Pentecost Alley (47 page)

“I might,” Charlotte agreed. “Let’s look at this room first. Please?”

Madge opened the door and let them in. They followed her along the corridor, which was faintly musty smelling, as if lived in too much, with windows that were never opened. She pushed the second door along and it swung wide. Charlotte was in front. She peered in, and instantly
wished she had not. It was so ordinary, about the same size as her own bedroom in the house where she had grown up. It was far less pretty, but it had a lived-in air. It was too easy to imagine the woman who had slept here, and conducted her business here, and died here in fearful pain.

She heard Tallulah behind her draw in her breath sharply, and beside her Emily’s body stiffened, though she made no sound.

“D’jer wan’ it?” Madge asked bluntly, her voice harsh.

Charlotte swung around and saw the huge woman’s face tight, red and chapped, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Let’s sit down and talk about it,” Emily suggested. “Have a cup of tea. I brought a little something to add to it. You’ve got to let the room sometime.”

Without speaking Madge led them to the back of the house and the kitchen.

The room was messy, designed for laundry as well as cooking. A black stove gave off a very slight warmth, its front dull and a fine ash coating the floor around it. The kettle was already on, steaming gently. Perhaps it always was. There were dirty mugs on the board next to the basin and two pails of water standing with lids on. Charlotte guessed the water had to be fetched from the nearest well or standpipe. She hoped they boiled it thoroughly before it was offered for tea. She wished Emily had not suggested it. But then perhaps they would have no other chance to talk, and what was a possible upset stomach compared with the disaster that faced Pitt if the crime was never solved? He would always be thought of as the man who hanged Costigan when he was innocent. Perhaps worse than that, he would think of himself that way. He would doubt his judgment, be awake at night and tear his conscience. And there would be those who would believe he had done it knowingly, in order to protect someone else, someone with the money or the influence to reward him appropriately. He would be suspected of far more
than a mere error. Errors could be forgiven; they were a human failing. Corruption was something far deeper; it was the ultimate betrayal, that of self.

The tea was strong and bitter, and there was no milk. They all sat around the table on uneven chairs. Emily produced a small flask of whiskey out of her voluminous pocket and put a generous dash in each mug, to Tallulah’s amazement, although she concealed it almost instantly.

“Here’s to your health,” Emily said optimistically, and lifted her mug.

“Here’s to all our health,” Charlotte echoed, more as a prayer than a toast.

“What’s the area like?” Emily asked with interest.

“S’all right,” Madge replied, taking a good swig of her scalding tea and sucking her teeth appreciatively. “That’s very civil of you,” she added, nodding her head towards the whiskey bottle. “Can make a fair livin’ if yer prepared ter work for it.”

“Ada did well, didn’t she?” Emily continued. “She was bright.”

“An’ good at it,” Madge agreed, taking another slurp.

“Hope they catch that bastard who killed her,” Emily said fiercely.

Madge breathed out a long sigh.

“And poor Nora,” Charlotte put in with a shiver. “Did you know Nora?”

“Did you?” Madge asked, looking at her narrowly.

“No. What was she like?”

“Pretty. Little, sort o’ skinny for some tastes.”

Considering Madge’s twenty stone that remark was open to personal interpretation. Charlotte felt a momentary desire to giggle, and controlled it only with an effort.

“But good at it?” she asked, hiccuping.

“Oh yes!” Madge agreed. “Though some says as she were gonner quit and get married.”

“Do you think that’s true?” Tallulah spoke for the first time, her voice hesitant, high in the back of her throat.

“Mebbe.” Madge stopped. “Saw ’er around wi’ Johnny Voss. ’E weren’t bad orff. Could ’a’ married ’er, I s’pose. Although ’e were said ter be keen on Ella Baker, over in Myrdle Street. Mebbe ’e switched ter Nora. Edie said she seen Nora kiss ’im good-night abaht a couple a’ weeks ago.”

“I’ve kissed people good-night,” Tallulah said in response. “That didn’t mean they were going to marry me.”

“Did you now.” Madge looked at her more closely. “ ’Ow long yer bin in the trade, duck? Yer wanna watch yerself. This in’t no place for beginners!”

“I’m … I’m not a beginner,” Tallulah said defensively, then stopped with a little squeak of pain as Emily kicked her under the table.

“If yer kissin’ people, y’are.” Madge stated it as an unarguable fact. “Kissin’ is fer family, people as yer care abaht. Customers get wot they paid fer, nothin’ more. Yer gotta keep summink as is real, summink as is yer own an’ can’t be bought.”

Tallulah stared at her, two bright specks of color in her cheeks.

