The Coven Page 13

  ‘Are you going to inform the Reverend Parsons about the girls going missing?’ she asked.

  ‘I have already, my dear,’ said George. ‘I called in at the Foundery on my way here.’

  ‘And what did he have to say about it?’

  ‘He was shocked and horrified, naturally, like poor Ida here. But, like Ida, he recognizes that some of the girls you take in to St Mary Magdalene’s will always remain beyond redemption.’

  ‘Did a watchman come to the factory?’

  ‘Yes, early this morning after he had finished his night’s duties. However, he was not optimistic about being able to find the girls. He said that since they were given the ability to vanish by the Devil, the Devil will undoubtedly keep them one step ahead of the watch for the rest of their lives.’

  ‘What about placing a notice in the Gazetteer? Surely somebody in London must know at least one of them, or have some inkling of where they might be.’

  George shrugged and pulled a face. ‘I think that would be fruitless, my dear. As I say, they have probably flown far away, to the north of England or Scotland or even abroad, where nobody will recognize them, and where they can carry on their careers as prostitutes without any fear of being apprehended.’

  ‘Well, I’d best get back to my tapestry class,’ said Beatrice. ‘The girls are quiet at the moment but I don’t like to leave them unsupervised for too long. If they start quarrelling, they have a tendency to stick needles in each other.’

  ‘It was a great pleasure as always to see you, Beatrice,’ said George. ‘It is a pity that we are meeting again under such a black cloud.’

  ‘We’ll be saying a special prayer for the girls this evening,’ said Ida. ‘The Devil may have them in his thrall for now, but there’s always hope that God might be able to show them the error of their ways, and return them to us.’

  Beatrice gave George a quick, small curtsey, and went back to the atelier, just in time to stop Hannah Bennett from prodding Mary Cox in the back with a crewel needle.

  19

  That afternoon, Beatrice borrowed Ida’s green silk umbrella and a pair of wooden pattens to fit over her shoes so that she and Florence could walk over to the Foundery. Because of the rain the streets were unusually quiet, except for the clopping of horses’ hooves and the grinding of coach wheels. The long-song sellers and the hot spiced gingerbread vendors were mostly sheltering in doorways, although a clarinet player with a dancing dog stood in the open on the corner of Fore Street, both of them drenched. The dog kept stopping and looking miserably up at his master as if he were asking him when they were going to call it a day and go home.

  Florence didn’t mind the rain. She sang, ‘Ring around the rosy! Ashes! Ashes!’ and kept jumping into puddles.

  ‘Florrie! You’ll be soaking wet before we even get there!’ Beatrice scolded her.

  Beatrice had run out of sugar of lead to stop uterine bleeding, and she also needed to ask Gerald for aloe gel so that she could roll some more pills for those girls suffering from constipation or colic. Most importantly, though, she wanted to talk to the Reverend Parsons about the satanic ritual at George Hazzard’s tobacco factory.

  Once she had collected her physics from Gerald, she went around and knocked at the Foundery’s front door. The Reverend Parsons’ smiling young maid let them in and led them through to his study. He was writing a sermon, and Florence was thrilled to see his tortoiseshell cat lying on his cluttered desk, its eyes following every twitch of his quill pen as if it were tensing itself to spring on it and catch it.

  ‘Beatrice, my dear!’ the Reverend Parsons exclaimed, pushing back his chair and standing up. ‘What a pleasure to see you! How have you been faring at St Mary Magdalene’s? Ida has given me an excellent report of your work there – ex optimis optimus!’

  ‘Well, I’m grateful for that,’ said Beatrice. ‘But I came to discuss something else with you – those seven young girls who have gone missing from Mr Hazzard’s tobacco factory.’

  ‘Ah, yes. George called here earlier to tell me that they had disappeared, and under what dreadful circumstances. I have to say that it chilled me – chilled me – froze me to my very marrow!’

  Beatrice said, ‘I saw for myself the pentagram that the girls were supposed to have painted on the wall, and of course the dead goat.’

