The Tiger in the Well (19 page)

Bewildered but willing, Cicely struggled into the shabby coat and last year's hat and took the money, while Margaret hastened to open the door.

As Cicely hurried down the stairs, Margaret turned to her visitor and was slightly disconcerted to find that there was someone else there besides Mr. Patten. That someone else was the result of Mr. Parrish's remembering Gentleman Jack Draper's advice; but Margaret wouldn't know that for a few minutes yet.

Mr. Parrish was transacting some business on behalf of a missionary society when Mr. Billings rushed into the outer office and spoke to his clerk.

"I hesitate to interrupt Mr. Parrish in the execution of his duty," said the clerk, a fish-faced young man of high moral standards. "He has with him at the moment the national secretary of the United Missions to South India and Ceylon. I don't think—"

"Take him this, son," said Mr. Billings, scribbling the words I HAVE MISS lockhart's ADDRESS—EZ. BILLINGS on an Arthur C. Montagu card. "Go on. Don't stand there gaping."

The clerk gulped and knocked at the inner door. Mr. Parrish

didn't like being interrupted at the best of times, but he could only try. . . .

His employer took the card, eyed it narrowly, and stood up at once.

"Is he outside?" he said.

"Yes, Mr. Parrish."

"Tell him to wait. You'll have to excuse me, Mr. Pryor; urgent business. We'll discuss the furnishing of your mission another day. But in the meantime we'll have those Bibles and solar topees shipped out to Madras on the very next steamer. Good day, sir. See Mr. Pryor out, Blake, come along."

The missionary, who had been looking forward to thinking about mosquito nets and punkahs, found himself hustled out and given his hat, and a moment later Mr. Parrish was donning his own.

"Where.?" was his only word to Mr. Billings.

"Bloomsbury. I got a cab waiting."

"Good man." •

A minute later they were bowling up Drury Lane. The cabdriver was enjoying his afternoon.

Cicely Corrigan, more than a little nervous, ran to the cab rank in King William Street. She'd never taken a cab on her own before, though she'd been in one with her father once; how much should she tip the driver.'^ She'd heard they were terribly abusive if you didn't give them enough. . . .

She wished she had Miss Lockhart's ease or Miss Haddow's assurance; they were both so grown-up. W^as it going to university that did that for you.?

Well, she'd have to do her best without it. She ran to the cab at the head of the rank and said, "Bloomsbury, please. Number five, Wellcome Passage."

"Right you are, miss," said the cabbie as she got in, and flicked the reins. They moved away.

That was easy enough. And after all, she could always ask Miss Lockhart about a tip.

But he didn't seem to be going very fast. Of course, the traffic was heavy; they were stuck behind a slow-moving omnibus, which itself was held up by—she craned sideways to look—a hearse, of all things; and as they reached Ludgate Circus, they had to stop altogether while a policeman allowed traffic through from Farringdon Road on the right.

It seemed to take ten minutes, but finally they were moving forward again. Gradually the traffic began to move more freely, and soon the hansom was bowling along Fleet Street. Right into Chancery Lane, the tall distinguished lawyerlike buildings austere in brick on right and left; out into Holborn, past the ancient gabled buildings leaning four stories and more over the street; right again into Southampton Row, and then they were in Bloomsbury. Cicely didn't know this area, though her father had once taken her and her brother to the British Museum.

The driver slid back a panel behind her head, making her jump.

"Where was it, miss.^"

"Oh! Wellcome Passage. I don't know where that is."

"Have to ask."

He jingled the harness, and the horse slowed to a walk, and then the cab moved in to the pavement. A tall policeman, as grand as a monument, was strolling along.

"Wellcome Passage?" said the cabbie. "Know where that is.?"

"That's odd," said the constable. "Second cabbie in five minutes to ask me that, you are. Over there, mate—down the street, first on the right. Can't get the cab in there, though."

"Ta," said the cabbie, flicking the reins, and they moved off in the direction he'd indicated.

Cicely sat up. Someone else was looking for Wellcome Passage. This was what Miss Haddow was worried about.

