Shocked to the core, Frances followed him down the metal staircases, under brick arches, out through the fortress-like gate. By the time she’d travelled the streets back to Southwark, she’d come to, but when Billy Wray intercepted her on Duke Street with the offer of a cup of coffee in Henshaw’s, she was glad to accept. ‘You look done in,’ he told her. They settled in a dark corner of the eating-house, away from the window, while Bea Henshaw went for their order.
‘I got to write to Robert tonight and tell him about Ernie,’ she said faintly. ‘I put it off yesterday, and I still ain’t looking forward to doing it.’
‘No, and there ain’t nothing he can do about it in his position. Has he been shipped out to France yet?’
Frances shook her head. ‘No. He ought to be told what’s going on back here though, don’t you think?’
Billy nodded. ‘Even if it is a bit hard on him. But I should think the police will be in touch with him pretty soon. I’d get a move on and write that letter if I was you. It’s better if he hears the news from family in my opinion.’
‘Only, I think if Robert was here Ernie would have a better chance, and I’m afraid Rob might think so too. I just hope he don’t go and do nothing stupid.’
‘Go AWOL? No, you gotta write and explain we’re doing everything we can.’ He settled back in his seat, watching with concern as Frances sipped her coffee. ‘How do you feel now? You didn’t half give me a fright when I saw you step off that tram. You nearly went straight under the wheels of a car, not looking where you was going.’
‘That prison’s a terrible place, Billy.’ Frances stared down at the linen tablecloth. ‘I never expected it to be that bad.’
‘I fixed up for Mr Sewell to visit him tomorrow morning. That’ll help keep his chin up.’ If Billy Wray could have moved a mountain for Frances Parsons, he would have done. He admired her determined way. His own wife, Ada, had always been a passive sort, content to stay at home. Now, with her illness, she leaned on him a lot. Billy was a devoted husband, but he felt as he sat watching Frances that marriage was his own sort of prison. Then he regretted thinking it. If Frances had been less good-looking, he’d have things more under control. The truth was, he liked her precise, near movements, and the graceful turn of her dark head.
‘What does Mr Sewell think of Ernie’s chances?’ Frances asked. She knew through Billy that Sewell was regarded as a supporter of good causes such as women’s rights and Fabianism. But was he any good at fighting individual cases? She had to put her trust in Billy’s judgement. Knowing from their meetings and lectures how well informed he was, she turned to him in this time of crisis.
‘I managed to have a few words with him about it. He says the police have built their case on what he calls circumstantial evidence, but he admits there’s a combination of things that will make it hard for a jury. He says to wait till he’s seen Ernie before he jumps to any conclusions.’
Frances nodded. ‘Thanks, Billy.’
‘Try not to worry.’ He put his hand over hers. ‘No, I don’t mean that. You’re bound to worry, ifs only natural. I just wish I could be more help.’
She smiled. ‘You’ve been very good to us, Billy. I don’t know what we’d do without you.’
Frances’s gratitude was cold comfort when he found himself wanting more. But she was eaten up by her family problem, and he was tied to Ada. Come to that, she probably never looked at him as woman to man. She was a spinster born and bred, they said up at Union Street. And he was married.
When Maurice Leigh heard the news about Amy’s featherbrained entanglement with Teddy Cooper, he decided to steer clear of the women in his household until the upset had died down. He had a serious aversion to female hysterics, and in this sense his relationship with his landlady and her daughter was bound to be problematic. He was a poor shoulder to cry on, he told himself, so keeping out of the way seemed his best tactic.
Still, he couldn’t help feeling sorry for the one who seemed overlooked in all this; and that was Charlie. The poor boy wandered in from school and could hardly find a seat to park himself on. Once, while there was some bother rumbling on down in the kitchen and Maurice was just slipping out to work, he found Charlie sitting on the stairs, chin in hands. ‘How do you fancy coming up to the Gem with me tonight?’ he offered. ‘You can sit in with the projectionist and see how things work.’
Charlie stared back, his face suddenly alive with excitement. ‘You’re not kidding?’
