Chapter 14 #3
‘No, we’re not running a salon,’ Jenny said hastily. ‘We have been introduced to a woman who runs a business – her own chop house. She employs men to protect her, if you can believe it – and she is buying the tincture from us to sell to her customers.’
Jenny leant forwards and took Miriam’s hands. ‘I know you weren’t happy about the idea, but how long would a guinea pay rent on your lodgings if I were to join you there?’
Miriam pulled her hands out of Jenny’s and crossed her arms.
‘I don’t want your money, if that’s how you’ve earned it! You know how I feel about opium and what it does.’
‘But you were laughing at the theatre,’ Jenny protested.
‘That was acting!’ Miriam pushed her chair back, scraping the floor loudly enough to turn the heads of the diners at the next table. ‘I can’t believe you carried on after what I told you.’
Jenny exhaled loudly. ‘Mim, you have to understand. I could never leave my uncle’s house without doing this.’
‘Why would you need to do that anyway?’ Miriam asked, scornfully. ‘You have everything you need there.’
Jenny’s eyes prickled. ‘I don’t have you. I don’t care about any of that.’ She dropped her head, knowing that if Miriam saw the expression on her face, it would be unbearable. ‘I want to be with you. I love you.’
She had practised saying the words to herself so many times before going to sleep at night and in idle daydreams. She had imagined saying it.
She had pictured Miriam’s joy and the enthusiastic return of her affections; the confirmation that everything Jenny felt and everything they did was right.
But when she dared to look up, Miriam’s expression was stony.
‘I love you,’ Jenny repeated in a broken whisper.
‘Yet you don’t love me enough not to become involved in a trade that you know I find abhorrent for very good reasons. I told you the first time you mentioned your business idea that I wanted nothing to do with it and I believed you shouldn’t either. And still…’
Jenny folded her arms protectively. Her heart was beginning to speed up, the blood thrumming in her veins.
‘I was hoping to earn enough to support myself so that I could come and live with you. So that I could be your new roommate and share your home and your life. Perhaps we could even eventually find somewhere nicer.’
‘What a lovely dream built on deception.’ Miriam shrugged and spread her arms with a disappointed eloquence that words could not match.
‘I’m not like you, Mim. I can’t paint or draw to make a living. I don’t have any means with which to support myself, and the income on my inheritance is pitiful,’ Jenny said.
‘So you’ll sell the means of misfortune to others,’ Miriam snapped. ‘And don’t call me Mim while we’re arguing.’
That felt like a slap in the face. To hear Miriam speaking with such disdain and disappointment was intolerable, but even so, there was something slightly hypocritical in her condemnation.
‘Well, if we’re arguing, then you told me you have occasionally met the rent by selling yourself, so don’t lecture me about how I earn mine! ’ Jenny threw back.
‘Yes, I’ve sold myself, which has had no adverse effect on anyone else.’ Miriam was raising her voice and the bartender walked over and slapped his hands down on the table.
‘This is a respectable establishment and we’ll have no harlots fighting here. Keep your voices down or get out.’
‘We’re not harlots!’ Jenny exclaimed.
‘Don’t concern yourself with that,’ Miriam snapped. ‘I’m leaving.’
‘Don’t, please. We’re both upset after what we saw. We don’t have to fight,’ Jenny said. She tried to be soothing, but her voice was unsteady. Miriam stood. Her cheeks were very pale, and she wrapped her stole around herself tightly.
‘You look down on women for using their bodies as they choose and you don’t even want your image to be sold, yet you will happily sell the means for women to become inebriated. You are nothing but a hypocrite.’
Jenny pushed her seat back, furious at the accusation, but Miriam turned and walked away.
Jenny stood, about to follow her, but at that moment the barmaid approached the table and pointed at the plate of liver and onions.
Jenny sat back down, slumping into her chair. ‘I’ve lost my appetite,’ she said.
The barmaid shrugged. ‘Someone has to pay for it.’
Jenny reached into the deep pocket of her coat for her purse.
By the time the bill was settled and she had left, Miriam was nowhere to be seen.
She rubbed her eyes. Miriam had overreacted, and to give her the benefit of the doubt, she must be upset at the discovery of the corpse, too.
In a day or two, she would seek Miriam out and hope that she might listen to her explanation with kinder ears.
Jenny picked up her skirts and walked towards the wider streets.
Now that she was alone, she felt fragile.
Men openly looked at her, assuming that she was a streetwalker, or perhaps just prey.
None of them directly propositioned her, but she did not feel safe and decided that the next time she ventured out after dark, she would be wearing men’s apparel.