The cab turned down the street, came to the barred entrance to Wellcome Passage, and stopped. Another cab was waiting there already.

Cicely got out and came around to her driver. Something was wrong. She didn't know what it was, but she felt suddenly anxious.

"Can you wait here for a few minutes.'"' she said. "I'll be coming out with another lady, and we'll want to go to the British Museum."

"I'll need paying first," said the driver.

"Oh, sorry. How much.'*"

"One and sixpence, love."

Cicely fumbled at her purse, found the coins and handed them to him, and then blushed as the driver looked at them and raised his eyebrows. What should she give him.'' What would Miss Lockhart do.''

"If you're still here when I come back," she said boldly, "you'll get a tip."

The man nodded. Cicely ran past the barrier as the other cabbie eyed the competition with interest: was there going to be a race.''

Cicely found number 5 and knocked at the door. It was opened by a cynical-looking maidservant with dusty hair.

"Is there a Miss Lockhart here.'"'

"Lockhart.'' Oh—^you mean Jones. Mrs. Jones. There's two more waiting for her upstairs. D'you want to join 'emi*"

"Two more.'"'

"Two gentlemen. Just arrived. This is like Piccadilly Circus this afternoon. D'you want to go up or not.'"'

"Isn't she there.?"

"She's gone out, with the baby. Kiddie. Back soon, I shouldn't wonder. You coming in or not.-* It's blooming cold with the door open."

This was a very unusual and familiar kind of servant, clearly, and it wasn't the sort of house she pictured Miss Lockhart in at all.

"Do you know where she went.'"' Cicely asked.

"Haven't the faintest idea, and I'm cold, besides," said the maid.

Cicely looked around undecidedly.

"Fll wait here," she said.

The maid shrugged and shut the door.

Cicely felt even more anxious. Those men upstairs—^they'd come in the other cab, which was waiting, as hers was, to . . . what? To take them away? To take Miss Lockhan away?

She could see both drivers at the end of the passage, watching her: hers sourly, the other with a twitchy kind of eagerness. She beat her fists together softly and looked the other way. The dull gray afternoon was closing in on the little passage, with a chilly mist in the air around the roofs. Suppose Miss Lockhart had gone for good? How long should she wait? How long would the cabbie wait?

But as it happened, it was only a minute later when Miss Lockhart came around the corner. She had a basket on one arm and a small child on the other, and she looked tired. She saw Cicely with a start.

"Oh! Miss Lockhart! Thank goodness—" Cicely began.

"Cicely, what are you doing here? Did Miss Haddow get my message?"

"Yes. She sent me because Mr. Patten—^you know, the client—he arrived just as she was about to go, and she said I was to come quickly. Miss Lockhart, there's two men up in the house waiting for you. I thought I'd better wait outside in case. . . . Oh, and Miss Haddow is coming. She said to wait in the British Museum and to leave the house. I suppose because she knew about those men, perhaps. You're to wait for her in the Assyrian Room. I've got a cab."

"Oh . . . oh. Thank you. Cicely. We'd better do that, then. Come on, Hattie-face."

"Mama," said the child, and whispered something.

Miss Lockhart nodded and handed Cicely the basket without a word. Grim-faced, she took the child to a narrow gap between the houses, lifted her skirt and petticoat, and let her relieve herself into the gutter. Cicely felt her head swim. She nearly fainted with embarrassment and mortification. In fact, for a moment she scarcely felt real at all. Knowing that

Miss Lockhart had had a child was shocking enough, but to let her do that in the open street—

She didn't know what it was costing Sally.

A minute later all three of them were in the cab, Harriet on Sally's lap, swinging out of Russell Square and down toward the entrance of the British Museum.

Cicely explained as well as she could what had happened. Sally nodded. It was clear enough. That meant she'd have to move yet again. How much longer could Harriet keep this up.'' How much longer could she?

She looked pale and tight-lipped. And tired. The child sat on her lap, cheeks flushed, thumb in mouth, head leaning on her shoulder, gazing at Cicely with wide, dark eyes like her mother's.