Maurice stood in the stairwell, hands in pockets. ‘I take it that means yes? Right, get your jacket on and hurry up. If you like what you see, I might even find you a little job one or two evenings a week. Keep you out of trouble!’
The two were already out on the street. Charlie walked jauntily along, cap tilted to the back of his head. ‘I ain’t in trouble.’
‘Well, a boy of your age ought to be,’ Maurice replied. They swung diagonally across Duke Street, getting into their stride. ‘If I was you going bike-riding with a pretty girl like Sadie Parsons of a Sunday, I’d make bleeding sure I was in trouble!’
Charlie grunted. ‘I don’t think you should be encouraging me that way.’ Privately, he realized that those bike rides, so precious at first, were beginning to lose their charm, now that the novelty had worn off.
Maurice laughed. ‘No? You most likely don’t need no encouraging neither.’
‘That’d be telling.’ Charlie followed on Maurice’s tail into the plush picture house. This was it; he’d arrived! This was the future, these were the machines he wanted to learn about. Magic flickered up there on the screen. He fell in love with the giant reels of celluloid, the whir of the projector, the hot dust rising in the tiny projection room. Their lodger had offered him a gateway to heaven, and Charlie was about to dash headlong through it.
Maurice offered Jess a gateway of a different kind, which she approached timidly and full of doubt. For a start, it didn’t seem right to her to be having thoughts about anything except Ernie’s trial. She saw Frances moving heaven and earth to get him the best solicitor in the East End, delving into her own savings and working long hours at the chemist’s shop to pay for it. She watched Hettie transformed from a music-hall girl with a spring in her step to a quiet, nunlike figure, grieving for Daisy. Duke was a shell, an empty husk; even Florrie had given up trying to jolly him along and had to leave him alone.
And Jess already felt guilty for the comfort she found in nursing little Grace and in watching her baby develop her first smiles. Sewing work had come in from the advert, and this too brought satisfaction. Jess, who less than a year ago expected to be the most miserable of women, feared she was blossoming in spite of her family’s troubles. She racked her brains to see what more she could do to help, and constantly asked herself how could she rein back her hopes for the future.
‘Jess?’ Hettie said tentatively, in the middle of one long afternoon’s sewing. She was altering the sleeves in a ladies’ jacket to bring it back into fashion. Jess sat at their new sewing-machine, running up girls’ petticoats for Mrs Henshaw’s nieces. ‘You remember me mentioning I wanted to put something better into my life than working the halls?’
Jess glanced up from the yards of fine white cotton, but she kept the treadle moving. The machine whirred on. ‘You said to mind my own business if I remember right.’
‘I never did. Or if I did, it was because I hadn’t made up my mind then. I have now.’ Hettie was moving on from helping Mary O’Hagan out of her terrible hole. Now she felt that she’d like to help others too. It grew harder to walk by the huddled shapes under the railway arches, and she began to loathe the effects of the demon drink as she watched the men stagger from the pub at night. Then one day, when she’d been lending Mary a hand by asking after Tommy O’Hagan up at Waterloo Station, she fell in with a Salvation Army woman called Freda Barnes, who described the work done for the poor at her industrial home in Lambeth. ‘We provide food, shelter and honest work,’ she said. She told Hettie that she was go
ing to man a stall of goods made by the inebriates in a special home set up by the Army, then back to the industrial home for an evening meeting. ‘Why not come along?’ she said.
Hettie went and joined in their rousing choruses to the accompaniment of a brass band. She was singing again, but this time she was singing for Jesus.
‘I signed the pledge,’ she told Jess. ‘I took the plunge the other day. Look!’
Jess stopped treadling in surprise. She read the richly decorated card which Hettie handed to her: ‘I Promise by Divine Assistance to Abstain from all Beverages that Contain Alcohol. Also from Opium and Tobacco in Every Form; and that I will not Gamble or use Profane Language, but will Strive to be Loving, Pure, and True in Thought, Word, and Deed.’ Signed Hesther Parsons, 20 September 1914. ‘Blimey, Ett!’ Jess sat staring at the picture of cherubs against a twinkling night sky. ‘What you gonna tell Pa?’
Hettie laughed. ‘I ain’t gone and done nothing terrible, you know.’
