Dark Shadows (12 page)

Chapter Twenty

Seating arrangements for the girls made prior to the evening entailed thoughtfulness and clever planning. The colours of the girl’s gown and hair were important. No two girls with similar looks sat together. Each girl was complemented by her seating companion to enable her to stand out in her own individual right. Dark-haired girls sat with honey-coloured or light-haired girls. One girl was usually older than the other, and although she detested the idea of allowing them any freedoms, Madame du Pont encouraged girls who were particularly close to each other to remain seated together when standards and protocol allowed. This, she believed, made them feel more comfortable on their first night out, and if the whores were comfortable, their guests would be too.

Mercy and Julia sat with planted smiles on their softly painted faces. As instructed, their backs were straight, not hunched. Their hands lay one atop the other on ruffle-skirted laps, and their legs sat at an angle, unfolded and with points of toes just visible.

Mercy watched men of all ages dressed in evening attire accept champagne in crystal flutes. She knew it was champagne because Parker had told them about the guests’ welcome procedure during their instructions. Mercy wondered what it tasted like. She almost wished she could drink a whole bleedin’ bottle, which would in all likelihood knock her out until morning. She even wished now for the horrible smelly drug that had been placed on the rag and then shoved in her mouth, for even that would be better than having to endure this night.

She was terrified. She did not intend to give her body to a complete stranger. How she was going to avoid this inevitability was a different matter entirely, of course, but as she sat trembling and afraid, she forced herself to keep her mind sharp and her resolve steady.

She looked dispassionately around her surroundings. Highly polished rosewood tables and chairs were dotted about the room. A variety of seasonal flowers in crystal vases added fragrance to the already perfumed area. An abundance of nude women posing in various positions on oil-painted canvases adorned the red velvet walls. She had seen enough nudity this past week to last a lifetime, she thought, trying to banish memories.

She found the faces of the other girls she had shared the stable with during the previous week or so. Had it been eight or nine days, or weeks? Time had slipped into insignificance. Each morning she was horrified to discover that her nightmares were not dark and ugly visions from which she could awake and forget, but reality that was ever constant.

Her dreams never altered. They had become part of her, like dark shadows accompanying her through every night. The bridge, the man, the floor of the carriage, and the murder committed threatened to drive her mad. She would not survive this hell, she believed. She was not able to abolish her need and determination to escape, as she perceived most of the other girls had. Her dreams were prophetic; she was sure of this, for she always felt the knife cut into her throat just before she awoke to Parker’s morning call.

Her waking thoughts were now a repetitious regime of fear and dread of what torture the day would bring, worry over whether she would be able to keep her temper and anger in check, and finally that tiny hope that she’d be rescued.

Her anger had grown into what could only be described as an internal hatred of all she saw, experienced, and felt. It was further inflamed with the knowledge that she would have to succumb without complaint to another day of threatening rhetoric bestowed upon her and the other girls by the servants and the madam, whom she had come to despise with every fibre of her being.

Her only consolation was the plan she had endlessly imagined, which involved killing the madam; her two henchmen, Sam and Eddie; and Parker, a cold, calculating shell of a woman without a soul. Her mind had in fact killed them in so many different ways that she was actually running out of ideas. These thoughts of murder had kept her sane, as had her protective arms, wrapped around young Julia at all times. In protecting Julia, she unwittingly sustained a measure of self-composure.

As she continued to stare now at her opulent surroundings, she noticed that not only were the girls she shared the downstairs room with in attendance, but that they had been joined by some twelve or thirteen other women she’d never laid eyes on before. She studied their mannerisms and body language. She questioned their seemingly satisfied expressions. Why, she wondered, did they seem to be so unaffected by this house of horrors? They appeared to be actually looking forward to being violated. She wondered if perhaps they had lost the will to fight the nightly invasions of their bodies. She also asked herself if she too would become compliant and accepting as weeks passed into months. The prospect scared the living daylights out of her.

Mercy noted that every girl was dressed in a gown which was beautiful yet daring in cut. Although gowns varied in colour, their designs were very much the same. They were fashionable and full-skirted, revealing tiny waists below tight bodices. The necklines were low off the shoulder, with stays and corsets pushing the breasts upwards, precariously holding nipples just below the neckline. She looked down at her own breasts and blushed. The green satin gown left nothing to the imagination. The sight of her deep cleavage made her feel every bit the whore she was to become.

Mercy was scared. She could admit this to herself but not to Julia, who discreetly held her hand under the folds of her gown. She glanced at her young friend and hid her pity and her thoughts. Julia was like a young girl dressed in grown-up clothes. She was tiny in height and so skinny that her underdeveloped breasts looked more like an extension of her ribcage. She was a child in every way. She possessed an endearing unworldliness, but that would disappear tonight, and in its place would come a hellish experience she couldn’t even imagine at this moment.

Mercy sighed. She had seen cruelty and vulgarisms that had no doubt been absent from Julia’s innocent and sheltered life. Even at school, she had listened to girls her age talk about being bedded by boys and men for a penny or the price of a loaf of bread. She knew exactly what was going to happen upstairs when she was taken – but Julia?

As the room filled with men, Mercy thought back to her first few days in captivity. They’d been filled with fear and, most of all, sadness. She’d cried for home and her family. She had wept so much that she would have sworn on a Bible that she had no tears left to shed. The humiliation, physical and mental torture, and loss of freedom had taken their toll on her appearance. Her chalk-white face and wide eyes only enhanced her beauty, but Mercy was unaware of what others perceived when they looked at her. All she could see reflected in a mirror was hatred and fear on a face she barely recognised.

