by Maggie Ford
He didn’t care, so long as his self-respect remained intact, even walking out on her as she was dying. Though he hadn’t known that at the time, the thought had flashed into Ellie’s mind that if she did lay eyes on him again, she would swing for him for the way he’d treated Mum. If he knew she was dead, he’d no doubt put his hands together, being free to enjoy himself.
Her wish for revenge was swept away as Doctor Lowe’s voice broke through. ‘So you must forgive my wife’s little outburst, my dear. I pray that some day she will find something or someone to take the pain from her.’
He turned abruptly to face her, a thoughtful light dawning in the piggy eyes. She noticed they were extremely light-coloured, like pale ale.
‘I have been thinking ever since you turned up on my doorstep that you might be the solution to her grief.’
He smiled at Ellie’s lifted eyebrows. ‘With no money now, you could very well lose your home. There is the orphanage, or living rough under some archway until picked up by some unsavoury character for his exploitation. It happens, child. Many a young, homeless waif has been sold for slave labour of sorts for a few shillings. I’ll refrain from mentioning the depths to which such practice can descend. But I may be a means of salvation.’
He paused while Ellie remained watching him, now suspiciously.
‘What crosses my mind is that this house has a position for another staff member. Florrie, our housemaid, has been complaining about being asked to do work in the kitchen as well as her housemaid duties, and I do understand this. But cook can hardly be expected to do washing-up as well as making meals.’
Ellie sat silent as he regarded her contemplatively.
‘I wonder,’ he went on, ‘what if I were to offer you employment as scullery maid? You would live in, no longer having to find rent; you would share Florrie’s bedroom. She is from Norfolk – too far to get home. She’s an extremely nice girl and could be a good friend to you.’
At last Ellie found her voice. ‘What about me sister? I can’t leave ’er.’
Doctor Lowe’s face fell. Obviously he hadn’t considered Dora.
But Ellie was ahead of him. All he wanted was someone who’d remind him of his dead daughter, trying to replace what he’d lost. It was such a ridiculous suggestion she almost laughed. She wasn’t falling for that one.
‘I ain’t leaving me sister,’ she said adamantly, keeping her face straight. ‘I intend ter carry on the work me mother was doing.’
‘And what is that?’
‘She made hatboxes for shops what sold silk top hats. I ’elped her.’ Quickly she explained her own part in the work. ‘I know the job and me mum’s employer might keep me on. So I don’t need any—’
She was sharply interrupted. ‘I think you’ll find that will not work out as you hoped, child.’
‘I beg yer pardon?’
‘You and your poor mother did the work between you.’
‘I ’elped,’ Ellie interrupted rudely.
‘Yes, helped. Which provided a larger output than had she worked alone. Working alone you’d complete less than half the number turned out by a skilled worker such as your mother was. Her employer needs full quotas from his outworkers. It is his business, my dear, to make a profit. There is no charity in business. You will find that out.’
She’d already found that out. Before coming here, she’d gone to the man. He’d looked down his nose at her, his smile oily.
‘Sorry about your mum, love. I’ve lost a good worker. But I don’t think you’ll be taking her place. It’s quotas I need. I can’t afford people who turn in just a few here, a few there. I’ve a business to run. I’m sorry, love, you’ll have to look for something else.’
‘You’re sacking me? Me and me mum turned in good work,’ she had argued desperately.
‘No, love,’ had come the hardening tone. ‘Your mum worked for me. You only helped her. You wasn’t officially employed by me, so it’s not a case of sacking. I’m sorry but that’s how it stands. Goodbye.’
He had turned his back on her to stare down from his dusty office window at men in the warehouse moving stacks of hatboxes into waiting carts. She’d left, her visit over in four minutes flat.
Now she stood silent before this portly doctor, her dignity in being self-sufficient fading as the truth of his words sank in. Slowly came an idea that began to lift her heart. Work here. Live in. It had to be a godsend, but only if she could come to some arrangement for Dora.
