Chapter Eight
Elizabeth Martin Ross
WHEN BESSIE and I arrived at the Temperance Hall the following Sunday, little Mr Pritchard, kiss-curls larded in place across his brow, was greeting people at the door. When he saw me he looked startled but rallied very well. He hurried forward, bowing.
‘Dear me, Mrs Ross. Now this is very nice, very nice indeed. You are very welcome, dear lady.’
‘You didn’t expect to see me?’ I asked blandly.
‘Well, now,’ admitted Pritchard, reddening. ‘I felt – and I am the first to admit I was wrong! I felt you didn’t quite approve of us.’
‘I have no idea why you should think that, Mr Pritchard,’ I said, sailing past him with Bessie in tow.
He watched me go into the hall with some apprehension on his face. But then more people arrived and he returned to his greeting duties.
‘Is his infant choir going to sing again, do you think, Bessie?’ I whispered.
‘Bound to,’ said Bessie at once. ‘He’s very proud of the choir. Mr Pritchard is very musical.’
‘Did he write the dreadful ditty the children sang last time?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Bessie. ‘I’ll ask.’
‘Don’t bother,’ I told her.
There was some commotion at the door. Mr Pritchard was practically falling over backwards in his efforts to welcome the latest arrivals.
Two ladies swept in, one leading the way. The foremost one was Mrs Scott, still wearing her Cossack hat, but with a purple skirt and mantle. The lady behind her was in deep mourning. A veil draped over a black bonnet concealed her face. Once she was inside the hall she turned the veil back to reveal a countenance quite ravaged by grief. I could also see she wore a gold-rimmed pince-nez.
I felt excitement rising in me and made an effort to quell it and ask Bessie as casually as I could, ‘And is that Miss Marchwood, by any chance?’
‘Yes, and don’t she look sad?’ Bessie sighed deeply in sympathy. ‘Poor lady, she’ll be out of a position, won’t she, missus?’
‘Perhaps her friend, Mrs Scott, will find her another post. She can’t be without influence in her circle,’ I said.
‘Perhaps she will!’ Bessie cheered up.
The hall had filled. There seemed to be even more people here than the week before. Mr Walters handed out his hymnbooks and the proceedings followed the pattern of the previous week. We were treated to the infant choir again, singing a song with words much the same as the previous week. Then Mr Walters asked us to welcome our speaker and on to the stage came Mr Fawcett.
His speech, too, followed the same pattern. He greeted us mildly enough, his compelling aquamarine gaze sweeping the audience. It rested briefly on me; a flicker of some emotion showed before he passed on to the next row. What was it? Surprise? Amusement? No, I thought, it is mockery.
All the suspicions I had about the man flooded into my mind. He knew he hadn’t ensnared me as he had Mrs Scott, Miss Marchwood and all the other ladies here – and the very few men. All of them he had captured with his charm and his oratory. I had not been taken in, but there was nothing I could do about it. No criticism of him I voiced to anyone in that hall would get a hearing. His loyal followers would rise up in horror. I would be driven away with imprecations. My heart set hard against him.
He began to preach to us again on the familiar subject, illustrating his message with several dramatic stories of men ruined, women lost to respectability and every kind of daily disaster. Miss Marchwood seemed very moved. She removed her pince-nez to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief. Mrs Scott, beside her, leaned towards her and murmured something, but it did not strike me as words of comfort. Rather, she appeared to be ordering the poor woman to bear up and not make an unseemly display. Miss Marchwood nodded, put away the handkerchief and fixed her gaze on Fawcett, her face now set in a mask of petrified unhappiness.
When time came for the tea, I made for the urn. I wanted to speak to Miss Marchwood, but Fawcett had come down from the stage and engaged her in earnest conversation in a far corner. Again, I had the uneasy feeling he was not giving her words of comfort and encouragement so much as telling her to pull herself together. She was listening and nodding.
