There must be, there must surely be, somewhere, a way down?
She found it at last in a derelict building at the far end of the street in which the eating house was situated. A skylight hung open, swinging on one rusty hinge: but between her and the gaping hole that would lead her to safety stretched an area of decayed roof untouched and uncared-for for what must have been fifty years. The clouds were clearing. As they scurried darkly across the sky, in the fleeting moonlight Molly saw gaping holes, rotting beams.
Very carefully, on hands and knees, she began to crawl towards the opening. The timber beneath her creaked in protest, a slate slipped from beneath her hands and slithered downwards. She froze. The broken skylight was only feet away. Through it, in a shaft of moonlight, she could see stairs – her way down to the street and safety. She felt the structure of the roof bow and give beneath her. She scrambled forward, and then her hand was on the worm-eaten wood of the frame. She dragged herself to the edge, rolled into the opening and without stop for thought, for there was little else she could do, let herself drop.
Moments later, her legs still trembling violently, she was in the street. She paused for just a moment to pull on her boots and check her bundle and the precious leather bag, then she was off, running into the rain-drenched shadows as if the devil were behind her.
Chapter Four
It was perhaps fifteen minutes later that she heard the distressed wailing of a child, the weary remonstrance of a woman’s voice, the sound of a sharp hand on tender flesh and a howling yelp of pain. Molly had stopped running minutes before; both her breath and her strength had given out. She had no idea where her blind dash had taken her, nor how far she had come. Some minutes after stepping into the street she had, more by luck than judgement, left the maze of alleys and narrow streets and entered much wider thoroughfares, with here and there the odd gas lamp to illuminate them. She slipped like a shadow through the patches of light cast on the pavement by the dingy windows and open doorways, intent simply on getting as far away as possible.
Ahead of her the child’s voice lifted again, crying hopelessly. In the pool of light beneath a lamp she saw a small family group – mother, baby, several dirty children ranging in size from toddler to perhaps eight or nine years old – standing around a small boy who lay, sprawled and sobbing, on the ground. The mother was thin to the point of starvation, her straggling hair hanging untidily over a young-old face, her bony arms struggling to hold the baby to her hip.
“Stop grizzlin’ fer Chrissake, and get up, Tommy. We’ll git ahselves locked aht if we don’t ‘urry—”
Molly stepped forward. “May – may I help?” Her voice was uncertain, and her motives not entirely selfless. Johnny was certainly looking for her by now. Looking for a lone girl wandering the streets. “I could carry him a little way if you’d like, if one of the others would carry my bundle… It isn’t heavy.”
Several pairs of eyes turned her way; solemn, interested, surprised, suspicious.
“No, thanks,” the woman said shortly. “We can manage.”
Tom, still on the wet pavement, wailed again. “I wanna be carried—”
“Please.” Molly turned huge, desperate eyes to his mother. “I could carry him quite easily. Are you going far?”
“To the Refuge at Allgit,” she said, studying with knowing eyes the small figure, the pale, marked face and dirty scratched skin. “They’ll feed us if we get there in time, an’ there’ll be beds, too, if we’re lucky”
The thought was overwhelming. “I’ve nowhere to go,” said Molly with sudden, weary honesty, “nowhere at all. If I came with you I could carry the little boy and we might all be the better for it…?”
The woman’s defeated eyes showed some trace of sympathy. “What’s the matter, love, thrown yer out, ’as ’e? The best of ’em come to it, sooner or later.’’ She grinned bitterly and indicated the silent, watching children. “Thank yer lucky stars yer on yer own.”
“Yes,” Molly said, flinching from the look in the older girl’s eyes.
The woman shrugged and hefted the baby higher onto her skinny hip. “Well, please yerself. Come if yer want. Sal, take ’er bundle an’ ’elp ’er with Tommy.”
The girl, her pigtails bobbing, hauled the sobbing child to his feet. “If yer bend down,” she said to Molly, “you can give ’im a piggy back. It’ll be easier.”
Molly obediently crouched and Sal heaved Tommy into place on her back, then picked up Molly’s bundle. The others, led by their mother, were already trailing dispiritedly up the road.
“Who runs this – Refuge?” Molly asked, settling the little boy firmly upon her back, his legs dangling through her crooked arms.
The girl looked at her, puzzled, and shrugged. “Dunno,” she said. “Jus’ some ladies. Ladies what do – good works—” The corners of her mouth turned down in a completely unchildlike expression that combined acid derision with an uncomprehending resentment. “Still, their soup’s good, I’ll say that for ’em.”
Molly smiled. “I think I’m rather more interested in the bed.”
Sal turned and started off after the others. “Don’t bank on it,” she said pessimistically, lifting one narrow shoulder. “Beds is ’ard come by round ’ere. They’ll be full.” And on that cheerful note they set out for Aldgate.