She’d be cunning. Doctor Lowe wanted her for a reason. For that reason he would agree to anything.
‘I couldn’t possibly work for you if I ’ad to leave my sister on her own, Doctor Lowe,’ she said quietly. ‘She’s only thirteen and we’re alone now. I wouldn’t want ’er to be even more alone. So I’ll ’ave to refuse yer offer.’
His expression was almost one of dismay and fear and she knew she had scored. Unbelievable for a man to be so consumed by the need to keep alive a memory that should by now have been healing. She saw him pull himself up to his full, rotund height of five foot five.
‘I could find something for her to do, I suppose, but I couldn’t pay a wage. She would work for her keep – I can’t say more than that.’
Ellie gave him the briefest smile of gratitude, that he’d not helped her mother earlier still in her mind. His strange glance in response to her smile made her wonder if that too didn’t remind him of his daughter. She rather hoped so, perhaps a little heartlessly, but in her situation something like that could prove an advantage and allow her to play on it. She would find out just how as things developed. He owed her, came the thought – cut short as Florrie came with a steaming mug of cocoa for her.
* * *
There wasn’t much to clear out of the house: a few bits of Mum’s. Cheap trinkets, a few precious things she had hoarded, her beloved jet brooch which, as the years went on, had seen more visits to the pawnbroker’s than time at her neck – these went into a cardboard box Ellie would keep by her to the end of her days. Merely holding them made the tears flow. Yet at the funeral she’d remained dry-eyed, walking behind the coffin on its handcart to the churchyard at St John’s – a more prominent spot, paid for with the guinea Doctor Lowe had insisted she take back, as she would be working in his house from now on. This inability to shed tears as her mother’s coffin was lowered into its grave she could only attribute to the hatred that was in her heart for her father and this wish she had for revenge. Dora, on the other hand, had sobbed enough for the two of them.
Ellie had protested about taking back the guinea until he had finally said that, if she insisted on being proud, he could take it from her wages if that was what she wanted. This she’d agreed to, feeling her conscience clearer, promising herself that she’d take nothing more from him but her wage and, from what she did earn, put a little by towards a stone for Mum – by herself, no one else, just her.
Most of Mum’s clothes – which wasn’t much – she took to a second-hand dealer, who gave her a few pence for them. A few bits she kept back for herself. Mum’s jet brooch she fastened to the high collar of her dress and in her youthful way she promised herself she would wear it for ever in memory of her mother and as a constant reminder of the man she intended to make pay for walking off and leaving her as she lay on her sickbed.
The man who came to clear the house handed her a few shillings: daylight robbery maybe, but she had no option but to accept.
There was still no sign of her father. He didn’t know Mum had died. There was no word from Charlie either, gone a good month now. In the past he had gone away, usually after an argument, though never for this long. He’d be terribly upset when he found out what had happened. She didn’t care about her father, but Charlie was a different matter. She’d always felt close to Charlie.
She decided to leave word with Mrs Sharp next door, giving the new address where she’d be working. The Sharps’ home was a muddle but jolly, even though Mr Sharp was seldom in work. There were several younger child
ren. Dolly, nearly the same age as herself, she got on well with. And there was Ronnie Sharp, recently turned eighteen; she got on well with him too. She liked him a lot. But her quest today was his mother.
‘Me dad – if he do come back, don’t say where I am,’ she instructed her. ‘See if you can worm out of ’im where he’s living and drop a note in to Doctor Lowe so I know where to find ’im.’ She didn’t say why. That was her business. Nor did she believe for one minute that he’d turn up unless he got himself into trouble.
What belongings he’d left behind she refused to even soil her hands with by trying to sell them, but instead threw them all out into the gutter to lie there in the mud from a morning’s rain. They’d been there hardly more than a minute before being pounced on by a cluster of women who appeared like magpies to paw over them. In five minutes flat the gutter was clear, not even a matchbox left. She’d much rather they’d been left to rot away, but they’d probably do someone some good. And she had washed her hands of him, though not of her determination to see him suffer for his treatment of Mum.
