Adele Varens 5

 

Chapter Five

 

I had a broad and comfortable bed in with the two younger ones, Mary and Frances-Anne, which suited me fine well. I had a few more clothes than some, because ‘Grandmama’ had bought them from Mr. Cohen for her ‘granddaughter.’ And the room was paid for until the end of summer, but she was supposed to be staying with relatives in Brighton.  Unlike Mrs. Fielding’s, we all crammed into a room together, which had once been a grand bedroom in the big house we occupied, and the dressing room had a stool behind a screen, and ewers and bowls for washing.

“Laundry is sent out,” said Celia. “And once a week, we bathe in what had been the wash house, with a copper for heating water, taking turns in the bath behind a screen, having changed into night gowns and dressing gowns, the others of our time slot drinking chocolate and chatting whilst waiting to get into the bath, and after having got out and got dry. We are not encouraged to be prudish, but we are supposed to respect each other’s modesty and privacy.”

 

I knew how school worked; those who can work hard enough not to draw censure, and make enough effort at games not to stand out, and who do not sneak on the jokes of their fellows get through things tolerably well.

Nelly and Mary were the class pranksters.

They loved Natural Sciences, a new class for me.

“Why do we have to work with dangerous things like acids?” I asked. Miss Alice fixed me with her steely gaze.

“Because there is nothing attractive about a woman who is wilfully ignorant, who may prove a danger to herself and others for the lack of a little time spent learning about the world around her,” she said.

I subsided, well-told.

Actually, it was fun, making hydrogen gas by pouring sulphuric acid, also known as vitriol,  onto iron filings; Miss Alice demonstrated how to make a laboratory rubber balloon float, an invention of Mr. Faraday’s, whose experiments in electricity we also studied; we each had a pig’s bladder. We filled them, tied them off tightly, and attached a label, asking to have the label returned with the location where they landed, a penny black stamp, and a thruppenny piece as incentive.

I thought this quite thrilling.

Mary and Nelly were giggling.

“What are you up to?” I asked.

“Geography with globes,” said Nelly.

It took me a moment to understand.

“What, you will fill the globes?” I said.

“Yes, it will be a hoot,” said Nelly.

“Is not messing around with acid when there is no teacher somewhat dangerous?” I asked.

“Oh, don’t be a wet blanket,” said Nelly. “You aren’t going to tell, are you?”

I shrugged.

“It is your hands and faces,” I said.

The look on Mrs. Bridges’ face at the floating globes was, I confess, amusing, until her eyes blazed, and I found out that the easy-going woman was a skilful and ruthless interrogator.

“Mary and Nelly,” she said. “Am I wrong?”

They both giggled.

“You laugh. Would you laugh if you had tripped and burned your faces with your stolen acid? Nelly, you always leave your dressing-gown belt unfastened, and you have tripped on it before. Would you laugh if you had burned out your eyes? Lost the use of a hand? The reason we teach natural science is to prevent the misuse of common chemicals, since strong acids and bases are also used in the making of household cleaning products, which you will also learn about; because ignorant women are a danger to themselves and others. And wilfully stupid women  are worse. What did you do with the excess?”

“Put it on the midden, Mrs. Bridges,” said Mary.

“Oh, really? And do you think it funny to put the servants at risk for your games? You will be fined the cost of the materials, and you will each write a letter of apology to Miss Alice, for stealing from her cupboards and collectively to the servants for putting them at risk with noxious chemicals. And you will collect your excess acid and iron filings, and return them to Miss Alice for proper disposal. You will also donate a shilling each from your allowances to the Children’s Hospital for the Blind.”

The giggles had turned to sobs.

 

If the reader wondered, most of our pigs’ bladders ended up in East Anglia or Kent, one being returned much later by a crewman on the packet-boat out of Dover.

“It must have been Adele’s,” said Nelly, who had regained her sangfroid; “It was trying to escape to France.”

I laughed with everyone else. We had no way of telling whose balloon was which; Miss Alice had no intention of making a competition of it, and had written out identical labels.

 

We also learned that vitriol was used to take iron-stains out of marble, vital if a knife permitted to rust had rested on a marble baking slab, for example.

“And we have started with vitriol because most of you have heard of it, and should therefore be respectful of it,” said Miss Alice, in her beautiful deep voice. “Something I hope you have all learned.”

We all hastily murmured agreement, Nelly and Mary doing so too, their eyes down.

“What you will mostly work with for household cleaning is lyes, which are bases,” said Miss Alice. “And they can be quite as toxic and inclined to burn as acids when strong enough. And now you have seen what vitriol can do, I hope you are ready to listen to the lesson that strong bases are as dangerous as strong acids, and take care with them as much as with acids. We refer to them as ‘caustic.’”

She had made her point.

 

 

I found the lessons easy enough, so I had time to examine that little book of blackmail.

