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And when night darkens the streets,
then wander forth the sons of Belial,
flown with insolence and wine.
–Milton, Paradise Lost
Now that Jamie was safely away, Annis saw no reason to linger at Mrs. Barlow’s place, passing out spirits to degenerate revelers. As she made her way down the backstairs to the kitchen, she resolved to slip away at the first opportunity and take her chances on the streets.
The kitchen of Mrs. Barlow’s establishment was hot and frantically abustle. A small balding man of ferrety mien—Barney, apparently—was shouting orders in all directions, unloading trays full of crockery, and darting to the hearth to turn a huge joint of roasting beef.
In no hurry to begin her servitude, Annis lingered in the doorway until Barney took notice of her.
“Well, don’t just stand there gawping like a bloody idiot!” he bawled at her. “Pass these ale tankards to the gents upstairs. And fetch the empty wine bottles back with you.”
Resigned, Annis picked up the tray of tankards and climbed the stairs into Mrs. Barlow’s main salon.
The room was decorated overpoweringly in red, with gilt and crystal appurtenances and enough overstuffed cushions to outfit a Turkish seraglio. Every aspect of the decor—from the lewd statuettes on the card tables, to the thick, yielding carpets, to the life-sized painting of naked nymphs bathing before an amazingly endowed Pan—everything was calculated to produce an effect of opulence and sensuality in the male mind.
Groups of men stood about, talking of the racecourse, the boxing ring, the cockpit, and the rat pit. A haze of tobacco smoke hung over the assemblage, for here was one place where the gentlemen were not banished to the terrace when they wanted to indulge in their noxious weed.
Underlying the tobacco smell were other aromas, easily identifiable to Annis’s trained nose. Candles gave off essences of cinnamon, cloves, and orris root, all well-known attraction essences. The cold collation laid out on the dining table was liberally seasoned with spices known for their aphrodisiacal properties. Mrs. Barlow knew her trade to a turn, it seemed.
Fluttering among the male patrons were Mrs. Barlow’s soiled doves, lavishly painted and indecently unclad. Of their breasts, they made much. Bandeaux stiffened with papier-mâché cantilevered these very important appendages into amazing prominence. Tinted nipples showed through filmy chemisettes. The girls cast out lures at all comers and laughed with frenetic vivacity as if their conversational companions were the wittiest men in the world.
Marveling inwardly at where her resolve to mix in had got her, Annis clasped her tray to her modestly proportioned, untinted bosom and began to purvey Mrs. Barlow’s ale.
It wasn’t long before the mistress of the house came down to join her patrons, her appearance heralded by shouts of “The Queen! The Red Queen comes!”
Into the red, red room, clad in all her red glamour swept Belle Barlow. In her hand, she held a leash at the end of which capered a painted-faced dwarf costumed as a medieval jester.
Released from his tether, Caperkin the dwarf engaged in a farrago of mischief. He swung himself from a dandy’s long-tailed coat. He danced around a bevy of giggling Cyprians, whipping up their skirts. He climbed onto an armchair’s side table, lifted the periwig from the head of the drunken, elderly gentleman who sat in the chair snoring, and planted a kiss on his bald pate. The guests roared.
“Music!” commanded Belle Barlow with a snap of her red-nailed fingers, and a sprightly air was struck on the pianoforte.
The dwarf was boosted onto the supper table, and with many a wink of his painted eyelid and many a leer of his rouged mouth, he launched into a song not likely to be heard in the music rooms of Polite Society. And despite Annis’s country upbringing, close to earthy matters of conception and birth, there was something about the sly smirkery of the song that made her face grow furiously hot as she passed among the laughing men.
A pleasant young maid on an instrument played
that knew neither note nor prick;
She had a good will to live by her skill
‘Tis but a wanton trick.
A youth in that art well set up in parts
They called him Derbyshire Dick
Came to her as a suitor and would be her tutor
‘Tis but a wanton trick.
The string of his viol she put to the trial
till she had the full length of the stick
Her white-bellied lute she set to his flute,
‘Tis but a wanton trick...
And so on and so forth, until the pleasant young maid was “from October to June, quiet out of tune.”
Some man wrote that, I’ll wager, Annis thought sourly.
