Woman Who Spoke to Spirits Read online

  ‘Yes, I will, of course I will,’ Lily replies. Then, before Dorothy can think of any other way to detain her, she strides away.

  She thinks she knows where to find St Cyprian’s Church, but the mental stress of the past hour must have thrown her more than she realizes and she takes a wrong turn, having to retrace her steps before eventually the big mass of the Victorian edifice looms up ahead of her. In contrast to its frowning grey bulk, a large and cheerily colourful sign has been put up on the small patch of grass in front of it, the bright yellow of the background and the vivid scarlet letters shining through the gloom: APRIL BAZAAR NEXT SATURDAY! it says, and a list of enticing activities ranging from a spring bonnet competition to coconut ice and candy floss are listed beneath. COME ALONG AND BRING ALL THE FAMILY! 2PM ONWARDS! ALL PROCEEDS TO THE MISSION!

  She hurries through the porch, taking in but not really studying the big noticeboard for parish announcements and another, smaller one beside it that seems to be associated with some mission in the East End. She opens the inner door into the church and stands still, searching for the Reverent James Jellicote.

  But the church is empty. Unless he is hiding under a pew or busy in the vestry, the vicar is not there.

  Slowly Lily walks up the aisle. As the sharp disappointment of finding that her quarry is not where she expected him to be slowly recedes, she looks properly at the interior of St Cyprian’s.

  It looks from the outside like the sort of barn of a building so beloved by the architects of the age, and, indeed, there is space within for row upon row of pews. But as Lily walks through the shadowy space, she senses a whisper of something a great deal more ancient. The stone flags beneath her feet are deeply worn and she knows even without thinking that these sorts of indentations in such hard material cannot have been made by a mere few decades of wear. The floor, and therefore also the original building, has been here for centuries.

  The last of the day’s light shines suddenly through a window high up at the west end of the church. The day has been cloudy, so perhaps the falling sun has found a small gap as it sinks below the horizon. Lily stops, caught up in the little drama.

  But then the light goes out and instantly the shadows spring forward. The side aisles on the far side of the long walls with their high arched openings become places of deep mystery. The high-backed pews whisper of spirits and strange beings who lie concealed, waiting to spring. Lily feels the thumping of her heart, fast, high in her throat.

  And in the utter silence she hears a small noise.

  She calls out, ‘Mr Jellicote? Are you there?’

  She thought she would sound strong and confident; she thought her words would banish the fear and the darkness. But her feeble little voice is like that of a child scared by a nightmare calling for her mother.

  There is no answer.

  She stands perfectly still, waiting, listening.

  Nothing.

  To distract her mind from the growing fear, she tries to think what could be the source of that noise. A mouse, perhaps. The settling of an ancient timber. The wind, rattling a window frame.

  But none of these possibilities even begins to convince her, because she knows exactly what made that little sound: a foot, in a leather-soled shoe, striking the church’s stone floor.

  She senses a change in the air and she knows that whoever came in, whoever made that one mistake and let her hear a footstep, has gone as silently as he – she? – came in.

  Lily is alone.

  And then the panic overcomes her.

  She walks swiftly back up the aisle and pushes open the heavy door. It is, she notes, soundless. In the porch she catches the faint hint of a scent … sandalwood? Perhaps it’s incense. She catches a flash of gold writing on the smaller noticeboard and reads LADY VENETIA THEOBALD’S MISSION TO LIMEHOUSE, and her eyes light upon a piece of paper bearing a banner headline that commands All Good Christian Men and Women Unite Against the Scourges of Lustful Practices, Illegitimate Births and Disease!

  She catches the name James Jellicote: it is at the foot of this piece, and he is its author.

  On a little table beneath the noticeboard there is a small stack of pamphlets about Lady Venetia’s mission, priced at fourpence each, and a small brass-bound wooden box with a slot for the pennies, chained to a ring in the wall. Lily reaches in her little bag for her purse, puts fourpence into the box and takes a leaflet.

  Then she emerges from the porch door into the murk and the gloom of the advancing evening.

