By a Lady Read online

  “I should think it would be ransom enough for you to be running your hands along a lady’s legs,” C.J. retorted.

  The turnkey’s expression quickly conceded defeat. Clapham led his shackled prisoner up the clammy winding staircases and remanded her into the custody of Constable Mawl, who escorted her down a wide corridor thronged with curious onlookers and rumormongers who halted their conversations midbreath to comment upon the unfortunate malfeasant being led toward the courtroom.

  “The young lady looks like quality to me,” an older woman whispered to no one in particular.

  “Hardly,” a female voice sneered. “Why, just look at her shawl. Coquelicot went out of fashion three seasons ago,” she tittered, and received a handful of corroborative nods and murmurs.

  At the end of the hallway, two scarlet-uniformed officers of His Majesty’s army standing sentry at either door swung them open with military precision as C.J. and Mawl approached.

  “Oyez, oyez,” C.J. heard. She was thrust forward by the enormous constable into the Banqueting Room itself, transformed into a temporary courtroom for the assizes. As she shuffled along, C.J. noticed an impeccably dressed dark-haired gentleman and wondered what had compelled him to attend the proceedings. A bewigged, black-robed bailiff stood at the far end of the high-ceilinged room, his booming voice resounding off the plaster walls and high ceilings as he announced, “All rise for the magistrate.”

  There was a noisy scuffing of feet and shuffling of chairs and benches as two hundred or so souls of all stamps of society rose expectantly, including the spectators in the small upstairs gallery who responded with jeering enthusiasm at the entrance of the defendant.

  With a flourish, another redcoat opened the door at the far end of the pistachio-colored room and the magistrate entered, clearly pleased with the pomp accorded him. Reaching up to adjust his flowing white periwig, he mounted the platform to the judge’s bench.

  For the briefest moment, as C.J. marveled at his ermine-trimmed crimson robe, she forgot that her life was in this man’s hands. They were plump hands, almost like a baby’s, and looked unaccustomed to any manner of manual labor. Okay, she thought, I can wake up now. I got the reality check and I’m sure it will better enable me to play someone from this era. But when nothing changed, C.J.’s fear of being placed on trial in this strange and terrifying world returned with a vengeance, and she fought to keep her wits about her.

  “Court is now in session,” the bailiff thundered. “His Worship, Magistrate William Thomas Baldwin presiding.” The gavel landed with a crack as sharp as a gunshot and the day’s proceedings—civil as well as criminal suits—commenced apace.

  Alongside the bailiff sat a young clerk who squinted over a pair of bifocals. The magistrate asked the clerk to read the name of the first case. The young man read aloud the name of one Hiram Goodwin, charged with beating his wife, Susan. Mrs. Goodwin cowered in a corner of the courtroom while her husband’s hired serjeant-at-law was able to convince the court that although his client had indeed assaulted his spouse, he had done so with an open hand and had never taken a stick to her that was thicker than the width of his thumb, and while not strictly codified, enough judicial precedent had been set to support the legality of Mr. Goodwin’s actions.

  A sobbing Susan Goodwin stood as the magistrate issued his verdict, dismissing the case based upon the rule of thumb—the determination that the weapon used to discipline the plaintiff did not exceed the dimensions commonly accepted as lawful.

  The derisive chorus of catcalls that issued from the mouths of the distaff spectators in the small balcony drowned out the resounding cheers of their masculine counterparts. C.J. was appalled by the verdict.

  “Call the next case, Master Masters!”

  The young clerk read C.J.’s name from the official docket. She shuffled forward and approached the bar. “I am she, Your Worship,” C.J. replied.

  “Of what is this young woman accused?”

  Constable Mawl stepped forward, having eagerly awaited his moment in the sun. “Your Worship,” he began with great authority, “on the morning of April the sixth—the day after Easter Sunday, I might add, the holiest day of the year to us God-fearing Christians—”

  “Come to the point, Mawl!” came the command from the bench.

