by Joan Aiken
***
Pullett and I travelled up to London on the stage. Urged by Thomas, Rachel and myself, she had lodged her hundred pounds in the bank. So we had very little money between us. I had nearly run through my last earnings from Mrs Haslam’s school, and Mrs Jebb had not paid her servants their last week’s wages. I sold a few books, which I had acquired during my sojourn in Bath. Rachel and Thomas sold Mrs Jebb’s piano (‘which we shan’t want,’ said they) and insisted on giving us the money.
I wrote a cautious note to Mrs Jeffereys informing her of my intention and, in return, she sent me the address of her cousin, Mrs Widdence, the milliner in Clerkenwell who she said often took lodgers on her attic floor at a very modest rental.
So, at least, in London we had an address to make for.
‘I’ll take charge of that, and the money,’ declared Pullett firmly, tucking the slip of paper with Mrs Widdence’s address into her purse. While we were packing she clucked over me like a hen, casting me into transports of irritation. Poor Pullett! She was so proud of her new responsibility.
‘Missis knew what she was about, all right, adding that piece in her testament!’ she kept repeating. ‘Missis knew ye’re a harum-scarum young mawther yet, Miss Liza, and want careful watching.’
Accordingly we travelled from Bath to London together in outward amity. But this belied my inner feelings which were in a state of resentment that my great adventure must be thus reduced . . .
Reaching London after dark, we were set down at Paddington Green, where there had been an Easter Fair and a large crowd was still slowly dispersing. People shouted and ran about; crackers exploded.
‘What’ll we do now, Miss?’
Pullett looked about her fearfully. Her confidence suddenly evaporated.
‘Find a hackney coach to carry us to Clerkenwell. You stay there with the bundles while I look for the nearest coach stand.’
‘Don’t be long!’ she cried.
By the time I returned with the conveyance, she was already in a high state of panic. ‘I thought I’d never see ye more! The crowds are so dreadsome!’ And we had not been driving in the hackney for more than ten minutes when she let out an agonized wail.
‘The money! It’s gone! My purse! Someone must ’a slit the strings of my pocket!’
Frenziedly she clutched herself all over, trying to prove herself wrong; but no: the purse with all our resources had indubitably been snatched.
‘Oh – Miss Liza ! What’ll we do? What shall we do?’
‘What’s amiss?’ suspiciously demanded the jarvey, hearing her lamentations, and he pulled up his horse. When he heard what had happened he refused to take us a step farther and evicted us, summarily, with our belongings, into the street. Whipping up, he wished us an obscene fate and was soon out of sight.
‘Oh, do stop howling, Pullett! You only make people stare at us.’
We seemed to have arrived in a fashionable, populous area; I looked up at the well-lit street signs and found that we were on the corner of the Oxford Road and Bond Street.
‘Sit on the bundles, Pullett, so that somebody doesn’t take those, and spread out your shawl; I am going to sing.’
Inspired with this notion by Pullett’s wails, which had attracted considerable attention from passers-by, I began my song recital with a long and extremely loud halloo; it was the sound with which in Byblow Bottom we young ones were used to summon one another if anything good was giving away, or if some sport was in prospect:
‘Oh, hoooo! Oh hooo, oh, hooo!’
It was sung, or shouted, on three notes and, at the full pitch of my voice, it carried amazingly, even through the London hubbub.
Many people turned to gaze at me.
Then, without more ado, I launched into some of the ballads which we had been used to sing back in Somerset; not the polite ones, and the operatic airs which had been considered suitable for the Bath audiences, but rougher, wilder songs, with sprightly melodies that would catch the fancy of the foot passengers and soon have them repeating the choruses. So it proved. A crowd swiftly gathered. And in a short time I had them all humming, tapping their toes and nodding their heads.
A few pennies fell on the shawl, which Pullett had nervously spread out; then a few more; then a silver coin or two; then quite a shower. I caught the glint of gold, even.
All at once a constable appeared, very scandalized. ‘Here, push off, young woman!’ (Only these were not the precise terms he employed.) ‘You can’t do that here! This is a respectable street! You are causing an obstruction!’
