33
N
ear the end of January 1904, a miracle happened. The king, Edward VII, Victoria’s fun- and lady-loving son, Bertie, the one everyone used to call “the Prince of Pleasure,” decided this wicked woman was indeed worthy of redemption.
My cell door swung open wide and I walked out a free woman, a lady again, with my head held high.
I was taken to a little room where a dusty cardboard box containing my belongings had been set out on a table, with a hand mirror facedown beside it, lying there just like a snake waiting to bite me, between a beautifully wrapped pink dress box tied with shimmering ribbon and a big pink-and-white-striped hatbox that Mama had sent me from Paris.
A bath—with
hot
water, the first hot bath I’d had in fifteen years!—and an entire cake of soap just for me, awaited me in an adjoining room. A tiny, strictly utilitarian bathroom, no frills and nothing fancy, but in that moment it seemed the most beautiful sight my eyes had ever seen. A toothbrush—another luxury that had long ago vanished from my life—was lying on the sink. Part of me wanted to sit and luxuriate in the hot soapy water and steam for hours, but now that I was free . . . I didn’t want to tempt fate. I was half-afraid that if I lingered a matron would come barging in and inform me that a mistake had been made and bundle me back to my cell again.
Sheer white silk stockings, pink satin slippers with French heels and big silvery buckles on the toes, drawers and chemise of the purest angel-soft white batiste trimmed with pink silk ribbons and lace, a corset, candy pink, the first that had embraced my waist in fifteen years, a shirtwaist of white eyelet trimmed at the collar and cuffs with pink ribbons, and, to fasten at the throat, a brooch, a big, round opal, with a whole flashing pastel rainbow captured in its milky depths, set into a bouquet of carved coral roses, a beautifully tailored suit made of candy-pink linen with a long, straight, narrow skirt—bustles were
long
gone!—and a jacket that flared out around my hips. I was dressed like a lady again, and for the first time in fifteen years I actually
felt
like a lady! And the hat! Oh, what a hat! An extravaganza of pink satin roses and ribbons covering what looked like an upside-down washtub woven out of golden straw, with a long hatpin topped by a green and white enameled ruby-throated hummingbird hovering above the roses. There was an exquisite white lace mobcap to wear beneath it, with a cascade of pretty lace to frame my face. Mama had thought of
everything.
She knew I would be embarrassed about showing myself to the world with my head shorn.
It was only then that I thought about my hair and opened that musty old cardboard box. It was still there, a shimmering gold horse’s tail tied at one end with twine. I sat down and, with my lips puckered in concentration, tried to braid and roll it into a bun I could wear until my own hair grew out, but I was too nervous, I just couldn’t manage it, the silky strands kept slipping through my fingers. With a defeated sigh, I stuffed it into the pink satin handbag Mama had sent. I would deal with it later.
It was only then, with the lace cap covering my cropped hair and that wonderful hat on top, that I had the courage to finally face the mirror. I almost wished I had remained a coward. I shrieked and dropped it. It shattered upon the slate floor, and staring up at me I saw my face reflected a dozen times, thin and marble white with hard, harsh lines chiseled deep about the eyes, nose, and mouth. My eyes were sunken and dark circled and the skin around my lips had with age achieved a faint permanent pucker, like the finest tiny pleats. My shorn hair, now shot with silver, had darkened to a deep muddy yellow, rendering that shimmering fall of radiant hair in my handbag utterly useless. If I wore it, no one would believe for a moment that it was my own. And my body—for a moment the new suit had made me forget—my curves had long since melted away, my bosom now hung pendulous and slack, and my body was practically a broom handle with arms and legs like toothpicks. And my hands . . . I quickly pulled on the white kid gloves to cover them. I had grown up believing you could always tell a lady by her hands. I now had the hands of a charwoman who spent her spare time picking cotton.
“I’m just not that girl anymore,” I whispered to my multitude of miniature reflections staring mournfully up at me from the gray slate floor. “Good-bye, Florie!”
