Edith Layton (13 page)

“Look,” Nell said, sobering, “maybe I’m not like most girls, I’ll grant you that. And you’re a well brought up girl, so I shouldn’t say this. But
since you are, the more reason why I should, I suppose. You’ve been plain with me, and I owe you something, don’t I? I’ve had it off with my share of lads, and I have to tell you it isn’t that much. They make it sound like the sun and the moon, of course, to get you. But it’s nothing, really, when you come down to it. Oh, it’s nice enough sometimes. But mostly it’s a bore, and it can be nasty.”

“And you do it anyway?” Camille gasped.

“Why not? It’s usually over so quick it hardly matters. Less than the time it takes to boil an egg if you’ve primed them right. It’s a great thing to men, but it doesn’t have to be for us. They have to be excited to do it. We don’t. That’s where the gold is in it for us. It’s always good for them or they can’t do it. We can while we’re thinking about something else. And we can always tell when they’re done and if they’ve had a good time, but they never really know with us. The truth is they never have to know how you feel if you don’t want them to.”

“The most important thing,” Nell said, as she licked apple juice from her fingers, “is that though men say some women are better than others, because this one was so beautiful or that one moved right, it’s really all about how she made them feel about themselves. Every fellow thinks he’s a dab hand at it, but he’s never really sure. So if you tell him it’s wonderful he thinks you’ve given him the moon. Even if you have to think of someone else while he’s at it, so as not to push him off before he’s through with you.”

“Oh,” was all Camille could say, because she certainly wasn’t going to tell Nell what her sister-in-law had told her about marital relations. They’d been speaking of Camille’s future one soft summer evening when they’d been alone together. Belle hadn’t said anything graphic, of course, and all she did say about the act of love was couched in terms of suns and exploding stars, to be sure. But she hadn’t had to give details, because Camille had raised horses. And the look in Belle’s eyes as she’d spoken had told Camille even more and made lovemaking sound like the most rapturous experience a woman could have.

“But what about children?” Camille persisted. “I am a country girl, and sure as check, I know one thing follows another.”

“With cows maybe. There are ways people can stop it from happening. That much, trust me, I know. And those that take up the trade don’t have children often,” Nell mused. “That’s strange, but that is so.”

“And you’d pass up the chance for love entirely?” Camille asked.

“No,” Nell said. “Who knows what may come along in time? But for now? Why should I be some fellow’s unpaid bedmate, servant, and whipping girl? I want more for myself. I want more fun and money than any one man can give me. Even if I were to marry a rich man, I wouldn’t get his money, you know. If he died—and all men do in time, especially the older ones who have the most
money—all his property, even jewels he might have given me that came from his own mother, would be taken from me to go to his sons, if he had any. And if he didn’t, it would all go to his nearest male nephew or cousin or such, whether he liked the lucky fellow or had even met him.”

Nell’s expression grew cold. “Then I’d have to count on the charity of a stranger. A woman’s a fool to count on any man’s charity. It depends on how she looks when she needs it, and you can’t be young forever. Do you think even a noble fellow like Lieutenant Ford would have fought for me that night I was shoved at him if I’d been a scrawny old besom?

“And not only men,” she said when Camille opened her mouth to defend Eric’s honor. “Would you have offered houseroom to an old woman that night? You’re a nice girl, Camille, but I can’t see you offering your time and company to an old crone. Even if you had, your brother and sister-in-law would have thought you’d run mad—madder than they did when you invited me into your home,” she corrected herself with a twisted smile.

“No, even if I married the Golden Ball, by the time he died and his fortune went to his next of male kin, I could be too old to find a better arrangement for myself. And then where would I be?”

Camille sat still. What could she say? That much was true, and it wasn’t fair. It was just that until now she’d never questioned it herself, any more than she’d question the fact that this was England
or that it was the right of the king to rule her or the right of the sun to warm the sky.

“As for love itself,” Nell laughed. “Look, all men have the same thing to offer, and they all offer it readily enough. Any clever girl can make her fortune if she takes what’s offered. You don’t even have to be pretty. Although,” she said, tossing back her head, “I know what I have to give in return is what they want.”

