The Angel Court Affair (Thomas Pitt 30) (4 page)

Fifteen minutes later the hall was full. Glancing around it from near the stage, Pitt could see less than a dozen empty seats among the five hundred he estimated were there. There was a low buzz of conversation. A few heads turned to recognise acquaintances, but the air of expectation prevented the simple pleasure of gossip.

All fell silent as Melville Smith climbed up the steps to the platform and stood facing them. He was of average height, a little pigeon-chested. It was when he spoke that he commanded the attention; his voice was beautiful. He introduced himself and welcomed the audience as if he were the host at some party in his home, and Sofia Delacruz the favoured guest.

When he had finished he stepped back and Sofia made her entrance. If she had the slightest fear there was no reflection of it in her bearing. She stood straight, her head high, a slight smile on her remarkable face.

Pitt would liked to have watched her and listened to how she told a crowd of strangers about the extraordinary beliefs she had told him of. But it was his duty to look for the threatened dangers, even if he did not believe in them. It was the regular police’s job to keep out any obvious troublemakers, and should unruly behaviour begin then act to quell it. But tackling any serious attempt on her life was Pitt’s task. He faced the audience and watched, trying to judge their reactions to her words.

She spoke as she had warned him she would, gently to begin with: the comforting, familiar ideas of God as a father of all mankind.

In the second row, near the centre, a young man yawned conspicuously. It was a discourteous gesture. Pitt glanced at Sofia and saw that she had been aware of it. The man had chosen a very visible seat from which to be rude. Perhaps this was only the beginning of a demonstration that could end in something far more physically offensive.

Sofia was moving on to the creation of the world, and man’s place in it. Her voice was lifting with enthusiasm, the vibrancy in it carrying even to the back of the large room.

The young man in the second row was now watching her intently. He might be pretending boredom, but his body was rigid, shoulders high and neck muscles knotted painfully. Perhaps he had come not to mock but to discover his mockery was a shield against disappointment.

Sofia continued, moving forward to the front of the platform, as she spoke of the earth and its creatures. The awe of the beauty she imagined was in her face.

‘What about Darwin?’ a man yelled out, his voice so shrill he sounded close to hysteria.

‘Exactly my point,’ Sofia replied without hesitation. ‘Things change and evolve all the time. It is possible that we may forever improve, becoming wiser, braver, kinder and more honest, learning into eternity.’

‘But what about Darwin who says we are little more than monkeys?’ Now the man was standing, his fists clenched, his red beard bristling. His face was suffused with anger.

Sofia smiled. ‘Even Darwin too,’ she replied. ‘There is no one for whom progress is impossible.’

Pitt knew she had intended to be funny, but she had misjudged at least that part of her audience. Far to the left someone laughed, but the man with the beard was enraged.

‘Don’t you dare mock us!’ he yelled, his voice even louder. ‘Blasphemer! No man takes the name of God lightly, still less some . . . some woman! You come here from a godless place and make fun of us, try to make fools imagine they are the equal of God! You—’

The burly figure of Sergeant Drury was getting ready to move forward.

Sofia pre-empted him. ‘I mock no one, sir.’ She said it levelly, but her voice had intense power and could be heard even at the back of the hall. ‘Spain is not a godless country, and as an Englishwoman who has been made welcome there, I am ashamed to hear you speak so of your fellow man, simply because they do not worship God in exactly the same manner that you do.’

Another man rose to his feet. He was bald-headed and wearing a stiff dark suit. ‘The insult to Spain is but of ignorance,’ he said, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. ‘But to suggest that man is the same as God is indeed blasphemy! I will not stand by and listen to it in silence, or I am guilty of it too.’ Again he waved his hand. ‘As are all of us here!’

There was a flush on Sofia’s cheeks, but her voice remained calm, if a little shaky.

‘I did not say that man was the same as God is now, sir, only that he can follow the same path towards the light, and so become the same. Did Christ not command us to become perfect, even as He was?’

‘That’s not what He meant!’ the man said incredulously.

