The Tiger in the Well, Page 22

  "Oh, stop lying, Mr Beech. Have you any notion of what this has led to?"

  "Please, Miss - er - Lockhart, please keep your voice a little lower, I beg you--"

  "I have a daughter. Yes, an illegitimate daughter, but mine, and I love her. Her father is dead. I knew nothing of Mr Parrish before I was suddenly served with papers saying that he was suing me for divorce, and custody of my child. He was able to tell this - this fantastic lie because of what you did three years ago when you entered a false record in the marriage register. I've been trying to find you ever since I saw it there, and now I've finally tracked you down, you're going to have to testify in court that you made that false entry. You're the only person who can say with absolute certainly that Parrish did not marry me that January. If you. . ."

  She stopped, aware that he was shaking his head. She stared. He looked down.

  "You're going to have to," she said again.

  "No. I cannot."

  "Why? Why are you doing this to me? My daughter - you'll let a complete stranger take her away from me? Why?"

  He swallowed several times, tried to speak, made as if to get up. She reached across the table and seized his papery wrist, aware of the urgent strength in her fingers, and quite willing to snap those frail bones if that would have helped.

  "Please - you're hurting me -"

  "Why did you do it? What hold has he got over you, for God's sake? Why won't you admit it's not true?"

  "I cannot - I cannot be spoken to like this--"

  The door opened. Mr Beech looked round like a guilty schoolboy.

  "May I ask what is the occasion for this extraordinary display?" said the priest who'd shown Sally in.

  She let go of Mr Beech's wrist, and he sank backwards, snivelling, his lower lip quivering, tears in his eyes.

  "I am trying to persuade Mr Beech to do what he knows is right. He has grievously harmed me and endangered my child, and only he can make things right. Mr Beech, I ask you again: will you testify in court that you made a false entry in that marriage register?"

  "I cannot be compelled. . . It would be quite incompatible with my, my, my work for the Order of Sanctissima Sophia for me to be submitted to the cross-examination of a -"

  "Very well. Will you sign an affidavit saying it?"

  "I cannot do that. It would be improper for a man of, of the cloth to commit himself to, to an oath of any kind. . ."

  "Mr Beech has made his position clear, it seems to me," said the other man. "I think you will not gain anything by adopting a threatening manner. I must ask you to leave -"

  He moved towards her, and desperately she said, "Very well, I shan't threaten Mr Beech with anything. I'll even withdraw my request for his help in court. He can stay here undisturbed. But you must see that I need to know why! Why did you do it? Was it Parrish who made you, or someone else? What did they do to make you sign that register?"

  "No, it was not! I don't know anyone called Parrish!"

  "You wrote a letter to a clergyman in Clapham recommending Mr Parrish. You must have known him."

  "I was ill!"

  "Who was it, three years ago? Who came to you and got you to sign the register?"

  They were all three standing, and none of them moved for some moments. Finally Mr Beech made a convulsive little shudder and began to cry. His shoulders heaved, the tears ran thickly down his cheeks, his hands mopped helplessly at his nose and his eyes. The other man turned and let him out of the door; Sally heard his frail footsteps mount the stairs.

  The priest shut the door again.

  "I do not know what is best in this case," he said heavily. "Mr Beech is of course subject to the disciplines of this Order, which he joined recently, but they do not include the power to force brothers to reveal anything they wish to keep private. . . But there is another involved, namely yourself, and if I understand you correctly, there is a child in danger. This is very difficult."

  He looked at the tawdry picture over the mantelpiece as if for inspiration.

  "What I can do is this. It did not come to me in the confessional, and I don't consider it especially secret; the housekeeper knows, and the gardener's boy knows, and better you should hear it from me than from someone of that sort. Mr Beech has been suffering for years from a condition which he contracted as a young man. He told me when he first joined this Order that he had recovered from it, but to my sorrow I discovered that that was not true. He was receiving packages brought to him and left in the care of the housekeeper, as I say, or the gardener's boy. So I can make a guess that the sender of those packages was the same person who made him do whatever it is that has hurt you - the same person who is still in control of him."

