Author's Note: Reader discretion is advised. I had to bump the rating up to M for this chapter, and not because it's sexyfuntimes. If you are easily upset or offended by the implication of sexual abuse (something which is rife even in these 'enlightened' times), skip this chapter and come back for chapter 3 next week.
Forsaken
2. Jezebel
The unnatural heat lasted for the rest of the day. The actors on the stage were already wilting by the time Clara and Meg reached the Grey Mare. The two women, each armed with a cup of cool spiced wine from the bar of the tavern, took seats on one of the benches, squeezing themselves in beside the already-sweating patrons. Meg, who had a free hand, took out her fan and wafted first her own face, then Clara's. The other woman smiled gratefully at her, but the fan was largely a futile exercise; all it did was move warm air around, instead of generating a cool breeze.
Clara took a sip of her wine, her other hand still clutching the hessian sack tightly. When Meg noticed her friend's knuckles turning white, she leant to the side, to whisper in Clara's ear.
"We should have left that at the house."
"Not a chance I was going back there. If George had seen us, he probably would have conscripted us into working tonight."
One of the actors glared at the two women, and Meg promptly shut her mouth, swallowing the reply she had been about to make. It could wait until later, when there were no sweaty, angry actors to shoot daggers at her for interrupting the performance with misplaced whispers.
The fan in her hand snapped open once more, and she resumed trying to cool herself down.
The hour dragged. Meg soon finished her cool wine, and though she tried her best to pay attention to the play for Clara's sake, she found her mind wandering. She wasn't the only one struggling to concentrate, however; all around the inn-yard, peoples' eyes were going glassy and vacant as they suffered in silence beneath the heat of the sun. By the end of the play, even Clara was looking miserable, and the actors were positively dripping with sweat, their voices cracked and dry. But they endured, suffering on the stage, their professionalism ultimately paying off. They brought the play to its conclusion and finished with deep bows as the audience clapped and cheered and threw coins at them.
"Let's go, Clara," said Meg, as the crowd began to depart. The sun was beginning to set, the sky becoming a deeper blue as the celestial ball of heat stopped punishing the people of London so mercilessly and began its slow descent to the horizon. "Let's get home, and get out of these clothes."
"I'll 'elp you get out of those clothes if you loike, lovely," called one of the drunker members of the dispersing audience. He leered suggestively at her, his eyes travelling straight to the arch of her breasts.
The fan snapped open, and Meg lifted her chin haughtily as she blew slightly cooler air across her face. "You couldn't afford even a quarter-hour of our services. I suggest you trawl the docks for the street-walkers. They, I think, are more suited to your price range," she told him imperiously. Then she offered her arm to her friend. "Come, Clara."
Clara accepted her arm and together they marched out of the inn-yard and onto the main street. They dodged piles of horse dung and effluent thrown from the windows above, and set a steady pace away from the Grey Mare. Meg did not fear retaliation from the man she had insulted; he was far too drunk to pursue them, and likely wouldn't even remember this encounter come morning, but she liked to be home by nightfall. It helped to avoid any... misunderstandings.
She smiled to herself when Clara began humming a tune, one of the jigs that had been played by a piper at the fair. Her friend's humming often brought back fond memories, of another woman who had hummed her to sleep when she had been barely old enough to walk. It was one of the warmest memories she had, and it immediately evoked a feeling of safety and comfort. Her family had never been rich, but at least when mother had been alive, they had been happy.
From the corner of her eye she saw movement from the shadows of an alley, and she squinted into the darkness. A thin leg bared beneath a dirty skirt was pulled back out of the light, and dull eyes, ringed below with dark, tired crescents, watched her with unguarded envy. Meg felt a moment of sympathy for the pitiful creature; she had once been that woman, barely more than a girl, standing in the shadows, waiting for the next drunkard to come along, watching invidiously as the better-dressed women ambled past seemingly without a care in the world.
Old Meg had escaped that life. Now she did not stand dirty in the shadows. Now she had a roof over her head, a bed free of the lice which bit incessantly, a meal every morning and every night. But that didn't mean the shadows weren't still there. When she had left that life, she had stepped out of the shadows, but she had brought them with her, carrying them around inside her head, to be stepped into whenever she had to work. In the shadows she was safe, hidden, and her true self could never be seen. The men who craved her flesh, squeezing it and grasping it greedily with their fingers, could never touch the part of her that veiled itself in the shadows of her mind. All they ever got was an empty shell.
