Only Thisbe catching him kept Carlyle from falling backwards down the steps. “Je … Jehovah?”
“She’ll be right down.” The whore smiled. “Sorry about the confusion, it’s not often anyone new comes for the Young Master.”
Through the windows, one could track Heloïse’s approach by the polite bobbed nods of those she flitted past. I was still concocting schemes to stop them. What options had I left? They certainly weren’t prepared to listen to my excuses. If I called President Ganymede he could caution Thisbe to back off. She might listen, but not Carlyle, who teetered now on the steps like a tree half-felled in one stroke.
“Jehovah?” he repeated.
“Are you feeling all right, Father?” the whore asked, frowning down at the sensayer through the lipstick which did not so much frame her mouth as mark the twin peaks of her upper lip like two tiny strawberries. “You look pale. Do you need some brandy?”
“They’re fine,” Thisbe pretended, doing her best to prop Carlyle between her body and the dainty banister. “Carlyle, deep breaths.”
The door opened before them now, revealing a tiny creature, fragile but overflowing with energy like a hummingbird. “Oh, heavens! This won’t do at all!” She relieved Thisbe at once, tipping Carlyle’s full weight onto her shoulders, which, in their tininess, seemed like they should snap. “You must come in at once! I’ll send for a nurse. Candide!” she shouted to a gawking youth above. «Cherche-toi l’infermière!»
“No, it’s okay.” Carlyle seized the rail with all his strength and tried to stand. “I just had a little faint spell. I’m fine, really.”
“Are you certain?” Heloïse asked. Her face was clean and plain with that natural beauty which makes young princes hunger for shepherdesses, and made Carlyle smile in the moment before he saw her clothes. She wore a shapeless cotton smock, straight black down to her ankles, with a white tabard over the top, and a crisp white wimple covering her throat, brows and forehead so not a strand of hair showed through. Though none have walked our streets for nine generations, how many seconds would it take you, reader, to recognize a nun?
“There’s nothing wrong with that Cousin that a little food and spirits won’t put right,” the whore called down. “Heloïse, take them through to the Salon Hogarth, I’ll send for something.”
“Right away!” the nun confirmed. Though willing to let Carlyle walk, she would not release his arm, leading him firmly like a half-blind great uncle. “This way, Father.”
Sister Heloïse (not I) made them cross that threshold (though the panic which froze me in inaction prevented me from stopping it). They entered a service corridor, neither wide nor grand, ornamented with delicate moldings and small wall-mounted chandeliers, which sparkled disdainfully with electric light, not quite as rich as candles. The doors along the walls were strange, all different heights and widths, some low enough to make one stoop, others curved or slanted as if they had been cut into the wall at random. The cause was clear when Heloïse opened the nearest, for on the other side it was a hidden door, carefully cut to fit the gap between a fireplace and bedpost, so none within could deduce quite where the servants passed in and out. The Salon Hogarth was quiet, with leather seats and a hand-carved lady’s writing desk, but dominated by a vast canopy bed and a pair of framed prints. “Before” showed a gentleman dragging a reluctant lady toward a bed with no little violence, while “After” had the lady clinging to him in affectionate desperation as he rose to replace his britches. The pair of images would have been distressing anywhere, but were much worse in a room which was itself a precise re-creation of the one shown in the illustrations.
“Please, sit.” Heloïse poured brandy from a bright decanter, her tabard swaying about her knees like an apron. “Here, Father, this should give you back some fortitude.” She had the same accent as Dominic, French flavoring English as milk flavors cocoa. “Drink it slowly.”
“Stop calling me ‘Father.’ ” I was startled as I listened; I had not thought Carlyle had it in him to make his voice so grim. “Is this a period costume brothel?”
Her virgin cheeks blushed at the word. “Parts of the house could be described that way, yes.”
“And you’re dressed as a nun?”
“I am a nun. I am called Sister Heloïse. And what may I call you if not ‘Father’? You are a priest, are you not?”
“A sensayer.”
“As I said, a priest.” She smiled. “We call things by their real names here. Now, drink this, Father, it will revive your spirits.”
Carlyle crossed his arms in refusal.
The nun frowned. “And you, Madame,”—she turned to Thisbe—“or is it Mademoiselle? I see you are one of the subjects of His Grace the Duc de Thouars.”
“Mademoiselle,” Thisbe answered, “and if you mean President Ganymede, I’m a Humanist, yes.” I should have guessed Thisbe would adapt quickly to this new world and its vocabulary. “I’m Thisbe Saneer. Nice to meet you, Sister Heloïse.”
Heloïse attempted a seated curtsey, which made the shadows of her tight breasts bounce beneath her habit. It tried its best, the nun’s habit, to leave her shapeless, stripping hips and curves from the figure with its clumsy folds, but all it truly did was dare one to search for them, to wonder how pert the buttocks must be to make the fabric hang so, or to mark the shapes of thighs and calves through the slack cloth. “Pleased to meet you. Marie-Thérèse said you came to see Master Jehovah?”
“Yes,” Thisbe answered, glaring at Carlyle to keep him silent, since the name made him jolt on every repetition like a fresh electric shock.
“I’m afraid Master Jehovah is elsewhere at the moment, and occupied with high affairs. But I can request that he come see you as soon as He is free.”
“That may not be necessary,” Thisbe answered. “I’m running a pro forma background check on … Tribune Mason, to clear them for access to the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’house, for their investigation. I’m supposed to interview close associates, routine questions.”
“Oh! Why, then I shall answer anything you like.”
“Are you two close?”
“Very.”
Thisbe had to ask it. “Do you work here?”
“I live here,” the little Sister answered, “and I do my work here, caring for the sick, the mending, taking care of Master Jehovah’s errands, and, of course, I pray for everyone.”
Carlyle’s fists clenched.
“Carlyle,” Thisbe warned, “relax, just … relax.” She sighed. “I must apologize for my sensayer, Sister. I asked them to help with my investigation only quite recently, and they were up imprudently late last night. May I?” She reached to take the brandy from Heloïse’s fingers.
Heloïse surrendered the glass gladly. “It’s quite all right. It’s only natural for a priest to be overwhelmed by such a spiritual place. They often wind up in my hospital room at some point on first visits, though hopefully your friend is not so fragile.”
Thisbe shoved the glass at Carlyle. “Drink it, you need it.”
“A spiritual place?” Carlyle repeated. “A brothel?”
“It’s more than that,” the nun corrected, beaming pride. “This is a refuge from the barbarities of the modern day. Our members come here to escape for a few hours to a more courteous and enlightened age, and return to the outside world refreshed by a taste of civilized society.”
Carlyle twitched. “And sex?”
She pursed her lips in disapproval—you may never have endured it, reader, but the disapproval of a nun is extremely powerful. “Do you have some problem with sex?”