The Coven

by Graham Masterton

  ‘How long did you stay there, at Mrs Sheridan’s?’

  ‘I don’t know, ma’am. George ’Azzard takes me there in September, and I’m still there at Christmas, and the New Year, and at least until spring. But I loses count of the days, don’t I? One day’s just like the next, and one night’s just like the next, and one gentleman’s just like the next. After about an ’undred of ’em you start losin’ count, and you don’t give moonshine what they does to you. Some of them even likes pissin’ in your gob but ’oo cares.’

  ‘Did you see George Hazzard at Mrs Sheridan’s very often?’

  ‘Oh, yes, what? ’E was there loads. Always comin’ in and out, bringin’ new girls in with ’im.’

  ‘Did he ever spend the night there?’

  ‘No, never. Not that I ever sees ’im there, any’ow.’

  ‘Did your aunt know where you were?’

  ‘’Course. Mrs Sheridan sends a boy to tell ’er, and my aunt sends the word back that it’s all plummy by ’er.’

  ‘When did you leave?’

  ‘Like I say, I never knows the day or the month, do I, but it’s spring, because the trees is all blossom. Up to then, all you can ’ear in the case for most of the night is laughin’, and the girls goin’ ooh-ooh-ooh! because they’re pretendin’ they’re enjoyin’ it, do you know what I mean? But then one night I can ’ear three or four girls screamin’ like the Devil’s walked in through the door, but then the screamin’ suddenly stops. I asks Mrs Sheridan in the mornin’ what it was but she won’t tell me. She just says mind your own work.’

  ‘Didn’t any of the other girls tell you what the screaming was all about?’

  ‘No. And my best friend there, Juliet, she cautions me not to be askin’ ’er a second time, and to stick my fingers in my lug’oles if ever I ’ears it again. Two nights later, though, I ’ears it again, screamin’ and screamin’, and the gentleman in bed with me, ’e ’ears it, too, but ’e don’t say nothin’. In fact it makes ’im ’ard again, ’ard like a constable’s truncheon, and ’e starts bangin’ away at me like ’e’s ridin’ all the way to Stepney and back.’

  ‘And you still couldn’t find out who was screaming, or why?’

  Eliza shook her head again, and coughed. ‘All I knows is, Juliet ain’t around the next morning, and when I asks where she is, nobody tells me. One girl puts her finger to ’er lips, like ssh! it’s a secret. That’s when I makes up my mind to run away. I don’t care what the screamin’ is, but it makes me feel like Satan’s in the case, and I just wants to get the ’ell out of there.’

  ‘How did you get away?’

  ‘The front jigger was always locked so I climbed out the back-jump and never stopped runnin’ till I got back to Black ’Orse Yard.’

  ‘And ever since then you’ve been selling your favours on the streets?’

  ‘I couldn’t do nothin’ else, could I? My pipkin was well and truly cracked and I didn’t make ’ardly no wedge at all sellin’ them pincushions. Some days them two clinkers comes with me and they always gives me a fair share of the winnings, like, after they’ve braced them up.’

  Beatrice smiled and said, ‘Let me get you some more tonic. If that stops you coughing, perhaps you can come down and join the rest of the girls for breakfast.’

  ‘Does George ’Azzard come here often?’ asked Eliza, anxiously.

  ‘About once a week, I’d say. I haven’t been here long enough to tell you for certain. He’s the home’s main benefactor, although there are several others.’

  ‘Whenever ’e comes, you won’t be lettin’ on that I’m ’ere, will you? I don’t want to go back to Leda Sheridan’s, not never.’

  ‘Of course I won’t tell him you’re here, Eliza. I doubt if he would even remember you, anyway.’

  ‘P’raps ’e would and p’raps ’e wouldn’t, but I don’t want to chance it. I don’t wit what goes on at Leda Sheridan’s and I don’t want to wit, neither.’

  ‘Don’t you fret, Eliza. That world is behind you now, and you don’t ever have to go back. We’ll send somebody today to tell your aunt where you are, and that you’re safe. If she was happy for you to stay at Leda Sheridan’s, I’m sure she won’t worry about your living here.’

