by Joan Aiken
Letty’s face cleared. “Ah, that’s not a bad notion,” she owned. “To tell the truth, I ain’t been up to Islington for a couple of weeks; Aunt Liza was after me a good deal—even had the crumb to suggest I might pay her a bit, as Neal’s my pal. I reckon he an’ his wife probably sloped off, to France, maybe, to lie low till times is better—but it was ha’penny dealing to leave the kids with Aunt for so long without paying. I’ll have a word or two to say to Master Neal when he shows his face again. Mind you—that’s always been his way: a three-and-sixpenny dinner at the Holborn Restaurant’s plenty good enough for him when he takes a girl out—you’d never catch him laying out his dibs at the swell places farther west. And as for bringing a bottle of fizz when he comes to see a girl—Lord love you!”
“Well, I wish I’d thought to do that,” said Val, digging out a couple of sovereigns. “But here—I hope you can send out and get something now—you’ve been very kind to tell me so much, it’s been very helpful—”
“Bless you dear, I’d do as much any time. Ta, that’s kind of you an’ I’ll drink your health in it—you really take the biscuit, even if you are a Juggins! See you sometime.” With which obscure piece of theatrical slang, Miss Pettigrew turned round and applied herself to her make-up in good earnest.
Val left her and hurried back up the narrow stairs. The theatre was beginning to hum with activity—more actors were jostling their way down to the basement dressing rooms, a dolorous noise of orchestral tuning up could be heard from the pit, and a chocolate-, apple-, and shrimp-munching throng was beginning to file into the vestibule.
Outside, both Val’s driver and his horse were becoming extremely restive.
“I could ‘a hired myself fifteen times over while you was a-jawing in there,” he grumbled. “Two shillin’ a mile is bad enough, but one shillin’ the half hour for staying still is enough to starve a man.”
Val promised to pay him four times his fare and told him to drive back to the Jersey Hotel.
She was strongly tempted to go straight to Islington then and there, but second thoughts prevailed. The children would probably have been put to bed, hours before, and would be fast asleep. No sense in waking them up. And how could she tell what kind of treatment they were receiving unless she talked to them?
But she resolved that she would go to Islington the very first thing next morning.
Chapter 5
Next morning, while eating a rapid breakfast, Val cast her eye swiftly through the Grosvenor Square section of Kelly’s Directory of London, and was somewhat unnerved to find that the only pair of ladies who appeared on the list as owning a house in that august area were the marchioness of Stroma and Lady Honoria Carsphairn, at number forty. Could they be Kirstie’s aunts? They sounded Scottish enough, and aristocratic enough. No wonder they had not been enthusiastic about Kirstie’s marriage to a medical student who had neither birth nor breeding nor much in the way of fortune to recommend him; nothing but a gentleman’s education, an ability to mix with the right people, and a talent for writing newspaper paragraphs about them.
“Have I the courage to go and call on those ladies?” Val wondered. “Well at all events, I’ll go to Islington first.”
The morning, like the previous afternoon, was icy, dark, and foggy. Val wrapped up in her warmest cape, sealskin muff, scarf, and fur cap to go out in it—she had already discovered that the raw, damp London air could be quite as chilling as a far lower temperature in New York. She hailed a hansom, knowing as she did so that she must abandon this habit of traveling by cab. And in the next couple of days she must come to some decision about where and how she was to live, if she remained in London; it was far too expensive to stay at the Jersey Hotel for weeks on end. If she remained in London she must move into lodgings. Perhaps the best solution would be to rent rooms from Mrs. Eliza Pipkin in Islington, so as to be with the children? And that would ensure her getting into touch with Nils and Kirstie if—when they returned; obviously they would go straight to Islington. But I won’t decide, thought Val, till I see what Mrs. Pipkin is like. Islington did not seem a very convenient locality, she reflected, as the hansom rumbled on in a northeasterly direction, up cobbled streets, across numerous squares, along wide, busy, shabby thoroughfares down which horse trams screeched and rattled. Islington seemed far, far removed from the elegance of Welbeck Street.
