Whisper To Me of Love by Shirlee Busbee

carpet that looked as if it belonged in the home of some nobleman. There was also a tiny satinwood dressing table with a matching mirror above it, and crammed into a corner was a green-marble-topped washing stand. A fine bone china pitcher and bowl sat on it, and Pip felt a pang, as she always did whenever she entered this room. This room held the remnants of Jane’s other life, the elegant life she had lived before her rich lovers had deserted her for younger women, and it was a constant, pitiful reminder of how far Jane had fallen, how very drab and dreary the life of her children was.
    The life she lived never bothered Pip, except when she entered this one room; then for a moment she was struck by a sense of sadness, almost despair, wondering if it were her fate to live the rest of her life in squalor with the threat of danger always hanging over her head. But then, realizing that at present there was no chance of changing things, she would carelessly shrug her slim shoulders and go about her way, just as she did this morning.
    Walking to the washstand, she poured some of the tepid water from the pitcher into the bowl and gave her face and hands a quick wash. Then, stopping in front of the satinwood dressing table, she picked up a beautiful tortoiseshell brush and dragged it through her short curls. She seldom glanced into the mirror, but this morning, perhaps wondering why the dimber-damber wanted her, she was curious about her charms or lack of them.
    Her face was heart-shaped, with a determined chin and delicately molded, high cheekbones, but as far as Pip was concerned, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Neither were her mouth and eyes particularly noteworthy, Pip’s critical gaze completely missing the full, almost sultry beauty of her lips and the impact her smoky gray eyes, with their long, thick lashes and strikingly arched black eyebrows, had on people. The deliberately cut short, black, curly hair rioted over her small head in untidy ringlets that barely brushed the nape of her neck, the blue-blackness of her hair intensifying the almost alabaster hue of her fair skin. To Pip, everything looked completely wrong, her mouth too large, her eyebrows too marked, her hair too dark with her pale skin, and the smoky gray color of her eyes rather dull. Only her nose found favor with her—it was straight and delicately formed, with just the slightest tilt at the end. And as for her body ... Pip grimaced. She was small, scrawny as a starved chicken, Jacko said, and whatever feminine curves she may have possessed were easily hidden beneath the bulky boy’s clothing she wore. She imagined trying to hide Molly, the barmaid’s quivering mounds of plump flesh beneath her own clothes and smiled at the picture that presented itself, the cheeky grin revealing even white teeth. No. She was much better off with the small, firm bosom she did possess than to lay claim to Molly’s obvious charms.
    Annoyed by her introspection this morning, she stuck out her tongue at her image and left the room to join her brothers at the table. Breakfast was a hurried affair, the three Fowlers falling upon the stale bread and cheese like starving animals and washing it down with the dark, bitter ale they had brought home with them the previous evening.
    There was little conversation between them, each one busy with his or her own thoughts, and though nothing was said, Pip knew that her brothers were thinking about last night and how they could escape from the dimber-damber’s control.
    Having swallowed the last of the bread, Pip inelegantly and in a fashion that would have gained her an instant reprimand from Jane, wiped her mouth on her sleeve and asked suddenly, “Jacko, if England is not safe for us, couldn’t we go to America? Surely the dimber-damber’s arm is not that long! I’ve heard tell that there is a good life for the common man there—if you’re willing to work, and God knows we are. We