The Outcast Girls

by Alys Clare

  It is quite clear that she does remember.

  She says lightly, ‘Only one of them. Look, Marm has managed to get into his coat at last. Goodnight, Felix.’

  He takes the hint and joins Marm by the open front door. Marm calls out goodnight. Felix turns and looks back at her.

  ‘It was a lovely ankle,’ he says, then he slams the door behind him.

  Very late one night the following week, Lily is on her way to bed when she hears a soft knocking at the front door. She is already in her nightdress, a thick robe over the top for warmth, and she knows she is as decently clad as in her daytime attire; apart, that is, for the long flowing fair hair that she has just released from its bun and has not yet tidied into its night-time plait.

  She stands in the hall, hesitant.

  Whoever is at the door knocks again, more forcefully, and a quiet, well-educated voice says, ‘Miss Raynor? I believe you are there? My profuse apologies for the lateness of the hour, but it is imperative I speak to you.’

  The letter box flap opens a fraction and a card flutters down on to the mat. Lily picks it up, reads the name … and has to lean against the wall for support. When she has recovered, she hurries to open the door.

  A tall, well-built, soberly dressed man in his seventies stands outside. Even as the door opens his hat is swept off, revealing collar-length white hair, and he makes a courteous bow.

  ‘Please come in, sir,’ Lily squeaks.

  He straightens up, and she observes a smile cross the craggy features. He steps inside and she closes the door.

  ‘Are you alone?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes. My associate went home some hours ago, my tenant is a ballerina and will not return for some time yet, and it’s not one of my housekeeper’s days and she doesn’t live in.’

  She is mentally punching herself for gabbling like an overexcited schoolgirl when a simple Yes would have done, but he is nodding and he looks relieved. ‘In that case, may we repair to your office, perhaps?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She leads him through the outer office and into the inner sanctum, pulling out the chair that Felix usually sits in and wondering, suppressing a giggle, what Felix will say when she tells him tomorrow whose bottom has recently rested on it.

  She pokes up the fire, feeds on some more fuel and then takes her own seat behind her desk.

  ‘How may I help you, sir?’ she asks, and she is glad to hear how calm she sounds. It is just as well fast-pounding hearts are not audible to others.

  Her visitor stares at her for a few moments. He is not smiling now: he could not look more serious. ‘I believe I may say with a degree of certainty that the World’s End Bureau is aware of the existence of a somewhat secretive philanthropic organization and its role in certain recent events,’ he says.

  She had a feeling that is why he is here.

  There is no point in denying it since undoubtedly he knows the truth, so she just says, ‘Yes.’

  He nods slowly, and murmurs, ‘Oh, dear.’

  Lily waits.

  After quite a long pause he says, ‘If you have been entertaining any thoughts of making this knowledge public – via your associate’s journalist friend Marmaduke Smithers, perhaps, whom I do in fact much admire – may I humbly beg you to think again?’

  Lily is storing up the remark to repeat to Marm.

  Then she says, ‘The World’s End Bureau constitutes Felix Wilbraham and I, as you probably know.’ Of course he does, she thinks. ‘We have only briefly discussed the link with the Band of Angels, having been preoccupied with the welfare of the little girl who between us, and thanks mainly to Felix’s courage, we saved from almost certain death.’

  She hears the echo of her loud voice and for a moment she is horrified that she has spoken to this man in such a forthright, not to say accusatory way. But he is nodding, his expression sad and almost meek, as if he accepts he deserves the castigation.

  ‘You are right to be indignant, not to say furious, if the becoming blush in your cheeks is any guide,’ he says, and she recalls his reputation as a devotee of comely women. And she is in her nightwear …

  ‘Marigold Dunbar-Lea is safe and she has recovered rapidly,’ she says in a chilly tone. ‘Happily, she has but fuzzy and muddled memories of her days with Cameron MacKilliver. She says he was kind and loving, and she has swallowed Felix’s quick fiction that he – Cameron – was taking her to her relation, and that was why she was removed from the school.’

  Her visitor nods, and she can see he is about to speak.

  But she’s not going to let him.

  ‘Marigold survived, but at least two and I am sure not a few more did not,’ she says severely. ‘In addition, Esme Sullivan died at the hands of Cameron MacKilliver. Even if it was done in a panic because he couldn’t stop her yelling at him, it was he who ended her life. And his brother Mortimer pushed poor Genevieve Swanson off a train!’

  She is shouting now but she doesn’t care. Someone needs to speak for the dead, and right now the role has fallen to her.

  He does not say anything for some time. Then, signing deeply, he passes a large hand across his face.

  ‘You are right to be so angry, Miss Raynor, and I admire your passion and your determination to act for those who cannot act for themselves.’ A pause, carefully judged. Then: ‘If you decide to reveal the involvement of the Band of Angels – as indeed is your right, since it is a fact and cannot be denied, Cameron and Mortimer MacKilliver being founder members – please be aware that it will do harm – a very great deal of harm – to an organization whose unwavering mission is to alleviate poverty and ignorance.’ Another pause. ‘Particularly in the case of your own sex.’