  "Still?"

  "Oh, yes. Mr Beech is unhappily still a victim; I fear that at his age. . ."

  "But what is this illness of his? And why should it give anyone else a hold over him?"

  "Oh, I beg your pardon; I should have made it clearer. Mr Beech is a victim of morphine. He is addicted to the consumption of opium."

  Opium. . .

  Sally had shivered when she heard that. She'd had experience of what opium could do, and she understood, now, Nicholas Bedwell's curious reference in the letter: because his twin brother had been trapped, as Mr Beech was, into helpless dependence on the drug.

  So it was blackmail: sign that register, or we'll expose you. And, his will weakened by years of addiction, he'd signed. All that Sanctissima Sophia nonsense was an attempt to forget, to cover up, to distract his guilt by flinging mysticism in its face. How many other weak little crimes had he committed, how many other lies had he told?

  But they were still supplying him with the drug. That was interesting. It was why he didn't want to say any more, of course; they might cut off the supply. There was something in this opium connection that made an alarm bell jangle somewhere in Sally's mind. The hair on her neck was bristling, and she didn't know why.

  She spent the early part of the evening playing with Harriet and cutting bread for the supper which they all shared. Harriet was definitely not well. She had a slight fever, and she couldn't concentrate on any game for long without becoming cross and tearful, and Sally was torn between her desire to fuss over Harriet and her awareness of the much worse sufferings of some of the other children.

  When she had a spare moment, she went to the dispensary to see if Dr Turner could reassure her about the fever; and, to her surprise, she found the doctor alone and in tears.

  "Oh - silly - can't help it, damn it - but it always takes me like this - oh, when will we be able to change things?"

  Sally put her arms around her and let her sob. It seemed that a woman with tuberculosis had come to the Mission earlier on, and Dr Turner had had to send her away. She should have gone to the London Hospital in the Whitechapel Road, not far away, but she'd refused.

  "They know it's a sentence of death - they only go there to die, they all say that, and they won't go in - she begged me to let her in here, but oh, I can't let disease in - I just daren't - any infection will spread and spread - she's just going to sleep in the street, I know it -"

  Sally let her cry; she was so strong, so honest in her tears, that Sally had to cry too, for Dr Turner, for the little boy Johnny, for the woman with consumption, for all those poor stunted lives. And all her own fears and problems seemed not separate for once but part of them, part of this great ocean of unhappiness that was lapping at the door of the Mission.

  "I'm no use to you," Sally said.

  They looked at each other, each tear-stained and red-eyed. Dr Turner shook her head. Then she stood back and blew her nose and sighed.

  "Come and listen to Jack Burton tonight," she said. "He'll cheer us both up."

  "Who's he?"

  "A docker. He's trying to get all the dock-workers behind the union, so the union can help all the workers. Unless they're united, you see, they can be exploited so easily - Jack Burton's so cheerful, such a powerful speaker, he lifts my heart, makes me think it's all p
ossible - do come, Sally! May I call you Sally? I'm Angela."

  "I'd like to. I'd love to. This a new world to me; I'd never dreamt of things like this, troubles like this - those matchbox-makers I saw this morning - but . . . I'm worried about Harriet. She's got a slight fever, and I don't think I ought to go out. Anyway, there's someone coming to see me. About the business involving Harriet, you remember. I'll tell you more about it soon; I found out something today. I think I'm on the track."

  "You'll come another time? Sally, I can't tell you how much strength there is, how much wasted talent and imagination and - all those qualities like intelligence and courage and leadership and vision - they're all there, in working men and women - they don't need middle-class do-gooders like me! All they need is the chance. . ."

  "They don't respect you because you're middle-class, for goodness' sake, Angela, they respect you because of what you are yourself. You're a doctor - how many doctors choose to work here? Think how valuable that is! And you're a woman who struggled to become a doctor - and people know how difficult that is and how determined you must have been to do it. You know how valuable your work is. And you know how well you do it. Don't you? Don't let them corner all the pride. You've got things to be proud of too."

  "Them?"

  "The enemy. The landlords, the factory owners."

