by Ruthie Lewis
‘Nothing happened to her,’ she said smiling. ‘She grew, that’s all. The dress doesn’t fit her anymore. You’ll grow too, with regular feeding.’
That evening we all sat around a table in the kitchen. Joe was uncomfortable and kept sliding off his stool, but she just picked him up and put him back again. The food was hot, and it tasted wonderful. We started to eat with our hands like we always did, so George, her husband, tried to teach us to use a knife and fork, like they were doing. We both made a mess of it and kept dropping things. I got annoyed. I couldn’t see why they wanted us to do this. Why couldn’t we eat with our fingers? What was wrong with that? Maybe coming here was a mistake.
They made beds for us in the parlour, blankets laid down on the floor. Everything was soft, so soft I couldn’t get comfortable. I finally rolled up the blankets and laid down on the hard floor, and lay there for a while listening to Joe snore. I couldn’t sleep. I was waiting for a trap to spring, waiting to be locked in the house, so we couldn’t get out. Once I got up and tried the door, but it was unlocked. I could go out any time I wanted. That reassured me, a little.
I lay back down again and started thinking about all the food there was in the house. My belly was full, but on the streets you learn to eat whenever you see food, in case you don’t see it again. After a while I got up and went into the kitchen. The dog was asleep in a corner, and he raised his head and looked at me and then went back to sleep again. I opened the larder door. There was a big sack right there in front of me, huge, nearly as big as Joe, absolutely full of potatoes. I picked one up and started chewing on it. Raw potatoes don’t taste of much, but they fill you up.
I was so busy eating I didn’t hear the movement behind me at first. I turned around fast, reaching for my knife, but of course I didn’t have it anymore. She lit the oil lamp on the table and stood and looked at me with the potato in my hand, and bits of mush and skin on my face around my mouth.
‘They’re much better cooked,’ she said. ‘Would you like one?’
I nodded. She was offering food, and like I said, I wasn’t going to turn it down. She put some water in a pot and put it on the stove, which was still hot, and put my potato into it. When it was cooked she took it out and mashed it up with some butter and salt, and then sat me down at the table and taught me, ever so slow and patient, how to use the knife and fork, guiding my hands until I could hold them on my own. I still didn’t see the point, but it made her happy.
‘Why did you come back to Rotherhithe?’ she asked.
‘It’s what I know best,’ I said. ‘I didn’t like the other places we went. People were always hunting us, trying to capture us and put us in the workhouse.’
‘What happened to the other Angels?’
‘I don’t know.’ I tried to pretend it didn’t matter. ‘I was tired of being with them anyway. Ness and the others, they think they’re tough, but they’re not really.’
The truth was we’d got separated one wild night in Lambeth when a bunch of other girls came down on us like mad things, knives flashing everywhere, and we had to run for it. Joe and I looked for them but couldn’t find them, and finally we decided to cut out altogether and come back to Rotherhithe. I didn’t know what had happened to the rest. I didn’t know if they were still alive. They probably weren’t.
‘And what are you going to do now?’ she asked.
‘It’s like I told you before. I’m going to become a thief, and join the Forty Elephants.’
She smiled at me. I didn’t know why, because I was deadly serious. That was my ambition, to become the best thief in London and get rich.
‘Would you like to go to school?’ she said.
I ate some more of my potato. ‘What would I want to do that for?’
‘Even thieves need to know how to read and write,’ she said. ‘And if you do steal lots of money, you’ll need to know how to count it.’
That made sense. ‘Will you read some more books to us?’ I asked. ‘Not that silly one about Alice and the rabbit. But I liked the other books.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Good, then it is settled. You and Joe will come to school with us. I am glad. I wouldn’t want to think of you sitting around the house with nothing to do.’
I ate a bit more, thinking. ‘Your husband . . . Does he like us being here?’ I had seen the expression on his face last evening when he came in.
‘George is worried that there won’t be enough food for us all,’ she said gently. I started to push my plate away, but she pushed it back. ‘No, Mary. Eat. You need to regain your strength. Only, when next you are hungry, my dear, ask me. I will always find food for you.’
