by Vicary, Tim
For Martin Armstrong, the rolled-up blanket in Sarah Becket's bed had been like the sight of his own grave. He was a large man, overweight, addicted to good food and drink, and, when he had first seen that roll of hairy cloth where the woman's head should have been, he had thought his heart would drown in its own blood. There had been an intense pain in his chest and he remembered clutching the wardress, sweating, screaming something at her.
What he had said did not matter. It couldn't be her fault, surely. She was tough, stupid, unimaginative — she had helped him force-feed the woman every time he had done it. It had to be something to do with the other suffragettes in the prison, as the governor seemed to think. They had got her out while the wardresses were trying to control the demonstration.
Oh, what did it matter how the woman escaped or who organised it? The point was that she was out, free, and within a day at most she would be telling her story to all and sundry. His life would be in ruins!
Twice he had tried to leave the governor's office, pleading that he had important appointments to keep with patients, but the governor had insisted that he send notes cancelling them. Not until three o'clock, when the songs of the suffragettes on C landing had been quelled, and several of them had been interviewed with no result, was he able to leave. He made immediately for his consulting rooms in Kensington.
As he sat in the cab on the way across town he totted up in his mind the list of dreadful things that were likely to happen, and what he could do about them.
First, Sarah Becket would tell her husband that she had been forcibly fed. And so Jonathan Becket, KC, MP, would know that he had lied to him. He would undoubtedly be furious. But what could he do about it, Martin wondered. Complain in Parliament, ask questions of the Home Secretary? Perhaps, but complaints had been made in Parliament about forcible feeding many times before. Public opinion was divided about it — many people would support the government. Particularly since this woman had destroyed an irreplaceable work of art, and then escaped from prison. Publicly. McKenna would be bound to stand firm and support Martin. There was no problem there.
Martin thought carefully. Jonathan might say that he asked me for help, though, and I lied to him, he realised. That wouldn't look so good. I could stop him from doing that by threatening to reveal that he visits prostitutes — that would shut his mouth. But then, if I actually did reveal that, he could tell the world that I rent rooms to these same prostitutes, which would ruin us both. That's no good, then. Damn.
The worst aspect of all, however, was that Sarah Becket knew, or appeared to know, a great deal about the brothels and prostitutes which Martin profited from. Ever since she had confronted him with this in her cell at Holloway — when he had gone in at the request of her husband to help the wretched woman, damn her to hell! — Martin had been wondering what to do about it. He would have to close the brothels down, he could see that. Move the girls to a different address where they could not be traced, and let the rooms to a respectable married couple, or a few elderly widows, or something. But such things took time, and he had been earning good money every day by leaving things as they were. So long as Sarah Becket had remained isolated in prison, nothing could have happened.
He had promised himself that he would begin the moves next week. He had already broached the subject with Mrs Burgoyne and received such a poor response that it had terrified him.
‘Maybe you'll be sent down for a good long time, Doctor,’ she had said. ‘But I won't, and neither will the girls. A couple of months in the first division, at most. It's not such a crime or a scandal for us. If the Home Office start getting too harsh I shall threaten to name names in open court, and that'll stop 'em. Prominent lawyers with their members waving in the air and their pinstriped trousers round their ankles — won't look good in the columns of The Times, will it now?’
If she was forced to move at short notice from the rooms in Kensington, she said, she would have to cut down the amount of money she paid him. He already took far too large a cut for doing next to nothing.
It was after that conversation that he had returned to Holloway to find that Sarah Becket had decided to give up her fast and begin eating again. A decision which had enraged him so much with its pure wilfulness and perversity that he had lost his temper entirely and gone into her cell with a dose of bromide so large that it might easily kill her.
It had not done so and in a way he was glad, because the post mortem would have shown him to be incompetent at the least. But on the other hand, a dead suffragette could tell no tales. He would have been able to keep the girls and Mrs Burgoyne in the rooms where they were . . .
Now they would have to go. Today. Otherwise his career would be in ruins. He would be struck off the medical register. He would lose his posts in Holloway and the charitable children's home, and be unable to practise privately. He would be imprisoned. His wife would desert him.
