by Tessa Harris
He screws up his face into a scowl and shakes his head. “No, Miss Piper. I appreciate your assistance, I really do. I’m so sorry if you thought otherwise.” I manage a smile before I bid him good night. He’s on his pins again and I think he’s understood my feelings. Perhaps that’s why, as I’m turning, he adds: “I will, of course, make inquiries at this haberdasher’s. In Bull Court, you said?”
His words put more heart in me. A cautious smile blooms on my face. He returns it and a sort of understanding fills the space between us. For a moment, I think it’s like he doesn’t want me to leave, that he wants me to keep him company through the long night that lies ahead of him. But, of course, he does not. He just fixes me with this look and from out of nowhere says: “It was a girl.”
“A girl?” He’s lost me.
“The dead baby was a girl. About three months old,” he tells me,shaking his head. “She’d even been vaccinated. Why would you vaccinate a child, then kill it?”
I’m not sure why he’s telling me this. It’s like he needs to make sense of the little one’s death. But then he adds: “I made sure she had a Christian burial.”
For a moment, I’m lost for words, but I feel my eyes start to mist as I’m touched by the thought of his act of kindness. In the end, “thank you” is all I can manage, but I’m sure he knows that it comes from the bottom of my heart.
“Good night, then, Miss Piper,” says he after a moment.
“Good night, Sergeant Hawkins,” says I. Once more I turn.
“Oh, and merry Christmas!” he calls.
I switch back, surprised by his greeting. “Merry Christmas,” I say in a hoarse whisper, even though it don’t feel much like Christmas to me.
EMILY
If Londoners could rise above the layer of smog that seems to perpetually cover the city this winter, they might just see a star in the east, the brightest of all, that heralds the birth of Christ on earth. It is the night before Christmas, when those children lucky enough to have a loving family and a warm bed have gone to sleep. They are dreaming of what toys they might find in their stockings hung by the fireplace when they wake. Not all children, however, are so fortunate.
Let me take you back to the terraced house in Poplar, not two miles from Whitechapel, where Mother Delaney lives. In the cold of an upstairs room, without heat in the middle of winter, there is no evidence of Christmas, although there is a poignant parallel with the Nativity. Just like Mary, the mother of Christ, a young mulatto girl is in the throes of labor. She lies on a filthy bed. Despite the freezing temperature, her golden brown forehead is dotted with sweat.
Between her teeth, she bites on a rag that muffles her agony. She arrived earlier in the afternoon, her water already broken. The old midwife was careful to ask for her fifteen shillings before she ushered her upstairs and bid her lie on a mattress covered in newspapers. “Best not dirty the sheets,” she’d explained to the frightened girl, who by this time was in too much pain to quibble.
And so the labor continued; the vise around the young woman’s belly tightening and loosening every few seconds for the next twelve hours. Afternoon turned into evening, evening into night, and around midnight, a newborn girl took her first breath. It was swiftly followed by her last.
Mother Delaney, with more lines on her forehead than teeth in her gums, leans over the bed. The mulatto remains dazed.
“My baby?” she bleats. “Where’s my baby?”
The old woman smiles and, stroking the young woman’s head, says softly: “Your baby, darlin’?” as if the answer wasn’t already a foregone conclusion. “Why, she’s gone to be with all the other angels in heaven.”
CHAPTER 15
Tuesday, December 25, 1888
CONSTANCE
Christmas Day. It’s one of the two days of the year—today and Easter—when me and Ma manage to coax Flo into St. Jude’s. But it’s been harder than ever this morning. Mr. B once joked that a bolt of lightning would strike my big sis next time she sets foot on hallowed ground, but I know it’s not his silly remark that’s turned her sulky. She’s lying in bed. Her skin’s all pallid and she just hides her head under the blanket.
“Come on, Flo,” I say to her. “It’s Christmas and you’re always the one for making merry.” I’m not sure she’s listening to me because suddenly she throws off the covers, dives for the commode from under the bed, and throws up. I wince as she wipes a spool of spittle from her lips with a corner of the blanket.