  “The suspect was seen by several witnesses to take an item of fruit, to wit, a ripe red apple from a pile of the selfsame fruit which sat innocently atop the apple cart of the equally innocent fruit seller, one Adam Dombie by name. The guilty—I mean the allegedly guilty—party was immediately apprehended by yours truly, to wit, myself—a former Robin Redbreast of some renown, I may add—and taken posthaste to the prison, where she was placed in the custody of the jailer, one Jack Clapham by appellation.”

  “Your Worship, might I be permitted counsel?” C.J. piped up. The entire courtroom erupted in spontaneous titters. She tried to appear as unemotional and composed as possible under the circumstances, but every fiber of her being comprehended the gravity of her predicament. If someone did not speak for her, not a doubt lingered in her mind that she’d be a dead woman for stealing an apple.

  C.J. continued her plea, striving to keep the desperation out of her voice. “Is not every defendant, no matter how low or mean, no matter how poor, entitled to representation from qualified counsel? A serjeant-at-law? A barrister?”

  Magistrate Baldwin was highly entertained by the request. In fact, the young woman’s naïveté was providing the most entertainment he’d had in all his thirty years on the bench.

  “I was hungry, Your Worship. I had just arrived in Bath the day before I was apprehended, and found myself with not so much as a farthing to my name.”

  The magistrate banged his gavel on the table, the sound reverberating throughout the room. “Silence!”

  C.J. looked utterly bewildered. “Your Worship?” she said meekly.

  “I said ‘silence,’ ” repeated the judge. “The prisoner is not permitted to speak for herself.”

  “But if it is not the custom to afford me counsel, then who shall take my part if I am not allowed to appear pro se?”

  Her proper use of the legal term for self-representation was the charm, taking the officers of the court completely by surprise. “Where in Beelzebub’s bollocks did you come from?” asked the stunned judge.

  C.J. took a moment to gather her wits. “Very far from here, Your Worship. And to tell the truth, I cannot say exactly how I arrived . . . I mean, I know not. It is not an attempt at impertinence, sir, I assure you.”

  “I did not expect you to be familiar with all of the post roads, young lady. However, ignorance of the law is no defense.” C.J. prayed that he would pursue his line of questioning no further. “You are a most remarkable young person,” the magistrate continued, wringing his fleshy hands as if the act would better enable him to arrive at a verdict. “And I would ask Constable Mawl why he wasted the assizes’ time with such a trifling matter. Theft of a single apple is precisely the sort of transgression that a country constable himself is charged with hearing. He is perfectly within the scope of his duties to determine the merits of the case and to mete out punishment where appropriate. I am excessively disappointed in your judgment, Mawl.”

  The policeman look duly chastened. “Yes, Your Worship.”

  “Yet a theft, no matter how minor, is still a criminal offense. If the defendant is an indigent, then she must seek gainful employment or be remanded to a workhouse. Your communicative faculties have astonished this court. Perhaps you can find a suitable position as a governess or lady’s companion. What skills do you possess, Miss Welles?”

  Somehow, C.J. had the presence of mind not to say that she could act, which she knew in this era would be considered another blot on her already damaged character. She racked her brain to think of appropriate pursuits for a young lady of the time, activities that she might actually be able to accomplish if called upon to do so.

  A matron clad in an outmoded ensemble of blac
k taffeta rose to her feet with the aid of a silver-handled ebony walking stick. Her reedy voice pierced the air. “Lady Eloisa Wickham, Your Honor.”

  “The court is well acquainted with you, Lady Wickham.”

  “I find myself in need of a lady’s companion to read to me and to handle my correspondence. My eyes are not what they once were. If it please the court, I will accept responsibility for the young woman and offer her a position in my establishment in Laura Place.”

  “Miss Welles, do you admit to the crime of stealing an apple?”

  There had been witnesses to her actions. “I do, Your Worship, and I plead my hunger and my penury as the cause, for I have never before taken anything at all—ever—in my entire life.” It was the truth.

  “Do you repent your criminal action?”

  “I do indeed repent that it was necessary to resort to criminal activity in order to feed myself. I am heartily sorry to have deprived Adam Dombie of his hard-won wares, and hope to have the means in future to repay him tenfold.”

