‘Oh? Is that the case?’ The girls nod in agreement, and burble amongst themselves: ‘Fuss,’ they say; ‘Angry,’; ‘Don’t dare …’
Mrs Frost rubs her chin as if deep in thought. ‘So perhaps I see how it might have been. I know what men can be like, once they are thoroughly provoked. You asked the gentleman to protect himself, but he said, no, I don’t care for that, or, I’ll have none of the expense … Perhaps you did not dare ask him at all, you being a little nothing of a girl and he being a gentleman of some years and standing. Is that how it was? Do I come close?’
At this one of the very youngest girls lets out a small hiccough. All faces turn to her; her eyes are large with guilt.
‘Sarah? Is this what happened to you?’ Mrs Frost demands.
The child nods meekly. ‘He did it all of a sudden, madam,’ she says. ‘I did not have a moment to—’
‘You are the one who has imperilled this entire establishment?’
‘I—’
‘Listen to me! Each and every one of you!’ She claps her hands again, once, for emphasis. ‘If a gentleman wishes to go without, you say no. And I shall always support you in this matter, you may depend on that; if he will not comply, you need simply pull the bell, and the bullies will come, and that man will be removed. A visitor who cannot keep to our rules is no longer welcome, whoever he is. Do you all understand?’
They nod, and murmur.
‘Very well.’ She smiles. ‘We are all here to protect one another. You were brave and good to tell the truth,’ she says to young Sarah.
Those Cyprian comrades standing nearest to the afflicted girl gather about and touch her briefly here and there; Sarah herself smiles very faint. Mrs Frost catches the eye of the footmen who hover just on the staircase, and nods. ‘Take her to the attic.’
They surge forth and seize the girl by each arm, which action is unnecessary since she is very tiny and gives every impression of going quietly. She gasps, though, and stumbles between them as they frogmarch her out of the room.
‘That is five guineas docked from her, and a beating to add to my list of duties,’ says Mrs Frost. ‘She has put me to a deal of trouble.’ She turns back to the remaining girls. ‘Our Sarah is going to the attic for her good and ours,’ she says, ‘and there she will stay until she is recovered. And fortunate she is that she has not been immediately ejected. She spreads her filth about the place, and yet I shall pay for her physician and keep her fed and watered even as she does nothing to earn her keep. When I add up the money she has already lost me, it far surpasses anything I could dock from her. You are fortunate girls,’ she says. ‘You are by no means disposable; I have trained you and I mean to keep you. We are a family now. All right, back to your work. You have an hour until it is time to dress for the afternoon.’
She sweeps away, stopping to inspect the letters that have come for her. ‘An invitation,’ she observes. ‘I do not receive many of those.’
TWENTY-FOUR
And so to King’s Place, where Mrs Chappell, comfortably bailed for some months, is summoned to be sentenced on charges of running a house of ill repute. The pack of little dogs greets the constables’ arrival with clamorous excitement, but Mrs Chappell is less pleased.
‘Oh, for the love of Christ,’ she exclaims, caught as she is in her green-papered parlour, with a mound of kedgeree just placed before her, and having mere moments ago found the position in which her bandaged foot can be balanced on its stool with only a modicum of agony. ‘Is that today? I wish you had set a more convenient date; we are all but ready to quit the city. My girls need their sea air, same as anybody. And these –’ she gestures to the dogs who busy themselves about the visitors, sniffing and yepping and waving their tails high, their claws all a-clatter on the parquet – ‘are in sore need of a good run.’
‘I am sorry, Bet,’ says the constable, Mr Trevithick, who has had cause to visit her house for both business and pleasure going back some twenty years. ‘But what’s to be done? Today is the day.’
‘I do not know why I cannot send a proxy,’ she says. ‘You know how it will go. I have paid out more in bail than whatever trifle I shall be charged today. ’Tis easy money for you, that is all. Why do you not spend the time dealing with real criminals?’
‘When we receive a report, we must—’
‘I do not know when it was that your people began paying any attention to reports concerning me,’ she sighs, and reaches for Mrs Hancock’s handsome invitation. ‘Now, look, we have so many engagements – a party in two days’ time that I am loath to miss – d’ye remember this girl of mine, Mrs Neal as was? Now her life took a peculiar turn. I am most anxious to know how she has made out; if this nonsense of yours holds me up I shall be most vexed. A mermaid party, now what do you think that can be? Her husband has a mania for them; I wonder what sort of freakish beast they have acquired this time. It cannot be that mummified waif they touted about before, for I hear Prinny threw that on the fire.’
‘These reports—’ ventures Mr Trevithick.
‘It was stuffed with sawdust all along, you know,’ muses Mrs Chappell. ‘But then so is Mrs Fitzherbert’s head, and it has not put him off her.’
‘Madam, the things that are being said of you—’
‘Oh, you will never prove a thing,’ she says, reading the invitation again with a smile of pride. Mr Trevithick steps aside to draw her attention to the flagellation machine which sits in the corner awaiting its weekly polish. ‘That signifies nothing,’ she says.
‘And the numerous women and very likely several men we shall find running about upstairs in a state of undress.’
‘Hardly ever in the morning,’ she says. ‘You ought to have come after six on a Tuesday if you had wanted a compelling argument for moral correction.’
‘There ain’t a drawer in the house that hasn’t a cundum in’t,’ he says. Upstairs his men can be heard marching from room to room, punctuated by cries of irritation from the disturbed girls. ‘Now, Bet,’ he says half jestingly, ‘I warn you it may be serious this time.’
‘I do not believe you,’ she chuckles, turning back to her breakfast. ‘I have friends who will never allow that to happen.’
He shakes his head, and is very truly sorry. ‘You must have angered somebody.’
‘Angered? Never! They are all faithful visitors.’ She still chuckles, but her countenance assumes the colour and humidity of cold pease pottage. ‘But – we have always had an agreement.’
‘The wheel turns … That ugliness at Twelfth Night when the girl of yours ran away – and you would give no compensation.’
‘Well, why should I have? She was under their care when she went missing. If there were any justice in the world, ’twould have been them compensating me. She was one of my best,’ she says with some regret. ‘Could truly have been something – an exotic of her kind does not appear more than once in a blue moon. Not that she would have been taken up by anybody so very important – not that any aristocracy would pledge his troth to a lady of her complexion – but she was a valuable asset nonetheless, Mr Trevithick.’
‘Well, that’s as maybe, but it don’t do to get on the wrong side of people of that sort.’
Mrs Chappell is shaking her head in wonder. ‘I cannot credit it,’ she says. ‘Thirty years I have been at this address. We are a beloved institution.’ She turns in her chair, as best she can without disturbing her foot. ‘What is become of this city?’
‘Ah, it’s not what it was.’ He tuts and lights his pipe. ‘Have a bite to eat, Bet, you might as well.’
Aloft, a shriek, a crash and a bellow, followed by sounds of pursuit. Young Kitty is shortly borne into the room, swiping and squirming in a manner perfectly commensurate with her feline name, by a warden whose wig has been knocked off and who sports on his brow a bleeding gash. ‘She hit me!’ he cries. ‘Brought a clothes rail down on my head, so she did!’