Willa stands and takes a few steps forward. Her palms face up as she moves slowly to and fro, as if searching for someone to receive her treasures. Clovis quickly adjusts her position to accommodate the roaming girl and takes the bits from her, while her other finger remains on the girl’s head. Willa is aware that her hands are empty and relaxes again.
The drawing room, normally cosy from the heat of a substantial fire is now chilled, which makes the girl’s next movements even more remarkable. She begins to undress. Clovis stands transfixed as first one item of clothing then another falls to the floor, until the thin skeleton of Willa Robinson stands completely naked.
Clovis does nothing to protect the poor girl’s modesty. Her heart is close to bursting, pounding with excitement. This unbridled joy cares not for the shame and embarrassment should someone happen upon this scene. Willa is a tool, her subject, and nothing more. Clovis Fowler swells with a new-found power.
Now shivering, Willa gathers all of her clothing into a neat, folded bundle and offers the square to Clovis. Benevolence. Charity. Humanity. Clovis removes her finger from the spot, and with that simple act, Willa sits in the chair again.
‘Dress yourself,’ Clovis orders.
Willa stands again and in a dream-like state she slowly dresses as Clovis provides her clothes item by item. Clovis now looks for a false moment, or for a break in the trance. But Willa shows no sign of faltering, even when she begins the intricate task of lacing her stays. Her hands work fastidiously, while her gaze seems absorbed entirely on a different plane.
‘Sit,’ Clovis commands, when the girl is fully clothed.
Clovis reaches into her pocket and produces a handkerchief. It billows out with a few shakes, and with it she fans Willa’s face and head. There is no immediate reaction. She commands herself to remain calm, passes her hands over Willa’s head three times, and continues to fan for another minute or so. Willa begins to stir. Quickly, Clovis retrieves the pincushion and places it in Willa’s hand. She fills her servant’s pockets with the trinkets.
The girl wakes at Clovis’s instruction.
‘Willa?’ Clovis asks in her kindest voice. ‘How do you feel?’
Willa glances at her mistress and then surveys the room as if she sees it for the first time.
‘’Tis so cold, mistress, I should tend the fire.’
Willa makes an effort to stand, but Clovis places her hands on her shoulder and presses her down.
Willa shrinks from her, disoriented that her mistress would touch her.
‘I have a question first.’
‘Yes, mistress.’
‘What do you remember of our session today?’
Willa’s large, green eyes narrow as she tries to remember her actions since she first stepped into the room.
‘Well, mistress, I came into the room … and … well, I think you told me to sit in this chair … and … then, nothing. It is cold.’
‘Is there anything else? You must be forthright, Willa.’
‘Nothing at all, mistress. Well, there is one thing. I might be a bit more …’ She searches for an inspired word.
‘More what? ’
‘Calm.’
‘Do you remember our conversation when we first met? That I could help you?’
‘Why yes, mistress, I certainly do.’ She is awed by the kept promise.
‘You may fetch more coal now.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was three years ago when Clovis disembarked at Westminster Bridge, on the marshy corner of Lambeth that seems to serve as a receptacle for the misbegotten.
In scouring the newspapers for charities that sought employers for their charges, Clovis learned there of a pinch in funds at the House of Refuge for Orphan Girls. The Refuge takes great pride in their fervent work to save girls from a life of prostitution and immorality, and happily for Clovis, administrators have recently relaxed their rules. Jobs are less closely investigated and the girls are being processed and let back into the world more easily.
Clovis sails with confidence into this atmosphere of need and want. On this day she has chosen a fashionable woven-silk dress, the fabric of which was stolen from a vessel returned from China. Figures of hand-painted dove breasts and black flowers are scattered across the heavy, white satin. Heads turn at her elegant walk – one she has so painstakingly developed. Women who are near the front gate when she steps out of the sedan chair track her with envy, their eyes follow her down the path. Her black-and-white silhouette, crowned by brilliant red hair that falls perfectly from her large matching hat, brightens the dimly lit entry of the asylum.
The administrators have made it perfectly clear that it is preferable that those women employed at the Home of Refuge for Orphan Girls are widowed, and they must have unexceptionable characters of sobriety and honesty. From where she stands in the presence of Matron Jennet, Clovis weighs the arrogance of one such woman. If ever two women possessed more scrutiny … Matron Jennet’s right eyebrow could not be more arched, and Mrs Fowler’s human form shifts to that of a stalking tiger, immediately sensing a foe. A shaft of morning sun falls on the floor between the two as though marking a divide.
Mrs Fowler is invited to sit to discuss her needs. Mrs Fowler would rather stand. Then the light from the skylight shifts ever so slightly with the wave of passing clouds and falls on a dark corner where, like the breast of one of Clovis’s printed doves on silk, Willa Robinson stirs.
Clovis brings her attention to the girl while Matron Jennet darts to the corner where the little bird sits crouched on a stool, busy with her needlework. Matron seems eager to hide the girl by stepping in front her, a ridiculous effort that only arouses Clovis’s curiosity further.
‘Why, Matron Jennet. What have we here? How quiet she is. What beautiful work, Miss … ?’ Clovis looks to Matron.
Defeated, Matron steps
