The Tiger in the Well (21 page)

Her aching arms prompted her to put Harriet down, but the child was fast asleep and she cried as she felt Sally moving. Wearily Sally changed positions yet again, and then felt with a sigh that Harriet was wet. No fresh clothes. What to do.?

Her guide was speaking quietly to the woman who'd let them in. When he'd finished, he turned back to Sally.

"I shall leave you here," he said. "You'll be safe. Sometime soon I shall come back and we shall talk. But now I must go."

He raised his hat, and again she saw those disconcerting black eyes. Then he was gone. The woman said, "Come this way, miss. Miss Robbins will see you now."

"But who—.'"' Sally began, but the woman was already climbing the stairs ahead of her. Sally followed, and was shown into a room. The woman announced her name and then left, and Sally looked around.

It was a large. Spartan room, nearly empty except for a couple of chairs and a large desk littered with papers, gov-

ernment reports, and various political journals. Seated at the desk was a woman whom Sally took to be Miss Robbins: forty or so, with a stern, almost cruel expression, and solidly built. She was wearing a severe dress and had scraped her hair back into a bun with no attempt at softening her appearance. The white of her eyes showed all around the iris, giving her a disconcertingly predatory look. She stared at Sally for a few moments, and then stood up and offered her hand. Sally shook it.

"Sit down. Miss Lockhart," said the woman. "My name is Elizabeth Robbins. This is the Spitalfields Social Mission. I have been expecting you."

More astonishment. Sally sat, holding Harriet carefully.

"Expecting me.-"' she said stupidly.

"Mr. Katz has told me of your history. A man called Parrish has claimed that you are his wife, and that he is the father of your child. Is that correct.'"'

"Yes—but who is Mr. Katz.^ And how does he know about me.'' Miss Robbins, I don't understand—"

"No doubt Mr. Katz will explain when he sees you. For the moment, you need night clothes for yourself and for your child. Susan will show you to a bedroom in a minute or two. You would like to wash, I don't doubt. You are welcome to remain here as long as you need, but you will have to help. I understand that you are a professional businesswoman.'"'

"I am a financial consultant," said Sally. "That is, I was. But I—today I found out that . . . What I'm trying to say is that I haven't any money, Miss Robbins, none at all."

"You can work. You're strong and healthy. Pitch in and make beds. Cook. Help Dr. Turner. Do whatever needs doing."

Sally nodded. "Yes. Anything. Perhaps I could help with the accounts."

"That would take ten seconds. You're not a socialist, by any chance.'"'

"No . . . why.?"

"Just curious. Don't worry, we won't try to convert you. I'll call Susan and she'll show you upstairs."

She rang a bell and then turned back to her papers, ignoring Sally. When the woman knocked and came in, Miss Robbins told her to put Sally in the guest bedroom and find some night clothes, and then wished Sally a brusque good night.

Sally followed the woman upstairs and into a narrow little room, where she lit a stump of candle and turned down the covers on the one small bed.

"I'll see if I can find you a hot-water bottle, miss," she said. "There's towels in the cupboard. Bathroom's next-door."

She left, and reappeared a minute later with an earthenware hot-water bottle, almost too hot to touch, and two thin cotton nightgowns, one for her and one child-size. Sally took them gratefully. The woman was taciturn and didn't want to stay and talk, so Sally was able to concentrate on getting Harriet undressed. The child was cross and flushed with sleep and fretfulness, but she let herself be washed and dried without doing more than grizzling and shivering. Sally had wrapped the small nightgown around the hot-water bottle; it hadn't been aired, and there was a smell of dampness about it.

"We're going to be sharing the bed, little one," she said. "Like we did last night in Villiers Street."

Was it only last night.'' This had been almost the longest day of her life. She tucked Harriet in, kissed her, sang a nursery rhyme or two, watched her eyes close and the thumb go into her mouth, stroked her strong hair back off her forehead {haven't got a brush; must buy one tomorrow. What with?)^ and sat by her till she was sure she was asleep.

Then she yawned. She felt it coming from a long way off, this yawn, and when it arrived it held her jaw open so wide she thought she'd never close it again. When it had subsided she sat with her elbows on her knees, drained of everything except exhaustion.

And she might have fallen asleep there and then, but there was a disturbance in the corridor. Someone was shouting; something was banging the floor. She jumped up and looked out.