At last they arrived in front of a mean, black little house in a row of similar mean little houses. Val alighted and paid the driver half a crown. There was a rusty gate, a little garden before the house, full of wet sooty grass and frost-blackened geraniums, with a cinder path leading to an iron-grated door. A brass plate said Mrs. Eliza Pipkin, Lodgings. Val rang vigorously at the bell, and the door was opened by a pale, down-at-heel-looking girl, with her hair in rats’-tails, and very bad pockmarks all over her face. Assuming this to be the luckless Mercy, returned home from Welbeck Street, Val asked,
“Is Mrs. Pipkin in? I’m—”
“I’m Mr. Hansen’s sister,” she was about to add, but the girl nervously inquired, “Was it about lodgings, miss?” just as a loud, furious voice broke out at the top of the stairs which led directly down to the front door.
“Oh, look what you’ve done now, you horrible, filthy little toad! If this happens once more, I’m not keeping you here another day, that I’m not! I’ll have you taken away to the Union, I don’t care who your mother or father is. Mother or father! Precious fine pair they are!”
There came, faint but distinct, the sound of a slap, and a low cry, followed by a muffled sobbing. A child’s voice said, “Please don’t—she can’t help it—”
“I’ll please don’t you, Master Please Don’t!”
“Mother!” called the girl sharply. “Mother, there’s a lady here about the lodgings. What did you say your name was?” she asked Val.
“Miss Montgomery,” said Val quietly.
“A Miss Montgorry about the lodgings, Mother!” called the girl.
“Tell the young lady I’ll be down directly,” said the voice from above, in quite a different tone. And it added in a fierce whisper, “Now, don’t you move an inch from that spot, either of you, or I’ll tan you alive!” A door slammed.
Quick footsteps rattled on the stairs, and a short, stout woman came into view. She had greyish brown hair and sharp grey eyes; her coarse skin was high-coloured, as if she were in a temper about something, with broken veins, and a thin-lipped, down-curving mouth revealed, when she smiled perfunctorily at Val, rather bad teeth. A kind of suppressed rage seemed to hang about her, in all her movements, as she looked at Val, at her daughter, about the shabby little front hall, and back up the drab-carpeted stairs.
“There’s the first-floor room with piano, seven pun’ the month with board,” she said rapidly, “or one up on the top floor you could have for four. D’you want to see the rooms?”
“Yes, I’d like to,” said Val. It was the first time in her life that she had not instantly divulged her purpose and identity, but she was quite unconscious of any change from her normal behaviour. Her attention was concentrated on the room upstairs from which the voices had come, and also on the arrival of a butcher’s boy, who at that moment came whistling through the gate with a wooden tray full of skewered bits of meat.
“Mercy, show the young lady upstairs; I’ll see to the boy,” said Mrs. Pipkin sharply. “And tell her about the washing and coals.”
Val allowed herself to be led up and shown a medium-sized room, containing a piano, a bed that pretended to be a sofa covered by a plush spread, and an aspidistra in a brass pot. Then she said that she would like to see the four-pound room, which was on the top floor, up more stairs covered with drugget, and which was so very small that it only just contained its narrow bed and washstand.
“You get a nice view from here,” said Mercy hopefully. The view was certainly extensive: a whole grey hillside covered with terraces of
other dismal little houses, their rows of chimneys all dribbling yellow smoke into the soupy atmosphere.
Val followed Mercy down again, making affirmative responses to the information that she was being given regarding laundry, coal, and hot suppers. On the first-floor landing, she said, “I believe I’d like to look in here again,” and deliberately opened the door of a room they had not entered before.
“Oh, that’s not it—” began Mercy, but Val had already walked through the door and was looking at the two children who were inside the room.
They were thin little creatures. The boy wore a shabby sailor suit. The girl—much smaller—was dressed only in a nightdress. Their hair was very fair, like Nils’, their eyes slate-blue. They were extremely pale. The boy had an arm round his small sister, either for protection, or restraint, or to comfort himself; Val noticed the little bony hand, blueish against the yellowed flannel. Their faces were rather dirty, and the little girl’s was smeared with tears. Also Val noticed fastidiously that they smelt unwashed—and that the girl’s hair had not been brushed for days, by the look of it.