“Surely there are no ugly courtesans!” Camille said, watching Nell’s long black hair slithering in a stream down her slender back as she tossed her head. If she shook her own head until morning, Camille thought bitterly, all she’d get would be a bird’s nest tangle and be dizzy as a bat at noon, to boot.

“Harriette Wilson had beady eyes, hardly any breasts, and was thin as a rail,” Nell reported. “Altogether she looked like nothing spread on toast. Yet she had her pick of the
ton
in her time. Everyone from Wellington to Ponsonby to the Prince, they say. There’s many another like her. A successful courtesan has to know men, that’s all. Why, there are beauties who have to throw up their skirts in alleys in order to buy supper and hags that get diamonds big as pigeon eggs for their favors. It’s all in the attitude, that’s what Ruby told me, and so I’ve seen for myself.”

This whole conversation was beyond improper, Camille knew that. It went past common and coarse and turned into offensive. If she were truly
well bred, if she had a grain of sensibility, she’d clap her hands over her ears and run out of the room. But she was awestruck. And besides, she might never get another such chance to learn what she most wanted to know.

“So,” she said slowly, trying not to sound as interested as she was, “how do they do it? I mean, how does an ugly woman become so famous a demimondaine? Courtesan,” she explained to Nell’s puzzled look.

“You’re not ugly!” Nell said.

Camille wondered if she would actually die of embarrassment. She’d underestimated Nell, and she suspected many people did. The girl wasn’t bright, but she was very clever. And now Camille knew there was no sense in denying her interest in what Nell was talking about. They’d gone past every propriety anyway.

“I’m not beautiful,” Camille said.

Nell cocked her head to the side again and looked at her as though measuring her up. “Not in the common way, no,” she said. “But men like you, and there’s many another who’d be taken with you if you knew how to show him what you’ve got. You’ve a good, firm body, nice breasts and rump. They like that. And you have a merry laugh. They like a woman who makes them feel good about themselves.”

“I thought you were going to say something about my hair or the way I dress,” Camille said, amazed to find she’d stopped blushing. The preach
ers were right. One did become inured to sin. Now this discussion was more interesting than embarrassing to her.

“Oh, no,” Nell said, reaching out and tousling Camille’s unruly curls. “Your hair is very nice indeed. It’s pretty and soft. It reminds a fellow of a haystack or of being in one with you. And he wouldn’t be afraid of messing it up. It makes you ever so much more…accessible,” she said, smiling because she’d found the proper word. “That and your way of laughing. Men like a lass with merry heart. I told you, your appearance is the least of it.”

“But you never laugh much,” Camille said. “You just smile. That does seem to fascinate men. I’ve seen it.”

“Well, that’s because I don’t have that lively a sense of humor. My smile tells them I know what men are thinking and that I approve,” Nell said on a yawn. She rolled over on her back and spoke to the ceiling as she continued, “It’s the way you look
at
them, really, even more than the way you look
to
them. A girl can’t just sit like a flower waiting to be plucked. She has to let them know she’s ripe for plucking. Little things matter. Your set, the ladies,” she said scornfully, “they think it’s all a matter of fluttering fans and batting eyelashes. But it’s more.”

Camille’s voice came slow and low. “What little things?”

Nell giggled. “Not for you to know or do, my lady.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a lady.”

“And if I weren’t?”

“Well,” Nell said, stretching her arms upward and staring at her linked fingers, “looking in a fellow’s eyes is very fine, but looking at his crotch is better.”

She giggled again at Camille’s audible gasp.

“They want you to,” Nell said imperturbably. “Why else do they wear such tight breeches and have their jackets cut long in back but high in front so that it all shows clear? And why wear all those glittering fobs and chains and such to draw your eyes right there? Every man thinks his is amazing, and they think we do too. But still, they worry that the other fellow’s is bigger. Though why they should think we find ballocks a treat I’ll never know,” she mused. “So if you look there, they know you’re interested, and if you keep looking, they’re sure you’re fascinated. And then, maiden or whore, you’ve got them. The truth is that any man wants any woman who wants him.”

