Abigail (43 page)

They all think I’m mad, of course,” Arabella said, indicating with a waft of her hand not only Walter, sitting white-haired and chuckling by the fire (the first of the autumn), but also the large photograph of her family on the mantelpiece: herself, Walter, and seven children, all but one reared and long gone.

“But I’ve had a lifetime to piece it out, and it’s really very simple. The cause of it is poverty, and the answer is a fairer distribution of wages.”

Victor and Abigail sat up at once.

“I’ve said it often to your brother, Caspar, and to the Earl. But they pretend they can’t see it. I point out to them that not all their employees come through the factory gates. Half stay at home—the wives and mothers. They put the food on the table, the shirt on the back. They provide the rest and recreation. Without them, there are no well-fed, well-clothed, well-rested workers delivered to the works at every shift. Half the wage should be paid to them, not the man. More if there’s children.”

“Hear, hear,” Walter said.

She ignored him. “They say—young Caspar and the Earl—they say they’d be paying out for work over which they had no control. But they could send round inspectors, couldn’t they? Inspect the homes, look at the children, put an eye over the account books and the larder. They could fine the women who didn’t do the work properly. But they won’t listen. As long as the man is paid, they think justice is done.”

“But if the wage is not enough, Aunt Arabella? Take lacemakers, for instance…”

“Oooh!” Arabella made a gesture that would have repelled a swarm of wasps.

“Listen to this now,” Walter said.

Arabella continued to ignore him. “There’s the crying injustice. Have you looked into the lacemaking trade?”

Abigail nodded.

“So have I…all the sweated trades. All that piecework, you know, is handed out and controlled by men. I’ve met them. They even said they hoped I’d be able to put an end to prostitution—the easy money to be got by it constantly interfered with their pool of labour! What I’d do is make those men sit down at the same piecework for a week, see how much they do, see what they need to live on, divide the one by the other, and
there’s
your true rate for the job. That could be done by legislation. If the sweated trades could be properly paid, one vast swamp from which the girls are recruited would be drained. But what do men care of that! Always men, you see.”

“You are a suffragist, then, madame?” Victor asked.

“The vote is only the beginning,” Arabella said. “It must come, of course. But my quarrel with those ladies is that they think it’s the end. Get the vote and everything else comes tumbling down. But what good is the vote to us if the men still manage the money? We’re all pieceworkers for the men. Most of the women in this country.”

“But, Aunt,” Abigail said. “Isn’t it bigger even than that? Not just money, and votes, and jobs. What about our natures? Especially men?” She succeeded in not looking at Walter.

“That’s simple, too,” Arabella said. “Continence! Men must simply learn to be chaste and continent. That’s where we women can show them such an example.”

“Hear, hear,” Walter said. His voice had grown remarkably gruff lately.

“He doesn’t believe a word of it,” Arabella told them.

Walter looked pained.

“Oh, of course he believes in chastity and continence. He’s been such a support to me there. Whenever people have told me I’m asking the impossible of men, I’ve always been able to point triumphantly to my own dear, darling Walter. And their opposition collapses at once and I am vindicated!” She beamed at them in yet another rehearsal of that triumph. Her fingers shot up as she counted: “
One:
Proper rewards for proper work for proper women.
Two:
Employment for people, not for sexes.
Three:
Let m-a-n spell Moral Abstinence Now!” She basked in their admiration. “Yes,” she said, gently closing her eyes, “a little legal castration could do wonders.”

After high tea Walter took the visitors for a walk around the garden. “You must forgive her,” he said, “but if she had known the truth, it would have broken her heart and ended her work. And hundreds of rescued girls would have been the poorer for it.”

Abigail did not know how to reply. Was he making a kind of roundabout confession? His next words made it clear he was not. “She believes, you see, that because
I
was able to be abstinent, all men would follow suit. But I daresay you both know enough of the world to know it ain’t so.”

He led them through a shrubbery, walking gingerly because of his ailing heart. On the far side the lawns swept up to the Refuge. The girls were singing their evening hymns, their strong, melodious voices carrying warmth out into the gathering dusk.

