“Ah, you wish to marry the lady yourself?”
“No, I wish to make you account for your actions. How could you allow such a crime to take place?”
“It is never my business to inquire into why couples wish to marry, sir. I merely provide a service. It is business, you know, and business has nothing to do with right or wrong. People must take responsibility for their own lives. If the lady did not wish to marry, she must say so.”
“She does not appear to me in a condition to say anything.”
“Then she had a responsibility not to find herself in so poor a condition.”
I sighed. “She is heavy. Have you a back office where I can set her down and deal with you as I see fit?”
“I have marriages to perform,” he said.
“You’ll deal with me first, or I promise you will never perform another marriage again.”
He knew not what I meant, for neither did I, but as he had seen me run my blade into a man’s eye not minutes before, he understood I meant something unpleasant and complied accordingly.
“Come with me then.” Mortimer Pike was some five feet in height and fifty years of age, with a face lined and weathered, but handsome and charming for all that, and he had a pair of sprightly grass-green eyes as dull with drunkenness as his movements.
We moved slowly because of my burden, but once in his office, I set the lady down in a chair, where she slumped like an enormous doll. Making certain she would not topple, I turned to the drunken villain of a priest.
“I want to review your marriage records.”
He studied me for a moment. “My primary purpose, good sir, is to marry those in search of happiness, not the distribution of records. I cannot even consider aiding you while couples await my services.”
“Please don’t make me threaten you more. Or, worse, act upon threats. If you do as I ask, you may then leave me be to examine the books, and I will need disturb your work no further.”
“It is hardly work to provide happiness,” he said. “No, it is a blessing. The greatest blessing a man can know.”
“Knowledge is a blessing too, and I wish to be blessed with the record of a marriage of a Miss Bridget Alton. I had hoped I might be able to review your book for such a record.”
“The book,” the priest repeated. The moment I mentioned his volume he picked it up and, though it was a large and heavy folio, clutched it to his bosom as though it were a beloved infant. “You must understand that the registration of a marriage is a sacred and private business. I am afraid it is quite against the laws of God and man to show this book to anyone. And now, if you will excuse me.”
“Begging your pardon.” I took a gentle hold of his arm to make certain he did not truly abandon me. “Is not the very purpose of that book to provide a record so that men upon the very sort of errand I am performing may have an opportunity to do their researches?”
“It is commonly believed to be so,” he said. “But that belief, as you have just now discovered, is a false one.”
“You will let me look at the book, or I shall take this lady to the magistrate and make certain you hang for what happened today.”
“Perhaps if I let you look at the book you will spare my life and give me two shillings.”
In a way, I could not but admire his audacity, and accordingly I accepted his offer.
THE YOUNG LADY’S still slumber improved into a dull snore, which I took to be a good sign that she might recover soon. I certainly could not take her home until I knew who she was and where she made her home, after all, so I kept her as my companion while I did my work.
After agreeing to let me see his books, Pike led me to a shelf where were stacked numerous folios. “I have been providing happiness to men and women for some six years now, Mr. Weaver. It has been my privilege to serve the poor and the needy and the desperate ever since I made some rather foolish investments in an affair of sheep raising. My very own brother-in-law, if you can credit such a thing, neglected to mention that he had no particular plans to buy sheep. The money was all lost, and I could not pay quite what I owed. And, if I am to be honest in the eyes of God, I must also mention that I did not precisely end my spendings once this disaster had taken place. And so, for the matter of a mere few hundred pounds, left to rot for all eternity. Most men would turn to despair, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps so,” I agreed.
“You are right. They would. But not I. No, I have turned to serve the Lord here in this hell of desolation. And in what better way can the Lord be served than by performing that most holy of sacraments, marriage? Did not the Lord advise us to be fruitful and multiply? My own wife, sir, has been a blessing to me these many years. Are you married, Mr. Weaver?”
Because I could not be entirely certain I would be permitted to leave there in a state unblessed by matrimony, I thought it prudent to lie and say I was.
“Ah, very good, sir, very good. I can see it upon your face. There is no state happier than the married state. It is the very ship of good fortune, which every man must pilot for himself. Don’t you agree?”
I said nothing, lest he once more try to convince me to marry the sleeping lady.
Seeing that I would not answer, he gestured toward the books. “These go back six years, sir. As many as a hundred marriages a week, and the names do begin to compile. Now, when was this marriage you mention?”
“Not six months ago,” I said.
“Very easy, very easy indeed. It is the very book I hold in my hands.”
When he made no gesture to hand it over, I reached into my purse and pulled out the coins he had mentioned. The book, now liberated, was set before me.
“Perhaps you might recollect the woman I seek,” I attempted. “I am told she is very remarkable in her unusual beauty. A tall creature, very pale, with white skin and hair. What is most astonishing, they say, is that in spite of her pallor, her eyes are most dark. Have you seen such a woman?”
“I may have,” he said thoughtfully, “but in my penury, my memory is not what it once was. It is a sad thing for a man’s thoughts to be so distracted by wondering whence his next meal might appear.”
I handed him another coin. “Does that aid your memory?”
“Indeed it does, and I can now definitively report I have not seen the girl you seek.”
GIVEN THAT THE GIRL had come from a respectable family, I could be fairly confident, if not absolutely certain, that she would write with a good hand. That fair confidence, however, did not allow me to feel free to pass over the unintelligible scrawls in the book without a second glance. It therefore took me better than two hours to make my way through the last six months’ worth of names, and I had nothing to show for my labors. No sign of the lady in question. Certainly it was possible that she might falsify her name, but that was the sort of trick used by a man who wished to be married in the most physical sense but perhaps not the most legal. A woman, I believed, even a young and love-struck woman, would be less eager to cheat herself out of the slim legitimacy converged by a Fleet marriage.
When I closed the book, the Reverend Mr. Pike emerged from whatever shadow in which he had been lurking. He shook his head sadly. “You’ve met with no luck, I see. It is a very sad thing. I do hope you will come back should you ever again be in need of matrimonial records.”
“Certainly,” I said, though I thought it an odd suggestion that I should pursue such things on a regular basis the way a man might be asked to come again to a shop selling snuff or stockings. I looked over at the sleeping woman, thinking I might now try to rouse her and discover where she belonged. Before I could do so, Pike ahemmed behind me.
“If you will allow me.” He opened the door to his office and I observed that the tavern contained a queue of priests awaiting me, an army of shabby men dressed in soiled black suits and yellowed cravats, once, no doubt, in some earlier and unimagined time, a pristine white. Each of these men held, in a variety of styles-clutched to their breasts, crooked under their arms, held in both hands like offerings-volumes of a variety of sizes and girths.