Louise was completely lacking in experience, but not entirely without understanding. Three summers spent with cousins on a country farm had given her plenty to muse upon when it came to the ways of nature. Observation had helped her with many of the questions that an education in classical art might raise, but then stop just short of answering. All those nymphs and shepherds surely had something in mind when they were coming away, but it fell to the barnyard to provide some suggestion as to exactly what it was.
The surprise lay not in her own uncertainty, but in Caspar’s. Where she expected him to be bold, he was hesitant. Where she’d assumed he’d be experienced, he seemed innocent. He clearly was not quite the man of the world that she’d assumed him to be.
Far from this being a disappointment, she could imagine nothing that might have endeared him to her more.
It was a hasty coupling, but an effective one. She was almost dismayed by her eagerness for it to succeed.
Afterward, on the floor of the dressing room by the dim light of the oil lamp, tangled in the folds of the curtain that they’d pulled down from the rail to serve them for a hasty bed, she stared up at the shadows on the ceiling and thought, So now I am fallen. The thought amused her so much that she convulsed in a moment of silent laughter. Were she genuinely fallen, she would surely know it in her heart; and her heart was telling her no such thing.
“What?” said Caspar from beside her, breaking their silence for the first time.
“I was thinking that I am a fallen woman,” she repeated aloud, and fought the urge to giggle again, as it would not do to be heard from outside.
“Forgive me,” he said, and started to rise.
“No!” she said, sitting up quickly and reaching for him. “You misunderstand.”
“I
He listened at the door for a moment before unfastening it and slipping out, opening it no wider than was necessary.
Louise was left, half out of her chemise and alone, entangled in a makeshift coverlet on a dressing-room floor, her stage costume scattered around her and her going-home clothes hung up on the back of the door.
Her euphoria lasted awhile, but in solitude it began to fade. What was the hour? The theater emptied quickly when the night’s work was over, and she could no longer hear sounds from the corridor outside. She got to her feet, and began picking up the various items to gather them together.
She lacked organization. Bending to pick up one thing, she felt something else slip from her arms. But she could not leave the room in disarray, however late it was. Tomorrow was Sunday and another traveling day, although at the end of tonight’s performance a rumor had gone around of a return engagement.
Perhaps that was the reason for Whitlock’s best-suit meeting with the theater’s management. He was dressing to play the Man of Business, and probably meant to negotiate an improvement in the terms. This was a task that, under more normal circumstances, would have fallen to Tom Sayers.
Louise was uncertain how she would feel about extending the run. It seemed uncomfortably close to profiting from a tragedy. But the company had a living to make, and so did she; without her income, she would have no form of support at all. Her father had died leaving her mother with neither money nor property, but with significant debts. Mrs. Porter, once used to presiding over a household of her own, had chosen kitchen work in a vicarage over the poorhouse. Louise had elected to pursue a life on the stage rather than to follow her into service.
Her mother’s greatest concern for her had been over the moral quality of the world she had chosen. As if no maidservant had ever been seduced below stairs, or no cleric ever strayed!
And, besides, she’d found that actors loved the Church; they seemed to look upon it as a related branch of their art.
The house was silent as she made her way down to the stage door. She’d dressed in haste and bundled her costume items into the theatrical hamper, ready to be transported. Someone had been around and turned out all the gas, so she carried the oil lamp from her dressing room to light her way. She was beginning to fear that she might have been locked in, but the stage doorkeeper was waiting for her.
She said, “Has Mister Caspar left?”
“Ages ago,” the doorkeeper said. “Ah’ve been waitin’ to lock up.”
“I’m sorry,” Louise said. “I lost all track of time.”
The doorkeeper said nothing and his expression, mostly hidden behind an enormous mustache that turned a youngish man’s face into an ancient’s, gave very little away. But she was convinced that he must have guessed her secret, and she tried not to blush while avoiding his eyes. She handed over the oil lamp and stepped out into the alleyway beside the theater, and the doorkeeper stopped to snuff out the various remaining lights before following her with his enormous bunch of keys.
It had been raining. The stone flags of the alleyway were slick and shiny, reflecting the lit windows of the public house next door. There was a big crowd in there, making a lot of noise—most of them had probably moved over from the theater when the play had ended. Someone had told her that the landlord had closed off the saloon bar and was charging a penny for people to enter and look at the murder scene.
She could see a policeman in a rain cape standing at the end of the passageway, and behind him a hansom cab waiting to take her back to her lodgings.
She thanked the policeman for his patience, and made some excuse about having to look for a lost bracelet. He said it was of no matter. He sent off a couple of passersby who’d lingered to stare, and lent her his arm to climb up into the cab.
The construction of the hansom was such that the driver’s position was above and behind her. She called up to him, “Forgive me, driver, but I can’t recall the exact address. It’s Mrs. Mack’s. Do you know it?”
He did not speak, but for a reply cracked his whip across the horse and set the carriage into unexpected motion. She was taken by surprise and fell back roughly in her seat; although the seat was padded and buttoned, the breath was driven from her for a moment.
She supposed she must have annoyed him by keeping him waiting for so long. But this really would not do. They were barreling along as if the ground under their ironbound wheels were a compact sandy beach, not the cobblestones and tram rails of an industrial town. She was shaken back and forth and had to hang onto one of the side straps; she genuinely feared that the next rut, jolt, or bang into a kerbstone might throw her out of the cab altogether.
“Driver!” she called over her shoulder. “Driver, what are you doing? Slow down, please!” But if the driver heard her, he did not respond.
As they tore down the length of Liverpool Street, she began to get the impression that they were only speeding because the driver did not have complete control of the reins. She could hear him calling to the animal, to no great effect.
They did not slow for the next crossroads and barely managed the turn as they cut across before a late tram; she could hear the angry ringing of its bell as they left it behind, plunging on into darker and less-populous streets.
Needless to say, this was not the way to Mrs. Mack’s. They were heading into an area of tall, dark factory buildings and railway viaducts. A train thundered over as they thundered beneath, and in the shadows of a brick archway where a single streetlamp burned, the driver finally managed to bring his horse under control and rein it to a halt.
Louise wanted to jump from the cab before it could set off again, but could not turn her intentions into action; she stayed frozen in her seat and clinging to the strap, while the carriage shifted and rocked as the driver tied off the reins and climbed down from his post.
He was coming to speak to her. A fine time to show concern for her welfare! She might have been shaken to death already, or flung out on some corner.
The cab rocked again as the driver put his weight onto the step and drew himself up to look in on her.
“Louise,” he said, and he reached up and pulled down the coachman’s muffler that had been wrapped to cover the lower half of his face. “It’s me. Don’t be afraid. Everything you’ve heard is untrue.”
She stared in horror. By the light of that single lamp, he stood revealed. Tom Sayers.
She’d supposed him long gone in his escape but here he was, an immediate presence with nothing to protect her from him.
