Lady Jane Read Free Page A

upper floor windows. The smell seeping in the front door was indescribable. Inside the small, fetid room were a kitchen table, two benches, and two beds. One bed was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Blodgett, and their small son, whose continually dripping nose and filth-smeared face caused Jane to lose her appetite every time she sat down to share their meager supper.
    The other bed Jane shared with the two daughters of the household, both near herself in age, and neither any better than she should be, Jane suspected.
    Bedtime had become a nightmare for her in spite of her aching body and desperation for rest. The bed covers were brownish-gray from dirt and, she realized with growing horror, were occupied by animal life other than herself and the Blodgett sisters. She couldn’t repress a shudder every time she forced herself beneath them. In spite of her distaste, however, she jumped in fairly smartly, for across the room she could feel the avid eyes of Mr. Blodgett, who leered at her continuously when she was in the room. Jane could only pretend not to notice, and pray that Mrs. Blodgett wouldn’t.
    Jane had left very early every morning, and plodded up one street and down another, hour after hour, knocking at the servants’ entrances of every mansion she came to, asking if help were needed. She’d found nothing.
    She was aware that her appearance was beginning to tell against her. Since there were no facilities for washing at the Blodgetts, she knew she was none too clean looking. The terrible air in the room, the poor diet, and the inability to sleep properly while clinging to the edge of the crowded bed being poked awake again and again by sharp elbows and knees, had drained the fresh colour from her cheeks and printed dark shadows beneath her eyes. The looks of contempt, or worse, pity, that now greeted her requests for employment had so shaken her that her natural ebullience had disappeared. The pert, laughing eyes were dulled by a failure she had, so far in her young life, not experienced. She had begun to think her life too insupportable to be borne much longer, though she could think of nothing more to do than she was doing to change it. She couldn’t even dredge up comforting words of her mother’s from her memory any more.
    In a mood of flat despair at the end of the seventh day of not finding work, she turned her sore and aching legs for the long walk back to Cheapside and the end-of-the-day routine that had become more difficult to face every day, with the prospect of lewd remarks and grabbing hands from the men who lounged in the dark doorways of the narrow, cobbled streets, and, when she finally passed that hurdle, the quarreling Blodgetts and the greedy eyes of Mr. Blodgett crawling over her body.
    It took her some moments to realize that the gentleman staring into the shop window was Mr. Leach. She nearly called aloud when she realized who it was, so great was her pleasure to see a familiar face from that very recent past which, in retrospect, seemed ideal. She stopped herself from speaking, suddenly ashamed to have anyone from that household see her in her present condition. Before she could move away, however, Mr. Leach turned and came down the street toward her. It seemed for a moment that he would pass by without recognizing her at all in any case, but at the last moment he stopped suddenly. “Here—is that you, Jane Coombes?”
    She threw up her chin and forced herself to smile gaily, “Well, well, imagine runnin’ into you, Mr. Leach! Don’t tell me—let me guess—you’ve come lookin’ for me because the household is fallin’ round your ears without me!”
    “Sauce!” he said laughing. “Well, how is it with you, girl?”
    “Not so bad as it could be, thank you Mr. Leach.”
    “Well, if you want the word with no bark on it, I’d say you was being less than truthful with me, Janie girl. Come on now—out with it. You’ve found no work, eh?”
    “Not yet—but it’s not been more nor a