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they were taught one and given a rough apprenticeship while resident at the Magdalene Home; there is, after all, little work done by women in this world that cannot be learned in a year.
    It was hence to the Home, located in Westminster, that she would go on that morning. I brought the hacknej carriage round to Number 4 Bow Street. Then, with no help from the driver, I made to fill it with the great pile of dresses, skirts, and shifts I had hauled up from the cellar. There was bare enough space inside for Lady Fielding when at last she emerged, apologizing for her tardiness and showering me with praise for doing all without her assistance (which, in any case, I should have declined).
    “I shall be gone a good part of the day,” said she.” I mean to inquire among the ladies in the Home for one to help out in the kitchen.”
    “Mrs. Gredge may soon be able.”
    “And again she may not.” She sighed.” Well, Jeremy, no need to tell Tom much about all this —simply that I shall return when I can do so. I’m sure you can keep him entertained.”
    “I wiU do my best, of course.”
    “And out of trouble.”
    To that I made no promise but simply waved a goodbye as she mounted into the carriage, and the driver pulled away.
    “You must tell me more of this place,” said Tom Durham.” A charitable home for young women, you say? Have I understood that aright?”
    “I think I should not say more,” said I to him.
    “Oh? And why not?”
    “Because,” said I, “your mother wishes you to be kept ignorant of it.”
    At that he let out a loud yelp of amusement, then continued walking in silence with me for a good long space.
    It had been his notion, after all, that we go off on a ramble through Covent Garden. I did a bit of buying out of a list Lady Fielding had provided —vegetables for the stew she would make from what was left of the roast. But most of our time in the Garden had been spent wandering about in no particular pattern from one end of the grand piazza to the other. It contented him so.
    As I had expected, his seaman’s duds caused quite a stir among the layabouts and lazy boys. They called after him; he smiled merely and waved a greeting. One stepped out before us and attempted to execute the steps of a hornpipe as a kind of jeering salute to Tom, who nimbly demonstrated in his turn how the dance was done proper. The women of the street, too, gave him note with calls, cries, snatches of song, and open invitations. To these he was quietly unresponsive. He did indeed cause quite a stir.
    “Ah, Jeremy,” said he (following a warm solicitation by one of their number —black-haired and blue-eyed, she was), “I suppose what I should do is pick out the prettiest of the lot and get the awful deed done with. I’ve money enough for it. I’ve the appetite, God knows.”
    Here was a disappointment. I had supposed Tom Durham to be well past me in carnal experience. I had hoped he might supply me with knowledge, even perhaps a bit of wisdom, in these difficult matters. Yet I was certainly sympathetic to his situation and attitude, so like my own they were.
    Yet I gave him a matey reply to his complaint: “What is it prevents you then?”
    “Lack of opportunity, I suppose.”
    How could that be? Half the easy women in London seemed to have established themselves here in Covent Garden and the streets surrounding it.
    “And the pox,” Tom added.” I may as well own up. I am frighted of the pox.”
    “I share that same fear.” I confided it to him in little more than a whisper.
    “Well, what do you do?” It was as if sixteen-year-old Tom were seeking advice from fourteen-year-old me.
    His question was so direct that it left no room for equivocation or subterfuge. I had no choice but to fall back on the truth: “I’m afraid I abstain.”
    “I’m afraid that’s what I have done, too. My messmates think me a freak. The ship’s surgeon insisted upon examining me. Hints were dropped from on high. And all this