  She is not afraid to begin with; indeed, she is ashamed of her sudden terror inside St Cyprian’s. It may be a relatively modern church, she tells herself, but it is very deeply rooted in the past, and undoubtedly it bears many scars. But there is nothing there that can hurt me, she tells herself; nothing to be afraid of! She lifts her chin and steadies her pace, walking easily now, her courage surging back.

  She is halfway along a long street of terraced houses, lit only faintly by gas lamps that are too widely spaced, when she finally has to admit that somebody is following her.

  At first she puts it down to her imagination. Or to some other solitary walker hurrying home. And she cannot be sure, for it sounds less like another set of footfalls and more like an echo of her own, so nearly perfect is the synchronization.

  As if someone was deliberately matching his pace to hers …

  She stops dead.

  For a second or two the other footfalls carry on. Then they too stop.

  She hurries on. She is not running, will not run, but she knows in her bones that she must get as quickly as she can to a place where there is light and the presence of other people.

  Thump, thump, thump, go her feet on the pavement, faster, faster.

  Thump, thump, thump go the other feet. Always, each time she increases her pace, they copy her.

  The street seems endless. No lights show in the windows, the curtains are tightly drawn, the doors no doubt locked and barred against her, and nobody will help her. She knows with some small and still-logical part of her mind that this is nonsense but panic is rising again, too swift and too strong to be stopped.

  The street ends in a T-junction, and the road that runs across it is wide, with the park on the far side. Lily has no idea how she ended up here, for it is not the right way home and she is some way from the road up to Battersea Bridge. But she is encouraged by the sight of this wider, surely more important, road, and she increases her pace again.

  As if her pursuer has realized time is running out, his footsteps accelerate to a trot.

  Lily strides out onto the wider road and looks frantically right and left. To the right there is nobody – nobody! How can it be? Is some malevolence working against her, making sure that she is all alone? – but to the left – oh, thank God! – a hansom cab has just drawn up outside a large house set back a little from the road and the occupant is climbing down, making some remark to the cabbie. The cabbie replies, already clicking to his horse, encouraging him to turn round and set off again.

  Lily yells at the top of her voice, ‘WAIT!’

  She gathers her skirts in her hand and runs down the wide road beside the park as if demons with red fire-filled eyes were after her. Her workman’s boots are sturdy and strong, and she is grateful to the depths of her soul that she elected to wear them and not the fashionable shoes with their constricting toes and their elegant little heels.

  The cabbie speaks a calm word to his horse and the horse stands still. Lily, panting, gasping for air – her stays prevent a good, deep breath – comes dashing up to the cab and the cabbie says pleasantly, ‘Steady on there, miss! I heard you, and I wasn’t going to go without you!’

  ‘Thank you,’ she manages. She tries to climb up into the cab but her legs are jelly and she slumps for a moment against the left-hand shaft.

  ‘You all right down there?’ comes the cabbie’s voice from above.

  ‘Yes!’ It comes out as a squeak. She tries again to get into the cab, this time succeedin
g, and calls out, ‘Hob’s Court, please. It’s across the river, at the end of—’

  ‘I know where it is, miss,’ the cabbie says easily. ‘You just relax, now, and I’ll have you home in two shakes.’

  Lily sinks back against the leather upholstered seat. Her heartbeat gradually returns to normal and her terror recedes.

  She has lost track of the time. As she says goodbye to her saviour the cabbie and hurries into Hob’s Court it is quite dark, and she cannot see her watch. She goes up the steps to number 3 and is just about to put her key in the door when it opens.

  Felix stands there, his face pale and drawn with anxiety. He steps aside so that she can go in, then closes the door with quite a forceful slam.

  She takes off her hat as she walks through to her own office. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asks.

  He doesn’t answer and so she turns round to look at him.

  He meets her eyes, and she can’t read the expression in his.

  After a moment or two he says, ‘I was worried about you. I’ve been – I came out to meet you.’

  And she remembers him saying, I’ll come looking for you if you’re not back by six o’clock.

  Now she can see her little watch. It reads ten minutes past seven.

