Blind Justice: A William Monk Novel (3 page)

She looked a little surprised and instantly he wished he had said nothing. If he paid attention, he would probably have learned the answer anyway.

“No,” she replied. “God is everywhere. I think it’s just that we give him more thought inside churches. Like learning at school. You can learn to read and write anywhere, but school makes it easier to concentrate.”

“Do we have a teacher at church too?” That seemed a reasonable question.

“Yes. He’s called a minister.”

“I see.” That was a bit worrying. “Is he going to make me answer questions at the end?”

“No. No, I won’t let him do that.” She sounded very sure.

He relaxed a little. “Why do we have to go?”

“We don’t have to. I would like to.”

“Oh.” He sat in silence for almost half a mile.

“Will he tell us about heaven?” he asked finally.

“I expect so,” Hester answered. Now she was looking at him, smiling.

He felt encouraged. “Where is heaven?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t think anybody truly does.”

That troubled him. “Then how are we going to get there?”

She looked awkward. “You know, that’s something we’d all like to know, and I have no idea. Perhaps if we go to church often enough and really pay attention, we will figure it out eventually.”

“Do you want to go there? To heaven, I mean?”

“Yes. I think everybody does. It’s just that too many of us don’t desire it enough to do the things that are necessary to get there.”

“Why not? That seems silly,” he pointed out.

“We don’t think about it, or believe in it, hard enough,” she answered. “Sometimes we decide it’s too hard to get there to be worth the trouble, or that we won’t make it anyway, no matter what we do.”

He thought about it for several minutes while the omnibus went up a slight incline, slowing as it did so. The horses must have struggled a bit.

“Well, if you’re not going to heaven, then I don’t think I want to either,” he said at last.

She blinked suddenly, as if she were going to cry, only he knew she wouldn’t because Hester never cried. Then she put her hand on his arm for a moment. He could feel the warmth of it, even through the sleeve of his new jacket.

“I think we should both try to get there,” she told him. “In fact, all three of us should.”

He thought about that and made a note of several other questions he wanted to ask. He would save them for another time—he felt like he had bothered her enough for now. So they rode in silence until the omnibus pulled up at their stop. They walked about fifty yards along the pavement to what looked like a meetinghouse. It was not really a proper church, the kind he had expected with the tower and the bell, but Hester seemed quite sure, so he went in beside her through the large open doors.

Inside there were rows of seats, all very hard, with the sort of backs that made you sit up straight, even if you didn’t want to. There were
crowds of people there already. All the women he could see had hats on: big ones, small ones, ones with flowers, ones with ribbons, pale colors, dark colors, but nothing particularly bright, no reds or pinks or yellows. All the men wore dark suits. It must be some kind of uniform, like at school.

They had been there only a few moments when a handsome man came forward, smiling. He had fair, wavy hair touched with silver at the sides. He held his hand out, looking for an instant beyond Hester. Then, realizing there was no man with her, he withdrew his hand and bowed very slightly instead.

“How do you do, ma’am? My name is Abel Taft. May I welcome you to our congregation?”

“Thank you,” Hester said warmly. “I am Mrs. Monk.” She turned to introduce Scuff, and his heart almost stopped beating. Who was she going to say he was? An urchin she and Monk had picked up from the dockside, who knew no other name but Scuff? Would they make him leave?

Taft turned to meet Scuff’s eyes.

Scuff was paralyzed, his mouth as dry as dust.

Hester smiled, her head a little to one side. “My son, William,” she said, with only the barest hesitation.

Scuff found himself smiling so widely his face hurt.

“How do you do, William?” Taft said formally.

“How do you do?” Scuff’s voice came out scratchily. “Sir,” he added for good measure.

Taft was still smiling too, as if his smile were almost fixed on his face. Scuff had seen expressions like that before, on the riverbank, when people were trying to sell you something.

“I hope you will feel uplifted by our service, Mrs. Monk,” Taft said warmly. “And please feel free to ask any questions you care to. I shall hope to see you often and perhaps get to know you a little better. You will find the entire congregation friendly. We have some very fine people here.”