  “Right, then. So be it. The defendant is released into the custody of Lady Eloisa Wickham, where she is guaranteed gainful employment as a lady’s companion.” The gavel descended with a bang. “Case dismissed.”

  Constable Mawl unlocked the shackles incarcerating C.J.’s ankles. She was free to go. Lady Wickham, hobbled by a club foot, led the way out of the Banqueting Room, motioning for a trembling C.J. to follow her. Under ordinary circumstances, it would have been an easy stroll from the Guildhall to Laura Place, but Lady Wickham’s infirmity precluded walking there. When they reached the street, C.J. was astonished to learn that the noblewoman didn’t possess her own carriage. Instead, her ladyship begrudged a young boy a farthing to fetch a hackney for the short distance to Laura Place.

  Lady Wickham’s town house was surprisingly spartan for so fashionable an address. As C.J. passed through a narrow hallway papered in a rather depressing shade of ocher, a pockmarked young man in plain brown livery elbowed a mousy housemaid. “Lookee, Mary, we’ve got a new one,” he snickered.

  Chapter Four

  Concerning life among the servant class, where our heroine finds a most unlikely friend and ally.

  YOU WILL RECEIVE eight pounds a year and an allowance for sugar and tea,” Lady Wickham explained as she gave C.J. a tour of the town house. “You will not receive the customary allowance for beer. I do not believe women should consume spirits.” Everything was in good taste—though a bit on the ascetic side—and the house was spotless, but C.J. was unprepared for the shabby appearance of Lady Wickham’s furnishings.

  “Under ordinary circumstances, Miss Welles, the annual wages for a lady’s companion fall within the range of twelve to fifteen pounds per annum—depending upon qualifications and references, of course—as well as an allowance. However, all of my servants consider themselves highly fortunate to have employment at all, given their unsavory histories and the manner in which they came to my attention. I expect that you’ll agree that eight pounds is vastly preferable to a penal colony in Queensland.”

  With great difficulty, Lady Wickham mounted the stairs, her club foot landing with an embarrassing thump as she negotiated each riser. She showed C.J. to her room at the very top of the building, just under the eaves. The sloping roof took up a good third of the cramped, dark quarters and the hearth was considerably smaller than those in the rooms below. Still in all, compared to the prison, it was paradise.

  In the airless chamber, C.J.’s nostrils were assailed with an unpleasant aroma, and she realized with tremendous mortification that it was her own person that smelled so vile. Sleeping on the street—followed by the overnight incarceration in the cellar of the Guildhall—had compounded the fact that she had been unable to bathe since her arrival. Anyone with whom she had recently been in contact either must have smelled almost as bad or else was exceedingly polite or particularly felicitous of temperament, for she seemed to leave the stink of a cesspool in her wake.

  “Wait here, Miss Welles,” Lady Wickham commanded. “Mary will be up momentarily with a hip bath and a bucket of water so that you may wash yourself. I shall see about procuring you some appropriate attire.” She departed the garret and clumped back down the narrow staircase.

  C.J. was afraid to sit on the only bed in the room, a narrow cast iron affair with a thin and lumpy mattress, not to avoid discomfort, but to refrain from infecting it with her stench. There was nothing else in the room but a wooden chest of drawers, moderate in size; a shabby folding dressing screen about five and a half feet high; and a metal trunk at the foot of the bed. Curious, she pried open the trunk, which contained two or three coarse woolen blankets. No personal effects were anywhere to be seen. The walls were bare.

  She debated whether or not to remove her dress then and there. When she laid aside her shawl and reached to scratch an itch in the middle of her back, she was suddenly reminded that there was a very twenty-first-century fourteen-inch zipper stitched into the back of the garment. She removed all of her clothes, leaving them in a heap shielded by the screen from the rest of the room, then lifted one of the coarse green blankets out of the trunk, enveloping herself as though it were a Turkish towel.