That girl, that Florie, was gone; nothing but memories were left of her now. She’d slipped quietly away while I was in prison. I’d been expecting to see her, waiting excitedly to greet me, for this candy-pink suit and rose-festooned confection of a hat to make her come running. But no, it was not to be. She was lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry, Clementine. Now this grim-faced, skinny forty-two-year-old shadow that long gone golden girl had left behind her had no choice but to go forth bravely into the world and forge a new life for herself and find out who she was now that she couldn’t be
that
Florie anymore.
I reached back into the box and drew out my black mourning gown, old and stale, fifteen years out of fashion, and grown rusty with age. For a moment it looked so much like bloodstains upon the black fabric that I felt nausea rising. I shuddered and dropped it; it made my skin crawl. I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, willed myself to be strong, and reached in again. I quickly removed the key from its hidden seam and let the dress fall forever. I dropped the key, badly tarnished and no longer golden, just like me, into my new pink purse. “Burn the rest!” I said imperiously to the matron on my way out.
To my surprise, a sweet little Swiss nun was waiting for me. A Sister Patia, she had come all the way from the Convent of the Epiphany in Cornwall, where she was to take me now, it being their way of gently reintroducing those who had spent so many years in solitude behind bars back into the world.
“It grows busier and nosier every year, my dear. You will find it very much changed from the way you remember,” she said.
Mama had been notified and would meet me there and take me back to Paris with her after I’d had a few weeks to readjust and recover from the shock.
“
Shock?
What shock? I’m ready to go
now!
” I cried, chomping at the bit until a horn blared loudly, nearly startling me out of my skin, and I leapt back, clinging to Sister Patia, as a motorcar drew up outside the prison gates when I’d been expecting a horse-drawn cab to take us to Paddington Station.
Sister Patia just smiled and gave a knowing little nod. “This way, my child,” she said, gently ushering me into the back of the shiny black automobile.
The way that “taxi” zipped and darted through the traffic of the London streets, where only a few horse-drawn equipages stubbornly remained, I felt certain we would be killed at any moment. I clung to my hat with one hand and Sister Patia with the other while she just sat there smiling, sometimes giving me an encouraging pat or a reassuring word. “We’re going to die!” I kept crying out, though the chipper cockney driver just smiled back at me—how could he take his eyes off the street for even an instant?—and assured me, “ ’Aven’t lost one yet, missus; just you sit back an’ relax now!” I was so afraid of imminent death, of being impaled by the crush and grind of metal, I could hardly take in the sights outside my window. Every time a horn blared—and good Lord there were a great many of them!—I jumped. I was sorely afraid I would end by losing control of my bladder and ruining my pretty pink suit.
But apparently this was the way people got about nowadays and there really was no cause for alarm. Sure enough, we arrived at Paddington Station safe and sound. Sister Patia led me to a chair in the waiting room and, when she was sure I was sufficiently calm, left me for a few minutes and returned with a stack of magazines for me.
Casually flipping through them, I saw few faces I recognized and but a few tried-and-true products still going strong in this new century, like Cadburys; suddenly I wanted a taste of chocolate
so
badly I was salivating like a mad dog. The names of all the songs and dances and popular books and stage plays, actors and actresses, seemed bewilderingly new and I feared I had fallen too far behind to ever catch up. It was
too much
to take in, and I left the magazines sitting in my lap and just sat and watched the people pass by.
I already knew the fashions had changed, but the march of progress had trod over everything. Harsh electricity had replaced the romantic kindness of gaslight. Life seemed to move at a faster pace; people seemed to walk and talk faster, though perhaps it only seemed so because of the silence and isolation I had endured in prison. Sister Patia told me pictures even moved now. “The flickers” or “movies,” “motion pictures,” she explained were a popular form of entertainment and growing more so every year. People paid to go and sit in a theater and stare at these pictures in motion projected onto a big white screen. I wasn’t at all certain I would like such a thing—I was half-afraid it would make me dizzy and faint or hurt my eyes—but Sister Patia smiled and said she thought not, they only lasted a few minutes, hardly time to do such damage, and most people liked them, though, of course, they weren’t on a par with the legitimate stage and would never replace the music halls, but they were good fun all the same. “Though perhaps I am biased.” She smiled. “I confess, they are my guilty pleasure.”