  28

  As soon as the clock in the hallway had chimed six, Beatrice heard James knocking at the front door. Judith let him in, and he came through to the drawing room, smiling. He was wearing the same dark-brown coat that he had worn when he had taken Beatrice and Florence to Ranelagh Gardens, and the same beige waistcoat and breeches. There was a small razor cut on his left cheek and he smelled strongly of some musky perfume.

  Beatrice was sitting by the fire with Ida, sewing. She had dressed herself in a pale-blue silk gown which had been made for her in Sutton for a visit by the Governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth, and her hair was tied up with pale-blue silk ribbons. Her own perfume was rosewater, and she had hung a silver scent pendant around her neck because they would be walking along streets that stank of sewage.

  ‘A very good evening, Beatrice,’ said James, with a bow. ‘There isn’t a picture in the Foundling Hospital to match you.’

  Beatrice looked at Ida and Ida smiled and shook her head.

  ‘You are an incorrigible flatterer, James,’ said Beatrice. ‘Let me get my coat and my bonnet.’

  It was a chilly night, but clear, and as they left St Mary Magdalene’s Beatrice could see the moon over St Paul’s. Although it wasn’t far to the Three Cranes in the Vintry, down through Cheapside to New Queen Street, by the river, James had a hackney coach waiting outside.

  As they rattled and swayed through the darkened streets, he reached across and laid his hand on top of hers, and she didn’t push him away. She needed somebody like James, not only because of his learning and his masculinity, but because she had nobody else to confide in.

  When she stepped down from the hackney, Beatrice could hear raucous laughter and shouting from the tavern. After he had paid the jarvis, though, James took hold of her arm, and said, ‘It sounds rough, I know, but we’ll be dining in a private room where ladies are welcome, and won’t be choked by pipe smoke or deafened by profanity.’

  He pushed open the front door and they went inside. The main room was crowded and smoky, with more than seventy or eighty men drinking and chaffing and laughing uproariously. A barmaid came forward, though, and led them through to a small oak-panelled room at the side of the tavern where there were five tables, and a fire burning. There were only two other couples in the room – a very fresh-faced young man and his wife – and the other quite elderly, a bespectacled man of at least fifty years old, with a tilted wig and a worn-out frock coat, and a bosomy companion with a gravelly voice, who turned out to be his sister.

  James asked for two glasses of Portuguese wine, and both he and Beatrice chose the roasted widgeon, with parsnips and cardoons and cabbage and roasted potatoes. Once the barmaid had taken their order, James lifted his glass to Beatrice and said, ‘Here we are then, Beatrice. Alone at last.’

  ‘This wine is lovely,’ said Beatrice. ‘The last glass of wine I drank was the communion wine that we used to give our parishioners in New Hampshire. It tasted so sour that it almost made me wish that transubstantiation was true, and that it really did become the blood of Christ.’

  ‘Well, we’re in Vintry Ward, home of the vintners, after all,’ said James.

  Beatrice was silent for a few moments, looking at him. The firelight was dancing in his eyes and she wondered if that was romantic, or a warning. His wavy brown hair made him look like a poet, or an artist, or a cultured pirate.

  ‘I’m confused,’ she said at last.

  James said nothing, but waited for her to continue.

  ‘I’m more convinced than ever that those seven girls didn’t really summon up Satan, and that they didn’t become witches and fly away. In fact I’m sure of it now.’

  ‘All right,’ said James. ‘But what has convinced you? I thought you’d agreed that S
atan is just as real as God.’

  ‘I believe he is. But I don’t believe that he had anything to do with those girls disappearing.’

  ‘You realize what a risk you’re taking. Next time it won’t be a man with a looking-glass face, or some beast scratching at your door. It’ll be someone or something far more dangerous. I’m desperately worried, Beatrice, that you’re going to come to serious harm.’

  ‘Well, there’s already been another threat,’ said Beatrice, and she told him about the goat’s head being served up at dinner.

  ‘There you are, then,’ said James, leaning back in his chair, as if that proved his case conclusively. ‘How could the goat’s head have magically appeared on that platter unless Satan put it there?’

