‘Sometime I help with the tea and biscuits,’ said Bessie proudly as she led me over the threshold, ‘and sometimes I mind the little ones.’
Inside, the hall was warmed inadequately by a smoky stove. It was sparsely furnished with rows of wooden chairs and our boots clattered on the bare boards. At the far end a stage had been built and in the middle of it stood a lectern. On the right-hand side, near the threadbare curtain, lurked a scratched piano in need of a polish. Below the stage and to the left, as we looked towards it, was a table with a large urn hissing gently on it, presided over by a pair of ladies, one short and plump and one taller and thinner.
‘The little fat one,’ whispered Bessie impolitely, ‘is Mrs Gribble and the tall one is Mrs Scott. Mrs Scott is a widow lady. Her husband was a soldier, but he didn’t die in no battle. He went out to India and took a fever.’ She frowned. ‘It don’t look like Miss Marchwood’s here today. I wonder where she is. She’s always here, doing the teas. I wanted you to meet Miss Marchwood. She’s like you were, missus.’
‘Like I was?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘Before you married the inspector. She’s a lady’s companion,’ explained Bessie.
‘Indeed?’ I murmured. But I was studying Mrs Scott. Though soberly clad, her fine green mantle was trimmed with fur. It was worn with a skirt of some Highland plaid, such as Her Majesty has made so popular. I noted that her crinoline was of the newer style, with more fullness behind and less at the sides. A round astrakhan hat of vaguely Russian style was pinned atop a chignon of dark hair. I suspected the chignon to be false, and put her age at a little over forty. I wondered what such an obviously well-to-do woman of fashion was doing here, supervising the making of cups of tea at a temperance meeting.
Mrs Gribble was by contrast colourful, in a maroon skirt with tiers of flounces, stretched over a perfectly round crinoline, green bodice, paisley shawl and bonnet adorned with silk flowers. As I watched, Mrs Scott drew her attention to some irregularity in the line of pottery teacups set out ready for the promised refreshments. Mrs Gribble, flustered and red-faced, hastened to correct the fault so that the cups stood as straight as a line of guardsmen.
I took a seat to the rear of the hall in order to observe everything.
‘You want to move a bit nearer the front, missus!’ urged Bessie.
I thanked her but said I would do very well where I was.
Bessie looked disappointed. I fancied she wanted to show me off.
Gradually the hall filled. A group of infant abstainers was placed at the front under the command of a short, stocky, wan-faced middle-aged man in a tight suit of hound’s-tooth tweed. I suspected his hair was thinning early, because he had brushed it all forward over the top of his head and arranged the resulting fringe in a row of carefully constructed curls across his brow. The whole lot was plastered into place with a liberal application of some pomade that made his whole coiffure shine.
‘Is that Mr Fawcett?’ I asked Bessie, taken aback.
‘Oh no,’ replied Bessie dismissively, ‘that’s only Mr Pritchard.’
A lugubrious gentleman with muttonchop whiskers appeared and handed out dog-eared hymnbooks. Bessie identified him for me as ‘Mr Walters’. There certainly seemed to be no shortage of helpers.
But an air of suppressed excitement had been growing and the buzz of whispered chatter mingled with the soft hiss of the gaslights around the walls. Anticipation was written on every face. Clearly Mr Fawcett was ‘a draw’.
But still we were not to see him yet. Whiskery Mr Walters climbed on to the stage and requested us to stand for the first hymn. As we obeyed, he made his way to the piano and struck an opening chord that demonstrated the piano not only needed a polish, it needed tuning. Nevertheless we all gave voice lustily.
We then sat down. Mr Pritchard ushered his infant charges to the centre, facing us down the hall, and with much arm-waving conducted them in a cheerful ditty promising us that they would never touch ‘wine nor beer, nor even apple cider’.
Then they scrambled back into their seats and Mr Pritchard, his pale cheeks flushed with triumph and sweat trickling from his curled fringe, turned round to take his bow and receive our polite applause. I clapped the children’s efforts, though not approving of them performing this sort of turn.
