The Coven

by Graham Masterton

  ‘I’ll see,’ said Beatrice, uneasily.

  ‘Beatrice, my dearest, I hope you will. I know that you have faith in your chemistry, but surely our faith in God must be stronger. Chemistry will never defeat Satan, but God will.’

  Beatrice could hear the girls clattering downstairs and making their way through to the atelier. Then Ida appeared and said, ‘George? They’re ready for you. Come and make your selection.’

  *

  George picked five girls altogether, including Judith and Katharine. Ida had tried to find Eliza, too, but there was no sign of her, and in the end she had given up. Beatrice had said nothing, although she guessed that Eliza was hiding under her bed.

  The girls went back up to their rooms to pack their clothes and their few belongings. Beatrice was glad that Florence was out in the back garden playing with No-noh and the orange crochet rabbit that Judith had made for her. Florence was still distressed that Grace had disappeared, and she would be inconsolable now that Judith was going, too.

  Beatrice was deeply fearful about what was going to become of these five girls, although it was possible that George was telling the truth about his urgent need for more factory hands, and after all he had invited her to come to Hackney with Ida to see them at work. She knew that it was un-Christian of her to think such a thing, but all the girls were fairly plain, and three of them had disfiguring smallpox scars on their cheeks, and she thought it was less likely that George would pass them on to Leda Sheridan.

  At last the girls all gathered in the hallway and said their goodbyes. Beatrice went out into the garden where Florence was sitting underneath the statue of Astraea, pretending to feed her rabbit with dandelion leaves.

  ‘Florrie, can you come inside? Judith and some of the girls are leaving us. They have to go and work for Mr Hazzard in his tobacco factory.’

  Florence looked up in shock. Then her lower lip turned down and her eyes filled with tears. Beatrice bent down and picked her up and hugged her.

  ‘Why does Judith have to go, Mama? I want her to stay!’

  ‘She has to go, darling, because that’s the way life is. We love people but then we lose them. Like your papa. Like your brother. Like Grace. But we should just be thankful that God brought them to us, and that we had such happy times with them. God will bring us new friends, don’t worry.’

  ‘But I don’t want new friends! I want Judith!’

  ‘Come on, now, don’t let Judith see that you’re sad. Come inside and wave her goodbye. Mr Hazzard says that we can go to his factory tomorrow or the day after and see her working, and we can take No-noh for a walk by the marshes, too.’

  They went inside. The girls were already climbing into George’s yellow carriage and a two-horse clarence which he must have hired especially to take them back to Hackney. Florence ran up to the clarence and called out, ‘Judith! Judith!’ and waved her orange rabbit.

  Beatrice stood on the porch and wiped her eyes with her fingertips. Ida was standing close behind her.

  ‘Why are you sad?’ Ida asked her. ‘They are going to a much better life than they deserve.’

  ‘I’m sad because life can be very cruel sometimes.’

  ‘Only to those who question the will of God.’

  ‘I suppose so. But sometimes the will of God can be very difficult to understand.’

  ‘Vincit qui patitur, Beatrice. He conquers who suffers.’

  Beatrice turned around. Ida’s face was painted with even more white lead than usual, so that she looked as if she were wearing a death mask. There were fine hairline cracks around her eyes and the sides of her mouth. It was impossible to tell what she was really thinking, but Beatrice could sense nothing but pain. Whatever had happened to Ida Smollett in the past, it must have hurt her beyond any hope of recovery.

  *

  Beatrice spent the rest of the day giving the girls sewing lessons and reading from the Bible. She was still in shock from seeing Grace being beheaded, and so she tried to keep herself as quiet and as calm as possible. She attempted to eat, but she took only one mouthful of stewed lamb at dinnertime and gagged, and had to run from the kitchen and spit it out into the garden, with her stomach painfully heaving.

  As she came back inside, she found Ida standing in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘Is something ailing you, Beatrice?’

  ‘I think Hettie laced my bodice too tight for me, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re not pining for any illness, I trust.’

  If it’s an illness to be appalled by the perversity of human pleasure, then yes, I’m critically ill. But I’ll recover, with God’s help, and make sure that justice is done, not only for Grace, but for every other girl whose life has been treated with contempt by people like you.

