The Coven Read online

‘Well, I do, too, sweetheart. But God has a laid out a path for us and we should be obedient and follow it.’

  ‘I don’t like God.’

  Beatrice didn’t answer that, but gently stroked Florence’s cheek and twisted her hair around her finger. If she and Florence were feeling as sad as this, she couldn’t imagine how wretched Noah must be, if he were still alive. What made losing Noah even more painful was that she could see herself in Florence’s face, her forehead and her eyes, but no trace of Francis at all.

  As she stroked her, Florence felt deeply asleep, and soon afterwards, Beatrice fell asleep, too. She dreamed that she was back at the parsonage in Sutton, walking between the rows of beans, and that she could hear Noah laughing and calling out to her. She tried to make her way to the end of a row, but every time she did so, the ground heaved violently up and down, which made her stagger and cling on to the beanpoles to stop herself from falling over. That, of course, was her residual response to the motion of the waves, after an ocean crossing that had taken more than three weeks.

  When she opened her eyes, the bedroom was totally dark, and outside, she could hear that it was raining, and raining hard. She was feeling nauseous, with the taste of bile and fish custard in her mouth, but even in the darkness she knew where the chamber pot was, so she wouldn’t have to vomit out of the window. After a while, though, her stomach settled, and she lay back, panting slightly, and perspiring, while Florence continued to sleep. Her period was due in three days from now, and she was already feeling bloated.

  Once her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, she climbed off the bed and groped her way through to her little sitting room. A brass candlestick was standing on the toilet, and beside it a circular tinderbox. It took her several seconds to strike a spark, but eventually she lit the candle and the room was illuminated. She lifted the small silver watch on the end of her equipage and saw that it was only half past seven. She should have time to change and go downstairs again and make a closer acquaintance with some of the girls.

  She looked at herself in the oval mirror beside the candle and said, out loud, ‘You will not feel miserable any more. For Florrie’s sake, you are going to be as cheerful and bright as this flame.’

  She didn’t know if she could really manage to be happy, but she had told Jane that it was possible for her to put her past behind her, and perhaps she could do the same. She was sure that she would meet Francis and Noah in heaven, and until then she would just have to make the best of what life was left to her. You never knew when you might be stricken by consumption or diphtheria or scarlatina, or any one of the scores of diseases that thrived in London because of the fleas and the lice and the rats and the piles of untreated sewage and animal guts in the kennels.

  Beatrice was still staring at her reflection, when she heard a timid knock. She didn’t call out because she didn’t want to wake Florence, so she went over to the door and said softly, ‘Yes? Who is it?’

  ‘Jane. Somethin’s ’appened, Widow Scarlet. Somethin’ – I don’t know – ’onest, it’s like a miracle. Can I talk to you?’

  Beatrice opened the door. ‘Come in,’ she said, and Jane stepped inside. She was still wearing her pink dress, although it was speckled with raindrops, and her hair was wet, too.

  ‘It must have been you, Widow Scarlet, what you said about prayers what don’t work and grubshiteing my dress and all that.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s like a sign, do you know what I mean? You know like Moses and the burning bush that Mrs Smollett keeps spouting on about? Or the stick that turned into a snake?’

  ‘Are you telling me you’ve seen a sign from God?’

  ‘Well, it must be God. I mean, ’oo else could it be? But I think it was you and what you said to me that made ’im do it. ’E give me the nod that you was square.’

  Jane was so agitated that Beatrice took hold of both of her hands and said, ‘Ssh, and calm, and sit down here on the sofa. Now, tell me exactly what you’ve seen.’

  Jane took a deep breath and looked up at Beatrice with her huge green eyes. There were sparkling tears clinging to her eyelashes.

  ‘After I’d ate me supper I went upstairs but when I was taking off me dress I found that me pocket was gone. I went back down to the drawing room because I thought I must have dropped it in there when Mr ’Azzard come to call. I didn’t take no glim because there was plenty of light in the ’all.