But the main moment of the evening had come. Mr Walters brought his whiskers back on stage and begged that we would all give an enthusiastic welcome to Mr Fawcett, our speaker this evening.
Everyone burst into renewed applause, Bessie with particular energy, and on to the stage strode the Reverend Joshua.
I had had no idea what to expect. I hadn’t wanted to quiz Bessie too much to avoid having to listen to his praises sung in my ear. He now proved much younger than I’d expected. I doubted he was much over thirty and if he was in holy orders, it was not in the Church of England. He was tall and slender and elegantly clad in a well-fitting dark-blue frock coat and dove-grey pantaloons. His linen was snowy white and the only black he wore was a silk cravat with a diamond pin. He was clean-shaven, but had long hair like a poet, and was altogether far more a dandy in appearance than a minister of the cloth. I understood now why the larger part of the audience consisted of ladies. Indeed, at his appearance on stage, a collective sigh of appreciation went up all around me.
‘Dear friends,’ began Fawcett, gripping the lectern between his hands, his bright gaze sweeping across our ranks. ‘My dear, dear friends . . . What a very great pleasure it is to see you all here this evening. It makes my heart rise in my bosom to know that so many are anxious to support our truly noble cause. I see in your faces that you have given your own hearts and minds to our great task.’
His voice was mellifluous, but his eyes sharp. He had marked me in the back row as a newcomer, I was sure.
Then, in an abrupt change of tempo and style, he was off. My goodness, as I told Ben later, I had to give the man his due. He was a formidable preacher. His voice swooped low and rose again, grew louder or hushed, as required. He led us through the story of Noah in the vineyard. He reminded us that wine and all strong drink dulled the senses, was the cause of all kinds of physical ailments (including loss of teeth) and premature ageing. It led to violence and terrible errors of judgement. Most of all, addiction was a first step on a slippery slope to all kinds of sin, leading from foul language and lewd behaviour in public to forbidden desires and adultery in private, to greed and envy, from the hatching of criminal plots to murder.
He went on to explain there wasn’t one of the Ten Commandments we couldn’t easily be led to break if we took enough drink. As for the seven deadly sins, we’d fall into all of those head first.
‘Lust!’ cried Fawcett, his voice echoing around the hall.
The ladies in the audience all shivered. Every one of them had been gazing at him, rapt. No one fidgeted, not a chair scraped, no one even coughed. I thought the infant abstainers at the front might get restless, but they seemed as fascinated by him as everyone else. Beside me, Bessie’s eyes shone. I began to feel uneasy.
‘Go out into these streets!’ cried Fawcett, flinging out a manicured hand to indicate the world outside the hall. His long dark hair flew around his head. For one wild moment I was reminded of some stained-glass image of the Archangel Michael about to spear the dragon of evil. ‘You will find dens of vice, every kind of vice, my friends! You will see men brought low, workless, devoid of all self-respect, and begging in the streets! You will see women selling themselves openly! You will see wastrel young men of good family throwing away their fortunes! You will see starving mothers cradling miserable babies, waiting at the doors of public houses and calling for their husbands to come out before every penny has been spent. And what has brought them all to this? Drink!’ he thundered.
The word fell into silence. We waited. After a pause, Fawcett resumed in a more moderate but no less expressive tone, sinking into pathos and rising to indignation as he recounted a dramatic tale of a drunkard in charge of a horse and cart. Befuddled and heedless, the fellow had run down a virtuous young female escorting her elderly and infirm father across the road.
Fawcett gripped his hands as if in prayer. ‘Imagine the scene, dear friends, if you will. “My dearest daughter!” cried the poor old man, kneeling at her side, “speak to me!” But his child lay lifeless and could not, while the drunken carter stood by, overwhelmed by horror at his deed. But too late!’
Several ladies were by now weeping decorously into lace-trimmed handkerchiefs.
