A Monstrous Regiment of Women (33 page)

I walked to the Underground station at Russell Square, occasioning a number of scandalised glances and the attention of several police constables, and rode the stinking depths to Liverpool Street. There, I emerged, to climb into an omnibus that took me into Whitechapel. The district was, as always, dreary and oppressive, and I was feeling queasy again and uncertain. I bought a hot pie from a vendor, but it did not help much, and I would have given the remainder to a starved-looking cat, but a child snatched it away before the animal could do more than sniff it.

I wandered up and down for the better part of an hour, cursed and driven away first from one corner and then another by their rightful occupants, approached by two separate men, both of whom lost interest when they heard my tubercular cough, establishing my presence in the neighbourhood and making quite certain that no one was following me. Eventually, I wound up across from the Temple’s front entrance, along with the handful of buskers, acrobats, and pavement vendors who come out of the stonework whenever a crowd is about to pour out. This lot was considerably less skilful and affluent than their West End counterparts. The acrobatic midgets were stretching their backs as if to ease rheumatism while quarrelling violently with their musician, who held a violin case under his arm. The pie-seller’s wares looked flaccid and misshapen. The two flower sellers chatted with a surprising camaraderie, considering the usually fierce territoriality of the breed. And here came another odd one, a massive woman whose full bust strained the bright yellow satin of her dress above the tray she bore, a selection of glittering geegaws. With the ponderous dignity of the profoundly intoxicated, she took up a strategic position across the street from the doors, and no sooner had they opened with the first of the released crowd than she burst into full-throated song.

“ ‘I’m called Little Buttercup—dear Little Buttercup, tho’ I could never tell why,’ ” she warbled in a nearly accurate contralto, the jet beads on her primrose bonnet quivering with effort. She was remarkably successful, and one could imagine that the chief value of the baubles purchased lay in the story that would accompany its display—“You’ll never guess where I bought this hideous thing. There was this creature, from the nineties, I swear, my dears…”

When the tumult had subsided and the buskers were making off, I walked over to examine the dregs in Buttercup’s tray. She had finished with Gilbert and Sullivan (“Sailors should never be shy…”) and moved up in time to Al Jolson.

“ ‘It’s time for mating…’ ” she gushed in a quavering Jolson tenor. “ ‘Anticipating… the birdies in the trees.’ Buy a pretty, my pretty?” she broke off to trill at me with a gust of gin. I poked a scornful finger through the brooches and chains and found a ring, a chip of red glass set in a silver band that would discolour my finger before morning. I put it on.

“Loverly, dearie, a piece of real ruby that is. You’ll treasure it forever.”

“I doubt that,” I said dryly, and haggled her down from her ludicrous price to a couple of farthings. I paid her, tucked my near-empty purse back into its pocket, and turned to look at the doors again.

“I shall stay on the street until you come out, Russell,” said Holmes in his normal voice.

“As you know,” I muttered with my hand over my face, “there is a good doorway up the street.”

“If you find the path blocked, do not force it. We will return.”

“Your singing voice is unearthly, Holmes, and the hat is ungodly. Nonetheless, I am glad you are here. I shall see you in a few hours.”

“If you do not appear by dawn, I shall storm the city of women,” he declared, but the jest was paper-thin. I drifted off.

Twenty minutes later, when the nearby pubs were calling for final orders, I eased into a dim corner for my final preparations. Makeup was all very well and good, but it would not fool a doctor, and I suspected that I would be examined in the shelter. I took a small wide-mouthed bottle out of my coat pocket, put it to my mouth, and sucked at it until it had attached itself firmly to my lip. I left it there for a minute, and when I broke the suction, I felt the flesh instantly begin to swell. I spent a few more minutes loosening my hairpins and pulling a small rent in the sleeve of my dress, stowing away my spectacles and running a layer of grime over face and clothes, then placed the bottle in a corner, peered cautiously out to be certain there was no eye on me, and stepped onto the pavement. I held myself as if my ribs pained me and walked up to Margery Childe’s refuge for women.

TWENTY

Saturday, 5 February-
Sunday, 6 February

I, Fire, the Acceptor of sacrifices, ravishing away from them their darkness, give the light.