“They’re fond of singing,” Walter said. He tried to hum a snatch with them but his voice was too gruff. “She’s loved those girls,” he went on. “Really loved them as every Christian should love. From the very first one—back in eighteen fifty. I don’t suppose you were even born then, Abigail, were you? Never mind. Your father and I brought her here—as a joke, I’m ashamed to say. Your Aunt Arabella was set on this rescue business. So your father and I, to frighten her, went down to the docks and picked a pretty young thing who, we were sure, would break Aunt Arabella’s heart. I can see her now.” His eyes stared out across the decades. “Pretty thing. Name of Charity…orphanage name, of course.”

Abigail did not betray herself. “Did it work? What became of her, Uncle?”

“Oh, it worked, all right. She was Mrs. Cornelius’s maid for years…d’you remember poor Mrs. Cornelius? Never mind. But she ran away. They all do. But on that first night your aunt saved her…no doubting that. She went down on her knees with that girl and got her to see that in the eyes of God they were
both
sinners, with not much to choose between them. There! They prayed
together
for redemption. Never in fifty years have I heard her pray just for a girl—always for the girl and herself in the same breath. And there were girls came in there who were sunk deeper in depravity than Satan himself might dream of. And they, knowing she was a saint, saw her humble herself for them. For God and for them. She never condemned. She’d never allow a preacher here who would condemn. It was all done by example. And those girls—hundreds of them—have all worshipped the very blades of grass she touches.” He coughed awkwardly. “I just thought you ought to know that. When you heard her talking such fol-de-rol at tea, I thought you both ought to know the other side of it. The truer side. Her opinions will never get her into heaven.”

Abigail, deeply moved, said, “I’m proud to have called her ‘Aunt.’”

“And I to have called her wife.”

This, Abigail reflected, was from the man who had debauched Annie all those years ago! She tried to relate it to him, to herself. But, like so much of her life, it was too long ago now and everyone had changed too much.

The girls began to sing their final hymn. Its stirring challenge followed the three of them back through the shrubbery:

“And did those feet

In ancient time…”

“I’ve passed hours with those girls,” Walter said. “I’ve had stories from them enough for the whole of Dickens twice over.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve written them all down.”

“I’d love to see them,” Abigail fished.

“Yes, I thought so. That’s why I mentioned it. I think you ought to. If you’re going into this business seriously, as you said in your letter.” He smiled shyly. “I’ve put them all into a sort of story form. I used to take statements, but it was…too much like police files. It didn’t seem to catch the essence. That’s what you’re after, what? The essence of it.”

“Indeed, Uncle. I’d be most interested—and grateful.”

“Unfortunately most of them are couched in the language in which they were told to me. And though the words, I’m sure, would mean nothing to you, I’d be ashamed for you to see them in my handwriting. But I’ll look out a few of the milder ones to start with, and I’ll make edited copies of some others, and you’ll get a good idea.”

“I…I’m overwhelmed, Uncle. Truly. Have you got them here?”

“Heavens, no!” He was shocked at the idea. “It would distress your aunt too much. Never mention it to her. No. I have a set of rooms in London. And in fact”—he brightened—“I shall be there next Wednesday. I shall look out a first selection and bring them to you in Bloomsbury Square.”

“Excellent. And stay to dinner, too.”

“Yes. I should like to talk to you some more about this.”

***

The following Wednesday, Abigail took Victor to meet Annie. They stayed longer than they had intended. She had hoped to be back well before Uncle Walter was due in Bloomsbury; now she’d be lucky to arrive there at the same time.

Their hansom was going along Oxford Street, halfway between Regent Circus and St. Giles, when she caught sight of Uncle Walter walking on the near-side pavement, a little way ahead of the cab.

“Uncle Walter!” she called out. “Coo-ey!”

But he did not hear her above the roar of all those iron tyres. Anyway, he was far too interested in a coquettish young girl who had just flounced past him and now looked back to give him the glad eye. His pace noticeably quickened. An omnibus pulled up ahead of the girl and she, no doubt recognizing it as one she wanted, ran to board it. As soon as she was on the tailboard she turned and smirked at Walter, lifting her dress to reveal most of her leg below the knee. Then, laughing, she ran upstairs to the upper deck.

The bus began to move off. Walter, who had already been hurrying, now began to run.

