Imprudent Lady (8 page)

Dammler looked expectantly at Miss Mallow. “I have been waiting weeks to hear you deliver a verdict on her."

“Unlike your friend, I am speechless,” she replied.

“I would like to quote that
bon mot,
but I shan't. Old Sally wields a big stick. Will you go to Almack's?"

“Perhaps.” After her night of glory, a voucher to Almack's, which would have been a cherished object a few months ago, was not important. Although a dull club, it was the pinnacle of Society. Entrance was severely restricted, and to be offered a voucher was a greater honour than Miss Mallow realized.

As they rode home, Dammler said, “Now that I have given Shilla her head, the play is going nicely. I am learning to be industrious from you. I'll stay home and work on it tomorrow."

This was understood, at least by the lady, to mean she would not see him. She commented that she too planned to work.

“How did you enjoy the ball?” he asked as he handed her down from the carriage.

“I enjoyed it very much."

“Aren't you glad I made you put off your cap?"

“Very glad.” She yawned and blinked her eyes. Three o'clock was an unnatural hour for them to be still open.

“You're not used to such late hours, eh, Miss Prudence? Take care or your uncle will have to be exerting his skill to paint the circles out from under your eyes next time."

“Concealing a flaw is his major skill. He threatens to do me again without my cap. Good night, Lord Dammler. Thank you."

“The pleasure was mine, Miss Mallow."

He turned and ran down the stairs two at a time and waved from the carriage. It had been a nearly perfect night, yet there was some little sense of disappointment left with Prudence as he rode away. What had she expected, she asked herself. He had behaved with perfect propriety. Yes, that was it. He would not have done so had he thought of her as more than a friend. Just so would he wave to a male he had been in company with. “What foolish notions are you getting in your head, Miss Prudence?” she asked herself. Remember your name.

Clarence's niece rose to a new height in her uncle's favour when it was revealed she had stood up for a quadrille with the Duke of Clarence. She was urged to have a fire in her study if she liked. She hoped he would remember his generosity when autumn rolled around. There was really no need of it in May. She needed all of his good will to jolly him into accepting a new series of activities Dammler undertook on her behalf. They had wasted enough time driving around the countryside, Dammler decreed. It was time they discovered the city itself. It was no childish trip to see the horses at Astley's Circus or Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum he had in mind, but the very depths and dregs of it. They went one day for a drive through the worst slums of the east side, and on another to the middle-class suburbs of such places as Hans Town. Dammler, she noticed, made notes as if he were doing some serious research. Prudence naturally enquired what purpose he had in mind, thinking it was some literary endeavour.

“It's time I was taking my seat in the House,” he explained. “I left the country when I was still quite young, and don't know it as I ought. There's no point listening to some long-winded politician read a list of statistics. You have to see it for yourself.” Prudence could not but wonder why
she
was included in his trips, but having no desire to be excluded, she remained silent. He did mention occasionally that a knowledge of these things would be helpful in her writing. She knew a view of the facade of a row of slums was not sufficient to enable her to write about the destitute, nor had she any desire to broaden her field of writing into sociology; but it was always pleasant to be with Dammler, and so she agreed with him.

He had always some new place to take her. Places she had known to exist only by name, and had never thought to see in person. They went one day with baskets of fruit to Bedlam to see the inmates. Prudence was shocked and horrified to see the conditions under which the insane lived.

“I can't believe people live like that,” she said when they left.

“Just as well they're insane. If they weren't when they entered, they soon would be. And virtually nothing is done to cure them."

“Well—but I don't suppose they could be
cured."

“They don't
all
have damaged brains. Haven't you known people who go off on a crazy spell for a time, but come back to sense later? I have. If it's someone from our class, he is tended privately and as often as not recovers. If it happens to a poor person, he's tossed into Bedlam and left forever."

“Can nothing be done about it?"

“Not by you or me alone. Politics is the answer. A problem of that magnitude can only be handled by society collectively—politics, in other words. Newgate is worse, but I shan't take you
there."