“Must be that milk we had last night,” she groans, her face all wan. “I thought it tasted queer.”
“How come Ma and me ain’t sick, then?” I ask unthinkingly. She shrugs and falls back onto her pillow. “So you’ll not be coming to the service?” It’s a dull question, I know.
“Not unless they want puke in their collecting bowl.” She can be a right madam sometimes, can our Flo.
The thought of her spewing up in the plate convinces me that she’s doing the right thing by staying at home. Truth is, I wish I wasn’t going, neither. I’ve not been at all comfortable in St. Jude’s since I found out what went on at the Sunday school there—how Mrs. Parker-Smythe allowed the fairest of them girls to be preyed upon to service the pleasures of wealthy men. For all I know, it still goes on.
We’ll be in the free seats at the back, well away from Mrs. Parker-Smythe and her like, who pay for their pews. I don’t know how they can sit in church, looking for all the world “holier than thou,” when really they’ve the blackest of hearts. If there’s any justice—and I’m still not sure there is—they’ll burn in hell. But not today. Today the stench of the rotting innards of this Christian community will be masked by the wafting of incense as together we mark the Savior’s birth.
* * *
My prayers for snow haven’t been heeded. It’s cold, but not that cold, yet everyone who herds inside St. Jude’s front doors is grateful for the shelter the church offers. It’s packed with families. Everyone’s made an effort. Faces are scrubbed. Collars starched. Those that have gloves wear them. We’re celebrating the birth of the Christ child and it seems that’s enough to put a smile on even the gloomiest faces.
The Reverend Barnett himself is giving the sermon. I’ve only heard him once or twice before from the pulpit, but I know Miss Tindall held him in very high regard. So when he starts to speak, I listen, and when he puts the question “Why did God come to earth as a newborn?” it’s like he’s asking me direct. A tingle runs down my spine as, once again, I see that little baby with the binding round its neck; its tiny fists still balled as it fought for life.
I listen to the reverend. “If the Lord had come to us as a grown man, would we have understood his sacrifice? Even here, in Whitechapel, so many die daily of disease, of poverty, of cold, of exhaustion.” He is looking out over the congregation, his eyes fixing here and there. He is speaking directly to every one of us and I say to him in my heart, Or are murdered. Of course, he doesn’t know of my feeling about Cath’s death. He carries on: “Jesus was both man and God. He was born of a woman and came to us as a child.”
My mind strays back to the tiny girl, wrapped not in a swaddling band, but in a paper parcel, tied with twine. She wasn’t in a hay manger, like the infant Jesus, but shoved in the shitty gutter under a market stall. She wasn’t just dead, like the dozens of babies found all over England every year. She was more than that. She was a sleeping angel in our midst. Just as the organ strikes up again for another carol, it comes to me. It’s like something bursts into my brain and I suddenly understand why I saw Miss Tindall at the market. She was leading me to that baby. She put the parcel there, knowing full well that I’d be arrested for the little mite’s murder. It was her way of telling me that it’s my task to find out who killed her and then bring them to justice.
* * *
When the service is over, Ma soon finds some friendly faces in the congregation. There’s dear old Mrs. Greenland, the poulterer’s wife, salt of the earth, she is, and nosey Mrs. Puddipha
tt. Together they make their way toward the church door to join the queue to shake Reverend Barnett’s hand. His wife, Henrietta, is there, too, wreathed in smiles. But me, I just want to weep. I walk to the little side altar, where the children of the Sunday school, the little group that I used to help Miss Tindall teach, has made a crib scene. There were some of the stricter ones at St. Jude’s who argued such a scene was “too Roman,” but Mrs. Barnett said it would remind us that we were all children once and how important they are. So now, in this quiet corner of the church, little brightly colored plaster statues of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, and the Magi are gathered on the altar. There’s even an ox and an ass. The scene is as pretty as a picture, all bathed in the warm glow of a dozen or more candles.
