The Camberwell Raid

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘What, again?’ she said.

  ‘Hello and good morning, missus,’ said Bill Chambers. ‘Well met, I’d say.’

  ‘If it keeps happening, we’ll get talked about,’ said Lilian.

  ‘No cause for that,’ said Bill, ‘politeness is the watchword between me and all my customers. It’s laid down by the dairy.’

  ‘So you’ve already said,’ smiled Lilian, at the beginning of maturity and looking fulsomely fetching in an attractive dress of ivy green.

  ‘Well, Mrs Hyams, the fact is I do my best to treat my lady customers respectfully, which keeps me from being thumped by one of my own milk bottles.’

  ‘And from being thumped by your wife,’ said Lilian.

  ‘It might, yes, I daresay it might, Mrs Hyams, except I’m not married, having spent ten years courtin’ my landlady’s daughter Dorothy. Well, just as we were finally about to get officially engaged, she upped and married a bloke from round the corner, and her mother went with her. I don’t know about her dad, I think he ran off with a lady tram conductor during the war. Anyway, when Dorothy and her mum hopped it, I was left in charge of a whole house and a piano they didn’t want in Rockingham Street, by the Elephant and Castle. Now what would a bloke like me want a piano and a whole house for? I ask you, what?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re grumbling about,’ said Lilian, ‘not now you’re free to go out and find a wife and put her in charge.’

  Blue eyes twinkled at her.

  ‘Well, I’ll be bottled,’ said Bill, ‘I never thought of that. I’d say you’ve just given me a prize piece of advice, right out of a wise loaf of bread. I’m regarding you, Mrs Hyams, with complimentary admiration. But with polite respect, of course.’

  I’ve got another Sammy here, thought Lilian. Give him a soapbox and he could make a name for himself.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’ she asked, King and Queen Street visibly stirring now.

  ‘Bill Chambers.’

  ‘Well, Bill, start looking,’ said Lilian.

  ‘For a woman who wouldn’t mind takin’ charge of a piano and a whole house?’ said Bill.

  ‘And you and your laundry,’ said Lilian.

  ‘What a thought,’ said Bill. ‘Might I present you with a pint of fresh?’ He placed a bottle of milk in her hand. ‘With my personal compliments. Any eggs?’

  ‘Are you getting commission on the eggs you sell?’ asked Lilian.

  ‘Penny on every half-dozen,’ said Bill.

  ‘Well, I’ll think of buying some later this week,’ said Lilian.

  ‘Mrs Hyams, it’s my personal pleasure to have become acquainted,’ said Bill, and off he went with his nag and his float, whistling.

  That leaves me needing to hurry to work, thought Lilian, closing the door. But one couldn’t deny oneself a doorstep chat with an outgoing milkman who had a gift of the gab.

  A certain house in Wansey Street having been vacated, Cassie and Freddy were there first thing after supper, finishing a job they’d begun yesterday evening, stripping the kitchen of its ancient wallpaper. This was the house in which they were going to live when they were married, and they were already renting it. The first thing they’d wanted to do was repaper the kitchen. Freddy was a natural at this sort of job, Cassie a willing learner. She was on a stepladder, stripping from the ceiling downwards. Freddy was on his knees, cleaning up the lower half of the wall.

  ‘By the way, Cassie,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Freddy dear?’ said Cassie lovingly.

  ‘Sammy’s goin’ to see we get a good start to our married lives by givin’ us a cheque,’ said Freddy.

  ‘A cheque?’ said Cassie.

  ‘For fifty pounds,’ said Freddy.

  Cassie nearly fell off the stepladder.

  ‘How much?’ she gasped.

  ‘Fifty quid,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Lord, as much as that?’ said Cassie in gasping delight.

  ‘He popped into the brewery this afternoon to tell me,’ said Freddy.

  ‘It’s all of fifty pounds?’ said Cassie, breathless.

  ‘It’s because I’m ’is brother-in-law and work for him, and because you’re goin’ to be fortunate enough to be related to me by marriage,’ said Freddy.

