Keeping Katerina (The Victorians) Read online

  Keeping Katerina

  Simone Beaudelaire

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Poetry by Robert Browning. These works are in the public domain.

  Copyright © 2013 by Simone Beaudeliare. All right reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission the author’s permission.

  Cover art created by L.M. Boelz

  Author’s web site: [email protected]

  This book is dedicated to all survivors of child abuse.

  Table of Contents

  ***Chapter 1***

  ***Chapter 2***

  ***Chapter 3***

  ***Chapter 4***

  ***Chapter 5***

  ***Chapter 6***

  ***Chapter 7***

  ***Chapter 8***

  ***Chapter 9***

  ***Chapter 10***

  ***Chapter 11***

  ***Chapter 12***

  ***Chapter 13***

  ***Chapter 14***

  *** Chapter 15***

  ***Chapter 16 ***

  ***Chapter 17***

  ***Chapter 18***

  ***Chapter 19***

  ***Chapter 20***

  ***Chapter 21***

  ***Chapter 22***

  ***Chapter 1***

  "You want me to do what?" Christopher Bennett looked aghast at his mother.

  She returned his gaze levelly. "It’s not so much to ask, son. She’s a lovely girl, and I just want to introduce you to her."

  Christopher rolled his eyes in disgust. His mother was such a romantic, sometimes it drove him mad. He counted slowly in his mind, trying not to snap at her, his eyes taking in their surroundings. They were standing outside the family’s factory, a massive brick structure with billows of eye-stinging smoke pouring from several chimneys. Even from the street, the sounds of the steam boilers and the clanking of machinery were quite loud. Inside it was deafening. The streets around the factory were filthy with ash and soot and the buildings surrounding them, tenement slums, sat forlornly under a blanket of garbage and dirt. The chill, humid air clung closely to the mother and son standing outside the massive edifice, moistening their skin with a slightly musty dew. A little breeze picked up, sending the cold straight through his coat, which he had flung hastily over his shoulders and left unfastened, and her wrap, and both shuddered. When the wind had passed the tenement, it had picked up a vile aroma of human waste and unwashed bodies. It was a terrible place to live, so close to a factory, but for thousands of the poor of London, there was no choice. None of those desperate souls worked for the Bennets, though. Christopher and his father paid wages too high for that. Their workers lived quite comfortably in comparison.

  A small and skinny child sat on the step of a tenement, dressed only in a thin nightgown despite the biting January cold, playing with some unidentifiable piece of trash. The scene did very little to soothe Christopher’s temper, and his voice, when he spoke, was harder than he intended.

  "Mother, I’m much too young for you to play matchmaker with me. I’m nowhere near being ready to get married."

  "What a shame. You’re twenty-four, just the age your father was when we got married. Please, son. I’m not asking you to marry her, just to let me introduce you."

  "Why?"

  This time she had to take a moment. She hated being here. While she approved of what her husband and son were doing in this factory, she despised the heat and noise and filth of the place, not to mention its squalid surroundings. Tenements like this one were a breeding ground for the cholera epidemic was currently sweeping through the slums.

  Besides, she didn’t want to explain everything yet. She had just had tea with her young friend, and listened to the sweet-natured musician play the harpsichord, beautifully as always, and then she had seen something so… she shook her head. It wasn’t the first time she had encountered such heartbreaking marks on the poor girl, and Julia longed to take her away and keep her. But alas, Kat was her friend, not her daughter, and she had no right to interfere. Today, however, an idea had struck her. There was a way to make Kat her daughter, to wrest her from the care of that monster. It was an impulsive plan, fraught with potential disaster, but here she was anyway. She had left the house for the factory the moment the visit had ended. The cab in which she had ridden was waiting at the edge of the street to take her home again.

  Christopher was looking at her expectantly. But what to tell him? Something true… but not the whole truth. Not yet.

  "Because she’s not very popular, and there’s no reason for it. I want everyone to see there’s nothing wrong with her."

  "Why do you care?"

  "She’s my friend."

  "How old is this woman?" His eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  "Don’t look at me like that. She’s not a dowager. She’s nineteen, I believe, and quite pretty. Please son, can’t do you this one thing for me? Just meet her?"

  Christopher knew it would be futile to refuse. His mother was a sweet woman, but could be very stubborn. Since she had decided he needed to meet her friend, she would not let him hear the end of it until he did. Better to get it over with quickly. "Oh, all right then. I suppose you can perform the introductions tonight. I’ll meet her. I won’t promise to dance with her though. If she’s some kind of pariah…"

  "Oh no," his mother said quickly, "just a bit shy, a bit of a wallflower. Nothing more."

  "What’s her name?"

  "Katerina Valentino."

  "Italian?"

  "Her father is. Katerina, as far as I know, has lived in England her whole life. She looks rather Italian, but her manners and speech are very English."

  "I see. Well, fine. Tonight, at the ball, I’ll allow you to introduce us, but that’s all. Any further actions I take will be decided by me."

  "I understand, son."

  Christopher stalked away.