  ‘Horror upon horror, Beatrice! We do everything we can to save those refractory girls, and to guide their feet onto the path of righteousness, but sadly a number of them will always be beyond redemption. I must say, though, that this is one of the most appalling cases that I have ever encountered. To form a coven, and to summon Satan to give them the power to escape – quod animo fingi non potest – it defies one’s belief!’

  ‘I agree with you,’ said Beatrice. ‘But I think it unbelievable only because it didn’t actually happen. At least, not in the way that George says that it did.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Did you not see the evidence with your very own eyes? The pentagram? The goat?’

  ‘George told me that the pentagram was painted on the wall on the very first evening that the girls arrived at his factory, and that he believed that it was painted in blood.’

  ‘That’s right, yes. He told me that, too.’

  ‘I took a sample of the pentagram on my handkerchief. If it had been blood, it would have dried within a very short time of being painted, and its colour would have darkened almost to brown. But it was still viscous, and it was still a vivid red.’

  ‘Yes, but they sacrificed the goat only on the same morning that they disappeared,’ said the Reverend Parsons. ‘Perhaps they painted over the pentagram a second time with fresh goat’s blood, as a way of renewing their homage to Satan.’

  Beatrice shook her head. ‘Even if they had done that, it was mid-afternoon before I visited the factory, so it would have dried by the time I saw it. Quite apart from which, I analysed my sample here in Gerald’s apothecary, and there was no question at all what it was – paint, in a strong shade of carmine. It had a base of linseed oil, coloured with cochineal.’

  The Reverend Parsons frowned, and said, ‘Paint? Are you certain of that?’

  ‘As I said, Reverend, there was no question at all. Not only did it smell of linseed oil, it held its colour when mixed with spirit veneris, and changed its colour to violet when tested with a few drops of mineral alkali.’

  ‘Please, have a seat,’ said the Reverend Parsons. ‘This is more worrying than I thought.’

  Beatrice sat down next to the Reverend Parsons’ desk, and he sat down again too. The cat had jumped down onto the floor now, and Florence was teasing it by trailing one of her ribbons along the rug in front of it.

  Beatrice said, ‘I am loth to suggest that it was George who arranged for the pentagram to be painted on the wall and for the goat to be slaughtered. But I believe it was done so that any witnesses would be led to believe that the girls really had summoned the Devil. When I say witnesses, I mean me and the watchman he called. Or says he called, anyway.’

  ‘But, my dear, what possible motive could he have for such an imposture?’ asked the Reverend Parsons. ‘He told me that he urgently needed those girls to work in his factory, because he’s so pressed for staff. Surely the very last thing he would have wanted would be to lose all seven of them.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But there were several other indications that they didn’t disappear in the way he described. All of their clothing and possessions had disappeared, too, and the chamber pots in the dormitory were empty. Even if they had locked themselves in for several days without food or drink, they would have needed to relieve themselves.’

  The Reverend Parsons laid his hand on the large leather-bound Bible from which he had been copying quotations for his sermon.

  ‘George Hazzard is one of the most honourable men I have ever had the privilege to know – ever. Let me tell you, Beatrice, his contribution to the charitable work of this ministry has been unstinting. Without his financial supp
ort and without his influence with the bench at the Old Bailey, we could never have saved so many wanton girls from a life of crime and prostitution.’

  ‘I’m not making any accusations against him,’ said Beatrice. ‘I don’t have sufficient evidence for that. Until we discover where the girls have gone, there’s no conclusive proof of how they escaped, or when; or who painted the pentagram and killed the goat; or why. But the indisputable fact remains that the pentagram was described in oil paint, and not blood, and that the lack of luggage and the empty chamber pots suggest that the girls may have disappeared some days earlier than George claims they did.’