She turned her thoughts away from the street-walker, concentrating once more on the cobbled roads. London was the only life she had ever known, and as a woman of experience, she was well-acquainted with the duality in the nature of its streets. You either kept your eyes on the ground, watching where you stepped and never seeing the blade which struck towards you, or you walked with your head held high as you watched for the blade, and stepped in horse shit. The best way to survive London was to keep your chin up and your gaze down. It also helped to have a second pair of eyes with you, and Clara had been her second pair of eyes for nearly three years now. She was more sister than friend.
When they reached the tanner's shop, they let themselves in through the side gate which admitted them to the alley, and after a few strides of near-total darkness, they stepped out into the small courtyard. Scraps of leather littered the cobbles, and both women stepped over a rivulet of yellow-brown tannin, taking care not to let it stain their shoes. The whole place stank of it, bitter and acrid; most of George's girls hated the smell, but Meg actually liked it. On the days when the wind blew the smell of the Thames across the northern part of the city, the tannin was the only thing which prevented her from smelling the fish and being taken back to her painful childhood. Sometimes, as she stood inhaling the scent of the bitter natural dye, she felt that it was taking up residence inside her, all that sharp tanginess nurturing the gently simmering anger which permeated her body.
Clara took out a key from her drawstring purse and used it to open the back door of the building which shared the courtyard with the tanner's workshop. The four-bedroom building housed eight girls, and the front door had been bricked up to prevent unwanted visitors having easy access. George did not like visitors to the house. This was not a brothel, he said, and he was very protective of 'his girls.' He ran a good, clean business providing company for the lonely bachelors of London. His girls were too good for working the streets like common prostitutes, and he was too cheap to pay the wages of any guards that would be required to turn the building into a house of ill repute. As a result, he made a tidy profit, his girls were safe, clean and well-fed, and once every fortnight he gave them a share of their takings, so they could buy themselves 'nice things'. It was a small allowance, but it was better than what Meg had earned on the streets.
"Fair evening!" Clara called out, once the door was locked behind them. "Is anybody else home?"
There was a resounding silence, and Meg noticed that the candles and oil lamps had been extinguished. "It seems everybody else is still out celebrating May Day... or perhaps working."
"Yes, it appears we're alone. I'll go and get a splint, and light some of these lamps from the kitchen fire."
"No, I'll do it," Meg offered. "You go and take your new prize upstairs. Here, take my perfume bottles, too." She handed the small purse of glass vials to her friend.
"Thanks, Meg. I'll be down in a moment," Clara smiled.
Meg walked through the house and into the kitchen, not needing light to see by. This place was home, its hallways as familiar to her as her own body. Perhaps even more so. And when she reached the kitchen she found the fire banked, a pot of stew and dumplings suspended above it. After feeding the fire and using a wooden splint to light several oil-lamps, which she placed in their niches in the walls of the hallways, she returned to the kitchen and ladled some of the stew and dumplings into two bowls, then broke off two crusty pieces of bread from the round loaf in the cold oven. When Clara returned from the bedroom they sat down at the table to a warm, filling supper, enjoying the companionable silence between them.
Their hunger sated, they banked the fire once more, dimmed the oil lamps and climbed the stairs to the top floor, where their bedroom was located. From the third floor of the building they had a decent view of surrounding London, and Meg loved looking out across the vista of the city. Although she would never admit it to anyone, she often spent time imagining what life was like away from England's capital. She imagined much of it to be like the festival field, all green and open, untainted by the corrupt hands of men.
She placed the candlestick she had brought with her onto the small chest of drawers beside the single large bed, and used the flame to light several other candles in the room. Clara was already halfway to undressed, and Meg soon joined her, shedding the uncomfortably warm linen and cambric dress, stripping out of her petticoat and changing into the thin cotton shift which was being worn for the first time this year. It was clean, and smelt of the lavender flowers she had put in the chest of drawers to keep her clothes smelling fresh throughout the winter.
They helped each other to unpin their hair, their long locks finally falling free. Meg brought out a soft-bristled brush, and ran it through Clara's hair whilst Clara held up her new mirror, watching the brush pass through her long hair, smiling at her own reflection. With her hair un-knotted for bed, they swapped places, and Meg sat peacefully with her eyes closed as Clara worked the knots out of her tangled locks. This was something she had done for her sister, when they had been little girls. Anne had loved having her hair brushed before bed.
