The Women of Nell Gwynne's (4 page)

"I believe I shall," said she.

And she did, to the great relief of the other streetwalkers.

FOUR:

In wich she Settles In and learns Useful Things

L
ADY BEATRICE DISCOVERED that Mrs. Corvey had spoken perfect truth. The house near Birdcage Walk was indeed pleasant, commodious, and adjacent to St. James's Park. Her private room was full of the best air and light to be had in London. It had moreover ample shelves for her books, a capacious wardrobe, and a clean and comfortable bed.

She found her sister residents agreeable as well.

Mrs. Otley was, near Birdcage Walk, a rather studious young lady with fossils she had collected at Lyme Regis and a framed engraving of a scene in Pompeii in her room. At Nell Gwynne's, however, she generally dressed like a jockey, and had moreover a cabinet full of equestrian paraphernalia with which to pander to the tastes of gentlemen who enjoyed being struck with a riding crop while being forced to wear a bit between their teeth.

Miss Rendlesham, though quiet, bespectacled and an enthusiastic gardener, was likewise in the Discipline line, both general and (as needed) specialized. As a rule she dressed in a manner suggesting a schoolmistress, and was an expert at producing the sort of harsh interrogatory tones that made a member of Parliament regress to the age of the schoolroom, where he had been a very naughty boy indeed.

Herbertina Lovelock, on the other hand, was a very good boy, with the appearance of a cupid-faced lad fresh from a public school whereat a number of outre vices were practiced. She wore male attire exclusively, cropped hair pomaded sleek. She also smoked cigars, read the sporting papers with her feet on the fender, and occasionally went to the races. At Nell Gwynne's she had a wardrobe full of military uniforms both Army and Navy, all with very tight trousers with padding sewn into the knees.

The Misses Devere were three sisters, Jane, Dora and Maude, blonde, brunette and auburn-haired respectively. Their work at Nell Gwynne's consisted of unspecialized harlotry and also, when required, group engagements in which they worked as a team.

They alone were forthcoming to Lady Beatrice on the subject of their pasts: it seemed their Papa had been a gentleman, but ruined himself in the customary manner by drinking, gambling and speculating in a joint stock company. Depending on whether one heard the story from Jane, Dora or Maude, their Papa had then either blown his brains out, run away to the Continent with a mistress, or become an opium-smoker in a den in Limehouse and fallen to depths of degradation too appalling to describe. Jane played the pianoforte, Dora played the concertina, and Maude sang. They were equally versatile in other matters.

All ladies resident at the house near Birdcage Walk proved good-natured upon further acquaintance. Lady Beatrice found it pleasant to sit in the common parlour after dinner on Sundays (for Nell Gwynne's did no business on the Sabbath) and attend to her mending while Herbertina read aloud to them all, or the Misses Devere performed a medley of popular songs, as Miss Rendlesham arranged a vase of flowers from the garden. It was agreed that Lady Beatrice ought not alter her scarlet costume in any respect, since it had such a galvanic effect on customers, but Mrs. Corvey and Herbertina went with her to the shops and the dressmaker's to have a few ensembles made up, in rather more respectable colors, for day wear. Mrs. Otley presented her with a small figure of the goddess Athena from her collection of antiquities, for, as she said, "You are so very like her, my dear, with those remarkable eyes!"

All in all, Lady Beatrice thought her new situation most agreeable.

M
AJOR, SIR, you wouldn't cane me, would you?" squeaked Herbertina. "Not for such a minor infraction?"

"I'll do worse than cane you, you young devil," leered the Major, or rather the Member of Parliament wearing a major's uniform. He grabbed Herbertina by the arm and dragged her protesting to a plush-upholstered settee. "Drop those breeches and bend over!"

"Oh, Major, sir, must I?"

"That's an order! By God, sir, I'll teach you what obedience means!"

"Look through this eyepiece and adjust the lens until the image comes into focus," said Mrs. Corvey in a low voice, from the adjacent darkened room. Lady Beatrice peered into the camera and beheld the slightly blurry Major gleefully dropping his own breeches.

"How does one adjust it?" Lady Beatrice inquired.

"This ring turns," explained Mrs. Corvey, pointing. Lady Beatrice turned it and immediately the Major came into focus, very much
in flagrante delicto,
with Herbertina looking rather bored as she cried out in boyish horror.

