Tilly True

by Dilly Court

  ‘It’s really urgent. I must see him now.’

  ‘Must? And now? I’m afraid Mr Barnaby Palgrave is very busy at present. I’m his clerk, Bootle. I suggest you state your business, young lady.’

  He was staring up at her, being at least a head shorter than Tilly, and, for a moment, she wanted to laugh. Bootle reminded her of an overgrown baby dressed for a joke in a pinstripe suit. Everything about him was small and round, from the top of his bald head to his rotund belly that threatened to burst from the confines of a pinstripe waistcoat, down to the toes of his polished shoes.

  It would not do to laugh, however, and she was desperate not to offend. ‘Me name is Tilly True. I’m here on business from Mr Barnaby’s brother, the Reverend Francis Palgrave, if you’d be so good as to pass on the message.’

  Bootle’s cherry lips formed a circle and his eyes disappeared into his cheeks as he smiled. ‘Now why didn’t you say so in the first place? I’ll go and tell Mr Barnaby that you’re here.’

  He disappeared through a door at the back of the room. Tilly could hear the dull drone of voices as she paced the floor. This really was a terrible gamble; she had come here on an impulse with no thought of what she would say to Barney Palgrave. Her mouth was so dry that she could barely swallow. Perhaps she should just leave now, before she made a complete fool of herself. The door opened.

  Chapter Five

  Closely followed by Bootle, Barney emerged from the inner sanctum. ‘Well, Miss Tilly True, this is an honour. What can I do for you?’

  He was looking at her with an amused grin on his face, eyebrows slightly raised, as he waited for her reply. Desperately seeking inspiration, Tilly glanced round the wainscoted office. Then, when she was beginning to think she might have to tell him the truth, she spotted a desk in one corner and on it was a typewriting machine, similar to the one she had seen in the pawnbroker’s shop.

  ‘I come about a job, sir.’

  Barney folded his arms across his chest, head on one side. ‘You’re looking for a position? I thought you were about to be employed by my brother.’

  ‘Can we speak in private?’

  ‘You can say anything in front of Bootle. He’s my right hand man.’

  Bootle’s complexion darkened to a rosy blush and he made clucking noises in his throat.

  Crossing her fingers behind her back, Tilly managed a smile. ‘The Reverend can’t take me on as yet owing to present circumstances, and I’m in need of a job and a place to stay. I’m a hard worker, Mr Palgrave.’

  ‘Come into my office and we’ll talk about it. Bootle will fetch us a tray of tea and some of Mrs Bootle’s ginger snaps.’ Nodding his head in Bootle’s direction, Barney ushered Tilly into his office and held out a chair.

  Feeling like a proper lady, Tilly sat down and folded her hands on her lap.

  Making a space by shoving a pile of documents onto the floor, Barney perched on the edge of his desk. ‘Well now, Tilly, I’m afraid I’m not in a position to take on a housemaid. I live in bachelor rooms and my landlord’s wife does the cleaning, after a fashion.’

  The thought of a night huddled in a doorway, freezing to death in the snow, made any lie seem justified. Tilly looked Barney in the eye. ‘I see you got one of them new fangled typewriting machines. I could be a lady type-writer and do all your business letters. At school I was top of me class in spelling.’

  ‘You can use a typewriting machine? I’m impressed.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ lied Tilly, the untruths tripping off her tongue. ‘My previous employer, Mr Stanley Blessed of Blessed’s second-hand furniture emporium, Wharf Road, Islington, he could vouch for me. I typed all his business letters for him.’

  ‘You did? And I suppose he would give you a glowing reference?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Mr Blessed and me were like that.’ Tilly held up her crossed fingers, hoping that she would not be struck down for such an out-and-out lie. She waited for a thunderbolt to strike, but nothing happened. Perhaps God was in a forgiving mood, or maybe he just didn’t intend her to spend a night out in the cold. Cocking her head on one side, she assumed what she hoped was an innocent expression.

  There was a clatter of teacups and a tap on the door from very low down, suggesting that Bootle was using the toe of his highly polished shoe. Barney raised himself to open the door. ‘Bootle, Miss True has a proposition for us.’

  ‘Has she indeed, sir?’ Bootle carried the tea tray to the desk and set it down, beaming at Tilly. ‘And what would that be, miss?’