When their grooming was complete, Meg left the bed and went to the window, ready to close the curtains; not that they would keep much of the morning sun out. They were more for privacy than for darkness. When she reached the thick pane of glass, she looked out of it for a moment, the dark cityscape slightly distorted by the natural shape of the glass panel. Warped as it was through the translucent material, it had an almost dream-like quality to it.
"Our Father in Heaven, hallowed is thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is done in Heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who commit trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil, in thy kingdom, thy power and thy glory, from this day and forever, so shall it be."
Meg turned her head from her observation of the city and saw Clara kneeling at the side of the bed, her eyes closed and her hands clasped around the small silver necklace she wore on a long chain around her neck. It was Clara's nightly ritual, and Meg never questioned it. She, too, had been taught to pray to God, but she had not prayed in a very long time. Now, listening to the prayer, she felt the irritation rankling inside her. She didn't know whether it was because she was still annoyed by the heat, or the May Queen, or whether it reflected a change in her own understanding, but for the first time, she spoke out against the prayer.
"I don't know why you bother praying. We are the living embodiment of temptation. We incite men to commit adultery, we harbour greed and lust within their hearts."
"That doesn't mean God isn't listening," Clara replied, opening her eyes.
"We're whores. God does not care about women like us. To him we are unworthy, unclean sinners."
"Perhaps we're merely a means to an end."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, God often sends trials, by which to test people. Perhaps we are an instrument of his testing."
"Better to be an unworthy sinner than the tool of an uncaring God," Meg scowled. How could Clara be so nonchalant about it? Did she think her soul would be welcomed to Heaven, when she died? Heaven was not for whores. Heaven was for saints, and priests, and the people who went to church and sang His praises and gave alms.
She drew the curtains across the window and joined her friend, sitting beside her on the bed, the blessedly cool air stirring against her bare skin beneath her shift. "Clara," she said, "God has abandoned us. That is why we are here. Think about it. Your family's business, your parents' death in that terrible fire... you barely escaped with your life. Was that one of God's tests, too? Did he decide to test you by making a pauper of you, by making you penniless and starving? Did he want you to die, rather than turn to this life to survive?"
"My life has been touched by tragedy, it is true, but it's not all bad. I have my life... I have you, and the other girls. You are my family now." Clara's deep brown eyes shone brightly in the candle-light, and she reached out with one hand, resting it upon Meg's shoulder. "Why is it so hard for you to accept God's love, and his forgiveness?"
Meg felt her heart constrict inside her chest. Forgiveness? She did not deserve forgiveness. She had done terrible, terrible things. Terrible things which she would gladly do again, had she the opportunity. Prostitution wasn't even one of them, it was simply a job. Something that was an improvement on being homeless and starving. It was the life she had known since she was thirteen years old, a girl too tall for her age and with a painted face, a mask which hid her youth. The men who paid a mere sixpence for twenty minutes of gratification in some cheaply rented inn room, or more commonly, in the darkest recesses of whatever alley she happened to be working out of, never commented on the youthful tone of her body, at the curves which were still in the process of forming. They probably didn't even care.
And here was Clara, looking at her with such hopefulness and sympathy, wanting to know what had been so terrible that she couldn't accept the comfort and forgiveness of the Lord. Clara, who was far stronger than Meg, for Clara endured what they all endured, and did not let it tarnish her soul, destroy her hope or rip out her compassion. Inside Clara was a woman, who had dreams and expectations, who could imagine something more for herself, who did not carry the weight of death and loss inside her.
She blinked, ridding her eyes of the tears which had started to well. "You remind me so much of my sister," she said.
"I—I never knew you had a sister." There was hesitation in Clara's tone. She didn't want to pry. But at the same time... she did.
"Her name was Anne," Meg explained. "Every night she would pray to God. She would beg, and plead, and promise. And he never answered. Not once."
"What did she pray for?"
"She wanted to see mama again." The lie slid easily from her tongue. It was a lie of protection, as powerful as any charm, as any crucifix worn around a neck, as any holy water used to bless a babe. Just one more way of protecting herself from the truth she feared to face.