  She stares at him, and it seems to her that he is fighting to maintain his bland, innocent expression. She says, ‘I am sorry that you were worried. I went to St Cyprian’s after the seance to speak to the Reverent Jellicote, but in fact he wasn’t there. I’ve been thinking about what you said regarding why he’d have encouraged her to marry Ernest if he—’

  Felix’s voice, low and controlled, says, ‘Miss Raynor, it’s a cloudy evening which means an early darkness. There’s someone about in this area who is making women go missing, and whether this means he kills them or whether your friend Mrs Sullivan is correct in her belief that they are spirited away to deserts or harems just doesn’t seem very relevant.’ He is no longer sounding so controlled. ‘And you decide you’re going to go off all by yourself, wandering in the very streets from which women have disappeared, and you come home over an hour late and say I am sorry that you were worried!’ His mimicry of her voice is cruel. He takes a step towards her and now she can see how angry he is. ‘What did you fucking well expect?’

  His furious words echo in the room. Then abruptly he moves away, turning so that she can’t see his face. ‘I apologize,’ he says. ‘It is not my place to question what you do and I had absolutely no right to speak to you in such crude and vulgar terms.’

  She waits until her heart isn’t beating quite so fast. She is shocked, but not by his language. She has worked as a nurse with soldiers in far-flung parts of the world, after all, and is well used to the words men use when their emotions are heightened.

  What has shocked her is that, beneath the anger, she sees fear: he really was worried about her, and the thought that she might have come to harm seems to have distressed him very much.

  She says calmly, ‘Your apology is accepted, Mr Wilbraham. You’re right, I probably shouldn’t have gone to St Cyprian’s on my own when it was getting dark, but I didn’t realize how late it was. Something happened at the seance that rather drove such sensible considerations out of my mind but, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it now.’

  He draws a sharp breath and she senses he very much wants to ask her, despite her reluctance. But he controls himself.

  He goes back into the outer office. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he says neutrally. ‘Make sure to lock up after me.’

  ‘I will,’ she replies.

  ‘Good night, Miss Raynor.’

  ‘Good night, Mr Wilbraham.’

  She hears the door close – much more gently this time – and he is gone.

  FOURTEEN

  In the morning, Lily shows Felix the leaflet. She finds herself standing very straight, face a blank mask, shoulders back, as if to demonstrate that she is firmly in control once more now and has forgotten all about the wild passions coursing through the office late yesterday. Felix’s stiff expression suggests he is equally keen to put the incident behind him.

  It is just as well, Lily thinks, that they have something so positive upon which to concentrate their minds.

  ‘So the Reverend James Jellicote is interested in the prostitutes of Limehouse,’ Felix says, slowly turning the dozen or so pages of the pamphlet. The written content, Lily has already noticed, does not fill all of it, for there are several half-page advertisements. James Jellicote, it appears, has offset the costs of producing his publication by suggesting others pay to advertise in it. Images inviting readers to buy Fry’s Cocoa Powder, a patent ointment for saddle sores, ear trumpets, an anti-fat remedy and Pears’ Soap thus are interspersed with earnest articles about the moral danger of prostitution to both the participants and those who have to witness women enticing their customers, and reminders that it is Christ’s message that we love one another, and not to judge lest we be judged. ‘Hmm,’ Felix goes on. ‘He writes with great authority on the life of a whore.’ He points to an article with a heading in bold upper-case letters, A DAY AND A NIGHT IN LIMEHOUSE. ‘How, I wonder, does he know about several women taking their customers to the one bed? Not at the same time, I presume …’ He reads on. ‘No, they take it in turns. And there’s this section about the problems of staying clean for the more fastidious clients when the only washing facilities comprise a cold tap in a communal yard.’

  ‘No doubt he has made it his business to meet and talk to the women he is trying to help,’ Lily replies. Felix raises his head and gives her a long, slow look. ‘He’s a vicar!’ She is stung to protest, even though he hasn’t said a word. ‘Isn’t it his job to concern himself with those less fortunate than the well-fed householders who sit in his pews every Sunday?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Felix says shortly. ‘But isn’t it at least possible that he uses Christian charity and good works as a cover to mingle with women of loose morals because he enjoys it? Because he finds it exciting and daring?’