"Now squeeze the bulb," said Mrs. Corvey. Lady Beatrice did so. The gas-jets flared in the room for a moment, but the Major was far too busy to be distracted by the sudden intense brightness, or the faint
click
.

"Have we produced a daguerreotype?" inquired Lady Beatrice, rather intrigued, for she had just been reading about them in a scientific periodical to which Miss Rendlesham subscribed.

"Oh, no, dear; this is a much more advanced process. Something the Society gave us." Mrs. Corvey slid out the plate and slipped in another. "It produces an image that can be printed on paper. That shot was simply for our files. We'll have to wait until he's a bit quieter for an image we can really use. Herbertina will give you the signal."

Lady Beatrice watched carefully as the Major rode to his frenzy and at last collapsed over Herbertina. They ended up reclining on the settee, somewhat scantily clad.

"Now," said the Major, wheezing somewhat, "Tell me how enormous I was, and how overpowered you were."

"Oh, Major sir, how could you do such a thing to a young man? I've never felt so helpless," said Herbertina tearfully, making a sign behind her back. Lady Beatrice saw it and squeezed the bulb again. Once more the lamps flared. The Major squinted irritably but paid no further heed, for Herbertina quite held his attention over the next five minutes with her imaginative account of how terrified and submissive the young soldier felt, and how gargantuan were the Major's personal dimensions.

Sadly, neither Mrs. Corvey nor Lady Beatrice heard her inspired improvisations, for they had both retreated to a small room, lit with red de la Rue's lamps and fitted up like a chemist's laboratory. There they had fastened cloth masks over their mouths and noses and were busily developing the plates.

"Oh, these are very good," said Mrs. Corvey approvingly. "Upon my soul, dear, you have a talent for photography."

"Are they to be used for blackmail?"

"Beg pardon? Oh, no; which is to say, only if it should become necessary. And if it should, this one—" she held up the second photograph, with the Major lying on the settee— "can be copied over onto a daguerreotype, and presented as an inducement to cooperate. For the present, the pictures will go into his file. We keep a file, you see, on each of the customers. So useful, when business is brisk, to have a record of each gentleman's likes and dislikes."

"I expect it is indeed. When does it become necessary to blackmail, if I may ask?"

"Why, when the Society requires it. I must say, it isn't necessary often. They're quite persuasive on their own account, and seldom have to resort to such extreme measures. Still, one never knows." Mrs. Corvey hung the prints up to dry. She turned the lever that switched off the de la Rue's lamp and they left the room, carefully shutting the door behind them. The two women walked out into the hidden corridor that ran between the private chambers. From the rooms to either side of the corridor could be heard roars of passion, or pleading cries, and now and again the rhythmic swish and crack of a birch rod over ardent confessions of wickedness.

"Are all of the customers men of rank?" Lady Beatrice inquired, raising her voice slightly to be heard over a baritone bawling
Yes, yes, I did steal the pies!

"Yes, as a rule; though now and again we treat members of the Society. The fellows whose business it is to go out and manage the Society's affairs, mostly; the rank and file, if you like. They want their pleasures as much as the next man, and most of them have to work a good deal harder to earn them, so we oblige. That is rather a different matter, however, from servicing statesmen and the like.

"In fact, there's rather a charming custom—at least I find it so—of treating the new fellows, before they're first sent on the Society's business. Give them a bit of joy before they go out traveling, poor things, because now and again they do fall in the line of duty. So sad."

"Is it dangerous work?"

"It can be." Mrs. Corvey gave a vague wave of her hand.

They entered the private chamber that served as Mrs. Corvey's office, stepping through the sliding panel and closing it just as Violet, the maid-of-all-work, entered from the reception area beyond.

"If you please, Mrs. Corvey, Mr. Felmouth's just stepped out of the Ascending Room this minute to pay a call. He's got his case with him."

"He'll want his tea, then. How nice! I was hoping we'd be allotted a few new toys." Mrs. Corvey lifted a device from her desk, a sort of speaking-tube of brass and black wax, and after a moment spoke into it: "Tea, please, with a tray of savories. The reception room. Thank you."

She set the device down. Lady Beatrice regarded it with quiet wonder. "And that would be another invention from the Society?"

"Only made by them; it was one of our own ladies invented it. Miss Gleason. Since retired to a nice little cottage in Scotland on the bonus, I am pleased to say. Sends us a dozen grouse every Christmas. Now, come with me, dear, and I'll introduce you to Mr. Felmouth. Such an obliging man!"