Mary Jo Putney (6 page)

The words and gesture told Diana all she needed to know about the disease. "Why did your sister not want you?"

Madeline paused, and Diana wondered if she would refuse to answer, or would lie. Doubt and regret were reflected in the thin face before her expression became resolute. When she replied, Diana knew the truth had won out.

Instead of answering directly, the visitor said, "You must have found the pouch I wore under my dress." When Diana nodded, Madeline continued, "Did you open it?"

"No. Shall I get it for you?" At Madeline's nod, Diana crossed to the oak chest and took out the small, heavy leather pouch Madeline had carried. Diana and Edith had discussed opening it, but decided not to do so unless their visitor succumbed to the lung fever.

"You can look now."

Diana untied the leather thong and opened the pouch to find a number of irregularly shaped objects wrapped in velvet. Diana unwrapped the package on top, then gasped as a magnificent necklace spilling out of her hand, the interlaced gold chains set with huge rubies that flared blood-red in the sunshine.

The next velvet packet revealed brilliant sapphire earrings with blue fire in the depths. Her eyes wide and startled, Diana continued unwrapping until her lap blazed with barbaric splendor, with diamonds and emeralds and opals and other gems she could not name, all in superbly wrought settings. They were jewels a queen might wear. She lifted her gaze to her visitor.

Madeline smiled without humor. "They weren't stolen. Whatever my other sins, I'm not a thief."

"I didn't think you were," Diana said.

Madeline's gaze focused on a splash of sunlight on the wall as she said in a voice empty of expression, "I earned those the only way a woman can, though most would say it isn't honest work. My sister didn't want me corrupting her household."

It took Diana a long moment to understand what Madeline meant. Even then, she could not connect what she knew of prostitution with this frail woman whose slim hands knotted on the quilt, who waited bleakly to be condemned.

The idea of selling one's body was alien and repugnant, yet Madeline herself was neither of those things. Diana held silence until she was sure her voice would be composed. "Who is your sister?"

"Isabel Wolfe."

"Really?" Diana knew the name, though they had never met; the Widow Wolfe would cross the street if she saw Diana coming, as if proximity would contaminate her virtuous self. Studying Madeline's face, Diana shook her head. "I see little resemblance. Is she much older than you?"

Madeline stared at her, surprised by the mundane question. "Only three years older." She sighed. "It's hard to imagine now, but she was pretty once. She was always rather... righteous, though not so bad as she is now. But I can't blame her for not wanting a whore in her house."

Though the words were said in a matter-of-fact voice, Diana could see the tension in Madeline's body.

Did the older woman think her hostess had not comprehended the earlier oblique reference and was making sure there was no misunderstanding? It was an act of courage and honesty, and Diana warmed to both qualities. She sensed no wickedness in Madeline, no matter what her past. Actually, Diana was fascinated to meet someone who had lived in such an unimaginable way.

Diana would have asked more questions, but her guest's face was gray with fatigue. Rewrapping the jewels in their velvet, Diana said dryly, "Perhaps you can't blame her, but I can. For a woman who prides herself on her virtue, your sister failed the test for Christian charity rather badly. Someone should remind her of Jesus and Mary Magdalene."

The tension went out of Madeline's face. "You are very kind not to condemn me." She released her breath in a slow sigh. "I will leave as soon as the roads clear."

Diana frowned. Madeline Gainford was in no condition to travel. Beyond that, Diana was powerfully drawn to the older woman and wanted to learn more about her and the mysterious world from which she had come. "Where will you go?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I'll rent a house in a south-coast village, where the weather is milder. I won't need it for long."

Diana was moved by pure impulse, impossible to justify but so powerfully right that it could not be denied. "There is no need for you to leave."

Madeline stared, her face openly vulnerable and her brows knit with puzzlement. "Would you have me, a... a fallen woman, under the same roof with your child? I am nothing to you."

"Ah, but we have something in common. Your sister will cross the street to avoid me." Diana gave a smile of melting warmth as she reached out and clasped Madeline's hand. "We are all outcasts here. You may stay as long as you wish."

The older woman closed her eyes against the sharp sting of tears, torn between accepting and refusing the offer. Madeline had been turned away by her own flesh and blood. Was it really possible that she had found the sanctuary she sought in the house of a stranger?

In the end, she did not have the strength to refuse what she wanted so desperately. Grasping Diana's hand as if it were a lifeline, Madeline whispered, "God bless you."

Chapter 2

Taking a break from her gardening, Diana sat back on her heels and viewed her former patient with pride. It had been over a year since Madeline had appeared from the storm. Instead of wasting away, she had gained in strength and spirit. Now Maddy was a glowing, attractive woman in the prime of life, an integral member of the household who cheerfully performed her share of the chores.

Today she knelt on a square of tattered carpet and helped Diana transplant April seedlings in the garden. Diana had the odd fancy that the older woman had also been transplanted, from an unwholesome spot to one in which she could flourish.

Madeline was now so much a part of the family that it was hard to remember life without her. Geoffrey had immediately accepted the newcomer as an honorary aunt, put on earth to dote on him. Edith had been wary at first, but she and Madeline shared a rural Yorkshire upbringing and soon they were friends in spite of their surface differences.

Diana felt the recklessness of spring tingling in her veins, and on impulse she decided the time had come to ask the older woman about her past.
 
With Geoffrey napping and Edith in Cleveden, they had the privacy such a discussion required. Over the last year, Maddy had talked freely of the snares and delights of London, of fashion and politics, manners and mores, yet never of her own career as a woman of ill-repute.

Hesitantly Diana asked, "If you don't mind talking about it, could you tell me what it was like to be a... a ladybird? I can't even imagine..." Suddenly bashful, she leaned forward and thrust her trowel into the earth for the next Brussels sprout plant.

Madeline glanced up, her brown eyes bright with merriment. "I've wondered when you would ask. When I first came here and told you what I was, not only did you not condemn me, you looked as fascinated as if I were a... a pink giraffe."

Diana blushed, digging deeper than necessary. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you." Once again she had betrayed her ignorance of how normal people acted.

"Surely you know by now how difficult it is to embarrass me." Madeline chuckled. "I don't mind talking in the least, if you really want to hear, but I thought it best to wait until you raised the subject." She considered where to begin. "For me it was not a bad life: I was lucky and never had to walk the streets. I was one of the company of Cyprians, the Fashionable Impures, and was usually kept by one man at a time."

She moved her carpet three feet to the left and started on a new series of holes. "Actually, I've bedded fewer men than many of the great society ladies, but they are respectable and I am not, because they sold their bodies with vows in front of a priest."

"How did you come to be a... a Fashionable Impure?" Curiosity was rapidly replacing Diana's discomfiture. This was a priceless opportunity to learn more about the mysterious half of the human race that was not female, from a woman who must surely be an expert.

"In the usual fashion," Madeline said wryly. "At sixteen I got in the family way with a lad from the next village. I couldn't believe he would betray me, but he was only seventeen, too eager for life to want marriage. When I told him my condition, he ran away to the army." She shrugged. "Besides, his family didn't like me. They said it was my fault for wearing my dresses too tight and chasing after the lads."

"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, "An 'abbess' is 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 no 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."