He got out of the hansom cab outside his consulting rooms in Kensington and looked at the brass plate by the door and the rich curtains in the rooms upstairs. I was too greedy, he thought. Too confident. I thought that no one would suspect anything because this is such a respectable neighbourhood, with a doctor's plate downstairs. No one would think this could possibly be a brothel, and so rich, respectable men like Jonathan Becket would be happy to come here and pay ten times the normal fee.
God, I should never have pandered to a man with such a damned puritan killjoy for a wife!
But that's why they all come.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
He strode through the door and up the stairs. This deep pink stair carpet cost me nearly forty pounds, he thought bitterly, only a month ago. All wasted. On the stairs he met an eminent lawyer with a satisfied smirk on his face. Martin strode past him without a word.
Two hours later, after an extremely bitter and wounding conversation. Mrs Burgoyne and all the girls currently in residence had packed their bags and gone. Where they had gone, Martin did not, for the moment, know. They had not gone quietly, either. Not only had they made some extremely cutting remarks about his personal sexual abilities, they had flounced down into the street in their most conspicuous feathered hats and striking dresses, and sang and shouted at passers-by on the pavement while Mrs Burgoyne dithered around trying to hail a taxi. When Martin had gone down to check that they had finally left for good, he had noticed several neighbours staring openly at him from across the street.
Then, when he turned to go in, he saw that one of the girls had taken a penknife and scratched the words Cunt For Sale underneath his name on the brass plate. Appalled, he dashed indoors, found a large screwdriver, and wrenched the thing bodily off the wall.
He spent another desperate three quarters of an hour clearing the place of anything that might be seen as incriminating evidence if the police should visit, or which might put off the seventy-year-old widows he hoped to introduce as new respectable tenants. In one cupboard he found a collection of dildoes and fancy underwear, in another a selection of young girl's dresses, in a third some ropes, straps, handcuffs, boots and riding whips. He took all these down into the kitchen and fed as many as he could into the fire. The rest went into a dustbin in the back yard.
The two things he kept were the large, leather-bound book in the front sitting room, with the photographs of girls and descriptions of their interests; and Mrs Burgoyne's book of accounts. She was a meticulous woman, well organised, and he was amazed she had left them. Probably she had forgotten in all the hysteria and the fun of mocking his sexual prowess.
He put them into his briefcase, thinking they would be useful when everything had calmed down and he was trying to set up a network again. Then he had a final look around, went outside, and hailed a cab for Hackney.
‘How d'ye do, Reeves. Fine morning. Is my sister-in-law at home?’
‘No sir, I'm afraid she is not.’
‘Oh really? That's a surprise. She's usually here at midday.’ Jonathan handed his top hat and gloves to his butler
and began to shrug his way out of his coat. Reeves hung up the hat, dropped the gloves on the hall stand, and then moved behind Jonathan to help him off with his coat. There was something in the man's manner, Jonathan thought, which was slightly odd.
‘Anything up, Reeves?’
Jonathan hoped not. It was a fine, breezy spring morning. His business in Sussex had gone well, and he had returned on the train to London in cheerful, expansive mood. He had thought quite a lot about his sister-in-law on the way, and realised he had been a bit precipitate that first night when she had arrived. After all she leads a sheltered life over in Ulster with that dreadful prig Charles. Of course she is fond of me but it will take time to make any progress.
He had hoped to find her here waiting for him in Belgrave Square. They could have had lunch together and gone out for a walk in the park, and he would have been charming and urbane and impressed her with his knowledge of the world. Then, perhaps a few days later . . .
He glanced at Reeves again. The man had not answered and there was definitely something odd, uneasy, in the expression on his face.
‘Come on, man. Out with it! What's up!’
‘It is . . . a little hard to say, sir. Perhaps . . . it would help if you came into the library.’
‘The library? Why — is there a visitor?’
‘No, sir.’ Reeves opened the double doors of the hall, and stood back. ‘On your desk, sir.’