  "The capitalists?"

  "Yes. Including me, I know. But I'm not one of them. And I'm learning all the time."

  Angela nodded, and blew her nose again, and smiled briskly with her red-rimmed eyes.

  "Now, what's the matter with Harriet?" she said. "Let's go and have a look."

  Bill was busy. The melamed, Mr Kipnis, had found a surge of energy in some bottle or other and was making him work hard at his tattered copy of Webb, Millington and Co.'s New Indestructible Pictorial Lesson Book.

  "I bought that for you personally," he said for the tenth time in their acquaintance, "I went looking down the Farringdon Road. Spent hours till I found it. Cost me threepence. There's a lot of wear in that book. Do your best, now. Do that one there, that wossname, that bird."

  His trembling fingers fumbled the book open. Bill looked down at a picture of an owl, and frowned as he tried to make out the words below it.

  "The . . . that's an owl, innit? The Owl - is to be - found - among - old . . . old . . . I can't do that one, Mr Kipnis."

  "Giss a look." The old man peered at it. "Ruins, boy. See, there's a bloody great R, then you go oo, and then you got ins. Ruins. Go on. You do it."

  "Ruins, and in - holl . . . hollow trees." He felt a sense of relief at every full stop; it meant he'd got a bit further. Already the little words were becoming transparent: he could see through them into the text, like a lot of little windows into a house. And day by day more light got in, so that the big words were beginning to look familiar too, and he felt more able to guess what they might be, and got more of his guesses right. It wouldn't be long now before he'd be able to go straight to the Communist Manifesto. "It feeds on . . . on . . . young . . . hares, rabbits - here, look, Mr Kipnis, there's rabbits on this page and all. That's rabbits, innit?"

  "That's right, boy. You're doing well. It's a good book, this 'un. Lot of wisdom in this book. Here. . ."

  Mr Kipnis looked around blurrily. They were in the lodging-house in Dean Street, and Goldberg was out. The melamed beckoned Bill closer and leant over to say quietly:

  "Summing I heard today. You tell Mr Goldberg they're looking for him. The coppers. He ought to lie low for a bit. They're after him, that's what I heard. You tell him, all right?"

  "The coppers? What for?"

  "I dunno that, do I? But he wants to keep out the way. No sense in provoking trouble if you can run and keep out of it."

  "Suppose he don't want to run?"

  "That's what Jewish people always have to do, son. We're not wanted anywhere. The best we got to hope for, it's just keeping down, keeping out of trouble. Course, it'd be different in Jerusalem. In Eretz Israel. But that's not for the likes of us, not in our lifetime." He sighed melodically; his ancient eyes were moist. His fingers fumbled for the tin flask in his pocket, and he nodded to the book. "Go on, boy, that whatchamacallit, that owl. Don't stop."

  Frowning, Bill picked up the book again. Running away - keeping out of trouble - that didn't sound like Goldberg. Or Kid Mendel. There must be Jews who didn't run away. What kind of respect would the great Bridie Sullivan of Lambeth Walk have for him if he turned and ran? She had fellows like Liam to compare him with.

  "Don't forget, now," said Mr Kipnis. "You pass it on, what I said."

  "All right, Mr Kipnis. But he won't run - you watch. It feeds on . . . young hares, rabbits, rats, mice and birds. It - seeks its food when - night comes on. . ."

  At eight o'clock that evening, the maid opened the door of the office, where Sally was filing some letters, and said, "Lady to see you, miss."

  It was Margaret. Sally gave a little gasp, and they embraced.

  "Did you get - did he come -"

  "Oh, Sally, you've no idea -"

  Margaret's expression was troubled. Sally pulled out a chair and let her talk.

