Tilly True

by Dilly Court

  Her smile froze. ‘Clem!’

  Dragging off his cap, Clem shuffled his feet, smiling but looking a bit uncertain. ‘Miss Tilly, I come to fetch you.’

  ‘You came to fetch me?’ Tilly stared at him uncomprehending. ‘But no one knows I’m here. You can’t have.’

  ‘A certain gent called Pitcher told me where to find you. I wouldn’t have come but for Miss Emily. She’s having her baby and it ain’t going too well.’

  ‘Heavens above, why didn’t you say so at once?’ Grabbing her purse, Tilly left the house, locking the door behind her. ‘I was going home today anyway.’

  ‘I got me dad’s cart,’ Clem said. ‘He’s at your house, pacing the floor and in a terrible state.’

  ‘I’m sure poor Emmie is in a worse way and all because of him.’ Tilly climbed up onto the cart without waiting for Clem to help her. ‘Hurry, please.’

  Leaping onto the seat beside her, Clem picked up the reins and urged Neptune into a brisk trot.

  Glancing at his straight profile as he concentrated on the road ahead, Tilly was eaten up with curiosity. ‘How do you know Pitcher?’

  ‘It would be a job not to know the bloke. He’s always poking around the docks and the wharves looking for missing people amongst the bodies what we pulls out of the Thames. I been working alongside your dad for the past couple of months and Pitcher come up to us trying to touch your dad for a bit of the ready. Seems like he’s got it in for you in some way.’

  Fingers of panic closed in on Tilly’s heart, squeezing it until she felt faint. ‘What did he say? What did he tell me dad?’

  ‘He said you’d been working in a knocking-shop, but your dad didn’t believe him and was ready to chuck him into the river.’

  ‘I hope he did. That Pitcher is a mean brute.’

  ‘No, in the end your dad just walked away. He’s a good man is Ned. Anyway, I slipped Pitcher a couple of bob and got this address off him. I knew nothing good would come of you lodging in that place, but I don’t understand how you got on the wrong side of Pitcher.’

  ‘That’s none of your business, Clem Tuffin.’

  ‘If me dad marries your sister, and he says he will, then we’ll be relations of sorts, so it is my business. I want to know what happened in that place.’

  ‘Whatever Pitcher told you it ain’t true, apart from me getting a position as companion to Miss Harriet Palgrave. I’m a lady now.’

  Clem turned to her, scowling. ‘He did say that your fine lawyer gent got himself into debt and had to leave the country. What sort of bloke leaves an innocent young girl in a brothel?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it and I ain’t . . . I mean I’m not having this conversation,’ Tilly said, wrapping her shawl more tightly around her and hanging onto the seat as Clem allowed Neptune to take a corner at what was for him a breakneck speed.

  ‘You might have learnt to talk like a lady, but you can’t change what you are, Tilly.’

  ‘I’ll have you know my family are respectable,’ Tilly fired back at him, ‘not like your blooming father who gets little girls in trouble, kidnaps women and beats up on them. I’d be ashamed to call myself a Tuffin.’

  Turning his head away, Clem said nothing and was silent until they arrived at the corner of Red Dragon Passage. Without waiting to see if Clem was following her or not, she leapt off the cart and ran down the narrow street. She burst into the sitting room, coming face to face with Bert.

  ‘Thank Gawd you come,’ Bert said, tears trickling down his lined face and dripping unchecked onto his necktie. ‘She’s been asking for you.’

  Staring at Bert, Tilly could hardly believe that this was the same man who had abducted, beaten and attempted to rape her. He seemed to have shrunk several inches in height, and as he brushed his hand across his eyes she saw that his fingernails were bitten to the quick and bleeding.

  ‘You really do care for her?’

  ‘I does. I does – and my little Emily is dying, all on account of me.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Tilly said, her stomach clenching as though she had just missed a step on the stairs. ‘She’s having a baby, that’s all.’

  A wild, agonised scream from upstairs made them both jump.

  ‘And it’s killing her, I tells you. This has been going on for two whole days. My little Emmie is dying. I’m going to lose her just as I lost my Mary.’

  Chapter Ten

  Taking the stairs two at a time, Tilly followed the screams that led her into her parents’ bedroom. Her mother was there at the beside together with Mrs Brown from across the street, who had fourteen children of her own and who, when not in labour herself, had delivered most of the babies in Red Dragon Passage and the surrounding streets. Nellie was staring helplessly at Emily, who writhed about on the bloodstained sheets, shrieking and moaning and refusing to listen to Mrs Brown’s instructions to keep calm and push.

