Title: Merope Hid Her Face For Shame: This Heartless Place
Author/Artist: Atalanta Pendragonne (
atalantapendrag)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s)/character(s): Merope Gaunt, various OCs
Summary: Adjusting to the Saint Thaïs Refuge is even more difficult than Merope expected.
Warnings: Institutionalized cruelty, some violence. Follows
I Knew I Was Not Bound For Heaven This Heartless Place
Prostitutes and destitutes
And temptresses like me-
Fallen women-
Sentenced into dreamless drudgery-
Why do they call this heartless place
Our Lady of Charity?
Joni Mitchell, "The Magdalene Laundries"
The days were all the same. Hilda pointed out the other girls to her; Faith, with her golden curls and big blue eyes and the port-wine stain neatly bisecting her face; Winifred, who never spoke; Catherine with her pretty smile and nervous stammer; Adelaide, weary-eyed, who'd spent half her life behind the high stone walls of the Refuge; Cecilia, singing more often than speaking. She warned her which of the Sisters to be especially wary of, and to never let down her guard around any of them.
The dormitory was as cheerless as the infirmary had been, and so were the women who spent their nights there. Winifred, at fourteen, was the youngest; Adelaide was the eldest, looking to be somewhere in her forties. It was hard to tell, here. There was no sun or wind to weather the skin, only hard work to redden and coarsen their hands.
And hard work was what filled their days, scrubbing linens with lye soap harsh enough to make their skin peel, or using the heavy presses to iron the endless tide of sheets flat and smooth. Merope usually worked the press next to dark-haired Cecilia.
It was the rule that they were to work in silence, but some of the sisters were stricter. Sister Philomena was most lenient. Neither Merope nor Cecilia spoke much, but when Sister Philomena was supervising them, Cecilia would sing.
"What did you promise me when you lay beside me
You said you'd marry me and not deny me
If I said I'd marry you, 'twas only to try you
So bring your witness, love, and I'll not deny you
Oh, witness I have none, save God Almighty
And may he reward you well for the slighting of me
Her lips grew pale and wan; her heart did tremble
For to think she'd had one love, and he proved deceitful."
All of her songs were like that, or worse. Merope was glad of that. She didn't think she could bear any cheerful love songs.
When first I deserted, I thought myself free
Until my cruel comrade informed against me
-"The Deserter", traditional
Hilda's hair was almost grown to her shoulders when she tried to escape again. Merope was awakened by the sounds of screaming, and the dull thuds that she had come to recognize as the sound of a leather strap hitting flesh.
She had a few welts herself. Sister Columba did not overlook even the smallest infractions.
Eventually Sister Ursula and Sister Thecla dragged Hilda back into the dormitory. Even in the dim room Merope could see that her newly-shorn head was bleeding sluggishly in half a dozen places.
"What happened?" Merope whispered, after the Sisters had dumped her unceremoniously on the bed and stalked out.
Hilda was coughing, and her voice was rough. "That filthy slag Faith..." she hissed, taking care to keep her voice too low to carry. "Must have seen me slipping out. Of course she'd turn copper's nark on me... Well, I'll just have to do her one better, won't I?"
Merope was afraid to ask what she meant.
As it was, she hadn't long to wait. It was another long day in the laundry. With Sister Columba keeping watch, Cecilia kept her head bowed, silent as they all were meant to be.
Until the screams started.
Everything seemed to happen at once. Winifred dropped to the floor, bucking and thrashing. When Sister Columba knelt beside her with an exasperated sigh, Adelaide grabbed her from behind, slapping a hand over her mouth. But the real commotion was across the room, where Hilda had thrust Faith face-down into one of the tubs of harsh lye soap, and was holding her under.
It seemed like forever, but it couldn't have lasted a minute. Sister Columba wrenched free of Adelaide's grasp and pulled Hilda back, throwing her against the wall, and screamed at Catherine to fetch Sister Philomena as she dragged Faith out of the bucket of soap.
The next few days were nothing but confusion. Hilda laughing as the police lead her off in handcuffs. Winifred (still silent) and Adelaide wearing their shorn heads like badges of pride. Faith's eyes bandaged, the Sisters whispering about if she'd get her sight back.
Merope began sleeping more, after that. At first it was just sluggishness in the mornings. Then she had to be dragged out of bed. The day she slid to the floor, inert, while working the press was the day they moved her to the infirmary. She barely noticed.
Doctors came and went, using terms like 'narcolepsy', 'encephalitis lethargica' and 'catatonic stupor' in hushed terms. She barely noticed.
They moved her from her bed in the Saint Thaïs Refuge to a bed in the back ward of a hospital. She barely noticed.
Merope slept.
Merope slept for a long time.
TBC in In That Dream Of Death