was. The gentlemen stared harder, and she wondered if they were men of her acquaintance.

  You’re wearing a mask, she told herself. There’s no reason to suppose they’ll recognize you. You just need to keep your nerve, find an opportunity to slip away.

  At the entrance to the bathhouse, they were greeted by clouds of sweet-smelling smoke. Many lamps were lit inside, and it was warm. Gentlemen and harlots were entwined upon daybeds, some masked, some clothed, some not. Candlelight flickered across the bathhouse murals – black copulating figures, like the ones on Simon’s urn. Jonathan Stone was on his feet, giving some sort of speech.

  ‘Those who seek true enlightenment should forget the doctrines of the Testament. Everything of value in those pages was stolen from the ancients – and every constraint upon man’s freedom was imposed by the Church to increase its power. In ancient times, men had full liberty in love, and they worshipped Priapus, god of generation and destruction. The greatest men of ancient Greece visited the temple courtesans, the Hetaerae, and the act of congress lifted their minds to heights of noble thought and artistic endeavour.’

  The men murmured their approval, stroking the cheeks or other parts of their companions. Caro’s Scotchman led her to a footman, serving wine from a silver tray. He took two glasses, and she fought the urge to run. The smoke was making her head spin, and it was very hot inside the mask. The Scotchman found a vacant daybed, and beckoned to Caro, pulling her onto his lap.

  Simon Dodd-Bellingham was standing against a wall, alone. He met her gaze and she turned away, right into the eyes of Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham. Clad only in his breeches, a masked, naked woman on either side of him, he grinned. For a moment, she thought he’d recognized her, but then he turned to one of his companions, kissing her long and hard, using his tongue. Candlelight illuminated Stone’s face from below, giving him a saturnine glow.

  ‘The life of the libertine is a holy life,’ Stone said. ‘Intimate congress the act by which life passes between the generations. The mingling of vital fluids is the true elixir of immortality. Thus man creates life, and becomes as the gods.’

  The Scotchman put a finger under Caro’s chin, and guided her face to his own. ‘Here.’ He stuck his thumb into her mouth. Revolted, she resisted the urge to vomit. He thrust deep, her panic rising as she endured the invasion.

  The Scotchman withdrew his thumb, replacing it almost immediately with a long silver pipe. She tried to refuse, but he frowned, pushing it into her mouth. Hot and acrid smoke filled her throat. Her lungs burned, as she breathed it in. The room shivered and turned, and her nausea spiked. Coughing, retching, she ran from the bathhouse, pushing her way past another footman coming in through the door. Outside, she lifted her mask enough to vomit.

  The gentlemen by the pool laughed, and the girls hooted their derision. Caro wiped her mouth on her sleeve and swiftly pulled her mask back on.

  ‘Your moll’s cast up her accounts, Cromby,’ one of the poolside revellers called, and she saw with a sinking heart that the Scotchman had followed her outside. ‘They see him coming and they just can’t help it – up it comes.’ More laughter.

  Sweat sheathed her skin, her heart thumping against her ribs. The Scotchman walked towards her. ‘Come on,’ he said, a little crossly. ‘Back inside.’

  She backed away from him, glancing towards the woods. ‘Did you ever play hide-and-go-seek?’

  ‘Of course. As a boy.’

  Spreading her arms, she span on the grass, getting closer to the trees with each turn. ‘Count to ten,’ she said. ‘Then come and find me.’

  A note of amusement entered his voice. ‘And what will I do with you then?’

  She ran her hands over her breasts. ‘Whatever you like.’

  Ducking into the trees with a gust of wild laughter, she ran. Her slippers slid on the mulchy earth, the branches clawing at her skirts. Her breath came in short gasps as she ran harder, desperate to put distance between them. The exertion cleared her head and she cast her gaze around, trying to get her bearings. Simon had said that the disused farm was north of the house, on the far side of the wood.

  ‘Clara,’ she heard the Scotchman calling, some distance behind her now. ‘I’m coming.’

  Pulling off her mask, she ran on, not looking back. The trees were tall and black and primal, and she struggled to make out the gaps between them. Her skirts caught on a branch, and she slipped, turning her ankle. Moonlight barely penetrated the canopy of the trees now, and in other circumstances the darkness might have frightened her. But she was too full of other fears: poacher’s traps and Stone’s armed keepers and the men from the bathhouse.

/>   Gradually, the trees thinned overhead, until she could see the stars again. She emerged from the woods, at the top of an incline, sloping down to a plain of grass. In the distance, in the moonlight, she made out the deserted farm. It was larger than she’d anticipated: five or six buildings, grouped around a yard. How long would it take to search them all?