  ‘He didn’t say that, I bet,’ said Cassie.

  ‘More or less,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Me fortunate?’ said Cassie. ‘Crikey, what a laugh. I’ll fall off this ladder in a minute. It’s you that’s goin’ to be fortunate. Freddy, you do realize how lucky you are, I suppose?’

  ‘Well, Cassie, you’ve said so before—’

  ‘I could ’ave been asked by the Lord Chamberlain if I’d met him,’ said Cassie.

  ‘He’s nearly ninety,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Still, never mind,’ said Cassie, ‘isn’t Sammy a lovely man? I mean, fifty pounds, Freddy. It’s more than I earn in a year.’

  ‘I’ve got to start a bank account,’ said Freddy, ‘it’s Sammy’s suggestion. He wants us to buy this house as soon as we can. He said us payin’ rent ’urts him. So me dad’s goin’ to give me time off to pop into the bank when I’ve got the cheque from Sammy. Like the idea, Cassie?’

  ‘Oh, I could kiss Sammy,’ said Cassie blissfully.

  ‘He’ll charge you for it,’ said Freddy. ‘He always says that if ’e didn’t charge, females would be kissin’ him all the time and interferin’ with his work. Incident’lly, Cassie, we’d better change places.’

  ‘What for?’ asked Cassie. ‘I like it up here.’

  ‘Yes, but the point is, Cassie, with you up there and me down here, it’s takin’ me mind off me work,’ said Freddy.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ asked Cassie, an old apron over her dress.

  ‘Well, from down here, Cassie, your frock looks a bit short,’ said Freddy. ‘If you get my meaning.’

  ‘Freddy Brown, you’re blessed-well lookin’, you libertine,’ said Cassie.

  ‘Libber what?’ said Freddy, scraping away.

  ‘Yes, I read it in a book,’ said Cassie, ‘and it means sort of licentious.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t be lookin’,’ declared Cassie.

  ‘Bless me, I ain’t been, not on purpose, just accidental now and again,’ said Freddy, ‘but I’m still nearly blind. I’ll say this much, Cassie, you’ve got a lovely pair of tent pegs from down here.’

  Cassie descended the stepladder, rolled up an old newspaper and walloped him with it.

  ‘Take that,’ she said.

  Freddy, straightening up, said, ‘Was it my fault you were up there and I was down here?’

  ‘I like it up there, not on my knees,’ said Cassie. ‘Freddy, stop looking, it’s not nice.’

  ‘Can I help it if I like your legs?’ said Freddy. ‘Funny about that, really, likin’ girls’ legs.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Cassie, ‘but if I catch you likin’ someone else’s, I’ll ask me dad to chop yours off.’

  ‘Ruin me football, that will,’ said Freddy.

  Cassie laughed.

  ‘Freddy, I like you likin’ mine,’ she said.

  ‘All right, get up that ladder again, Cassie.’

  ‘Not likely, not till you’ve got your head down,’ said Cassie. ‘Freddy, fifty pounds all at once and a bank account, just think of it,’ she said.

  ‘It makes me feel rich,’ said Freddy, and dug into his pocket. He came up with a silver threepenny-bit and put it into her hand. ‘There, all yours, Cassie, I don’t mind splashin’ out just now.’

  ‘Wait a bit,’ said Cassie, ‘what’s it for?’

  ‘For showin’ me your legs,’ said Freddy.

  Cassie shrieked, then hugged him.

  ‘Oh, I do like you, Freddy,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t mention it, Cassie, just get up that ladder again,’ said Freddy.

  At suppertime, Rosie remembered something.

  ‘Tim, I saw Pam Willis this afternoon,’ she said.<
br />
  ‘Who?’ asked Tim.

  ‘Pam Willis, from down the road,’ said Rosie. ‘She asked after you, and if you’d like to meet her in her doorway when you weren’t busy.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Finch.

  ‘H’m,’ said Boots.

  ‘What’s that h’m for?’ asked Chinese Lady.

  ‘Oh, it’s just one of Daddy’s usual h’ms,’ said Rosie. ‘Tim, should you have girls asking after you when you’re not yet fourteen?’