A livelier tune was struck, and the dwarf performed a jig among the remains of the cold collation. The gentlemen patrons stamped, whistled, and threw coins. The dwarf scampered to retrieve them, thrusting them in the front of his trowsers. Once he had gathered up the largesse of the crowd, he climbed into the lap of a seated Cyprian, and with a broad smile of lecherous enjoyment began to nuzzle her uncovered bosom in an awful parody of a babe nursing at its mother’s breast.
The men roared with drunken laughter. Annis turned her head away, wondering how the human heart could grow so dark as to find such things mirthful.
Mrs. Barlow began to make the rounds among her guests, greeting the gentlemen and peddling her girls.
Passing nearby, Annis heard a girl commended as “Fresh from the country and just sixteen,” even though the painted, simpering Cyprian looked more like a badly used twenty-nine. Annis watched appalled as Mistress Sweet Sixteen slid her bodice to her waist to preen voluptuously for a circle of well-dressed men.
Her Sight prickled, and a choking panic rose in her throat. I must get out of this place. Something truly dreadful will befall me if I don’t. Then she felt Belle Barlow’s sloe eyes upon her and she became very industrious in gathering up the empty wine bottles.
On her way to the kitchen, she glanced down the side hall and saw the promise of freedom—a door thrown open to admit the night air. She set down her tray and dashed for it. But no sooner had she gotten outside than a meaty hand reached out of the darkness and shoved her against the side of the building. Two burly men stood between her and freedom.
“Where d’ye think you’re making off to?” one of them growled. “Don’t you know no girls are allowed outside tonight?”
Annis regarded the two men with horror and no little chagrin. She ought to have known the doors would be guarded.
“Are you deaf or dumb or wot?” The other doorman demanded.
“I...needed fresh air,” she stammered. “I felt faint.”
This same speech, if uttered in the drawing room, would have had the gentlemen scrambling to fetch her a chair, a vinaigrette, a glass of sherry. For in the drawing room, women ruled. But not here in this terrible place where women were bought and sold like cattle, like piglets.
Needless to say, Belle’s doormen were not sympathetic to her plight.
“Where d’ye think you’re at? One o’ them sea-bathing spas. Take the air on your own time, slut.”
The other doorman seized her in a punishing grip and propelled her back into Mrs. Barlow’s red-bedizened den of depravity.
Crushed and despairing, she bore her tray slowly to the kitchen. There was no way out of this place, and it was hours and hours yet until dawn. Her one, her only consolation was that Jamie was safely away.
****
But Jamie was not safely away.
He was lingering in front of Mrs. Barlow’s place, wondering how in the name of heaven he had let Annis cozen him into leaving her behind. He could hardly believe he had agreed to this whole mad scheme. Fear of losing Clare must have addled his wits. But now that his mind was clearing, he must think of how to get Annis out of this infernal place.
The crowd in front of the brothel was not improving in either temper or sobriety. He watched men fight each other with fists and broken bottles, and of course, there was no sign of the Watch.
It seemed prudent to retreat to the mouth of a nearby alley until he could decide what to do. It was then that he noticed two men approaching him from either side. Alarmed, he made to step away, but they strong-armed him deeper into the alley—a blind alleyway ending in a brick wall. There was no other exit, no escape.
He twisted free, fists cocked to fight. The two men backed off, seemingly content to keep him boxed in for the moment. Then he saw a third man coming into the alley, and he knew he was outnumbered and certain to be overwhelmed.
****
Annis had lost count of the number of trays she had fetched and carried. It was no easy thing to carry a tray full of sloshing ale tankards through a crowded room, especially when many of the men present seemed bent on fondling various protruding parts of her anatomy. Her head throbbed and her arms ached from the unaccustomed labor.
So when Barney thrust a jug of wine and a ladle at her and told her to swash the joint, she was grateful for the new task. Not only was she badly in need of a rest, but the crowd upstairs had doubled in size, and she had seen several men who looked on the edge of being familiar.
Engrossed in her new task and her worries about being recognized, she failed to notice a figure standing behind her. When she turned, the figure cowered, shielding a fair, tousled head beneath one thin arm as if expecting a rain of blows. It was the young girl who had greeted them at the door, the one who had been so taken with Jamie. Her eyes were wet with tears and a fiery red handprint could be seen on one pale cheek.