When we stepped off the train in Cornwall, Mama was right there waiting for me, just as Sister Patia had promised. I was so happy to see Mama, without iron bars between us, I ran and hurled myself into her arms like a cannonball and nearly knocked her off her feet. All the way to the convent, we clung to each other and cried.
I ended up staying at the Convent of the Epiphany for six weeks, going out into the world a little each day, visiting shops, walking about town, and sitting in parks listening to band concerts or watching children play, learning to speak up and use my voice again. It was harder than I ever realized it would be not to shy away from people, to stand my ground and look them in the eye and speak to them just like I always did before my troubles began. It was a battle royal I fought with myself now not to hang my head and hurry away whenever the salesclerks approached and not to spend half an hour walking round in circles before getting up the nerve to go into a little café and order a pastry and a cup of coffee or tea. I felt like everybody was staring and whispering about me. There were times when it seemed like I was afraid of everyone and everything, including my own shadow.
Mama had miraculously saved my pearls—her pearls—the ones she had given me on my wedding day. She fastened them around my neck my first night in the convent, when I sat up in bed, in my new white nightgown, hugging my knees and glorying in being able to even temporarily call that starkly simple whitewashed room my own and to actually be able to brush my teeth, undress properly for bed, and have hot water and wash myself whenever I wished. She told me the pearls would help restore my confidence. “Nothing makes a lady feel more like a lady, darlin’, than pearls!” She also cut a lock from my hair and sent it on to London. She’d made inquiries and discovered that the best wig and hairpiece maker was a Frenchman named Armand, and she let it be known she expected to find a selection of fine falls and hairpieces that perfectly matched my hair waiting for us when we arrived.
I went out with Mama at first, clinging to her at every step like a toddling child terrified of falling, despite the pearls hanging like an anchor around my throat vainly trying to steady me. And then, at Sister Patia’s gentle insistence, after the first week, I ventured out on my own. Walking boldly into a drugstore and asking if they stocked the pink rose-scented cold cream I had always liked without turning and running away like a scared rabbit felt like one of the greatest triumphs of my life. The clerk was a very kind young man and apologetically informed me that brand was no longer being manufactured, but, if I would allow him he would be pleased to recommend a substitute many ladies found agreeable. “If you would be so kind . . .” I nodded and soon I left the shop smiling with the pretty pink tub of cold cream in my handbag. Back in my little white room in the convent, I spent
hours
sitting on the bed in my camisole and drawers slathering it on my parched and hungry skin, soaking it in, basking in its cool, silky pink sweetness. After fifteen years in prison, I doubted I would take
any
luxury, not even a little thing like cold cream, for granted ever again.
Strolling by the tempestuous gray sea, I had many long, private talks with Sister Patia. We talked about the children and Jim, Michael, and Edwin, and though it shamed me to say his name to a nun, knowing that she knew what we had done, we spoke of Alfred Brierley, and the anger and guilt she could sense, without my even saying it, that I was carrying like a cancer inside me.
“You cannot forget until you forgive.” She spoke these simple words so matter-of-factly I knew that she was right, but I couldn’t stand still and face it; all I wanted to do was run. I had been through
so much
. . . I just
couldn’t
let go! “And when I speak of forgiveness,” she continued, “I do not just mean others; I also mean yourself. God has forgiven you, my child, and given you the gift of a new beginning; if He has forgiven you, why should you not forgive yourself as well as those who have judged and trespassed against you? Until you are ready to do that, I am afraid you will never truly know peace.”
“I know, Sister, I know!” I sighed. “I just don’t know if I can do it . . . not yet! Have I not just cause for bitterness? And anger?” I demanded. “Look at all they took from me! They stole
fifteen years
of my life!
My freedom!
My children lost to me, their love turned to hate, my reputation. They
lied,
stood up in court, swore on the Bible, and
lied,
not even caring if I died for their lies!”