‘Well, Mrs Ross, we did not expect to see you here again,’ said a cool voice by my ear.
I looked up to see Mrs Scott holding out a cup of tea to me.
I took it. ‘Thank you. Why ever not?’
The directness of my question seemed to take her aback. She paused before answering, then said in the same cool manner, ‘I received the impression, last week, that you did not altogether approve of our gathering.’
‘I didn’t approve of Bessie handing out leaflets,’ I countered. ‘I made that clear at the time to Mr Fawcett.’
‘Was that your only objection?’
There was something in her gaze that was both detached and yet relentless. I thought of a cat, toying with a mouse. Well, she would find I would not oblige her by playing the mouse’s part.
‘Should there be any other?’ I asked her, my tone as cool as hers.
Now her look turned to one of plain dislike. ‘Certainly not!’ she said curtly and turned aside. ‘Mrs Gribble! How is the hot water in that urn?’
I looked back to the corner where I’d seen Miss Marchwood talking to Fawcett, but to my surprise both had disappeared.
Mrs Scott had her back to me. I was annoyed with myself; if I had been cleverer, I would have tried to make a friend of the odious woman and with luck received an invitation to the Clapham house and one of the ‘swarries’. But it was pretty clear to me that would never happen.
She didn’t like me. Why, though? Because I had had the effrontery to complain to Fawcett’s face about the matter of the leaflets? Because she realised I was less than impressed by the man? She was shrewd enough to know it, I was sure of that. Or because I was married to the man investigating the murder of Miss Marchwood’s employer and she had me down as a spy? Scandal, I thought sourly. That is the answer. She fears scandal and that somehow or other it will taint the meetings here and interfere with Fawcett’s so-called charity work. I am not welcome. She means to make that clear enough. The murder of Allegra Benedict must not be permitted to cast its shadow over the Temperance Hall.
People were beginning to leave. ‘Come along, Bessie,’ I ordered and we slipped out ahead of Mrs Scott. A little further down the street, a wide entry led under an arch into a tunnel between buildings to either side. At the rear it opened into a stableyard lit by a couple of swinging lanterns; but between that and the street, in the tunnel, the darkness formed a black mass. I drew a reluctant Bessie beneath the brick arch into the tenebrous depths where, unable to see each other, we huddled close together for contact and comfort as we waited.
‘I don’t like it here,’ muttered Bessie, wriggling in the gloom. The accompanying rustling of petticoats told me she was drawing her skirts around her. ‘It stinks something awful of horses.’ Her voice trembled nervously. ‘Can’t we wait out in the street?’
‘I want to speak to Miss Marchwood but she has not come out yet, so I must wait. I promised Mr Ross I would not let anyone see what I was about. A good healthy smell of horses need not trouble you, Bessie. It won’t do us any harm.’
‘Rats might!’ warned Bessie in a dire tone. ‘There’s always rats in stables and they run up your skirts.’
Despite myself, I strained my ears for the skittering of claws in the darkness.
‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ I commanded as firmly as I could.
‘What if she sees us, missus?’ hissed Bessie next.
‘Then it will confirm her in her suspicions. But why should she look this way? Besides, it’s too dark for her to see us.’
Before us, in the street, the light was fading fast and the shadows lengthening. The gas lighter had made his round already and lit his street lamps, but they cast no luminous glow beyond the entrance. From behind us I could hear the muffled stamp of stabled animals and an occasional soft snicker. Horse sweat and manure, saddle soap, hay, hoof oil mingled in an odour that announced their unseen presence. But did they somehow know we were here? Had our presence made them restless – or something else?
‘I also want to see if Mrs Scott takes Fawcett with her in the carriage again. It’s waiting for her,’ I murmured, perhaps to justify our presence here to myself, rather than to Bessie. My eyes were now becoming accustomed to the darkness and I could make out the walls of the buildings to either side. But I still didn’t like it here.
