Joy V. Sheridan writes

Charity Amour

CHAPTER TWENTY part 1

Molly Fibbins sat perched on the end of a narrow trestle bed, honing the blade onto a whetstone which she had secreted amidst the contents of her indispensable. She sniffed, pausing in her activities, to glance around the attic room which had been allotted as her quarters. It was a drudge’s room. So far, she had seen no sight nor anything to indicate that the abducted young woman, Charity Cottrell, was being held in the house. 

Had she been able to look through the wooden floorboards, then a surprise would have revealed itself to her. For directly below her own garret was the modest suite of rooms which had been allocated for Charity’s use. Molly hadn't thought much of the lady of the house and the lady of the house, after looking her up and down, obviously hadn’t thought a great deal of Molly. Mayhap, had Molly been endowed with the magical attributes of seeing through walls - and minds - she would have read with some distain Madame d’Esprit's innermost thoughts. 

“Plain as the bottom of an undecorated chamber pot,” had thought Madame, "Yet there could be those amongst my customers who might want to sample a thin, flat-chested piece as a novelty. I wonder ...” Madame had continued in this train of thought with bright speculative eyes, “If she be a virgin? For the time being though, I shall send her to help in the kitchens!” 

Molly, for her part, had considered the over-made up woman snooty, unapproachable and to her mind, lacking the genuine kindness of soul which she had seen exhibited in others of her ilk, back in Cheapside and later in Soho. For Molly’s school had likewise been as tough in youth as her brother’s had been and maybe it had proven to her self-preservation that she had always appeared too homespun to suit the tastes of the habitués of ‘brothels’ and the like. 

Thus had Molly’s role within the household of the Château des Amourettes been defined. She had taken a short, sharp sideways look at the Amazonian-type woman who had conducted her to her room, with the order translated mutely, that she present herself ready for work at eight of the clock. 

A quarter of an hour or so after she had first set eyes upon this, her room’s, dingy interior, the door had opened and a suit of clothes pressed into her hands. This was to be her uniform. 

Molly, with a degree of fascination, held the garments up against herself. If this was the uniform, fitting for a kitchen help, what must the chefs wear? She had tut-tutted at the flimsy fabrication, shining with that thread of gold which seemed Madame's penchanted obsession. The shift was slotted with a space for the head to go through and appeared thinly transparent. Molly shivered. She trusted that it would be warm below stairs. 

A voluminous over-apron had been added and the instructions had been conveyed to her by manual manipulation that she don this garment whilst she worked. If (and the if was large) any of Madame's guests wandered into the kitchens, she was to remove the clumsy apron so that it might appear that she performed her tasks in this garment only.

Madame could not have the intoxicating, delusionary atmosphere she strived to create spoilt by the very mundanity she despised haplessly exhibited by her minions. Oh, no! Molly Fibbins did not like the atmosphere she perceived about the Château des Amourettes. She was no prude but there was a suggestion of a perpetual presence here which seemed malevolent. 

But then, she had continued thinking, she was suspicious of all foreigners, Frenchies very much included! Perhaps there was some memory-puritanical ceded to her by her much-missed mother? She was relieved that the Mistress hadn’t taken to her looks. She had only a somewhat hazy idea of what occupations those inmates of this ‘house of pleasure’ took up, and she needed to know no deeper, as she had seen the sprays of exotically garbed, coiffured and painted girls loitering about the passage-ways and halls as she had been conducted to her attic room. 

With an intense look upon her still features, she lifted the blade, testing it with the hair she had plucked from Madame’s wig. It split like butter gone soft. Soundlessly. Next, she looked around for some sharper item to curve into with her blade. The linen sheets upon the bed looked to be coarse and knotted with weave. Again, easily the blade combed through the fibres. 

Well pleased, she placed it before her on a table. Sincerely, her heart whispered, that she hoped His Lordship and her brother would not be too long in the offing, nor too far away. She should not want to reside in the house any longer than necessary.

Poor Charity Cottrell! If she was lodged here, then the gods help her! Shivering, she took the knife’s twin and set about sharpening and brightening it. The chamber was damp and cold and unlike other rooms in the house. She did not have a fire burning in the grate. Molly pulled the blanket she had thrown over her thin shoulders the tighter about herself. 

Hurriedly, for from the stars which glimmered through the unshuttered window, she knew that eight o’clock must be fast approaching. Throwing off her coverings, she held the flimsy tunic against herself and sighing with so mute a voice, she began to robe herself in the ridiculous and inadequate costume.