One day she’d find him wherever he was. She could be patient. Very soon she’d be sixteen – her birthday just over three weeks away – grown up; and she intended to find him and make him sorry for what he’d done to Mum, as well as to her, no matter how long it took.
What felt worse was the shame. Had she been partly to blame? Was it her? A phrase came dimly to mind, something said at some wedding or other: ‘He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.’
The words came out of the blue, pulling up sharp. Was she really without sin? Had she enticed him in some way? Should she have fought harder? But, still a child, she’d been too frightened to. He’d forced her. It wasn’t her fault. But what if it had been? Those who are without sin…
Viciously she pushed the thought away from her. His sin, not hers!
Three
Watched by Doctor Lowe’s housemaid though totally ignored by his ample-bodied cook, Ellie and her sister stood awkward and ill at ease in the large kitchen, which felt vast compared to the poky one they were used to.
Those days were behind them now. Their old home lay empty, awaiting new occupants. If their father went there in the next few days another family would be there. Mrs Sharp would tell him what had happened, of course.
Ellie wondered how affected he’d be, hearing of Mum’s death. It would be a shock, obviously – he was human after all; but how long would it take for him to get over it? Not long she suspected. Would he feel any guilt about having deserted her when she’d been so ill? Ellie didn’t think so. He might even feel relieved, able to get on with his own life without interference. Again came that curling tendril of hatred inside her.
What of the future? As she waited to be looked over by Doctor Lowe’s wife, she wondered if she had been too quick in asking Mrs Sharp not to tell Dad where she’d now be living. Would he demand her and Dora back? Would he want a couple of kids around him mucking up his life? For her part she didn’t need him spoiling her chance of a new life, if only as a scullery maid.
Something told her that this lowly position might not last too long. She could be on to something better. She kept thinking of Mrs Lowe’s words, gasped out behind a trembling hand: ‘She looks so like…’ and the brittle way her husband had cut off what appeared to have been a reference to his daughter’s likeness to herself. It might benefit her to play on that. Not too soon of course. Unable to cope with this apparent resemblance to his dead daughter, her new employer might dismiss her. She’d have to tread carefully.
She felt Dora’s hand slip into hers. ‘I feel really out of place ’ere,’ Dora whispered. ‘I wish we ’adn’t come. I feel in the way.’
Ellie glanced down at her. ‘We’ll be all right. I’ll make sure of it.’
Dora had been so excited when she had told her of their good fortune. ‘So I won’t have to go and live with Mrs Sharp after all,’ she cried, having been told about their neighbour’s kind offer to take her in.
‘Only for a while,’ Mrs Sharp had said. ‘Until things settle. I couldn’t have her for too long because there ain’t much room for me own kids. But I couldn’t see a child like her with nowhere to go or be stuck in an orphanage somewhere, poor little lamb, when I can be of some ’elp, at least until you find some work and somewhere cheaper to live.’
Dora had hated the idea, crying, ‘I don’t want ter live with strangers!’
‘They’re not strangers,’ Ellie had said. ‘They’re neighbours and you’re friends with Cathie and Bertie Sharp. You get on well together and Bertie’s your special friend. You know he likes you a lot.’
‘But not to live in the same ’ouse,’ had come the protest. ‘Their ’ome’s crowded and I might be asked to share the same room with ’im.’
‘No you won’t,’ Ellie told her. ‘The girls sleep upstairs. Their brothers share the back room downstairs.’
Her sister’s response had been an enormous shrug, but now of course there was no need to worry about that any more. Ellie stopped thinking of it as she saw the doctor’s wife come into the kitchen.
Mary Lowe’s gentle brown eyes took in the two young people standing in the centre of the room. They looked lost, while the kitchen resounded to the clash of saucepans that Mrs Jenkins was setting on the large black-leaded range in readiness for the family’s midday meal. Mary gave each girl a smile that was as tremulous and awkward as their own response – that of the younger one shy, the older with a fraction more confidence.
