The Coven Read online

  Off to the left there was another door which led to an even smaller room, with a wardrobe and a washstand and a double bed with hardly three inches to walk around it. The bed was covered with a thick maroon bedspread and over the washstand hung a print of Jesus with one hand raised in blessing and a radiant halo shining behind his head. Beatrice found it disturbing because this depiction of Jesus looked so much like Jeremy.

  ‘I will see you downstairs in a little while, Mrs Scarlet,’ said Grace. ‘There is fresh water in your jug, and you will find towels in your wardrobe. I hope you have a happy time living here with us. The girls here, they laugh and they seem to be merry, but most of them are so sad, and they need a person like you to talk to. It was only two weeks ago that a girl called Anna hunged herself. She never told nobody that she wanted to kill herself.’

  ‘Well, I hope that I can make a difference,’ said Beatrice. ‘To you, too – Grace. If there is anything that troubles you, anything at all, you can always come and tell me what it is.’

  Grace rolled her eyes as if there was something on her mind, but said nothing.

  When she was gone, Florence tugged at Beatrice’s sleeve and said, ‘Quick! I need a wee-wee!’

  Beatrice bent down and lifted the bedspread. Underneath the bed was a large white chamber pot emblazoned with the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers and Tobacco Blenders – two black men standing either side of a tobacco plant, with the motto Producat Terra: Out of the Earth.

  Florence lifted her petticoats and sat down on it while Beatrice went to the window and looked out over the view of St Paul’s. She still felt weak and shaky after being attacked. More than that, she missed New Hampshire sorely, although she knew that her life in Sutton had been even more dangerous in different way. She almost wished that she hadn’t agreed to return to London, yet what else could she have done?

  Florence came out of the bedroom and said, ‘Finished. And I put it back under the bed.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said Beatrice, and picked her up and held her close. ‘Now let’s have a quick wash and go down and meet our new family, shall we?’

  *

  The drawing room was large, with tall windows at either end, and a high ceiling from which a two-tier brass chandelier hung like a monstrous spider. As large as it was, the room was crowded with over twenty young girls, some of them wedged onto three gondola sofas or sitting two to an armchair, or on each other’s laps.

  Ida was sitting in an armchair by the white marble fireplace, and George was standing close behind her with one forearm resting on the mantelshelf. It was plain from the proprietary expression on his face that he considered himself to be the master of this house, and the patron of all of these girls. Beatrice supposed that if he was largely responsible for paying the rent and subsidizing the girls’ food and clothing and education, he had every right to feel like that. After all, he had even supplied their chamber pots.

  He looked at Beatrice as she came in, and gave her a smile and a nod, almost as if they shared some secret between them. Beatrice nodded in return. She was already beginning to feel that he was the kind of man with whom she could form a warm and lasting friendship.

  Ida clapped her hands for silence and then introduced Beatrice and Florence to the assembled girls. Meanwhile, Grace brought over a rosewood armchair so that Beatrice could sit next to her. Florence sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her.

  George said, ‘I’m delighted to tell you that in the past few months, trade at my tobacco factory has been thriving to such an extent that I have vacancies now for seven more girls. The purpose of my visit today is to choose which seven can start work with me on Monday morning.’

  The girls whispered and tittered behind their hands. Beatrice couldn’t help noticing that most of them were pretty, with one or two exceptions, and that three or four of them could well be described as beautiful. There was one girl in particular, who wasn’t sitting on the sofas with the rest of them, but standing by the window at the end of the room. She was staring out over the small back courtyard, where a life-size stone statue of some Greek goddess was raised on a pedestal.

  This girl looked about eighteen or nineteen years old, although she could have been younger. She had loose, tawny curls tied with scarlet ribbons, and she was wearing a pink robe d’anglaise with a low, square neckline which emphasised her very full breasts. Her neckline was decorated with a trailing scarlet knot, and so were each of her elbow-length sleeves.

  Beatrice thought her face was extraordinary. She had huge green eyes, and high cheekbones, and a small upturned nose. Her lips were pink and slightly pouting as if she were just about to blow a kiss.

