Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [42]
Mary would have written to her friend, if she hadn't known that the Matron opened all correspondence, in or out. Doll wouldn't have grudged the ha'penny to the forger in Rat's Castle to read her a letter from her old muck-mate. Doll, Mary would have liked to write, you'll never believe it. I've worked my way up to Presidor of my ward. That's like a mistress. The others have to treat me civil or I'll report them for moral backsliding. Only the Presidors get real tea to drink instead of that sage muck.
She was keeping her promise, wasn't she? Getting well, getting through the days, right up till Christmas. Not that Christmas differed much from any other day, behind the shutters that kept passers-by from peering into the dark parlours of the Magdalen. Honour Boyle had her pander come all the way out to Whitechapel, got up like a man of the cloth. He brought her a cone of sugar. He kept lamenting, 'Niece, niece, what a pass have you come to!' as he fondled her ankle under cover of her skirts. Honour was laughing so hard she had to pretend she was in tears.
But no one visited Mary. Of course, no one knew she was there but Doll. On Christmas afternoon she went into the needle room and carried on with the lace she was tacking round a cuff. She tried to imagine the man whose arm would fill it. Would he notice the repeated rose motif, or would he wipe his nose on it? She wondered how long it would take her to lose her mind, locked up in this doll's-house where every day was the same. There was a girl in the Ruineds' ward who was said to have been here three years. Maybe you could get so used to obeying orders that you'd never leave.
On New Year's Eve, Mary Saunders was on her knees. She'd held that position for two hours, and every muscle in her body was aching. Darkness draped the high chapel windows.
Her eyes were shut. It had filled her with rage to pull on her grey bodice this morning. There was no call for looking-glasses in the Magdalen, where seventy-two bodies reflected her own. Like mantua-makers' poppets, the girls knelt in rows in the chapel, displaying their uniform virtue to the visitors' gaze. Each wore a flat straw hat—as if to shade her eyes from the light, but really to hide her face—bound on with a royal-blue ribbon. It was the only splash of colour permitted, and a shade Mary had never liked. The Penitents even smelt much the same as each other, it occurred to her now, and no wonder; the same stewed beef, the same sweat, the same whiff of ash soap on their necks.
The opening hymn brought the congregation to their feet with great rustlings and creakings of whalebone. Mary leaned her numb weight on her hands and clambered up. Looking round covertly, she counted five Governors at the back, with their white ceremonial staves catching the light from the sconces. The Lady Subscribers wafted their fans.
The Magdalens were known for their singing, the obedience of their divided harmonies.
How many kindred souls are fled
To the vast regions of the dead
Mary's fingers were icy; she flicked through the prayer book to find the words. Her voice came in with a caw in the third line.
Since from this day the changing sun
Thro' his last yearly period has run?
As the organ crashed between verses, the cheap print blurred for Mary. Who might have died this year, without her knowing? She gave a brief thought to Susan Digot in Charing Cross, quilting squares for petticoats at sixpence a piece; too skinny to live