“Do
you
plan to go?"

“Yes, I go once in a while."

“Why do you subject yourself to that?"

“I have been around the world. Now I want to see how other Englishmen live. We writers have to see these things."

“Yes.” She had lived in London for four years, she estimated, and had seen nothing but her uncle's friends and a few shopkeepers. She felt herself richer for this spreading of her horizons, even if she never wrote about it.

“I'm going to see the Jane Shores tomorrow,” he said that same day. “Would you like to come? It won't be pleasant either, but it is something a lady writer might be interested in."

“Where are the Jane Shores?” she asked, imagining them to be some part of the docks.

“In a Magdalen House. I am talking about the Jane Shores who are in the process of being reformed. Did you think I intended to take you to meet Harriet Wilson?” Prudence only smiled, not knowing Harriet Wilson was the city's leading courtesan.

“There's one beyond Goodman's Field. I've arranged a visit to see how it's set up. Don't wear one of Fannie's bonnets; it would look out of place. Wear that old round bonnet you saved."

Prudence felt a home for fallen women was more to her interest than Bedlam and agreed with enthusiasm to go to see them. This particular house, Dammler told her, catered especially to young unwed mothers. “Try not to show your shock if every second one is
enceinte,"
he warned her.

It was a fine looking building outside, red brick, solid and respectable, but inside it was austere. The young girls were about to go to a church service when Dammler and Prudence arrived and they too went to the chapel. Row upon row of girls came in, wearing greyish-brown stuff gowns, broad bibs, and flat straw hats with blue ribbons tied under the chin. Prudence was struck by their youth—most of them could not be more than fifteen or sixteen—and their innocent faces. She had expected to see bold, hardened women, but these girls walked with heads bent, eyes down, and their hands folded. They looked more like novitiate nuns than prostitutes.

The sermon was an embarrassment to listen to—upbraiding these children for their “sins of the flesh,” as though they were experienced harlots. Prudence longed to stand up and tell the minister to stop. Glancing at her escort, she saw Dammler's hands clenched into fists, and his lips clamped in a rigid line. Their tour of the house was much more complete than yesterday's visit to Bedlam. They saw the dormitories where the girls slept, their narrow white cots lined up like loaves of bread at a baker's. They saw the girls at work, cleaning the building, cooking, sewing, scrubbing, and also saw them sit down to eat at an uncovered table, each with a bowl and a spoon, and a half a glass of blue milk. Dammler even asked for a bowl of the stew they ate. He took one bite and had difficulty in swallowing it.

After the tour they went to the manager's office for tea, which was served on fine china from a silver pot, at noticeable odds with the girls’ meal. Dammler asked a number of questions, a great many having to do with money. Prudence was surprised at his practical streak. She had assumed his interest, like hers, would be in the girls’ personal histories.

“How many girls do you accommodate here?” he asked.

“A hundred at a time,” Dr. Mulroney answered. He was the minister who had given the sermon, also the chief executive of the place.

“And how long do they stay on the average?"

“About six months, depending, of course, on how advanced their condition is when they come in."

“You mean how soon they give birth to the child?” Dammler clarified.

Mulroney looked at Prudence as though to intimate such matters were not for a lady's ears. Dammler ignored this.

“Yes, just so. We used to have about two hundred girls a year through here—less when
I
came. Only one hundred and fifty prior to my taking over. I raised it to two hundred, and am aiming for two hundred and twenty-five this year."

“Are you on a commission?” Dammler asked. Prudence wasn't sure whether he was serious, or if it was a setdown.

“Certainly not! I do not undertake work of this sort for any monetary consideration,” Mulroney answered, offended.

“What is done to prepare them to leave? If they come out of here without having learned any useful skill, they'll end up back on the streets."

“You have been at the church service, milord. They attend service three times a day, and extra Bible readings on Sunday, and for punishment if they misbehave. We hope to raise their morals to awaken them to the dangers of immortal hell if they persist in their abandoned behaviour."