The cab rolled to a halt, and Sally got out and lifted Harriet down and then took the basket from Cicely.

"The Assyrian Room.'*" she said. "I hope she comes soon. They close in twenty minutes. But—thanks. Cicely."

She smiled briefly and hurried through the gate. Cicely collected herself and slid open the panel behind her.

"The City again, please," she said. "Corner of Cornhill and Gracechurch Street."

As they rolled away she found herself trembling, but she didn't know whether it was shock or shame or cold. She did feel shame, though she hadn't the least idea why; she felt as if she'd suddenly seen how much more grown-up Miss Lockhart was even than she'd thought before, and how being grown-up meant having to cope with things that she couldn't even have put a name to without blushing. Miss Lockhart seemed less goddesslike now—distinctly so. She seemed older and more tired and even lined, perhaps. Not ideal at all. Holding the child over the gutter like that . . . And yet more real, somehow. Stronger. How extraordinary things were when you saw behind them. . . . And she'd forgotten to ask how much to tip the driver; well, she could hardly bother Miss Lockhart with that, under the circumstances. She'd have to grow up a little herself.

Sally let Harriet walk to the steps, but then picked her up and carried her to the entrance. The attendant at the door said, "Closing in fifteen minutes, ma'am."

She nodded. "Can you tell me where the Assyrian Room is.?"

"On the left, ma'am. Just carry straight on through."

She put Harriet down again, but she protested.

"Hattie, you've got to walk, darling, because Mama's arm's tired—"

"Don't want to!"

Sally looked around. The attendant was eyeing her unfavorably, and so was a man at a desk just inside the entrance.

Arms aching, she carried Harriet through the Greek and Roman galleries, the cold white statues looking chilly and complacent; through the Egyptian Room, past colossal stone gods and pharaohs and obelisks which had never looked so alien to her as they did now; and into the Assyrian Room. Huge, cruel faces with spade-shaped beards, a gigantic bull, figures marching flatly sideways along slabs of stone for some brutal, boastful purpose forgotten thousands of years ago. . . .

There was no one else here. She put Harriet down, then put the basket down too. There were some new washing things in it—soap, a good towel; and a bag of ginger biscuits. Harriet was looking fretful and flushed. Sally gave her a biscuit, hoping no attendant would come and throw them out for defiling the Assyrians with crumbs. Why didn't they put a seat in here.'^ Harriet stood leaning against her legs, one arm around her, the other hand holding the biscuit. If they were at home now Sarah-Jane would know what to do: she'd give Harriet a glass of milk and put her to bed, since she had a touch of fever, Sally thought.

She'd have to assume that she couldn't go back to Mrs. Parker's, because someone would be watching for her. So she'd lost all she had—her clothes, Harriet's clothes, everything except what was in the basket and what they stood in. "

As she saw the enormity of what she was trying to do, and the way luck was playing against her, she felt overwhelmed

by fear and by weariness. How she longed to sleep, and sleep safe! And how Harriet longed for it too: the poor little thing was leaning into her, hardly able to hold the biscuit. Sally bent down and picked her up, holding her tight, letting her head rest on her shoulder. Harriet closed her eyes at once. Sally thought, / mustn't lean against anything. I must stand upright. If I stand up and don't lean till Margaret comes, we'll be all right.

She walked slowly up and down in the dim light that filtered through a dusty glass roof. The cruel old stones loomed on either side, their carvings of slaves and battles and lion hunts like the memory of a bad dream that wouldn't go away.

The biscuit fell from Harriet's sleeping fingers. Sally stooped, keeping her back straight, and dropped it into the basket, letting Harriet settle more comfortably into her arms.

More to herself than to the child, Sally whispered, "All right, little one, we'll get through. We'll be back in our home soon, and everything will be all right. We can play with Lamb and Sarah-Jane, and Jim will come home and Uncle Webster, and you can sleep in your own bed again. . . . Oh, where is Margaret.? They're going to close soon. ..."