And at the center of this quaint scene is the Baby Jesus, looking all pink and plump and contented. There’s not many babies born round here that look that well, I can tell you; and, yet again, I’m reminded of the dead little girl. I kneel down and say a prayer for her and I thank God that Detective Sergeant Hawkins saw to it she was given a Christian burial. She’ll be in heaven now, a little angel. I ask Miss Tindall to take care of her, too, and it’s then that I have this strange feeling. It’s the feeling you get when you sense there’s someone close by, as if you’re being watched.
“Miss Tindall?” I whisper.
There is no reply; only the faint sound of Christmas greetings at the main door at the far corner of the church. “Miss Tindall,” I say again, under my breath. I’m thinking she’ll show me the way; somehow she’ll tell me what I need to do to track down the baby’s killer. But I hear nothing. She is not here.
After a while, I stand up and smooth my skirts before turning wanly to see if Ma is ready to leave. Just as I do, I catch sight of someone standing in the flickering shadows, beside one of the pews. My heart leaps. A woman—a lady by her bearing. It’s too much to hope for.
“Miss Tindall?” I say out loud this time. In the gloom, I shuffle toward her, feeling my way through the pews. It’s her. It has to be. My heart beats faster. My pace quickens. But as I grow closer, I realize I was mistaken. It’s not Miss Tindall who stands before me, but a woman of probably about the same age. Her dark green coat is too thin to keep her warm in winter, and her hat has a fine veil that she draws back in front of me. Yet, I can tell simply from her deportment that she is not one of us. The candlelight catches the glint in her eyes and I realize she is staring at me. She wears a haunted look. I draw closer. I can see why she wears a veil. She has been crying. And then she speaks.
“Miss Piper?” she asks. Her voice even sounds like Miss
Tindall’s, only thinner, as if it’s been crushed underfoot. “Miss Constance Piper?”
“Yes,” I reply softly. Something makes me reach for her hand and she offers it. “Yes. I’m here.” And in that moment, Miss Tindall comes to me and I know that this lady has been sent to me, and that I must help her through her pain.
EMILY
Another connection has been made. Constance will try her hardest to help my dear friend Louisa through her heartbreaking experience. Whether or not she succeeds, I cannot say, for now. All I do know is that Constance will leave no stone unturned to find Louisa’s lost child, and in earthly life, that is sometimes all that a person can do. One must try one’s utmost because, very often, fate will conspire against you.
CONSTANCE
It seems like this lady—she tells me her name is Louisa Fortune—and me have spent hours together. Her manner is mild and her speech free of the harshness of my sort. In a voice as smooth as silk, she’s told me her sorry tale. She’s related how, as a governess, she fell in love with her master’s son and became pregnant with his child.
“So you left their home?” I ask.
She nods, twisting her handkerchief as we speak. “I had no choice. I was desperate.” She pauses, like she wants me to sympathize with her, and I do.
“What did you do next?”
She fumbles in her reticule and brings out a scrap of newspaper. “Here.” She hands me the torn square and I squint to read it: Respectable woman and her doctor husband seek up to four children to call their own. Good food and sound education guaranteed. Terms from £10 for adoption. Address “Mother”, Post Office, Stepney.
As I read, she carries on. “So I sought out this couple and found rather an elderly woman who lived with her daughter and her husband. She cared for me and even delivered my baby. But then”—she turns away from me, like she’s ashamed and starts to chew her lip—“when it was time to . . . to leave my son with her, I thought I would die of sorrow.”
I know it’s hard for her. It was hard for poor Cath, too, and all the other women who’ve had to give up their own. “I couldn’t see a way out,” she tells me, wringing her hankie again. “So I left him with her, but then I had a change of heart—” She breaks off to let a sob shudder through her whole body. “I was going to see if there was a way that I could perhaps keep him. I was going to ask her if . . . if she could mind him for me, instead of adopting him.”
“So what happened?”
“We arranged to meet at Paddington Station. I was to have handed over the final payment, but I just couldn’t bring myself
. . . Oh, God!” She raises her face to the altar, like she’s pleading the Almighty direct. “When I asked to see him, she’d brought the wrong child.”
“The wrong child?”
