Tilly True

by Dilly Court

  Jessie started down the steps but stopped as she saw a hansom cab pull up outside the house. The door opened and a young woman leapt out. ‘Tilly! Oh, my God, it is you.’

  Tilly blinked hard, thinking that she must be dreaming. ‘Miss Hattie?’

  Dropping down on her knees, Harriet wrapped her arms round Tilly. ‘What have they done to you? Are you all right, my dear?’

  ‘I am now.’ Scrambling to her feet, Tilly shook her fist at Jessie. ‘I’ll see you in hell, you wicked old bag.’ Turning on Pitcher, she narrowed her eyes. ‘And you’ll be looking for a job when I tells Mr Barney what you done to me.’

  ‘Never mind them, dear,’ Harriet said, placing her arm round Tilly’s shoulders and guiding her to the cab. ‘Barney will see that they get their just deserts. Let’s get away from this dreadful place.’ Helping Tilly inside, she tapped on the roof. ‘Drive on, cabby.’

  As the cab lurched forward, Tilly had the satisfaction of seeing Jessie, not looking at her best without her face paint and her corsets, berating Pitcher who stood, cap in hand, staring down at his boots.

  ‘You look frozen, my dear,’ Harriet said, taking Tilly’s shawl from the bundle and wrapping it around her shoulders. ‘What have they done to you?’

  Touching her sore eye, Tilly managed a wobbly smile. ‘I expect I’ll live. Just tell me how you knew I was here. It’s a blooming miracle.’

  ‘Barney’s got himself into a bit of a mess. He sent me a letter from Dover telling me very little except that he had to go away for a while, and he asked me to make sure you were all right. He gave me this address and I came, thank goodness, just at the right moment.’

  ‘He did?’ She had blamed everything on Barney; the protective shell that had hardened around Tilly’s heart cracked just a little. ‘He asked you to come for me?’

  ‘Oh, Tilly, he should never have taken you there in the first place. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.’

  Staring at Harriet, hardly daring to believe her ears, it seemed to Tilly that the sun had suddenly appeared from behind louring storm clouds. Suddenly she felt like singing. ‘But he didn’t just leave me there?’

  ‘No, of course not. He simply couldn’t have known what sort of place it was.’ Harriet leaned closer, touching Tilly’s cheek. ‘My poor Tilly, you’ve got a frightful black eye and there are bruises all round your neck and your hand is bleeding. Who did this to you?’

  Looking into Harriet’s innocent eyes, so similar in shape and colour to Barney’s, Tilly couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth. A young lady brought up in a genteel manner would know nothing of the harsher side of life. Thinking quickly, Tilly leaned back against the squabs. At least she was safe now and the horror of last night was a painful, disgusting memory that she must push to the back of her mind or be driven mad. ‘Well, it was like this,’ she said slowly, gradually warming to her theme. ‘Miss Jessie – that’s the woman what owns the – the gentlemen’s club – asked me to sit in the parlour and be sociable to the punters . . . I mean guests. Then, all of a sudden, that man you saw outside the house, he come in the worse for drink and accused Miss Dolly, that’s one of the young lady hostesses, he accused her of flirting. He was hitting her and biffing her something cruel so I jumps up and tries to intervene but he turns on me.’

  Harriet’s eyes were saucer-like in her pale, oval face. ‘But didn’t the other gentlemen try to stop him?’

  ‘They was a bit old, you know, a bit too doddery to do much good. Miss Jessie only has professional gents in her club, you know – judges and old toffs, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t sound at all the sort of place for a young woman to be left in and I’ll have a few words to say to Barney when I next see him. I think, Tilly,’ Harriet dropped her voice to a whisper, ‘I think it might even be a house of ill-repute. I’ve heard of such places and I know that Francis visits them every so often, in order to save the poor fallen women’s souls, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Tilly said, nodding. Somehow, even with her vivid imagination, she could not see the Reverend Francis Palgrave having much success in Blossom Court.

  ‘Never mind all that now.’ Harriet patted Tilly’s hand. ‘I’m taking you home with me. We’ve moved into the vicarage but it’s in a terrible state and I’m sure Francis will be delighted to employ someone we know and trust. That’s if you’re still looking for a position, Tilly.’

  ‘I am. Oh, yes, Miss Hattie. I am, definitely.’