She wandered to the door and looked down the long passage with its ghostly old statues. A lady and a gentleman were walking slowly along, examining inscriptions; a young man was sketching; an attendant looked at his watch. There was no one else in sight. Then the attendant put his watch back in his pocket and spoke to the lady and the gentleman, who nodded and turned their slow steps toward the way out. The young man put away his pencils.

Sally withdrew, hoping that she'd be overlooked and that they'd have somewhere to shelter, even if there was only a floor to sleep on; but after a minute or so the man looked in and said, "We're closing now, ma'am."

Her heart didn't sink; it could hardly sink further. She nodded and picked up the basket, and set off back through the obelisks, the pharaohs, the Venuses and Minervas.

Outside, she stood at the bottom of the wide steps and

felt like weeping. Harriet was lying awkwardly; Sally's feet ached; she felt dirty and sticky and dusty and cold and afraid. She began to walk heavily toward the gates. j

A cab rolled up and stopped. Margaret got out, thrust some money at the driver, and turned and saw Sally. They ran toward each other.

"Oh, thank God—"

"What's been happening.^"

"Have you got—"

"Let me carry—"

Confused words tumbled over each other, and then Margaret had the basket, and Harriet was awake again, hot, heavy-eyed, thumb in mouth.

"We'll have a cup of tea," said Margaret.

She led the way around the corner and into Duke Street, a quiet little thoroughfare with an inviting tea shop on the comer.

"I'm spending more time in tea shops ..." Sally said, but didn't know how to complete the sentence. She let Margaret take charge and order tea and crumpets, and sat back, exhausted.

Margaret explained why she'd been delayed. And it was serious. She'd dealt with Mr. Patten easily enough, but there'd been another man there—^with a writ.

"A writ.? What sort of writ?"

"I didn't look at the details; I wanted to get here quickly. The main point is that Parrish has taken out an injunction to! stop you from getting at your money. Your shares, every-^ thing—^you can't touch them. And he*s applied for some authority or other to allow him to dispose of them himself. Oh, Sally—"

"He can't," said Sally, and her voice was so faint that she herself could hardly hear it. "He's already taken all the money out of my bank. ..."

"VVyitfA^ You mean this fanatic's lied and perjured himself, and now he's doing all this to you as well —how much have , you lost.'*" \

'*Two hundred pounds. ... I was going to sell the, I don't know, Grand Trunk of Canada perhaps—^just for some cash—but . . . And there's the partnership. If he can do this, it might make that uncertain, legally. Oh, Margaret, I'm just so afraid. ..."

She spoke quietly, but Harriet didn't seem to be listening. She was sipping her milk carefully, intent on not spilling it. Margaret reached for Sally's hand and squeezed it.

"Stop being frightened and drink your tea," she said. "We'll decide what to do in a minute. Harriet, would you like a crumpet if I cut it up for you?"

Sally breathed deeply until her hands had stopped trembling, and then sipped her tea.

"If only I knew why,'' she said. "I thought if I got my money I could—I don't know—rent a place and keep secret, keep hidden, or something, and then start to fight back, and find out why he's doing it. But he's too quick, Margaret. He's shut me out of this new place now, and they were so kind, and I daren't go home to Twickenham, they'll be watching it—and now I can't get at my money. ..."

She had to stop.

"What's your lawyer doing.'*" said Margaret. "This is intolerable persecution. He ought to be able to have it stopped."

"He can't. All we can do is tell the truth. If Parrish lies, and keeps on lying, and has documents to back him up, and if it all seems to hang together as it does, then ... I mean the judge was bound to . . . It's just my word against his, and he's a respectable man, isn't he.^* A churchwarden, and all. According to my lawyer and the courts, I'm an immoral woman living in God knows what den of terrible vice with two unmarried men. What else would you expect.'* I thought you could hide in London, but, my God, it's like living behind glass."

Margaret took out a notebook and a little silver pencil.

"Immediately," she said, "you need the following: money, shelter—"

"And a bath," said Sally.

Margaret wrote it down in the neat shorthand she'd acquired after university.

