“Well, not quite the whole world,” Freda said. “Just a tiny bit of it, really.”
“Do you think,” Florence said, “that if we jumped, we would fly?”
“No,” Freda said. What a clot Florence could be sometimes! “We wouldn’t fly,” she said sternly. “We would fall.”
“I think the angels would catch us. I think I can see them waiting,” Florence said, pointing vaguely in the direction of the hills in the distance. （Sometimes, Freda really worried for Florence.） “Harrogate’s over there,” she said with confidence. Apparently, at Florence’s school they spent a great deal of time in Geography class drawing and colouring in maps of Yorkshire. Florence and her mother often went to Harrogate on the train, Mrs. Ingram preferred the shops there, she said. Harrogate was “full of angels,” according to Florence. What a booby. Freda had accompanied them once and despite afternoon tea in Bettys the interminable round of shops had bored her silly, angels or not.
Once, they had accompanied Mrs. Ingram into Hannon’s the fruiterers in Stonegate—Mrs. Ingram had heard that they had “wet walnuts” and was eager to surprise Mr. Ingram with them. Freda couldn’t imagine why you would want to eat a walnut, wet or otherwise. They tasted bitter and stuck in your teeth. The only nuts that Freda liked were the sugared almonds from Terry’s, pretty in their pastel colours, that Mrs. Ingram kept in a silver dish on the sideboard. “Filigree,” Mrs. Ingram said mysteriously when Freda admired the scrolling cut-out pattern that bordered the little dish. To Freda’s ears it sounded like something to do with horses, or perhaps a pretty name for a girl.
In Hannon’s, Florence had suddenly grown excited, claiming that she could see the face of the Virgin Mary on a large melon. “A honeydew,” the brown-coated assistant said, as if that might explain the apparition. Freda had never seen a melon before, with or without the Mother of God embossed on its froggy yellow surface. Now, of course, thanks to living so close to Covent Garden market, she considered herself quite the expert on the world’s fruits and vegetables.
* * *
—
Freda had grown increasingly remorseful about the anxiety she was causing the Ingrams and yet Florence herself seemed unusually immune to guilt. Dearest Ruthie, you have put up with so much. Mrs. Ingram was putting up with a lot more now, Freda thought.
Florence did, however, attend Mass regularly in Corpus Christi, the Catholic church on Maiden Lane, and Freda wondered if she professed her contrition and was absolved （Florence had taught her the word）。 How handy it must be to have one’s slate wiped clean on a regular basis.
Corpus Christi meant “the body of Christ,” Florence explained when a mystified Freda asked. There was a large crucifix hanging above the altar of the church. It was an execution really, wasn’t it? It may as well have been a man hanging from a gibbet, in Freda’s opinion. Gruesome. Still, the Corpus Christi church was a splendid affair, like a particularly glamorous theatre. Freda had peeked inside, rather cautiously, in case she suddenly succumbed to conversion and found herself wishing that she had a god, any god, if it would entitle her to this magnificence. When younger, Freda had occasionally attended Sunday School—two words that should not belong in the same sentence, in her opinion—but it had disappointed with its lack of decoration.
When she was still quite small, Freda had played the lame boy who was left behind by the Pied Piper in a Settlement Players’ production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. It was a non-speaking role, so as well as lame she was also directed to be deaf and dumb. She played for, and received, much sympathy from the audience, indeed she had her own little ovation at the curtain call. Instead of changing the role to that of a girl, they asked her if she would cut her hair. Freda had lovely long plaits at the time, but of course she chopped them off. She would have done anything for a part. And now, she realized, it was she who was the Pied Piper, enticing Florence away and leading her who knew where.
Freda’s heart was heavy. It would never have crossed her friend’s mind to run away from home without Freda suggesting it. Freda had a feeling it was going to end badly. One way or another.
Bartholomew
Frobisher had sent another note to the Warrender. True to his word, he had sent a constable around the dance schools and he had eventually come up trumps with the name of the establishment that Freda and Florence attended. “My constable has already asked questions,” Frobisher wrote, “so there is no necessity for you to go there.”