Another barrel-chested man let out a bellow of laughter. ‘And how the devil would you know what He meant?’ he demanded. He jerked his thumb towards Sofia. ‘Personally I think she’s crazy as a box of frogs, but she makes as much sense as you do, and she looks a lot better.’

Now the laughter was all around the hall. Three middle-aged ladies stood up and went out, stiff-backed with outrage.

Somehow Sophia managed to regain control of the discussion and picked up the thread of her narrative about man as a creature capable of becoming all that was noble. But now she explained the high cost in faith and work: experience of pain and conquering of selfishness, ignorance, the instinctive leap to defence and judgement of others.

There were other brief forays into unpleasantness among the audience, but they were controlled, dissipated with moderate good humour, and finally at a quarter to ten the meeting closed. Pitt was surprised at how tired he was. His head and his back ached from the knotted muscles of being constantly expectant of violence. He watched Sofia Delacruz shake people’s hands, nod and smile as if she were utterly composed, and then when the last person had gone, turn to Ramon and walk slowly to the door, weariness at last acknowledged.

Pitt turned away and his eye was caught by the light resting for a few moments on a mane of fair hair as a tall man moved with extraordinary elegance through the crowd. Many people made way for him, smiling, clearly recognising him. He acknowledged several of them with a nod, then continued on out through the doors, apparently too deep in thought to stop and speak.

Pitt recognised him too. It was Dalton Teague, a gentleman about town, related to many of the great families of power, particularly that of Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister. But the deference Pitt had seen here was to Teague the hero of the cricket field, who had outplayed almost every other sportsman of the age. The grace with which he moved was that of the athlete. The attention he commanded could never be bought, it could only be won.

Pitt had no time to wonder what Teague was doing here. He had to check with all the policemen, and see that Sofia Delacruz left safely. It was another half-hour before he was able to speak briefly to Brundage, thank Drury and his men, then with a sigh of relief, go outside into the April night.

The streetlamps were already lit, bright, comforting orbs like ornate jewels set in iron, stretching above the footpath. He was walking towards the main road to find a hansom to take him home when a man of middle height emerged from the shadow of the nearest building and fell into step beside him.

‘Evening, Commander,’ he said pleasantly. He had a rich voice, well-spoken and threaded by a warm humour. ‘You did well to contain that so unobtrusively.’

‘Thank you,’ Pitt said drily. He did not wish to enter into conversation with a stranger, even if it was civil, but there was something in the man’s tone that told him this was the beginning of the exchange, not the end.

‘My name is Frank Laurence.’ The man kept pace with Pitt, in spite of being three inches shorter.

Pitt did not reply. Clearly Laurence knew who he was.

‘I’m a journalist with
The Times
,’ Laurence continued. ‘I find it very interesting that the Commander of Special Branch should be concerned with a visiting saint, as it were. Or do I overrate Sofia Delacruz’s holiness?’

Pitt smiled in the darkness, in spite of his irritation. ‘I have no idea, Mr Laurence. I don’t know how you measure holiness. If that is what your newspaper wishes of you, you will need to acquire your help elsewhere.’ He increased his pace slightly.

Laurence kept up with him without apparent effort.

‘I like your sense of humour, Mr Pitt, but I am afraid my editor will want something more from me than an estimate of holiness.’ He sounded as if the whole idea amused him. ‘Something more violent, you know? Scandal, attack, even the risk of murder.’

Pitt stopped abruptly and faced Laurence. They were close to a streetlamp and he saw the man’s face clearly: he had regular features, and his slightly rounded, brown eyes were sharp and intelligent – at this moment bright with suppressed laughter.

‘Well, if you find any violence, Mr Laurence, I hope you will be kind enough to let me know,’ Pitt responded. ‘Beforehand would be good, even if it robs your story of some of its impact.’

‘Ah!’ Laurence said with pleasure. ‘I am sure that working with you is going to be less tedious than I had feared. Are you telling me that in your opinion there will be violence? She is a very unusual woman, isn’t she? I have always thought that the best saints, the real ones, would be troublesome. There’s nothing very holy about telling us all what we want to hear, is there? I think I could probably do that myself.’