“It wasn’t Bertie she had!”
“I don’t understand.”
“She said she must have made a mistake. She was minding other babies, too, you see. But then she had the temerity to demand more money from me.” Her tears have turned angry.
“What did you say?”
“Naturally I refused and she agreed to meet later this week and bring Bertie, of course.”
“But you worry that she will go back on the agreement?”
She nods and takes a deep breath as she dabs her eyes. “I fear for him. There was something in her manner . . .”
It seems this last meeting with the old woman has made her feel so uneasy that she’d changed her plans. She didn’t return home to Cheltenham, after all, but was, she tells me, “persuaded” to stay in London over Christmas Day.
“Persuaded?” I repeat. “Who persuaded you, miss?”
Suddenly her expression changes and she shakes her head. “You’ll think I’m insane,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “But I knew I had to find you.”
Thinking of Miss Tindall, I hold my breath, but it’s not how I first thought. Not exactly.
“I am a friend of Miss Beaufroy, Miss Pauline Beaufroy,” she tells me.
I breathe out. The pieces of this puzzle are suddenly falling into place. She was the beautiful lady who was such a rock to me in my quest to find out Miss Tindall’s fate.
“She and I have long been friends. I met her through Emily Tindall, you see.”
I gasp. “Miss Tindall?”
She nods. “I believe you knew her, too.” Her eyes tell me that she knows something. She sighs. “When I told Miss Beaufroy of my . . . my predicament, she said if I needed help while I was in London, I might find you in St. Jude’s.” She nods. “So here I am.”
For a moment, I am stunned into silence. I knew we were meant to meet. Miss Tindall may not have brought us directly together, but she will have had a hand in this. She will have guided Miss Louisa’s thoughts. I know it. As we sit in the soft light of the candles by the crib, I feel her presence again and my doubts melt away like wax.
“Do you think you can help me?” I hear Miss Louisa ask. I switch back to her. “Miss Beaufroy said you were”—she hesitates before she finds the word—“special.” She shoots me a tentative smile, to see if the description meets with my approval.
I take her hand. “If I am special, it is because Miss Tindall chooses to talk through me,” I tell her.
Then she says something that doesn’t surprise me. “We were at Oxford together. I heard she was
. . .” She stops herself from repeating what we both know.
“So you know she’s been in touch with me since,” I ask, to make sure we understand each other.
She nods. “I do. So if anything . . .” She halts for a moment, trying to compose herself. “If anything bad has happened to my little Bertie, then you would know, because Miss Tindall would tell you?”
I can see that she struggles to speak of her worst fears. I take her other hand. I must remain calm for her. It is my turn to be her rock.
“You’ve arranged to meet this woman, this Mother Delaney, again at Paddington on Friday?”
“Yes. But I fear . . .”
I feel my finger lift and place itself on my own lips and her mouth is stilled. “Fear will do you no good,” I hear myself say, even though I know it is Miss Tindall who’s speaking. She is here. She is by my side. “Have faith,” I urge, although I’m not sure how I can help her.
* * *
As we’ve talked, it’s felt like time has stood still, only it can’t have, because from out of the corner of my eye, I see the Reverend Barnett has only just greeted Ma, and now she’s on her way back toward me. I stand suddenly. “I’m sorry, I must go.” I hope I don’t sound too stiff, but I think Miss Louisa understands.
She glances over at Ma as she approaches. “Yes, so must I,” she says, rising and giving Ma a bow of her head as she rustles by.
“An old friend of Miss Tindall’s,” I explain as Ma watches the governess head for the church door.
She just chuckles. “Peas out of a pod,” I hear her murmur, but my eyes are fixed firmly on the plaster statue of the newborn Jesus in the crib. So this is it. There is a connection between Miss Louisa’s baby and the dead child in the market. There has to be. Why else would Miss Tindall have sent her to me? I know it’s up to me to track down the baby’s killer and to reunite Bertie with his anxious mother. I also know that I must allow myself to be guided along this new path by Miss Tindall’s hand. I’m sure she won’t desert me.