  ‘Miss True says she is a type-writer. She is offering to use the infernal machine to do our correspondence. What do you think, Bootle?’

  He poured tea into a china cup and handed it to Tilly. ‘Milk and sugar, miss?’

  Tilly nodded, holding her breath and waiting for his answer while he added milk and sugar to her tea.

  ‘It sounds ideal, Mr Barney. I take it you want me to make the suggestion to Himself?’

  ‘If you would, Bootle. Himself is more likely to take the suggestion kindly from you.’

  ‘Exactly so, Mr Barney.’ Winking at Tilly, Bootle rolled out of the office, closing the door behind him.

  Remembering Ma’s lessons in manners Tilly curbed a desire to tip the hot tea into the saucer, crooked her little finger and sipped from the cup, eyeing Barney over the rim. She was dying to ask who Himself was and why Barney had sent Bootle to do the necessary, but she didn’t trust herself to speak.

  Seeming to sense her curiosity, Barney ran his hand through his thick black hair and grinned. ‘Mr Jardine is the senior partner, the very senior partner. It would be easier to get an audience with God than with Mr Jardine. Only Bootle or Bragg can get through the door into the hallowed ground of Mr Jardine’s office; your fate hangs in the balance, my dear Miss True. Do have a ginger snap. They are utterly scrumptious.’

  Nibbling in a ladylike fashion, Tilly realised that Barney had not exaggerated; Mrs Bootle’s ginger snaps were very tasty, so tasty that before she knew it Tilly had demolished the whole plateful. She realised that Barney was watching her with some amusement.

  ‘I was hungry,’ she said, dabbing her lips with a linen table napkin that Bootle had thoughtfully provided.

  ‘Tell me, Tilly. Why do you need a place to stay so urgently? You must have a home somewhere, surely?’

  ‘I’m an orphan, sir, and that’s the truth. Me whole family was drownded when the Princess Alice went down in Gallions Reach after a day trip to Sheerness. Drownded they was, me mum and dad and all me brothers and sisters, all sucked down in the outfall from the sewage works. Seven hundred and fifty souls was lost that day.’

  ‘And you swam to safety all on your own. Quite a feat considering you couldn’t have been much more than a few weeks old when the Princess Alice sank in 1878.’

  Tilly choked on a crumb of ginger snap and hastily gulped down a mouthful of tea; she had heard tales of the dreadful tragedy, but she had not the slightest idea of the exact date. Improvising, she sighed heavily. ‘I was sick with the croup and had been left with me gran; she passed away last year, God rest her soul.’

  Flinging back his head, Barney roared with laughter. ‘I like you, Tilly. You’re a bigger liar than I am. I admire that. Now tell me the truth.’

  Tilly opened her mouth to argue, but Bootle stuck his head round the door, his face wreathed in smiles. ‘Himself says it’s all right. He says he didn’t allow the purchase of an expensive piece of equipment just so that it could gather dust.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Barney held out his hand to Tilly. ‘Welcome to the firm, Tilly True.’

  Getting to her feet, Tilly shook his hand. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Barney slipped his arm round her shoulders. ‘Bootle, Miss True needs to find some lodgings urgently. Can you help?’

  ‘Mrs Bootle sometimes takes in a paying guest to help out with household expenses. I’m sure she’d be happy to accommodate Miss Tilly.’

  ‘Good, that’s settled.’ Barney gave Tilly a gentl
e push in Bootle’s direction. ‘Off you go then and I’ll see you at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.’ Shrugging on his overcoat, he plucked his top hat off the coat stand.

  Bootle frowned. ‘Are you finished for today, Mr Barney?’

  ‘I’m going to my club, Bootle. If Himself wants to know where I am, tell him I’ve gone to see a client.’ Tipping his hat at Tilly, Barney left the office, whistling.

  ‘Does he do much work round here?’ Tilly asked.

  With a smile and an expressive shrug of his shoulders, Bootle pointed to the vacant desk. ‘Why don’t you have a little practice on the machine, miss? It’ll pass the time until six o’clock, then I’ll take you home to my good lady.’

  Sitting down at the typewriting machine, Tilly chewed her lip, wishing she had offered to do anything other than this. How the blooming thing worked, she had not the slightest idea.

