Silence.
Clovis opens a small glass pot. ‘Lips to the iron.’
She soaks a sponge and puts it to the woman’s lips.
‘Yow!’ Antoinette winces as the alcohol stings her lips, but sucks it with a greedy determination.
‘Shhh!’
‘What brings you to the darks, pretty matron? Not seen you in these parts before.’
‘Why do you disfigure your face, Antoinette?’
‘More wine.’
‘No. Tell me first.’
Antoinette turns her back to Clovis and leans against the iron gate. Facing the far wall, which they cannot see, and the cold air from the grating that billows towards her, she begins to speak.
‘I was a Mayfair beauty.’ She pauses. ‘I imagine your surprise. Could compete with you, I dare say. I am able to read and write; ’twas a great help with gaining custom of the richest whoremongers, one in particular. Apartments in Mayfair were being sought. But then I found myself perched on the sharp edge of scandal. He was a feisty, revolting one, of German descent, in the royal way, if you get my meaning.’
‘I am bored now, Antoinette.’
The prisoner turns, jumps upon and clings to the grating like an animal. Clovis does not shrink an inch. Her candle’s light creates a great stretching shadow on the wall that reflects Antoinette’s wild, thistled head.
‘Tell me why you act mad when you are not.’
‘I want out of this dank, wet hell,’ Antoinette hisses. ‘I make them think I dress for an evening in Shepherd’s Market. My lips are red; my face is powdered.’
She turns in a circle, her chain dragging, her arms thrust out to model her canvas-covered gown.
‘I have made a bustle.’
Clovis sponges Antoinette’s lips again.
‘If you tell them that I am mad, matron, they will transfer me to the asylum and I will be out in months. I have means. I can make it worth your while.’
‘I am not a matron. You are not going to the asylum. You will be conveyed to Van Diemen’s Land where the men will wear you out, to your death. You will be fucked senseless and will no more remember your romping Mayfair nights than your real name, which is Henrietta.’
‘Who are you?’ Henrietta’s voice goes cold and sharp like the sliver of glass she hides in her sleeve.
Clovis removes her cap releasing her brilliant hair. Henrietta takes a step back.
‘Ah! Well, if it ain’t Prisoner Fowler. The tattle about you flows through the tench—’
‘I have no interest in rumours. Be silent. I can help you. But you must do as I say.’
‘I would call you a liar, but here you are free to roam the darks disguised as a matron. You have somehow got your hands on wine, and even in light of a single flame, your skin shows nothing of the Millbank ghost, like the rest of us. Curious. So, what can you do for me?’
‘How many years do you have?’
‘Seven.’
‘How many served?’
‘Five, I entered only days before you.’
‘You shall have better food. You will enjoy a return of visiting privileges. And there will be a pouch of coins waiting for you upon your ticket-of release. You will be free, avoiding deportation.’
Henrietta bursts into a high-pitched screech of laughter.
Clovis shakes the grating. ‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Why me and what do you want in return?’
‘A great deal, Henrietta. I will demand a great deal. So think of your freedom and agree in your next breath, or I go.’
‘Agree to what?’
‘I will visit you each night while you remain in punishment. I have training in mesmerism, the New Science.’
‘Oh my blind cupid. A quack.’
‘I will leave you now, Henrietta. Enjoy your journey to Australia.’
Clovis turns to leave.
‘No. Wait.’
There is only the sound of boots on flagstones.
‘Wait. Please. Don’t go.’
Clovis swings around, once again illuminating the dark cell.
‘Sit down on the floor. Face the far wall, rest the back of your head against the grating.’
Henrietta arranges her chain and complies. Clovis slides her hands through the grating until they rest on Henrietta’s filthy head. She closes her eyes to recall the Phrenological bust.
‘Look ahead, Henrietta. Focus on the direction of the wall in front of you.’
The woman feels the warmth of Clovis’s hand pass over her head and down her back. In less than five minutes, Henrietta’s head rests heavily against the cold iron as she succumbs to somnolence.
Crouching down, and not without a whit of disgust at the woman’s knotted locks, in which lice and mites have surely taken purchase, Clovis places her fingers on Henrietta’s skull and begins to probe. Tracing the bumps and knots she settles first on the shape of the lower back of her head. There should be a projection of the bone where the organ that bestows an attachment to offspring is located, but it is almost non-existent. Underdeveloped. Indifference to those who are weak.
Henrietta’s breathing is more laboured.
‘I shall ask you several questions and you will answer truthfully.’
‘Yes. I will.’
‘Do you have children?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever had a child?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened to your child?’
‘I left it somewhere.’
‘Where? Where did you leave the child, Henrietta?’
‘At the Barley Mow in Marylebone. In one of the booths, under the table.’
Her tone is almost chirpy, without an ounce of remorse.
Clovis’s fingers crawl up Henrietta’s head, tracing the contours of the top centre where her skull rises to a severe point.
Very deficient in Conscientiousness.
Her hands travel across, up and down and around the prostitute’s head. Combativeness, Destructiveness, Secretiveness, all overdeveloped and excessive.
The potential for this woman to do harm is so great that Clovis is wary; if such a criminally-inclined woman falls so easily to her manipulation, perhaps Henrietta is acting. She will create a test to catch her out.
The night is waning and it is so cold in the damp dungeon that Clovis’s breath visibly floats by the candlelight. She must hurry now. Breathing slowly and deeply, she anchors to her purpose.
‘Stand up, Henrietta. Give your ear to the grating.’
The woman lifts her chain and stands with her profile to Clovis who positions herself flush to the grating and looks as if
