***AUTHOR'S NOTE*** – You know those stories that come to you in a flash and somehow travel from brain to fingertip to computer screen in just a few hours flat? This is one of those stories. I blame the fact that we're done with Ripper Street here in the US (and impatiently awaiting the second series, thank you very much!) and I was having withdrawal symptoms, but I can't stay mad at anything that gets me back into the writing groove again. Just remember, kids, I don't own the show, I don't own Rose and Bennett (because if I did, she wouldn't get kidnapped and nearly die every other week), and I don't own anything worth suing me over. (Trust me.) I borrowed the characters and I put them back neatly where I found them – so neatly, in fact, that I think even the sergeant himself would approve.
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You aren't surprised to discover that you have a lot of time to soul search when you're held captive. Indeed, when your hands and feet are bound to bedposts and you're imprisoned in a home in some part of London that you can't quite identify, it's rather amazing the amount of insight you can ascertain concerning the interworkings of your own mind.
And the longer you're held here, the more that sort of self-introspection becomes preferable to wondering what depravity will come next, for this is clearly not the last stop for you.
The most disappointing fact of all? This wasn't supposed to happen – not to you, anyway.
How many times have you heard other girls say that, Rose? How many times did other girls – girls from Miss Susan's and from other houses – meet a man who was supposed to help them change (and better) their circumstances, only to wind up beaten, cut up, drugged, or worse? They were lucky if after all that they managed to run, stumble, or crawl into a place like Mrs. Reid's, but few ever did. Fewer still – hardly any, in fact – ever had a man live up to his word and take her away.
And to think you were stupid enough to believe that you'd be one of the rare exceptions.
Now here you are, trussed up in a room that looks nothing like the prison it has become, able to hear nothing but the sounds of fearful and plaintive cries that match your own coming from the other side of the bedroom walls - sounds interrupted periodically by sounds of struggle, then by the charged silence that follows in the wake of something terrible.
You were a quick study in that respect anyway. You learned after your first attempt to free yourself through force and by calling out for help that there is no escape for you – for any of you. No, you discovered what the bells in the dining room really mean when you cried out and Barnaby, that behemoth brother of the man you once thought to be your savior, stepped inside and forced more hateful laudanum down your throat while you choked on the sickly sweetness of the lemonade that was meant to disguise it.
Drugged women do not struggle or call out. You've long known that as any woman in your former line of work knows (or comes to know all too well) after having seen some of your contemporaries felled by evil men who would treat them as nothing more than dolls to be drugged, beaten, and worse. In fact, you yourself were treated thus by one such man but a few months ago and you wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for the efforts of other men. They were good men, men who could be trusted – the sort of men who gave a woman like you hope in the first place.
It's the good men you pray will find you before it's too late.
Inside your dimly lit bedchamber, the protests of your fellow captives fall silent once more and Barnaby's plodding steps retreat back down the hallway, leaving you once more with only the weight of heavy silence to bear down upon you. It plagues you, that silence, because it allows you to conjure images of those good men – those saviors – in your mind and their faces beckon from an unreachable distance.
Be honest, girl – there's one good man in particular upon whose face you dwell. It's his face that flashes before you like a beacon of hope that you might yet escape the pastel walls of this unassuming prison.
But in truth, what impetus does Bennett Drake have to search for you now?
Perhaps duty? Mr. Reid, the police inspector who is both his boss and friend, is one for constantly speaking of things like duty and honor and "the right thing, no matter what the cost." That's why Bennett is so loyal to him, you know - Reid's adherence to the very principals that Bennett lived his life by as a soldier has earned his trust and admiration in his role as police sergeant and he'd follow Reid anywhere, no questions asked.
He would have followed you anywhere too, Rose. That is, he would have done so before you used him so ill.
Stupid girl! You saw the way that man looked at you - it's the image you hold onto in your mind even now and it's so stark before your eyes that you turn your face toward the window in the hope of finding respite from it. But he's still there, burned into your vision even as you watch the lace draperies so fixedly that they appear to move closer to you, threatening to engulf the entire room and swallow you whole.
But it's not really the draperies that press upon you, is it, girl?
It's the eyes of Bennett Drake - those deep, soulful eyes that have seen enough bad parts of the world to be weary of it all, the weariness showing in the lines on his face. Yet how the eyes lit up and the lines faded when you came near! They sparkled and shone with life and excitement in a way that let you know that this man saw all the way into the heart of you, that he looked past your outer trappings, your mistakes and your shame and saw you, Rose Erskine. Other men looked at you with lust and some even with malice, but Bennett Drake was one who put you on a pedestal for those qualities that his penetrating gaze could glean from inside you.