—Saint Catherine of Siena (c. 1347-1380)

«
^
»

The small brass plaque beside the door read:

NEW TEMPLE IN GOD

WOMEN AND INFANT TEMPORARY REFUGE

I mounted the steps and rang the bell.

There was as yet little activity in the shelter, as the pubs had just closed and the drunks had yet to reach the arms of their loving families. The woman in front of whom I eventually stood saw only a luckless prostitute in need of doctoring and reforming; she did not see the young heiress who had stood with her outside Parliament to distribute pamphlets and returned afterwards to dine in Margery’s rooms. Ruby Hepplewhite looked up at me, polite, condescending, unseeing.

I twisted the tin ring around and around, tongued my nicely swollen lip, and tried to imagine myself into my rôle.

“Now, miss…”

“LaGrand, miss. Amie LaGrand.”

“Miss… LaGrand. Is that actually your name?” she asked doubtfully. I twisted the ring furiously.

“Er, well, no, miss. It’s Mudd. Annie Mudd. My—it was given to me ’cause it sounded better, like.”

“I see. Well, Miss Mudd—Annie. You understand that this is a temporary shelter for women and their children who find themselves without a home. It is not an hotel.”

“I do know that, miss. I ’eard about you, on the street, the work you do. And when this… when I… I thought of comin’ ’ere,” I ended weakly. She took in the state of my face and clothes for the first time.

“I see. Sit down, Annie. How old are you?”

“Twenty-one, miss.”

“The Refuge is run by the New Temple in God, Annie. One of the things we require is the truth.”

“Sorry, miss. Eighteen, miss—on my next birthday. Come April.”

“So you are seventeen. Where is your home?”

“Don’t ’ave one. Not no more, I don’t. I’m never goin’ back there, miss. You can’t make me. I’ll throw meself into the river afore that, L swear before God.”

“Calm yourself, Annie. No one wants to force you to do anything. Perhaps you’d better tell me everything. Why can’t you go home? Did someone there hit you?”

“It was ’cause I said I wouldn’t do it no more. He wanted me to go with that—” I searched for an unspeakable word, then, finding none, continued. “I said I wouldn’t. Wouldn’t never again. And so ’e, ’e slapped me round a bit and locked me in my room and I went out the window and down the pipe an’… and ’ere I am.”

“You are speaking of your… procurer?”

“My wha’?” I was enjoying this.

“Your pimp?” she persisted gamely, thinking, no doubt, of how her mother would react if she were to hear the word spoken aloud.

“Oh. Yes, I s’pose.”

“Where is your family, Annie? Do you have one?”

“Oh yair. Well, in a way. Mum’s dead, but me sister, she lives in Bristol. That’s where I thought I’d go, when I can get the money together.”

“And your father? Is he dead?”

“By Gawd, I wish. Beg pardon, miss, but it was ’im what done this.” I touched my distended lip cautiously.

She blinked and sat back slowly.

“Your father. Oh dear,” she said in a weak voice. However, English breeding triumphed, and her forces rallied visibly. She stood up, told me to wait, and clacked off down the hallway. In rapid succession, I was given a brief medical examination (in which they were chiefly interested in wildlife and injuries, and not expecting a sophisticated form of drug abuse, so that by sleight of hand and an element of luck, I managed to keep the arm out of the nurse’s sight), a bath, a change of clothing, a hot meal, and a bed in a curtained cubicle. By then, the evening’s business was fully under way, and no one noticed as I purloined an assortment of pillows and blankets, which I pushed far back beneath the metal bed. I loitered about in the corridor outside the clothing dispensary until it was momentarily abandoned and then helped myself to a random frock and hat. They, too, went under the bed. The lights were still on—electrical lights, not gas—and the building was noisy with children and women, but I took off my shoes and lay on the thin mattress and closed my eyes. I did not think I would sleep, as my mind was taken up with unpleasant thoughts about the morality of what I was doing here and with the charged feeling one gets before embarking on a dangerous or illegal action. There are some means which no end, and no beginning, will fully justify; however, the dirty job of spying on Margery’s privacy had to be done, and I was the best person to do it.

It seems, though, that I must have dozed off, a sure sign of the state I was in, because I heard the approach of footsteps and suddenly I was back in the cellar on my straw-filled sacks. I jerked upright and looked into Ruby Hepplewhite’s startled face at the cubicle’s curtain.

