Of Night and Dark Obscurity

“Married? I’m too young to be married. And besides, who would I marry?”

“You’re almost 18. That’s time enough.”

“I don’t fancy anyone in particular,” she said oddly.

“What about the footman you were just eyeing?”

Irene smiled. “He’s very fetching.”

“Indeed. But not marriage to you.”

“No. Even I wouldn’t shock London society by marrying a footman.”

Caroline shook her head. “Silly girl.”

“What about you? You should be married too. At 24, you’ll be an old maid soon enough. Like your friend, Prudie,” Irene pointed out.

“You know that doesn’t interest me.”

“What interests you?” Her sister asked.

Caroline sat next to her on the window seat overlooking the busy street. “You know very well.”

“Oh do I. How can you even stand to go to that dirty district?”

Caroline sighed. She knew her sister didn’t understand. How could she? She was cosseted and cared for like a princess in a tower, meanwhile the world swirled with ugly things and the innocent people that she cared for had no one to fight for them.

“I go to that dirty district to help the innocent women and children. They are downtrodden and have no one to help them.” Caroline explained for the twentieth time.

Irene sniffed. “But why you, Caro? Why not someone paid to do it?”

Caroline touched her sister’s hair and smiled. “Because it’s the right thing to do. Because I want to do it. And it gives me joy to help others.”

With that, she left her sister to admire the menfolk along the street and walked down the hall to her own room.

???

She closed the door to her room

and breathed in the scent of jasmine. The purchase of perfume was one of the few extravagances she allowed herself and she was always grateful for its delicate fragrance.

Her room was quietly decorated with a large bed in the middle, a small end table next to it and a desk and chair that overlooked the small garden in their Mayfair townhouse.

Her father Hubert Derry had done very well for himself as a physician. He was a respected doctor and lectured often at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and taught medicine at Guy’s Hospital in London. He had a handful of patients that refused to seek treatment elsewhere and so he attended them.

Caroline sat before her desk and looked about her at the scattered papers. She knew her sister didn’t understand the work that was so important to her, and her grandmother wavered between shock and disdain, but Malvina never stopped her.

Her father was often out seeing his patients, lecturing or at his club, and so he left the rearing of his daughters to his mother. As Caroline became more invested in her social services, she expanded her reading, her knowledge of the world around, and began to decipher a way to make a difference.

She picked up her worn copy of London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew and placed her hand over the cover. It was an important documentation of the squalor of London and the slums people were forced to exist in.

It was a disgrace, she thought. It was an absolute disgrace. She looked at the clock above the fireplace on the mantel and saw the time was mid-afternoon. She wanted to rest for a half hour before supper and the sewing circle. She knew the ladies would all be in attendance and she wanted to be prepared for them.

Caroline lay back upon the mattress and closed her eyes. The thoughts collided inside her head. Sanitation, health, clean water, nutritious food were all important, but housing was the utmost. Without safe, clean structures to live in; without mold and rats; nothing else mattered. That was the key. She knew it. She felt herself drift off. She must find a way to move forward. Housing was the key she thought and she slipped into a quiet slumber.

???

Malvina looked over the menu for the evening supper and sighed. A clear gravy soup, fried sole, veal with spinach and pudding with raspberry cream. Malvina sniffed and laid the piece of paper aside.