“They’re different sizes?” Camille murmured almost to herself, because the thought had never occurred to her.

Nell chortled. “Oh, lord love you, of course they are. Like feet or noses. A big fellow can have a little one, and just the opposite too. There’s no predicting by how big or tall he is, and it makes no sense that they should care so much, but there you are. Some chaps even pad themselves out! Though, truth to tell, one’s the same as another to me.”

She sat up. “Now I know I’ve said too much. You’re red as a beet. Listen, Cammie, you’re a nice person, but a good girl, never the kind to follow my lead. Find yourself a good fellow, marry him, and settle down, and you’ll be happy—happier, I suppose, for not knowing how he measures up!” She flopped back on her back again.

Camille sat still, thinking. Nell’s words rang true in many ways. She raised a grave gaze to her guest, studying her. Nell wore a thin night rail and was utterly relaxed. Now Camille could see that her guest hadn’t that much to offer a man after all. She was slight, with small, apple-sized breasts. Her legs and arms were thin and pale. Her features were fine and even, but now that her eyes were closed, Camille could see she was so even-featured that she actually was plain. All her attraction was in her animation when a man appeared, in the little things, as Nell herself had said.

What struck Camille more than that now was the fact that Nell would never have been so bold or forthcoming if she meant to stay on. Even though she might think her hostess was a rough and ready, hurly-burly sort of girl, she had to know what she’d said was low, vulgar, and even if momentarily diverting, would eventually give any gently bred young woman a distaste for her. That meant she already had plans to leave and soon. Which relieved Camille wonderfully. She herself wouldn’t have to look like a jealous cow by telling Belle and Miles how uncomfortable Nell made her and why.

“So,” she asked Nell, “when are you going to leave us?”

Nell lay still but opened her eyes. “Soon as I find a gent I want to go with, and that won’t take long.” Her expression was unreadable as she angled her head so she could search Camille’s face. “What do you think of Eric Ford?”

Camille’s sudden loss of color was her answer.

Nell shrugged. “I’m not saying he’s the one I’ll choose. There are others I have in mind as well. I’ve been talking to some of them when we’re out at balls and such. My cousin found out too,” she added. “He’s smart. He realized it right off when we were at that Venetian Ball and tried to protect me by saying I was shy. You’re right, that’s a cawker, isn’t it? Don’t blame him. He’s a decent man and a kind-hearted one. He didn’t want to see me blot my copybook. He wants me to have a future. And he doesn’t know I kept at it after, or he’d murder me! A fine lecture he read at me, I can tell you. I hung my head, like a nice girl should. But I was seeing what my possibilities were, and I still am.”

“You’ve…met…with Eric then?” Camille managed to say.

“No, but I’m not done interviewing,” Nell said. She sat up abruptly. “Look, that’s all I do. I give a taste. I show a sample to a few chaps, nothing more. I told you, I’m not destined for Haymarket ware. A girl who throws up her skirts right away is a slut, and she’ll never make a decent living, much
less her fortune, that way. You have to tempt and lure, make yourself seem scarce and rare, if you want to succeed.

“Because,” she said, leaning toward Nell for emphasis, “a woman’s worth in bed is what she makes it. It’s like men and their sizes, it doesn’t really matter that much. Most of it is in the mind and the method, not what you were born with. You make a fellow think that he’s done wonders, and you are one yourself, at least to him.”

“And the pleasure in it for yourself?” Camille asked, though she thought she already knew what Nell would say.

“The pleasure is in the success,” Nell said. “Are you going to eat those grapes?”

A
fter last night’s talk with Nell, Camille couldn’t look at any man now, because she didn’t know where to look. When Dana Bartlett arrived to take Camille and Nell for a carriage ride, she’d had to keep her eyes firmly fixed on his. She didn’t want to look down, and because she knew she shouldn’t, she had an overwhelming urge to do just that. She couldn’t imagine Dana wanting her to look there either. He wasn’t the kind of man whose presence led to such thoughts.