Fortunately at that very moment Mrs Scott came out with Fawcett in attendance. They didn’t so much as glance in the direction of our hiding place. Fawcett handed her into the carriage and climbed up himself. The coachman put up the step and closed the door. But as the man was clambering back on to his perch, there was a diversion.
Miss Marchwood suddenly hurried from the hall. She ran to the carriage, just as it was about to drive off, and gripped the frame of the opened window as Mrs Scott made to pull up the sash.
‘Jemima, please, I must speak to you!’
I saw Mrs Scott lean towards the opening from within and caught her reply.
‘This is not the moment, Isabella. Come and see me in Clapham. Drive on!’
The carriage with its two occupants rattled away and Miss Marchwood was left disconsolate on the pavement.
‘A few coppers, lady? For some hot soup to keep out the cold?’
I jumped and Bessie squeaked. The request, uttered in a hoarse voice, seemed to come from my very feet. To all the other odours was added that of unwashed humanity and stale ale. What I had taken for a sack of rubbish propped in the shadows of a corner formed by the wall and the rear of the arch now moved. A pale claw-like hand was extended in our direction. We had neither of us realised a homeless wretch had bedded down there.
I scrabbled for a few pence in my bag and hastily dropped them into that skeletal hand. Then I darted from the doorway with Bessie on my heels, and approached the solitary figure still on the pavement just as she was about to turn and walk away.
‘Miss Marchwood! Please wait!’
‘Yes?’ she replied automatically, ignoring my request. She began to walk on at a brisk pace, clearly in no frame of mind for social chatter. I had to scurry alongside her and address myself to the veiled bonnet.
‘I am Mrs Ross. You have met my husband, I think. He’s investigating the death of your late employer.’
At that she did stop. She turned back the veil and I saw the expression of panic on her plain features, livid in the gaslight. ‘What do you want?’ Her agitation was such that the pince-nez fell from her nose and dangled on the black silk ribbon by which it was pinned to her pelisse.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ I soothed her. ‘I only wanted to express my condolences. It is a sad loss. This is a dreadful experience for you.’
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, fumbling with the pince-nez and putting it back crookedly on her nose. My sympathy had passed her by as if unheard.
‘I accompanied Bessie here to the meeting. Bessie is our maid. We were a little behind you, towards the back of the hall.’
‘Bessie, oh, yes, Bessie . . .’ Isabella Marchwood stared vaguely at Bessie. ‘Yes, she is a very good girl.’
‘And if there is anything I can do to help . . .’
‘You?’ she exclaimed. ‘No, nothing! No one can help!’
‘Please,’ I urged her. ‘Have confidence in the police. They will find the murderer.’
‘Find the murderer?’ she cried, looking at me wildly again. ‘What good will that do? Will it bring back poor Allegra?’
‘No, of course not, but the killer will be brought to account before the court and receive his punishment.’
‘A trial?’ she cried. ‘How can that do anything but harm? The courtroom crowded with vulgar onlookers, every dreadful detail revealed and Mr Benedict obliged to sit and listen to it! To say nothing of the newspapers, and they are already bad enough. Have you seen them?’
‘Yes, I have,’ I confessed. I had gone so far, the previous day, as to buy a copy of an evening sheet that featured the murder, together with the story of the River Wraith and a dramatic illustration. This showed a woman starting back in horror as a hideous shrouded creature with burning eyes reached out its elongated hands to her. I had shown it to Ben when he got home and I wouldn’t like to tell you what he had to say about it.
‘A trial would see the courtroom packed with reporters. That can only make things worse . . .’ Isabella Marchwood repeated desperately. Then she snapped her mouth shut. After a moment she began again, more calmly, ‘Hasn’t poor Mr Benedict suffered enough?’
‘To know the murderer went unpunished would surely make him suffer more?’ I suggested.
She shook her head. ‘You don’t understand. How can you?’ She turned away and began to walk off down the street.