  ‘I believe,’ said Bootle, taking a sheet of white quarto paper from a drawer, ‘that the paper goes in like this.’ He released the platen and slipped the paper behind it, pushed back the lever and turned the knurled knob that fed the paper to the correct position. ‘I saw a demonstration once, but I expect this is a different model to the one you’re used to, Miss Tilly.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Thank you, Mr Bootle.’

  ‘Just Bootle, miss. Just Bootle.’

  The snow was falling again as Tilly and Bootle left the office in Hay Yard. Swansdown flakes floated from the black velvet sky and the greenish yellow gaslights cast a ghostly sheen, flickering and dancing like glow-worms trapped inside glass bottles.

  ‘It’s not far to Pook’s Buildings,’ Bootle said, his breath puffing out in clouds of steam. ‘Just across Chancery Lane and we’re there.’

  It might not be far, Tilly thought, slipping and sliding on the icy pavements, but she would be very glad when they got there. Her fingers and toes were numb with cold and the thin shawl was no protection against the bitter night. Dodging in and out between horse-drawn carts and drays, Bootle led the way across the busy thoroughfare of Chancery Lane and turned into a narrow side street. The buildings were crammed together higgledy-piggledy as if a child had upturned a box of wooden bricks and they had lodged where they had fallen. In the middle of this architectural chaos, Pook’s Buildings stood five storeys high, blackened bricks that might once have been red imprisoned behind rusting iron railings. Bootle climbed the stone steps to the front door and went inside. Tilly followed him into the long, narrow hallway and saw a flight of uncarpeted stairs rising straight ahead of them. If the Palgraves’ lodgings in Bunbury Fields were shabby, then this multiple occupancy house was positively dilapidated. A gas mantle on each landing provided the only source of light, hissing, popping and casting weird shadows on the walls as they went up the stairs. The odour of coal gas mingled with cooking smells, none of which was appetising. From behind closed doors Tilly could hear the sound of raised voices, children screaming, babies crying and somewhere, at the top of the building, a woman was singing in a high-pitched soprano while a musician of sorts scraped at a fiddle.

  ‘Home sweet home,’ Bootle said cheerfully, as he opened a door on the third floor and was greeted by shouts and cries of delight as a multitude of children hurtled across the floor, flinging themselves at him. All Tilly could see of Bootle was his curly-brimmed bowler hat and the red tip of his nose. Laughing and kissing upturned faces, he peeled the children off and set them on the floor, patting heads as if they were a pack of eager foxhounds.

  ‘Manners, Bootle children. We have a visitor.’ Bootle held his hand out to Tilly. ‘Come in, Miss Tilly. Come in and meet my family.’

  Hesitating on the threshold, blinking in the comparatively bright light, Tilly felt her cheeks tingle painfully in the heat of the room. ‘Hello,’ she ventured, stepping over a rag doll and a pile of wooden bricks. ‘I’m pleased to meet you all.’

  Standing by the range, stirring a huge black saucepan full of something that smelt temptingly like mutton stew, Mrs Bootle turned her head and beamed at her husband. ‘You’re nice and early, Nat. And who is this?’

  ‘Susan, my dear, this is Miss True,’ Bootle said, handing his hat to the biggest boy and hurrying over to kiss his wife’s cheek. ‘Miss Tilly has just started work as a type-writer at the office and she’s in need of lodgings.’

  Thrusting the wooden spoon into Bootle’s hand, Susan’s plump features crumpled into a frown. ‘Oh, Nat, you should have give me a bit of notice. But never mind, it’s done now.’ With her frown melting into a smile, she waddled across the floor extending her hand to Tilly. ‘We usually take in commercial gentlemen, Miss Tilly, but if you ain’t too particular as to space, then I’m sure we can make you comfortable.’

  ‘I ain’t too particular about nothing, Mrs Bootle. I’m grateful for a warm bed and a hot meal.’

  ‘That’s settled then.’ Susan clapped her hands. ‘Round the table, Bootle children. Toot sweet. You too, Miss Tilly. Make yourself at home.’

  Handing back the spoon as if it were a baton in a relay race, Bootle smiled proudly at his wife as she took charge of the stew and began ladling it into small pudding basins.

  ‘She’s a pearl,’ Bootle said, swatting off children and holding out a chair for Tilly. ‘A real gem, is my Susan. Educated, too. Speaks French like a native as you just heard. I’m still puzzled why such a jewel married a man like myself.’

