Pinkerton's Sister

by Peter Rushforth

  The door remained open, and the Reverend Goodchild disappeared inside. The angels now became “guardian angels” – “We are your guardian angels,” they kept saying helpfully – and began to organize the crowd’s orderly entry through the door. “Please remove your hats, gentlemen Pilgrims,” they added from time to time, together with – most emphatically of all – “Have your money ready, Pilgrims.” They gave the distinct impression that they’d knock the hats off the insufficiently pious, and extract wallets from the innermost pockets of the unforthcoming. They took great care to pronounce the capital letter “P” in “Pilgrims” (a slightly aggressive popping sound, a faint mist of spray), to remind everyone that it was there. They guided the crowd the way they wanted them to go, firmly making sure that everyone remembered to pay. People began to swarm in, pressing closer together. Alice clutched Mama’s hand tightly when the time came to go in through the door, and – once more – begin the journey to the Celestial City, though this time there was – when she began it – no wind, and no moon.

  15

  Mrs. Goodchild’s mother – she had been half titillated, half scandalized, when Henry Collis described her as “the Froggiest of all the Frog People” – was sitting at a large kitchen table collecting admission money with undisguised enthusiasm, and placing it in a metal cash box, big enough and formidable enough to contain the week’s takings from A. T. Stewart’s or Arnold, Constable’s department store. The main pleasure of her life must have been removed when her daughter – within a year or so – replaced her as the one to collect the admission fees. No wonder she had died shortly afterward. There was no point in going on. Alice could see what Henry Collis meant about her, and would not have been the slightest bit surprised if Mrs. Goodchild’s mother – she did not know her name – had casually shot out a long coiled tongue and whipped a passing bluebottle into her mouth as a tasty snack, crunching away vigorously.

  Alice watched her face carefully as Mama paid the price of their admission, waiting for a telltale unpursing of the lips. Mama had the money all ready: the Reverend Goodchild had said that they were to be “his very special guests,” but Mama knew the Reverend Goodchild of old. An automatic smile came to the lips of Mrs. Goodchild’s mother at regular intervals – up, down, up, down, like the flame in a gaslight being adjusted – but it was not co-ordinated with what her eyes were seeing, so she sometimes smiled when there was no one in front of her. She may have been smiling at the money, rather than the – er – Pilgrims. A heavily built Goodchild angel stood on either side of her, presumably – as they took no part in the selling of the tickets – as bodyguards to safeguard the takings, holding their harps at slightly aggressive angles. They looked like men riding shotgun on a stagecoach, and their haloes – hanging low over their foreheads – gave them the furtive air of riverboat cardsharps wearing peaked eye-shades.

  “We’re inside the wall!” Charlotte whispered, standing on tiptoe to try to see above the adults all around, and Alice did the same, trying to give the impression that she was seeing everything for the first time, trying to look surprised. She looked back hopefully at Mrs. Goodchild’s mother, but her tongue remained uncoiled and unseen. She had the sort of mouth that could have contained a tongue big enough to leap out and wrap itself around anything that flew, and the look of a woman who would crunch contentedly on whatever she caught: a buzzard, a golden eagle, an innocent passing angel. Telltale feathers – crumpled and crestfallen – would poke out of the corners of her mouth, as if she had swallowed Geronimo. With any luck, he’d have his tomahawk with him, and would be able to hack his way to freedom.

  The crowd was shepherded – “Step this way, Pilgrims! Step this way, Pilgrims!” – by the guardian angels, all of whom possessed the same unco-ordinated (she did not co-operate with Noah Webster when it came to spelling “co-ordinated”) smile as Mrs. Goodchild’s mother. It was mildly disorienting, though the flames of these gaslights gave out no warmth. You imagined that they’d have rehearsed the smiles, just as they’d rehearsed the singing of “Who Would True Valour See” and whatever else they’d be performing. “Smile!” their director would order, and they’d smile, preparing for the Schiffendeckian smiles in the photographs of the future. “Smile!” Again they’d smile. “Smile!” The edges of their mouths would begin to ache. There’d be an increasing sense of strain. One last look behind her at the Froggiest of all the Frog People. Still no signs of a tongue, and – more of a blow, this – still no signs of a tomahawk dramatically emerging from her midriff. They were drawn together in a small paved square in front of the House of the Interpreter. Celia Iandoli – a tall, clever girl who had just left Miss Pearsall’s School for Girls; she could play the piano beautifully – was there with her parents; there was Miss Ericsson, who always spoke nicely to Alice; the full complement of Dibbo Daughters with their parents; Mrs. Courlander and her sister, whose daughter was in the same class as Alice at school …

