Page 47 of The Laudanum Ladies' Society

‘Or all three,’ said the first woman.

‘Maybe it was an accident. She might have fallen in the dark?’ Jenny said. Her throat grew tight and she felt the sting of tears. Speculating about the poor woman’s end, and the audience assigning so many dark explanations, was dreadful.

Miriam put her arm around Jenny’s waist and drew her closer. ‘Whatever happened, it is a horrible way to go,’ she said through her gritted teeth. ‘Poor girl.’

The two boatmen pushed the limp arm back under the cloak to give her a little more decency. Now that the drama was over and the dead woman was no longer visible, people moved away, Jenny and Miriam included. The chestnut seller began shouting his wares again, hoping to attract the crowd back.

‘What will happen to her?’ Jenny asked.

The man with the dog spoke. ‘She’ll be taken to the morgue. Someone may claim her, most likely not, and she’ll cost the cityfor her burial.’ He scowled, ‘Even a pauper’s grave doesn’t come for free.’

The cost to the ratepayers was clearly more of a concern to him than the poor woman. Jenny turned to him, intending to chastise him, but Miriam tugged her sleeve.

‘If there’s any item that might identify her, then that will help, but I imagine any money she had will have fallen to the bottom of the canal, if you know what I mean.’

Miriam raised an eyebrow meaningfully and Jenny understood that by the canal bottom, she meant the pockets of the two men who had found her. The mudlarks and boatmen would have seen it as some sort of grisly ‘finder’s fee’ for their efforts, but anything too identifiable would be handed in, lest the threat of being accused of theft, or worse, murder, fell on their shoulders.

The discovery had thrown a dark cloud over the evening, and when Miriam suggested they fortified themselves with a drink, Jenny agreed, and they found a pub close by. Other people who had witnessed the grim discovery had the same idea, and the room was crowded but they found a table close to the piano. They regretted it almost immediately as the instrument was badly in need of tuning and the pianist struck up a bawdy sea shanty about drowning sailors and mermaids, which felt inappropriate under the circumstances.

It had struck Jenny before that women of a class lower than the one she’d been born and raised in appeared to have more freedom; because here and there were groups of women accompanied by men, or individuals sitting with men and unchaperoned by matrons. Of course, being thirty, Jenny and Miriam had attained the status of matrons themselves, which was rather a depressing thought.

They ordered two glasses of porter and a plate of chopped liver and onions, which Miriam swore Jenny would enjoy,though Jenny withheld judgement. Her stomach was knotted from the horrible sight and her shoulders felt tight with tension. When the plate was delivered, she decided she would rather remain hungry than eat the greyish lumps swimming in equally grey gravy. Miriam poked the liver around her plate, clearly indifferent towards it, too.

‘This hasn’t been the nicest end to the evening. Would you like to meet again tomorrow? I will treat us to tea and cake,’ Jenny said.

‘You paid for the tickets to the theatre and now you’re suggesting a treat. It isn’t your birthday, is it? Please tell me I haven’t missed that.’

‘No, my birthday is in October, and I don’t really celebrate that in any case, because Uncle Conrad doesn’t like cake. I fancied doing something frivolous, to put my earnings to good use, rather than something sensible.’

‘Your earnings?’ Miriam frowned and rested her fork down. From the look on her face Jenny realised she had blundered horribly. ‘What have you been doing to earn money? Please tell me you aren’t hosting thesalonsto sell your opium tonic for women.’

‘No, we’re not running asalon,’ Jenny said hastily. ‘We have been introduced to a woman who runs a business– her own chop house. She employs men to protect her, if you can believe it– and she is buying the tincture from us to sell to her customers.’

Jenny leant forwards and took Miriam’s hands. ‘I know you weren’t happy about the idea, but how long would a guinea pay rent on your lodgings if I were to join you there?’

Miriam pulled her hands out of Jenny’s and crossed her arms.

‘I don’t want your money, if that’s how you’ve earned it! You know how I feel about opium and what it does.’

‘But you were laughing at the theatre,’ Jenny protested.

‘That was acting!’ Miriam pushed her chair back, scraping the floor loudly enough to turn the heads of the diners at the next table. ‘I can’t believe you carried on after what I told you.’

Jenny exhaled loudly. ‘Mim, you have to understand. I could never leave my uncle’s house without doing this.’

‘Why would you need to do that anyway?’ Miriam asked, scornfully. ‘You have everything you need there.’

Jenny’s eyes prickled. ‘I don’t have you. I don’t care about any of that.’ She dropped her head, knowing that if Miriam saw the expression on her face, it would be unbearable. ‘I want to be with you. I love you.’

She had practised saying the words to herself so many times before going to sleep at night and in idle daydreams. She had imagined saying it. She had pictured Miriam’s joy and the enthusiastic return of her affections; the confirmation that everything Jenny felt and everything they did was right. But when she dared to look up, Miriam’s expression was stony.

‘I love you,’ Jenny repeated in a broken whisper.

‘Yet you don’t love me enough not to become involved in a trade that you know I find abhorrent for very good reasons. I told you the first time you mentioned your business idea that I wanted nothing to do with it and I believed you shouldn’t either. And still…’

Jenny folded her arms protectively. Her heart was beginning to speed up, the blood thrumming in her veins. ‘I was hoping to earn enough to support myself so that I could come and live with you. So that I could be your new roommate and share your home and your life. Perhaps we could even eventually find somewhere nicer.’

‘What a lovely dream built on deception.’ Miriam shrugged and spread her arms with a disappointed eloquence that words could not match.