  ‘Very simply. Martha the cook put it there, and dropped the pig’s head into the kitchen fire. I went down during the night and found it in the hearth, burned right down to the bone.’

  ‘You didn’t actually witness Martha dropping it into the fire, though, did you? Satan could still have done it.’

  ‘Oh, come on, James! Satan would have made it vanish altogether. He would have flung it into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, or made it fly to the moon, where I never could have found it. He wouldn’t have needed to cremate it in the kitchen. But not only that, I took a sample from the goat’s beard and tested it in Godfrey’s laboratory.’

  ‘And what was the result of that?’

  ‘The goat’s head was almost certainly preserved with arsenic, to stop it from decomposing. Again, Satan wouldn’t have needed to do that.’

  ‘But again, Beatrice, he could have altered your sample so that it appeared to show you the evidence of arsenic, even when it actually didn’t.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. To discredit you, I imagine. To confuse you. You said, didn’t you, that you’re confused.’

  The barmaid brought their plates of roasted widgeon, and all their vegetables in separate china dishes. The widgeon was glossy and brown as if it had been varnished, and smelled of honey, sherry and mustard. Beatrice wished only that she had more of an appetite.

  She was in two minds whether to tell James about Eliza or not, and what Eliza had said about George Hazzard picking her up off the street and taking her to Leda Sheridan’s brothel, but she decided not to. She had promised Eliza that she would keep her past a secret, and that she would make sure that George didn’t find out where she was. Apart from that, she wasn’t sure how well James knew George, and if he might accidentally or deliberately let it slip that Eliza was now being cared for at St Mary Magdalene’s.

  ‘You’re a jingle-brains, that’s what you are!’ the bosomy sister at the next table suddenly exploded. She leaned forward so that her breasts were pressing into her plate of half-eaten carp and cabbage and she was spitting bits of fish into her elderly brother’s face. ‘You haven’t an ounce of sense in you, have you? You’re a maggot-pated, bird-witted, hare-brained cod’s head! You’re a clunch!’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ smiled James. ‘It’s usually quiet in this room, and very civil.’

  Following that outburst, Beatrice and James spoke no more about Satan, or the coven. They talked instead about Beatrice’s life in America, and art, and the latest plays that would be showing at Henry Gifford’s theatre or the Theatre Royal.

  James told her that the last time he had been to a play at the Little Theatre, four ladies had entered a box with such fantastical hats on their heads that the entire audience had burst out laughing at them, and they had hurriedly left.

  Beatrice managed to eat most of her widgeon’s breast, and some cardoons, and drink another glass of wine. They finished their supper by sharing an orange cream.

  After they had left the tavern, they walked hand-in-hand down New Queen Street to the Three Cranes stairs. The tide was coming in fast, and the river was black and gurgling with only the moon and a few reflected lights on its surface. It was here that the three wooden cranes stood. They had been built for lifting casks of wine from lighters moored beside the stairs, but to Beatrice they looked like strange abandoned catapults from some mediaeval war.

  They stood by the water’s edge for a while in silence. Eventually James said, ‘You know that I want only to protect you.’

  ‘From what? From Satan?’

  ‘If it is Satan who’s been warning you off, then yes.’

  ‘But what if it isn’t?’

  ‘Then whoever it is, I want only to protect you from them. I’m asking you, Beatrice – no, more than that, I’m begging you – please forget about those seven girls altogether. They’re gone, and nothing that you do or say is going to bring them back from wherever they are.’

  ‘Do you know something that you’re not telling me?’ asked Beatrice. She looked up at him and she could see his eyes glittering in the darkness.

  ‘I know that I was thunderstruck when I first set eyes on you, because of how much you resembled my poor lost Sophie. But now I see you only for you – yourself – and I freely confess that I’m falling in love with you, Beatrice. Your beauty, your grace, your spirit, your determination. I fully understand that you’re still mourning your late husband as much as I still mourn my Sophie. But my affection for you has grown every single minute of every single day, and if I can help you to put back the broken pieces of your heart, then you will certainly help me to mend mine.’

  Beatrice laid her hand on James’s left shoulder, and lifted herself up a little so that she could kiss him on the cheek.

