I know the earliest portions of Light Fingers are old writing and with the writer switch especially i extra dont put heavy weight on plot beats there but I'm still always overtly pondering the plot with the timeline in terms of the progression of Clara's pregnancy and how long she was held captive for but also...
okay so the summarize things again briefly.
We go to search for our friend the fading music hall singer. We find her looking for Clara, who's referenced to be up in some terrible bussiness, and doesnt tell you specifically about Edward later on, where "She disappeared with him somewhere – and wasn't seen for months".
And then you have to go to The Beth, where you meet Clara after she's been driven mad. And is already heavily pregnant.
My main wonder there is... how and when did Clara get to the Beth?
Now, absolutely, the situaton with Edward kidnapping her and the assault and the forced pregnancy situation would be guaranteed to, in light terms, heavily mess up someones mental state, but I feel like the general orphanage would cause such a thing and risk loosing their captives left and right. So i gather in general leaving the premises to actually end up elsewhere is not a common occurance..
Given that the response to this was to re-kidnap clara and her sister, and moon milk drug Clara to the orphanage itself, it's clear she was certainly not intended to have fled the orphanage and tell people about it.
it makes me wonder if she somehow Managed To Escape herself.... which implies a Lot of capability on her end honestly. Enough that she managed to get out for her sister to be aware of her in that state...Imagine how differently things could have gone
The other option is that she was transferred to the Beth on purpose for some reason or another, but I can't quite see the logic in that beyond it being better accomodations. One could argue they only moved her back to the orphanage when her sister became an issue, but I still dont really see it being the kind of risk to be taken in the first place... but who knows