“You'd do better to raise their ability to make an honest living."

“Each girl is given a Bible upon leaving."

“Yes, she can hawk that, but what does she do the next night, when the shilling is gone?"

Dr. Mulroney lifted his eyebrows at this. Prudence felt Dammler was going a little far, but knew there was no hope of curbing him. “They are not released without having a place to go. They are usually placed in a home as a domestic servant."

“Are the homes carefully selected?"

“Selected—what do you mean? I don't understand the import of your question, my lord."

“It must have occurred to you gentlemen of a sort will come
here
looking for domestics."

“They are well-to-do families we place the girls with."

“Money is beside the point; the girls will see little or nothing of it. What of the
morals?"

“You can't expect me to ask a gentleman such a question!” Again Mulroney looked at Prudence with an uncomfortable expression.

“No, asking them would certainly be pointless. Character references could be obtained though."

“What—ask character references for the hiring of a servant who is costing the city twenty-five pounds a year to keep? Upon my word, I never heard of such a thing. We are lucky to be rid of these—girls—to whomever will take them off our hands."

“Surely you don't consider yourself an employment agency! Your job is to restore these girls to a decent life. Their success depends on where you place them."

“Oh, as to that, if they are put in too strict a home, they only run off in a month. The fact is, milord, they are no good, nine-tenths of them, or they wouldn't be here."

“They are desperate, ten-tenths of them, or they wouldn't stay in this hell hole,” Dammler said and arose abruptly. “Come along, Miss Mallow, I've seen what I wanted to see."

Mulroney accompanied them to the door, trying to pour oil on the ruffled waters, with a very poor success.

Dammler was highly incensed with the visit, and to get him started talking, Prudence asked him what he thought of Mulroney.

“The man is a jackass, and totally unfit for the position he fills. To be speaking of those poor unfortunate little girls—God, did you notice how
young
they are—as though they were hardened street-walkers. You need a man with compassion and understanding for such a post as that. Someone who is concerned for their welfare, who cares about them, and not a dammed accountant. Hastening them through faster and cheaper is all he thinks of, so it will look well on his record. He's pushing to become a bishop, no doubt. Teaching them nothing, and shoving them into any house that will take them. I heard a gentleman—a rake, a pervert of the worst sort—say the other day he was going there to pick up a new maid and he said it with a very meaningful leer, which is why I asked that particular question about selection. Picture one of those pathetic little girls being placed into the hands of a man like—well, never mind his name, but I shall see he doesn't get one."

“How can you do that?"

“By getting rid of Mulroney."

"You
can't get rid of him, Dammler. You are only a visitor."

“Of course I can. Lucas is in charge of it. I'll speak to him. He's a good man, but so busy he doesn't know what's going on. Let Mulroney go back to preaching his fire and brimstone sermons. He is good enough at that. However, I learned what I wanted to know."

“What, about Mulroney? Is that why you went, to see what he's like?"

“Mulroney? No, I had no idea he was in charge. I know now what charity I am interested in. The insane are pitiful, and half the prisoners in the jails are no more guilty than you and I, but I know I'm lazy and insensitive, and if I'm not deeply interested in a project, I won't follow it through."

“No, you're not lazy or insensitive."

“Yes I am. But I'm interested in those girls—no comments, please. Aren't they enough to tear your heart out? Babies, and already producing more babies. I didn't think to ask what is done with the new babies. That's the proper time to catch them, before they go, or more probably are led, astray."

“I thought you'd burst during the sermon. I nearly did myself."

“Show—all show. That, I fancy, was put on to impress us. As though ringing a peal over them could help. You'd think they'd purposely set out to ruin themselves. More likely ruined by some son of...” He stopped suddenly. “I'm getting carried away. But it makes my blood boil. Such a criminal waste of human life and potential. We think ourselves advanced here in England. I didn't see much worse than what I saw today in the most backward countries of the East. Yes, this is a project I can become enthusiastic about."