  ‘Like Gladstone,’ she says, acknowledging his point. ‘He did his rescue work, as he called it, and trod the path of danger, by which it was taken to mean that he was tempted to do rather more than talk the women out of their sinful ways.’

  ‘I read once that he liked to look at pornography,’ Felix says. ‘Both his reading matter and the company of prostitutes stimulated him, apparently, and he used to scourge himself to – er, to maintain self-control.’

  ‘Quite,’ Lily says. ‘So, are you suggesting our James Jellicote has similar tendencies? That his interest in and support of this mission –’ she points at the Lady Venetia Theobald brochure – ‘has an ulterior motive?’

  Felix shrugs. ‘I wouldn’t like to say. But he’s a man, isn’t he? He’s unmarried, he’s in love with Albertina, or at least he was, so we’re told. Maybe the company of women of easy virtue satisfies his – er, his urges.’

  But Lily hardly hears the last few words, for she has been thinking of something else. Catching Felix’s eye, she is sure he is too. ‘You don’t think he could have anything to do with the missing women, do you?’

  And instead of a robust denial, Felix says, ‘I don’t know.’

  For a moment neither of them speaks. Then Lily thumps her desk, quite hard, and says, ‘I cannot think why we have allowed ourselves to be distracted by these seven women! Oh, I’m not saying they don’t matter – of course they do! – but we are running a business, we have paying clients to think of, and it is high time we gave them priority!’

  ‘But suppose we are right about the Reverent Jellicote,’ Felix says swiftly, ‘and suppose he is taking women off the streets and doing something dark and evil with them? Isn’t this just the sort of thing that someone with Albertina’s sensitivity might pick up? Might his activities, whatever they consist of, be precisely the threat she perceives? He lives close by, doesn’t he? And she goes to his church – it’s where she met her husband!’

 
Lily looks at him in silence for a few seconds. Then she says, ‘I believe you may be right.’

  The remainder of Friday somehow passes.

  Felix meets Marm Smithers for a few beers at lunchtime and Marm tells him glumly that he’s feeling very guilty, having worked out that it’s going to be nigh on impossible to get any lead on why the women are going missing and who is responsible unless and until it happens to another one.

  Which, Felix reflects as he stumbles back to Hob’s Court after several beers too many in the Cow Jumped Over the Moon, is enough to make anyone glum and guilty.

  On Saturday, Lily announces her intention of going to the April Bazaar at St Cyprian’s Church.

  She manages to ignore Felix’s not-very-well-suppressed amusement at her spring bonnet. It once belonged to her grandmother, and the vast circle of straw that pokes forward from the close-fitting crown effectively cuts off virtually all her peripheral vision. It is in a soft gold shade, and Lily has decorated it with swathes of lilac, purple, pink and blue ribbons and a bunch of pansies.

  As she reaches St Cyprian’s Church and goes through the gates to join the modest crowd enjoying the delights of the fair, she is glad she bothered. Her headgear is relatively modest, although walking over Battersea Bridge beneath its huge, sweeping brim attracted several interested looks, a snigger or two and considerable embarrassment to herself. Other women from the Reverend James Jellicote’s congregation have been considerably more daring: one wears a wobbly cardboard structure in the form of a giant cup and saucer; another has fashioned a sailing ship complete with scraps of cotton for the sails; several sport extravagant coronets of foliage – usually laurel – with ribbons and some pretty spring blooms to brighten them up.

  Lily tries her hand at the coconut shy and buys a poke of fudge, which is delicious and melts in the mouth. She sees James Jellicote lobbing the wooden hoops at the hoopla stand, and notices in passing what a strong man he is (he has removed his dark coat and throws the hoops in his rolled-up shirtsleeves and waistcoat). She observes some of the Circle members: George and Robert Sutherland, who both tip their hats to her; Miss Hobson and Mrs Philpott, who are behind the White Elephant stall trying valiantly to sell mismatched china and chipped glassware and fail to notice her.