tempted to lock you in your bedroom.”
With a splutter of indignation, I thrust my arms into the sleeves of the ragged coat and slammed out the door. That the doorman did not immediately seize me and hand me into charge confirmed what I had begun to suspect of the building’s bohemian ways.
I walked to the Underground station at Russell Square, occasioning a number of scandalised glances and the attention of several police constables, and rode the stinking depths to Liverpool Street. There, I emerged, to climb into an omnibus that took me into Whitechapel. The district was, as always, dreary and oppressive, and I was feeling queasy again and uncertain. I bought a hot pie from a vendor, but it did not help much, and I would have given the remainder to a starved-looking cat, but a child snatched it away before the animal could do more than sniff it.
I wandered up and down for the better part of an hour, cursed and driven away first from one corner and then another by their rightful occupants, approached by two separate men, both of whom lost interest when they heard my tubercular cough, establishing my presence in the neighbourhood and making quite certain that no one was following me. Eventually, I wound up across from the Temple’s front entrance, along with the handful of buskers, acrobats, and pavement vendors who come out of the stonework whenever a crowd is about to pour out. This lot was considerably less skilful and affluent than their West End counterparts. The acrobatic midgets were stretching their backs as if to ease rheumatism while quarrelling violently with their musician, who held a violin case under his arm. The pie-seller’s wares looked flaccid and misshapen. The two flower sellers chatted with a surprising camaraderie, considering the usually fierce territoriality of the breed. And here came another odd one, a massive woman whose full bust strained the bright yellow satin of her dress above the tray she bore, a selection of glittering geegaws. With the ponderous dignity of the profoundly intoxicated, she took up a strategic position across the street from the doors, and no sooner had they opened with the first of the released crowd than she burst into full- throated song.
“ ‘I’m called Little Buttercup—dear Little Buttercup, tho’ I could never tell why,’ ” she warbled in a nearly accurate contralto, the jet beads on her primrose bonnet quivering with effort. She was remarkably successful, and one could imagine that the chief value of the baubles purchased lay in the story that would accompany its display —“You’ll never guess where I bought this hideous thing. There was this creature, from the nineties, I swear, my dears…”
When the tumult had subsided and the buskers were making off, I walked over to examine the dregs in Buttercup’s tray. She had finished with Gilbert and Sullivan (“Sailors should never be shy…”) and moved up in time to Al Jolson.
“ ‘It’s time for mating…’ ” she gushed in a quavering Jolson tenor. “ ‘Anticipating… the birdies in the trees.’ Buy a pretty, my pretty?” she broke off to trill at me with a gust of gin. I poked a scornful finger through the brooches and chains and found a ring, a chip of red glass set in a silver band that would discolour my finger before morning. I put it on.
“Loverly, dearie, a piece of real ruby that is. You’ll treasure it forever.”
“I doubt that,” I said dryly, and haggled her down from her ludicrous price to a couple of farthings. I paid her, tucked my near-empty purse back into its pocket, and turned to look at the doors again.
“I shall stay on the street until you come out, Russell,” said Holmes in his normal voice.
“As you know,” I muttered with my hand over my face, “there is a good doorway up the street.”
“If you find the path blocked, do not force it. We will return.”
“Your singing voice is unearthly, Holmes, and the hat is ungodly. Nonetheless, I am glad you are here. I shall see you in a few hours.”
“If you do not appear by dawn, I shall storm the city of women,” he declared, but the jest was paper-thin. I drifted off.
Twenty minutes later, when the nearby pubs were calling for final orders, I eased into a dim corner for my final preparations. Makeup was all very well and good, but it would not fool a doctor, and I suspected that I would be examined in the shelter. I took a small wide-mouthed bottle out of my coat pocket, put it to my mouth, and sucked at it until it had attached itself firmly to my lip. I left it there for a minute, and when I broke the suction, I felt the flesh instantly begin to swell. I spent a few more minutes loosening my hairpins and pulling a small rent in the sleeve of my dress, stowing away my spectacles and running a layer of grime over face and clothes, then placed the bottle in a corner, peered cautiously out to be certain there was no eye on me, and stepped onto the pavement. I held myself as if my ribs pained me and walked up to Margery Childe’s refuge for women.
TWENTY
Saturday, 5 February-
Sunday, 6 February
—Saint Catherine of Siena (c. 1347-1380)
The small brass plaque beside the door read:
NEW TEMPLE IN GOD
WOMEN AND INFANT TEMPORARY REFUGE
I mounted the steps and rang the bell.
There was as yet little activity in the shelter, as the pubs had just closed and the drunks had yet to reach the arms of their loving families. The woman in front of whom I eventually stood saw only a luckless prostitute in need of doctoring and reforming; she did not see the young heiress who had stood with her outside Parliament to distribute pamphlets and returned afterwards to dine in Margery’s rooms. Ruby Hepplewhite looked up at me, polite, condescending, unseeing.
I twisted the tin ring around and around, tongued my nicely swollen lip, and tried to imagine myself into my role.
“Now, miss…”
“LaGrand, miss. Amie LaGrand.”
“Miss… LaGrand. Is that actually your name?” she asked doubtfully. I twisted the ring furiously.
“Er, well, no, miss. It’s Mudd. Annie Mudd. My—it was given to me ’cause it sounded better, like.”
“I see. Well, Miss Mudd—Annie. You understand that this is a temporary shelter for women and their children who find themselves without a home. It is not an hotel.”
“I do know that, miss. I ’eard about you, on the street, the work you do. And when this… when I… I thought of comin’ ’ere,” I ended weakly. She took in the state of my face and clothes for the first time.
“I see. Sit down, Annie. How old are you?”
“Twenty-one, miss.”
“The Refuge is run by the New Temple in God, Annie. One of the things we require is the truth.”
“Sorry, miss. Eighteen, miss—on my next birthday. Come April.”