"And in the longer term you need—"

"Time to investigate. Safety. I mean I need to know that"—she nodded at Harriet—"is safe. It's too difficult to trail her about, poor lamb; I've done nothing but look after her all day long and feed her and all that sort of thing. I mean that would be all right, I suppose, but not if I'm going to fight. I can't do both. So I need that: time and safety, really. Money. It comes back to that."

"That's not too bad, then," said Margaret. "We'll find a hotel for you tonight. You could stop with us, except that my cousins are there at the moment, and there isn't room. Tomorrow I'll—"

Suddenly she gripped Sally's hand. "Don't look," she said. "He's out there now—Parrish and two other men."

For a moment Sally sat still. Then she snatched up Harriet, who was too startled to protest, and looked around for th< kitchen door.

Margaret swiftly took a handful of coins from her purse and thrust them into Sally's hand.

"Just ^(9, get away, now."

Sally darted for the kitchen door. She heard a man's voice behind her, raised in a cry, and heard Margaret calling loudly for the police, and then she was through the door and in a tiny kitchen where a young woman was buttering teacakes at a table.

"Excuse me," said Sally. "Emergency. Does this lead t< the street.?"

The girl was too dumbfounded to do anything but gape. Sally shoved at the door and found herself looking out at a dark little courtyard with high walls. Harriet, frightened, had begun to cry.

Sally shifted her quickly from right arm to left and reached " into her basket, putting her back against the wall.

The kitchen door burst open again, and the serving girl

screamed. The man in the doorway lunged forward—and then stopped short, looking at the pistol in Sally's hand.

"Yes, it's loaded," said Sally. "And I'll fire it too. Put your hands in the air and walk through the door again. Miss, hold it open."

They did as she said. She didn't recognize the man: an ordinary mustached face, with ordinary clothes. He backed slowly through the door, and Sally followed.

The tea shop, full of nervous interest a moment before, had fallen silent. Behind the first man stood two others— Parrish himself and one she didn't know. Margaret was standing, as were two other customers, nervous and wide-eyed. When they saw her pistol, two more stood up and backed against the wall.

Silence for a moment, and then Parrish said, "Sally, my dear, this isn't the way to—"

She turned on him like a tiger, her finger tightening on the trigger. She felt the blaze in her eyes, and he fell back a step before it.

Sally said, "Where's the manager.?"

"I am the manageress," said a woman in black at the cash box.

"Have you got the key to the door.'*"

"Yes, I have."

"Come outside with me, please. If you move," she said to Parrish, "or if either of those men do, I shall shoot you dead. You. Parrish. I'll kill you."

Parrish and his men stood and watched without moving as the manageress detached a key from the bunch at her waist. Sally couldn't look at Margaret. She backed toward the door, still covering the men with her pistol.

"Gome outside with me," she said to the manageress. "Everyone else is to stay where they are."

The woman did so. The men locked inside rushed to the door and rattled the handle; the customers peered nervously through the windows.

"Give me the key, please," Sally said, and dropped it into her bag. "And the others," she added, thinking there might be a duplicate on the bunch. The manageress handed them over without a word, and Sally flung them as far as she could down the street, and heard them splash into the mud somewhere in the darkness.

"I'm ver\' sorry," she said. "There was no other way out."

The men were pounding on the door. Carefully letting down the hammer, Sally put the pistol back in her basket and gathered up Harriet before hurrying away around the comer. One or two bewildered passers-by had stopped to stare. It wouldn't be long before those men smashed a window, she thought; get a cab, run, hide, do anything. . . .

An omnibus came trundling along, heading for Holborn. She pushed her way through the crowded pavement and pulled herself and Harriet up onto the open platform at the rear, and then jostled past the men coming down the steps from the upper deck and, ducking her head, shoved inside and sat down, taking Harriet up on her lap.

She watched through the window, but there was no sign of pursuit. Shop windows were lit now; New Oxford Street was crowded with shoppers, businessmen going home, newspaper boys, flower girls. The afternoon had gone, and darkness covered ever\ahing.

"All the way, please," Sally said to the conductor, handing over fourpence. She took her ticket and sat back, beginning to tremble again now that she had relaxed.

She smoothed Harriet's hair under her bonnet with an automatic hand.

