“It’s always the woman’s fault, isn’t it?” Diana heard the bitterness in her own voice as she lifted a seedling and set it in a hole, carefully crumbling the soil to remove lumps and stones before patting the plant into place.
Madeline glanced over, surprised at Diana’s tone, but she said merely, “Yes, my dear, it is always the woman’s fault, at least in the eyes of the world. My mother always said I had a disposition to sin. Something need only to be forbidden and I would immediately try it. When I told her I was with child, she threw me out of the house for the parish to take care of. My sister Isabel was angry and disapproving, but she gave me what little money she had saved toward her own wedding.”
She sighed. “I remind myself that even though she condemns me now, she was kind when I most needed it.”
Her voice harder, she continued. “As often happens, the parish didn’t want to pay for any more bastards and they sent me to London on the cheapest, slowest transport available. In London, abbesses meet the wagons from the country.” Glancing up, she clarified, “Anabbessis a woman who keeps a brothel.”
Diana nodded, her face averted. She had come across the term in her reading and deduced the meaning.
“I was as green a girl as ever was, and London was bigger and noisier and more frightening than I had imagined. When a well-dressed woman offered me a position in her house, I was glad to accept. I didn’t know then what kind of house she meant . . .” Madeline’s voice trailed off as she remembered her naiveté and her shock when she learned what she was expected to do.
She sat back on her heels, her hands loose in her lap, the planting forgotten. “I was luckier than most. Madame Clothilde ran a decent brothel as these things go, catering to a wealthy set of men. She kept her girls healthy and well-dressed because it was better for business. I could have fallen into much worse hands. Except . . .” Her voice broke and she stopped speaking.
Diana looked up at the sound, saying softly, “Please, you needn’t say any more.”
“No, really, it’s all right,” Madeline said, her voice steady again. “It was a long time ago. It’s just that . . . of course Madame Clothilde didn’t want any pregnant girls. She called in an apothecary and . . . and they took the baby. I didn’t even understand what was happening until it was too late.” Her face twisted at the painful memory. “I was very ill then. I almost died. And when I recovered . . . I could never have a child.”
Diana reached across, gently touching the older woman’s hand in silent comfort. “I’m sorry. I never should have asked.”
Madeline smiled, her fingers flexing under Diana’s. “No, my dear. I feel better for having said it. It was a great sadness at the time, but like most things, there was a good side to temper the bad. Not having to worry about having a baby was an advantage in my profession.”
Diana looked at her searchingly until she was satisfied with the older woman’s equanimity. Though adversity did not always improve character, it seemed to have had that benefit in this case. Madeline was a woman of great wisdom and tolerance, both of them Christian virtues. Ironic that her high-minded sister did not share them.
Maddy continued. “The rest of the story isn’t very dramatic. Clothilde was quite vexed that I couldn’t work for several weeks, but she didn’t turn me out, and I was adequately cared for by the other girls. If I had been on the streets, I never would have survived. Of all the sisterhood, the streetwalkers have the hardest lives. They age a decade every year, if they survive at all. But as I said, I was much more fortunate than that.
“I was given a new name when I was recovered. It was one of Clothilde’s affectations to give all her girls French names. She was from Greenwich herself, and that was the closest she ever came to France, but in the world of demireps, you can be what you wish to be. I was christened Margaret, but since the house had a Marguerite, I became Madeline. I liked it, and later I realized how appropriate it was. Madeline is French for Magdalene, you know, a perfect name for my trade.”
She smiled with genuine amusement. “After a few months working for Clothilde, I justified her faith in my looks when an elderly banker took a fancy to me and bought me for his own use.”
“Boughtyou?” Diana gasped. She had expected to be shocked, but not in this particular way.
“That’s what it amounted to.” Madeline shrugged. “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I was quite happy to go with him, since it was a much easier life. He set me up with lodgings and clothes, everything I needed. Though it sounds like slavery, the payment to Madame Clothilde was merely compensation for loss of my services. Not an unusual arrangement.