  Glancing back into the woods, hearing no sound of pursuit behind her, she hurried across the grass. The farmyard, a wide expanse of red mud, as Simon had described, contained a water-trough, a sty, and a dilapidated well. Caro turned, taking a survey of the buildings: an old farmhouse, half fallen down; a large barn in a similar condition; a stable; a couple of outhouses; and some sort of workshop, perhaps a kiln.

  The barn first, she decided, walking over to the door. It was bolted from the outside, and she struggled to lift the rusting bar. Eventually it slid upwards with a grating screech. She pushed at the door, then kicked it, until it gave with a rattle. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and it took her a long time to light one of her candles.

  Inside, it was cold and damp, the roof very high. Birds fluttered in the rafters, and the floor was thick with their droppings. Slowly, she walked around it, looking for any disturbance of earth, or anywhere else a person might conceal a body.

  She searched the barn for a good quarter-hour, but found nothing untoward. Returning to the yard, she walked towards the farmhouse. The roof had fallen in, bringing part of a wall down with it. Loose masonry could be dangerous – would they have chosen to enter the building in that condition? Mindful of other dangers, she gazed across the plain, towards the wood, but as she did so, something else caught her eye. A word daubed on the side of the well in white paint, directly onto the bricks and moss: POISON. Hadn’t Kitty said that the morning after Pamela disappeared, the lieutenant’s redcoat was splashed with what looked like white paint?

  She walked over to examine it more closely. The paint looked fresher than anything else around her. The well’s cover was wooden and warped, and several large blocks of masonry had been laid on top of it. To discourage anyone from looking inside? Like the warning that the well was poisoned?

  She tried to lift one of the blocks of masonry, but it was too heavy. Dragging it to the edge, inch by careful inch, she toppled it off the side, leaping back to avoid her toes being crushed. Turning to the next block, she pulled again. A bead of sweat crawled across her ribs like an insect, and the taste of vomit in her mouth made her want to vomit again.

  The second block fell. Her muscles ached, and she had torn a nail. She toppled the third block – and then the fourth. The wooden cover was riven with cracks, hinged in the centre. With effort, she raised it, lifting it up and over, and then gazed down into the well’s black interior. She stood back, covering her face, as a vile, putrid stink rose up to greet her.

  Something rotten was down there. Something dead. Fumbling again with her tinder, she lit another candle. Covering her nose with her other hand, she looked again.

  About fifteen feet down, the well’s bucket hung on a rusting chain. Something was caught on it. She set her candle down and seized the well’s handle. It kept sticking as she turned it, the mechanism rusting, but she forced it through the rotations. Slowly, the bucket rose up the well. Caro glimpsed a large piece of cloth, a garment perhaps, saturated with damp and mould. Blue satin, she thought, squinting. Gold embroidery.

  As she leaned forward to grab it, she heard a crack in the distance, from the direction of the wood. An animal? A gamekeeper? The Scotchman?

  Listening hard, she peered into the darkness. Then she heard a chuckle right behind her, and span around.

  Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham stood there, his redcoat vivid in the darkness.

  ‘I knew it was you.’ He smiled.

  PAMELA

  1 March 1782

  So many trees. More even than the Hyde Park. The snow had melted in London, but not out here, clumps of it clinging to the bare branches, like wet fingers in sugar.

  Her feet might as well have belonged to someone else for all she could feel. It was insanity to be wearing sandals and robes in winter, but Mr Stone had insisted upon it. The men were wearing masks. Not the kind that gentlemen usually wore to masquerades, but strange, old men’s faces with blank holes for the eyes and mouth. The girls wore similar masks – all except Pamela: women’s faces, with real human hair glued to the sides, which looked silly on Kitty with her red hair hanging down behind. The expressions of the girls’ masks were sad, their mouths open wide in anguish. Pamela shivered, her teeth chattering uncontrollably.

  They’d changed at Mr Stone’s house, which was larger than all the houses she’d ever lived in put together. That had buoyed her spirits. But now, out here in the woods, all she felt was trepidation. All this to-do with the clothes and the masks – it was downright strange. Why couldn’t Stone just take her to a bedroom, tumble her, and be done with it?

  It’s just another performance, she told herself, one worth a hundred and twenty-five guineas. Not a sum to be sniffed at. Even when compared to the sum she’d ask for later. Having seen Stone’s house, she had considered asking for more. But she wasn’t greedy. Nor did she want to push her luck. Three thousand pounds. No more. No less.