  Across from them, and blessedly not too close, the Comstocks were holding court in a little circle that included Mrs. Goodchild (ah, that’s why her mother was raking in the cash), Mr. (a rare sighting) and Mrs. Alexander Diddecott, and Mabel Peartree. They regarded themselves as the main attraction of the evening (Mrs. Albert Comstock was Looking Comprehensively Delighted, the cords on her neck – she had a neck in those days – standing out like the framework of a bridge: Look at me! Look at me! Look at me, Being Delighted!) and were being strenuously vivacious. You couldn’t help feeling that – as the unchallenged (who would dare?) guest of honor – she ought to have been clasping a gigantically vulgar bouquet (huge ugly heads, livid colors, the brighter the better) thrust wobblingly upward in both hands by a stammering minute child, lost from sight beneath The Bosom. Heads would roll for this unforgivable oversight, and sharply administered Comstockian cracks from her tightly clenched fan would unleash the boing, boing, boing s as it whacked sharply down to hack. “Off with their heads! Off with their heads!” she’d scream, crimson with fury, the Queen of Hearts with her heart-shaped fan, vigorously decapitating, pointing her finger to unleash thunderbolts. Myrtle, slightly eclipsed by her mama, and seeing Alice and Charlotte, adopted – as if by a natural feeling for ungainliness – various peculiar postures to show off her expensive new dress. It was a dingy shade of green, and she looked like something inadequately disguised to blend in with the undergrowth. She assumed her poses – a model for one of the more fearless modern artists – with an expression of fierce concentration on her face, the same expression she used when she was tying the laces of her boots, a task that clearly challenged the utmost resources of her intelligence. It was probably one of the few things she was allowed to do without close supervision. Intermittently, when she caught Alice’s eyes, she thrust out her large wet tongue. It would have fed a family of five. Hmm. Big tongues, like big buttocks, were a favored feature of the Comstock breed. Myrtle Comstock would have no difficulty whatsoever in pronouncing the letter “r.”

  There was a lot of “Ooh-look!”ing going on.

  “Ooh, look! Look at all those nice signs!” Mrs. Albert Comstock boomed.

  “Ooh, look! What delightful lettering!”

  Boom.

  “Ooh, look!”

  Boom.

  “Ooh, look!”

  Boom.

  (“Ooh, look at me! Ooh, look at me! Ooh, look at me!” That’s what all these “Ooh, looks!” were saying.)

  Boom.

  Boom.

  (“Ooh, look!” came a faint faraway voice from the direction of Lac Qui Parle, the lake itself speaking, rippling the surface, the sky-tinted waters. “The Ocean of Storms, Oceanus Procellarum.”

  “Ooh, look! I decidedly approve!”

  Boom.

  “Charming signs.”

  (He’d used a great deal of paint.)

  People obediently ooh-looked about them as they waited for everyone to be assembled, pointing out – slightly subdued, crushed by the boom of the Comstockian exuberance – the newly-pa
inted signs to each other (there was a strong smell of fresh paint): The House Of The Interpreter, As I Slept I Dreamed A Dream …, To The Wall Of Salvation. On the wall opposite Alice was a sign she hadn’t seen before. I Seek An Inheritance, Incorruptible, Undefiled, And That Fadeth Not Away; And Is Laid Up In Heaven. She began to think of other signs around Longfellow Park, with the same style of lettering, the same colors, as many as she could think of, as quickly as possible. Beware Of The Dog, To The Tropical Aviary, To The Bandstand, Boats For Hire, Keep Off The Grass …

  Keep Off …

  Keep Off …

  Nearby, somewhere out of sight, a trumpet sounded, and everyone fell silent as The Pilgrim’s Progress began.

  “Ooh, listen! A trumpet!”

  Boom.

  Not much escaped Mrs. Albert Comstock’s notice.