  ‘I found me pocket under the sofa and I was dead relieved because it ’ad a fore-coach-wheel in it and me charm bracelet. But as I was getting up – I don’t know what it was – but somethin’ give me cause to take a butcher’s out the window. And I swear to you, Widow Scarlet, without a word of a lie, I see that statue turn its ’ead around and stare at me.’

  ‘You mean that statue of a Greek goddess in the courtyard?’

  Jane nodded furiously. ‘I know you’ll think I’m ready for Bedlam. But I see it with my own two eyes, turnin’ its ’ead around like it’s alive.’

  ‘Jane, that statue is made of marble or somesuch stone. Statues can’t move. They’re inanimate. They have no more life in them than a brick.’

  ‘That’s why I’m askin’ if you would come down and take a look for yourself. I need to know that I’m not goin’ distracted.’

  Beatrice looked into the bedroom and saw that Florence was still asleep.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But quickly, before my daughter wakes up.’

  ‘I know it’s a sign,’ said Jane. ‘You said to me, didn’t you, God’s given you a gift, but it’s up to you to take care of that gift – like clean it and mend it. And I thought – p’raps you’re right, p’raps I could start all over again, and go back to being a virgin, of sorts. And I was still thinkin’ about it when I went down to look for my pocket.’

  ‘Come along, then, let’s go and look,’ said Beatrice.

  She quietly left the door on the latch and followed Jane downstairs. As they descended, the flickering light from the candelabrum in the hallway cast their distorted shadows on the walls behind them, so that it looked as if they were being followed downstairs by tall, attenuated phantoms.

  They went into the drawing room and made their way around the sofas to the window at the back. It was raining so hard in the darkened courtyard outside that it had flooded. The statue of the Greek goddess had one arm raised, and rain was dripping from her fingers.

  ‘I swear blind that she turned to look at me,’ said Jane. ‘If she knows you’re ’ere now, p’raps she’ll do it again.’

  ‘It could have been nothing more than a trick of the light,’ Beatrice suggested. ‘The candles in the hall – look – they keep dipping in the draught, don’t they? They might simply have lit up the raindrops, and made it appear as if she were turning her head.’

  ‘No,’ said Jane, emphatically. ‘She looked at me, Widow Scarlet, no question about it.’

  Beatrice didn’t know what to say. It was clear that Jane was desperate for some affirmation that she could change, and perhaps that was why she had imagined that the statue had come alive. She couldn’t smell wine on her breath, so she wasn’t drunk, but even in the gloomy drawing room she could see that her eyes were watering even more copiously than before. She kept sniffing, too, as if she had some nasal irritation.

  Beatrice was about to ask her if she had taken any medication when the drawing-room door opened wider and Ida came in, carrying a triple-branched candlestick with three tall candles.

  ‘Ah, Beatrice, my dear,’ she said. ‘And Jane, too. My goodness! What are you two doing in the dark?’

  ‘Oh, just talking,’ said Beatrice. ‘Jane has been telling me about her hopes for the future, now that Mr Hazzard has chosen her for his tobacco factory.’

  ‘And I was showing Widow Scarlet the statue,’ said Jane. ‘You’re not going to believe this, but—’

  ‘Do you happen to have hot chocolate, Ida, or some other nightcap?’ Beatrice interrupted her, giving Jane
a sharp look to caution her not to say any more.

  ‘Of course,’ said Ida. ‘But would you not care for some supper? There is a little brawn left, I believe, and plenty of fish custard.’

  ‘Hot chocolate will suffice, thank you. One for me and one for little Florrie.’

  ‘You won’t believe this,’ Jane persisted. ‘I mean, if I ’adn’t seen it for meself—’

  ‘It’s the statue,’ said Beatrice, interrupting her again. ‘Jane thinks it’s amazingly lifelike.’

  ‘Oh, well, yes,’ said Ida. ‘It was brought back from Greece by another of our benefactors, Sir Humphrey Nevins. He thought it would be appropriate for St Mary Magdalene’s because it represents Astraea, the goddess of purity and justice. She was once holding up a pair of bronze scales, apparently, although those have long since been lost. The legend is that Astraea was so repulsed by the depravity in this world that she flew up to the skies and became the constellation Virgo.’