  Tim eyed his elder sister with a grin.

  ‘I’m on to you, Rosie, don’t think I’m not,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, perhaps Tim is starting quick,’ said Eloise, ‘like French boys do.’

  ‘Startin’ what quick?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Kissing,’ said Eloise.

  ‘Not with young girls, I hope,’ said Chinese Lady. ‘I never minded any of my sons socializing early, it helps young people to mix proper, but I never encouraged any kissin’ of young girls not old enough for it.’

  ‘Who’s looking at me?’ asked Tim. ‘I’ve not been socializing with Pam Willis. Crikey, she’s only twelve.’

  ‘But she sent you her love, Tim,’ said Rosie.

  ‘She did what?’ asked Chinese Lady.

  ‘Well, more or less,’ said Rosie.

  ‘More or less sounds about right at her age,’ said Boots.

  ‘Boots, kindly don’t say things like that,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘Why not, Nana?’ asked Rosie.

  ‘I don’t trust him when he says things that don’t make sense,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘Perhaps he does not mind Tim starting quick,’ said Eloise.

  ‘Well, he should,’ said Chinese Lady, who had come to feel, gratefully, that Eloise wasn’t as Frenchified as she might have been. To Chinese Lady, anything specifically French was suspect on account of her belief that the natives of France were a lot too improper in their talk and behaviour.

  ‘Oh, French boys do it in the dark, yes, and before the girl can say no,’ smiled Eloise.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ said Tim. ‘Listen, Eloise, did you get kissed in the dark when you were young?’

  ‘I am old now?’ said Eloise.

  ‘All right,’ said Tim, ‘when you were younger?’

  ‘Oh, many times, yes,’ said Eloise.

  ‘And all before you could say no?’ smiled Boots.

  ‘Perhaps not every time,’ said Eloise, ‘and not until I was sixteen.’

  ‘Well, perhaps I don’t mind when a girl is sixteen, except it shouldn’t be in the dark,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘Oh, I think a kiss in the dark is sometimes rather nice, Nana, isn’t it?’ said Rosie.

  ‘Sounds as if you’ve had some of that, Rosie,’ said Tim, and she laughed.

  ‘I hope, Em’ly, you won’t encourage Tim to do it with Pam Willis,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘I should say not,’ declared Emily.

  ‘I wouldn’t know how to start,’ said Tim.

  Rosie smiled. Tim was like Boots, he had the same kind of easy-going nature, and it had its appeal even at his age. Girls were going to like him later on. She gave him a wink.

  ‘Pam will help you,’ she said, ‘when you’re both older.’

  Eloise laughed.

  ‘Rosie, you are so entertaining,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, you’re not far behind, Eloise,’ smiled Emily.

  ‘I think that means we’ve now got two of a kind in this house,’ said Boots.

  ‘We’re a fortunate family,’ said Mr Finch.

  ‘Yes, let’s hang on to both,’ said Boots.

  Chapter Four

  ROSIE’S NATURAL GRANDFATHER, Mr Albert Tooley, was a widower of fifty-nine and a little like Cassie’s dad in his bluff ways, rugged looks, and the soft heart that beat beneath his sturdy front. He was giving his best bowler hat a buff this evening. Well, it was just after seven and at eight he was due to go out and meet Ada Franklin, a laundress, at the Deptford Arms, where he’d enjoy a pint of old and mild and have the pleasure of treating her to a milk stout. The lady, fifty-two, was a cheerful body and nicely plump. Further, she’d never been wed, but was always joking that she’d had more than one chance to be churched, only each time the bloke had seen her coming. Well, there was a lot of her, she said. Far from being against that, Mr Tooley had thoughts of a second marriage. He had only a few more years at his job with the Deptford Council in front of him, and reckoned he and Ada would make a good old Darby and Joan together. His savings and a bit of a pension would look after his and her years of retirement. He had a happy idea that Ada’s thoughts were coinciding with his, so this evening, when she was halfway through her milk stout and accordingly mellow, he meant to pop the question. His nephew’s wife, Nellie Nicholls, who was fond of him, was encouraging him to take the plunge.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his front door. He occupied only the ground floor himself. A young couple with a small child lodged upstairs. Opening the door, he found a tall distinguished-looking man in a trench coat and bowler hat on his step. He had a military look, emphasized by his handsome moustache.