  35

  The following day it rained hard from morning until mid-afternoon, with occasional flickers of lightning and booms of thunder from south of the Thames. The river rose as high as the Three Cranes stairs, and the streets of the City were quickly turned into a quagmire of mud and sewage and floating lumps of horse manure. Underneath St Mary Magdalene’s the cellars were flooded knee-deep in foul-smelling tan-coloured water, so that wooden crates of wine bottles began to circle around, and over a month’s stock of flour sacks were soaked into a sodden pulp.

  There was no question of going to Hackney in this weather, so Beatrice stayed in the atelier for most of the day, giving art lessons. She told the girls to draw their idea of heaven, and she was surprised how many of them drew not only God, and Jesus, and flying angels, but other figures too, in ordinary clothes. When she asked who they were, these ordinary people, almost every girl said, ‘My mother, who died giving birth to me,’ or, ‘My father, who died of drink,’ or, ‘My three sisters who died of consumption before they reached the age of six.’

  Florence knelt at the window looking out at the garden, hugging her orange rabbit and watching the rain trickle down. Beatrice didn’t have to ask what she was thinking.

  *

  Overnight, the skies cleared, and when morning came the sun was blindingly bright.

  Ida came into the kitchen when Beatrice and Florence were eating porridge, and said that George had sent a hansom to come and collect them and take them to Hackney. Beatrice had half a mind to say that she didn’t want to go, but she knew that George had extended this invitation for the specific purpose of allaying her suspicions about him. It was crucial that he should believe that she had forgiven him, and that she now held him blameless.

  They put on their coats and bonnets and wooden pattens over their shoes and climbed up into the hansom. This was a private-hire coach, with shiny leather seats, unlike the filthy, worn-out interiors of most hackney carriages. The coachman was almost lordly, with a tall top hat and a dark-green box coat and a huge walrus moustache.

  The journey to Hackney was slow, because the road was still rutted and muddy and flooded in places from yesterday’s rain, but Beatrice and Florence sang songs all the way, and Florence sat No-noh up on her lap and clapped his paws together in time to their singing. Ida sat and stared at the passing fields and farms, her face impassive. Beatrice had the feeling that she was only coming on this outing because she had been told to, and not out of choice.

  George came out to greet them as soon as they turned into the factory courtyard. He was accompanied by Edward Veal, his bald-headed accountant. Edward Veal was wearing a black frock coat and black breeches, so he resembled a giant stag-beetle standing on its hind legs.

  ‘Welcome, welcome and thrice welcome!’ said George, helping Beatrice down from the hansom. ‘And welcome to you, too, sweet Florence, and welcome to your pup, as well. What’s the little fellow’s name?’

  ‘No-noh,’ said Florence, solemnly. ‘After my brother who was stealed away by Indians.’

  ‘Oh,’ said George, and looked at Beatrice sympathetically. ‘Forgive me for asking.’

  He led them into the factory. Inside, it was as noisy as ever, with steam hissing and cutters cla
nking and the workers shouting to each other. The five new girls George had taken from St Mary Magdalene’s were sitting together at the long rows of desks where heaps of thin, wrinkly tobacco leaves were draped. They were stripping out the mid-ribs with such speed that Beatrice could have believed that they had been doing it all their working lives, instead of being prostitutes and pickpockets.

  Florence saw Judith and ran around the desks to fling her arms around her. Judith waved to Beatrice and smiled and mouthed some inaudible words to let her know that she was well. Three of the other girls waved too.

  ‘There,’ George breathed in Beatrice’s ear. ‘See how comfortably they have all settled in. This work makes them feel useful and valued, and it will pay them nearly twice as much money as they could ever make being a seamstress, or a scullery maid. God willing, they’ll never again be tempted to sell their bodies to any louse-infested man with a drunken lust and a shilling in his pocket.’

  ‘Most commendable, George,’ said Beatrice, stepping away from him so that she wouldn’t have to smell his breath.

