Lisette

Chapter 44 ~ Oh, I'm a Seduced Milliner - Anything You Like

The following day, I after dropping off my shirts and picking up some new linen, I made my way back through Les Halles, thinking to pick up some new candles and some bread and cheese for the next couple of days. Thinking to make a start on the next pamphlet about poorer women specifically, I fell into conversation with a woman of about seven-and-twenty, who didn't look as though she was particularly busy. She was tall and broad, quite good looking, with a round face, fat cheeks, and a rather wheezy voice. Her arms were thick and muscular, while she stood well on her legs, and altogether appeared as if she would be a formidable opponent in a street-quarrel.

She said "she never paid any rent, hadn't done it for years, and never meant to. She boasted of it: had been known about town this ever so long as Swindling Sal. And there was another, a great pal of her'n, as went by the name of Chousing Bett. Didn't they know her in time? Lord bless me, she was up to as many dodges as there was men in the moon. She changed places, she never stuck to one long; she never had no things for to be sold up, and, as she was handy with her mauleys, she got on pretty well. It took a considerable big man, she could tell me, to kick her out of a house, and then when he done it she always give him something for himself, by way of remembering her. Oh! they had a sweet recollection of her, some on 'em." 

"Did she never get into a row?" 

"Lots on 'em, she believed me. Been quodded no end of times. She knew every beak as sot on the cheer as well as she knew Joe the magsman, who, she might say, wor a very perticaler friend of her'n." 

"Did he pay her well?"

I only asked to find out how much she, and others like her, were in the habit of receiving from their 'young men'; but it had the effect of enraging her to a great extent. 

"Did he pay well? Was I a-going to insult her? What was I asking her sich a 'eap of questions for? Why, Joe was good for a god damn sight more than she thought I was! Bloody 'polite.' Then she was sorry for it, never meant to be. Joe worn't a five-bobber, much less a bilker*, as she'd take her dying oath I was." "Would she take a drop of something?" "Well, she didn't mind if she did."

We weren't far from the Corinthe, where "Swindling Sal" appeared very much at home, and entering it seemed to mollify her.

The "drop of summut short, miss," was responded to by the Gibelotte behind the bar with the monosyllabic query, "Neat?" The reply being in the affirmative, a glass of brandy was placed upon the counter, and rapidly swallowed, while a second, and a third followed in quick succession, much, apparently, to the envy of a woman nearby, who, my informant told me in a whisper, was 'Lushing Lucy.' But the added "Me an' 'er 'ad a rumpus," was sufficient to explain their not speaking.

"What do you think you make a week?" at last I ventured to ask.

"Well, I'll tell yer," was the response: "one week with another I makes nearer on five Napoléons nor four —sometimes six. I 'ave done ten. Now Joe, as you 'eered me speak on, he does it 'ansome, he does: I mean, you know, when he's in luck. He give me six Napoléons once after cracking a crib, and a nice spree me an' Lushing Loo 'ad over it. Sometimes I get three francs, five francs, or ten occasionally, accordin' to the sort of man. 

"What is this Joe as I talks about? Well, I likes your cheek, howsomever, he's a 'ousebreaker. I don't do anything in that way, never did, and shant; it aint safe, it aint. How did I come to take to this sort of life? It's easy to tell. I was a servant gal away down in Lyon. I got tired of workin' and slavin' to make a livin', and getting a damned bad one at that; what o' six Napoléons' a year and yer grub, I'd sooner starve, I would. After a bit I went to Dijon, and took up with the soldiers as was quartered there. I soon got tired of them.