Jonathan walked to the writing desk. It was a piece of furniture he was exquisitely proud of. It had been given to him in part settlement of a fee in his first really prestigious case. There was a letter lying on it. He reached out a hand to pick it up and then stopped, stunned.
‘My God! What the devil is this?’
‘I think perhaps the letter will explain, sir. It is from Mrs Cavendish.’
‘Yes, but my God! The desk — it's slashed to ribbons!’
‘Indeed, sir.’
Jonathan stretched out his hand across the ragged edges of ripped leather and picked up the envelope. The paper knife was there on the desk beside it. He slit the envelope.
Jonathan,
I will not write 'dear' because you are not that any longer. You will see from your desk that I have become a vandal, like Sarah. I believe it is from the same cause. What that may be is for your conscience to discover. I hope one day you repent of your perversion and become the brother-in-law I once knew. Until then, the damage I have done to your desk is as nothing to what you deserve.
Don't expect to find me here because I cannot bear to spend another night under your roof. I am going back to Glenfee.
Deborah.
Underneath was another sentence in a slightly different shade of ink, as though it might have been written later.
PS. It may be that you think you deserve a fuller explanation of this. If you think you do, meet me at the Anglesey Hotel, near Waterloo Station, between four and five.
He read the letter twice, astonished. Then he realised that Reeves was still standing deferentially, watching him. He had a sudden overwhelming desire to be alone.
‘Yes, I see. That will be all, Reeves. You may go.’
‘Sir.’ The man inclined his head and left, his polished shoes clicking quietly across the floor. When he had gone, Jonathan stood for a moment in a daze, the letter crumpled in his hand. Then he sank abruptly into the chair in front of the desk and fingered the torn leather.
My God, he thought. Debbie did this! What the devil has she found out?
I hope one day you may repent of your perversion.
I go away for two nights and my wife's sister believes I have become a monster. Has all the world gone mad?
Sarah had not slept after all, that afternoon. Deborah felt guilty about it. Sarah looked far paler and weaker and thinner than she had expected. Twice she had insisted on leaving the room but each time Sarah had called her back, like a fractious child.
‘I've been alone in a cell so long,’ she said. ‘You can't understand what a joy it is to have company. Don't go, please.’
So Deborah stayed and they talked. First, about life in prison, and how she had escaped. Then, innocuously, about Charles in Ireland. Sarah had not heard about the gun-running. She was intrigued, but not afraid, at all. She agreed with Deborah that, even if there was a conflict, women and children would be safe, and the fact of the troubles would mean that Ulster police would be too busy to search for missing suffragettes. But Deborah wondered if Sarah was strong enough to travel.
Sarah laughed. A rather strained, hoarse laugh from her scarred throat, but a laugh for all that.
‘Don't worry — I may look thin but I'm not dead yet. This is the essential me you see before you, Debbie, bereft of all unnecessary fat. I think it's a wonderful idea going to Glenfee.’
‘At least you will be safe from the London police.’
‘Yes. I may have been a martyr for a week, but I have no desire at all to go back to prison. The further we can get from Holloway the better.’
For a while they talked about Tom. Deborah was determined to keep all news of her own problems from Sarah until she was stronger. Or at least until they were on the train.
Then, inevitably, they talked about Jonathan. Quietly, bitterly, Sarah told her sister the story of what she had discovered that day before she slashed the picture. And the role Martin Armstrong had played. It was as Deborah had suspected. Anxiously, she asked: ‘Was I right to invite Jonathan here? If you don't want to see him, I can go downstairs and see him myself, or ask Mrs Stewart to send him away. He doesn't even know you're here, and he'll never suspect it.’
Sarah thought for a minute. She stared quietly out of the window into the sunlight over the mews, the bones over her sunken face clear and proud as those of a Spanish aristocrat. Then she said, very quietly: ‘No. Send him up. I want to see him.’
‘I shall be with you all the time. You mustn't let him tire you too much.’
A faint, bitter smile flickered on Sarah's face. ‘It will be exhausting, of course. But it has to be done. You were right to arrange it. What time will he be here?’