Now sitting beside him in a carriage, Cammie felt much better as he continued to point out sights while their coach rolled on. “There, on the right, coming up, is Blackfriars Bridge. In the fourteenth century it was considered…”

Camille hardly listened. Neither did his cousin, who seemed to be sleeping with her eyes open. He’d been showing them the sights of London for a half-hour now. If Camille could have gotten up and walked through the places he was talking about, she might have been interested. But not only was it a cold and windy day, he said some of the places were too dangerous for women to see on foot. Since Nell couldn’t ride, the only way they could go was by coach. So they sat in a coach with hot bricks at their feet and gazed out the breath-fogged windows while Dana told them about everything they couldn’t see close or clearly.

And so instead of gazing at London, Camille was covertly studying her host. Her study verified everything she’d been thinking about him since the night they’d met. Or rather, since after that night, because that first time he’d seemed attractive, interesting, even mysterious. But not anymore. Not after several walks in the park, a few interminable teas and polite conversations and dances at the few parties they’d been at together.

There was nothing wrong with him. It was just that there wasn’t anything particularly outstanding either. When they’d met, his dark good looks had seemed seductive, at least by lamplight. Sunlight showed that he did have clear skin and shining black hair, and his eyes were just as dark as they looked by night. But the lack of shadows made them and him much less magnetic. In fact, the whole man seemed diminished. He even seemed
smaller than he did by night. Now Camille noticed how small and neat his gloved hands were, as were the feet in his tidy brown boots. Or maybe, she admitted, it had nothing to do with moonlight or sunlight or his size. It was just that a big man who dominated the scene in any light had permanently dazzled her eyes.

Dana Bartlett was attentive, polite, and seemed interested in her, Camille concluded sadly. But she just wasn’t attracted to him. It would have been nice to have a beau instead of just her dreams of Eric. Certainly Dana was one man who wouldn’t want any woman to look at him as Nell suggested. It was hard to think of him even possessing a…

Camille’s eyes flew to the window, and she fixed her gaze on a distant church steeple. How ridiculous! She had dozens of men friends and had never had to worry about such a thing before. Male fashion did emphasize a fellow’s front, but it also showed off his backside and legs. Of course, a woman noticed things, she just didn’t dwell on them the way Nell suggested. After all, you could hardly help noticing—Nell was right about that, at least. But Camille had never stared at the fall on a fellow’s trousers, or ogled anything under his unmentionables.
Lord!
Calling them unmentionables ought to give a girl a clue to where she wasn’t supposed to look. Nell’s advice was wrong, for a decent woman at least. But it had definitely changed Camille’s outlook on life—literally.

She hoped she could forget Nell’s advice and fast. Because she was seeing Eric this afternoon for tea, when she got back home. He’d think she’d run mad if she kept squinting at his…

Bother! Camille thought, squirming in her seat. Unless, of course, Nell was right. And if she followed her advice, would Eric finally see her differently? As a woman at last? And maybe…

“Miss Croft?” Dana asked. Camille spun her head to look at him, feeling as guilty as embarrassed because she hadn’t been paying attention. “You’re a Londoner now,” he went on gently, “so perhaps this tour is a little too elementary for you.”

“Oh, no,” she said honestly, “I’m a country girl and haven’t been here very long. I go to parties and balls, but there are lots of things I haven’t seen yet. Why, I never saw that tavern you just pointed out. It was very interesting,” she lied.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t take you two into it. It’s built where Shakespeare’s Mermaid Tavern was, but I think it’s not quite the thing for young ladies. Now, where we’re going next is the seat of justice. Excuse me.” He rapped on the front window, and a second later the coachman he’d hired pulled back the leather curtain that covered the window and opened it.

“Yes, sir?” the coachman asked.

“Why are we stopping here?”

“Ah, well, y’see, the crowd’s too thick in front for us to go on ahead just now. It be a Monday, sir,
there’s a topping to see, and every soul in Lunnon wants to be there too, same as you.”

“A Monday? Good Lord!” Dana said, looking aghast. “It’s hanging day at Tyburn tree!”