  They ooh-listened.

  Dr. Vaniah Odom appeared above them (“Ooh, look!”) on the roof of the House of the Interpreter, like a spokesman in a beleaguered city appearing on the walls to parley, the Citizens upon the walls of Angiers in King John. (“Hear us, great kings,” he should be declaiming, “vouchsafe awhile to stay,/And I shall show you peace and fair-fac’d league …”) Dr. Vaniah Odom was the sort of man who went in for vouchsafing. He raised his hands in the same gesture that the Reverend Goodchild had employed outside the wall, as if in blessing – Alice suppressed the awful, irresistible thought that he looked like a picture she had once seen of the pope on the balcony of the Vatican in St. Peter’s Square – and then began to speak in his special, holy voice, the one that went up at the end of sentences, and in which he made the words all long and drawn out, stretching his vowels. He had two voices: the holy voice, and the angry voice, and it was the angry voice that people heard most on Sundays at All Saints’.

  “As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where there was a den; and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and as I slept I dreamed a dream …”

  As they all gazed upward at Dr. Vaniah Odom, perched in his aerial pulpit, Alice heard Mr. Brittain – a quiet, respectable old man who lodged with Mrs. Barnhouse – urge, distinctly, in an imploring, heartfelt whisper, “Go on, jump! Jump! Why don’t you jump?” Mama turned round to look at him, with an expression of mild reproof. “I didn’t mean to say that quite so loudly,” he whispered to her piercingly. He then said it again, much more quietly. He was a very polite old man, and one with such good taste. (“I’m really looking forward to Vanity Fair,” Alice heard an equally elderly friend confiding to him. “I hear that Becky Sharp is in it, and that she’s something of a naughty girl!” Here was a man doomed to disappointment, breathlessly anticipating wanton displays of drawers and corsets. He and Mr. Brittain – every man should have a hobby – shared their collection of Lindstrom & Larsson catalogues companionably between them, helpfully indicating pages of particular interest as they made new acquisitions. “Page 284, top line, third from left.” Nudge. “Now there’s a naughty girl!”)

  “… I dreamed a dream, and behold I saw a man …”

  The Reverend Goodchild moved through the crowd and stood in the center of the little square.

  “Ooh, look!”

  Boom.

  He was clothed in rags (nicely cut in symmetrical tatters), was carrying a book, and had a great burden upon his back. It didn’t weigh very much, but – when he remembered – he attempted to look burdened. He opened the book, read, and began to weep (his face going all boo-hoo, his shoulders going up and down in a regular rhythm), as the voice of Dr. Vaniah Odom faded away in a manner that he clearly regarded as rather poetic. There’s nothing Reynolds Templeton Seabright can do that I can’t do! This was the message. The Reverend Goodchild’s shoulders went up and down like those of someone coughing, and he assumed a woe-is-me attitude. His spectacles caught the late afternoon sun, like two small circular mirrors.

  “What shall I do?” he lamented.

  Alice hoped that Mr. Brittain might suggest something suitable, but he failed to do so, even though she’d moved helpfully to one side so that her presence in front of him wouldn’t muffle his voice. She’d wanted whatever he had to say to come across loud and clear.

  The Reverend Goodchild was Christian, about to begin his pilgrimage. How on earth would they be able to distinguish the actor from his rôle? “Christian” with a capital “C”, “Pilgrim” with a capital “P”; it was all capital, capital with the Reverend H. P. – Highly Punctuated, Holiness Personified, Hallowed Pilgrim – Goodchild. Capital!

  “He’s very good, isn’t he?” Mrs. Albert Comstock boomed, louder than the Reverend Goodchild was speaking – it wasn’t a question, despite the punctuation – getting her approval in early, and inspiring the actors into scaling ever-higher heights of humbuggery. (This sounded the right sort of word to use.)

  Alice began her journey to the Celestial City, her first journey without Annie, without Papa and Papa’s “friend,” holding the hands of Mama and Charlotte. Papa, who had been standing on the far side of Mama, did not go with them. He was taking part in the production, and, as soon as they were inside the wall, he had left them to go in the direction taken by the Reverend Goodchild.