  Beatrice leaned towards Ida and said, ‘Who is that girl in the pink?’

  ‘Oh, her,’ said Ida, and flapped her hand, as if she were exasperated. ‘She’s quite new here. We took her in after the constables carried out a sweep at night of the bawdy houses all along Hedge Lane. They brought in twenty-five girls altogether, some as young as thirteen. This one was given the choice of coming here to St Mary Magdalene’s or of being charged at the Old Bailey with prostitution. Jane Webb is her name, and as you can probably judge by her expression, she is less than overjoyed at being here. Sometimes I think she would have preferred to be sent to the Clerkenwell House of Correction with the other molls.’

  ‘How sad,’ said Beatrice. ‘Her mien is lovely.’

  ‘It’s the same with so many of our girls,’ said Ida. ‘They have no homes, they have no schooling, they have no skills. Their only currency is their appearance and their willingness to lie on their backs.’

  George was circling around the drawing room now, jovially talking to several of the girls. They were giggling again, and nodding, and Beatrice could easily tell which ones he was inviting to come and work for him. Jane remained by the window, looking out, as if she had no interest in what was going on. Another girl was sitting on a sewing-stool in the corner, a plump, big-bottomed girl in a brown taffeta–satin dress. She had scraggly black hair and a black star-shaped patch on her cheek which she had probably stuck on to conceal a mole.

  Florence went to the front window to look out at the carriages making their way around the court, and, while she did so, Beatrice went up to this girl and smiled at her.

  ‘May I ask your name?’ she said. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, although I doubt if we’ll be acquainted for very long if you’re chosen to go and work for Mr Hazzard at his tobacco factory.’

  ‘Judith,’ said the girl. ‘But he won’t be picking me, Mr Hazzard. He never does. This is the third time he’s come a-calling since I’ve been here, and he’s never picked me.’

  ‘Perhaps Mrs Smollett has told him that she enjoys your company and would prefer it if you stayed.’

  Judith shifted herself on her stool and tugged at the gilt-beaded stomacher which she wore at the front of her dress. Apart from being decorative, this allowed her to adjust her bodice size in the event of putting on weight, without altering her dress.

  ‘It’s not that at all,’ said Judith, dolefully. She had a strong country accent, Sussex or Kent. ‘He only ever picks the pretty ones.’

  ‘I’m sure that can’t be true,’ Beatrice told her. ‘You don’t need to be pretty to roll tobacco. Besides, you’re as fair as any other girl here.’

  ‘You don’t have to flatter me, ma’am. I know that I’m fat and plain. And there are other girls here in the house who won’t even trouble themselves to come downstairs to meet Mr Hazzard. They know that he would never want them, because they are so lacking in looks.’

  ‘So what are you going to do? You won’t be able to stay here at St Mary Magdalene’s forever, will you?’

  ‘I know that, but there’s a seamstress who calls here twice a week, and she is learning me to sew and embroider, and Martha is learning me to make pies and pastries. I’m hoping that I’ll soon be fit to take up employment in some prosperous house. If I can’t find such employment – well... t
here is still money to be made in one of the bagnios. The gentlemen in the bagnios like their girls bouncing.’

  ‘You wouldn’t go back to that life, would you?’

  ‘Only if I need to, Widow Scarlet. But it’s easy to be righteous when you’re well-dressed and warm and your stomach is full.’

  Beatrice laid a reassuring hand on Judith’s shoulder. She couldn’t think what to say to her, but Judith had given her some idea of how much support and encouragement she would have to give these girls. Why should they work for a pittance as domestic servants when they could be streetwalking every evening on Covent Garden or the Strand, making a guinea or even more from every drunken man they met, and sometimes helping themselves to his handkerchief and his pocket watch and any loose change he had in his pockets? Not only that, there was always a chance that some wealthy man might take a particular fancy to them. Beatrice had heard of several famous prostitutes who had done well for themselves, like Lavinia Fenton, whose mother had sold her virginity for £200 plus £200 a year, but who had eventually married the Duke of Bolton, and died rich; and Nancy Parsons, a ballerina who had earned an extra hundred guineas a week as a prostitute, but had become the wife of Viscount Maynard.