  "Ever since Thursday - all yesterday in fact, and all this morning - there've been men in the office, accountants, going through everything - every letter, every file, every single thing. They came first thing yesterday morning. They were going to take it all away. They had a warrant, but I read it very carefully, and it didn't say anything about taking things away, so I ran down and got the porter to lock the door while I ran next door to that odd little lawyer, you remember him, the man with the limp? He was excellent. He came straight away and looked at the warrant - they were about to smash the door down and he said if they'd done that he'd have sued them for damages - at any rate, I engaged him at once, and he made sure they didn't take anything away, but had to do all their searching there. Sally, they're taking our business to pieces! Mr Wentworth - he's the lawyer - he's discovered that it's not just your money they're after - it's the business itself and according to the papers he's seen, they're applying for some order to make us stop trading on the grounds that the company's improperly registered. It all comes back to the marriage claim. The idea is that since you didn't reveal that you were trading with your husband's money, all our activities are illegal. They're just - helping themselves. . . I've been there all day trying to answer questions, trying to stem it, and I think they've done all they can for the moment - Mr Wentworth has been wonderfully industrious, he's understood everything and worked as quickly as anyone could hope, he's applied for every kind of stalling process - injunctions, writs, I don't know, everything possible - and it's held them up until Monday. But he can't do any more without your authority to act. If he can look at the papers in your case against Parrish, he might be able to find another way through. But oh, Sally, they were so arrogant - they seemed to think they had the right to just walk in and take anything they wanted - I know how you felt now - corrupted - invaded - it's horrible. . ."

  Cool, ironic Margaret, talking like this, showing her helplessness: Sally was shaken.

  "But what's been happening to you?" Margaret went on. "How did you get here? What is this place? Who's the man who came to the office? Oh, don't worry, we didn't speak in front of the men. And how's Harriet?"

  Sally told her everything that had happened. Only a couple of days, and it felt like an epic. She finished with the strange, unsatisfactory, but tantalizing interview with Mr Beech, and the revelation about opium.

  "Margaret, I don't know why, but I keep coming back to that. There's something there that's not right. But would this lawyer, Mr Wentworth, would he really be able to take on my case? Do you trust him?"

  "Yes, I do. He's quick and he's clever and he's honest. He hasn't got many clients, I think. I mean he's not very prepossessing. Perhaps people choose their lawyers for their looks; and his office is very shabby. But yes, seeing what he's done, I'd trust him with anything now. The only thing is this: you'll have
to give yourself up to the police."

  "But - absolutely not! I couldn't possibly--"

  "Listen. He can't help you if you're in hiding. He'd only get into trouble himself, and then it would be impossible. He's got to act within the law. But once you give yourself up and appoint him, he can get you bail for the gun business, you know, in the tea-shop, get Harriet made a ward of court to keep her safe from Parrish for the time being, get all the papers from your previous solicitor and start work right away. Unless you do that, he can't act."

  Sally got up and walked to the window. It overlooked the street, and there was nothing but darkness out there now, with one or two dim gaslamps to hold it back. Much of Whitechapel - the main streets, at least - was lively during the early evening, with pubs and market stalls doing a fine trade, but this was a quiet street, and no one was out at all.

  She leant her forehead on the cold glass. If she had a good lawyer working for her, he might be able to fight it off, this evil craziness. Parrish's claim would be dismissed, Harriet would be safe, she'd get her money back, the business would be rescued.

  But further off in the darkness lay the Tzaddik. He was the source of it. If Parrish were disposed of, it wouldn't make any difference; the Tzaddik was too well concealed, and there wouldn't be the slightest trace to connect him with Parrish. Furthermore, he'd be warned by what happened, and withdraw even further.

  And out there in the dark, he'd be able to mount another attack. And like this one, it would be so well prepared, so long in coming, that the blow, when it fell, would be deadly. Perhaps there was another trap already prepared in case this one failed; from the thoroughness with which he'd set this one up, she didn't think he'd fail to cover every possibility. Her life might already be surrounded invisibly by dozens of traps, all ingenious and deadly and just waiting to be sprung.

  No: her fight was with the Tzaddik, and her best chance of winning it was to stay in hiding and for the moment let Parrish do his worst. If it were just her property, though, she'd give it up without a thought; but there was Margaret to consider; and if once they found out where Harriet was. . .

  She turned around, intending to say she didn't know what - tell Margaret about the Tzaddik, perhaps; but before she could speak, the door opened, and there stood Goldberg.