A third woman, whom Sally hadn't seen before, was dealing with a drunken woman whose head was bleeding profusely—trying to pull her along to the bathroom, by the look of it. She saw Sally standing there and called out, "I say— lend a hand, will you.^* Light the gas in the bathroom."

Sally hurried out and did that, and then came back to help with the drunk woman. She was shouting incoherently and struggling, and she smelled vile.

"Let's get her in there, clean up that wound. Come on, Mary, there's a good girl—no sense in struggling. Here we are, now let's have a look at you."

The nurse, if that was what she was, kicked a stool smartly into the back of Mary's knees so that she sat down, and then held her head with two strong hands and looked at the wound. Sally could see even through the woman's tangled hair that her scalp was alive with insects.

"She needs a bath," said the nurse. "We'll have to disinfect the bed if she sleeps in it in this state. Can you help.'"'

She was a brisk, red-faced woman a little older than Sally, with a cheerful manner and a cultured voice. She was already running the water.

"Well, yes, of course," said Sally.

She helped the nurse undress Mary, who was still struggling but more weakly now, and who resorted to slumping suddenly to the floor and then springing up again. Sally learned, in between the struggles and curses, that Mary had almost certainly earned the money she'd drunk from prostitution; and that she was suffering from syphilis. Sally stood back hastily.

"Oh, it's all right," said the nurse cheerfully, soaping Mary's filthy head and shoving it under to rinse it. "You won't catch it. My goodness, if that's all she's got, I'll be surprised. She won't"—she lowered her voice while vigorously soaping Mary's

ears—"she won't last long. This time next year she'll be dead. Alcoholic poisoning, that's my bet, though half a dozen other things would do it. That's a nasty cut on her head, but I bet whoever gave it to her came off worse. I don't think she'll die from violence. ..."

Mary, dazed perhaps by the hot water and the vigorous washing, was nearly unconscious. Sally helped her out of the tub and dried her as best she could while the nurse swiftly applied a sticking plaster to her forehead.

"Put her clothes in a heap," she told Sally. "We'll wash 'em and bake 'em and then she can have 'em back. Who are you, anyway.'*"

"Sally Lockhart. Miss Lockhart. But I hardly know . . . I mean, what is this place.** Are you a nurse.?"

"Name's Turner, and as a matter of fact I'm a doctor," said the other. Sally blushed. She knew that there were qualified women doctors now, but to find herself of all people assuming that a woman doing a medical job must be a nurse. . . . But Dr. Turner didn't seem to mind. She went on, while helping Mary into a nightgown: "And this is a mission. Not a religious one, though. We're not here to save souls. Don't know what a soul is, actually. Enough to do saving bodies. Socialist, you know. Miss Robbins is president of the East London Socialist Women's League. I'm just here to mop up the blood and dish out the pills and potions. What brings you here.'"'

"A man called Katz," said Sally, trying to ease Mary's arm into a sleeve. "But to tell the truth I don't know why. I mean, I'm very grateful, but ... I was going to sleep on a bench. I just didn't know what to do."

She found herself pathetically near to tears. Dr. Turner looked at her curiously, and then at her obviously expensive clothes, and decided to say nothing.

"Let's get Mary to bed," she said. "She'll sleep like a log. Come on, Mary, beddy-byes. Up the wooden hill to blanket fair. . . ."

This large, loud cheeriness was exactly right, Sally thought.

Dr. Turner was the sort of hearty Englishwoman who in other circumstances would have ridden to hounds or explored the upper reaches of the Zambezi. It was hard to imagine anyone more capable of dealing with the East End. Sally helped her get Mary to bed (in a narrow room where two other beds were already occupied), and then carried her filthy clothes down to a scullery behind the kitchen.

"Leave 'em in the corner," said Dr. Turner. '*With a bit of luck they'll have walked out by the morning. Better cut along now and wash your hands."

Sally did, and then found herself yawning again. Who was this Dr. Turner.'* Who was Miss Robbins.^ Who, above all, was Katz.'' Can't think now; can't write my diary. Find out in the morning. Harriet's here. Safe for the moment. Move over, baby, move over. Let Mama sleep.