  ‘We’ll see,’ she said, very softly.

  They began to walk back up New Queen Street so that they could hail a hackney on the corner of Thames Street. After only a few steps, though, Beatrice tripped over something that made a clanking noise, and if James hadn’t been holding her hand she might well have fallen over.

  He bent down and picked it up, and held it up in the light from the tavern windows. It was an iron bar, a little over a foot long, with three curved prongs on the end of it.

  ‘A grappling hook,’ he said, and tossed it over to the side of the street so that it jangled as it bounced off the cobbles. ‘The dockers use them for shifting the wine barrels, but they’re always leaving them lying about. It didn’t hurt you, did it?’

  ‘No,’ said Beatrice. ‘But I’d best be getting back now. I’ve an early start tomorrow.’

  James took hold of both of her hands. ‘You will think about what I’ve said, won’t you? About keeping yourself safe... and also about me, and the way I feel about you.’

  Beatrice said, ‘Of course. And thank you for this evening. You’ve managed to make me feel like a woman again, instead of a widow, and a mother, and an apothecary, and a shoulder for distraught young girls to weep on.’

  29

  The following day Beatrice had several hours of free time, for which she was grateful, because she wasn’t used to drinking so much alcohol and last night’s Portuguese wine had given her a nagging headache. Hephzibah Carmen was coming in the morning to give one of her twice-weekly singing lessons, and in the afternoon, the girls were being taken on a special visit to Bethlem Hospital to see the lunatics.

  The Reverend Parsons believed that if the girls saw first-hand the madness that was brought on by venereal diseases, they would be encouraged to choose the straight and narrow path towards the Wicket Gate.

  Beatrice had little appetite at breakfast and ate only a small bowl of porridge. She couldn’t stop herself from staring across the kitchen at Martha, unsmiling, with the deliberate intention of making Martha uneasy. She wanted Martha to think that she didn’t believe her story about the pig’s head, and that she wasn’t going to let the matter rest. She knew it was vindictive to stare at her like that, but she was beginning to feel vindictive after the clawing at her door, and the appearance of the man with the looking-glass face, and the goat’s head – especially since her head was hurting.

  Whenever Martha turned away from the hearth and saw her staring at her,
she quickly turned away again and busied herself with stirring the large pot of chicken broth that was suspended over the fire, or briskly chopping onions and carrots.

  Florence said, ‘Finished!’ and dropped her spoon into her empty bowl. She had eaten twice as much as Beatrice, although she had been helped by her doll, Minnie, who had ended up with her mouth and chin and the front of her grey dress plastered in porridge.

  ‘I wish Grace was still here,’ said Florence, sadly, as she watched Beatrice wiping the lumps of porridge from Minnie’s face.

  ‘Well, I don’t have any classes this afternoon, and it’s a nice bright day. Why don’t we go to Hackney and see her?’

  ‘Can No-noh come?’

  ‘Of course he can. We can take him for a walk by the marshes.’

  They cleared away their bowls and then they climbed back upstairs, with Florence singing the alphabet song again. Beatrice was about to open the door to their rooms when she suddenly stopped, and touched the scars and furrows in the woodwork with her fingertips.

  ‘Aren’t we going in?’ asked Florence.

  ‘Yes, Florrie, we are...’ said Beatrice, but for a few seconds more she continued to stroke the damaged door as if she were a blind woman feeling the face of a stranger for the very first time. If she had learned only one thing as the wife of a parson, it was that God is continually giving us hints and clues and messages, prompting us to discover who we are and where our lives are taking us, although we rarely notice them, and even when we do, we rarely act on them.

  She opened the door and she and Florence went into their sitting room. ‘Do you need to use the potty?’ she asked Florence. ‘If not, we’re going out directly for a walk by the river. And, yes, No-noh can come.’

  They put on their overcoats, but before they went out, Beatrice went out into the yard at the back of the house, and looked inside the small wooden shed where the man who came to tidy the flowerbeds kept his tools. She had seen him at work, stuffing all of his weeds and bush-cuttings into an old flour sack. The sack was hanging over his spade handle, and she picked it up, folded it, and tucked it under her arm beneath her overcoat.