  When she had finished talking to Judith, Beatrice crossed the room to Jane. She stood close beside her for a few moments but Jane continued to stare out of the window and didn’t acknowledge her.

  ‘Jane,’ she said, at last, very gently.

  Jane turned to look at her but didn’t speak. Close to, Beatrice could see that her eyes were variegated shades of green, with a few small orange flecks, like the eyes of a vixen or a predatory cat. She was wearing a tarnished crucifix around her neck, probably silver-plated, but Beatrice was interested to notice that the figure of Christ had his head turned to the left, instead of the right, as he usually did.

  ‘That’s an interesting crucifix. I’ve never seen Jesus facing that way before.’

  Jane lifted up the crucifix so that Beatrice could examine it more closely.

  ‘Me gran give it to me. She said that it’s a sinner’s cross. On all the other ones, ’e’s looking to the right, where ’is mum is, and all the good people. On this one, ’e’s lookin’ to the left, at all the thieves and the murderers and the merry-arsed Christians. You know – sheep to the right, goats to the left.’

  ‘Has Mr Hazzard spoken to you yet?’ asked Beatrice. ‘Will he be taking you on at the tobacco factory?’

  ‘I fuckin’ well ’ope so,’ Jane retorted. ‘I’ve ’ad it up to me tits in this place.’

  ‘You’re not happy here, then?’

  ‘What do you think? Nothin’ but bleedin’ prayin’ and washin’. My mother was a washerwoman up at Tower ’Ill, and that’s all she ever bleedin’ did – prayed and washed, prayed and washed – save that ’er prayers weren’t nothin’ like the prayers they say ’ere.’

  ‘Jane – Mrs Smollett has only been trying to show you that there’s another way that you could live, safer and more moral, and preparing you for it. She’s been teaching you to read and write, hasn’t she, and to sew, and other skills?’

  ‘Pff!’ said Jane. ‘All I ever needed to know was ’ow to count guineas, and ’ow to make sure that every cove puts a cundum on.’

  ‘What if I told you that you could lead a very much happier life? What if you could find yourself a husband who would cherish you and take good care of you? What if you could have children of your own one day, and you could bring them up to be equally happy as you? What would you say to that?’

  ‘I’d say you was talkin’ the same gammon that Mrs Smollett cracks on about. I’ve been livin’ on me wits since I was eleven years old, and I know what men wants from me, and ’ow much they’ll cough up for it, and that’s all that matters. Maybe I’ll go to heaven when I die, or maybe I’ll go to hell, but the way I see it I don’t have no choice in the matter, and I can wash and pray until I’m black in the face but it won’t make one splinter of difference.’

  Beatrice thought for a moment and then nodded. ‘Yes. I can understand why you feel like that.’

  Jane stared at her suspiciously, as if she had been expecting the usual disapproving sermon, but said nothing.

  ‘Sometimes I’m led to suspect that praying is of very little purpose,’ Beatrice went on. ‘My husband was cruelly killed two years ago in New Hampshire, and now I’ve lost my little boy, too. Most likely he was taken away by Indians, and I will never see him again. I prayed for his return, and when he didn’t return I prayed for his safekeeping, but I may never discover for the rest of my life is he alive or dead, or if my prayer had any effect.’

  ‘Indians took ’im?’ said Jane. ‘Like, Red Indians?’

  ‘That’s right. They were mainly given to kid-nabbing women, but sometimes they stole children too. And almost always – unless by some miracle they managed to escape – they disappeared forever.’

  Jane said, ‘I’m sorry for you, ma’am, truly.’

  ‘Well, I thank you for your sympathy, Jane, but please try to understand what I’m saying to you. Your life has been appalling beyond measure – worse than you realize, because you have never known anything else. My late husband, Francis, would be outraged if he could hear me saying this, but I now believe that prayer on its own has no effect. God is our maker but he has given us free will and choices, and if we choose to destroy ourselves, he is not going to intervene, because that would be a denial of the freedom that he has granted us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Jane. There was still an aggressive tone in her question, but Beatrice could tell that she was really interested to find out the answer.