Blackmail is filthy, but knowing people’s secrets is a useful matter. The plumber had transcribed some very frisky letters of a most indiscreet nature, as well as noted legal documents he had found. He was a bold fellow; perhaps that was why he had ended up dead. It took me a while to find out that the letters were frisky; despite what He said, I was not flirtatious knowingly. I had copied my Maman; what little girl does not? I  have to say, I did not understand all I read; I spent some years wondering why it was blackmail material for a woman to refer to her lover’s horse, speaking about his sturdy stallion; it was only later, when I had read ‘Fanny Hill’ that I recognised some of James Clelland’s heroine’s descriptors of a man’s best friend. At twelve, I merely puzzled over ‘a stiff insinuation’ and a ‘stately piece of machinery,’ assuming for the latter that the man had a really fancy clock, perhaps with jousting knights, or kissing couple.

I never reflected on how lucky I was to be as innocent as I was; plenty of other children were not. I found out later, when Frances Anne had a nightmare that she had been packed off to school by her mother, who called her a whore, because the poor girl’s stepfather had been going to her bed. I cuddled her that night, and found out more than I might have wanted to know about the perfidies of some men. No wonder she did not believe in love! I got on a lot better with her after that, especially when she told me that he would call her ‘Fanny’ as a code word for expecting her to be ready for him, which was why she hated the nickname.  I should be grateful, I suppose, that He never used me thus.

Or maybe that was why Jane planned to send me off as someone’s companion; that she suspected that he was thinking about it. And then connived passively with my running away.

 

I had a run-in early on with the French master, who was not as French as he pretended; I suspected that, as he was in his fifties, he had been brought to England to avoid the Terror as a child, and had not managed to maintain his native idiom or a full vocabulary.

I ripped into him in French, and I could tell the other girls were absolutely delighted.

He stormed off to see Mrs. Bridges, demanding discipline for the new girl, who thought she already knew some French, and made-up words.

Mrs. Bridges listened to him.

So did we.

I suspect half of the west end did as well.

“You’re fired,” said Mrs. Bridges. “The child is French.”

I was, not to put too fine a point on it, astounded.

I had had my side upheld by an authority figure against another authority figure.

Mrs. Bridges came to our classroom.

“Adele,” she said, “You are teaching French until I can replace Monsieur Martin.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

I was paid for it!

I brought on the little ones with nursery rhymes, and played games of packing one’s valise with the next class up, and writing fairy tales with my own age, and those who were older.

“If you were older, I’d keep you on permanently,” said Mrs. Bridges to me, three weeks later. “But it is too much of a strain on you. Perhaps I can pay you to help out when I have a new teacher?  And when you are older, there will be a vacancy for you.”

“I want to go into the world before coming back to teach,” I said, thinking that it would be an option if I had nothing else.

“I understand,” she said.

We met our new French teacher soon; she was an English woman who had a French husband, and she was very earnest, but at least she knew her subject.

 

Mrs. Bridges herself taught English and literature; she did not censor our reading matter as such, but she tried to make sure that we were reading things that were suitable to our age and understanding.  If she caught any of us reading something she deemed not entirely suitable, she would make us discuss it with her, and go through our understanding of the work involved.  Thus, we largely learned to shelve the more lurid novels until we were ready to consider the subject matter, and debate it. I learned a great deal from Mrs. Bridges, about life, as well as about English. She did not hold back in discussing Shakespeare’s tendency to play for cheap laughs, and taught us to accept the spirit of his age without becoming prurient about it. She was a most remarkable woman, and those of us like me, who had enquiring minds on subjects young ladies were discouraged from enquiring about, gained a lot from her. She told us that as so many of us had backgrounds where we had been forced to know too much already, keeping us ignorant did us no favours.

Frances-Ann adored her; and it was easy to see why.

 

I was happy in this school, and had no trouble working hard for the preceptresses, who were encouraging and helpful. I found Natural Sciences fascinating for their own sake, and considered the possibilities for my thievery,

Then came the long holiday, and I went back to begging and thieving, to maintain my bank balance. I had a number of costumes which lived in old Sara Deleven’s rooms; the concierge cared little if I was there or not, alive or dead, as long as the rent was paid on time. I learned how to make sores, and some of our lessons in Natural Science came in useful in manipulating grease paint, to make it into raised sores to be applied. The trick was not to make them too hideous, or I would be shunned. Begging is an artform.

I also discovered that beggars are invisible, like servants and children when I overheard two men plotting to kill another.

I resumed my schoolgirl appearance to go to the Metropolitan Police Station, still in Bow Street. I was perfectly respectable, and spoke to the sergeant who was taking complaints.

“I heard a murder being plotted, sir,” I said.

I was not expecting to have my ears boxed.

“Run along, little girl, and don’t involve police in your fantasies!” roared the red-faced man.

“Well, I won’t bother another time,” I said, injured.

I had given my address and name before starting my report, and parbleu! Another policeman turned up, with the one who had boxed my ear.

“Sergeant Davis wants to apologise,” said the other. “I am Inspector Jack Pencastle; tell me your story.”

Davis muttered an apology with ill grace.

“I was giving money to an old woman beggar,” I said. “And two men were passing, discussing things. And the old woman said you would take no notice of her.”

“Perhaps some would not,” said Pencastle.  “But you tell her to ask for me, Jack Pencastle, and I’ll listen.”

And that, dear reader, is how I became a police informant.

It did not pay well, but it was a little bit extra, which I later found out came from Pencastle’s own wage packet. But just occasionally, there was a golden payout from someone who got a geegaw back, or who wasn’t killed.