“He was very indulgent and treated me like a daughter most of the time, except when he was actually . . .” Madeline halted, unable to think of a discreet way of finishing the sentence. “He kept me for three years and in the end made a generous settlement. He was moving down to Brighton for his health, and he said he was getting too old for a mistress anyhow. I quite missed him.”
She looked back for a moment, a fond smile on her face, before continuing briskly. “After that, I became one of the aristocrats of the trade, able to pick and choose my lovers. I was careful in my choices, and with my money as well, so I never had to go with a man I disliked.”
Madeline’s pragmatic words made her scandalous past seem natural, even desirable. Diana asked hesitantly, “Would you do it over again if you had the choice?”
Madeline’s dark brows knit together. “Do you know, I have never considered that? I did what I had to do to survive. After my fall from grace, my choices were very limited.” She pondered further before saying slowly, “Being a fallen woman was a way out—out of Yorkshire, out of poverty, out of a narrow life that never suited me. The great courtesans must have not just beauty, but personality and wit. I had the opportunity to grow, to use my mind to its fullest. I met fine men I could never have known otherwise, and lived a life of comfort and luxury.”
As Madeline fell silent, one phrase reverberated in Diana’s mind.A way out. A way out. A way out of Yorkshire.The words pulsed with significance for her, a significance she was not yet ready to face. Not yet, but soon, soon....
Diana’s thoughts were interrupted as Madeline continued her narrative. “The first months in the brothel were . . . difficult, but I escaped with my health and sanity intact. After that, since I was afemme entretenue,a kept woman, I lived very well. It was rather like having several husbands in succession. The chance of catching some vile disease was slim, and I had much more freedom than a respectable woman. If a man became unpleasant, I could refuse him. Yes, if I had to live my life over, there is little I would change. I felt no shame for what I did. The only shame was in how others saw me.”
She laughed suddenly, her face showing the charm that had made her such a success at her trade. “Most of the Fashionable Impures had nicknames like the Venus Mendicant, or the White Doe, or Brazen Bellona. Because of my dark hair and eyes, I was known as the Black Velvet Rose. Silly, but rather sweet. It’s strange, the influence women like us had. Men who would treat their wives like imbeciles would talk politics with their mistresses. My salon was usually much livelier than the respectable ones, because men would speak so much more freely.”
Madeline gestured expressively. “Because I preferred being kept by one man, I lasted longer than most Cyprians. Of course, when I was between lovers, I would . . . shop a bit until I found someone who pleased me. I enjoyed all the best aspects of courtship and marriage, without the problems wives have.”
Muffled almost to unintelligibility, Diana asked the question that burned beyond all others. “Did you actually enjoy the . . . the physical part of the life?”
The strain in Diana’s voice confirmed Madeline’s guess that the girl’s introduction to sex had been the sort of crude fumbling that made so many women despise the act. Carefully she said, “Making love can be quite lovely. It’s best if you care deeply for your partner, but it can be enjoyable with any man you like who treats you well. Many women never learn that, of course. We are raised to protect ourselves from all men’s advances, to fear being touched. It becomes difficult to relax and enjoy loving.”
Watching Diana to make sure her words did not give offense, Madeline continued. “It is very agreeable to know and appreciate one’s body as a potential source of pleasure. A more experienced woman at Clothilde’s told me to explore myself by touch, to take different textures like silk, velvet, rough linen, cool china, and to rub them over myself to see how my body responded.
“I followed her advice and found that I was a sensual creature. I would also study myself in the mirror, trying to understand what made a woman’s body desirable to a man. And in time, I learned the kind of power a woman can have over a man.”
Diana had gone beyond wondering at the strangeness of this conversation, though she was still too shy to meet Madeline’s eye. She sensed that the older woman’s words were a gift to her, an attempt to explain things beyond Diana’s experience. Indeed, there was an intuitive logic to what Madeline said. Diana loved to touch, to hug her son’s warm body, to express her feelings with a soft brush of her hand, to evaluate the fabric she bought or the bread she kneaded by its texture and consistency. If these other forms of touching were enjoyable, surely the most intimate could be also?