‘Your husband won’t want to put us in the workhouse?’ I asked.
She smiled. ‘No. He is a good and kind man, and you can trust him as you trust me.’
‘And what about the other man,’ I said. ‘The one who came after you when you fell that time. Who is he?’
‘He is another teacher,’ she said. ‘He came to return something I had left behind, that is all.’
I wondered if she knew how her face changed when she mentioned the other man. Her eyes went open a little wider, and there was a little touch of colour on her cheeks in the lamplight. I wondered if she even realised it was happening.
I wondered, too, if she knew how sick her husband really was.
*
Always crowded, the house on Bell Lane was now full to bursting, with six children and two adults crammed into four small rooms. On Sunday, George and Elijah Berton built a cot for Mary and Joe to share in the parlour room. To Grace’s mild annoyance, Mary refused to use it, preferring to sleep on the hard floor.
‘She told me that’s what she’s used to,’ George said.
Grace was surprised. ‘She talks to you?’
‘A little, now and then. She’s trying to figure out if she can trust me, I think.’
Joe was happy to sleep on the cot, but then, Joe would sleep pretty much anywhere. Grace thought she had never seen a more malleable child. He did whatever she asked of him – he didn’t always do it very well, but he never stopped trying – and he was also utterly good-natured. If he had a temper, she never saw it.
For Joe, everything was new and exciting. Life on the street had come close to killing him, but he was young and impressionable and he adapted quickly. He adored Grace and tended to follow her around the house tugging at her skirt and asking constant questions about what she was doing. As time passed and he put flesh on his bones, he began to talk more, and more, and still more, about anything and everything under the sun: what they were having for dinner, what Radcliffe had done this afternoon, what colour the sky was. Words came out of him like water spilling over a dam. Joe had spent years locked in silence, and now was doing his level best to make up for it.
Mary was different. Her memories of the violence she had seen, and perpetrated, had left deep scars on her mind. She wore proper clothes now, but refused absolutely to wear shoes. Sometimes when she looked at her, Grace could see the feral child still there beneath the surface, waiting, watching. The girl was often tense, and she jumped at every unfamiliar sound. At school she was not a good pupil. She was easily distracted, and if pushed to perform a task that was beyond her ability, she became frustrated and angry.
At home, too, she was restless and flighty. Once, when asked by Grace to wash some pots, she made a mess of the task, and Grace’s request that she do it again led to a screaming fit that ended when Mary pulled a knife out of the block and pointed it at her. Grace crossed her arms over her chest and stared her down, at which point Mary threw the knife on the floor and burst into a shattering flood of tears.
She avoided Grace for the rest of the day, and was silent and sullen through dinner, clattering her knife and fork clumsily against her plate. After dinner, George went through to the parlour room and then called Mary. She hesitated but then went, dragging her feet. Joe remained in the kitchen, crouched on the floor having a long and necess
arily one-sided conversation with Radcliffe, whom he found fascinating. Grace washed the dishes and cleaned the table and went cautiously through to the parlour, and stopped in surprise.
George was sitting in his chair next to the stove. It was July and the evening was warm, but he still had not shaken off the winter chill, and needed the heat. Mary was sitting on his lap, leaning back against him, sound asleep while George slowly stroked her hair.
‘How did you do it?’ Grace murmured.
‘I just talked to her,’ George said softly. ‘I told her the story of my life. She still doesn’t really know me, you see. So I told her who I am, about going to work young when my father died, and the brick works, and all the houses and warehouses we built, and the work at the docks. She just sat and listened, and then after a while she came and sat on my knee, and then she fell straight into sleep.’ He stroked the girl’s hair again. ‘She doesn’t really understand what it is to be loved. And yet she craves it much.’
‘And is she loved?’ Grace asked softly.
George smiled at her. ‘For years, she looked after that little boy on the streets. Gave him everything she had to keep him alive, and she nothing but a child herself. How do you not love someone with a heart like that? You know I had my doubts, Grace, but that’s all gone now. You did the right thing bringing her here, and mark my words, one day all the kindness you’re showing her will be repaid.’