Was that the real reason you cast him aside? Was that why you told him - quite callously, really - that you could never be a bobby's wife? Was it because you lived in absolute and utter disbelief that someone so kind and gentle and wonderful could truly be happy with the likes of you? You're a fallen woman, Rose, there's no doubt about that - and, to be sure, your current predicament doesn't indicate that your star will rise higher - but Bennett Drake was willing to pick you up out of the gutter and mend you, smoothing over the cracks of your life until it appeared that you'd never been broken in the first place.
Yet instead of letting him fix you, you broke him instead.
All of the other girls at Miss Susan's thought you mad for letting him slip through your fingers - "fit for a lunatic asylum" was how one girl had put it and another made a disparaging remark about hatters. After all, compared to the other men who entered your lives, bought your time, and used the lot of you for their own ends, then cast you aside in time for the next man to come along and pick you up, Bennett Drake was practically an alien being. Even Captain Jackson - who made his home with Susan and you girls and always treated each one of you with gallantry and respect - wasn't immune to using his charms to get you and the others into bed when it suited him. And just because he was so charismatic about it didn't make him any different than the others in the end.
Bennett Drake defied the stereotype.
Moreover, the sergeant was fastidious about his person in a manner that only a former soldier could be. Not a hair was ever left uncombed, his mustache and beard were always trimmed neatly, and his clothes - though not expensive or fine - were always tidy, with holes properly mended and buttons always tightly affixed in their proper places. And on that day you hid from the Pinkertons in his rooms, you learned that the tidiness of his person carried over to his home as well – the place was Spartan and devoid of decorative frills, but everything within those walls was neat, workmanlike, and stored in its proper place.
You thought it boring at the time, if you recall. The silence of those clean, pale walls seemed to press upon you while you awaited his return with news of Susan and Captain Jackson and you had actually felt justified in your decision to spurn his advances after that. If the life of a bobby's wife were to be spent under such conditions and in such isolation, you were right to deny him his prize! Who was he to expect that you'd be content with a life that consisted of waiting around for him to return all the time?
Oh what you wouldn't give to be surrounded by those quiet and welcoming walls once more! Little did you know then that you had no idea what the pressure looming walls even began to feel like – and little did you know that it would be so much easier to wait for Bennett when you knew there was a better than fair chance that he would show up again.
Now you wait with nearly no hope at all.
Remember that day at the theatre, Rose? You went with Bennett and all you could see were the costumes and the performers, the lights and the beaming faces of the rapt audience as they soaked up the story. But think back on it again, replay those moments in your mind. Do you see it? Do you see the sergeant's expression? It's lit from within; it's excited and entranced.
But Bennett's focus isn't trained on the stage, Rose - he's watching you.
Oh, Rose! To think that there was actually someone in this horrid world who looked at you the way that man did! To think that there was someone who saw past the bad parts and recognized the good ones - and yet still you threw him over for the faintest of hopes that one day you might be able to have hundreds or even thousands of people look at you the way he did.
He was right to tell you that he deserved to be treated better by you. He was right to ask you to leave his home – and ostensibly, his life – after that day with the Pinkertons. He was justified in his request and you hadn't had the wisdom to resent it at the time. Now, however, you would give anything to have that moment back and apologize for everything you'd ever said and done to hurt him.
It's funny how we find the truest parts of ourselves when we suspect that no one will ever see us alive again. It gives tremendous perspective, Rose.
Well, the part about no one else ever seeing you alive isn't entirely true. Victor Trumper and his clod of a brother and their harsh minx of a sister will no doubt see you at least once more before they send you to your doom - whatever that will turn out to be. And to think that you'd thought Victor to be different! To think that for even the barest of seconds yesterday afternoon in the park, you'd even dared to compare him to Bennett Drake. How repugnant of you!
And yet this is not a time to be dishonest with yourself, girl. You did compare Victor to Bennett in that split second. You actually had the audacity to believe that he was a better - richer! - version of the sergeant. You thought, He must be the one I've been looking for all this time! He's kind and gentle – just like Bennett - but he also wants the finer things in life like I do.
You even perceived Victor's gaze upon you to be as adoring as that of Bennett Drake – oh, the nerve of you, girl! You assumed Victor had placed you on that very same pedestal - a thought that was dashed quite quickly during your desperate struggle to escape. It was only then that you realized that not only had Victor lied to you, but worse yet, that you'd been lying to yourself all along.
Where Bennett Drake saw you, Rose, Victor Trumper only saw a commodity to be bought and sold like one of his cattle. He was no different from the never-ending line of men who came to Susan's - and, in fact, you know knew that he was worse.
It looks like this is the end of the line, old girl. You reached up on your tiptoes to get what you could from the very top shelf and you reached much too high – so high, in fact, that you couldn't hold your balance and fell. You fell hard and it's likely that you've shattered far too many pieces to be put together again.