  Tilly was not quite so enthusiastic when she climbed out of the hansom cab; even the cabby looked a bit wary as he took the fare from Harriet, glancing this way and that as if he expected a bunch of ruffians to pounce on him. Almost before he had the coins in his leather pouch, he had flicked the whip and sent his horse off at a brisk trot. Looking around her, Tilly felt a cold shiver run up and down her spine as she realised that they were in the roughest area of Wapping, probably not very from the Tuffins’ miserable home in Duck’s Foot Lane.

  The cabby had set them down outside the church and the vicarage that must, many centuries ago, have looked out onto a pleasant village green, but now the grime-encrusted buildings were marooned in a sea of industrial squalor. A network of mean streets and alleyways had engulfed the churchyard that was surrounded on all sides by warehouses, timber merchants, chandlers, seamen’s missions, pubs and pie shops, ropemakers, sailmakers and brothels. The air was thick with smoke and chemical fumes, yellow with sulphur, and soot from factory chimneys drifted down in large flakes to envelop everything in a black mantle.

  Glancing at Harriet, Tilly saw her own feelings mirrored in her expression and she patted her hand. ‘Chin up, Miss Hattie. It could be worse.’

  ‘I don’t know how. This is a truly dreadful place.’ Picking up her skirts, Harriet hurried up the path, fumbling in her purse for the latchkey. She opened the door and went inside, beckoning Tilly to follow her. She stood in the middle of the entrance hall with her arms outstretched. ‘Look around you, Tilly. Have you ever seen such a miserable place?’

  Trying hard to find something good to say about the house, Tilly wrinkled her nose at the musty smell of decay. She could feel the chill rising up from the uneven flagstone floor and it was so gloomy they might have been in a cave. ‘It does need a bit of a scrub.’

  Peeling off her gloves, Harriet shook her head. ‘It needs demolishing. It’s absolutely frightful. The last incumbent had to be carried out in his coffin but it smells as though he’s still here. I’ve hired women to scrub the floors and wash the paintwork but the house reeks of sick old man and I hate it, Tilly, I really hate it.’ Covering her face with her hands, Harriet began to sob.

  Thinking that if all she had to worry about was a bit of dirt and grime, Tilly decided that Hattie had had life a bit too easy for her own good. Shrugging off her shawl, she hung it on a peg. ‘Well, miss, crying won’t help. There ain’t nothing wrong with this place that can’t be set to rights with a bit of elbow grease.’

  ‘Oh, Tilly. I’m so glad I found you.’ Taking a hankie from her pocket, Harriet blew her nose and sniffed. ‘I’m no good at this sort of thing. I wasn’t brought up to be a housekeeper. At Palgrave Manor we had servants to do absolutely everything.’

  ‘Lucky you.’ Tilly bit her lip. That was no way to talk to an employer, but thankfully Harriet appeared to be too overwrought to notice. ‘Show me to the kitchen, Miss Hattie. One thing I am good at is housekeeping. I learned that from me mum and from Mrs Morris, the cook-general in Barbary Terrace.’

  ‘Tilly, you’re an angel.’

  ‘Not so as you’d notice, miss.’

  Entering the kitchen, Tilly felt her confidence waver. The house must have been built in the seventeenth century and, by the looks of things, the kitchen was in its original state. A desultory fire of green logs in the open hearth sent sparks snapping and smoke belching up into the beamed ceiling. The only means of cooking seemed to be a trivet and a blackened kettle hanging from a hook over the fir
e. A rectangular oak table in the centre of the room surrounded by six ladder-back chairs, and an oak dresser against one wall, were the only furnishings. The flagstone floor was slippery with grease and the small-paned windows were opaque with dirt. Tilly had never seen anything so awful since she had escaped from the Tuffins, but she was not going to admit this to Harriet, whose bottom lip was wobbling again as fresh tears sparkled on her eyelashes.

  ‘Isn’t this dreadful? There’s not even a tap or a sink indoors. We have to fetch water from a pump in the back yard. I haven’t had a decent wash since we left Mrs Henge’s boarding house and that was a horrible place. What shall we do?’

  ‘We’ll have a cup of tea and then you can show me the rest of the house.’