  ‘So she turned herself into a virgin,’ said Jane.

  ‘Yes, you could say that.’

  Jane reached out and tugged repeatedly at Beatrice’s wrist. ‘There,’ she said, ‘told you! She ’eard what you said and that was the sign she was givin’ me. I did it, and so can you!’

  Ida frowned and said, ‘I beg your pardon, Jane. Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Don’t matter, Mrs Smollett,’ Jane told her. ‘Not no more it don’t. Goodnight.’

  With that, she left the drawing room and went upstairs. When she had gone, Ida turned to Beatrice and said, ‘I have to confess that I am somewhat bewildered.’

  ‘Don’t be concerned,’ said Beatrice. ‘I believe I managed to show Jane today that she doesn’t have to spend the rest of her life in a bawdy house. It was something of a Damascene moment for her.’

  She was about to leave the room herself when she saw that Jane had left her pocket on one of the sofas. She picked it up and said, ‘Look – she left this behind, and it was what she came down for! Which room is she in? I’ll take it up to her.’

  The pocket’s ribbon was loose and she could see what was inside. A half-crown, as Jane had said, as well as a silver charm bracelet. But there was also a small bottle with a brown-paper label with the word Anodyne printed on it.

  Beatrice knew immediately what it contained – ether. Some people drank it and others sniffed its fumes. Whichever way Jane had been taking it, that would account for her watery eyes and her belief that the statue of Astraea had turned and looked at her.

  She had learned from her father that it didn’t make much difference if ether was drunk or inhaled: it was highly addictive, and eventually it caused the skin to crack and the lungs to seize up, to all kinds of debilitating nervous ailments, and premature death.

  She said nothing to Ida, but tied the pocket tight and trudged upstairs to Jane’s room, on the second floor. She had a heavy heart, though, as she knocked at Jane’s door. Jane was stunningly beautiful, but it looked now as if Beatrice would have to rescue her not only from the temptations of her sordid past, but from the ravages of her drug-dependent future.

  12

  Early on Monday, the seven girls who had been chosen by George to work in his factory were collected by two hansom carriages from the front door, with a small pony cart for what little luggage they possessed.

  Beatrice and Florence and Ida stood outside to wave them goodbye, while the other girls gathered at the windows. It was a sharp, sunny morning and the first leaves were beginning to whirl off the trees. Even though it was only just past six o’clock, they could smell sausages frying, and hear the street sellers walking up and down Aldersgate Street, shouting and singing and ringing handbells.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Florence.

  Beatrice laughed and said, ‘You’re always hungry! You’re a little gannet!’ But she was glad that Florence was eating well, and seemed to be less homesick for Sutton.

  Once they had gone back in, Ida took them through to the large north-facing room behind the dining room, which she called the ‘atelier’. It was light and airy, although still a little smoky from the fire having just been lit, and furnished with chairs and small tables arranged in a semi-circle for the girls to sit and sew, as well as three easels where they could paint.

  The girls followed them into the atelier in twos and threes, most of them simply dressed in day gowns and aprons. Ida explained that they would have prayers, and she would read a lesson from the Bible, and then the girls would sew and sing hymns such as ‘O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing’ and ‘Soldiers of Christ, Arise!’ until it was time for breakfast.

  Before Ida read her lesson, she introduced Beatrice to the twenty-nine remaining girls one by one. Some of them were shy; some of them were sullen; some of them she judged to be as sharp as knives, while others wouldn’t have known a B from a bull’s foot. Most of them were tolerably pretty, but there were a few plain ones, like Judith, and at least three of them had disfiguring smallpox scars on their cheeks, and rotten teeth.

  They spoke in a variety of rural accents – West Country, Suffolk, Sussex and even Yorkshire – but they all shared a similar tittering laugh. They reminded Beatrice of the warbling vireos that used to cluster in the bush outside her kitchen.

  ‘Please be patient with me, ladies,’ she begged them. ‘It will take a little while for me to remember all of your names. But you can be patient in another way, too. My main purpose here is to assist Mrs Smollett in helping you all to make a new life for yourselves, but I am also an apothecary. So if you are troubled by any sickness at all – any headache or tissick or fever – please come to me and I should be able to prescribe some treatment to make you feel better.’

