Now he wished he’d persisted in his efforts and that the sketch was in his notebook and retrievable. ‘I shall leave it here fer posterity,’ he bragged happily, and signed it with his initials.
‘Daft ha’p’orth,’ she said lovingly.
Crouching beside the wall to draw had made him feel cramped. He crawled out of the fireplace to straighten his spine and stretch his legs. ‘I wonder who lived here,’ he mused.
‘They must a’ been swells.’
‘Why’d they leave?’ he said. ‘That’s what puzzles me. If I had a place like this, I’d stay in it for ever, wouldn’t you?’
She was still sitting in the fireplace, with her knees under her chin, gazing dreamily in front of her, but she didn’t answer him. He walked to the windows and looked out into the wilderness that had once been a garden. They’d had a lot of horses, he thought, whoever they were. There were stables on both sides of the house. And how green the woods were. Even in the middle of winter. He sat on the sill of the central window wondering if he had sufficient artistic technique to draw such a complication of green tones and varying textures. It would be lovely to do a painting of Ellen against such a setting. And as always, wondering led to attempting. This time he retrieved his notebook, and soon he was busily sketching, absorbed in the impossible task he’d set himself. He even forgot his lovely Ellen for the moment.
The first two sketches were useless but the third was better. In fact he was really quite pleased with his efforts, for the second time that day. ‘Reckon you’ve inspired me, bubeleh,’ he said, looking at the sketch pad and speaking to the quiet figure he could just see out of the corner of his eye. But she didn’t answer him then either, and this time her silence made him feel just a little uneasy. He walked across at once to show her his work and apologize for neglecting her.
She was sitting where he’d left her, with her arms clasped round her knees, but she was unnaturally still. Still as a statue, staring straight ahead of her, with an expression of such horror on her face that the sight of it froze his blood. ‘Ellen!’ he said running to her. ‘What’s the matter? What’s up?’
Her eyes were glazed and withdrawn, looking inwards, transfixed by some internal horror and her face was as white as paper. She wasn’t aware of him at all, but when he put his arms round her in a clumsy effort to comfort her, she began to moan, and then to rock backwards and forwards. ‘Oh! Oh! All them poor fellers. Oh, they’re in such pain. Them poor fellers. An’ all the blood.’
He was very frightened. First that awful fit of the shakes, and now this. It was as if she were possessed. What if there was a dybbuk in the house, and it had got into her somehow or other when he wasn’t looking? Has vesholem! He knew about such terrible spirits, because Aunty Dumpling had told him. Oh what should he do? ‘Ellen!’ he begged. ‘Look at me, bubeleh. Please!’ But she went on staring into space. He ought to shake her, maybe. But that might give her a shock.
‘They can’t ’elp groanin’,’ she said, and he was relieved that she was speaking with her own voice, even though he couldn’t understand what she was saying. ‘Oh the pain. It’s everywhere. All round. They can’t bear it. Can’t bear it.’ Then her eyes swam into focus and he knew she could see him again, and she threw herself into his arms and burst into passionate weeping. ‘Never leave me!’ she begged. ‘Oh Davey, never ever leave me. I couldn’t bear it.’
‘Never ever!’ he promised with equal passion. ‘I told yer. I never ever could. Not now. I love you. I’d do anything for you. Anything!’ And at that she wept more wildly than before.
He held her and patted her back and made soothing noises and let her cry, because he couldn’t stop her and he didn’t know what else to do. And she cried for a very long time, with the tears running off the end of her nose and her cheeks blotchy and her blue eyes bloodshot.
But at last the worst was over and her sobs were gradually subsiding. He held her hands very gently and ventured to ask her what had happened. It couldn’t have been a dybbuk, could it?
‘I dunno what it was,’ she said, wiping her eyes. She looked wan and bewildered. ‘I get these sort a’ moments sometimes. Like a dream, only I’m wide awake. I sort a’ see things. Hazy sort of. Like yer do in a dream. Onny it ain’t a dream. I’m certain sure a’ that. I feel things really, more’n see ’em.’