‘Ain’t you? Talk about cat among the pigeons,’ she grumbled. She needed to think more carefully about Hettie’s new fad.
‘No, I only signed the pledge. I think it’s common sense when you watch what drink does to a man. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if drink played a part in poor Daisy’s death.’
Jess nodded. She began to see the train of Hettie’s thoughts.
‘Pa won’t mind,’ Hettie cajoled. ‘He likes to have the Army come round collecting. He always dips his hand in his pocket.’
‘If you’re sure, Ett,’ Jess couldn’t picture pretty Hettie in a drab blue uniform and homely bonnet, all buttons and old-fashioned maroon bows. ‘You ain’t acting a bit sudden, are you?’
‘ “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament,”’ Hettie read out from her pledge card. ‘Well, I don’t know if I can be wise, Jess, but I should like to do a little bit of good!’
‘Oh, Ett!’ Jess stood up and embraced her. ‘You’ve got a heart of gold, you have. Don’t tell me I gotta get used to another angel in the family! Ain’t Frances enough?’
‘Listen, Jess, it don’t mean we can’t carry on being partners in the business, you know.’
‘Good!’ Jess smiled and went back to her work. ‘These petticoats won’t make themselves.’ She’d been on the point of confiding to Hettie over Maurice Leigh, hut the subject sounded trivial somehow alongside Hettie’s momentous decision.
On the last Sunday of September, Charlie came calling for Sadie as usual, eager to show off about his new job at the cinema. He waited in the yard for her to finish tying up her hair, or whatever it was that took a girl so long to achieve between his ring on the bell and her coming down to unlock her bike from the shed, ready to set off. Sadie sent Jess to keep him company, and she was still standing in the side alley waving them off when Maurice came running up the court. She turned to go in, almost bumping into him.
‘Damn!’ He watched Charlie disappear up the street. ‘I meant to ask him to work a couple of extra hours for me tomorrow night.’ He didn’t seem unduly upset about missing him, however, and turned instead into the alley with Jess. ‘Are you busy today?’ he asked.
She felt the same confusion; a mixture of liking, longing, fear, doubt. It twisted around her chest like a tight band whenever Maurice came near. ‘I don’t know yet. Why?’
‘I thought we might walk out this afternoon?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she demurred.
‘Why not? Don’t you want to?’ He put one hand over her shoulder against the high wall, leaning in, confident that she wouldn’t move away. ‘We got to stop meeting in these narrow places,’ he joked. ‘It ain’t dignified. How about meeting up with me at the park gates at half two?’
Jess looked up at him, took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Half two, then.’ She was committed. Quickly she went up by the metal fire escape, and Maurice swung out into the street back home to his attic room.
‘Nice to clap eyes on a cheerful face,’ Arthur Ogden grumbled, as they crossed paths on the doorstep. ‘Like a bleeding morgue in there these days if it wasn’t for you.’
Maurice nodded and whistled up the stairs. He planned to polish his shoes, find a clean collar, have a shave.
Back at the Duke, Jess had to ask Florrie a favour. To her surprise, her aunt practically whirled her out of the place. ‘Mind? Why should I mind? I been saying you should get out more! Of course, the others don’t notice, but I do, girl! Blinded by their troubles, they are, but I seen you was looking peaky the minute I walked in. I says to myself, “That girl needs to get out!” It ain’t no fun looking after a baby all by yourself, but no one knows that better than me!’
Jess smiled gratefully at her larger-than-life aunt, gearing herself up for the usual reminiscences.
‘My Tom was always a sickly child, coughing and wheezing. And there I was stuck with him after his poor father passed on. Day in, day out without a break. Oh, there’s no need to tell me what it means for a mother to have to manage by herself.’ She swept up and down the living-room carpet, baby Grace settled on one broad hip, little legs dangling. ‘So you go and have a break, girl. Go out and enjoy yourself.’
Jess had put on her best hat; a dark-blue velvet one, and a new soft-collared white blouse. She liked the fashion of wearing a strip of dark silk around her neck like a loose man’s tie; she thought it looked jaunty and modern. Her even features smiled back at her in the mirror.