  ‘If I gave you a beautiful silk dress, and you besmirched it and tore it, whose fault would that be? Not mine, because I freely gave you such a gift. If you came back to me and prayed for me to give you a new one, would I be cruel if I refused, and told you to clean and mend the fine dress that I had already given you?’

  Jane continued to stare at her, saying nothing, but Beatrice could tell that she had grasped what she meant.

  ‘Some people seem to think that once your virginity has been taken, it is gone and lost forever,’ Beatrice told her. ‘But if you turn towards a pure and faithful life, you be will be as much a virgin then as you were before. Your beautiful silk dress will be cleaned and sewn, and nobody will ever realize that it isn’t brand new.’

  Jane was about to reply to her then when George came up to them, and laid his hands on both of their shoulders.

  ‘Now this young lady will be ideal for Hazzard’s tobacco factory!’ he exclaimed. ‘You have the look of a hard worker, my dear, and a dutiful employee, and apart from that, you will enhance the premises considerably with your beauty, if I may say so. I can offer you twelve shillings and sixpence per week, as well as comfortable accommodation above the factory, so there will be no need for you to risk walking to and from Hackney every morning and every night.’

  Jane looked at Beatrice and Beatrice gave her a little smile, as if to say, well, it’s a new start, and even if stripping tobacco leaves and rolling cigars isn’t the most glamorous of occupations, it’s safer, and more moral, and who knows how God might reward you for turning your back on prostitution?

  ‘All right, then, Mr ’Azzard,’ said Jane. ‘You’re on.’

  ‘What’s your name, young lady? I’m giving you and your companions the week’s end to pack your things together, and then you can all start on Monday morning, six o’clock sharp.’

  ‘Jane Rose Webb, that’s my full name.’

  ‘It suits you, my dear! It suits you! And when you come and work with me, you will blossom like a rose, I assure you.’

  11

  George said goodbye and left. All the girls that he had chosen to work in his tobacco factory were flustered and excited, and couldn’t stop chattering. They would now have more freedom, and be making their own money. Not only that, a job at Hazzard’s frequently led to meeting an eligible man of means, and marriage.
/>   George had repeatedly told them that the reason he needed to pay such frequent visits to St Mary Magdalene’s to recruit new staff was because so many of his girls caught the eye of the gentlemen customers who came in to order plug or cake tobacco, or cigars, or snuff. These customers would invite the girls out dancing, he said, or for an evening at the theatre, and before he knew it, he had lost another cigar-roller to wedlock.

  The only girl who didn’t join in the excitement was Jane. She remained by the window, seated now, staring out at the statue of the Greek goddess in the courtyard. Beatrice wondered if she ought to talk to her further, because it seemed as if she were suffering from some deep sadness. She was exhausted, though, and Florence came up to her again and tugged at her dress and said that she was ‘hungry, Mama!’ so she left Jane where she was, and followed Ida into the dining room on the opposite side of the hallway. The cook and the kitchen maid had laid out a spread of cold mutton and pickles and brawn, as well as macaroni cheese and fish custard, with a dessert of puff-pastry pease-pods filled with cherries.

  Beatrice had never been offered fish custard before. It was made with ground almonds, dates and pike roe and eggs, sweetened with rosewater, and after one spoonful she thought that she had never tasted anything so repulsive in her life. Florence loved it, though, and sat on the window seat kicking her legs and eating a whole bowl.

  After this luncheon, Beatrice and Florence went upstairs to their rooms to rest. Beatrice eased off her shoes and lay on the bedcover and Florence climbed up and lay beside her.

  ‘Can we go home now?’ she asked.

  ‘No, Florrie. We have to stay here in London. Mama has to take care of all of the girls who live here. And you, too, of course.’

  ‘I don’t like it here. I want to go home and look for Noah.’