  ‘I think it’s all perfectly clear,’ said the Reverend Parsons. ‘The Devil was still present when you went to see the dormitory, albeit invisibly. In order to confuse you and to raise doubts in your mind about George’s explanation of the girls’ disappearance, he altered the composition of the blood on the wall to that of paint. As for the empty chamber pots, if the girls had locked themselves in for several days, with nothing to drink, it would have been necessary for them to imbibe their own urine to survive.’

  Beatrice stared at him. ‘You seriously think that the Devil changed the blood into paint?’

  ‘What other explanation can there be? Jesus can change water into wine, and equally the Devil can change any liquid he chooses into any other liquid – coffee into poison, poison into blood, blood into paint – whatever suits his own mischievous purpose.’

  ‘So you believe that the girls really summoned Satan, and that he gave them the power to disappear?’

  ‘Yes, I do, because I believe George implicitly, and I know from my own experience what heinous trickery the Devil can get up to.’

  ‘Very well, then,’ said Beatrice. ‘If that is your belief, then who am I to argue?’

  The Reverend Parsons stood up. ‘One day we may discover where those girls went, but I must say that I am not at all hopeful. All we can do is pray for their misguided souls, and that they might someday see the error of their ways. There is no point in castigating ourselves for what they have chosen to do.’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ said Beatrice. ‘Florrie, say goodbye to the pussycat now. We have to go back for supper.’

  The Reverend Parsons showed them to the front door. He waited while Beatrice fastened the pattens over her shoes and raised her umbrella. Then he said, ‘A word of caution, Beatrice. You need to be constantly alert for the faintest whiff of Satan’s presence. It may suit his purpose to tamper with more of your analyses, and the consequences could be tragic. Think of it – if the evidence of that paint was presented in court, and George was erroneously found to be responsible for those girls’ disappearance, he could be transported or hung.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Reverend,’ said Beatrice. ‘I have an acute sense of smell for all kinds of different vapours – and for the smell of evil most of all.’

  *

  Beatrice and Florence had walked no more than a few yards along Windmill Hill when Beatrice heard James calling out to her.

  ‘Beatrice! Wait just a moment!’

  He caught up with her. He was wearing no coat, only his shirtsleeves and his waistcoat, so he must have come running straight out of his classroom as soon as he saw her.

  ‘James, you’ll catch your death!’ said Beatrice.

  ‘I wanted only to ask you again if you might be free for a few hours tomorrow, in the afternoon. If you are, and the weather is better, I would love to take you and Florence to the Ranelagh Gardens, or perhaps to the gardens at Marybone if Chelsea’s too far for you.’

  ‘Why, thank you, James. That would be a pleasant diversion. I’ll have to ask Mrs Smollett, though. I know we have a visit from a Scots preacher in the morning, to talk to the girls about missionary work among the poor, and then a prayer meeting, but I may have time to myself after that.’

  James smiled. There were raindrops sparkling in his long, brown hair and Beatrice thought he looked more appealing than ever. Being a teacher, he was obviously very knowledgeable and worldly wise; and she had seen how firmly he could control a class of ragged and wayward children. All the same, he had an innocence about him which she found extremely attractive. It reminded her so much of Francis, who had always thought the best of people until they proved him wrong.

  *

  When she returned to St Mary Magdalene’s, she went upstairs first of all to see if Judith was breathing any more easily. Because her gasping and wheezing had been keeping the other girls awake, they had moved her to a tiny bedroom at the back of the house. It was even smaller than Beatrice’s bedroom, with only enough space for a single iron-framed bed, a bedside cabinet and an upright rush-bottomed chair. Above the head of the bed hung a bronze effigy of Christ on the cross.

  Judith was sitting propped up with two pillows, looking flushed and sweaty, but she was no longer struggling for breath. Beatrice had been dosing her regularly for the past twenty-four hours with elderberry wine and with the nightshade physic that her father had taught her how to mix, and which he had labelled ‘Bannister’s Aerating Lung Balm’.

  A jug and a basin stood on top of the cabinet, and Beatrice poured out some cold water so that she could soak a flannel cloth and press it against Judith’s forehead.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked her.

