The Pearly Queen by Mary Jane Staples

Verity from her tormentors, pulling her free from the mêlée and swinging her off her feet to safety. The tall man, in a cap, blue jersey and khaki trousers, gave her a chuckling smile of pleasure. ‘Well, if you ain’t me sweetheart of yesterday,’ he said.
    â€˜Help!’ gasped Mother Verity.
    â€˜Lord, hear thy servant,’ intoned Father Peter.
    â€˜Hear me, Lord,’ gasped Mother Verity, for her deliverer had his eyes on her lips.
    â€˜Come back for more, is that a fact?’ said the tall man, his rugged masculinity dreadfully menacing. ‘Well, you’re a sweet surprise and a pretty one.’ He wrapped his arms around her. Her banner was gone, her purity defenceless. He kissed her, unmercifully. She flushed and shuddered.
    Mother Mary’s umbrage was total. She was surrounded by harridans, all of them intent on wresting her costume from her.
    â€˜Oh, you wicked women, I’ll give you something – oh, if I only ’ad me umbrella. Leave go, d’you ’ear? Oh, I never did know more disgustin’ sinning – take that – leave go – oh, dear Lord, I can’t ’ardly believe this.’
    Mother Verity, dreadfully beset, nevertheless offered the other cheek, and the laughing man kissed her again, such was his indifference to the Lord and his affinity with Satan. She tried to swoon, feeling she must, but nothing happened, except another kiss, and strange dreadful weakness.
    Mother Joan was dealing blow after blow. Mother Ruth was clinging on to everything she was wearing. The clawing, pulling and milling were accompanied by shrieks of fiendish laughter. Father Luke had lost his trousers. Father Peter, losing his top hat to a whisking hand, leapt up from his knees and raised both arms to the heavens. His black cloak lifted and spread, and he looked like a dark avenging bird of prey, his great mane of black hair peppered with grey. Thunder rolled up from his chest, and lightning flashes glittered in his eyes. With a roar, he turned on the harridans and flew at them, and the harridans were beset with physical chastisement.
    Watching men howled with laughter. On the other hand, one man said to another, ‘Gawd bleedin’ blimey, Curly, ’e’s beltin’ yer missus black an’ blue.’
    â€˜I’d ’elp ’er, only I got a bone in me leg,’ said Curly, bald as a peeled potato, ‘an’ besides, she’s been beltin’ me for a month.’
    Poor Mother Verity, dreadfully flushed and dreadfully outraged, looked up into the face of her smiling tormentor. ‘Do your worst, sir, I shall still pray to God to forgive you.’ He roared with laughter.
    Kids came running from the junction with Commercial Road. ‘Rozzers! Flatties!’
    Magically, the crowd melted away. The harridans retreated and ran, disappearing into their houses, kids pelting after them. The smiling man strolled away from Mother Verity and entered a house a little farther down the street.
    Father Peter’s thunder subsided and his heaving chest took a turn for the better. Father Luke, minus his trousers and top hat, staggered to his feet, his long woollen pants dusty and wrinkled. Mother Mary pulled her skirt up from around her ankles. Mother Ruth pushed her dress down. Mother Joan looked down at herself. Her white silk petticoat shimmered.
    â€˜Mother Joan, heavens above!’ exclaimed Father Peter.
    â€˜Hell below, if you ask me, Father,’ said Mother Joan. ‘Lost my bloody skirt. Can’t be helped, small price to pay in the service of the Lord, and I fancy I landed a few telling blows on His behalf.’
    â€˜She was ’eroic, Father,’ said Mother Mary, ‘and so were you, you rose up and smote the ’eathens something godly.’
    â€˜The chastisement of the wicked is in our hands through the Lord,’ said Father Peter.
    â€˜Oh, dear, but poor Father Luke, to have lost his