“Hullo,” she said gently, crossing the room to where they huddled together in the corner. The four slate-blue eyes looked up at her warily, fearfully.
“Oh, miss, you’ve gone into the wrong room!” cried Mercy anxiously. “That’s not the one—”
“It’s all right, Mercy,” said Val.
She noticed that the little girl sat on a damp patch on the bare wooden floor. Indeed the whole room smelt faintly of urine. Like a zoo, thought Val.
Mrs. Pipkin came rushing back up the stairs, her colour higher than ever.
“That’s not the room, miss,” she said sharply. “Mercy, what did you show the young lady in here for? That’s a pair of young ‘uns I’m looking arter to oblige someone—and enough trouble they’ve given me, dear knows—the room that’s to let is this one; what’d you do a stupid thing like that for, Mercy? You keep still or I’ll knock your teeth in,” she threatened the children in a whisper, trying to urge Val out of the door with impatient jerks of her head.
Val had noticed how the children flinched when Mrs. Pipkin entered the room.
“I’m their aunt‚” she said clearly.
Mrs. Pipkin’s jaw dropped. Her high colour faded. She looked, suddenly, both angry and uncertain; she began to gabble: “Why didn’t you tell me, Mercy, that the lady was the children’s aunt? I’m sorry, I’m sure, miss—I’d have had them ready if I’d a known you was coming, though Lord alone knows the inconvenience I’ve had with them, left with them a whole month and not a penny paid since the first, downright inconsiderate, if you’ll pardon me, and the little girl’s more than anyone could be expected to look after that wasn’t related to her, she’s dirty, miss, it’s enough to break your heart keeping after her, in my opinion she’s mental, not all there, I’ll have to have compensation for the damage she’s done. I’m a respectable woman and this is a clean house and if I’d known at the start how it was going to be I’d never have said yes, and supposed to come from a good home—good home indeed, it’s downright disgraceful the way some people bring up their young ones if you ask me—”
She was working herself back into a rage again. Val cut her short.
“Will you pack the children’s things, please?” she said. “And tell me how much is owed to you. I’ll pay you immediately and take them away as soon as you can have them ready.”
“Take them away?” demanded Mrs. Pipkin, indignantly, suddenly changing her tack. “ ‘Ere, you can’t do that! Their pa and ma left them with me; I undertook to look arter ‘em, and ‘ere they’ll stay—’ow do I know you’re who you say you are, anyways? There’s plenty owing, which I’ll be obliged if you will pay—and about time too—but as for taking them away, that’s another kettle of fish! Why don’t their pa come for them hisself?”
Ignoring this awkward question, Val said again, “How much is owing to you?”
“Fourteen pun’ ten shilling!” said Mrs. Pipkin threateningly. “An’ it should be more by rights, considering the ‘orrible haggravation I’ve been subjected to—not an easy minnit ‘av I hed wi’ them young ‘uns in the ‘ouse.”
“Then you should be relieved that I’m taking them away,” said Val, taking her purse out of her muff. She counted out the money—it was dangerously close to all she had on her. “Now—please get their things together and wash their faces.”
At sight of the money Mrs. Pipkin’s expression had become less hostile, more cupidinous.
“That fourteen ten’s only on account,” she snapped. “There’s demmiges to be took into consideration as well.”
“You’ll have to write to my brother’s lawyers about that,” said Val. “Now, where are their clothes?”
She looked about the room. It was bleak enough—bare boards, a cupboard, an iron bed in one corner, a cot in another, a chamberpot. Val crossed to the cupboard and opened it. But it was empty.
“They’ve only got one or two bits o’ things,” said Mrs. Pipkin defensively. “I’ve ‘ad to wash for ‘em every blessed day. There’s some stuff out on the line now. Fetch it, Mercy.”
“The little girl can’t have come here in her nightgown,” said Val. “Where are her other clothes? She must have a coat, a dress?”
The boy spoke up for the first time.
“We had some other things but she took them away,” he said in a very quiet voice, each syllable precisely accented. A kind of flash transformed Mrs. Pipkin’s face and Val moved forward protectively; she guessed at the courage it must have taken for the child to speak. But Mrs. Pipkin evidently thought better of her impulse; she muttered, “You can’t believe anything they say, there’s not a particle of truth in it. Anyhows, where are you takin’ them?”