“Annie, what is it? What’s wrong?” I pushed the hair out of my face.

“Nothing, miss. I was just dreamin’.”

“Not a very pleasant dream, it would seem. I don’t suppose you’ll wish to swear out a complaint against your father, or the other man?”

“Go to the rozzers? Oh, miss, don’t make me do that; ’e’d kill me for sure—”

“I told you, Annie, no one here is going to force you to do anything against your will. However, we will take you to the station tomorrow and put you on the train to Bristol, if you are certain your sister is in a position to take you in.”

“Oh, miss, would you really? Oh, God bless you, miss. Yes, she wants me—she wrote to tell me to come when ’er baby was born, but ’e wouldn’t let me. I’ll save the money and send it back, miss. Honest I will.”

“That isn’t necessary. I will also give you the name of a woman in Bristol to go to, if your father appears or you have any problems. Now, I came to tell you that there is cocoa and bread-and-dripping in the dining room, if you’d like.”

“Very much, miss,” I said over the lurch of my stomach. “I’ll just lace on me boots.”

“I have other things to attend to, but I shall see you in the morning, Annie. I hope you sleep well.”

“Thank you, miss.” She left and I bent to put on my boots. As usually happened, the first fun had left the playacting, and I just wanted to finish my business here. I went down to the disgusting food, which I doubt I could have eaten even if I had been feeling strong, sat down near some children with large eyes, and shared my portion with them. After we had sung some cheery hymns, we were excused. In my cubicle, I wrote a note on a scrap of paper taken from a desk in passing, then turned off the light and lay on my bed until lights-out was called.

Eventually, feet ceased to pass up and down, voices were lowered, the last baby stopped grizzling, and a few women began to snore. I laced my boots on again (they had a new kind of sole, made of crêpe rubber, but no one had noticed that the waif walked the streets in silent shoes) and retrieved the pillows and blankets to arrange in a sleeping shape beneath the blanket. The frock, which was flowered and intended for a figure six inches shorter and four stone heavier, I hung on the hook over my coat to emphasise that the room was occupied, and I put the hat on the table. From the belt against my skin, a strip of flannel that I had succeeded in retaining throughout the bath and examination process, I took the two pieces of equipment necessary for the night’s foray: my spectacles and a ring of picklocks. Holmes had advised a torch and jemmy in addition to the revolver, but I knew I would not be able to keep them from discovery. Taking care not to rattle the picklocks, I put them into the pocket that held such harmless objects as a small purse, cheap handkerchief, pencil stub, cigarettes, and a box of vestas, and took out the sop for my conscience: the note, written in a careful, half-literate scrawl:

Dear Miss Ruby Hebelwite, thank you for your help, I will go to Bristoll with a frend who I remember is going, I will writ you from ther. Yours truly Annie Mudd PS this ring is for you its like your first name.

I wrapped it around the ring I had bought from Buttercup Holmes, tucked it under the hat, then cautiously pulled back the curtain and stepped into the corridor.

The shelter had only two connexions with the rest of the Temple: the main door on the ground floor and a lesser one on the second storey, used by cleaning personnel during the day and kept locked at night. The sleeping quarters occupied by the women and children were on the first floor, between the ground floor, which had offices, a kitchen, and a small surgery, and where there was almost always some activity, and the second floor, which was used mostly for storage and to house a few staff members. At one o’clock in the morning, the upper floor ought to be quite dead.

My crêpe-rubber soles whispered on the bare boards of the stairway, more noise than stockings would have made but less difficult to explain if I were discovered. Although how I should explain what a youthful prostitute was doing out of the dormitory with spectacles on her nose, the latest in patent shoes on her feet, and a set of picklocks in her hands, I did not care to meditate upon. Best not to be caught, Russell.

The upstairs door had a solid lock, but its security was nullified by the key hanging on a hook just out of sight inside the adjoining storeroom. I unlocked the door and put the key back in place, let myself into the Temple building, closed the door with exquisite care, and stood in the blackness, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light that I knew must be there. In a moment, a rectangle swam into view, the end of this corridor as it was illuminated from the light below. I stayed where I was for another two minutes, then moved slowly forward, my left fingernails brushing the wallpaper.