THE DEPRIVED... Chapter 3... Part 13.

A continuation of my book.

While Dora’s voice was that of a little girl as were her mannerisms it was plain she was used to being treated rather royally by servants and adults alike which gave her an old-fashioned bearing.
Beth put the King Charles spaniel down, which immediately jumped up on the bed and lay with its tail wagging furiously among the dolls. Dora had opened a cupboard and all the while chatting as she drew out some clothes and threw them across the chair.
“Here are some of my old clothes which might fit you, Beth. I’m sure Mama will not mind and you do look rather somewhat ragged. Mama told me to try to be charitable. Mama says every good Christian should be charitable to the poor.”
Beth listened to Dora as the girl continued to talk, noting how the girl seemed torn between womanhood and yet still hanging on to the child within.
“Go on Beth. Try on the clothes and then let me tie up your hair in a ribbon.” instructed Dora.
Beth turned her back to the girl as she undressed.
“Oh Beth! What are all those marks on your back!” cried Dora and Beth quickly turned to face her.
“I’m sorry, Dora. They are just marks put there by angels to remind me I must be a good Christian.” lied Beth.
“May I touch them?” asked Dora, her eyes wide. “I’ve never seen angel wishes."
“If you touch them the angels will take them away. I was not supposed to let anyone know about them because they are a secret.” said Beth.
Dora put her fingers to her lips.
“I won’t tell anyone, not even to Papa who I tell everything to.” she promised.
“Thank you.” said Beth and having dressed to a finery in Dora’s old clothes she gave a bobbed curtsy.
“How wonderful you look Beth and I shall teach you to curtsy properly, like the ladies do at the Royal courts.”
Saying this Dora gave a deep curtsy and Beth copied her.
“Now we must show Mama!” she cried, reaching to take Beth’s hand.
“Look Mama!” cried Dora, drawing Beth into the room where Mrs. Samuels sat embroidering a patch.
“See how pretty Beth is now.”
At first Mrs. Samuels looked up with a face critical in surprise, then smiling at her daughter’s expectancy of praise.
“You have been very charitable, Dora.” she said, seeing Beth wearing her daughter’s clothes and with hair curled and tied with a red ribbon in the style of the day.
“Now go in and look to Tempest, Dora. Beth has work to do.” said Mr. Samuels, who had entered the room.
“Oh Papa.” sulked Dora although she obeyed the request and went into her room, quietly shutting the door behind her.
“You must not allow Dora to treat you like a new toy, Beth.” instructed Mr. Samuels. “She has to learn to respect her fellow human beings.”
Beth smiled. She liked this couple and wanted to show her worth by asking if she could do anything for them.
“Do you know how to make tea, Beth?”
Beth admitted she did not, not ever having seen a tea caddy before.
“Then I have much to teach you.” said Mrs. Samuels as she put down her embroidery and rose.

 

Over the next week Beth was instructed in the mysteries of silver service and the use of a heated flat stone when pressing the fine clothes, from combing the dog’s hair, to making beds and cleaning the rooms each day. Beth began to smile more, allowing herself to tease Dora gently and to allow the girl to play with her hair and dress her up like a doll. She glowed in happiness, eating with the family and filling out more to a generous proportion. Beth slept in Dora’s room, having a cot pushed up to Dora’s bed and sharing Dora’s whispered secrets. She listened to the girl’s fantasies of meeting a prince or some fine friend of Papa’s who would worship her and wash her in luxury. Beth would smile at such fancies, remembering her nights spent in damp dark rooms and the sights of the Mudlarkers who scraped through the overflow of the Cesspits. Dora had no idea of the world beyond her cosy lifestyle, even there in the debtor’s prison. Beth was to learn how those with some capital behind them lived a good life, bribing the Warders and having food brought in to them and even, as it happened on the Sunday, to being allowed out for the day when Mr. and Mrs. Samuels had taken leave of the prison for the day and to stroll arm in arm among the leafy avenues of Rotten Row and to wave at those aristocrats on their fine horses then onwards to breathe in the air and admire the grassy expanse of Hampstead Heath before arriving back in a four horse carriage.

 

“Perhaps.” said Dora as she combed Beth’s hair. “I might go with Papa and Mama the very next time they go out on a Sunday. Oh, Beth please sit still!”
Beth sat still as Dora pulled at her hair.
“Wouldn’t it be good if you could come with us as well, Beth! Wouldn’t that be good!” said Dora enthusiastically.
Beth said nothing, closing her eyes and losing herself in the image of her riding in a fine carriage and waving at those who waved back.
“That would fit me like a princess.” she breathed.
Dora shrieked with laughter.
“Oh Beth, how funny is the way you talk. I shall have to give you speech lessons. I used to have my own tutors and shall have again when we all go home. But for the present we shall play a game of cards. Lay them out for us, Beth.”
Beth rose and did as she was asked.