“Yer need someone ter look aht fer yer, teach yer ’ow ter be’ave,” Madge said gently. “Take the room, an’ I’ll teach yer.”

Tallulah was speechless. The thoughts racing through her mind could only be guessed at.

“Thank you,” Charlotte said quickly. “That’s very kind of you. That might be a very good idea. We could always look elsewhere. There must be other places in the neighborhood. I suppose poor Nora’s room is to let now?”

“I in’t ’eard,” Madge replied. “But yer could ask. If it’s gorn, yer could go an’ ask Ma Baines over on Chicksand Street. She’s usually got summink free. In’t the best, but yer could take it, and then w’en summink better comes up, yer’d be placed ter move on, like. She in’t bin ’ere all that long, but I ’eard say she in’t bad. Gotta get all yer own clothes. Got yer own, ’ave yer?”

“M-my own clothes?” Tallulah stammered.

“Yeah. Lor’, you are the beginner, in’t yer?” Madge shook her head. “Still, yer in’t got a bad face. Nice ’air. We’ll make summink of yer yet.” She patted her on the hand comfortingly, then she looked at Charlotte and Emily in turn. “You two can look arter yerselves.” She regarded Charlotte. “You got a bit o’ flesh on yer. Yer’ll do. An’ lots o’ ’air. Yer face in’t bad.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte said a trifle dryly.

Madge was impervious to sarcasm. She looked Emily up and down.

“Yer not so good, bit thin, but yer got a nice enough face, nice skin. An’ men always like yeller ’air, ’specially wot curls like yours do. Look like yer got a bit o’ spark too. You’ll do.”

“Can you tell us where to find this Ma Baines?” Emily ignored the personal assessment and returned to the point.

“Yeah, course I can,” Madge responded. “Twenty-one Chicksand Street. Next one up towards Mile End. Anyone will tell yer.”

It looked as if they were about to be dismissed any moment, and they had learned too little to give up.

“Ada and Nora knew each other,” Charlotte plunged on. “Were they at all alike? Did they have friends in common?”

Madge blinked. “W’y the ’ell der you care?”

“Because I don’t want to get my fingers and toes broken and end up strangled with my own stockings,” Charlotte answered tersely. “If there’s some lunatic around here, I want to know what sort of women he picks on, so I can be a different sort.”

“ ’E picks on one sort o’ woman, duck,” Madge said wearily. “The sort o’ woman wot sells theirselves to any man wot ’as the money, ’cos she needs ter eat an’ feed ’er kids, or ’cos she don’ wanna work in the watch factories an’ end up wi’ phossie jaw an’ ’er face ’alf rotted off, or in a sweatshop stitchin’ shirts all day an’ ’alf the night for too little money ter feed a rat! Layin’ on yer back is
easy money, while it lasts.” She poured more tea from the pot into the mug, and refilled the others, looking hopefully at Emily.

Emily topped them up again with whiskey.

“Ta,” Madge acknowledged it.

“Course there is danger,” she went on. “If yer wanted life wi’out danger yer should ’a’ bin born rich. Yer’ll mebbe end up wi’ a disease, or mebbe not. Yer’ll get beaten now an’ agin, slashed if yer luck runs aht. Yer’ll get so yer never wants ter see another man in all yer born days.”

She sniffed. “But yer’ll not be ’ungry, and yer’ll not be cold once yer orff the streets an’ inside. An’ yer’ll ’ave a few good laughs!” She sighed and sipped her tea. “ ’Ad some good times, we did, Nora an’ Rosie and Ada and me. Tol’ each other stories an’ pretended we was all fine ladies.” She sniffed. “I ’member one summer evenin’ we took orff an’ went up the river in one o’ them pleasure boats, just like anyone. All dressed up, we was. Ate ’ot eel pies and sugared fruit, an’ drank peppermint.”

“That must have been good,” Charlotte said quietly, imagining them, even though she did not know their faces.

“Yeah, it were,” Madge said dreamily, the tears brimming her eyes. “An’ we tol’ each other ghost stories sometimes. Scared ourselves silly, we did. Course there was the bad times too. But then I s’pose it’s them ’ard times as tells yer ’oo yer friends is.” She sniffed again and wiped her hand over her cheeks.

“That’s true,” Emily agreed. “I’m sorry about Ada. I hope they catch whoever did it.”

“Geez, why should they?” Madge said miserably. “They never caught the Ripper. Why should they catch this one?”

Tallulah shivered. Two years afterwards, his name still chilled the body and sent the mind stiff with fear.