I replied in my most genteel Queen Square accents – Miss Orrincourt would have been proud to hear me, ‘I am so very sorry, Officer, but all our money was stolen in a crowd at Paddington and we require a cab to take us to Clerkenwell. Have we enough money for the fare now, do you think?’
And I swiftly scooped up the cash from the ground and displayed it to him, contriving to slip a crown piece into his hand.
‘Eh, well – in that case,’ he said, ‘I’ll find ye a cab, Missie. Only don’t ye go for to sing any more! For ’tis an offence and I’d be obliged to take ye up. Move along, now, move along, move along,’ he urged the crowd, which began most regretfully to drift away. The constable disappeared in search of a cab.
‘Upon my soul, madam!’ exclaimed a fashionably dressed man who, during my recital, had been giving me a number of exceedingly broad stares. ‘’Pon my soul, you certainly know how to bawl out the old ballads! I fancied I was back at Eton! Tee hee! You’ve a voice on you that would gladden a herring-merchant. ’Pon my soul, you have! I’d hire you for a glee-party directly, if ever I planned to give one. ’Pon my soul, I would!’
He spoke with a kind of drawling affectation, peering at me through a glass set in the top of his walking-cane, and simpering as if he intended to quiz me. I said, ‘Thank you; sir,’ coolly, and busied myself with folding Pullett’s shawl and handing it to her; the money I had tied up in my handkerchief.
‘Oh, come along, my love, for gracious sakes!’ exclaimed a lady, jerking at the arm of my interlocutor. She was very smartly dressed, and handsome in a sharp-featured way, but evidently in no mind to be civil to me. The glance she cast at me comprehensively analysed and dismissed my shabby gown, worn bonnet and untidy hair tumbling out from under the straw brim. ‘Come along, Robert, do!’ she repeated. ‘We shall be late at your mother’s!’ and she drew him away. He followed, but slowly, as if to assert his independence, casting many glances back at me.
Now a cab drew up. And I urged Pullett to get into it, and handed her the bundles.
‘But we don’t know the address!’ she wailed. ‘We don’t know the address in Clerkenwell!’
‘Well, we must just ask our way when we arrive there. It is a Mrs Alice Widdence,’ I told the driver, ‘and she lets out rooms over a milliner’s establishment. I think the number might be fifteen.’ He nodded, evidently accustomed to such vague directions.
I thanked the friendly constable, and was about to climb into the cab myself when an elderly gentleman stepped up to me.
‘Excuse me, madam,’ he said courteously, ‘but are you a professional?’
‘Professional, sir?’ I gave him a wary glance.
‘Musician.’
‘I – yes – I teach music and singing.’
‘Remarkable,’ he murmured. ‘Remarkable. Allow me to give you my card.’
And he handed me a slip of pasteboard, which I tucked into the handkerchief along with the coins.
Chapter 9
Mrs Alice Widdence was a plump, soft-voiced, soft-faced lady with a profusion of ringlets which owed their golden hue to the friseur’s art, not to nature; she was light on her feet, quick-moving and had an eye like an Italian dagger. Not a single action of her work-people went unnoticed – and in the establishment at Clerkenwell there must have been at least thirty assista
nts and ten improvers, not to speak of little ’prentice girls, day hands, porters, footmen and various showroom ladies. Much work was sent out: the skirts of all dresses, no matter how grand or how costly the fabric, were dispatched as soon as cut, borne by little ragged urchins to poor needlewomen living like starlings, half-a-dozen to a tenement, in narrow lanes to the northwards. In the shop, work was carried on at top speed with hardly a break; the work-girls were lucky if they snatched as much as four hours’ sleep a night, for Mrs Widdence and her creations stood in the van of fashion, her gowns, cloaks and pelisses were in demand by all the ladies of the ton; nevertheless she lived in daily dread that some of her trade might be pirated or leak away to another business house.