The memory slid into her mind as easily as the lie slid from her tongue.
Meg woke to the sound of weeping. Anne was crying again, her heart-aching sobs echoing through the small house. Meg left her bed, tiptoeing silently down the hall, her feet made cold by the bare wooden floorboards. When she passed her father's room she heard loud snores from within; he always snored loudly when he was drunk, and she knew he would not wake for many hours.
When she reached Anne's room she found the door slightly ajar. She peered inside. Her little sister was curled up in bed, her hair completely dishevelled, her tear-stained face puffy and distraught. Heaving sobs wracked her tiny body; four years younger than Meg, barely into her twelfth year, she was not old enough to know sadness and misery this great.
Meg saw her sister's lips move, noticed her hands clasping the silver chain bequeathed to her by their mother upon her death-bed. She knew that the small silver cross was held in the middle of those small, shaking hands, and she heard the litany which spilled softly from her sister's lips.
"Please, God, make it stop. I'll do anything you ask of me, whatever you want. I'll be a good girl. I'll work at the docks, like Meg used to. I'll give myself to the Church, I'll serve the priests, I'll give up all of my worldly possession. But please, make it stop."
Meg knew she should have gone in there, but she couldn't. What could she possibly say to her little sister? "It's okay, he does that to me, too"? But that didn't make it okay. That didn't make it right. It wouldn't lessen Anne's suffering. "I will protect you"? But she couldn't protect her sister from the one person who should have protected them. There was no lie she could tell to end her sister's misery, not even to end her own misery. So she chose to do nothing.
She went back to her own bedroom, closed the door, and tried not to listen to her sister weeping. It wasn't the first time she had done it. And it wasn't the last.
Back in the bedroom again, she looked at Clara's expectant face and realised she had missed part of the conversation. Swallowing, trying to choke down the lump wedged in her throat, she asked, "Sorry, what did you say?"
"I just asked what happened to your sister. That is, if it's not too painful for you to talk about."
Meg shook her head. It was too painful to talk about, too painful to think about, too painful to exist. But she had opened this door and invited Clara in; she couldn't slam it closed on the woman now. Clara was the closest thing to family she had left. She was like a sister... but this time, Meg was determined to do better by her sister. She would look after Clara, as she had not been able to look after Anne. It was not atonement, or redemption, but a small matter of easing her own grief and guilt. Some good, however minute, would come from her past mistakes.
"It was an accident," she said. It wasn't an accident, echoed her voice inside her head, reflected around every corner of her mind. "She was playing down by the docks with some friends." She had no friends. "It was winter, and the docks were icy." It was spring, and there was no ice in sight. "She slipped and fell in." She didn't slip. "Several fishermen saw her fall, but by the time they reached her and managed to pull her out, she was already gone." Nobody saw her jump. She drowned alone, her body rotting in the Thames. It was two days before anybody saw her, all purple and bloated, her eyes gone, gnawed on by hungry fish. Their revenge for you spilling their guts.
"Oh, Meg, I'm so sorry. I know your mother passed when you were young, but to lose your sister to such a cruel fate... did that happen before your father ran off and left you, or after?"
"Before," she said numbly. "I think that's why he left. Figured I was old enough to take care of myself and he was better off without. Not that he was much of a father. After mama died, he spent more time drinking and sleeping than he did working. He's probably drunk himself to death by now. And good riddance."
The anger had returned at the mention of her father, and she clung to it, feeding it, letting it grow inside her. The anger was good; when she was angry, she wasn't in pain. It replaced the hurt she felt inside, the small holes in her soul which represented each and every one of her failures, and allowed her to keep drawing breath. The anger alone was almost enough to sustain her life; food and drink mostly tasted the same, and there was no pleasure to be found anywhere, save for the moments she spent with Clara.
"Well, don't worry," Clara said, leaning forward and pulling her into a tight hug. "I'm here, and I've got enough faith for both of us. You won't have to be alone again."
Meg said nothing as tears silently slid down her cheeks. Wonderful, beautiful Clara, with her heart so full of forgiveness... she would not want to touch Meg, if she knew the truth. She would not want anything to do with her. Had she known the truth, she would have called for the hangman and the gallows. It was just one reason why Meg could never tell the truth. Why she could trust no-one. Why she had to carry the weight of her sins on her back alone.