  ‘I’m dying,’ Emily screeched. ‘I’ll kill that bloody bastard Bert Tuffin.’

  ‘Just you concentrate on getting that baby out.’ Mrs Brown yanked Emily’s legs apart and peered up the birth canal. ‘I can see its head. Now get on with it, Emily True. Push.’

  ‘I can’t, I tell you. I’m going to die. I want to die.’

  ‘Molly never made such a fuss when she give birth to little Tommy, but then it was her third.’ Nellie’s face contorted with anxiety as she mopped Emily’s sweating brow with a damp rag. ‘Be brave, Emmie, love. It’ll be over soon.’

  Squeezing into the narrow space between the bed and the wall, Tilly was not so sure as she stared at Emily’s haggard face. Perhaps Bert had been right and her little sister was going to die in childbirth; it was a common enough occurrence in these parts and many a child was brought up by a grandmother, an aunt or, at worst, the parish.

  Emily opened her eyes. ‘Tilly, is that you?’

  Clasping her hand, Tilly nodded. ‘I’m here, Emmie.’

  ‘Make it stop, Tilly,’ Emily pleaded, screwing up her face and letting out an agonised scream.

  ‘Can’t you do something for her?’ Tilly demanded, as Emily’s bone-crushing grip on her hand became almost unbearable.

  Wiping her hands on her apron, Mrs Brown sniffed and shook her head. ‘I done all I can. If she won’t push when I tells her, there ain’t much more I can do.’

  ‘I don’t like her colour.’ Nellie lowered her voice. ‘I don’t think she can take much more of this.’

  ‘Can’t do nothing if she won’t push,’ repeated Mrs Brown. Fumbling in her pockets she pulled out a crumpled, brown-stained poke with an exclamation of annoyance. ‘Bugger it. I’d give anything for a pinch of snuff or a fag.’

  Writhing and yelling, Emily released Tilly’s hand to make a grab for the rail on the iron bedhead.

  ‘What good would that do her?’ Tilly asked, flexing her fingers to make sure they were not broken.

  ‘Not for her, stupid. For me.’ Mrs Brown’s beady eyes lit up and she reached across the bed, holding out her hand. ‘You got a Wood or some snuff?’

  Remembering her bargain with Mrs Mabb, Tilly felt in her pocket for the paper bag filled with snuff.

  ‘Tilly, you ain’t got that disgusting habit?’ Nellie’s voice rose to a shout above Emily’s loud moans.

  Shaking her head, Tilly went to pass the snuff to Mrs Brown, but a scream from Emily made her jump just as Mrs Brown snatched the poke; the paper tore and a shower of brown powder rained down on Emily’s face just as she drew breath. There was a moment of horrified silence and then Emily began to cough, splutter and her whole body convulsed in ear-splitting sneezes.

  ‘That’s the ticket,’ cried Mrs Brown. ‘Nearly there, ducks. But what a bloody awful waste of good snuff.’

  On the third sneeze, the baby’s head appeared. Tilly turned her head away as her mother and Mrs Brown bent over Emily, making encouraging noises. Everything went deathly quiet and Tilly could barely bring herself to look at Emily, certain that she had sneezed her last. Then there was a sha
rp slap and a high-pitched cry as Emily’s baby took its first breath.

  Emily wiped her streaming eyes on the sheet. ‘What is it?’

  Holding up the squalling, purple-faced scrap of humanity, Mrs Brown gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘It’s a girl. You got a daughter, young Emily.’

  ‘And she’s beautiful,’ Nellie cried, tears running freely down her face. ‘Just beautiful.’

  Tilly couldn’t see anything remotely beautiful in the crumpled face and purple, squirming body, but to her intense amazement Emily was sitting up holding out her arms and smiling.

  ‘Give her here. Let’s have a look at her.’

  ‘When I’ve done the necessary,’ Mrs Brown said, tying the cord with a piece of string and taking a pair of scissors from Nellie. When she had done, she swaddled the baby in a strip torn from an old sheet and laid the noisy bundle in Emily’s arms.

  Crooning and smiling, Emily cuddled her daughter. ‘Who’s a lovely little girl then?’

  ‘It was a waste of good snuff,’ Mrs Brown muttered, whipping the soiled sheets off the bed without disturbing Emily or the baby. ‘Still, it did the trick, eh, Nellie?’

