Christmas Charity (Fair Cyprians of London 5)

“Did anyone ever see her daughter?” Agnes asked, her mouth full and her eyes still bleary from lack of sleep. Many girls who’d not normally make the effort to be up before noon had made an exception when they’d heard there was a table laden with good, hot food other than the usual sparse fare.

Everyone shook their heads.

“I suppose Madame doesn’t want her tainted. She thinks she can set her up as better than the rest of us.”

Charity blinked in surprise and nearly spoke unwisely before she shook her head in corroboration of knowing nothing.

She wondered where Arabella was now living as she reflected on Cyril’s words of a few nights before. Perhaps Madame really was working behind the scenes to concoct some form of respectability for her daughter in order to see her elevated in society.

The reflection put her own sorry situation into stark relief. How was any successful kind of future to be fashioned if a girl was a bastard as she and Madame Chambon’s daughter surely were? Society was unforgiving of those who transgressed.

Charity had no hope of rising above the detritus of life. She’d fallen to the lowest rung of the ladder. No one could get her out of the swamp. The best for which she could hope, quite simply, was that she’d not starve.

But Madame had connections and, clearly, her daughter Arabella was a beauty. A proud, enterprising beauty. Enterprising…unlike Charity.

“You’re looking very gloomy, Charity, my dear.” Madame’s entrance brought a hush to the table and a guilty look to Rosetta’s face as she held a half-eaten muffin in mid-air.

“Please, help yourselves, girls! Cook told you, I hope, that I’d ordered them as a special treat for you! Things are looking up, as they say.” She pursed her lips into a smile that gave her heavily painted face a very prune-like look. But as her mood was clearly genial, Charity — and no doubt the rest of the girls — were relieved.

Silently they waited for her to elaborate. One didn’t question Madame directly if one could help it. Charity wondered if perhaps she’d had some success on her daughter’s behalf. If Madame’s daughter was as beautiful and well-educated, Madame was cunning enough to pull strings in the background to set her up in a way she’d not do for the girls who made her money.

Clearly, something had pleased Madame who was only ever ebullient if business was good.

Perhaps there was a new girl arriving for whom she had high hopes.

“All of us here have felt sympathy for Charity’s plight and the fact she’s heard nothing from her young man in nearly four months — is that not so, Charity? Living like a scullery maid must be hard.”

Charity looked around the table where the twelve girls currently working for Madame were seated. Each one of them sent her looks of sympathy. And their sentiments were genuine. A pang of gratitude swept through her. These were her true friends. Girls who had offered kind words — words of hope — when she needed them most.

Others, like Rosetta and Emily, had gone out of their way to try and effect a plan that would bring Charity the loving reunion with Hugo that she was beginning to accept was just a pipe dream.

She blinked as a wave of shame swept through her. These girls were like her in that they, too, were on society’s lowest rung. They survived the only way they could — yet they could still laugh and offer mutual friendship and support.

Charity had never had to sell herself as they did every night. What right did she have to sink herself in misery and decry her lot in life?

“But now Charity, matters have become dire. Your young man has not been able to send you the maintenance he promised. I have been generous and offered you a roof over your head with little demand in return.” Madame paused. “But I am not a charity, and I do apologise for the unintended pun. I, too, have rent to pay and food which must go to those who are prepared to work for it.”

Charity bowed her head. Her time was up and Madame was making a public announcement of it in the least sympathetic way she knew how. It was impossible to look at the faces ranged about the table.

“So, Charity, this evening you will see a gentleman who has shown a particular interest in you.”

“Not Hugo’s cousin!”

Madame shook her head. “Do you really think I would be so cruel?” She made a tutting sound, as if she really did wonder that Charity could ask her such a question. “No, Mr Cyril Adams will be seeing Rosetta this evening.”

A collective gasp of outrage went around the table before Madame banged on the table top for silence.

“I, in fact, suggested Rosetta since this young gentleman evinced a particular desire to be tutored by someone who would show him what would please a woman between the sheets. Apparently, he intends that Charity should help him with his penmanship, or rather, his way with words. Thanks to this unlikely quarter with what he terms his desired rehabilitation, he believes he will be a better husband than he might otherwise be were he not to gain some understanding of the potentially curious desires of his future wife.”

Emily let out a derisive snort and the other girls giggled. Madame held up her hand for silence once more. “Does any girl here have a complaint against Mr Adams that I should know about?” She glanced at Rosetta. “You know I do not tolerate violence of any kind in my establishment.”

“He’s a selfish lover,” said Emily.

“And he’s parsimonious,?

?? said Ghislaine.

“And he’s a cheat,” muttered Molly.