“I’m taking them to Mrs. Hansen’s aunt, Lady Stroma, at her house in Grosvenor Square,” Val said boldly.
The splendid address had its effect; Mrs. Pipkin became quite subdued.
“ ‘Ere, Merce, why din’t you tell me before that Mrs. H had some grand folks? We could a’ writ to ‘em—”
“I didn’t know their name, Ma,” Mercy muttered nervously. “The old lady did come a-calling onct, but she jest said, ‘Tell Mrs. Hansen her aunt is here—’”
Val had had enough of Mrs. Pipkin and her daughter.
“Please hurry up and get the children ready,” she said shortly. “I don’t wish to wait here all day.”
A self-conscious bustle ensued, with Mrs. Pipkin harrying Mercy. A basin of hot water was fetched up, the children’s faces were scrubbed, a few items of clothing were packed into a canvas bag, and, after a longish pause, a serge sailor dress was brought and the little girl dressed in it. Val had noticed Mercy slip out of the front gate and round to the house next door during this interval and harboured a suspicion that the dress had been sold or bartered and was now being hastily retrieved. Mrs. Pipkin’s mixture of aggression and defensiveness was not conducive to confidence; throughout the whole scene Val found herself continuously wondering: how could Kirstie, who loved her children so devotedly, and was so fanatically particular about not entrusting them to unreliable nursery maids—how could she have left them with a woman like this?
At last they were ready, their pallor enhanced by the scrubbing they had undergone. As a final sop they had each been given a slice of bread and butter and brown sugar.
“There!” said Mrs. Pipkin. “Now don’t you go a-telling your ma and pa you din’t have a nice time at ol’ Mrs. Pipkin’s!”
She tried to manipulate her face into an indulgent smile, but the effect was not convincing.
“As to that, I should think their looks will speak for themselves—they don’t need to say anything,” Val said curtly, closing the gate.
This enraged Mrs. Pipkin; she came rushing down the garden path, and the children instinctively clutched Val’s hands.
“ ‘Ere!” said Mrs. Pipkin furiously. “Arter all, ‘ow do I know you aren’t a kidnapper? I ought to ‘ave the law on you.”
“I wouldn’t try that,” said Val. “The police might be interested in finding out what you had done with all these children’s belongings. Come along, Jannie and Pieter.”
She led them along up the street at a brisk pace, thinking ruefully that this final scene must have looked ludicrous enough to any observer. Indeed, a man in a Tom-and-Jerry hat and a blue cravat, who had been leaning against a gatepost a few houses farther along, eyed them curiously as they passed, and then strolled after them.
“Where are you taking us?” the boy asked presently and then added, in his quiet, precise manner, “Are you a kidnapper?”
“No I’m not,” said Val shortly. “Mrs. Pipkin only said that to frighten you. I’m your aunt Val.”
“Oh,” he said thoughtfully, and then, after a pause, “How do we know that?”
“I suppose you’ll have to take me on trust,” Val said, rather nonplussed. How old was he—five, six? Was this what all children were like?—so clear, so logical? Then she recollected something. “Can you read?”
“Print, I can—not handwriting.”
“You’d recognise handwriting, though, I should think? I have a letter from your mother. I’ll show it to you in the train.”
There had been no possibility of finding a hansom in those parts; in any case Val’s store of ready cash was now so depleted that she feared she might not have the fare. However, partly by luck, partly sense of direction, she had steered their course so that quite soon they arrived at King’s Cross station, where Val bought tickets for the Marylebone underground railway. The children had not traveled on this before; their eyes widened in fright as the train rattled them into a black, smoky tunnel, and the little girl burst into wails.
“Oh heavens! Don’t do that!” said Val. She felt, uncomfortably, that people were staring at them. Wholly unused to the company of children, she did not know what to do. If only she had some buns or lollipops to give the howling Jannie. A penny? Doubtful if that would bring any consolation; rummaging rather hopelessly in the recesses of her muff she came across a small object and pulled it out, puzzled, wondering what it could be.