We had not the slightest difficulty in finding our way to her premises, for they were extensive: on the north side of Clerkenwell Road she owned three houses which had all been thrown together; downstairs at street level were the showrooms, which had large handsome windows with a brass bar across them over which hung samples of her merchandise – an elegant gauze shift embroidered with poppies, a lace peignoir, a silk vest. Upstairs were the large workrooms, furnished with long deal tables, where sat the assistants and apprentices, sewing away as if their life depended upon it. Some of the attics on the top floor were sleeping quarters for the workers – when they had any time for sleep; some were let off to lodgers like ourselves. And the cellars were used for storage.
‘But there’s a bad smell about this place!’ said Pullett, wrinkling her nose with disapproval. ‘I shouldn’t wonder but what there’s a cesspit under those cellars, Miss Liza; this ain’t a healthy spot, if you ask me.’
Pullett, having brought us so near calamity with the loss of the purse, was anxious to re-establish her credit by reminding me of her supernatural powers. Later, in fact, we heard that her diagnosis had been correct; a cesspit was discovered under the cellars and, furthermore, there were several bodies in it, of girls who had unaccountably disappeared.
My first object when we had established our credentials with Mrs Widdence, and paid her four shillings apiece weekly lodging in advance, was to ask if she knew anything about my mother. But here I was disappointed. Mrs Widdence had heard of no such person; no lady called Miss Williams had opened a gaming house in London, nor did anybody owning such an establishment answer to my mother’s description. And it certainly seemed that, from her multifarious connections, Mrs Widdence would be bound to have access to any such information. However, from her affiliations as former housekeeper to Mrs Jennings, our landlady could, and lavishly did, supply a considerable amount of information about other characters in the Dashwood and Ferrars families.
Mrs Jennings herself – the kind, rich old lady at whose mansion in Berkeley Street the Dashwood sisters had been staying at the time when Willoughby jilted Marianne – Mrs Jennings had died of a dropsy two years since. (And had left a handsome legacy to her housekeeper.) Mrs Palmer, younger daughter of Mrs Jennings, no longer came to London, but resided at Cleveland, her husband’s property near Bristol. Likewise Mr John Dashwood, elder brother to Elinor Ferrars, was seldom seen these days in the metropolis, but busied himself in continual improvements to his manor house, Norland, in Sussex. But old Mrs Ferrars, Edward’s mother, still remained in Wimpole Street, and her younger son Robert, who had married Miss Lucy Steele, lived close by in Hanover Square, and visited the old lady every single day. The elder Miss Steele had never married, but had returned to relatives in Plymouth. Sir John Middleton, who had married Mrs Jennings’ elder daughter, kept his house in Conduit Street and passed such time in London as could be spared from sporting activities. But his first wife had died, and he had married again, a much younger lady.
None of this – relating as it did to persons completely unknown to me – did I find of signal interest, until Mrs Widdence added: ‘She buys a deal of gowns here – does Lady Middleton – generous to a fault he is, Sir John, grudges his lady nothing she fancies. And Miss Dashwood often comes along with her, and sometimes the old lady, when she’s not too astray in her wits. And they also patronize my other establishment in the West End.’
Aha! thought I. So perhaps there may be a chance for me to see Margaret Dashwood again. Now that I know all about Willoughby, she can hardly withhold such information as she possesses. And perhaps she may know where he now is.
‘What about Miss Nell Ferrars – Miss Dashwood’s niece? The one who has been staying in town with Lady Helen Lauderdale?’
‘Oh, la, they never come here! They are far too genteel and great to visit this part of town. But it is true they do come to the Bond Street showroom, and that Lady Helen, she’s a free spender. Not Miss Ferrars; she don’t buy; Lord bless you, she has not five pennies to rub together. Sometimes Lady Helen will buy her a shift, or a pair of stockings. There is talk, though, that Miss Nell has netted herself a suitor. That may alter matters.’
Poor devil, thought I. Surely he cannot guess what a flint-heart he aspires to take in hand? If he did he’d be off as fast as his legs could carry him. Unless he is some tough old tartar . . .