* * *
The Aldgate Refuge for the Destitute and Homeless was an enormous, depressing and tumbledown building that had once housed an indoor market. It was cold in the warmest weather, draughty as a barn, dirty no matter how hard the volunteers who ran it worked. Together with the destitute and homeless there lived rats, mice, cockroaches, spiders and numerous dispossessed cats and dogs. But to many of those who turned up at its doors, night after night, for a bowl of soup and a bed, it was the only thing that stood between hopelessness and total despair. Lady Margaret Wharton, who had founded the Refuge, and who, with friends and volunteers, ran it now, knew this; it was the only thing that prevented her from giving up the unequal struggle altogether. Certainly there was a limit to what one small group of women could do, but each night they did it, doling out soup, bread, and help where they could manage it, providing shelter and at least some semblance of comfort. For her efforts she endured the animosity of a great part of her own class, was perfectly aware and even understood the grudging resentment of some of those who accepted her charity. But the Refuge went on.
When Molly and her companions arrived, the children’s mother, who had spoken only in monosyllables but who had at least told Molly that her name was Gertrude, looked dismally at the great closed door and said simply, “Too late.”
“What?” Molly swung the sleeping Tommy off her aching back and into her arms.
“Too late. Door’s shut.”
“Shut doors,” Molly said with the determination of desperation, “can be opened. Sal, will you take your brother for a moment?”
“S’no good.” Gertrude leaned tiredly against a grimy, windowless wall. “They on’y shut the door when they’re full.”
“Well, we’ll see about that.” Molly stepped to the door and hammered on it with her clenched fist.
Nothing happened.
She assaulted the worm-eaten door again. ‘Is anybody there?”
Moments later the door swung open to reveal a young, well-dressed woman, her smooth skin glowing in the light of the lamp she carried.
“I’m sorry,” she said uncertainly, “I’m afraid we’re shut for the night.”
“Please,” Molly said, putting out a hand to the closing door, “we’ve children with us, hungry children.”
Tommy, stirring in his sister’s arms, gave a providential snivel. The girl in the door hesitated.
“If you could just find them a bite to eat, a corner to sleep in?” begged Molly, sensing an advantage.
The girl shook her head. “There isn’t a bed left. I really don’t think…”
“What is it, Sarah?” the voice, crisp and well-modulated, came from the shadows beh
ind the girl.
“A family, Lady Margaret. Two women and some children—”
“Well—” a figure appeared, tall and thin, the sombre darkness of her dress relieved only by a snow-white collar and cuffs, the latter being pulled up to her elbows in businesslike fashion, “Let’s have a look at them.”
Molly stepped back to let Margaret Wharton survey the group, and the woman’s thin face lit with a wry smile. “Hello, Sally. And little Tom – crying as usual, eh? Here, give him to me,” she said, relieving little Sal of her brother’s weight. She turned to Molly. “Here’s a face I don’t know.”
“She ’elped me carry Tommy,” Gertrude said, as if that were all the explanation required.
The thin, kindly face smiled again. “Well, in you come. We can’t leave old friends standing on the doorstep, can we?”
“But Lady Margaret—” the girl called Sarah exclaimed softly. An upraised hand stopped her protest.
“We’ll find somewhere. Come along.”
The great vaulted hall smelled of soup and unwashed bodies. Beds and mattresses took up the greater part of the floor space; men, women and children lay or sat upon them, the hum of their voices and the occasional shriek of the youngsters echoing to the high, girdered roof.
Lady Margaret led her charges to a table around which were set several rickety chairs and a long splintered bench.
“There. Sit yourselves down and Sarah will see to some food for you. I’ll go and organize beds.”
By the time they had finished eating, most of the occupants of the hall had settled down for the night. The lamps had dimmed and the noise died to a few whispers, mutters, snores. Lady Margaret, her finger to her lips to enjoin quiet, led Molly, Gertrude and the children through the rows of beds and mattresses to an archway that gave on to a dark corridor lit by a single lamp. At the end of the corridor she opened a door into a small room into which had been packed, beside the large bed that obviously belonged there, several comfortable-looking mattresses, complete with pillows and blankets.
“Cor,” Sal said expressively.
Gertrude said nothing. She was already settling the baby on the bed.
“But this is your own room,” Molly said with quiet certainty, “isn’t it? Where will you sleep?”
The woman looked at her in some surprise, then a kindly smile curved her lips. “Why, bless you, child, I’m too busy to sleep,” she said firmly. “I’ve a soft enough bed to go to tomorrow, never fear. Don’t worry your head about me. Good night, and God bless. Sleep well.”
Fully dressed and totally undisturbed by the hubbub around her as the children noisily disputed who was to sleep in which corner, Molly dropped onto the nearest mattress and slept like the dead.
In the early hours of the morning she awoke, stiff, sore and thirsty. She lay for a moment, uncertain of her whereabouts, puzzled by the aches and pains that assaulted her. Then, as memory returned, she lay staring into the darkness listening to the sleeping breath of the children around her. For a long time she stayed so, trying to think, trying to plan, battling against her ever-growing thirst. A tiny window high up in the wall above the bed where Gertrude, the baby and little Tommy were sleeping, showed the pale yet lightless sky of pre-dawn. At length, her throat as dry as sandpaper, Molly crept from beneath the thin blanket and slipped out into the corridor.