“Yes, sir, it be that. I hears there’s six set to dangle this morning, but never ye fear, I’ll have you there in a trice, and where you can see most of it, if not all.”

“A topping?” Camille asked with dawning horror.

“A hanging,” Dana said angrily. “I never realized it was a Monday or I wouldn’t have planned to take you to see Old Bailey, but it’s right next to Newgate. I didn’t think about that, though I should have,” he added in chagrin.

“A hanging?” Nell asked, sitting up, suddenly more animated than she’d been for an hour. “Oh, good! I so wanted to see one. And only think, there’ll be six! Can you get us a broadsheet, cousin? I hear the condemned write all sorts of funny things you can read as you watch them being hanged. And chestnuts too. My friend Rub—A friend told me the chestnuts and meat pies sold on topping days are the freshest and best.” She giggled. “Maybe because no one wants to sell bad stuff that close to the gallows. But she said to watch for pickpockets, because they find their best business in the crowds then, no matter the risk. And risk there will be, because the Runners are there to see the hanging’s done right.”

“But we won’t be,” Dana said curtly. “Turn
around,” he told the coachman. “Find another route. We’ll skip Old Bailey.”

“Thank you,” Camille breathed.

“Why can’t we go?” Nell protested.

“Some of us don’t find hangings entertaining,” Dana said, noting how pale Camille had grown.

“If you dance you must pay the piper,” Nell said on a shrug. “Even if it’s a dance on air. They’re only getting what they deserve. It’s great fun, my friend says,” she went on in wheedling tones, looking at Dana hopefully. “There are folks from all parts of Town, the richest and the poorest together, shoulder to shoulder. It’s a fine show, for some go up to the gibbet bold as brass, and some wail and weep like babes, and you never know from just looking at them which will be which when the time comes.”

“They hang children,” Camille said dully, “and old women.”

“Well, there’s a pity, I suppose,” Nell said. “And many a sad ballad we’ll hear sung about it if there are any of those to be topped this morning. But if they did wrong, they deserve it.”

“Indeed?” Dana said silkily. “And so you believe a person must tread the line or else suffer the consequence, do you, cousin?”

Nell, ever responsive to a tone of voice, caught the ironic tone in his. She went still and watched him warily. Camille looked at him oddly too, because this sounded more like the man who’d intrigued her by lamplight.

“You believe that a man who takes a man’s wal
let should hang from the same gibbet as one who took another man’s life?” Dana persisted. “And that a boy who stole a cheese ought to be hanged alongside a man who sold his country’s secrets? And that a woman who sold herself to a man should be punished the same way as one who stole his wallet?”

“Well, there you’re out, cousin!” Nell laughed. “They don’t hang whores—I mean, harlots.”

“No, I suppose they don’t,” he said, his face a mask of civility, though his eyes seemed to burn into hers. “But there are hundreds of them in Bridewell, where they are beaten soundly and suffer other indignities I’ll not mention here. Hundreds more languish at Magdalene House, where they aren’t physically abused but their spirits are beaten into submission. Others are transported. Many more find their way to Newgate, because their way of life leads to crime as surely as a river runs to the sea.

“Speaking of which,” he said, as if on a sudden thought. He knocked on the window again, and again the coachman popped back the curtain. “Take us along the river,” he said. “Find us a place where we can get a good view of the river.”

He turned to his guests again. “Forgive me,” he told Camille. “It will only take a moment, but there’s something I want my cousin to see. I hate to lose an argument,” he explained with a tight smile that never reached his eyes. “One of the problems with being a man-at-law, I suppose.”

Camille could only nod. She was surprised by his barely suppressed anger until she remembered that Nell had said that he knew what she’d done at the Venetian Ball. So he had to have guessed something about her plans for her future. His lecture, Camille realized, must have been so he could show Nell the error of her ways. Her opinion of him rose again. Bless the man. Maybe he could talk some sense into the girl. Camille didn’t want to throw her out immediately, for fear of looking jealous or spiteful, at least to Eric. But she didn’t want her staying on either.