  Pulling out a chair, Tilly made Harriet sit down. Searching the kitchen, opening and closing doors, she discovered a cavernous larder where mice seemed to have gnawed their way through everything except a tin caddy filled with tea. Fighting her way through a veil of cobwebs, Tilly clicked her tongue against her teeth, shaking her head.

  ‘There is a pitcher of milk,’ Harriet said, pointing to the dresser. ‘They bring it to the door in a churn. Although I can’t think where anyone could keep a cow in this part of London, and the dairymaid has filthy hands and fingernails.’

  ‘I dunno who was supposed to scrub this place,’ Tilly said, taking a teapot from the dresser. ‘But they was useless.’

  ‘I know. It was Mrs Mabb, the woman who was housekeeper to the last vicar. She still cleans the church, but she is so old I was afraid to ask her to do much and she smells like a dead fish. She only has one good eye and I can’t tell if she is looking at me when I talk to her. I’m a bit scared of her, to tell the truth.’

  ‘Lucky you found me then,’ Tilly said, warming the teapot with water from the kettle. ‘I’ll soon get it sorted, but I will need a bit of help. There ain’t nothing that a bit of hot water, soda and elbow grease can’t sort out.’

  ‘I’m afraid that you’ll have to deal with Mrs Mabb. Francis won’t let me dismiss her because he says she served the old vicar faithfully and she needs the money.’

  ‘Leave old one-eye to me. I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.’

  ‘You’re a wonder. I’m so glad you’re here, Tilly.’

  Spooning tea leaves into the pot, Tilly smiled; it was good to feel needed and, in spite of the dire surroundings, she felt her spirits lifting. ‘Where’s the Reverend? I’m sure he could do with a cup of tea.’

  Harriet’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘I’d completely forgotten Francis. He’s in his study writing Sunday’s sermon. I’ll take it to him, Tilly, and I’ll tell him you’re here. I’m sure he’ll be delighted.’

  As Harriet left the room clutching the only matching cup and saucer in the house, Tilly couldn’t help wondering if the Reverend would be so happy if he knew the truth about her. It might not have been her fault, but after last night she must count as one of his fallen women. If the worst happened she could be in the same position as Emily, in the pudding club, but without a man who would make an honest woman of her. Suddenly Tilly saw Emily’s dilemma in a different light and she knew that she had been hard on her younger sister. Sitting down at the table with a cracked mug of tea in front of her, she made up her mind to make up her quarrel with Emily. Family must stick together in times of need.

  She looked up as the door opened and Francis hurried in, followed by Harriet. His high forehead was puckered into frown lines and there were dark shadows under his eyes as if he had not slept well in weeks, but his lips curved into a smile and his eyes crinkled at the corners when he saw her.

  ‘My dear Miss True, I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you.’

  Getting to her feet, Tilly bobbed a curtsey. ‘Likewise, I’m sure, your worship.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to convince myself that all this has been a test of my faith,’ Francis said, putting his arm around Harriet’s shoulders. ‘And if it were just myself in question, I think I could bear it, but I hate to see poor Hattie suffer on my account. You’re a gift from God, Tilly. A gift from God.’

  Putting everything behind her, Tilly set to work to make the vicarage habitable. Her first hurdle was to get on good terms with the formidable Mrs Mabb, who came in every morning armed with a mop and bucket and then sat by the fire drinking tea until she felt like pushing the dirt around the floor and leaving it in a heap under the table. She had a habit of squinting with her one good eye at anyone who had the temerity to approach her, and smacking her toothless gums together, which alarmed Harriet and sent her scurrying from the kitchen. Tilly was used to the bullying ways of domestic tyrants and she soon realised that Mrs Mabb was using her age and infirmity to mask the fact that she was basically a lazy old slut. As the Reverend Francis could not bring himself to sack the old woman, Tilly set about finding a way to keep her civil and to get a modicum of work from her. On their first day together, Tilly discovered that Mrs Mabb had two weaknesses. One was for snuff, which she took with a great deal of snorting and sneezing into a ragged handkerchief, and the second was that she wanted to talk endlessly about the good old days when the last vicar ruled his congregation with threats of hellfire and damnation. With careful management of the housekeeping money, Tilly kept Mrs Mabb supplied with enough snuff to blow up Woolwich Arsenal, and she encouraged her to talk about old times even though she rarely listened to a word.