The lamp was still burning, its faint and flickering light throwing shadows onto the stained and dirty walls. Beyond the arch at the end of the passage burned another lamp, equally dim. Molly walked quietly towards it. If she could find herself a glass of water she might be able to get back to sleep.
In the vast hall all was still; the sleepers, in their only escape from a brutal world, lay sprawled and silent. But in a small alcove by the side of the archway stood a table, upon which burned the oil lamp whose light Molly had seen; and sitting, elbows on table, head in hand, apparently absorbed in the open book that lay before her, was Lady Margaret Wharton. Next to the book stood a full jug of water and a glass.
Molly hesitated, shy of disturbing their benefactor, but her thirst overcame her qualms and she tiptoed to the table.
“Excuse me. I wondered—”
The woman’s head jerked up in shock, one of her elbows slipped from the table. She had been sound asleep.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you—” real distress sounded in Molly’s softly accented voice.
Margaret Wharton looked at the small, woebegone face and smiled. “It’s all right, my dear. I’d just dozed for a moment.”
“I only wanted to ask if I might have a glass of water…”
Margaret Wharton smiled. “Help yourself, child.” She watched as Molly poured the water and drank it down in one grateful gulp. Something about the sensitive face, the intelligence in those astonishing eyes, woke her interest.
“I don’t know your name?”
“Molly O’Dowd.” Molly poured more water and drank it, slowly this time.
“You’re Irish?”
Molly nodded.
“Have you been in London long?”
Centuries. The curly head shook. “A week or so.”
Margaret Wharton sighed. “How on earth do you come to be here so soon? Did you come with no money?”
Molly’s hand crept to the bodice of her dress. “Oh, no. I’ve money. But—”
The woman at the table watched with clear, tired eyes from beneath straight brows. “But you’re in some kind of trouble?”
The girl did not answer. Margaret Wharton reached out and lightly rested a strong hand upon her wrist. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to” – the first and golden rule she had learned in Aldgate – “but I’d help you if I could, if you’d let me.”
Molly leaned against the table, staring down in sudden misery at its scratched and battered surface. Her shoulders were slumped. “I don’t think you can.”
“I could try.”
Molly turned sharply from the upthrown light of the lamp and made no answer.
“With advice if nothing else,” the voice persisted.
The idea took root slowly. Lady Margaret watched as some small light of hope kindled behind the blue-grey eyes. She patted the corner of the table in an invitation to sit – there were no other chairs but the one in which she was sitting herself.
Molly pulled herself up onto the table, settled herself like a child with her feet dangling and her hands folded in her lap. “I don’t know where to begin.”
The watching woman steepled her fingers before her and laid her lined cheek upon them. “From the beginning,” she said, her voice warm and inviting.
By the time Molly’s tale was finished the window was washed with morning and the outside world was beginning to stir.
As the girl’s voice died Margaret Wharton sighed softly. How many times had she heard this story in one form or another? And how many times would she be called upon to listen to it again? She looked up at the earnest little face above her; at least, thank God, this one by a combination of luck and courage seemed to have escaped the worst and was not beyond helping.
Molly looked at the thin, thoughtful face, and in her lap her fingers crossed so tightly that they ached from the pressure. Around her neck Maggie’s wash-leather bag seemed to weigh a ton; she felt as if it were glowing, red as sin, through her bodice.
“So—” the woman smiled her worn and kindly smile, “we have to get you away from here before this – Johnny – discovers your whereabouts?”
“Yes.” Wonderful thought.
“That won’t be as hard as you might think. This part of London is full of tuppeny ha’penny thugs like your Johnny. Once away from here he won’t be able to find you. His arm is not as long as you think it, never fear. Your mistake was in coming to this part of London in the first place – oh, I know,” she held up a hand as Molly opened her mouth to protest, “it wasn’t your fault, you knew no better. How could you? But there are more – respectable—�
�� she smiled again as she emphasized the word a little “—places. Places where Johnny Cribben’s rule does not run. The easiest thing, of course, would be for me to try to place you in service—” Molly’s head came up sharply at that, “—but I gather you’ve set your heart against that?”
“I have.” The stubborn, damaged mouth was set defensively.
“I see.” There was a short silence. “You say you read and write well?”
“Yes. And figure, too.”
“Had you considered office work?”
Molly shook her head. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“You could learn. Times, my dear, are changing, thank heaven. The days when a woman could earn her living only as a teacher or a skivvy or a prostitute will soon be behind us. It is no longer considered scandalously eccentric in the business world to employ intelligent young ladies. If you learned to operate a typewriter—”
“What’s that?”
Lady Margaret suppressed her smile. “It’s a machine that prints words clearly and much faster than handwriting.”
“And women work them?”
“They do.” Lady Margaret did not miss the gleam in the girl’s eyes. “You like the idea?”
“Indeed I do. How would I learn?”
“You’d have to take lessons at a business school. You say you have some money?”
“Yes. A little. Sean and I had saved. To be married. I’ve enough, I think.” There was no thunderbolt; Molly breathed again. To her own ears the jerky sentences rang with untruth, but Margaret Wharton’s expression did not change. She leaned back in her chair.
Molly Page 5