  ‘So much better, thank you, Widow Scarlet. It was like my lungs was all stuffed up with thistles before, but I can breathe proper now.’

  ‘You need to rest for another day, but after that you should be fine. All being well, you should be able to get out of bed and get dressed by Sunday.’

  Judith was silent for a while, but then she said, ‘I heard about the girls who went to Mr Hazzard’s tobacco factory.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Who told you?’

  ‘Mrs Smollett told all of us. She said we should take it as a lesson.’

  ‘What exactly did Mrs Smollett say?’

  ‘She said that they prayed to the Devil, those seven girls, because they wanted him to turn them into witches. They killed a goat for him, and lit candles, and because of that the Devil gave them the power to fly. They flew away and nobody knows where they’ve gone.’

  Beatrice sat down on the side of the bed and held Judith’s hand. ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you really believe that they called on the Devil? Do you really believe that he enabled them to fly?’

  Judith blinked. ‘I don’t know. Mrs Smollett said they did. But I did think it was wonderful.’

  ‘Wonderful in what way?’

  ‘The night before they left to go and work for Mr Hazzard, I was talking to Jane, and Jane was weeping something bitter because she said she’d seen a miracle.’

  ‘She told you about the statue in the back yard, is that it? Did she say that she’d seen it moving?’

  Judith sniffed, and nodded. ‘She said you’d promised her that she could be like a virgin again, purest-pure, if only she mended her ways.’

  ‘I did, yes. I didn’t say that it would be easy, but I did tell her that it was possible, if she put her mind to it, and trusted in God.’

  ‘She didn’t believe it when you first told her. She thought you was coming out with one of those old preachy clankers. But then she saw the statue turn its head and look at her, and when Mrs Smollett told her that the statue was a goddess – a goddess what had left the dirty world behind her and become like a virgin again, just the same as you was telling her to do – she knew that what you was telling her was square.’

  Judith’s nose was dripping now so Beatrice took out her handkerchief and handed it to her. When she had blown her nose, Judith said, ‘She said that after she saw that miracle, she trusted you more than anybody she’d ever known, and that she was dead set on making you proud of her, and that she would never let you down.’

  ‘And she told you that on the night before she left to go to work at Mr Hazzard’s factory?’

  ‘The very night. So what was she doing, the
next night, calling up the Devil? She wasn’t easy, Jane, but if there’s one thing she wasn’t, she wasn’t a wrinkler.’

  ‘Well, Judith, we’ll have to find out the truth, won’t we?’ said Beatrice. ‘No – no, please keep the handkerchief. You can give it back to me after it’s been laundered.’

  20

  The Scots preacher who visited St Mary Magdalene’s the next morning was even more miserable and dour than Hephzibah Carmen, the singing teacher. He was clothed entirely in black and had one hunched shoulder. His face was thin, with chiselled cheekbones and a long jaw, and his grey wig was perched on top of his head like a filthy, overfed cat.

  He spoke of helping the poor, such as those orphans who roamed the streets and had to seek warmth in winter by sleeping close to brick kilns or even in dunghills, and those families so impoverished that they had no furniture and were sleeping on straw because everything else had been pawned or sold to pay for food and rent. He spoke of the mother he had found in a state of putrefaction in an upstairs room, dead for over a month, with her three children naked and starving beside her bed, so weak that they were unable to stand. He described all this with a kind of dry relish, but his voice rose to an impassioned quaver when he started to describe the consequences of sin, and what would happen to the girls of St Mary Magdalene’s if they were tempted to return to prostitution or crime.

  ‘Both God and Man have many ways of punishing the woman who strays from the path of righteousness,’ he told them, raising his hunched-up shoulder as if he expected a bird of prey to fly down and settle on it. ‘Disease is God’s way. Be advised that thirty thousand Londoners were buried last year, and that you are blessed if the Lord spares you beyond the age of twenty-one. Man’s way, however, is execution... and if a woman is found guilty of a capital crime she can be taken to Tyburn and publicly burned to death. Can you imagine the agony?’