“I am sure,” Hester agreed. “I have already heard so from others.”

“Indeed?” Taft had started to move away but stopped, his attention suddenly renewed. “May I ask whom?”

Hester lowered her eyes. “I think it might embarrass them if I were to say,” she replied modestly. “But it was most sincere, I assure you. I know, at least, that you do a great deal of truly Christian work for those who are not nearly as fortunate as we are.”

“Indeed we do,” he said eagerly. “I am delighted to see that you are interested. I shall look forward to telling you more after the service.”

She looked up at him very directly. “Thank you.”

Scuff regarded her with confusion. He had never seen her behave like this before. Of course, lots of women looked at men like that—but not Hester! What was wrong with her? He did not like the change in her. She had been perfect just as she was.

Hester led him toward a couple of seats near the back of the hall, and they took the rather squashed places as other people moved along a bit to make room. There were certainly far more people present than he had imagined would want to be here. What was going to happen that was worth all this jostling and shoving, not to mention dressing up and wasting a perfectly good Sunday morning? The sun was shining outside, and hardly anybody had to go to work!

He started to pay attention when the service began. Mr. Taft was in charge, telling everybody when to stand, when to sing, and saying prayers on everyone else’s behalf. All they had to do was add “Amen” at the end. He seemed to be full of enthusiasm, as if it were all rather exciting. He waved his arms about a bit, and his face was alight. It was a bit like it was his birthday party and all of them his guests. Scuff had seen a party once for a rich boy whose parents had hired a pleasure boat. There were colored ribbons everywhere and a band playing music. It had stopped at one of the docks and Scuff had crept close enough to watch.

There was music here in this church as well, a big organ playing, and everybody sang. They seemed to know the words. Even Hester did not have to do more than glance at the hymnbook that she held open
so he could see it as well. But he had never heard the tune before and got lost very quickly.

Hester gave him a little nudge now and then, or put her hand gently on his arm, to warn him they were about to stand up or sit down again. He noticed that she looked around rather a lot. He thought she was watching to see what they were doing, so she could copy them. Then he realized she knew what to do; she just seemed to be interested, almost as if she were looking for someone in particular.

When it was finished and Scuff assumed they were free to go home again, Hester started speaking to the people around them. That was a bit of a blow, but there was nothing he could do except wait patiently. On the way home he would ask her what it was all for. Why did God want what seemed to be such a pointless exercise? Was the real reason something else altogether, like maybe to keep them all from going out and getting drunk, or to make sure they didn’t just lie around in bed all day? He used to know people who did that.

Hester was talking to Mrs. Taft, who was a very pretty lady, in a fair-haired, soft-blue-eyed sort of way. Scuff had seen a little china statue of a lady like that and been told not to touch it because he might break it.

“It is a marvelous work,” Hester was saying enthusiastically.

Scuff tried to listen. If she cared about all this, there had to be a reason, and he should pay attention too.

“Indeed it is,” Mrs. Taft agreed with a sweet smile. “And we find so much support, it is most heartening. You would be amazed how much even the poorest people manage to give. Surely God will bless them for it. They will have joy in heaven.” She looked as if she really meant it. Her eyes were shining, and there was a faint flush of pink in her cheeks. She wore a lovely hat decked with flowers in all sorts of colors. Scuff knew they weren’t real, but they almost looked it. Hester would look prettier than this woman in a hat like that, but it probably cost more than a week of dinners for all of them.

“Do you not worry about them though?” Hester asked anxiously.

Mrs. Taft looked puzzled.

“What will happen to them, between here and heaven, I mean,” Hester added in explanation.

“God will take care of them,” Mrs. Taft replied with gentle reproof.

Hester bit her lip. Scuff had seen that expression before. He knew she wanted to say something but had decided against it.

They were joined by two girls, a few years older than Scuff and looking a lot like grown-ups already, proper ladies’ shapes, their hair in ringlets, and straw hats with ribbons on their heads. They were introduced as Mrs. Taft’s daughters, Jane and Amelia. The conversation continued about generous donations to the wonderful work the church was doing for the unfortunate, especially in some distant and unnamed part of the world.