None could have mistaken them for other than sisters, both of them auburn-haired and dimple-chinned, with narrow cheeks that would fill out and blossom with colour with some good food inside them. Both had the same firm set of the lips, the same pert nose, the same wide eyes with the darker rim of the iris quite sharply and startlingly defined.
But it was the older girl who drew her attention as if by a magnet and again she felt a lump inside her breast, the stinging threat of tears. There was no doubt her husband had engaged her because of this uncanny resemblance to their dead daughter. It was more than that. It was the posture, the smile, a movement. She’d argued against his engaging her but had finally given in, as she usually did before his stronger will; but deep inside she felt she would begin to regret it. What if this likeness started to affect her to such an extent that she’d be unable even to look at the girl.
She swallowed her doubts and said, ‘I shall leave it to Cook to tell you what your duties will be, child.’
She turned to the younger girl. ‘You, my dear… I’m sorry, I have forgotten your name for the moment.’
‘Her name’s Dora,’ the sister said firmly.
‘Yes, Dora,’ Mary echoed without looking at the older girl. Already she felt dislike for her – not because she reminded her so of Millicent but because Millicent had been sweet and gentle. This girl was far from being that: hard, forthright rather than compliant and submissive as a domestic should be, especially one being taken on for such a lowly position as scullery maid.
‘Come with me, dear,’ she said quietly to Dora, who meekly followed her from the kitchen. She approved. Young people should know their place. She felt quite taken with her. And there lay the difference between the two.
‘I hope you can sew and do simple mending,’ she said at the door. ‘I have a good outside seamstress for my finer things whom I would rather not burden with small everyday repairs.’
‘I can sew,’ came the ready response as Dora followed her into the hallway and up the broad stairs.
Mary Lowe smiled. The child was uncouth, ill-spoken, but she would set about teaching her as much as she could on how to be ladylike and speak nicely. Such a pretty little girl and not at all like her sister after all.
Left alone, Ellie felt suddenly jealous. Dora given sewing duties while she was left to scrub pots! It wasn’t a nice feeling, jealousy, and she hurriedly turned her mind to the housemaid and the girl’s ample physique.
It seemed everyone
in this residence was well padded, from her new employer and his wife down to the housemaid and their cook. She and Dora, being so thin, would stand out like sore thumbs in this house. Everyone here ate so well, judging by the food on the kitchen table at this very moment, it was no wonder they put on flesh. She wondered if, after a while, she and Dora would become as plump.
Came a momentary vision of her mother – thin, wiry, always going without. The memory brought a catch in her throat, which she forced back. She had to make her own way in the world now, she and Dora looking after each other. Giving in to tears would do no one any good. But tears there were, hovering unshed in her heart.
She almost jumped out of her skin as the cook, who’d been busy at the kitchen range, now turned on her.
‘Right now, young lady, my name’s Mrs Jenkins,’ she said in a harsh, piercing voice. ‘But you will call me Cook. Your employer you’ll address as sir, and his wife as madam. Do you understand all that?’
‘Yes,’ Ellie replied, trying not to sound too meek yet not too forthright. ‘And what do I call the housemaid?’
Mrs Jenkins’s face relaxed, making her look almost pleasant but for the strident voice. ‘You call her Florrie like the rest of us. And everyone will call you Ellie. Understand, girl?’
This was a relief. To have to call someone ‘miss’ when she was hardly older than herself would have gone against the grain, thought Ellie as she smiled back at Cook. She was aware that she had a naturally wide smile that revealed good strong teeth, not often seen in the sort of place she’d been brought up in. They were white and even, and the smile seemed to appease Mrs Jenkins, who said in a quieter tone, ‘Very well, Ellie, get out of your things. Hang your hat and coat on a hook behind that cupboard door. Put the apron on you’ll find there. Then you can take these used saucepans over to the sink. Fill it with water from that big kettle and put in a handful of the washing soda you can see on the draining board. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ Ellie said again, glancing at the several black iron saucepans. They looked huge and heavy.