A dream, he thought, taking comfort from her explanation. That didn’t sound like a dybbuk. Perhaps she was a seer, like Hannah, who spoke so clearly in her song of thanksgiving, or Huldah the prophetess, who was consulted by the priests. ‘You was talkin’ about pain,’ he said, wondering if she could remember it now.
‘This room was full a’ men,’ she said. ‘Shufflin’ about on crutches, an’ bandaged up, an’ groanin’. An’ lines a’ beds too. They was in terrible pain. I could feel it. An’ I was lookin’ fer something. I’d lost something. That was it. I had ter find it, an’ I didn’t know where ter look. I was searchin’ all over. Oh dear, oh dear. It was awful.’ Her face was beginning to crinkle towards tears again at the memory.
‘D’you often see things like that?’ he asked, partly to take her mind from the present vision and partly because he had to know more.
‘Not like that. I never seen nothink as bad as that. Mostly I jest see things fer a minute or two, an’ then I don’t know what they are after.’
‘When you see things,’ he said, speaking very carefully because he didn’t want to offend her, and because this was so very important he had to know the truth, ‘do you know it’s you seein’ them? Or do you feel you’re someone else?’ He was breathless with apprehension. Oh she couldn’t be possessed! Not his lovely Ellen.
‘Oh no,’ she said, easily. ‘It’s always me. I wish it wasn’t. It’s like a dream, but it’s always me dreamin’ it.’
He was weak with relief. And now sympathy for her flooded back. ‘Does it scare you?’
‘It did then.’
‘My poor love,’ he said tenderly, and kissed her, holding both her hands in his. ‘Your hands are like ice.’ It must have been a terrible experience for her, this waking dream.
‘Cold ’ands, warm ’eart,’ she said trying to make a joke of it. And failing.
‘It’s this place,’ he said, touched by her attempt to recover herself. ‘What say we go back to Riggs an’ have a slap-up meal an’ warm ourselves up?’ The sight of her stricken face made him feel protective and ashamed of his questioning. If she was a seer, a prophetess, she was very very special. Now he felt honoured to have been chosen to protect her. ‘We’ll go to Riggs, nu?’
It sounded like a very good idea. And although he wasn’t quite sure he had enough money for a really slap-up meal, that’s what they did.
It was growing dark by the time they cycled back to Shoreditch. As they kissed goodnight outside the staff entrance to Hopkins and Peggs, they realized that they were both exhausted. It had been an extraordinary day. And much longer than twenty-four hours.
Chapter Seventeen
It took Ellen several wakeful nights and a good many thoughtful days to digest all the events of that Sunday. For a start, she felt she was irretrievably committed to him, now that they’d gone beyond kissing, and the thought made her feel rapturously happy, and yet at the same time frightened her. Sooner or later she knew they would get married, and that was right and proper and what she wanted. But she could still remember her mother’s warnings somewhere in the childish recesses of her mind, ‘Don’t you let ’em touch yer, gel!’ and the words roused a sense of wrong-doing and risk-taking that wasn’t easy to ignore. It had been sensible advice at the time, when she’d been coping with the crude advances of young men like Jimmy Thatcher, but it didn’t apply to her gentle David. ’Course not. David was different. He was an artist, sensitive and delicate and not a bit like all the others. Look how marvellous he’d been when she had that terrible waking dream. He’d taken it all so calmly, and he hadn’t loved her any less because of it. Quite the reverse, in fact, which wasn’t what she
’d really expected. Not if she was honest about it.
It was the waking dream that had upset her more than anything else, partly because it had been so vivid and frightened her so much, but also because David had seen her during it. Until then she’d taken great care not to let anyone know when she had one of her ‘moments’ and so she’d managed to persuade herself that they weren’t really very important. They were just an odd private trick she’d learned somehow or other without trying to. A way of receiving messages. That was all. Most of them came from her family and could be acted on and forgotten quite quickly. She would ‘know’ when her mother was upset or one of the little ’uns had taken a pasting from the old man, and then she would buy something tasty for them to eat and pay them a surprise visit to comfort them. It was useful, but she preferred it to be unremarkable. Now and quite suddenly it had become something far more important. For this dream simply wasn’t the sort of thing she could push to one side and ignore. It had lasted too long and affected her too deeply. The terror and the awful sense of loss returned at dead of night to frighten her all over again and she found herself asking David’s anxious question, ‘What was it?’ and following that with a second, even more anxious, ‘Why did it happen to me?’