  She could see that one or two girls were now looking at her with renewed interest. But then she stepped back and allowed Ida to lead them in prayers, and then to read them a lesson from the Bible.

  ‘Let us walk honestly, as in the day,’ said Ida, her face plaster-white but her voice warm and encouraging. ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.’

  Sitting behind her and observing the expressions on the faces of Ida’s girls, Beatrice wondered how many of them really felt in any way uplifted, and inspired to be pure. Some were clearly bored, and yawning, some were glassy-eyed, some were picking their noses and staring out of the window. How many of them heard the words ‘chambering and wantonness’ and thought instead about the freedom they used to have, and all the guineas they used to make in the brothels of St-Mary-Le-Strand and Covent Garden?

  *

  Beatrice was just about to go upstairs and dress when one of the girls came out of the dining room door and whispered, ‘Widow Scarlet!’

  Inside the dining room, the rest of the girls were clearing up after a breakfast of porridge and soft-boiled eggs and toasted bread, and they were chattering, and clattering plates and one of them was singing ‘The Trees They Grow High’ in a clear and penetrating tone, which led Beatrice to assume that Ida was out of earshot.

  ‘And so early in the morning

  At the dawning of the day

  They went out into the hayfield

  To have some sport and play;

  And what they did there,

  She never would declare

  But she never more complained of his growing.’

  The girl who came up to Beatrice was small, with tangled carroty hair and a pale freckled face. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old. She was wearing a bottle-green dress with tattered lace cuffs which she tugged at nervously while she was talking.

  ‘You said you could ’elp with sickness, ma’am.’

  ‘That’s right. Are you not feeling well?’

  The girl grimaced. ‘Every time I ’ave my flowers I have such agonies I can barely stand up straight, and when I eat anything I can’t stop myself from shooting the cat. Last time Mrs Smollet
t gave me laudanum which eased the pain but it made me so sleepy that I ’ad to spend three days in my dab, and it made me so dull and mopish.’

  ‘What’s your name again?’ asked Beatrice. ‘Katharine, is that right?’

  The girl nodded.

  ‘Katharine, I suffer myself from the cramps, like you. Laudanum has much to recommend it, if you take it in small doses, but, as you say, it deadens the pain without easing the spasms that cause us so much distress.’

  ‘So what do you do?’ asked Katharine, quickly turning around to make sure that nobody else was listening to them.

  ‘When I was living in America, I discovered a shrub whose bark has a wonderfully soothing effect during menstruation. The Indians have used a decoction of this bark for countless centuries to prevent their squaws from miscarrying. It’s called black haw, and it grows in Europe as well as America.’

  ‘And does it really work?’

  Beatrice nodded. ‘I tried many different receipts, but eventually I found that if I mixed black haw bark with licorice and camomile and pleurisy root, as well as raspberry leaves, the relief it gave me was almost instant. It worked so well that I used to bottle it and sell it to the goodwives in New Hampshire under the name of “Scarlet’s Monthly Easement”. Look – I was intending in any event to go to the Foundery as soon as I’m dressed, to see if the apothecary there can find some black haw for me. I was going to prepare a bottle for myself and of course I’ll mix up a special bottle for you.’

  Katharine burst into tears. Beatrice put her arms around her and said, ‘Ssh, don’t be distressed. I know your life has been hard up until now, but things are going to change.’

  ‘I never knew my mother,’ Katharine sobbed. ‘She died when I was born, and then my father got the typhus and ’e went mad and died.’

  Looking down at Katharine’s carroty hair, Beatrice saw that it was thickly speckled with lice and nits. It was common for women to have lice in their hair, and in their wigs, too, but Katharine had one of the densest infestations that she had ever seen. There must have been thousands of them, and the back of Katharine’s neck was spotted with crimson bites. Her eyelids looked sore and crusty, too, which told Beatrice that she probably had tiny pubic lice in her eyelashes.