  Once he was out of sight, Julia sagged with relief. If he would meet Katerina, it would be a start. Something had to be done to help that poor girl about whom she had come to care so deeply, and Julia was willing to give all her resources, even her firstborn son, to accomplish it. She only prayed it would be enough.

  ***Chapter 2***

  "Bennett, glad you could make it." James Cary, one of Christopher’s closest friends commented, extending a glass of brandy.

  "Of course, of course, Cary. What did you expect? My mother wanted to talk to me." Christopher rolled his eyes, and gratefully accepted the glass and sipped.He sank onto a high-backed sofa of carved wood with blue velvet upholstery, the best seat in the little blond brick row house provided to Cary as part of his payment as vicar of a small working-class neighborhood chapel. His salary was adequate to his needs, but his tastes were austere, his interests esoteric. He would rather spend his extra income on a book of poetry and an expensive bottle of wine to enjoy with it than on some ornament, and so his parlor was decorated simply with a rather threadbare blue and black oriental rug on the floor on which rested a mahogany table where he had arranged his prized collection of leaded glass bottles and decanters. The rich burgundy and brown hues of the liquors inside the bottles gleamed dully in the fading light. The table was surrounded by the sofa and the two armchairs.

  "About what?" Collin Butler, Viscount Galway, the only nobleman of the group, sipped from his own glass, perhaps a little m
ore deeply than was wise.

  "A woman. What else?"

  "Did she finally hear about your opera singer?" Colin asked, smirking. He had introduced his friend to the lovely Miss Montford.

  James grinned. Christopher grimaced. That evening had had more to do with wine than desire, and he still regretted it.

  "You know, you two have gotten a great deal of conversation out of a single night. It was eight months ago. And anyway, she was really not worth the trouble. No, not that one."

  "Whom then?" Collin asked.

  "She wants to introduce me to her young friend. I fear she’s matchmaking."

  "Oh Lord. Who?" James asked, raising his glass to his lips.

  "Katerina Valentino."

  Collin stared open-mouthed at Christopher’s words, and James choked a little on his brandy.

  "What? Is she hideous?"

  "No," Collin said cautiously, "she’s… powerfully timid."

  "Boring, really." James added, "I tried dancing with her once. Felt bad she was standing alone. I don’t think I saw her eyes once during the entire waltz, and if she said a word, I didn’t hear it."

  That didn’t sound promising. Christopher glanced out the window, taking in the details of his surroundings, the way he always did. In the brilliant crimson light of the sunset, the red bricks of the row house across the narrow cobblestone street seemed to glow, the light diffused by the particles of soot, which always hung in the air. In a city whose population would swell to nearly six million in the next decade or so, with nearly all homes warmed by coal, smog and pollution were inevitable. The added soot of steam-powered factories only made it worse. The vicarage was also uncomfortably close to the Thames. Raw sewage had been dumped into the river for a millennium or more, and in the half century since the Industrial Revolution had begun in Britain, pollutants from factories had been poured in as well. The stench of the river could be overpowering at times, and living near it was certainly no blessing.

  "Well, I told mother I would meet her, so I will accept an introduction. If she’s nothing, at least I can say I tried." Christopher’s voice was resigned.

  James snorted.

  "So gentlemen, what do we have to look at today? Something… intriguing?" he asked, changing the subject "That ‘newly discovered’ Byron?"

  "I read it. It was an utter fraud." James dismissed it with a wave of his brandy glass. "I suspect a barrister-in-training. It reads like legal documentation. No, no. I have something we’ve never seen before."

  "What is it?"

  "The poet is called… Browning."

  "Elizabeth Barrett Browning?" Collin complained, "Her poetry is hardly worth our time. A lot of girly sonnets to be used on susceptible young women. I’m not trying to woo one of you."

  "No, idiot. Her husband. Robert Browning. I’ve never read any of his works before, but the title is promising."

  "And that is?"

  "Porphyria’s Lover."

  Christopher raised his eyebrows. "It does sound intriguing. Perhaps he’ll be the next Byron. Who’s reading?"

  "I’ll read," Collin volunteered, grabbing the folio from James’ hands. "‘The rain set early in tonight/ The sullen wind was soon awake.’" He began, and then continued reading. As he progressed through the poem, James raised his eyebrows in pleasure as the young lady was described partially undressing and cuddling up to her lover. And then there was an unexpected turn.

  "‘I found/A thing to do, and all her hair/in one long yellow string I wound/three times her little throat around/And strangled her.’"

  James’ eyebrows snapped together, and Christopher had to tighten his jaw deliberately to prevent it from dropping open. This was no lascivious love poem. Collin started at what he had just read, but bravely continued to the end, as the murderer embraced the corpse of the woman who had once loved him. "’And yet God has not said a word,’" Collin finished. At that last line, the three young men fell silent. It was a terrible, violent poem.

  "Good Lord," James said at last, "What the devil was that?"

  "I don’t know," Collin replied, "I’ve never heard anything like it. How… distasteful."

  They both looked at Christopher. He too was appalled by the subject matter, and yet…a new thought germinated, took hold, and grew.

