The Pearly Queen (42 page)

Celia steeled herself. ‘What are you doing here, Mr Wilberforce?'

‘I am on the Lord's work, sister. Here, the sinners are wretched indeed.' Mr Wilberforce sighed, but Celia wondered if he had been in Soho yesterday too, looking for Kitty Drake. ‘Is your companion known to me? I feel I've seen him before.'

‘We've seen each other,' said Will, ‘in Christian Street.'

‘Ah.' Montgomery Wilberforce let his dark eyes dwell searchingly on the man who had molested Mother Verity. ‘You have changed your ways, sir?'

‘I'm fightin' bein' dragged off to church, but I've got a sinkin' feelin' I'm goin' to lose that one as well,' said Will, studying the man whose towering majesty cloaked a pervert. He was looking for Kitty Drake, of course. There was no-one who would lead him to her. And if he did manage to spot her and follow her, he'd meet with a nasty accident.

‘That comment, sir, is beyond my understanding,' said Mr Wilberforce.

‘Well, I've been havin' an upside-down inside-out time myself lately,' said Will, and Celia felt what a fine man he was, well able to out-face a creature like Mr Wilberforce.

‘Ah, colloquialisms,' said the man of iniquity. ‘They are a delight to some, a mystery to others. Mother Verity, am I to hope you'll return to us?'

‘My work will be elsewhere,' said Celia, keeping her true feelings to herself. ‘Goodbye, Mr Wilberforce, we don't wish to detain you. If I am called to the inquest, I will see you there.'

Mr Wilberforce raised his top hat to her and went sighing on his way, his black cloak fluttering.

‘He's lookin' for young Kitty,' said Will.

‘Yes, of course.'

‘He won't find her. But if he does he'll wish he hadn't. Would you like a cup of tea?'

‘Thank you, Will, I'm dying for one.'

‘This way, then.'

They ended up in an Italian café with a narrow frontage but lengthy accommodation. The tea came hot and steaming from an urn, but into china cups. It was surprisingly good. They sat at a table that put them apart from other customers.

‘What are we going to do?' asked Celia.

‘We?'

‘I'm so glad to have your strength and experience,' she said.

‘Will you stop tryin' to tell me I'm Solomon? Look, Miss Stokes—'

‘Please, you mustn't address me so formally, not now our friendship is established.' Celia wondered where all her boldness was coming from.

‘You'll drive me to drink before I'm much older,' said Will, unable to work out why a woman he had brutalized insisted he be her friend. ‘Listen, there's nothing you can do about Wilberforce. You can speak up at the inquest, if you like, and if I know you, you probably will. What a woman. But you won't be able to quote Kitty Drake. That'll be what's called 'earsay, and they won't allow it. And even if she did turn up 'erself and spoke up, she couldn't make much of a case for the police to prosecute. It would be chucked out at any trial. There's no proof, there's only suspicion, don't you see, Celia?'

‘Thank you for calling me Celia.'

‘Oh, ruddy hell,' said Will, ‘it won't 'appen again, I can't afford for it to, I'll get stuck with something I couldn't keep up with. But are you listening? What I'm tellin' you is that if there's no proof, there's no case. D'you know the dead woman's old man?'

‘Old man?'

‘Oh, pardon me, I'm sure,' said Will, showing another helpless grin. ‘Husband in your upper-class language.'

‘I'm not upper class,' said Celia. ‘But yes, I met Mr Andrews, the husband.'

‘What's 'e like?' asked Will.

‘A kind man, a concerned man because his wife left him and their children, and a very sad man because of her death. I liked him very much. How terribly silly we all were to follow such a dreadful fake as Mr Wilberforce.'

‘Let it be a lesson to you,' said Will, and climbed to his feet to get two refills from the urn. He brought the cups back. Celia thanked him, she was in need of a second cup. ‘A woman like you, a lady, goin' barmy about religion. If you'd been my wife—' He shut his mouth.

‘Yes?' said Celia gently.

