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Authors: Edith Layton
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prey by many sorts of urban predators. So she ignored the helping hand offered by a well-dressed gentleman, turned her back upon the sweet-faced woman who offered her a tentative smile, and kept on walking to a line of hackney carriages when another rather dashing young female attempted to stop her by miscalling her, with every evidence of recognition and delight, “Mary, my dear Mary!”
She was sorry to be so hard, but if they were only well-meaning folk, they would understand, and if they were not, then she had saved herself a great deal of difficulty. Julia told the coachman the direction of Mrs. White’s boarding house, and reflected that it was from her sojourns there that she had achieved such wisdom. Mrs. White ran a respectable facility, and there were always a few mature unemployed females in residence at her establishment. They had been the ones who had seen to Julia’s education in matters to do with unprotected young women. These older, wiser females did not think it at all out of the way that Miss Hastings, although still in her extreme youth, should know all about the mistresses of houses of ill-repute, sporting ladies, and dissolute gentleman of London and their many and various means of luring innocents to their moral downfall.
If Julia had been a young debutante, she would have known nothing about the likes of the infamous Mother Carey and her chicks in their expensive bawdy house, nor would she have known of the human birds of paradise gentlemen of leisure selected for their adornment and then discarded through their tedium in much the same careless manner as they selected and discarded snuffboxes. But though all of Julia’s tutors were respectable gentlewomen, and indeed many of them were the daughters of clergymen, not one of the elder women Julia had encountered at Mrs. White’s had spared her shocking and cautionary tales of physical and moral danger. Indeed, after one look at Julia’s face, hair, and form, many of them had considered her immediate enlightenment about such matters in the light of missionary work.
Mrs. White’s house was a narrow gray townhouse which had once been in a fashionable section of town, but which now gathered its skirts nervously in from its iron railings as the surrounding neighborhood became decidedly more common. Julia accepted her traveling bags from her driver, stepped through a squealing throng of urchins at play, ignoring one cheeky lad’s cry of “Ooo, pretty lady, ’ave you got a moment?”, and knocked upon the door.
In a few moments, Mrs. White appeared. She took one look at her visitor’s tired face, and then she said, a bit sadly, “Ah yes, Miss Hastings. Do come in, I’ve your room ready, indeed I prepared it the moment I received your letter.”
But as she led Julia to her spare and tidy room on the third floor, she thought, Poor lass, she’s failed again. Yet Julia, seeing the flowered wallpaper, the neatly made bed, the pitcher and washstand all exactly as they had been before, felt not at all like a failure, but rather intensely grateful, for she had reached a refuge and she had a chance to start again.
Acting upon her guest’s instructions, Mrs. White sent her maid-of-all-work to waken Miss Hastings just as the clock chimed seven. Although Julia could have afforded several days of leisure, she could not wait to secure a new position. It was not her purse she was concerned about, it was her spirit. She had discovered that the more time she took between posts, the less pleased she was when she secured one. Idle times were the ones in which she was most su s ceptible to bouts of self-pity and thus were the ones she sought to avoid the most diligently. So she donned her best severely cut black walking dress, brushed her hair until it gleamed like trapped sunlight in its plaited chains, and went down to breakfast. As soon as she had had her last morsel, she resolved that she would walk to the Misses Parkinsons’ office, for she could see that
She was sorry to be so hard, but if they were only well-meaning folk, they would understand, and if they were not, then she had saved herself a great deal of difficulty. Julia told the coachman the direction of Mrs. White’s boarding house, and reflected that it was from her sojourns there that she had achieved such wisdom. Mrs. White ran a respectable facility, and there were always a few mature unemployed females in residence at her establishment. They had been the ones who had seen to Julia’s education in matters to do with unprotected young women. These older, wiser females did not think it at all out of the way that Miss Hastings, although still in her extreme youth, should know all about the mistresses of houses of ill-repute, sporting ladies, and dissolute gentleman of London and their many and various means of luring innocents to their moral downfall.
If Julia had been a young debutante, she would have known nothing about the likes of the infamous Mother Carey and her chicks in their expensive bawdy house, nor would she have known of the human birds of paradise gentlemen of leisure selected for their adornment and then discarded through their tedium in much the same careless manner as they selected and discarded snuffboxes. But though all of Julia’s tutors were respectable gentlewomen, and indeed many of them were the daughters of clergymen, not one of the elder women Julia had encountered at Mrs. White’s had spared her shocking and cautionary tales of physical and moral danger. Indeed, after one look at Julia’s face, hair, and form, many of them had considered her immediate enlightenment about such matters in the light of missionary work.
Mrs. White’s house was a narrow gray townhouse which had once been in a fashionable section of town, but which now gathered its skirts nervously in from its iron railings as the surrounding neighborhood became decidedly more common. Julia accepted her traveling bags from her driver, stepped through a squealing throng of urchins at play, ignoring one cheeky lad’s cry of “Ooo, pretty lady, ’ave you got a moment?”, and knocked upon the door.
In a few moments, Mrs. White appeared. She took one look at her visitor’s tired face, and then she said, a bit sadly, “Ah yes, Miss Hastings. Do come in, I’ve your room ready, indeed I prepared it the moment I received your letter.”
But as she led Julia to her spare and tidy room on the third floor, she thought, Poor lass, she’s failed again. Yet Julia, seeing the flowered wallpaper, the neatly made bed, the pitcher and washstand all exactly as they had been before, felt not at all like a failure, but rather intensely grateful, for she had reached a refuge and she had a chance to start again.
Acting upon her guest’s instructions, Mrs. White sent her maid-of-all-work to waken Miss Hastings just as the clock chimed seven. Although Julia could have afforded several days of leisure, she could not wait to secure a new position. It was not her purse she was concerned about, it was her spirit. She had discovered that the more time she took between posts, the less pleased she was when she secured one. Idle times were the ones in which she was most su s ceptible to bouts of self-pity and thus were the ones she sought to avoid the most diligently. So she donned her best severely cut black walking dress, brushed her hair until it gleamed like trapped sunlight in its plaited chains, and went down to breakfast. As soon as she had had her last morsel, she resolved that she would walk to the Misses Parkinsons’ office, for she could see that
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