  ‘I’m just glad it’s all over. I thought we was going to lose her.’ Nellie sat down on the edge of the bed, wiping her eyes on her apron.

  Leaning against the wall, Tilly stared in wonder at Emily, who was smiling happily, all the agony and anguish apparently forgotten, and so pleased with herself and the baby that she was practically purring. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Emmie?’

  ‘I’m fine now, but I must look a fright. Fetch me hairbrush, Tilly. Ma, wash me face. I can’t let my Bert see me looking like this.’

  Exchanging worried glances with her mother, Tilly hesitated. ‘Are you sure you want to see him, Emmie?’

  Emily gave her a pitying smile. ‘Course I do. He’s my man and he’s going to spoil me rotten after all I been through.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be off then, Nellie. I’ll dump these in the yard on me way out. You can pay me what’s owing when you’re able.’ Mrs Brown bundled up the sheets and squeezed past Tilly, who held the door open for her. She was still grumbling about the waste of snuff as she lumbered down the staircase.

  Rocking the baby in one arm, Emily waved an imperious hand at Tilly. ‘Tilly, I want you to tell my Bert to give Mrs B what we owes her. Oh, and before he comes up to see me, tell him I’m bloody starving and he can send Clem out for some fish and chips, plenty of salt and vinegar, and some chocolate. No, tell him to go to the shop in the Commercial Road and buy me that box of Murray’s Diamond Jubilee chocolates I seen in the window. I never had a box of chocolates but I’m going to have lots of them now.’

  ‘I’ll tell him he’s a dad again but you can try bossing him about and see where it gets you,’ Tilly said, edging out of the room.

  ‘He got me in the family way and I give him a daughter. Now he’s going to pay for it, just you see.’

  Pausing in the doorway, Tilly frowned. ‘Emmie, be careful. He’s a bad lot.’

  ‘I can handle Bertie.’ Shrugging her shoulders, Emily smiled confidently. ‘Ma, I need a clean shift.’

  Nellie bit her lip. ‘Tilly’s right, love. Best tread carefully.’

  ‘I can take care of meself and baby,’ Emily said, kissing the baby’s downy head. ‘And I’ll call her Diamond. Diamond for her majesty’s jubilee and the chocolates.’ Chuckling, Emily lay back and closed her eyes.

  ‘What sort of name is that for a Christian child?’ Nellie said, throwing up her hands in dismay.

  ‘She’s my baby and I’ll call her what I like.’ Opening one eye, Emily scowled at Tilly. ‘You still here? Get a move on, Tilly. You got to mind me now I’m a married woman.’

  ‘Not yet, you’re not,’ Tilly mumbled as she went downstairs. Opening the door into the living room, she almost collided with Bert, who grabbed her by the arm.

  ‘Is it true what that old crow said? Is my Emmie all right?’

  ‘She’s fine. And you’ve got a daughter.’

  ‘A little moppet just like her ma. I’m a happy man, Tilly.’

  Eyeing him suspiciously, Tilly bit back a sharp retort. Whatever she thought of Bert Tuffin, he seemed to be genuinely delighted. Catching hold of his sleeve, she stopped him as he was about to bound up the stairs. ‘Emily’s hungry. She wants some fish and chips.’

  Thrusting his hand in his pocket, Bert pulled out two half-crowns and pressed them into Tilly’s outstretched palm. ‘Tell Clem to get her whatever she wants. Nothing ain’t too good for my little girl. And tell him to get fish and chips all round. I’m treating me new family to their supper tonight.’

  Unimpressed, Tilly went outside to look for Clem.

  Having sent Clem off to buy the food, Tilly reluctantly went back into the house. She found Nellie in the living room using the bellows to coax the fire into enough heat to boil the kettle. Upstairs, she could hear Bert’s deep voice and Emily’s high-pitched replies.

  Looking up, Nellie heaved a sigh. ‘I can’t say I’m happy about the state of things, but he seems really pleased about the babe.’

  ‘I’ve seen the other side of him, Mum. He’s a cruel brute and I wouldn’t trust him an inch.’

  ‘Well, Emmie’s made up her mind to have him and the nipper needs a father. Bert’s spoken to your dad and promised to look after them both. There ain’t much left to be said.’ Getting to her feet, Nellie put the kettle on the trivet. ‘Your dad and the nippers will be home any minute, so we’d best put the best face on it we can.’

