Among the Fallen Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Virginia Frances Schwartz

  All Rights Reserved

  HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S.

  Patent and Trademark Office. Printed and bound in July 2019 at Maple Press, York, PA, USA.

  www.holidayhouse.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Schwartz, Virginia Frances, author.

  Title: Among the fallen / by Virginia Frances Schwartz.

  Description: First edition. | [New York]: Holiday House, 2019. | Summary:

  In Victorian England, sixteen-year-old Orpha, imprisoned for crimes she did not commit, is released upon accepting the invitation of Charles Dickens for a fresh start at a home for fallen women.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019005696 | ISBN 9780823441020 (hardback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Group homes—Fiction. | Secrets—Fiction. | Dickens, Charles, 1812–1870—Fiction. | Sexual abuse—Fiction. | Orphans—Fiction.

  Great Britain—History—Victoria, 1837–1901—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.S4114 Amo 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019005696

  Ebook ISBN 9780823444083

  v5.4

  a

  FOR JEAN TONSKI

  FROM ACROSS TWO CITIES

  AND TWO COUNTRIES

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface

  One

  Two

  Three: February 1857

  Four

  Five

  Six: March 1857 Urania Cottage, Home for Homeless Women Lime Grove, Shepherd’s Bush England

  Seven

  Eight: April 1857

  Nine: May 1857

  Ten: June 1857

  Eleven: July 1857

  Twelve: August 1857

  Thirteen: September 1857

  Fourteen: October 1857

  Fifteen: November 1857

  Sixteen: December 1857

  Seventeen: January 1858

  Eighteen: February 1858

  Nineteen: March 1858

  Twenty: April 1858

  Author’s Note

  A Glossary of Victorian Slang

  ·• PREFACE •·

  This work of historical fiction is set in England’s Victorian era, where an insurmountable gap loomed between the rich and poor. While the wealthy few were waited on by servants, lived in mansions, and had plenty of food, the majority of the population in cities like London endured extreme poverty in overcrowded slums, faced hunger and starvation, and deadly cholera from drinking out of the Thames. Most people had no health care, sewers, or education. Child labor for children as young as nine and mass incarceration for petty crimes were common.

  In this milieu, Charles Dickens began writing first as Boz and then used his real name. His novels shot arrows of social criticism that revealed the plight of London’s lower class, featuring for the first time as main characters child laborers, members of street gangs, prostitutes, prisoners, thieves, and those condemned to workhouses for debt. Dickens’s characters became household names: Fagin, Little Dorrit, Nancy, Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Pip, Magwitch, Jo the street-sweeper, and Oliver Twist. Dickens’s novels shocked the isolated upper classes. Thanks to his work and that of influential philanthropists such as Lady Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, politicians finally began to address social ills—establishing the first sewers, a clean water system, vaccinations, the first public library, workday limits, some restrictions on child labor, prison reform, aid for abandoned children, housing developments for the working class, and free education for all children.

  Settings integral to this novel, like Tothill, an infamous prison housing young adults, and Urania, a home for homeless girls supervised by Dickens and founded and funded by Lady Burdett-Coutts, were both in existence during this period.

  In homage to Dickens, this novel is written in twenty sections to mimic the format of his own novels that appeared in twenty monthly installments issued in magazines. In those small glimpses, the wounded underbelly of Victorian society was sliced wide open for all to see. The public roared for more. Dickens was the most popular author of his time and continues to be admired to the present day by both readers and writers.

  TOTHILL FIELDS PRISON, LONDON JANUARY 1857

  My feet stop on the stone floor. I’ve been circling the cell round and round. Eight steps ahead, then a turn to the left. Six steps broad. Then eight once more. This is the path of worn grooves my thin-bottomed boots pressed down upon when I first came here.

  I am caught up in him again like a web. But Luther is free to come and go and torment me.

  My fingers roam my face, a fallow field. Bony cheekbones. Pointed chin. High forehead. Hollows for cheeks. Was there ever a girl called Orpha, once?

  Tell me.

  ·• ONE •·

  At the barred window—a slit in the brick, so high up one sees only sky—day begins as it does each and every morning, shifting from black to slate. A few moments are mine before the others awaken. Stealing time is one crime they cannot charge me with. “The sweetest sin is the one unseen,” Hester hissed in my ear.

  The hammock swings back and forth, as even as breath. My eyes are squeezed shut as I slip into the past perfect of another day. Bit by bit, I hear Pa again. It’s always his voice that comes first, then his brown eyes. He had a voice that echoed everywhere, across the filled theater, booming along Old Pye Street, calling in passersby for the night’s performance in the rookery, the slum we called home.

  Creaks down Tothill’s cold hallway. Flutter on the stairs.

  Lemon balm leaves scent the air, picked in our back garden behind the theater, its pungent oil releasing into boiled water.

  Gunfire pulses through these stone prison walls: 6:00 a.m. wake-up call.

  Feet pound to the floor, and I am at the sink splashing icy water for my stand-up wash.

  Hurry!

  The cell must be tidied, hammock hung to the side, granite-gray uniform donned with the Red Star sewn on, white apron ironed down by palms, chamber pot in hand. My face flat as a plate.