After her ordeal on that first day, when she’d been poked and prodded beyond human decency, she had attempted to concentrate on one thing and one thing only. In order to survive, to find some measure of contentment in this life on Earth, she would have to risk all, even death. Thoughts of murder and escape consumed her every waking moment. Her eyes had searched for ways out, just as they were searching now, casually sitting in a pose that Parker had taught her.

Mercy watched the men walking nonchalantly around the salon, eying the couch areas where the women sat. They looked at her and her fellow captives from the tops of their heads to the tips of their toes, as though they were a herd of cows at market. They had all come through the salon’s open double doors. She believed that just beyond those doors would be the main entrance into the house. She presumed this because she’d seen a glimpse of hallway when they’d been marched through the kitchens and into the salon. She couldn’t imagine any other main entrance bar the one off that wide-open hallway.

She wished she’d been allowed to see the house before tonight. Had she seen upstairs, where the main door was situated, she’d now have a better indication of an escape route. Maybe later on, when the place was busy and women were moving up to the bedrooms, she would somehow find a few seconds to slip by the crowd and flee in the direction she guessed the main door to be.

Julia interrupted her thoughts with a squeeze of the hand. “Mercy, I want to go home,” she said with a throaty sob.

“Me too, but we can’t. Everything will be all right,” Mercy told her for the hundredth time, whilst still thinking about an escape plan.

“I’m so scared. I just want to die. Please don’t let any of these men take me. I didn’t know there would be so many, and they’re so old. Promise me I can stay with you.”

Mercy followed Julia’s tearful eyes and saw what she saw. She realised that she she’d been so busy planning an escape that she hadn’t noticed the arrival of even more men, now packed into the room like matchsticks. It was all beginning.

A woman captured with her was already being escorted out of the room by a man and Madame du Pont. It would be her turn soon, Mercy thought. There were so many men in attendance that it left her in no doubt that every woman there would be used more than once during the long night ahead.

Mercy turned her head and looked into Julia’s eyes. This was no time to lie to the young girl. She could not protect either of them, and she would not promise Julia anything, as much as she wanted to. “Julia, you can’t stay with me. You know that you
will
be going with a man. You must know this. You have to be brave no matter what happens. When you’re chosen, think about home, your family, your life in the country with your brothers and sisters. Hold on to your thoughts and separate them from your body. Float away with them. Let them take you to your favourite places with your favourite people. No man can take your thoughts, Julia. They’re yours. And don’t refuse. Don’t cry. Smile and don’t look afraid. You’ve got to do all that’s asked of you, as we all must.”

“But I can’t,” Julia insisted. “The very thought of a man old enough to be my grandfather lying on top of me, putting that thing inside me, is revolting. I would rather die. I wish Madame du Pont had killed
me –
cut my throat open instead of that other girl’s. At least I would be at peace now, as she is. Will it hurt – the man’s thing?”

Mercy unclasped their hands and told Julia to sit up straight and smile. Parker was staring at them with those cold, unfathomable eyes.

She thought about Julia’s question and decided that she would have to tell her what she perceived to be the truth. “I imagine it will hurt a bit, more than Madame du Pont’s finger. But, Julia, I know girls who like it, so maybe it won’t be too bad. And just look at us. We’re nicely dressed. We don’t look like prostitutes, do we? Maybe these men will be kind to us. Look at those girls over there, the ones we don’t know. They don’t look afraid, so it can’t be all that bad.”

Julia’s eyes glanced at a couple of girls they had never seen before. She turned and whispered in Mercy’s ear, “They look as though they’re enjoying themselves. They’re even smiling and giggling like silly girls. How can they be happy when I would rather end my life than sit here? Oh, Mercy, if only I had the courage to run right out that door.”

Mercy felt her anger growing. Julia was drawing far too much attention to herself. She was making a right scene, all teary-eyed and the like. Parker and the madam would punish them both later. She whispered sharply in Julia’s ear, “Don’t cry a single tear. I’ll not be having it, do you hear me? You’ll get us both into trouble. Stop pouting right now before someone sees you. The other girls have done this before. I bet you they all hate being violated, just as you and I hate the very thought of it. But we’re prisoners. We are not bad. We shouldn’t feel ashamed or disgusted with ourselves. We just have to pretend like all the others. There’s nothing else for it.”

Julia nodded. “I’m sorry, Mercy,” she said.

At that moment Mercy looked up to see Madame du Pont introduce one of the girls to a man who was clearly interested in her. He took her hand and kissed it. Mercy couldn’t remember her name; for the life of her, she couldn’t remember. The girl stood up and curtsied to the man, and then he led her away.

“Remember, Julia: no matter what, don’t fight. Just open your legs and let them touch you and do what they want with you.”

Mercy watched the men blend easily into the salon’s highly charged atmosphere. Madame du Pont mingled, her hand kissed so often that Mercy thought she looked and behaved like a queen holding court.

Parker, Sam, Eddie, and the house servants serving champagne were circulating unobtrusively, keeping watchful eyes on girls and customers alike. Mercy concluded that Madame du Pont was very good at her job. She introduced the girl of choice with pleasantries and gushing compliments. There was no money exchanged, Mercy noted. The old hag must take the money from the men out of sight, perhaps somewhere between the salon and the bedroom. Mercy couldn’t know for sure, of course, but she was convinced that she could be chosen at any time.

The planted smile on Mercy’s face hid her thoughts, much darker now. She had witnessed a young girl’s throat being cut open, blood spurting all over those standing too close. The girl’s innocent face in death and the callous way she had been disposed of afterwards were sights that would haunt her forever. Mercy’s lips continued to spread in a seemingly easy smile. She was not going to end her days an old prostitute, imprisoned and then thrown onto the streets when she was of no more use. She was not going to be killed at the hand of an old painted woman either. She was getting out of here, come hell or high water.