‘I'm goin' barmy myself, talkin' like that.' Will frowned at the surface of his steaming tea. ‘Just keep listening. D'you want to make things worse for Andrews? You will do if at the inquest you manage to get everyone thinkin' it was murder, not suicide. If he gets to think it, too, and then finds out the law can't bring a case, how d'you think he'll feel for the rest of 'is life? Leave it, Sister Charity, let 'im settle in his mind for suicide. It strikes me there's one thing the inquest will prove, and that's that his wife was off her ruddy rocker. It might prove that all you ladies were. Look, Andrews could settle for suicide. And there's 'is kids. What's it goin' to do to them if they have to start thinkin' their mother was murdered? If there was proof, no-one would be able to 'elp 'em, poor young devils. I wouldn't, as a kid, want to know my mother was murdered. I'd 'ave a year of nightmares. Let it rest.'

‘Let that man get away with it?'

‘You're not listening. It's not just that there's no proof, it's the fact that there's a chance she did chuck herself out. Nor would it surprise me, after hearin' from Kitty what went on in that loony bin.'

‘I can't believe Mrs Andrews committed suicide, Will.'

‘Right,' said Will, and finished his second cup of tea. ‘You 'ave it your way. I'm goin' home.'

‘No, wait, please,' begged Celia. ‘Very well, I agree. I have been listening, really I have. For the sake of Mr Andrews's peace of mind, and for the sake of his children, I won't go to the police. But I shall tell everyone at the Bloomsbury house how Mr Wilberforce behaved with Kitty Drake. That I must do.'

‘I'm not arguin' with that,' said Will. ‘Then what?'

‘Then I shall settle down in Bethnal Green.'

‘You'll what?'

‘The vicar has already invited me to help run the Bethnal Green Home for Waifs and Strays.'

‘Bethnal Green?' Will's face was a study.

‘I have my own lodgings there, opposite yours,' said Celia.

‘What?'

‘I made up my mind to move from Bloomsbury some time ago. You were right, there was something odd about the League—'

‘I didn't say that, I just said some of you were a bit barmy.'

‘Perhaps we were in our belief in Mr Wilberforce,' said Celia. ‘I decided there was work for me in Bethnal Green, so I took up lodgings there.'

‘'Oly Moses, I knew it,' said Will. ‘I knew you were goin' to haunt me for the rest of me life.'

‘No, I'm simply going to interest myself in the welfare of the poor people, and in you and Lulu. I promised myself weeks ago that I'd help you redeem yourself.'

‘Do what?' Mentally, Will was all over the place.

‘I knew there was a good and worthy man under that show of brutality,' said Celia.

‘Jesus Christ,' breathed Will.

‘Amen,' said Celia.

‘I'm done for, I'm licked all ends up, I'm goin' home to fly a white flag out of my window.'

‘Shall we go together?' said Celia, who knew she had months of patient work to do on a man whose infamous kisses had shocked her and left her breathless and giddy with arousal. He had turned a mouse into a woman.

Outside the café, her hand touched his. Will, a man disbelieving, laughed at himself and a world that was upside-down. He took her hand and they walked up the street together. Celia put behind her the dark shadow of Mr Montgomery Wilberforce.

The inquest was over. Mr Montgomery Wilberforce had paid admirable tribute to the sterling qualities of Mrs Maud Andrews as a servant of the Lord, and offered a sad description of the unhappy state of her mind on the evening of her death. Because she had denied knowing her husband, she could not be comforted. Asked some pertinent questions by the coroner, he answered them in measured, unfaltering tones and maintained a dignified mien throughout.

Mother Joan and four other lady Repenters were called. They all testified to the fact that Mrs Andrews had been very unhappy that day about disclaiming her husband, that it troubled her conscience so much that she went up to Mr Wilberforce in the evening to confess to him. The coroner asked more pertinent questions, but the ladies could see nothing wrong in Mr Wilberforce hearing confession. They did, however, insist it was difficult for them to believe Mrs Andrews would commit the sin of suicide.

Dad had been called and had spoken of the deceased as a good wife and loving mother who had let religion take too much of a hold on her.

It took the jury a long time to come up with the verdict. They must have been impressed by the testimony of Mother Joan and her sisters, for they returned a verdict of death by misadventure. That, to everyone's relief, particularly the relief of the family, absolved the deceased of the sin of suicide.

Mother Verity – Celia – was not present. She had not been asked to attend, any more than the other ladies had, and she preferred to wait outside the court. Had she attended, she knew she might have asked to give some testimony of her own. Mother Joan, when she emerged, gave her the verdict, and Celia smiled wryly.