"We'll hide, won't we, Hattie.'"' she whispered.

"Want to go home," said Harriet.

Sally couldn't answer. She sat still, holding her daughter close, as the stream of traffic bore them to the East End.

The Graveyard

Sally and Harriet stayed on the omnibus till it stopped. Harriet was asleep, Sally stiff and cold and desperate for sleep herself. She picked up the basket, settled Harriet more comfortably in the crook of her left arm, and stood up.

"Where are we.^" she said to the old conductor.

"Whitechapel Road," he said. "Near the London Hospital. We don't go no farther. This is the end of the line."

She climbed out and stood on the busy pavement, getting her bearings. It was early evening, and the road and pavement were crowded; the air was full of the rattle of traffic, the smell of fried fish, the flare and dazzle of naphtha lights. Harriet rubbed her eyes. Sally put her down for a moment, and she clung to Sally's skirt and cried. Sally was looking in her purse. She had three shillings and sevenpence, and that was all.

Minute to minute, she thought. Don't look too far ahead. There'll be a pawnbroker's not far away; what can I sell?

She wore very little jewelry. She had a locket on a chain that Frederick had given her, and she wasn't going to part with that, but she had no earrings or brooches or bracelets. The only thing salable was her father's gold watch.

All right then, pawn it, she told herself. He'll keep it for a year and a day — he's not allowed to sell it before then — and long before that's up this'II all be over and you can go and buy it back.

And there was always her pistol. . . .

No. She'd needed that this afternoon, and she might need it again. A watch she didn't need, not in London, where

every tall building sported a clock, some of them agreeing with each other.

"Come on, let's go and see the pawnbroker," she said to Harriet, taking her hand. She looked along the street for the three brass balls, and sure enough, there they were, only a hundred yards away.

Since it was Thursday night, and the week's wages were beginning to run out, the place was busy. Many poor families would pawn an item or two to bridge the gap between the end of one week's money and the beginning of the next's.

Sally found a queue of women waiting in the musty shop while the pawnbroker and his wife dealt with the pennies and shillings and issued tickets or shelved the items they took in: pitiful things like saucepans, a child's shoes, a framed engraving of the late prince consort.

Sally felt out of place in her warm coat and hat, and Harriet looked around wide-eyed, a little frightened by the crush, the dustiness, the smell of stale clothes and unwashed bodies, the darkness of the shadowy shop. The other women stared curiously and held themselves a little away, talking in quiet voices.

Then it was Sally's turn at the counter. The pawnbroker, a white-haired old man with a calculating eye, said, "Don't take long, please, I've got a lot of customers waiting."

"I want to pawn a watch," Sally said. She'd never done this before; she wasn't sure how much to expect or how to behave. "A gold watch," she added.

"Well, let's have a look then," said the old man.

"Of course. Sorry." She fumbled for it and nearly dropped it from her gloved hands. She and Harriet had the only gloves in the shop. She handed over her father's watch, still faithfully ticking, and watched as the man's indifferent hands held it to his ear, flicked it open, tapped it with a fingernail, held it up close while he peered into the works.

"Five bob," he said.

"Five shillings—" She swallowed a protest. The watch was worth something like five pounds, twenty times as much.

But he was already looking impatiently over her shoulder, and someone was jostling, and she sensed that five shillings represented a lot of money to any of the women around her. He had all the power, and she had nowhere else to go. So she said, "All right."

He numbered a ticket, tore it in half, tied half to the watch and gave the rest to her. She tucked it carefully in her glove and watched as he dropped the watch none too carefully into a drawer. Then he handed over a half crown, two shillings, and a sixpence, and she took Harriet's hand again and made for the door.

"Cheer up, love," said a stout woman carrying an umbrella.

Sally smiled; the woman was so jolly-looking, and Sally felt her spirits lift a little. But five shillings! She'd hoped for something like three pounds. . . .

Outside in the busy street she suddenly felt hungry. Nowhere to sleep, but plenty of things to eat; jellied eels from that stall at a penny a dish, oysters over there, fried fish at that shop beyond.