  We must be ready when they come.

  The iron maidens are here. We curse Tothill’s matrons with that name. Crisp black dresses like mourning outfits and that hard boot slam of theirs. Such a boot could kick a girl anytime. Foster, the tall eagle-eyed one, flips open the eyelet on my cell door, then slides the bolts, flinging the heavy door wide. She scans my dress and clipped hair tucked beneath a wide white bonnet.

  “Get in line, E22!” she shouts, satisfied with my uniform.

  Out of the next cell, E21, steps Ivy, neck bowed, a stray black curl peeking out of her cap. She is like a magnet: a girl to watch and wonder about; someone who pulls my thoughts outward. Her lips silently form an O in greeting while mine stretch into an I. We’re quick at it, signals flashing fast, gone the next moment. It’s enough to draw me into the line, into the day, to follow her. Then, one by one, we dump our chamber pots into slop buckets in the far hall and return them to our cells. Afterward, I queue up behind Ivy. Every detail of her back I have memorized. Her shoulders slope more each day.

  We’ve come to a juvenile prison for those under seventeen years of age. Young boys are housed here too, but we never see them or hear them, for they are kept in other wings. It’s better that way. Most of us are here because of what boys turn into.

  Fifty girls in E wing stand behind one another in order of their cell n
umbers, the doughy Matron Doyle at the head and the other matrons at the rear as if herding a flock of young turkeys to the chopping block. Doyle’s broad shoulders and thick hands eager to grasp, marring us with bruises, are enough to keep us all looking straight ahead. Out in the open hallway, from every landing suspended above and below, eyes drill down on us; male guards on balconies, aware of every sniffle, a hand drifting from someone’s side, or a misstep.

  Up ahead, there’s a stir. Rose is ordered to step out of line. Ivy too! Her eyes dart to mine, making my heart jump. Both join a group of girls and wait. Some girls I know only by face, not by name. All wide-eyed and stunned, not knowing where to look. Edwina’s with them too, sniffling.

  “E22!” Foster yells at me now. “Step out!”

  My heart hammers a sore spot in my chest.

  Stay invisible! Never show your inside on your outside. Where was it you learned that? First the workhouse, then your aunt’s. Your own body betraying you: at twelve, buds of breasts poking through, making him see.

  No one can save me from what’s about to happen.

  No one ever did.

  Pa! Didn’t I call you each and every time? My muffled words beneath Luther’s fist: Pa! Where are you?

  Girls from E wing join the other wings parading down to work in the oakum room, laundry, or kitchen. In our small group, the Red Star gleams on every arm, a badge of good behavior.

  Ahead, Ivy shakes her head to signal a warning: Keep in step. Don’t falter. No matter what’s coming, punishment or lecture, at least we’ll be together.

  We march in a line of frayed girls upstairs to the very top. There is only one thing up there: the governor. He sits above us all. Matrons flank our backs as we are escorted into his office.

  In his room of windows, Governor Tracey beckons us closer. A ring of girls surrounds his desk, Red Stars glaring.

  “You are all nearing the end of your terms here in the coming months. Do any of you have a plan after discharge? Speak up now.”

  “My mum, Governor,” Rose slurs in an odd voice as she curtsies. “She’s old and waiting on me to come home.”

  Ivy pipes up. “My man’s promised to marry me once I’m out.”

  The governor scans the rest of us. One by one, we shake our dropped heads, eyes on our boots.

  “Well, good, some of you are looking ahead. One thing I do not wish to see: any of you back at Tothill. Our records show that if you return to the same habits that brought you here, it is certain you’ll return within the year.”

  My breath draws in very sharp. I cannot return to the rookery, sir.

  “There is something else I’d like you to consider—”

  Every eye lands on him.

  “It’s a home for fallen girls called Urania, where you will live with other girls for a year and be taught how to manage a household. Afterward, you will be transported to a position in one of the colonies.”

  None of us moves or says one word.

  “If you are interested in being considered, tell a matron, and you will be interviewed. Placements may open up later as well. But first, you must have a physical examination to ensure you are a healthy candidate.”

  They’ll want virgins.

  Ivy doesn’t even blink. Rose blushes. Edwina clenches her hands. How awful she looks up close: swollen knuckles, half-eaten nails, and odd bumps all over her skin.

  “Since most Tothill girls do not know their alphabet, I’ll read this invitation aloud.” He lowers his eyes to the letter. “You will all receive your own copy later.”

  As he reads, the matrons stiffen to attention. Foster glares at us as if we were bedbugs to be crushed. Her greasy black hair is flattened into a tight bun. She’s bone and stone, as if someone carved all her fat away. Leaning away from the iron maidens, we girls circle the governor. His voice is slower than my heartbeat. My mind skips over the letter like a pebble skimming water so I only catch details here and there. One description about Urania floats like a sigh right into me: refuge. How odd. Girls kept apart and hidden. Just like now. Only this word sounds forgiving.