Scuff was extremely bored and his attention wandered again, this time toward some of the other members of the congregation. A lot of the women were older than Hester and rather fat. Those closest to him creaked a little when they moved, like the timbers of a ship on the tide. They looked unhappy. He supposed they might be late for luncheon and resented being kept in pointless conversations. He sympathized with them. He was hungry too—and tired of this. One of them caught his eye, and he smiled at her tentatively. She smiled back at him, then her husband glared at her and she stopped instantly.

Why was Hester still here? She didn’t know these people, and she certainly wasn’t talking to God, or listening to him. Yet she still looked very interested.

She looked even more interested when she was introduced to a good-looking man with thick, dark hair and a rather prominent nose. His name was apparently Robertson Drew, and he spoke to Hester in a condescending manner. His glance took in her costume and her new hat, and then her reticule and the fact that her boots were a little worn at the toes.

Scuff disliked him immediately.

“How do you do, Mrs. Monk?” Drew said with a smile that barely showed his teeth. “Welcome to our congregation. I hope you will join
us regularly. And this is your son?” He looked momentarily at Scuff and then back to Hester. “Perhaps your husband will be able to be with us in future?”

Scuff thought the likelihood of that was about the same as the chances of finding a gold sovereign in the drain.

“I shall do all I can to persuade him,” Hester said smoothly. “Please tell me more about your charitable work, Mr. Drew. I confess it was report of that which brought me here. I live some distance away, but it seems to me most pastors speak a great deal about charity, but practice very little.”

“Ah! How perceptive you are, Mrs. Monk,” Drew agreed fervently. Suddenly he was all interest. He put out his hand as if to take Hester by the arm. Scuff was ready to kick his shins hard if he actually touched her, but he took his hand away again at the last minute and started to speak intently about all that the church had done for the needy.

Hester listened as if she were spellbound. Even to Scuff, who knew that it couldn’t be entirely real, it looked as if she genuinely cared.

Then Scuff realized that she was not precisely pretending. She was asking questions. She
wanted
to know but not for the reasons he had first assumed. A tingle of excitement ran through him. They were not here to sing hymns and repeat prayers—she was investigating something!

Now he began to listen closely, even though he did not yet understand what she was looking to find out.

Drew noticed his attention with pleasure, and he began to direct his speech to both of them.

They escaped at last outside into the sunlight, walking rapidly toward the nearest main street where they could catch an omnibus to the river and then the ferry home. Scuff challenged Hester almost at once. “Ye’re detecting, aren’t yer?”

She hesitated, then gave up and smiled. “I’m trying to. Thank you for helping me.”

“I didn’t do nothing.”

“Anything,” she corrected him automatically.

“I still didn’t. What did any of ’em do, ’side from being about as straight as a pig’s tail?”

“Was that your impression?” she said curiously. “What makes you think that?”

“I seen that look on an opulent receiver’s face, one who’s trying to sell yer gold when ’e knows it’s pinchbeck,” he replied.

“That’s very unkind, Scuff—and probably true,” she said, trying to keep the amusement out of her face and failing. An opulent receiver was the slang term for a receiver of stolen goods who specialized in expensive and hard-to-sell things.

“Now what are we going ter do?” he asked, taking it for granted that he was part of the plan.

She walked several yards without answering.

He kept pace with her. His legs were long enough now. He was almost the same height as her, and in a year or two he would definitely be taller. He wondered what that would feel like. He was still wondering when she answered.

“I shall weigh up all I know, which I admit is not a lot, and then I shall go and see Squeaky Robinson, at the clinic.”

“Why?” He knew Squeaky Robinson a little. He used to be a brothel keeper, until Sir Oliver Rathbone had tricked him out of the buildings he owned and used. Now those buildings were the clinic Hester ran for street women. Squeaky had had nowhere else to go and no means of earning his living. Protesting indignantly all the way, he had accepted their offer to earn his lodgings by keeping the accounts of the new establishment—which he did remarkably well. He certainly knew about money, and he understood that his survival depended on being honest to the farthing.