  Glancing up, she caught the lieutenant watching her through his mask. She gave him a coy little smile, the kind he liked. Lord March was watching her too. Pamela knew it was him, because she’d recognized the buttons on his coat. Mr Stone walked at the front of their procession, carrying a flaming torch and a strange stick, like a beadle’s staff. The lieutenant’s brother brought up the rear. The men wore their own clothes; naturally, Lucy would have said – why should they freeze their balls off out here?

  Flames flickered through the trees up ahead. They emerged from the wood, onto the bank of a lake. Ahead of them was a white building with pillars, like the ones in Agnetti’s paintings, torches burning at the door. On either side of the path stood a statue: a horrible man-goat like the one on her invitation, rutting with a nanny-goat, taking her from behind.

  Before the bathhouse was a large stone pool, about ten feet by twelve, and ten feet deep. Pamela guessed that in summer it would be filled with water from the lake, but it was empty now, full of twigs and stones and mounds of snow.

  ‘Christ, it’s cold,’ the lieutenant said.

  Pamela didn’t like him in that mask. Not fitting with his redcoat at all. She tried to catch his eye again, trying to let him know that whatever happened here tonight, she was still his. But she couldn’t tell if he even noticed.

  Two of the girls were whispering, and Lord March snapped at them to be quiet. Stone strode up to the door and knocked on it with his staff. More theatre.

  The door creaked slowly open, and she glimpsed a man inside. He was dressed like a gentleman, wearing a mask like the head of a goat. She presumed he was another friend of Mr Stone’s.

  The man moved forward into the light. He walked with a stick, tall, but hunched, his rich clothes hanging off him.

  Mr Stone beckoned to her. ‘Come forward, so he can see you.’

  She frowned. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Just do as I say. Treat him well. He’s paid good money for you.’

  This man was to be her first? She didn’t remember ever meeting a gentleman who walked with a stick – either at the tableaux house, or at Mr Agnetti’s. She could hear the gentleman’s breathing beneath his mask, a hoarse, hollow rattle. Old, she thought, with a sinking heart.

  ‘Well?’ Stone said to the man.

  ‘You have done well,’ he said, in a voice that wheezed. He turned to go back inside, moving with difficulty.

  ‘Follow him,’ the lieutenant said, in a thick voice that gave her pause.

  She looked around to gauge reactions. But everyone’s faces were obscured by those horrible masks.

  Someone – the lieutenant? – gave her a little push from behind. It’s just a job, like emptying a chamber pot. Slowly, she walked forward into the bathhouse, s
hivering a little as the door closed behind her.

  *

  The bathhouse was dimly lit, warmed by a brazier. Lewd paintings adorned the walls. In the centre of the room stood a large daybed, piled with pillows and silken sheets. The man in the mask sat down upon it heavily.

  ‘Bolt the door,’ he rasped.

  As she did so, she remembered Lucy’s words unbidden. No watch. No one to hear you scream.

  But this man didn’t seem as if he could do her any harm. Indeed, he seemed exhausted by the smallest exertions. He lay back on the bed, watching her, still wearing the mask.

  ‘What is your name?’ he said.

  ‘Pamela. What’s yours?’

  ‘I want to see you, Pamela. Disrobe.’

  ‘I want to see you first,’ she said. ‘Take off your mask.’

  ‘It is not your place to give commands. Do you want me to call Mr Stone back?’

  Remembering Mrs Havilland’s strict instructions not to make trouble or argue back, she undid the cord at her waist and slid off her robe. In just her stockings and garters, she made a turn for him. The goat-man gave a sharp intake of breath, and thrust his gloved hand inside his breeches.

  One hundred and twenty-five guineas, she thought again. For one quick tumble. Except, she saw with dismay, it wasn’t going to be quick. The gentleman was trying to get himself primed and failing, working himself a little frantically. Kitty had told her all about that. How a girl needed to be careful when it happened, because a man could get angry – as if the whole world had come to an end, because one gentleman couldn’t get a prickstand.

  ‘I could help you with that, if you’d like?’ she said.

  His head jerked up. ‘How would you know what to do?’

  She smiled meekly. ‘You could show me, sir.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Stay just where you are.’

  The minutes ticked by, as she stood in front of him like a fool. What kind of man paid two hundred and fifty guineas for this?

  Finally, for the love of heaven, she saw movement in his breeches. ‘Come,’ he gasped. ‘Quickly. Here.’