‘I thought it was what you did do,’ Pitt replied waspishly, and then as he saw the laughter in Laurence’s eyes he immediately regretted it. He had played into Laurence’s hands.

‘No, Commander, I tell them quite often what they both want to hear, and dread to. It is not displeasing them that would be the kiss of death to my career, it is boring them . . . or, of course, being seen to lie. Like a good actor, you must never break the “suspension of disbelief”. Is she a saint?’

‘Why do you want to know?’ Pitt found himself engaged with the man, in spite of his determination not to be. ‘Are you hoping for a burning at the stake? I don’t think we break people on the wheel any more. We don’t even stretch them on the rack.’

‘We are very unimaginative,’ Laurence agreed. ‘Is she a saint, or merely an exhibitionist, Commander?’

Pitt responded with surprising depth of emotion to the idea that she was an exhibitionist. Even the use of the word offended him, but he knew perfectly well what Laurence was trying to manoeuvre him to say.

‘You must write your own article, Mr Laurence,’ he answered. ‘Although I imagine you will do that anyway, regardless of what I say.’

Laurence smiled. In the lamplight his teeth were white and even.

‘Well done, Commander. You are supremely careful to say nothing. I admire that. I look forward to discussing the matter with you again. I imagine we will have many chances. All kinds of people will seize the opportunity to come to her meetings and put forward their ideas on the crucifixion, the Resurrection, the virgin birth, and the nature of heaven, merely to begin with.’ He touched his hat with an airy wave. ‘Good night, sir.’

CHARLOTTE KNEW that she must return home with Jemima, and not wait for Pitt after the evening with Sofia Delacruz, but she was longing to ask him what he had thought of it all, especially of Sofia herself. After seventeen years of marriage she thought she knew him well, and herself even better. But most of the remarks the woman had made, and perhaps even more the burning conviction with which she had spoken, awoke in Charlotte too many awkward questions. Why had she never examined her own thoughts on such issues?

Was it because she already had all the things that mattered to her: the husband she loved, children, enough money to be safe, and friends? And more than that, there were causes to be fought for. The world was changing even from month to month. Now political votes for women were far more than a dream, and she was more involved in the fight than she had told Pitt.

She would tell him, of course, but in time. It was exciting. If women had a voice in government, even if it was only the power to withhold their support, it would be the beginning of a new age in reform of a hundred griefs and inequalities.

There were burning reasons to be involved. One of these was an upcoming parliamentary by-election in which cricket hero Dalton Teague was the candidate almost certain to win. He was against the availability of information regarding birth control. It had been a difficult subject for many years and feelings ran very high. The knowledge of such practices was not illegal, it was simply not widespread enough to reach those who desperately needed it: poor women who had child after child until their bodies were exhausted. Many died as a result. Ignorance, fear and social pressures were responsible. Religious beliefs had much influence as well.

But it was women who died, not men!

It was the recent death of a friend, giving birth to her seventh child, that had brought the subject so forcefully to the front of Charlotte’s mind.

But Charlotte had so much, sitting here in the warmth and the dark, beside her daughter, was she too satisfied to need a belief in anything greater, a purpose beyond the immediate future? What did she need to believe in when she already had all that mattered to her?

What if she were to lose it? What strength was there inside her to go on, to stand alone, walk in the darkness? It was a terrible thought, and one that she had had to face several times over the years as Pitt’s job, first in the police force and now in Special Branch, took him into danger. She found herself tense in the carriage, so unyielding she was bumped by every unevenness in the road. Would she, in the face of hardship or loss, find nothing inside her to carry her through?

Jemima also was quiet. Was she disturbed as well, or simply tired? Was she disappointed? She had been so eager to come, and now she offered no comment at all.

‘What did you think of her?’ Charlotte asked gently, concerned how she would answer if Jemima were confused. The emptiness in her own mind gave her a feeling of guilt for never having found at least some clarity of faith to teach her daughter. She would soon be seventeen, of marriageable age. She would have decisions to make that would affect the rest of her life.