On nights like that it was a relief when the day began and she knew he would soon be walking through the shop with his daily love letter, his nice normal daily love letter. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one to be paying court to her these days.
Love was making her bloom, plumping her cheeks and rounding her breasts, thickening her hair and bringing a glow to her skin. At first she was delighted with the improvement, especially as David noticed it and responded to it so lovingly. But after a while Jimmy Thatcher noticed too, and took to loitering in the dress department again, just like he’d done when she first arrived, leering at her in the most unpleasantly knowing way. He had a score to settle with Miss Icy White and this was a good chance.
She did her best to deflect him, but he was persistent.
‘An’ how’s Miss Ice White this loverly mornin’?’ he would say, leaning across the counter to ogle her.
‘Busy.’Op it!’
‘Little bird told me you was in love. Not quite such an icy white now-a-days, eh?’
‘Aintcher got nothing better ter do than loll around ’ere makin’ silly remarks?’
‘Got the taste fer it, aintcher? You wanna try me now yer got the taste fer it.’
‘You wanna clip round the ear.’
‘Naughty, naughty!’ he said, mocking her.
And off he’d go, whistling. It infuriated her.
‘I’ll give ’im such a fourpenny one if he keeps on,’ she said to Ruby as they laid the tea table that Wednesday afternoon. ‘’E don’t take a blind bit a’ notice no matter what I say.’
‘Saucy beggar!’ Ruby sympathized, emptying a twist of sugar into the sugar bowl. ‘Don’t ’e know you’re walking out?’
‘’Course. Fat lot a difference that makes!’
‘You told David?’
‘’Course.’
‘What’s ’e say?’
‘Ignore it.’
‘That’s all very well,’ Ruby grimaced. ‘’E don’t ’ave ter.’
‘I’ll fix ’im come the New Year,’ Ellen promised. ‘I got an idea.’
‘Cor,’ Ruby said impressed. ‘Tell us! Whatcher gonna do?’
‘Invite David to the party.’
Hopkins and Peggs always gave a New Year party for their staff and although trade was bad and takings low they saw no reason to make an exception this year. Ellen and Maudie had been looking forward to it since November. Particularly as this year they’d completed five years’ service and earned the right to invite a guest. Maudie was bringing her sister all the way from Bethnal Green.
‘I know they don’t celebrate Christmas, the Jews,’ she said. ‘But New Year’s a different thing, ain’t it?’
‘Quite different,’ Ruby said. ‘Cor! Fancy ‘aving a feller ter bring ter the party fer everyone ter see! Wish it was me!’
But Ellen’s feller wasn’t at all sure he wanted to be taken to the party for everyone to see. ‘I’ll come if you really want me to,’ he said. ‘I’d rather go to the Standard though. They got Marie Lloyd top of the bill.’
‘It’s important,’ she urged. ‘That Jimmy Thatcher’s gettin’ worse an’ worse. I want ’im ter see I’m spoken for.’
‘Are yer spoken for?’ he teased, stroking her top lip, to make her shiver.
‘Ain’t I?’ Shivering.
His kiss was an answer to both questions. ‘So who wants ter see Marie Lloyd?’
‘We’ll ’ave some fun, I promise,’ she said. ‘They do us proud, New Year.’
Which was true enough. But it didn’t help him to explain yet another night out to his parents. There was an edge about his mother’s comments these days that made him feel guilty. ‘So vhy you don’t spend a liddle more of your time vid some nice Yiddish friends.’
‘It’s ’Opkins and Peggs,’ he tried to explain. ‘Josh and Meg’ll be there.’
‘Nu-nu, I vonder you don’t vork there yourself,’ she said tardy. ‘The time you spend.’
Preparations for the party began as usual as soon as the shutters were put up at seven o’clock, and within an hour the dining room had been transformed. There was a Christmas tree blazing with candles in one corner, the ceiling was festooned with a network of paper chains, wreaths of holly hung from every door and the tables had been set with white linen, for once, and decorated with mounds of evergreens.