  They were guided from place to place – “Step this way, Pilgrims! Step this way, Pilgrims!” Up, down, up, down, the brightness of the gaslight intensified and faded – by the whispering frog-faced angels, as they followed the Reverend Goodchild on his pilgrimage to a better world, accompanied by ooh-lookings, ooh-listenings, a continuous cacophony of booms. Gaslight on a warm evening always made her feel headachy and unwell, the hissing like that of unlit escaping gas, the fumes overpowering her, drawing her into drowsy forgetfulness.

  16

  At the end of the journey, as dusk began to fall, she stood with the others just outside the Celestial City, as the flames of torches fluttered in a breeze from the direction of the lake, and the moon became faintly visible, pale, and smudged by clouds. The Goodchild and Griswold angels had become a choir again, and stood in rows – the tallest in the rear – on the roof of a vaguely ecclesiastical structure that had once been a boat shed. Their white gowns glimmered against the dark water of the lake as they began to sing the same song with which the performance had begun.

  “Whooo sooo beeeset him rouuund!” Sobriety Goodchild positively howled. Charlotte started to giggle again. She did not make a sound, but Alice could feel her shaking uncontrollably.

  Just as the Reverend Goodchild was Christian in this first year of The Pilgrim’s Progress, so Papa was Hopeful. Side by side, Papa and the Reverend Goodchild sank to their knees, their hands clasped in prayer, their eyes bright and lifted up to the heavens, a radiance around them, their expressions ecstatic (or as near as they could manage). The Reverend Goodchild’s ecstasy was surprisingly convincing; he was probably thinking about the money that had been raked in by the Froggiest of all the Frog People. She must have held up the cash box and rattled it for him as he walked past, to demonstrate its well-crammed cash-filled condition.

  The lenses of their round wire-framed spectacles caught the light. Sometimes flames flickered there, sometimes the cool tones of the moon’s reflection.

  Papa was nowhere near where she was, but she could smell his breath as if he was breathing into her mouth. It smelled overpoweringly of the sickly-sweet pink cachous he chewed in an unsuccessful attempt to mask the smell of his decaying teeth. Perhaps it was those very cachous that rotted his teeth in the first place. He shared them with his “friend.” Their jaws moved rhythmically as they chewed the small lozenges, making tiny crunching sounds, crushing the bones of small birds in their mouths. They passed the patterned tin between them, its jewel-bright colors like one of her Huntley & Palmer’s tins, moving it across from hand to hand without speaking, like the way they passed her.

  Crunch.

  Crunch.

  Crunch.

  Tinted bubbly foam glistened on their thick lips, and dribbled into their beards.

  Th
e flames of the torches made flapping noises, like sheets on a row of washing lines, as the breeze caught them, and the angels’ gowns fluttered.

  The moon had sharpened, become clearer, fully emerged from the clouds like a large, cold eye staring down on her.

  It was a full moon.

  She and Annie would be brought back again tonight – she found herself thinking, though it had not happened for three weeks (they must have been busy rehearsing) – when the crowds had left, accompanied by Hopeful and Faithful (she had recognized Papa’s “friend”), walking through the churned-up earth and the discarded candy wrappings (“Pilgrims! Pilgrims!”) to the Celestial City. Christian and Faithful had been led up and down in chains at Vanity Fair, and placed in a cage. Faithful had been put to death. First they scourged him, then they buffeted him, then they lanced his flesh with knives; after that they stoned him with stones, then pricked him with their swords; and last of all they burned him to ashes at the stake. This was the part of the performance that she had enjoyed the most. This was the part where she had struggled against a strong inclination to shout “Bravo!” and applaud enthusiastically.

  Charlotte’s shaking intensified. She was doubled over, still holding Alice’s hand with one of her hands, but cupping her other hand over her mouth to stifle the frantic whooping sounds she was making.

  Alice looked at the moon, listened to the wind. There were things she ought to say in the Celestial City, things she ought to say wherever she was.

  Every time I look at the full moon I shall think of you, Papa. For always.

  She clutched Mama’s hand tighter.

  If you tell anyone what has happened, the wind will get you. You cannot escape from the wind. You know that, don’t you? Wherever you try to go, whatever you try to do, the wind will always find you. Even a gentle wind, even a breeze, barely enough to ruffle the leaves on the trees.