  Enlisting the help of two local women whom she found by dint of advertising in the local shop window, Tilly set them to work sweeping, scrubbing and cleaning windows until the vicarage smelt strongly of Jeyes’ disinfectant and Calvert’s carbolic soap. Mrs Mabb made it clear she did not approve of such goings on; cleanliness might be next to godliness, but it would take a peck of dirt to kill you.

  Tilly’s next project was to persuade Francis to purchase a kitchen range from a second-hand dealer. Once this was installed, it would be possible to heat pans of water and to cook proper meals. It seemed that Francis and Hattie had been living mostly on bread and cheese, and so had the mice and rats. From the verger, a retired clockmaker who lived above the grocer’s shop, Tilly borrowed a tabby tomcat that had done battle so many times it had lost half its tail and it had only half an ear. Within a week, the rodents were either eaten or had taken flight, making it possible to store food in the larder. Mrs Mabb and the cat hated each other on sight, hissing and spitting at one another in territorial battles that usually ended with Mrs Mabb shooing the cat out into the yard on the end of the mop. But, Tilly was glad to see, the cat had a way of getting its own back by lying in wait and springing out from behind Mrs Mabb’s chair to bite her skinny ankles as she sat by the fire.

  After less than a month, and almost without realising it, Tilly had taken over running the household and had become more of a companion to Harriet than a servant. They spent their evenings sitting together in the parlour sewing curtains and chatting, while Francis locked himself away in his study, writing his sermons or reading. Harriet was too nervous to go out unaccompanied, even in daytime, and so Tilly did the shopping while Harriet either stayed at home, keeping well away from Mrs Mabb, or accompanied Francis on his parish visits.

  Tilly was happy enough, but she missed her family and she made up her mind to take the first opportunity to go and see them. She had been planning her visit for weeks, but there always seemed to be so much to do in the vicarage. Then there was Barney. Try as she might, she could not entirely eradicate him from her thoughts. She did not want to believe that he had abandoned her in a brothel without a thought for her wellbeing. She lived in the hope of receiving news of him, and perhaps an apology or at least an explanation as to why he had left her to Jessie’s not very tender care. Each morning when she collected the post from the doormat, she flicked through the correspondence searching for an envelope written in his bold hand, but she was always disappointed. She never mentioned this to Harriet, who seemed to be quite used to her brother disappearing for long periods of time. As for Fr
ancis, he seemed to inhabit a world that was to be found only between the covers of his books and, when at home, he spent most of his time sequestered in his study.

  It was May and spring was giving way to summer, but it was almost impossible to detect the change in the seasons in the back streets of Wapping. If a blade of grass dared push its head through the cracks in the pavements it was soon blackened and shrivelled by the putrid air. Only the boldest sparrows and pigeons skittered amongst the detritus in the gutters, pecking for bits of food, prey to the feral cats that crept around in the shadows, ready to pounce. The vicarage was now in a reasonable state of cleanliness, but even the most thorough scrubbing could not entirely eliminate the smell of damp rot and decay. With a minimum of furniture and without the benefit of carpets or even linoleum, the house was comfortless and draughty.

  Money was always in short supply, and by dint of nagging Harriet persuaded Francis to take her on a visit to Palgrave Manor. She confided in Tilly that she hoped to persuade their elder brother, Dolph, to part with just a little of his inheritance so that they might achieve a more comfortable standard of living. When they left for the station Harriet was bubbling with excitement, but Tilly thought that Francis looked more like a man condemned to the guillotine than someone anticipating a pleasant visit to his ancestral home.

  Seizing the opportunity of a day with little to do, Tilly decided that it was time to go home to see Ma and the nippers, and to make her peace with Emily. Having left Mrs Mabb in the kitchen with a quarter of an ounce of snuff and a promise of more when she returned, together with a packet of broken biscuits to dunk in her tea, Tilly gave her strict instructions to keep the fire in the range going so that the oxtail and vegetables would be nicely braised in time for the evening meal. Tilly put on a bonnet that Hattie had given her, saying that it was too old-fashioned for her taste, and a shawl that had been discarded for the same reason. She was about to leave the house when the doorbell rang.

  Expecting to find a parishioner on the doorstep, or a vagrant begging for food, Tilly set her face in a smile and opened the door.