A Monstrous Regiment of Women - Laurie R. King [112]
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The small brass plaque beside the door read:
NEW TEMPLE IN GOD
WOMEN AND INFANT TEMPORARY REFUGE
I mounted the steps and rang the bell.
There was as yet little activity in the shelter, as the pubs had just closed and the drunks had yet to reach the arms of their loving families. The woman in front of whom I eventually stood saw only a luckless prostitute in need of doctoring and reforming; she did not see the young heiress who had stood with her outside Parliament to distribute pamphlets and returned afterwards to dine in Margery’s rooms. Ruby Hepplewhite looked up at me, polite, condescending, unseeing.
I twisted the tin ring around and around, tongued my nicely swollen lip, and tried to imagine myself into my rôle.
“Now, miss…”
“LaGrand, miss. Amie LaGrand.”
“Miss… LaGrand. Is that actually your name?” she asked doubtfully. I twisted the ring furiously.
“Er, well, no, miss. It’s Mudd. Annie Mudd. My—it was given to me ’cause it sounded better, like.”
“I see. Well, Miss Mudd—Annie. You understand that this is a temporary shelter for women and their children who find themselves without a home. It is not an hotel.”
“I do know that, miss. I ’eard about you, on the street, the work you do. And when this… when I… I thought of comin’ ’ere,” I ended weakly. She took in the state of my face and clothes for the first time.
“I see. Sit down, Annie. How old are you?”
“Twenty-one, miss.”
“The Refuge is run by the New Temple in God, Annie. One of the things we require is the truth.”
“Sorry, miss. Eighteen, miss—on my next birthday. Come April.”
“So you are seventeen. Where is your home?”
“Don’t ’ave one. Not no more, I don’t. I’m never goin’ back there, miss. You can’t make me. I’ll throw meself into the river afore that, L swear before God.”
“Calm yourself, Annie. No one wants to force you to do anything. Perhaps you’d better tell me everything. Why can’t you go home? Did someone there hit you?”
“It was ’cause I said I wouldn’t do it no more. He wanted me to go with that—” I searched for an unspeakable word, then, finding none, continued. “I said I wouldn’t. Wouldn’t never again. And so ’e, ’e slapped me round a bit and locked me in my room and I went out the window and down the pipe an’… and ’ere I am.”
“You are speaking of your… procurer?”
“My wha’?” I was enjoying this.
“Your pimp?” she persisted gamely, thinking, no doubt, of how her mother would react if she were to hear the word spoken aloud.
“Oh. Yes, I s’pose.”
“Where is your family, Annie? Do you have one?”
“Oh yair. Well, in a way. Mum’s dead, but me sister, she lives in Bristol. That’s where I thought I’d go, when I can get the money together.”
“And your father? Is he dead?”
“By Gawd, I wish. Beg pardon, miss, but it was ’im what done this.” I touched my distended lip cautiously.
She blinked and sat back slowly.
“Your father. Oh dear,” she said in a weak voice. However, English breeding triumphed, and her forces rallied visibly. She stood up, told me to wait, and clacked off down the hallway. In rapid succession, I was given a brief medical examination (in which they were chiefly interested in wildlife and injuries, and not expecting a sophisticated form of drug abuse, so that by sleight of hand and an element of luck, I managed to keep the arm out of the nurse’s sight), a bath, a change of clothing, a hot meal, and a bed in a curtained cubicle. By then, the evening’s business was fully under way, and no one noticed as I purloined an assortment of pillows and blankets, which I pushed far back beneath the metal bed. I loitered about in the corridor outside the clothing dispensary until it was momentarily abandoned and then helped myself to a random frock and hat. They, too, went under the bed. The lights were still on—electrical lights, not gas—and the building was noisy with children and women, but I took off my shoes and lay on the thin mattress and closed my eyes. I did not think I would sleep, as my mind was taken up with unpleasant thoughts about the morality of what I was doing here and with the charged feeling