  There was a terrible clatter outside the chamber, and the mousy maid with the dull expression in her eyes appeared in the doorway carrying a large oaken bucket. “God in heaven, you gave me a fright!” she exclaimed, water sloshing onto the floor. “I thought you was an apparition. Bein’ wrapped up like that and all.” Her jaw slack with wonder and fear, the girl was actually trembling, although her twitching may have owed more to the weight she had somehow managed to transport up four narrow flights of stairs.

  C.J. suddenly realized that women of the era bathed in their shifts, and quickly sought a way of disclaiming her social gaffe. “I admit that my appearance is a bit . . . unconventional . . . but my dress and linen gave off such an objectionable odor that I could not stand wearing them a moment longer than absolutely necessary.” C.J. wondered if the little maid was cognizant of how she came to be in Lady Wickham’s employ. She did not wish to divulge any intelligence the maidservant might not otherwise possess. “My name is Cassandra,” she said, extending her hand to the maid.

  “Mary. Mary Sykes,” the girl replied, realizing that she could not reciprocate the courtesy.

  “Good God, Mary, put that bucket down! It must weigh a ton!”

  The maid obeyed immediately, then bent and unbent her forearms to relax her aching muscles. The girl’s palms were red from rope burn. Then, red-faced, she excused herself with a series of mortified curtsies and went back downstairs to fetch the hip bath. Minutes later, Mary dragged the hip bath into the center of the room and emptied the bucket into it, apologizing for being such a ninny not to have brought the tub before the water, then produced a ball of soap from a pocket in her muslin apron and handed it to C.J., who brought it to her face, inhaling deeply of the delicate lavender fragrance.

  C.J. shed the blanket and stepped into the shallow hip bath, settling into it. With her bent legs pulled close to her chest and the water just reaching her hip, she felt like a fairy nestling into a nutshell. Now, in the process of experiencing such a contraption, C.J. understood why the enameled metal tub was called a hip bath. This gave rise to another thought: with the number of obese and gouty people she had seen in just forty-eight hours, however did they manage to squeeze themselves into a basin better suited to hand laundry?

  The liquid was only lukewarm by now, but it was crystal clear. She would have preferred a washcloth, but was given none. Nevertheless, it was a joy to be able to get clean, yet another opportunity she’d always taken for granted until now. She almost laughed to think how incommoded she had felt on the few occasions when her landlord needed to shut down the boiler in her apartment building.

  “I live here too,” Mary finally ventured shyly.

  “Do you?” C.J. asked, having once learned that a maid of all work such as Mary usually didn’t live on the premises
but instead dwelled with her family in a poor and unsavory section of the city. “Which room is yours?”

  “This one,” answered the maid, her open countenance displaying no sign of jest or merriment.

  “But Lady Wickham told me this was to be my room.”

  “’Tis your room, Miss Welles. But ’tis mine too. I don’t mind. I’m happy to have the company. I was very lonely after Fanny left.”

  “Oh,” C.J. said, making polite conversation. “What happened to Fanny, then?”

  “I can’t say. That is, I don’t know, miss. She got herself in the family way and Lady Wickham tried to beat the devil from the blackness of her ruined soul and then she turned her out.”

  C.J. was aghast. “With nowhere to go? Pregnant?”

  Mary’s hand flew in front of her mouth to cover her shocked expression. “Oh, you mustn’t use that word. That’s a vulgar word, that is. Lady Wickham expects her servants to behave genteel.”

  The word pregnant was considered uncivilized? They had decades to go before the eminent Victorians would take it upon themselves to sanitize the English language. Good thing C.J. hadn’t blurted out the phrase knocked up. Perhaps she should try enceinte from now on, although she doubted that Mary Sykes possessed a keen grasp of French.

  “She lays great store by gentility, and yet she turns a preg—, a young woman about to be a mother into the street. I suppose Fanny was unwed as well.”

  “Of course she was, Miss Welles. That’s why she was turned out. Lady Wickham said she was a disgrace. I’ll never forget how hard Fanny cried when it happened.” Mary turned away and C.J. noticed a reddish mark upon the girl’s left cheek. She was about to make an inquiry, but something made her change her mind.