‘I'm pleased for Mr Andrews,' she said, ‘but would like to tell you something about Mr Wilberforce.' And she told Mother Joan that Mother Magda, Kitty Drake, had left the League because Mr Wilberforce was a pervert. She explained, in as modest a way as she could, that the self-appointed minister had had carnal relations with Kitty many times, and in the most hypocritical fashion, in that he had persuaded Kitty to believe it would lead her to redemption.

‘Poppycock,' said Mother Joan.

‘Pardon?' said Celia. They were standing aside from other people.

‘Rubbish,' said Mother Joan.

‘No, Miss Drake told me herself.'

‘I can believe it,' said Mother Joan. ‘All wishful thinking and lurid imagination, my dear. A young woman like that, born to be a creature of the flesh, and given to describing how nice her gentlemen friends were. Nice my foot, I daresay every one of 'em was a randy old goat. Poor dear, she tried her best when she joined us, but of course Father Peter to her was a fine figure of a man far more than a minister of God. Off her head about him, lusted after him. Result, feverish imagination. It happens, you know. Woman fancies a man. Can't have him. So she gets other fancies. Well, fantasies, really.'

‘I assure you,' said Celia, ‘I believe Miss Drake.'

‘Well, you're a believing woman, Celia, a good woman,' said Mother Joan reassuringly. ‘You'd give the benefit of the doubt to Judas Iscariot himself, as well as Pontius Pilate. But it's poppycock. Father Peter remains our inspiration and our guide. Damned weak link, Kitty Drake proved, running off like that when he was in great need of unanimous support. Gone back to her randy old goats, I don't doubt.'

‘Ah, my dear ladies.' Father Peter himself loomed up. ‘How relieved we all are, and how good the Lord has been in inspiring a verdict of misadventure.'

‘Goodbye, Mother Joan, goodbye, all,' said Celia, and walked away, leaving the dark-souled Mr Wilberforce to his flock of deluded followers. She had tried, but even Mother Joan was as deluded as the rest. She knew what Will would say when she told him. Well, she had some idea of the kind of words he would use. Let them lie on the bed Old Nick's made for them, they'll chop his ruddy head off when they finally find him out.

Celia smiled to herself. She did not really mind the kind of words he used. Will was a rough diamond, but ten times the man Mr Wilberforce was. Will had no dark secrets, he was as open as a book. She hurried, wanting to get to Bethnal Green in time to meet Lulu from school and to share a pot of tea with her, and give her a slice of cake. Will would come in later, find her there with Lulu and tell her to stop haunting his lodgings.

But he was weakening, and she knew it.

The funeral was over. Mother had been buried in the consecrated ground of Southwark Cemetery.

Dad and his children were picking up the pieces.

Aunt Edie, who had attended the funeral, was waiting. She was not sure what she was waiting for, which meant she was not sure what would turn up. She could do nothing herself. Everything was up to Jack. In desperation, in her need to do something to take her mind off what was close to heartbreak, she participated in a pearly concert. She sang duets with Joe Gosling, she sang solo, she sang with the audience, and she finished by doing a knees-up. Her legs looked corking.

Jimmy received a letter from Sophy. She asked why he hadn't answered her second letter. Didn't he realize what an agonizing time she was having at her boarding-school? She poured threats on his head. The other girls were drips, she said, they were all soppy about boys. There was a boys' boarding-school not far away, and lots of secret meetings went on. So did kissing. Ugh, all that soppy kissing, wrote Sophy, and ordered him to write to her.

Jimmy replied briefly. As her father had obviously not told her about Mother, he said nothing himself. But he did say she was a bit of a soppy kisser herself.

Meanwhile he was giving a lot of thought to Dad, and to Aunt Edie. He and Patsy went to see her one evening. She was so overwhelmed to have them call she actually spilled some tears as she hugged them both. She asked how everyone was.

‘Oh, we're bearin' up, Auntie,' said Patsy, ‘and the neighbours 'ave been ever so kind.'

‘Oh, that's good,' said Aunt Edie. ‘Is young Betsy all right?'

‘Dad's makin' a fuss of Betsy, Auntie, she likes lots of fuss.'

‘And how's your dad?' asked Aunt Edie.

‘I think we're goin' to have to do something about Dad,' said Jimmy.