‘Between four and five, I said.’
‘Then I must be up and dressed by then. I don't want to meet him like an invalid.’
‘You should rest before then.’
‘I'll try, if you stay beside me. You don't have to talk. Just be here.’
And so Deborah drew the curtains and sat quietly in an armchair by the fire, her hands clasped softly on her stomach, thinking, while Sarah lay in her bed and dozed. Both of them, from time to time, glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and watched the way its hands gradually swept on towards four . . .
‘Your visitor, Mrs Cavendish. In here, sir, if you please.’
‘Hello, Debbie.’
‘Jonathan. So you came?’
‘As you see.’
Mrs Stewart closed the door softly behind him. Jonathan stood in the pleasant sitting room, taking in the flowery, overstuffed armchairs, the light cheerful wallpaper, the pictures of country scenes on the walls. The rigid, unsmiling pose of his sister-in-law standing in front of him.
‘May I sit down?’ Jonathan had left his hat and coat downstairs. He felt awkward, standing like this in a modest hotel room. It reminded him a little of the rooms above Martin Armstrong's consulting rooms. Don't think of that now.
‘I think I would rather say what I have to say to you standing, Jonathan.'
She knows then, he thought. How on earth did she find out? He held out his hands, took a pace towards her.
‘Debbie, what is all this? Why on earth are you here?’
‘Partly, Jonathan, because I couldn't bear to stay in your house any longer. Oh Johnny, do I have to spell it out to you? Not only have you betrayed your own wife and lied to me — you put her life at risk by what you did!’
‘Her life? Sarah's you mean? What in the world are you talking about, Debbie? I tried to help her — you know I did!’
‘By sending in Martin
Armstrong?’
‘Yes. Of course. You know that — you were there.’
Deborah stared at him. Her own husband, she thought. Sarah could have been killed if Ruth had not rescued her. Does he really not know?
‘Listen, Johnny. We know all about the . . . the women you went to see above Martin Armstrong's flat. We know about the little girls he takes there and the money men pay to seduce them. And about the house in Hackney — and you know all this too! So how could you possibly take me to see such a man and then pretend he had persuaded her to eat? Johnny, he nearly killed her!’
Silence. Jonathan stood very still, trying to take in what she had said. She looked so flushed, furious with herself because of the tears that were coming to her eyes because of the trauma of this moment. All the way here he had told himself that her letter meant she must have found out about his whoring. Though he could not understand how. But this was worse than that, much worse.
‘Debbie, I don't understand you. Truly.’
‘Then if you don't understand her, ask me.'
He hadn’t noticed the door into the bedroom which had been left ajar. Now he turned and saw . . .
A ghost.
‘Sarah!’ But it was not Sarah. This woman was too thin, too pale and anyway this is the wrong place entirely she must be really dead as Debbie says . . .
‘Everything she says is true, Jonathan. Every word.’
‘But . . .’ He recovered, took a step towards her. ‘My dear, is it really you?’
‘Don't touch me, Jonathan!’
Well, that at least rang true.
‘Why did you send that man to torture me? Debbie is right — I might have died. Do you hate me so much?’
‘I don't . . . Sarah, why are you here? Have you been released, is that it?’
On the proud, beautiful face a wintry smile. No love though. ‘I escaped. Don't ask me how.’
‘I don't care how! My dear, you look ill. Won't you sit down? I can't bear to see you like this.’
Sarah paused, then sat. It was true, her legs were shaking. But maybe that was with anger. Very quietly, her throat hurting slightly with the words, she said: ‘Jonathan, I went out to slash that picture as a political protest against the government's treatment of Mrs Pankhurst, but also because I had discovered what you were doing when you were visiting Martin Armstrong. You didn't really get treatment for a stomach complaint, did you? You were visiting prostitutes. Don't pretend – I know quite well it's true. You must imagine how much that hurt me. It would hurt any woman but especially me. Jonathan, you know how my father died. When I married you I believed that I had found an honourable man who would never, ever do such a thing, and yet . . .’