“Oh, miss,” quavered the girl, “I am sent by Mrs. Barlow to beg your pardon for making eyes at your gentleman swell. And I am to tell you”—she went on in the manner of a schoolgirl reciting a lesson, but such a lesson—“that any girl wot’s got a gent who uses ‘er regular, Mrs. Barlow makes the other girls keep ‘ands off. Only I didn’t mean nothing by it, miss. I was only looking at ‘im.”
Annis felt instant pity and instant guilt. Her complaint about the girl’s admiration for Jamie had obviously brought down Belle Barlow’s wrath on her poor little head.
“It’s of no consequence,” she said with a friendly smile. “I shouldn’t have spoken as I did, only I was up in the boughs about another matter. Women stare at Jamie all the time because he is so handsome.”
“Ain’t ‘e though,” breathed the girl. “And ‘e looks like a proper right ‘un that wouldn’t knock a girl around for no reason.”
“No, he wouldn’t do that,” Annis agreed. She pulled her handkerchief from under her scarlet sash and offered it to the child. “Here, dry your eyes and think no more about it.”
The girl stared at the lace-edged cambric as if hardly daring to touch it.
“Would you like to have it?” Annis asked. “Take it then, to make up for what you’ve suffered on account of my temper.”
After a furtive glance around, the girl snatched the handkerchief and stuffed it into her bodice. “Thank you, miss. It’s the nicest thing anybody ever gave me.”
“What’s your name?” Annis asked, giving the roast another swash.
“Meg Yardley, miss.”
“Does your family live nearby?”
“Ain’t got none. My mam’s dead and my brother too. ‘E was `prenticed to a sweep and got stuck in a chimney and smothered in the soot.”
“Oh,” said Annis feebly. “And what of your father?”
Meg shrugged. “Ain’t seen ‘im since ‘e sold me to Mrs. Barlow.”
He sold you to Mrs. Barlow! Annis was about to echo these words in horror, but then she closed her mouth firmly. What was the point? Meg Yardley’s matter-of-fact tones indicated that she knew this for the way of the world and expected no pity.
“Do you greet Mrs. Barlow’s guests every night?” she asked instead.
“Oh no, miss, only tonight on account of some important gents coming to look over the girls for a special affair. Topping Road is where I go regular. I wait on carriages there. Like as not, I’ll be back there tomorrow night,” she added philosophically.
There was a pause during which Annis wielded her ladle against the hapless roast with some violence, even though she knew that anger against the way of the world was largely futile.
“Miss?” The girl touched her arm timidly. “That swell you came in with,” she said in a wistful voice, “I’d like to have a right ‘un like that. ‘Ow’d you snag ‘im, miss?”
Annis smiled. “Luck, mostly. I’m sure you’ll have that kind of luck one day too.” But even as she said it, she felt a great hypocrite. It was obvious that Meg Yardley had had no luck at all in her young life and probably never would. Unless, of course, someone were to mix in—
“ ‘Ere now,” came a rough voice behind them. “What’s all this dallying about?”
Both of them turned quickly to behold one of Mrs. Barlow’s hulking door wardens. Meg paled and flinched away. Annis was certain that she did the same.
“Back to work, you,” the man ordered Meg, giving her a push. “You, girl—Dolly, is it? Mrs. Barlow sent me to fetch you. Thar’s a bloke asking for you.”
Annis froze in horror. The ladle slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor. Muttering impatiently, the man grabbed her arm in a bruising grip and propelled her up the stairs into a dark hallway.
Annis stumbled along in a waking nightmare, frantic schemes whirling through her head. Should she faint? Or undergo a sudden conversion to evangelical Methodism? Or casually announce that she had the French pox? In this dire moment, she seemed unable to fasten on any satisfactory plan to rescue herself.
And all the while, she was dragged closer and closer to where Mrs. Barlow’s shimmering red form stood waiting at the end of a long dark hall.
No condemned prisoner ever walked the last mile with more numbing dread than possessed Annis as she stumbled along in the grip of her ruffian captor.
And no prisoner’s heart ever lifted up more joyfully with hope of reprieve than did Annis’s when the man next to Belle Barlow stepped out of the shadows and she saw that it was Nick Ryder.