  ‘I am aware of that,’ she replies stiffly, ‘but—’

  He leans forward, face intent, and for the first time she senses the power in the man.

  ‘Are you?’ he demands. ‘Are you really? The Band are on the very brink of recruiting our most important and influential member, and the benefits he will bring – the sheer wealth, apart from anything else – cannot be exaggerated. His name, however, cannot be linked with the recent unpleasantness’ – she emits an unbelieving gasp at this but be ignores her – ‘and it is my duty to tell you, Miss Raynor, that if you decide to reveal the Band of Angels’s involvement, all those members whose reputation is important to them will scatter and flee. Which is,’ he adds thoughtfully, ‘pretty much all of them.’

  ‘I thought it was a secret organization and nobody knew the identity of the membership?’

  He gives her a shrewd glance. ‘Miss Raynor, do not be naive.’

  Slowly she nods, remembering how easily Felix found out about the Band of Angels; how both Violetta da Rosa and Marm Smithers knew about them and how Marm’s knowledge stretched as far as providing a membership list.

  She feels the power of his will. He hasn’t said any more, but the pressure is steadily mounting.

  ‘What about Miss Dickie and her cousin? They know about the MacKillivers.’

  ‘Neither Ann Dickinson nor Abraham Salt have revealed what they know and nor will they.’ His large, mobile mouth turns down. ‘There were – ah – incentives.’

  It is just as Marm surmised.

  ‘You mean they’ve been given money to keep their mouths shut?’

  He does not answer, but merely bows his head.

  Lily is thinking. She and Felix, largely because of Marm’s eloquent and powerful words, have pretty much decided not to reveal what they know about the Band of Angels. For Marm has recently discovered that the organization is funding a new push to help street women receive a rudimentary education in the hope that it will help them find work of a different and less dangerous sort. There is talk of the MacKilliver twins’ former estate being donated as a residential school for this purpose.

  She has one final question.

  ‘What about Mortimer?’ she asks softly. ‘In addition to his other crimes, it’s virtually certain he pushed Cameron out of that wind
ow in the turret.’ She has tried and tried to recall these crucial few minutes but it is hopeless: there is a deep, dark void in her memory. ‘And Mortimer has disappeared.’

  Her visitor nods. ‘He has,’ he agrees. ‘He still has friends, Miss Raynor; good friends, who understand the trials he has borne through all the long years of trying to control and cover up for his brother and believe he has suffered enough.’

  ‘Enough for two deaths?’ she murmurs.

  And he will not meet her eyes.

  ‘Mortimer MacKilliver will never be found, Miss Raynor,’ he says eventually. ‘He has gone far beyond the reach of British justice.’

  ‘You mean he’s dead?’ she demands.

  But he doesn’t answer.

  Silence falls. Lily’s visitor sits perfectly still, but she can sense the impatience for her answer building up.

  She says, ‘Felix and I will do as you wish, sir.’

  He raises his head and stares right at her. ‘I have your word?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you speak for both of you?’

  ‘I do.’

  He lets out a long sigh, and she sees his big shoulders slump in relief.

  As she sees him to the door, he turns and says, ‘This is not the first time that I have heard good things of the World’s End Bureau, Miss Raynor, and I very much doubt it will be the last. Virtue is its own reward, they say, but if I can assist your fortunes in any way, I shall. Good night.’ He has already put on his hat, and now he doffs it, replaces it and strides away into the darkness.

  A short time later, a key turns in the lock and the door to 3, Hob’s Court is violently thrust open again. The Little Ballerina, back from her tour and now performing in the West End, irrupts into the hall, smelly, sweaty, her face heavy with grease and her cloak grubby and stained.

  Lily, still reeling, has not moved out of the hall, but as usual the Little Ballerina is far too self-absorbed to comment or even, probably, to notice.

  ‘Big carriage!’ she cries excitedly, extending her long, graceful arms to indicate the size. ‘End of road, big black shiny carriage, pretty white horses just same!’

  ‘Really?’ Lily says. Her voice is far from normal but, once again, it goes unnoticed.

  ‘Really!’ the Little Ballerina insists. ‘Driver in smart clothes all one colour’ – a uniform, Lily assumes – ‘and big grand man getting inside!’ She rubs her thumb against her first two fingers in the universal gesture for money. ‘Big grand rich man,’ she adds, shooting a sly look at Lily from her narrow black eyes. ‘He new client? Come here for you?’

  Lily takes a deep breath, making quite sure she will sound calm, not to say indifferent. Then she says coolly, ‘He must have had business elsewhere. Nobody has called here.’

  The Little Ballerina puts on a sulky pout and stomps her way upstairs to her own rooms. Lily wanders through to the inner sanctum and makes sure the guard is in front of the fire. She straightens the chairs, casts a quick look around the room and then she too heads for the stairs.

  As she climbs slowly up to bed she is smiling.

  She is thinking how fortunate it is that the Little Ballerina is so unobservant; so uninterested in the world outside her own life; so chronically self-obsessed that other people do not penetrate.

  Even the prime minister.

  For surely, in the whole of London, the Little Ballerina must be one of the few people not to recognize William Ewart Gladstone.