  ‘Don’t talk soft, Bootle.’ Chuckling and blushing, Susan handed him two pudding basins filled to overflowing with stew. ‘Serve Miss Tilly first. And you mind your manners, Bootle children.’

  Sitting down at the table, Tilly did a quick head count and realised that there were only six children present, although there had seemed at least double that number when they were jumping around, tumbling over each other and shrieking.

  ‘This is the late six,’ Bootle said, handing out bowls and casual cuffs round the head to the boys who continued to chatter. ‘A bonus, you might say.’

  ‘Oh, Bootle, don’t tease.’ Susan sat down and began hacking slices off a loaf, dealing them out to the children. ‘What Nat means is that our five eldest is out in the world now; the boys apprenticed to respectable trades and the one girl, our Ethel, in service up West.’

  ‘You must be very proud,’ Tilly said, not knowing quite what else to say.

  ‘Proud? I should just say so.’ Bootle puffed out his chest and beamed at the curly blond heads bent over their soup bowls. ‘Just when we thought our duty done, then the Lord saw fit to send us six more little Bootles to keep us company.’

  ‘To keep us poor, you mean,’ Susan said, laughing. ‘Eat up, all of you, and then I can show Miss Tilly her room.’

  The room turned out to be little more than a linen cupboard. The slatted shelves had all been removed except the one at the bottom and this had been turned into a makeshift bed with a flock-filled mattress and a feather pillow.

  ‘It’s a bit on the cosy side, I grant you,’ Susan said, shuffling out of the cupboard so that Tilly could just about squeeze inside. ‘But it’s clean and warm. I ain’t never had no complaints from the gents.’

  Compared to Bert’s coal cellar or a snow-covered pavement it was a palace, but Tilly couldn’t help wondering how the commercial gentlemen had managed to fold themselves up small enough to get all of their bodies into a space that could not have been more than four feet in length. She would either have to curl up in a ball or have her legs sticking out of the doorway.

  ‘I’ll fetch you some blankets then.’ Susan hesitated, lowering her voice. ‘Just one thing, though. You might find the nippers a bit of a trial on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday mornings.’

  ‘Why so, Mrs Bootle?’

  Susan blushed from the roots of her mouse-brown hair to the folds of chin that obscured her neck. ‘Mr Bootle likes his conjugals on them days, regular as clockwork. The nippers knows they must not interrupt the conjugals so they’re inclined to become a bit frisky, if you know what I mean. No harm in them – they�
�re just high-spirited. We ain’t never had a young lady staying, and, in my experience, gents can sleep through anything, so I thought I’d better warn you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Momentarily lost for words, Tilly tried not to picture the scene of Mr and Mrs Bootle in their conjugals: two jam roly-polys bouncing about on the bed. ‘I got brothers and sisters of me own so I’m used to young ’uns and their pranks.’

  After a month of living with the Bootle family, Tilly had grown used to fending off the Bootle children three mornings a week when their energetic parents enjoyed their conjugals. She had not quite managed to put names to faces, as they were so much alike as to be indistinguishable one from the other. Constantly on the move, they rarely stayed still long enough for the difference in their sizes to help with identification. There were, Tilly discovered, two girls and four boys, but as they were all very much alike and had baby blue eyes and blond curls, she soon adopted their parents’ habit of referring to them as a group.

  Life was not exactly comfortable in the Bootles’ cramped apartment, but it was bearable, and Tilly had become accustomed to eating mutton stew six nights a week with a boiled bullock’s head and turnips on a Sunday to relieve the monotony. She had grown used to getting up early each morning and going down three flights of stairs to the privy in the back yard, and breaking through a layer of ice in a bucket of water to wash her hands and face. Once a week she walked two miles to the public baths taking with her a coarse huckaback towel and a small nugget of Calvert’s carbolic soap. With only the clothes that she stood up in, Tilly had to wash her cotton blouse and chemise before retiring to her cupboard, leaving them draped over a clothes horse by the fire.

  Saving what was left from her wages, after paying her rent to Susan, Tilly hoarded the coins in a paper bag, tucking it under the mattress in her cupboard. When she had saved enough, she planned to buy some new clothes in Petticoat Lane and to brave a visit to Red Dragon Passage. Home was never far from her thoughts and every night in her prayers she asked God to keep an eye on Winnie, Lizzie, Jim and Dan, and to make Pops better.