Among the rows of filthy tenements, squalid courts, and malodorous alleys of the East End were some corners of elegance and beauty: a row or a whole street of tall old brick j houses built for the Huguenot silk weavers who'd fled to London from the French persecutions, at a time when builders couldn't put up an ugly house if they tried.

One of these corners of Spitalfields (only a stone's throw from the mission) was called Fournier Square. The nine- J teenth century had hardly touched it. Clear that hansom cab out of the way, shoo that butcher's boy out of sight, take down that placard advertising the merits of Brand's Essence of Beef, and you could people it with perukes and swords and three-cornered hats and sedan chairs, and if the great Dr. Johnson came back to dine, as he'd once done at number 12, Fournier Square, he'd never know the difference.

Number 12 was busy. Lights blazed at most of the windows; a clutter of dishes, a fragrance of smoky steam, came from the basement kitchen and floated up the area steps; the figures of servants could be seen moving to and fro inside the rooms, carrying lamps, drawing curtains, arranging furniture.

Outside, a large coach had just unloaded its passenger. Grooms were busy folding some large metal apparatus back underneath it and signaling the coachman to move away. One of them swung the coach door shut: wider by far than the door of a normal carriage, as the vehicle itself was larger and more massive. It was the coach that Jacob Liebermann had seen in Riga, that Bill and Goldberg had seen in Amsterdam, and it had brought the Tzaddik to his house in London.

Inside the hall, a valet was deftly removing the dark rug from around his master's legs. A footman lifted the top hat off the man's head with a swift and apprehensive flick, and then, watching every second, unfastened his cloak and lifted it away. The reason for his apprehension was the little malevolent shadow, the dybbuk which had so frightened the few people who'd seen it. It sat in plain view on the invalid's right shoulder, clinging with sharp little fingers to his hair and his ear, and chattering in a savage undergone. It was a gray monkey.

No one spoke. All these well-rehearsed movements were carried out in silence. When the master's rug and cloak and hat had been put away, a footman opened a double door into a cloakroom, where a basin of hot water and scented soap were laid out ready. The valet wheeled the chair through and washed his master's face and hands, drying them tenderly on warm towels, and then pressed a bell. From the towel rail the monkey watched, its fierce little eyes never leaving the hands of the valet.

The door opened, and a footman wheeled the chair through the hall again and into a warm, glittering dining room. As soon as they were near the table, the monkey sprang off its master's shoulder and stalked through the dishes and glasses, rounding the silver centerpiece and the crystal saltcellar, brushing the candelabrum with its uplifted tail and seizing an apple from the great bowl before running with it to the place next to its master's and devouring it with small, busy nibbles.

The master laughed. The butler was pouring wine, the

valet at the sideboard putting turtle soup into a plate from a silver tureen.

"The lift," said the master. His voice was deep and oddly accented.

"Yes, Mr. Lee," said the butler at once. "It is installed and working perfectly. We tested it yesterday, sir."

"Good. You may go; Michelet will serve me."

The butler bowed. The valet, a plump man with a small, red-lipped, pursed mouth, placed the soup in front of him and broke a bread roll into small pieces. The monkey put down the apple.

Mr. Lee made a soft chittering with his tongue, and the monkey seized one of the pieces of bread, dipped it messily in the soup, and conveyed it to its master's mouth.

He ate, and as soon as he'd swallowed it, another sopping morsel was thrust in with those hard, black-nailed little hands. ^

"Michelet, you have not been quick enough with the nap- 1 kin," observed Mr. Lee quietly to the valet, and the man \ paled and shook out a stiff white cloth at once, dabbing his ; master's chin solicitously before tucking it around his neck. Meanwhile, the monkey had splashed another piece of bread in the soup and was pushing it into Mr. Lee's mouth—swift, rough, abrupt.

After half a dozen mouthfuls, Mr. Lee said, "Eat, Miranda."

The monkey thrust the next morsel into its own mouth, chewing with quick, vicious little bites as it crouched on the table by his plate, its tail dangling over the edge.

The valet removed the plate and substituted a dish on which some pieces of turbot in a cream sauce had been arranged. The monkey followed the same procedure, thrusting the pieces home with an urgent fierceness, and the valet stood poised, ready to wipe Mr. Lee's chin when a drop or two of sauce didn't reach his mouth. That didn't often happen, for^ Miranda was too quick to drop much. The valet himself con veyed the wine to his master's mouth.