Florrie came up close for a confidential whisper, though there was no one else in the room. ‘You go and find yourself a nice young man. You got my blessing, and never mind about young Grace here. It don’t mean you got to lock yourself away like a nun for the rest of your life!’
Jess turned to her. ‘You sure, Auntie?’ Florrie’s early letter about the baby had sounded stiff and stern. But since her arrival on the scene, little Grace’s soft dark curls, her rosebud mouth and huge dark eyes seemed to have melted the old lady‘s heart. ‘Do you think I’m doing right?’
Florrie answered the appeal warmly. ‘I know you are. You’re a lovely girl, even if Wilf ain’t never seen it in you. And you’re only young once. So just leave me to get on with things here and you take as long as you like.’ She gave Jess a wink. ‘What’s he like? I bet he’s a bobby dazzler.’
Jess laughed and blushed. ‘He is, Auntie. Well, I think so at any rate!’
Chapter Nineteen
Maurice decided that a walk in the local park wouldn’t do for the type of treat he had in mind for Jess. He was ambitious for this courtship from the beginning, seeing it as something different. So he hopped her up on to one of the new ‘B’ type buses when it stopped at the crossroads, and they sat on the open upper deck in the rich autumn sunlight, all along the Embankment, up to the great green space of Hyde Park.
Jess felt the bus roll smoothly past splendid shops under mellow golden trees. She saw ladies walking white lap-dogs past the hotels on Park Lane, heard the rant of orators on Speakers’ Corner. During all her years in service she’d had little free time for Sunday afternoon jaunts. Her time off had been spent visiting family and helping in the pub. Now she and Maurice alighted arm in arm from the bus and joined the people strolling through the iron gates.
‘Oh, look!’ She pointed to a corner of the park where a collection of giant hot-air balloons hovered at rest. A crowd of women in white skirts, carrying pale parasols, and men in long jackets and trilbies had gathered round. Children stood in small knots, heads craned back to study the tethered monsters. Then a gasp escaped as one took off. It rose slowly, silently over their heads into the perfect blue sky. Jess heard the ‘oh!’ and clutched Maurice’s hand. ‘Look, there’s people in them things! How are they supposed to get down?’
He laughed and looped her hand through his arm. ‘They just have to let some of the hot air out and down they come.’
‘What if they want to go higher?’
‘They chuck a couple of passengers overboard.’
They
walked on happily together. ‘Ever been to the seaside?’ he asked, as they passed colourful posters on Magical Margate. When she shook her head his plans grew extravagant; he’d borrow a motor car if she liked, and take her on an outing to the sea. Jess was impressed that he had friends with cars. ‘Talbot Invincible, that’s the best one out,’ he recommended. ‘Say you’ll come.’
But Jess made no promises. ‘Ain’t you got too much on with your new job?’ she asked. They’d walked away from the crowd down an avenue of beech trees. Sunlight cast a dappled pattern over his face as she glanced sideways at him. ‘From what I hear, your place is bursting at the seams most nights.’
‘That’s why I deserve a day off every so often.’ His success in drawing audiences to the Gem away from the halls, with his clever mix of comedies, romances and the latest foreign epics had set him in good stead. He stopped and turned to face her. ‘I ain’t larking about with you, Jess. You know that?’
She nodded and received his kiss. Her arms went up round his neck, he pulled her close. There was an intense look in his dark eyes when she tried to pull away. Instead, he offered more close kisses which made her melt against him once again.
‘I’m serious,’ he whispered, his mouth against her neck. ‘I ain’t never been this serious with any girl.’
Suddenly she drew away. This was a temptation almost too much to resist; to swoon in his arms and let herself be kissed into unconsciousness. But she had to get straight with him. The misery of getting involved and then having him break it off later when he discovered the truth would be too much to bear. She was pretty sure Maurice wasn’t the type to have got involved in any of the street gossip since he came to live at the Ogdens. Yet telling him about Grace must surely finish things off before they’d truly begun. Jess struggled with her conscience. At last, self-denial, always a strong force in her, won through.
‘What?’ Maurice pulled at her wrist. ‘Don’t walk off. I said too much, I’m sorry.’ He thought he’d scared her.
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