  ‘I’m not staying in the same house as him, Ma. I’m sorry, but I can’t forget so easily.’

  ‘I know, but just stop long enough to see your dad. He misses you something chronic, Tilly. You always was his favourite. He’ll be heartbroken when you goes off to India.’

  ‘Yes, well that’s been put off for a bit longer,’ Tilly said, improvising quickly. ‘The Reverend Francis has gone to visit his rich brother to see about a parish nearer home. He may even be made a bishop or an archbishop and live in a palace and then Miss Harriet will need me even more.’

  ‘Never! What, you live in a palace? Well, I never did.’ Nellie’s eyes widened and her mouth formed a circle of surprise. ‘What a lot of news I’ll have to give Molly when I visit her in Poplar, what with baby Diamond being born and you going to live in a palace like a princess. The Trues are coming up in the world and that’s for certain.’

  The house was heaving with people and vibrating with noise as the excited children raced up and down the staircase, their bare feet making slapping sounds on the treads as they ran upstairs to see their new niece. Clem had arrived with the box of chocolates and a mountain of newspaper packages filled with hot, crispy fried cod and chips. The aroma of hot dripping and vinegar brought the young Trues scampering downstairs to fling themselves on the floor, licking their lips as Nellie unwrapped the parcels of food.

  Tilly made tea and handed a mug to Clem, who stood by the door, looking as though he would rather be somewhere else. ‘You don’t have to stay, you know,’ Tilly said. ‘I’ll be off myself when I’ve had a word with Pops.’

  Taking the mug in both hands, Clem nodded. ‘I’m going your way.’

  Her first instinct was to refuse, asserting her independence, but Tilly was tired and she did not relish the idea of a long walk through the rough streets, where a person might be mugged for a pair of bootlaces let alone a pair of boots. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re not going soft on me, are you, Tilly?’

  ‘No, I’m just tired, and I got to get back to the vicarage before the Reverend and Miss Hattie.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you, then.’

  ‘Ta, Clem.’ Turning her head, Tilly saw her father standing on his own by the scullery door, his brow furrowed with deep lines. She went over to him. ‘What’s up, Pops? Aren’t you pleased that Emmie’s delivered the babe safely?’

  ‘Of course I am, ducks. But I can’t say I’m happy about her wanting to marry th
at bloke.’

  Before Tilly could reply, Bert came thumping down the stairs, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Well, ain’t this a pretty sight. All me new family here to celebrate little Diamond coming into the world.’

  ‘What sort of name is that?’ Ned whispered in Tilly’s ear.

  ‘The sort of name that Emmie would choose just to be different, Pops,’ Tilly said, chuckling and squeezing his hand.

  Stepping over the heads of Jim and Dan, who were too busy munching chips to take any notice, Bert slapped Ned on the back. ‘As soon as my Emmie is back on her feet we’ll get hitched, if that’s all right with you, Pops.’

  Ned drew himself up to his full height. ‘It’s up to Emily whether or not she chooses to tie herself to a Tuffin. And I ain’t Pops to you, Tuffin. For pity’s sake, you’re older than me.’

  ‘No I ain’t.’ Bert’s smile faded into a scowl and almost immediately changed back into a wolfish grin. ‘Well, maybe a year or two, old fellow, but that don’t mean we can’t be friends, do it?’

  As if she sensed trouble brewing, Nellie hurried over with two plates of fish and chips. ‘Let’s keep it friendly, Ned. Bert’s been good enough to buy supper to celebrate.’

  ‘I don’t want nothing off him.’ Pushing the plate away, Ned glowered at Bert. ‘I can feed me own family, thank you very much.’

  ‘No need to take that attitude. I meant it friendly like.’

  Moving closer, Ned stuck his chin out. ‘I ain’t forgotten what you did to my Tilly. If you harm a hair on my Emmie’s head, you’ll end up feeding the eels at the bottom of the river. D’you get my meaning, Tuffin?’

  Glancing anxiously at the children, who were not paying the slightest attention to the arguments of the grown-ups, Nellie caught Ned by the arm. ‘Now, Ned, let it drop, just for today.’

  ‘Bertie. Bert.’ Emily’s shrill voice carried all the way down the stairs, followed by a mewing wail from the baby. ‘Where’s me fish supper, Bertie? I’m starving.’

  ‘Coming, my little pigeon.’ Scowling at Ned and stepping over the boys once again, Bert carried the plate of food upstairs.