Charlotte found herself cold as well, even with the tea and whiskey inside her, and the heat of the small, closed
kitchen. There was no other sound in the house. All the women were sleeping after their night’s work, bodies exhausted, used by strangers to relieve their needs without love, without kisses, as one might use a public convenience.

She looked at Tallulah and saw a whole new comprehension dawning in her face. She had seen one new world with Jago, feeding the poor, the respectable women, downtrodden by hunger, cold and anxiety. This was another world, altogether darker, with different pains, different fears.

“Do you get many gentlemen down here?” she asked suddenly, the words coming out jerkily, as if speaking them hurt her.

“Men wi’ money?” Madge laughed. “Look, duck, any man’s money is as good as any other.”

“But do you?” Tallulah insisted, her face tense, her eyes on Madge’s.

“Not often, why? Yer like gentlemen, yer should go up west. ’Aymarket, Piccadilly, that way. Cost yer ter rent rooms by the hour, though, an’ competition’s ’igh. Yer’d be better ’ere, beginners like you are. I’ll look after yer.”

Tallulah was aware of the gentleness in the older woman and it touched her unexpectedly. Charlotte could see it in her face.

“I … I just wondered,” she said unhappily, looking down at the table.

“Sometimes,” Madge replied, watching her.

“Was it a gentleman who killed Ada?” Tallulah would not give up. Her slender fingers were clenched around the cup with its dark tea and odor of whiskey.

“I dunno.” Madge shrugged her huge shoulders. “I thought as it were Bert Costigan, but I s’pose it couldn’t ’a’ bin, now Nora got done the same.”

“So it could have been a gentleman?” Emily looked from one to the other of them. “But would it be likely? Wouldn’t it maybe be someone who knew them both?”

“Maybe it was a gentleman who knew them both.”
Charlotte took it a step further. “One who was a bit bent in his ways.”

Madge finished the last of her tea and set the mug down with a bang on the hard tabletop.

“Don’t you go startin’ talk like that ’round ’ere,” she said sharply, pointing her finger. “Yer’ll only get everyone all scared witless, an’ it don’t do no good. We all gotta work whether there’s a lunatic out there er not. Yer go see Ma Baines. She knows ’er job. She’ll find yer a place. An’ don’t yer go makin’ a noise as you leave. My girls is still sleepin’, like yer’d be if you’d worked all night.” She looked at Emily. “Ta fer the drink. That were nice manners of you.” Her face softened as she looked lastly at Tallulah. “I’ll ’old the room for yer till termorrer, duck. Can’t ’old it arter that, if I gets an offer.”

“Thank you,” Tallulah answered, but as soon as they were outside beyond the alley she shivered violently, and walked so close to Emily she almost pushed her off the narrow footpath into the street.

They followed directions up to Chicksand Street and found the huge shambling tenement where Ma Baines kept her establishment. They had expected someone else like Madge—obese, red-faced, suspicious. Instead they found a cheerful woman with a large bosom, but narrow hips and long legs. She had rather a plain face and a mass of fading yellow hair tied up loosely in pins which were in imminent danger of falling out.

“Yeah?” she said when she saw the three young women.

“We understand you might have rooms,” Charlotte began without hesitation. It was getting towards the time in the afternoon when women began to work.

“This is a workin’ ’ouse,” Ma Baines said warningly. “Rent is ’igh. I got no place fer sweatshop girls. In’t even enough fer a night, let alone a week.”

“We know that,” Charlotte replied, making herself smile. “Do we look like seamstresses?”

Ma Baines laughed, a sound of generous amusement without bitterness.

“You look like West End tarts ter me, ’cept fer yer dress. They look like maids on their day orff. Terrible respectable, an’ abaht as darin’ as a vicar’s wife.”

“We’re off duty,” Emily explained.

“Aren’t never orff duty, luv,” Ma Baines responded.

“Are if you haven’t a room,” Charlotte pointed out. “I don’t do my business in the street.”

Ma Baines stepped back. “Then yer’d better come in.”

They followed her. The place was narrow and stale-smelling, but quite clean, and there was an old carpet on the floor, making their footsteps quiet as they were led to a small sitting room at the back of the house, again reminding Charlotte ridiculously of the housekeeper’s room in the house where she had grown up.

Ma Baines invited them to sit, and she herself took the largest and most comfortable chair. It was as if she were interviewing prospective servants. Charlotte felt the desire to giggle coming back, a sort of wild hysteria at the insanity of it. A few years ago her mother would have fainted at the very thought of her daughter’s even knowing about such a place, let alone being there. Now she might conceivably understand. Her father would simply have refused to believe it. Heaven only knew what Aloysia FitzJames would think if she knew Tallulah was here.