  ‘Come into my office,’ said George. ‘There’s coffee, or tea, or cider if you prefer, and cakes. Perhaps little Florence would care for sweet lemonade.’

  They all went through to George’s office and sat down. One of the factory girls came in to pour out drinks, and passed round plates of biscuits and queen cakes scented with rosewater, and then George began to explain how he wanted to invest more money into St Mary Magdalene’s so that they could take in even more girls – perhaps as many as a hundred at a time. Edward Veal explained that he had been in consultation with the leaseholders of the property next door in Maidenhead Court, and that they might soon be able to occupy that house too.

  ‘I want us to be known as the greatest saviours of refractory young women in the whole of London’s history,’ said George, puffing at his cigar so that his head was almost invisible behind a cloud of curling smoke. ‘I want scholars and clerics to look back in years to come and say that it was St Mary Magdalene’s that changed the morality of this great city forever.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Edward Veal, and sniffed.

  ‘I want posterity to recognize that St Mary Magdalene’s opened its arms to the lost and the destitute, to the used and abused, when others would only turn their backs,’ George continued. ‘I want future generations to know that we parted the dark clouds of sinfulness that hung over the heads of these misguided young women and shone down on them the pure dazzling light of Christianity. St Mary Magdalene’s will have demonstrated that hard work, chastity and prayer bring far greater rewards both on Earth and in heaven than idleness, sluttishness and thieving.’

  Edward Veal banged the desk in approval, and Ida said, ‘You should have been an evangelist, George,’ although her face remained expressionless.

  ‘Well?’ said George. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘No-noh needs a wee-wee,’ said Florence, with her mouth full of cake.

  George slapped his thigh, and laughed and coughed. ‘Very well. Agnes! Agnes will show you how to get out into the garden, my dear. Agnes! Can you show this young lady how to get out of the back door?’

  ‘I’ll go with her, if you don’t mind,’ said Beatrice. ‘I’m in need of a little fresh air.’

  A very thin girl in a long apron and a floppy bonnet showed Beatrice and Florence to the back door, and they stepped out into the narrow grassy garden where the goat had been tied up. The goat’s tether was still hanging from its post, frayed at the end.

  After the eye-watering fog of George’s office, the breeze outside was blissful, even if it was chilly enough to make Beatrice shiver. The trees were gossiping excitedly as the last few leaves of autumn were whipped off their branches, and in the near distance they could hear sheep bleating.

  Beatrice held Florence’s hand while No-noh ran up and down the garden, sniffing and cocking his leg.

  ‘Judith said she was happy,’ said Florence, sadly.

  ‘Well, I know how much you miss her, Florrie, and I’m sure that she misses you, but so long as she’s happy, that’s the most important thing of all. If you want to, we can come here again in a week or so, and perhaps Mr Hazzard will allow Judith to come out for a walk with us.’

  ‘I don’t like Mr Hazzard. He’s too smoky.’

  ‘I know. But I think we’d better go back inside. He wants to take us somewhere for dinner.’

  No-noh was scratching furiously in the middle of the garden. Beatrice thought at first that he might have done his business and was making a cursory attempt to cover it up, as dogs do, but then she saw that he was actually digging.

  ‘No-noh! Come here, No-noh!’ called Florence. But No-noh paid her no attention and kept on tearing at the turf.

  ‘No-noh! I said come here, you naughty, naughty puppy!’ said Florence, putting on her cross-mama voice. She stalked over and took hold of No-noh’s collar, pulling him away. But then she bent down and picked something up from the grass. She came back and held it out in the palm of her hand so that Beatrice could see what it was.

  A tarnished silver crucifix, on a broken chain. But this was no ordinary crucifix. The figure of Christ had his head turned to the left, instead of the right. Without a doubt, it was Jane Webb’s crucifix.

  Beatrice glanced quickly behind her to make sure that neither George nor Edward Veal was watching her out of the office window. Then she walked over to the torn-up spot where No-noh had been digging. He had dug only three or four inches down, but underneath the soil he had ripped through some tattered red cotton and exposed a muddy fan-shaped bone. She recognized immediately what it was. Her father used to have a skeleton hanging in his laboratory, and she could see that this was a human shoulder blade.