“No!” Abigail cried. “Uncle Walter!”

If he heard he paid no heed. By some superhuman effort he drew level with the bus and sprang onto its tailboard. Even then he did not pause. For a man nearer eighty than seventy he positively leaped up the stairs.

At the top he fell.

The girl, no longer laughing, had backed as far down the deck as she could go. It was empty but for the two of them. Abigail waited for Walter to rise, but he made no move. Nor did the girl.

“Did you see that?” she called up to their cab driver.

“I think you, me, and that gel is the only ones what did, lady.”

“I know that man. Drive ahead and let me catch that bus.”

The hansom soon overtook the clodhopping dray horse pulling the bus. “Follow,” Abigail shouted to the driver as she leaped out. Victor was at her side.

With an agility that exceeded even old Walter’s, they sprang onto the bus and raced upstairs. Foremost in her mind was the thought that if Walter was ill, they would take him to hospital, search his pockets, and find the papers he was bringing her. And if he died, they would give them to Aunt Arabella. “We must get those papers he said he’d bring us,” she said.

The girl was still standing as Abigail had seen her last: openmouthed and wide-eyed at the front of the bus.

Abigail stooped and searched his pockets. He was obviously deeply unconscious. The first thing she found was a key. A key! His rooms in London—full of those stories from the girls. She passed the key to Victor; he understood at once and pocketed it.

Then she found the papers, in his inside coat pocket, next to his heart. Now that he was safe from disgrace she was about to shout to the conductor when she felt his heart. Nothing. His pulse. Nothing. She opened an eyelid—and looked at death.

She stood and, for a moment, clutched at the back of the nearest seat. Victor stooped and repeated the tests. His face confirmed everything.

Uncle Walter was dead.

The girl at last began to move back up the bus, approaching them.

“Did you know this man?” Abigail asked.

She shook her head vigorously.

“You behaved as if you did,” Victor said.

The girl looked down. She seemed to have difficulty catching her breath. She loosened her bonnet strings and clutched them to her, but in the instant between loosening and clutching she had afforded Abigail a glimpse of—of the impossible. The girl had an Adam’s apple, shaded with the stubble of a beard. She looked guiltily at Abigail, propelling her toward the final realization.

The word that popped into her mind, after her reading at the B.M., was
transvestite
!
But for that it would have been
bearded lady.

She was incredulous that what had been written of so blandly in those books actually had physical existence out here in the streets. She looked at the “girl’s” clothing. It was impeccable, to the last visible stitch. She wanted to ask “her” if it was as perfect underneath.

“Don’t say,” the “girl” begged (Abigail still could not think of this as a man). “Her” voice was mid-pitched, highish for a man, lowish for a young girl. “Don’t tell and I won’t tell.”

“She” nodded and pointed at the papers, which Abigail still clutched. “All right,” Abigail said. “Jump off when you can.”

“She” almost fell downstairs with eagerness to be gone.

“That wasn’t a woman at all,” Abigail said.

“I wondered if you’d noticed,” Victor answered. “Poor Uncle Walter! He chased an illusion to the very end of his days.” He went down to tell the conductor there was a dead man on the bus.

Well,
Abigail thought, looking down at the benign, silver-haired old gentleman, at peace finally,
at least he went out on the crest of a hope.

***

The formalities were tedious. The body had to go to the public morgue. There had to be a post mortem. Statements had to be taken.

But Uncle Walter had not been expected back in Bristol that night. It gave them time to go home, change into mourning, and go down there on the evening train. On the way they read the papers Walter had been bringing her. They were trash—otiose, sentimental, demurely lecherous; like a painting by Greuze, they reeked of fakery.

As soon as Arabella saw them in black, she knew. “I had a premonition,” she said. “Do come in. He has been so unwell lately.”

Abigail, who had prepared for deep lamentations, was a little taken aback.

Arabella saw it and smiled. “You are young, my dear. But I think Monsieur de Bouvier may understand. I am old. He was even older. In a little while I shall join him. He was called before his suffering grew too deep. He lived a life of such Christian denial that he is certainly in heaven now, interceding for me and praying for my many sins to be heaped on him that we may share purgatory and eternity together as we shared our least thought here below.”