John Wright - Orphans of Chaos

I had seen such a get-up before. On some documentary on one of the rare days when we could see television in the Common Room, our program had been interrupted by pictures of some famous criminal (I forget who) being led from a police van in handcuffs, with a belly-chain and leg irons. I think it was an American, because he wore an orange jumpsuit instead of a normal prison uniform.

This increased my hope and my fear. Were they about to transport me somewhere? If my friends were being transported too, I might be able at least to see Victor and the others. If we were all put in the same van, I could talk to them.

Maybe this was a party dress. I began to imagine that I was to be hauled before some ballroom full of guests, Mavors in a tuxedo and Lady Cyprian in a ball gown, with other gods and monsters present, so that Boggin could show them how roughly he was treating me.

Or maybe they were about to transport me more permanently. Boggin may have already failed, and the four of us were being sent to four destinations. Perhaps they had thrown lots for us. Maybe the Satyr or his faction had won me, and insisted I be dressed up before being sent along.

While Sister Twitchett was kneeling down, stringing chains and locking locks, Miss Daw brought out a makeup kit of truly absurd size. It unfolded and unfolded again. There were more brushes than an artist would use, and lipstick, eye pencils, crayons, blushes, and creams. There were little tools and implements I had never seen before. There was a thing that had handles like a pair of scissors, but which led to a curved rubber pair of jaws, meant for clamping onto eyelashes.

Miss Daw’s hands were soft on my face, and I could feel cool touches where she applied various layers of base and blush. I had never worn lipstick before, but it tasted terrible. I also had thought lipstick was just gunk in a tube, but Miss Daw used three or four tubes, and a little pencil. There was something that tasted like spearmint, which she rubbed onto my teeth with her finger.

I was nervous when she painted my eyes, and worried when she kept putting her fingers too close, but I obeyed her instructions when she told me to look left and right, up or down. She brushed my lashes with a little comb the size of a toothpick.

She took out a powder puff and dusted my shoulders and the tops of my breasts where the bodice pushed them up.

Sister Twitchett was done with her chaining up long before the makeup was done. She packed her bag and I was left alone with Miss Daw.

There I sat, chained up on a stool in a very nice, very sheer dress, with Miss Daw standing behind me, combing and brushing out my hair.

In my heart, at that moment, I was convinced that maybe Boggin had told the truth, and that I was only fourteen, not the eighteen or twenty Victor said I was.

“Miss Daw, I’m scared,” I said in a trembling voice.

“Hush. Don’t be scared, child.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” I could not get the tremble out of my voice.

“Nothing ill will befall.”

“Why are you dressing me up this way?”

I could only think of one reason, and it was a very terrible one.

Miss Daw leaned over, and brought out a velvet box one inch on a side. She opened it. Within were drops of diamond no bigger than teardrops.

She lifted them out of sight behind my head. I felt little metal clamps pinch my earlobes.

“Ow!” I said.

“Sorry,” she said. “Most of mine are for pierced ears. This is what I had.”

I would have lifted up my hands to take them off, but I only had about an inch or two of play, up or down, due to the belly-chain.

She held up a large hand mirror from her bag. I saw my face in the glass.

“There,” she said. “How do we look?”

I thought I looked pretty much the same as I always looked, except now I was painted. There was blue eye shadow above my eyes and black pencil around them, and my lips were too red.

But I could feel a lot more stuff on my face than I could see. She had taken my flesh-colored flesh and put flesh-colored hue on top of it. Take a girl’s face and paint a girl’s face on top of it. What was the point?

I did like the earrings, though.

“Are you done? You said you would say…”

At that moment, there came voices from the corridor. I heard Mrs. Wren’s cracked, wavering voice, and Mr. Glum’s breathy growl answering her.

There was a strange noise as footsteps approached. Thump-clack, thump-clack.

Miss Daw leaned and whispered in my ear, “Your friends are safe. The boys are in cells like this one; Miss Fair is in your room, under guard. They are in low spirits, naturally, except for Mr. Triumph, who is not easily perturbed…”

Mr. Glum came to the open cell door, looking more grizzled than usual. His bald spot was sunburned and his jawline had a five o’clock shadow. He was dressed in a long brown jacket, and he had what seemed a broomstick in his hand: a hoe, actually, with a scarf wrapped around the blade of the hoe.

Beneath the hem of his coat, on the left, I saw his brown pants, tucked into the top of his boot. On the right, was a peg. His right leg was gone below the knee.

He put his elbows, one to either side of the metal doorframe, and let the hoe, his makeshift crutch, dangle in his hand. He lowered his head and stared at me.

I should say that his eyes widened, but that is not quite right. He actually squinted. But his pupils dilated.

I became very conscious of how I was sitting, bolt upright on the stool, hands folded in my lap, with cold metal circling my wrists and ankles, and cold air touching my bare shoulders, naked arms, almost-naked legs in their stockings, almost-bare bosom pushed up in its bodice. I have never felt smaller and more fragile than at that moment.

He seemed so… hungry… when he looked at me. Like a starving man. But sad. Hungry and sad.

Glum spoke without taking his eyes off me, “So that’s it, eh? Boggin is to have her. All tarted up and fine. He’s had his filthy hands on her, has he? And Vanity, too! Why should he have both? And him not married! ’Tis clean against the law, that is.”

Mrs. Wren, from the corridor where I could not see her, said something sharp to Mr. Glum. He apparently wasn’t supposed to talk to me. He did not answer her, but twisted his lips and spat on the floor.

Miss Daw put her small hand on my elbow. “Stand up, dear, and let’s have a look at you.”

I stood up, wobbling slightly on the high heels. The heavy chain running from my neck to the ceiling rattled and wobbled, too. Standing pulled tight the chain running from my ankles to my wrists, and I had to push my hands downward, pulling the chain around my waist tightly down against my hips, in order to ease the pressure on my ankles.

Mr. Glum stumped forward, wobbling himself a bit, wincing and half-hopping, half-propping himself on his hoe.

He put his rough, callused fingers, fingers with his dirty nails, on my cheek, and tilted up my head to look at him. I had glanced down to look at my shoes (because I was afraid of toppling) but the moment he touched me (as if the past had somehow changed shape) I had been keeping my eyes down because I was shy.

Or maybe I was afraid.

I heard Mrs. Wren’s voice from the door, “You’re not to touch her, old tree stump, old iron lump, old clod!”

Glum ignored her. He was staring into my eyes.

He said to me, “It were only for a small time, I know. But I had you, me. And you were mine and no one else’s for that time. All made of gold. I were nearly afraid to touch you, like I’d leave a dirty fingerprint, like on a wineglass, or a white china plate.”

I said, “I’m sorry.” And I did feel sorry for him.