  She bent forward, and sniffed. In spite of the chilly breeze, she was sure that she could detect the distinctive sweet smell of a decomposing body.

  She gave another quick glance behind her. Edward Veal had his back to the window and George was leaning over his desk, and there was no sign of Ida. She kicked the lumps of turf that No-noh had dug up, so that the hole was covered up. Her heart was thumping hard against her ribcage and she felt that she could hardly breathe, but she knew that she had to stay composed.

  ‘Let’s go back in, shall we?’ she said to Florence.

  Florence said. ‘All right. But who does that cross belong to?’

  Beatrice crouched down and laid her hands on Florence’s shoulders so that she could look her directly in the eyes.

  ‘Florrie, this is important. You mustn’t tell anybody that you found it. Don’t tell Ida. Don’t tell Mr Hazzard. Don’t tell Mr Veal. There isn’t any cross.’

  ‘But there is! You’ve put it in your pocket.’

  ‘I know. But that’s our secret. You know what a secret is, don’t you?’

  Florence nodded. ‘It’s not telling.’

  ‘Good. So you won’t say anything about finding this cross, not to anybody?’

  She pretended to sew up her lips with a needle and thread, and Florence dutifully copied her.

  ‘Good girl, Florrie. You’re my angel.’

  They went back inside and George stood up from behind his desk, coughing and waving the smoke away.

  ‘Has your pup relieved himself, little Florence? Excellent. Let’s repair then, shall we, to London Fields, and the Cat and Shoulder of Mutton? They serve the most unctuous game pie that I’ve ever tasted, and I can heartily recommend their roasted pork, too.’

  ‘I don’t want pie,’ said Florence, lifting her hand to her chin. ‘I’m full right up to here with cake.’

  George patted her on the head. ‘You must eat as much as you can, little Florence. Num-num-num! Girls who eat all their dinner grow up to be buxom and healthy and beautiful, and attract all the wealthiest gentlemen!’

  And then they end up beheaded, or dead and buried in your factory garden, thought Beatrice.

  George grinned and extended his hand towards her to usher her out of his office, b
ut she lifted her elbow and shied away from him. She was so filled with revulsion and fear that she could barely speak, let alone smile. She followed him with mechanical steps as he led the way out of the factory, knowing that she would have to endure the rest of this visit without giving him the slightest indication that she had found a buried body, and that in all likeliehood it was Jane Webb’s. For all she knew, the six other girls were buried in the garden too.

  She thought about the crucifix in her pocket and remembered what Jane had said about it. ‘Jesus is lookin’ to the left at all the thieves and the murderers and the merry-arsed Christians. Sheep to the right, goats to the left.’

  After she had climbed up and seated herself in the corner of George’s yellow carriage, she turned her head to look out of the window so that she wouldn’t have to endure him smiling and winking at her. Her throat was clenched tight and she could have sobbed out loud, remembering how pretty Jane had been, and thinking how her life had been so sinfully wasted.

  ‘Yes, little Florence!’ said George. He sat down opposite, so that the carriage’s springs creaked and swayed, and then he reached across to squeeze Florence’s knee. ‘One day soon you’re going to be a fair roebuck, believe me, and all the fine gentlemen will be knocking at your door!’

  ‘There’s time enough for that, George,’ said Beatrice, still without looking at him.

  ‘Maybe so,’ said George. ‘But time waits for no one, as well as you know.’

  How true, thought Beatrice. But if only you knew how quickly your time is rushing towards you, George Hazzard, you wouldn’t be sounding half so merry.

  *

  Because it was a sunny afternoon, the Cat and Shoulder of Mutton was packed, not only with farm workers and wagon-drivers and tinkers, but with lawyers and traders who had come up to London Fields to take a breather from the City and mingle with a rougher and more boisterous crowd than they found in their usual coffee houses.

  George ushered them inside the tavern, to a small private room at the back, with a circular oak table and a stained-glass window and a log fire burning. Beatrice sat near to the door, as far away from George and his cigar smoke as she could, and asked only for a mug of cider and a thick slice of bread and Cheshire cheese.