They all sat quietly, wrapped in their own thoughts, as the carriage rattled over cobbles as it headed toward the Thames. When it finally stopped, the coachman called, “Will this do?”

Dana nodded in approval. “Yes, fine. We’ll get out. Wait for us. We won’t be long.”

They were in a warehouse district near the wharves on a street across from an unoccupied dock, so they could see the river clearly. The Thames was wide here, slate-gray today, rippling with choppy, rushing, white-fringed waves. Small fishing trawlers and packet boats looked like miniatures as they sailed by the great-bellied, spiremasted ships at anchor.

“Come,” Dana said. “It’s safe enough here by day, and this is a thing you should see, even you, Miss Croft, because it is interesting.”

They alighted and walked out on the empty dock. It was quiet except for the sounds of water
lapping at the pilings of the pier and the laughter of gulls riding on wind currents high overhead. The cold breeze snatched at Camille’s hood, trying to tug it free. The smell of the sea was brackish but invigorating, and she took a deep breath. She felt her spirits rise. She loved the out of doors and especially rivers and the sea.

“Look downriver,” Dana said to Nell as they walked to the end of the dock. “What do you see?”

“Nothing much,” she said. “Ships, land on the other side. What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“That ship to the north.”

“What, that enormous one?” she asked. “I can’t see it, just the outline. It’s a big old hulk, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said. “Exactly. It’s an old man-of-war, here on the Thames before it goes to its final berth at Woolwich, where it will lie at anchor with others of its kind. That one is the
Euryalus,
some are more famous.”

Nell relaxed and started to smile. Camille sighed. She’d been wrong; this was just another bit of sightseeing from afar.

“But I think all would rather you forgot their names,” Dana went on. “Those on board them are forgotten too.”

Both women turned their puzzled expressions to him. But he only looked at Nell. “Oh, yes,” he told her. “They’re the hulks, you see, dear cousin. Prison ships for the overflow from London’s prisons. There’s not enough room in Newgate or in Bridewell or any of His Majesty’s prisons. They
hang them six at a time these days, as you saw—or almost did—and even so there aren’t enough hangings to reduce the number of prisoners or enough transports to take them all to Botany Bay.

“So now we have the hulks too. They go nowhere, nor does their wretched cargo. Way stations for transport to Australia and Botany Bay. Now they’re as good as permanent—permanent enough for many poor souls who board them, because few live to walk off them.”

He stared at Nell, the look in his eyes now cold as the wind that whipped around them. “Believe me, cousin, I know this too well: all the other prisons, even with their jail fevers and corruption, are luxury hotels compared to the hulks. And I promise you, every man, woman and child on those ships once believed they were too clever to ever end up there.”

Nell stood silent. Then she met his eyes, tossing back her head in a pert gesture. Her hood fell back, and the wind whipped her inky hair round her face. “Thank you, cousin,” she said with a little twisted smile. “It’s ever so nice of you to show us how you earn your living.”

Dana’s lips thinned, and he shot a glance at Camille.

Camille didn’t know what to say. Nell had aimed her barb well. Nothing could have shown the disparities in their rank more clearly. Nell had pointed out that unlike most of the men Camille knew,
Dana had to earn his living. In fact, it elevated him in Camille’s eyes, but she knew he wouldn’t think so, any more than her own sister-in-law would.

“Are there no ways to prevent this?” Camille asked, trying to let him think she hadn’t understood the meaning of Nell’s thrust.

“Prevent crime?” Dana asked. “No. Maybe we can prevent the things that cause it and perhaps reduce the number of reasons for imprisoning people. But we can at least,” he said, looking at his cousin, “impress upon people the need for caution and wisdom and make them realize the folly of unlawful dealings.”

Nell stood with her head high.

Camille fidgeted.

“Well,” Dana said, pulling out his watch. “Time to go, I think, or your family will have
me
clapped in irons.”

When they returned to her brother’s house, it wasn’t Camille’s family they found pacing in front of the door but Eric.

“Where have you been?” he demanded the minute Dana stepped down from the carriage. “You were supposed to be here an hour ago!”