My reaction, I am afraid, was different. Of course, the story was a dreadful one and I know these tragedies do happen. My father was a doctor and was sometimes called out suddenly from his surgery to attend accidents in the street, or at places of work. Drunkenness was the cause of many of them. I have myself seen wretched women and half-naked children waiting at the doors of public houses and drinking dens, knowing that when the man of the family does stumble out it will probably be to rain blows on them. But I am ashamed to tell you that, as Mr Fawcett’s ringing tones fell silent, and he put a hand to his sweating brow to brush back his disordered locks, I suddenly had a desire to giggle and was forced to look down quickly at my lap. My father would have explained the impulse as an emotional response to a speaker who made no bones about appealing to his audience’s feelings. But I was sorry for it and mastered it. When I looked up again, Mr Fawcett was staring straight at me and I was certain he guessed. To my mortification, I felt myself blush.
‘Those in a better station of life,’ Fawcett began silkily (I swear he was still looking at me), ‘need not think they are not at risk. What gentleman sees no harm in a glass or two of port wine after a good dinner? What otherwise respectable lady may take a glass of sherry?’
He shook his head sorrowfully and his long hair floated cross his face. He plucked the offending strand away. ‘But before we know it, the gentleman is drinking an entire decanter of port of an evening and lying senseless most of the night. As for his wife, the bloom of virtuous womanhood soon deserts her. Her cheeks are mottled with broken veins, her dress is careless and hair pinned up anyhow. Her servants lack direction and soon begin to shirk their tasks. In no time at all, the entire household has gone to rack and ruin.’
Did
Fawcett look in my direction? Had Bessie told him of Ben’s innocent glass of porter or our occasional bottle of hock? My earlier unease began to turn to anger.
But the address was over. Fawcett’s tone became practical. He reminded us that much work was to be done among the drink-addicted poor and begged us to give generously in order to support the many projects under his eye. Our money would not be wasted and we would be laying up treasure in heaven.
Then, mopping his brow with a crisp white handkerchief, he strode off stage, presumably to recover. Mr Pritchard invited us in a high-pitched voice to come forward and sign a pledge promising never to touch a drop of strong drink again. The document lay on the lectern. Three or four people went up to him. As they put their names down Mr Walters took his seat at the piano. We stood for a final hymn, during which Mr Pritchard, still perspiring, came round with a wooden bowl collecting offerings. By the time it reached me, it was almost full. Moved by Fawcett’s eloquence and his final pleas, people had been generous. I dropped a modest shilling in it and, seeing that Bessie was about to add two pence, tapped her hand and said, ‘I have put in for us both!’
Mr Pritchard gave me a reproachful look but I met his eye directly and he scuttled away. Not before, however, I had time to realise that it wasn’t scented pomade that glued his fringe in place: it was lard. The melting fat trickled across his brow and made it shine as if it had been polished.
People began to gather around the tea urn. Mrs Gribble, in a flurry of shawl and flounces, sprang into action under the direction of Mrs Scott.
‘You sit here, missus,’ said Bessie, ‘and I’ll bring you a cup and a biscuit.’
‘No, no,’ I said serenely, ‘I want to meet everyone!’ I sailed forward with an apprehensive Bessie in tow.
I saw when I neared the urn that, although the notice outside promised refreshments, on the table stood another wooden bowl into which, if we were so inclined, we might drop a few extra coins for our tea. But Bessie had secured me tea already in one of the thick pottery cups. She had also attracted the attention of Mrs Scott and whispered to her. Mrs Scott approached, looking me over as she did, and making an unconcealed assessment of my station in life and the likely income of my husband.
‘I understand,’ she said, ‘you are Bessie’s employer, Mrs Ross. You are most welcome.’ She inclined her head graciously.
‘I have come to see for myself where Bessie goes,’ I returned crisply, ‘I am responsible for her.’
Mrs Scott acknowledged this with a thin smile. ‘I’m pleased to see you take your responsibility so seriously, Mrs Ross. Bessie is a good girl and very helpful here in the hall. Do you feel you have gained from this evening?’
‘Gained?’ I asked, taken aback.