‘A wealthy India merchant, much older than the lady,’ Mrs Widdence went on, confirming my guess. ‘Mr Joseph Sedgwick. He wears out wives at a great rate. Miss Ferrars will be his third. Depend upon it, she plans to be a widow before too long. But to my mind ’tis just as likely the boot will be upon the other foot – ’ She glanced down the room and sent her voice like a blade of lightning: ‘Miss Smith! You are cutting that bodice far too long – I can see from here! Careless, wasteful girl!’
The assistant turned perfectly white, and ducked her head over her work.
As our quarters were very tiny, Pullett and I spent a fair amount of time in the large downstairs showroom; to this Mrs Widdence made no objection. Indeed, the place was almost like a club or assembly room, with its wide glittering floor and red velvet curtains. The polished mahogany counters lay to the rear and so did not impede the continual throng of customers, would-be customers and their friends, who daily filled the space, talking, strolling, inspecting the merchandise and ogling the sales-people.
‘I don’t like Mrs Widdence above half, Miss Eliza,’ repeated Pullett earnestly, at night, in our attic. ‘She’ve a real nasty ring about her, red-purple, ’tis the colour of raw liver, a very ugly colour, if you’ll believe me, Miss; and if you ask me this shop, as they call it, is little better than a bawdy-house; there’s nasty goings-on in some of these attics, and the poor little ’prentices is just worked to death, and beyond; my dad once wished to put me into the needlework trade, what they call “under-the-bed” workers, but my mam had it over him that I was to go into house service, and I’m truly thankful she did. Miss Eliza, I don’t believe we should stay here; no good will come of it. Besides, how in the world are we to keep ourselves?’
I had put up a sign in a book-and-pamphlet shop in the Strand advertising voice, piano and harp lessons, but so far had received no inquiries; probably, as Pullett said, the neighbourhood was not genteel enough; nobody in this part of London wished for music lessons.
But I was still absorbed and engrossed by the daily panorama of London citizens, their wives and daughters, friends and lovers, who came and went in the big showroom; I felt foolishly certain that, sooner or later, if only I was able to scrutinize their faces long enough, I would be able to find the two that I sought. Just now I was deeply occupied in wondering about my parents: both of them, it seemed, were still in the world somewhere – but where?
‘We’ll stay just a week or two, Pullett dear, and look about us. Now I know the trick of it, I can always sing a few songs in the street and make a little money.’
‘Never!’ cried Pullett, utterly scandalized. ‘I’ll not allow it! What would your friends say?’
‘What friends? What can it matter what I do?’
The loss of both Mrs Jebb and Elinor Ferrars had made a strange vacancy on my mental horizon.
And yet Pullett had some arguments on her side, as shall be heard.
The attic where we slept was dark and fusty enough, and Clerkenwell Road, though busy, was rather a narrow and dingy thoroughfare; glad therefore of an excuse to make an excursion to an airier, more spacious neighbourhood, I suggested to Pullett that we walk over to Mrs Widdence’s other establishment in Bond Street (I now having procured a map and discovered that it was no great distance, probably not above an hour’s walk).
Pullett was no walker, however. ‘You go, if you wish, Miss Liza, but don’t go getting into trouble, now; keep your eyes sharp about you. And no singing in the street, mind! I’ll just stay here and mend your worked muslin, which is sadly worn; and maybe lend a hand to one or two of the poor little ’prentice girls.’
So, with a light heart and step, relieved at finding myself alone for once (for, unused to constant company and supervision, I found it decidedly irksome), I set off westwards. Mild spring was turning to warm summer; the streets were dry and dusty, odours of food and horse-dung battled with fresher scent from cowslips and wallflowers on the costers’ barrows. A familiar ache moved in my heart as I recalled the kingcups and cowslips along the brook at Byblow Bottom, and the honeysuckle in the hedges; still, I found London a fine, lively town, decidedly more open and airy than Bath; I felt less confined here.
Mrs Widdence’s Bond Street dress emporium rejoiced in the name Florinda, done out over the doorway in trailing brass letters; and the showroom itself went under the grand appellation of ‘premier magazin’. Here there were vast looking-glasses from floor to ceiling, set between the panels in the walls. The floor was thickly (and hideously) carpeted in colours of violet and amber, the window curtains were of rich dark green velvet. Small spindly chairs stood against the walls.