‘It’ll be fun, you’ll see,’ Ellen tried to reassure him as they walked in to supper. He was looking far too pale, and his serious expression made her realize that it was an ordeal for him to be put on display like this. I shouldn’t’ve done it, she thought, and was ashamed of an emotion that now looked far too much like selfishness.
But he smiled at her lovingly, and anyway, it was too late for second thoughts.
Supper was a raucously jolly meal, because they were all a little ill at ease and talking excitedly. But the food was appetizing if not abundant and there was plenty of ale to wash it down, so it wasn’t long before cheeks were flushed and tongues eased. David sat between Ellen and Maudie and although the food wasn’t at all to his taste, at least he contrived to pass his slice of ham to Ellen while Maudie’s current ‘feller’ was playing the spoons, and the conversation was cheerful enough.
Then the gaslight was turned down low and all the tables and chairs were cleared to the edges of the room to make a space for dancing, and the real business of the evening began. The managers and floor walkers were all in extravagant good humour by then, booming at one another at the top of their voices, parading about the room in their customary evening dress pressing fruit punch and the compliments of the season on all the excited employees. But the assistants gathered self-consciously round every table, girls to the left and men to the right, of course, as was only right and proper, and hoping that they weren’t overdressed now that they were no longer half-hidden by the table cloths. And that left Ellen and David feeling rather exposed among the older couples. They stood awkwardly together as the errand boys sped about the room pretending to be waiters, with beer for the plebs and brandy for the gentry, and tobacco smoke billowed from all those once-a-year cigars. And David wished he hadn’t come, knowing he didn’t fit in at such a Christian celebration.
At the far end of the room a square had been roped off for the band who were now arriving, music in hand. They were rather an odd collection of instrumentalists, consisting of a pianist of sorts, two shrill violinists who hadn’t the slightest intention of playing in harmony, or even together, Miss Morton brisk as ever on the squeezebox, and Mr Fenway, resplendent in a tartan jacket and an old fashioned cravat, rattling a kettledrum. But at least, David thought, they signalled the hope of activity. All that standing around watching one another was embarrassing.
‘Which one’s Jimmy Thatcher?’ he asked
Ellen, as the band rearranged their seats and adjusted their music stands.
‘Down the other end,’ she said. ‘Drinking the dregs! ’E would!’
David examined his rival, who was busily drinking all the dregs from the discarded brandy glasses. He could see why Ellen wanted to be rid of him. What a coarse looking creature, with his face too wide and his eyes too small. Like a pug. And fancy drinking other people’s leavings! ‘Don’t think much of him,’ he said.
‘Nor me!’ she said, beaming at his good judgement. ‘Let’s ’ope ’e takes the hint.’
Then young Mr Peggs clapped his hands for attention and requested the company to be so good as to take their partners for the first waltz. And from the moment the dancing began, there was so much noise and such cheerful activity that doubt and embarrassment and the deplorable Jimmy Thatcher were temporarily forgotten. David and Ellen danced every dance bar two, and when they weren’t dancing they were drinking fruit punch and joking with Maudie and the cycling club. And neither of them paid any attention to Jimmy Thatcher, who was now rolling drunk and making clumsy passes at any girl within range. Unfortunately, despite the fact that he was having considerable difficulty focusing his eyes, he finally saw them, and blundered across the room to make his presence known.
‘’Trodush me to your friend, Miss Icy White,’ he said thickly, grabbing hold of Ellen’s sleeve to steady himself.
‘Go away!’ she hissed at him. ‘Mr Peggs is lookin’ at yer.’
‘So thish ish the famous Ikey Mo,’ he said, narrowing his eyes to look at David. ‘Mr Schnozzle! Yer very own Yiddle-iddle.’
David went ashy white under the insult and his mouth closed as if it would never open again. And Ellen was so torn with guilt and distress she forgot to be angry. ‘Davey!’ she whispered, reaching out for his hand and not finding it.
‘Oh-oh! Davey ish it?’ Thatcher sneered. ‘Yiddle-iddle Davey!’ And he poked a finger into David’s chest. ‘Jewboy!’ The cycle club had gathered around them, but David was too angry and Ellen too numb with distress to notice.
A Time to Love Page 24