  * * *

  It’s straight down to the oakum factory after that. The room is long and low with tall windows down the sides for natural light, but it is always silent and gray come winter. There is a fire, though, in the open fire pit, and it crackles. Oakum: old ship ropes; hemp to be tugged into thin fibers by raw hands; later, at the docks, coated with pitch to plug holes in seagoing ships. The day’s allotments have already been weighed as we pass by to pick up our baskets. Girl after girl plops onto an assigned stool with a basket at her feet, pulling ropes onto laps.

  Up front, on her high stool, Harred reigns like a queen over her sorry subjects. Narrow eyes in her flat face study our hands. Mostly she is silent. The only time she speaks is when she calls out a girl’s cell number. Voices shout that number upon our chests if fingers aren’t threading through the oakum quick enough. Behind us, through the narrow aisles, the other matrons patrol. It’s impossible to know when one is right behind you, for they have learned to step stealthily upon the stone floor. Foster can scream in a girl’s ear at any time. Without a word, Harred immediately scratches an X beside a cell number in her log should there be any disturbance.

  This room is the one place where an inmate sits so close to the others, she can hear the sharp intake of air when oakum slices into an open cut or that breathless turn into silence when a girl daydreams herself away. Ivy works beside me. Her eyes shift from her lap to the aisles, up and down, waiting for the chance. When the matrons are all safely pacing with their backs turned, her hand slides to mine and lightly squeezes. Often she catches me drifting or silently cursing my cuts, calling me back into the room. She knows my every shifting mood.

  I don’t imagine it. Her touch whispers: You’re not what they say you are. You’re not what they said you did. You’re more.

  Girls upon girls in this factory. One hundred and seventy, I count today. Only the crown debtors come and go quickly.

  Opposite are the youngest girls, from seven years to twelve, sneaks having snatched a bun from a cart, an umbrella by a door, or a piece of fruit. Their one mistake was not running away fast enough. They’ll bolt quicker as they grow. Most pick their share of oakum, a pound’s weight, once they’re here some weeks. They’ll go home soon after that. Since last spring, when I turned sixteen, my daily lot is a pound and a half of oakum.

  Squinting, I unwind the lump of oakum into smaller strands whose sharp slices of tar prick the skin. These strands are then broken apart, one by one, unraveling the rope into thinner and thinner strands of strings. I roll them out flat on my thigh to loosen before fraying them against one another into ever-finer threads. The pile on my lap soon topples, sliding to the floor to join the mountain of picked oakum there. Before the pile is calf-high, my stomach rumbles like a thunderstorm.

  Dare I look at the Red Star girls? Dare I tease out from their eyes what they are thinking about the letter? Dare I look to them for a sign? Best not to even think on it yet. Hester will return soon. Then we can decide.

  A smoky smell haunts the factory from the dampened fire that nobody bothers to tend now. It sinks down our noses as we breathe. Though we keep our mouths shut tight, the taste of tar coats our throats.

  * * *

  At last, bells ring and we line up for breakfast. Skilly, a thin gruel like drips of snot. A hard half-quarter of toke, a bread so dry we cannot chew it, for most are missing all their back teeth. Cocoa sweetened with molasses for inmates with the yellow number 1 stitched on their arm, like those of us in E wing, first-class prisoners held from three months to three years. Only water with their meal for short-stay crown debtors. Their stares track us carrying our tin mugs to our stools, steaming the room. If you shut your eyes when you dunk the toke into it, you can pretend to be at a cart such as those I once passed in Covent Garden, its heat warming plac
es grown cold overnight. In eight dips, the bread is gone.

  The break is almost over. I allow my eyes to slide Ivy’s way. Can your eyes read another girl like a book? Mine do. Today, she immediately catches my eye when my head turns. Her eyes smile back though her lips dare not. At once, it warms me. Her movements always speak for her. She sometimes stomps across the yard with no hesitation. She likes to have her own way, I suppose. In chapel, she’s whispered how she spent lots of money on woolen stockings and hooped skirts of bright colors. Those were the days, Orpha! I felt so fine! So flush! She pretended to be someone else before, as if her own self wasn’t good enough. But lately, those tight cords in her neck and her head dropping. She has a weight pressing on her, and my hands wish to touch her there on her shoulder to lift it but cannot.

  * * *

  At nine fifteen, we are corralled into chapel, a kind of theater of ascending rows, each one higher than the next, facing the chaplain. Girls pack into separate cubicles like matchsticks inside a tin box. Wooden walls slam behind us and between us so we cannot see one another. It is like sitting in one’s own coffin.

  In this holy place, they think they have captured us. We mumble our morning prayers in a drone. Matrons patrol with hawk eyes. Dare we not look straight ahead, dare we not recite our prayers loudly enough, dare we cough or clear our dry throats, our names will be shouted out for punishment. Down to the crank then.

  “You must be silent; you must be kept separate,” Head Matron Harred lectures us with her forefinger pointing straight at us. “That’s the law at Tothill!”

  One sharp look from her and all the matrons scramble like chickens, stumbling over their own feet to get at anyone not paying attention.

  All the while, the chaplain’s beady eyes study us from his high seat as if we were abominations. His prayers spit. His greasy hair pokes up on end as he raves on and on.