called them—wore the clothes designed in her workrooms when they mingled with her guests. They were all different types and she was constantly replacing them, for so many of her goddesses left her after a brief stay. Her temple was but a resting place, she was fond of saying.
She rarely went out nowadays, but when she did and she by chance saw a lovely girl in a shop, or even in the street, she would offer to take her in and train her. It was a great opportunity for those girls. To meet Fenella was to meet fortune. These girls who, had they not met Fenella, would have had little but poverty to look forward to, invariably found a protector when they were in Fenella's care and, if they were wise—and Fenella brought up her girls to be wise—they would learn how to protect themselves in readiness for that occasion when the protector no longer protected. There were other young ladies whose fathers paid considerable sums of money that Fenella might teach them poise, grace, and how to charm; and when these young ladies passed out of Fenella's charm school, which they would do by way of the entertainments she gave, they would invariably find the sort of husbands their parents wished for them.
It was typical of Fenella that she entwined the respectable with the not so respectable. She could be a duenna for young ladies of fortune whose parents had not the entry into society; and she could be procuress as regards her poorer beauties. She had her open dress salon and also her discreet trade in those commodities which people wished to buy in secret. In one of the rooms of this establishment was her Bed of Fertility. It cost a great deal of money to occupy the Bed of Fertility for one night. The room in which it was placed was very similar to that in which Fenella sat reading the letter. There were dais and rich curtains; and the tapestry which lined the walls depicted the progress of lovers through many stages. There were beautiful statues and pictures—all of lovers. Some, it was said, would pay the price of a night in that chamber merely to see the pictures. But, said Fenella, the bed was for the married who wished for children and had been disappointed in that respect. To sleep in it meant that almost certainly a child would be conceived. The motive behind Fenella's letting the apartment was a righteous one.
That was how it was in their domain over which she presided. Respectability by itself was dull; eroticism was revolting. But what a combination Fenella had to offer! Eroticism paraded side by side with respectability!
Now, watching her, Polly knew from Fenella's smile that something was about to happen. She waited patiently.
"Well," said Fenella, "why do you sit there?"
"Madam dear has had some news?"
"You will know soon enough."
"Oh ... so it's a new arrival."
"Who said so ?"
"Madam dear, you can't diddle Polly."
"You're an inquisitive old woman."
"Two years younger than yourself, Madam dear. So I wouldn't talk about old women if I was you."
"That's where you're wrong. You were born old; I was born to be eternally young."
"Don't you believe it, Madam dear. You look every bit of forty-five."
"Go away, you insect."
"First tell me what's in the letter?" begged Polly.
"Just to get rid of you then. Pour me some coffee."
"Cream, Madam dear? You're getting fatter, you know."
"I like my fat and I like my cream. Well, Polly, you shall know. We're to have a new young lady."
"Madam dear! When?"
"Soon, I think."
"And who is she?"
"A dear little bastard."
"Ah, one of them: 9
"You remember the Cornishman ?"
"Yes, I remember him."
"We owe him a duty, Polly. He came here one day hoping to stay the night. I was in love with someone then—I forget who, but that is not the point . . . except that he went away—the Cornishman, I mean—and became involved with a little seamstress. There was a child . . . this child."
Polly made delighted clicking noises with her tongue.
"So we're responsible, eh?"
"He is sending her here. Melisande St. Martin. He reminds me that I helped to christen her."
"It's a pretty name."
"She might have been Millie but for me. Heaven knows what she might have been but for me."
"She would never have been born but for you . . . according to you."
"I had her sent to a French convent. She is an educated young lady now."
"What are you going to do . . . find a nice husband for her ?"
"We'll do our best, Polly. That's why he is sending her to us. She's to come here to learn dressmaking. If she's pretty we'll soon get her married. If she is not . . . well then she can work in the sewing-rooms."
"That'll be seven of them. You never had seven before. I don't
like sevens. We lived in number seven ... in Seven Dials. There was seventeen people in three attics and seven of 'em died of fever. My mother died having her seventh baby. ..."
"Don't be so superstitious, Polly."
"Why, you're as superstitious as any!"
"Never. There's a reason for everything. Always remember that."
Polly jerked her thumb upwards. "What about the bed then? What reason is there between them sheets, eh?"
"People go to the Bed of Fertility believing they will succeed. That's half the battle, Polly. Believe in getting something, and you're half way to having it. That's what I've done. Go and tell the girls they're to have a new little friend. But first bring me pen and paper and I will write to my dear friend at once, telling him that we are expecting his little Melisande."
Melisande was travelling first-class in the train which carried her across the country eastwards away from Cornwall. She felt bruised and bewildered, and there was growing within her a resentment against those people who had seemed to take her life in their hands and send her whither they wished. Was she to have no say in her own way of living ?
A thought had come to her that when she reached London she might run away, that she might not look for those people who would be meeting her there; she might tear up the paper with the address on it which she carried in her pocket; and she might never let any of them interfere with her again.
Had she been of a different nature she would have gone back to the Convent. She believed that was what Sir Charles had hoped she would do. How pleasant that would have been for him! He could have washed his hands of her—such a neat ending that would have been! She would not give him that satisfaction. Moreover how could she live as the nuns and the Mother Superior did? They had taken a brief look at life and had found it as disturbing and disillusioning as she had; they had decided to devote their lives to the service of God. But she was of a different nature. Life in the quiet Convent was even less attractive to her—she had to admit—than living on the defensive against wicked men.
"But one learns," she said to herself. "One learns to understand these wicked men. One learns how to fight them. Had I been wiser
I should have been duped neither by Fermor nor by Leon. Had I been wiser I should have understood why Sir Charles came to the Convent and took me away. I should have known, when he did not acknowledge me as his daughter, that he loved his position and his reputation more than his own child. If I had known these things there would have been no shock, no disillusion.''
The strange fact which had emerged from her unhappy experience was that Fermor, the self-confessed villain, was no more to be despised than the others. These are the men, she decided, the creatures who made convents necessary, for if men were like saints there would be no need for holy women to shut themselves away.