  "I think he was trying to make a point rather than a beautiful poem. Speaking out against violence towards women and all that. Social reform. Certainly things like this do happen."

  "Are you defending it?" Collin’s disbelief was heavy in his voice. "It’s terrible. It hardly rhymes. I’m going back to Tennyson. At least he’s elegant. Besides, any girl stupid enough to trust such a madman deserves what she gets."

  "Perhaps." Christopher still looked thoughtful.

  "I think you’ve been talking to your mother too much." James laughed, "It’s only a poem. Don’t read so much into it. As for me, I’ve had enough for one evening. Shall we go get some dinner at the club?"

  "Yes I think so," Christopher replied, shaking off the somber mood of the poem, "Collin?"

  "Sorry, no money."

  "I’ll pay for you," Christopher offered.

  "Very well."

  And they went out, thankful that in winter, at least, the stench of the malodorous river was muted by the biting cold.

  ***Chapter 3***

  The ball was well underway by the time Christopher arrived. He looked around and sighed. What a tremendous crush. It would be difficult to find room to breathe, let alone dance, and the heat was already sweltering despite the icy wind blowing outside. He hated this. His favorite entertainments were the smaller, more intimate kind, where one could actually move, converse, and hear the music.

  An event such as this one would once have been reserved almost exclusively for members of the nobility. But now, as the wealth of the lords dwindled and a powerful middle class was rising, those at the top of the working world had been allowed into the snobbish and rarified sphere -just a little- as the remaining titles sought infusions of money to bolster their suffering estates. Such parties were often difficult for those new arrivals, because their more elevated fellow guests drooled over their bank accounts while bemoaning their presence.

  Alas, this was the ball where he had promised his mother he would meet her timid little friend. It seemed likely that, having done his duty by the girl, he would make a quick escape. Not quick enough to prevent the gossips from noticing, to be sure, but hopefully in a crowd like this there would be plenty of other scandals to distract them.

  It took him fully half an hour to find his mother in the mass of milling sweaty bodies. The flickering gaslights in the room provided better illumination than candles, but the compressed carbide flames only added to the heat. Still, while street lamps and theaters were commonly equipped with gas, it was rare for a home to be, and the presence of those dim lights only added to the sense of luxury. Feet pounded on the polished wood floor of the ballroom as he picked his way around the edges, near the hand-painted wallpaper the hosts had commissioned.

  Industrialization had made it possible for people of modest means to purchase quite decent commodities, but the flood of mass-produced goods on the market meant those who desired to flaunt their status hired artisans to make the same products at many times the price. Christopher had seen some terrible wallpaper commissioned by those whose wealth exceeded their taste. But in this home, at least, an attractive pattern of what looked like the eyelets on peacock feathers embossed on a rich silver background extended from the polished wooden wainscoting to the ceiling, where a central medallion extended plaster arms to the wall.

  Actually, wisdom would have dictated he look for his mother here first, near the open doors to the balcony, where blasts of wintry air lightened the sultry atmosphere. Julia Bennett was standing with one of her closest friends, Mrs. Turner, who, not surprisingly, was Collin’s mother. After a rather brief marriage to the Viscount when she was extraordinarily young, she had remarried, not another nobleman, but a soldier, tossing he
r title away like rubbish.

  Her second husband, Colonel Turner, oversaw the factory Christopher’s father owned. While certainly not nobility…a rank given at birth and rarely attained by other means, they were two comfortably wealthy, middle class families, apart from the fact that young Collin had a seat in the House of Lords and a struggling estate to try to resurrect from the ashes of his late father’s excessive lifestyle. It would likely take his whole life.

  Since his father and the colonel were nowhere to be seen, Christopher assumed they had decided to spend a bit of time playing cards before dinner, and would join the dancing afterwards.

  Christopher approached his mother. Tonight she was wearing a lovely dress in a shade of soft blue, which complimented her rich fiery hair. She had just celebrated her 40th birthday, and was starting to have a few silver streaks in the glowing mass, a few crow’s feet around her eyes, but that made her no less lovely. Standing with the ladies was a taller, younger woman. This must be the one he was supposed to meet.

  He appraised her as he approached. She certainly looked Italian, with dark brown hair, and her skin was a darker shade than Julia’s, not dusky precisely, but with a hint of warmth to the tone, which spoke of foreign shores, stronger sun. She also didn’t look particularly shy. Her head was up, her eyes meeting his mother’s, and Mrs. Turner’s quite easily. She had quite a pretty face, he noted, pleased. Her nose was a trifle on the bold side, but not hideously so, and her teeth were white and straight. Those eyes, he saw as he got even closer, were huge and dark brown, warm like melted chocolate. She was lovely.

  "Good evening, Mother," he said, kissing her cheek, "Mrs. Turner." He clasped her hand. Mrs. Turner was more like a favored aunt than anything else in Christopher’s mind, and he treated her like family.

  "Good evening, Christopher. How are you?"

  "I’m well thank you. Your son sends his regrets."