‘I don’t care if it isn’t,’ said Grace, watching the sleeping child’s face. ‘It’s enough to know that both of them will live and grow.’
*
The road ahead was still far from smooth. Mary continued to struggle to adapt to her new world, and the frustration and tension were still there, but now when she blew up she was at once contrite, apologising often tearfully for her behaviour and begging them to forgive her. And, of course, they always did. That edge of anger would always be there, Grace thought. How could one expect otherwise, when the world had treated her so cruelly? But there was hope, now, that she could turn the corner and leave her old desperate life behind her. I’ll keep her out of the gangs, Grace told herself, if it is the last thing I ever do.
And yet, the gangs were always there, lurking in the shadows. Agnes Korngold called one afternoon in late July, on one of her weekly visits. She had become friendly with Walter Ringrose when he had substituted for Grace at the school, and sometimes called on him too, in Bermondsey. She was old enough to be his mother, so there was no hint of impropriety.
‘He has great spirit, that young man,’ Agnes said. ‘He is what we call a mensch. He said he would stand up to the gangs, and so he has.’
Grace felt a pang of fear. ‘What happened?’
‘He persuaded some of the local men to help him. Long Ben came to burn the Bermondsey school, as he promised to do, and Mr Ringrose saw him off. He had twenty of his friends with him, and Long Ben did not dare to attack.’
She looked seriously at Grace. ‘But Ben threatened you as well. He promised he would get the better of Mr Ringrose and you too, and he would burn both your schools to the ground. Mr Ringrose replied that if Ben or his men hurt so much as a hair on your head, he – Mr Ringrose, that is – would hunt him down and exterminate him.’
To her astonishment – indeed, to her horror – Grace felt herself starting to blush. ‘Is Mr Ringrose all right? Is he hurt?’
‘He is as well as you or I,’ said Agnes. ‘It will take more than a few bullies with knives to stop that one . . . But, I mustn’t stand here gossiping when you have work to do. I shall be off.’ She glanced at Mary, who was sitting and listening, and then looked back at Grace. ‘Mrs Clare often asks after you. Shall I tell her you are well?’
‘Tell her we are all very well,’ said Grace, who was still blushing.
She was annoyed with herself for blushing, and that evening she was curt with George for absolutely no reason, which annoyed her still further. The truth, she finally admitted to herself, was that she was thrilled that Mr Ringrose had indeed stood up to the gangs, but she was also worried for his safety. Long Ben wasn’t likely to be put off. He would try again, and his next attack was likely to be more deadly.
Two days later, as she was locking up the school at midday and gathering her little flock of Albert, Daisy, Harry, Joe, Mary, Edith in her basket and Radcliffe trotting at her heels, she saw the familiar figure of Mr Ringrose himself come walking across the wasteland past the carpet factory. She stopped and realised her cheeks were warm again. She wished Mary would stop looking at her like that.
‘Welcome, sir,’ she said smiling. ‘To what do I owe the honour of your company?’
He smiled back but his usual stumbling, stammering manner was quite absent. He looked preoccupied, and like he had not been getting much sleep. ‘Please forgive me for intruding,’ he said. ‘I know how busy you must be.’
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘My school was attacked. Did you know?’
She nodded. ‘Agnes told me of your heroic defence.’
‘It was a near-run thing,’ he said with feeling. ‘We only just persuaded them to back down without bloodshed. We had numbers on our side, but even so, I don’t know how things would have turned out. And they have threatened you also.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Agnes told me that as well.’
‘Mrs Turneur, Long Ben means business. If he defeats the Captain, he’ll run this entire district. And he’ll enslave every boy he can lay his hands on, and drag them into his gang. The schools stand in his way, and he’ll do anything to get rid of us. I came here today because I am greatly concerned for your safety.’
His eyes met hers. They were warm and brown, she realised, and she felt again that little frisson down her back, a prickling sensation that this time lingered and stayed. Suddenly furious with herself, she shook her head.