If only you'd seen that what you really needed was waiting for you at eye level.
It's almost funny – or at least it would be funny if you didn't fear that you'd become delusional after so long in captivity. You've spent so much time in the last few hours (or maybe it's been days now, you can't be certain) thinking about Bennett Drake - your onetime savior and perhaps more importantly your onetime friend - a man whom you'd be lucky to get the time of day from anymore - that you could swear you just heard his voice shouting in the downstairs hallway. Perhaps the drugged lemonade features some hallucinogenic side effects that are only now beginning to reveal themselves.
But wait! There it is again! It is Bennett's voice – his and the voices of half the police force, by the sound of it. Their heavy footfalls now ring on the stairs and in the hallway.
"Rose!" His shout is more welcome to you than the appreciative applause of an adoring audience could ever be and if you live to be eighty years old, you're certain you'll never hear anything so wonderful again.
"In 'ere!" you manage to cry, your hoarse tones ragged in your own ears. It was a weak call – the result of too much screaming to free yourself earlier - did he even hear you? And if he did, would he still come or would he send one of the other officers to your aid?
You wouldn't blame him if he sent someone else in his place – but that doesn't stop your heart from fluttering with hopeful anticipation.
He's through the door in an instant, eyes wide and frightened, breath coming out in uneven gasps - and in your eyes, he's never appeared more handsome and perfect than he is in that moment. Right now, he is everything you need and could ever possibly want in the world - he is strong, he is safe, and he is solid.
It takes but half a minute for him to free you from your restraints, but it takes less than that short amount of time for relief to flood you and sobs to wrack your body, your lungs heaving and the tears coursing as he pulls you into an embrace. He's there, your hope is fulfilled, and you're so disbelieving that you try to take him into all of your senses at once. It's the essence of Bennett Drake - that familiar scent of acrid London air balanced by the softness of shaving cream and a clean shirt, the strength of his arms as they encircle you, and the gentle rumble of his voice as he soothes you in quiet tones – that serves as the balm that brushes away your fear, your embarrassment, and your pain. Nothing else is a curative for you and you only now begin to realize that probably nothing else ever will. You were a fool, Rose - a woman drowning in her own failure of character – and yet somehow you have managed to latch onto a sturdy rock that can save you from the depths.
You do not deserve him, but he has come to your rescue anyway – and not for the first time. If ever you were going to begin to believe in the goodness of God, today would be that day.
Words fail you and yet the sergeant doesn't appear to mind. When your sobs subside to gentle hiccups and the tears slow to a trickle, he pulls back far enough so that his eagle eyes can sweep across your face, assessing your condition in a split second and finding visible relief in the discovery that you are - at least physically - unharmed.
Your heart, however, is much altered - especially when you seize the opportunity to search Bennett's eyes for some kind of answer - for forgiveness really (if you're still being honest with yourself) - and see that, for his part, Bennett Drake's heart has remained steadfast. His eyes still see right into the depths of you and he retains a place for you on that pedestal that you have repeatedly jumped from. There is no malice and no grudge in his features; you only find the care and concern of someone who loves you for who you are.
Whatever kind of man he is, you'll find none better if you search the world over, girl. You'll really have to be admitted to the asylum if you let him go this time.
"Do you think you can stand?" he asks, for all appearances ignorant of your thoughts – though it wouldn't surprise you if it turned out he could read them.
You manage a feeble nod and he rises, his hands remaining on your shoulders to help steady you as you climb to your shaky feet. His eyes never leave your face and when you look up to meet them, the tears overwhelm you again and he pulls you to his chest once more.
"There, there," he intones, his left hand rubbing gentle circles onto your back the way one does with a frightened child. "I've got you."
In the hallway, the other officers are gently assisting the other captives on their way downstairs so they can begin the recovery process that you have already started right here and right now. But by some seemingly unspoken agreement, none of the others enters your room to see if the sergeant requires assistance. No, this moment of rescue, these shared few seconds of comfort, belong to you and Bennett alone.
Later, in your bedroom at Mrs. Reid's, you begin writing a letter to Bennett to explain all of these things to him, to apologize for your earlier behavior, and to tell him that you still don't deserve him and probably never will, but that you certainly want to try to be a woman worthy of his esteem.
A few paragraphs in, however, you cease writing and shove the unfinished letter into a drawer. Bennett Drake isn't a man of words; he's a man of actions. He won't want sentences to explain your feelings to him, he'll want you to show him. He told you that he deserved better and he was right – so now you'll have to be better, Rose. It's going to take courage, that's for certain – more courage than anything in your life has required up until this point – but the reward might just be everything you ever really wanted.
Yes, Rose – now that you're free, think about that.
FIN