Mr Ringrose saw the gesture and misunderstood it. ‘I assure you the threat is real,’ he said. ‘You are in danger, Mrs Turneur.’
‘Everyone in Rotherhithe is in danger,’ she said shortly. ‘The gangs are a threat to us all.’ She needed to get away from him, away from those warm eyes and the gentle planes of his face and that serious voice, and those ever-so-capable hands that had gripped a cricket bat in defence of his school.
‘I have a proposal for you,’ he said. ‘May I beg you to hear me out?’
‘Go on,’ Grace said reluctantly.
‘I suggest that we merge our two schools. We could find a single location, midway between where we both are now, still in easy walking distance for the children. We could get a house, a strong sturdy house that could be fortified and defended. Some of the local men would help us guard it. There’s plenty who hate the gangs, and know the threat to their own children. They would be happy to assist us.’
‘And how would that help?’ she countered. ‘Should we barricade ourselves in this house, never to come out? Perhaps you can afford to do so, sir, but I have a husband and family to care for. And our pupils, what about them? Will you lock them up in the school too, for their own safety? I am sorry, Mr Ringrose, but what you propose is quite impracticable.’
He looked down at his hands for a moment. He had not expected such complete rejection. ‘I meant only it would be easier to protect a single school, and the schools are what seems to be the object of Long Ben’s ire,’ he said.
‘But if Long Ben can no longer attack the schools, he will turn his attention to us in person,’ said Grace. ‘Schools can be replaced, Mr Ringrose. Bricks and wood, books and slates are all that we should lose, and more of these can be found. But lives are irreplaceable.’
‘Yes, of course. You are quite right. It was a foolish notion.’ She could see the disappointment in his face, and suddenly she felt guilty for hurting him, and meanwhile that insistent nagging finger continued to brush up and down her spine.
On impulse she said, ‘I am sorry. I did not mean to suggest the idea is entirely without merit. There might well be advantages to sharing premises.’
She smiled a little. ‘I should miss my draughty, smelly railway arch, but it might be nice to have a proper roof over our heads. Will you let me think about it?’
His face lit up again. ‘Of course,’ he said smiling, and he bowed. ‘I shall detain you no longer, Mrs Turneur. Good day to you. Good day, children.’
She stood and watched him walk away, unaware that her lips were parted a little. Behind her, Mary said, ‘Long Ben won’t win.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I hear things about him on the street. He’s tough, but the Captain is tougher, and he has more men. Long Ben won’t last much longer.’
Mary paused, watching Mr Ringrose disappear behind the carpet factory. ‘Do you like him?’ she asked.
‘Like? Like whom?’ Grace asked.
‘Him.’ Mary pointed. ‘You like him, don’t you?’
‘He is a good man,’ said Grace. ‘I like and respect him as a teacher.’
She was blushing again as she said it, and she knew she was lying. Unconsciously, she had tried to bury her feelings, but they had refused to stay down and now they were bursting and boiling to the surface. She was attracted to him. How long this had been happening, she could not say, but although she could deny this to Mary there was no longer any denying it to herself.
It is a foolish infatuation, she told herself as they walked home, and I must get rid of it. I am not a silly girl anymore. I am a married woman, a mother with children. I shall put him out of my thoughts entirely.
And I shall not see him again. The idea of our schools joining forces is impossible. I need to be away from him, as far away as possible. Out of sight, out of mind. If I do not see him or speak to him, then I shall cure this disorder of my mind and get back to my real life.
At home she prepared the midday meal absently, her mind on other things. She barely spoke to George or the children while they ate. After George returned to work, coughing in the dust and wind outside, she nursed Edith and put her down, and then sent Daisy and Harry and Joe for their afternoon nap. Albert sat reading in the parlour room next to the baby’s cot while Mary, in one of her restless moods, prowled around the house. Upstairs, Grace gathered laundry and brought it down to the kitchen, put a cauldron of water to heat on the stove, and then began sorting the clothes for washing.