  ‘Hello,’ said Mr Tooley, ‘don’t think I’ve ’ad the pleasure, have I?’

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ said the caller, ‘but I’m looking for a lady who I believe used to live here.’

  Blimey, thought Mr Tooley, a toff looking for a Deptford lady?

  ‘Here? You sure?’ he said.

  ‘I was given this address,’ said Major Armitage, ‘but am prepared to believe she doesn’t live here now. I’m wondering if you know of her.’

  ‘What’s the lady’s name?’ asked Mr Tooley.

  ‘Millicent Tooley.’

  ‘Come again?’ Mr Tooley blinked.

  ‘Millicent Tooley,’ repeated Major Armitage. ‘Would you know of her?’

  ‘I ought to,’ said Mr Tooley, ‘she’s me daughter.’

  Each regarded the other in extreme curiosity then, Major Armitage seeing a rugged but honest-looking man in a blue serge suit with iron-grey hair. A working man, and the grandfather of the child. It was something to know he was not coarse or bruising.

  Mr Tooley wondered if the caller was from the plainclothes police. Milly had left a few debts behind in her time. No sense of responsibility, and she never had had. The last he’d heard of her, she and that smooth-talking husband of hers had been running an entertainments troupe which performed at seasides in the summer and got a few bookings in northern music halls during the winter. Milly had always been mad about the theatre, but had never got anywhere that put her in the money. Nor had her husband, some sort of a magician, whose hands had let him down when too much drink gave them the shakes at the wrong moments.

  ‘You are Mr Tooley?’ said Major Armitage.

  ‘I am. Mind, me daughter has always been known as Milly. Might I ask why you’re enquirin’ after her?’

  ‘Mr Tooley, have you a few minutes to spare?’ asked Major Armitage.

  ‘I’ve got time to spare until ten-to-eight, when I’ll be on me way to keep an appointment,’ said Mr Tooley. ‘You’re welcome to step into me parlour.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Mind you, the kitchen’s warmer, the fire’s going,’ said Mr Tooley, standing aside.

  ‘The matter’s confidential, Mr Tooley,’ said Major Armitage.

  ‘I’m a widower, I live on me own, with just a young couple and their infant, lodging upstairs,’ said Mr Tooley, wondering what ‘confidential’ meant exactly.

  ‘The kitchen, then,’ said Major Armitage, appreciating the straightforwardness of Milly Tooley’s father. ‘My name, by the way, is Armitage.’

  ‘This way, Mr Armitage,’ said Mr Tooley, intrigued now. Well, the bloke was undoubtedly a toff in his appearance, manner and speech. He took him through the passage of the old Victorian terraced house and into the kitchen, where the range fire radiated warmth. The room was tidy, its table covered by a blue and grey check oilcloth, easy to wipe down and
keep clean. On it stood a silver-plated cruet. A bowler hat and a stiff brush sat next to it. ‘Help yourself to a chair.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Major Armitage. He placed his own bowler on another chair. Mr Tooley sat down opposite him.

  ‘You’ve got me curious, Mr Armitage.’

  ‘Yes, that’s understandable,’ said Major Armitage, ‘and I’ll come straight to the point of my visit. Mr Tooley, I should like to frankly ask you if your daughter Milly had a child sometime during the first half of 1915, a child fathered by an Army officer.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘So help me, that’s winded me,’ said Mr Tooley, and thought then of his granddaughter Rosie. If Rosie had forgotten her mother, she had never forgotten him. Twice a year she called, always with Boots Adams, her adoptive father, a man Mr Tooley greatly admired. During her years as a growing girl, a man could see how attached she was to Boots, much as if he was the sunshine of her life. And what a lovely girl she was, in looks and nature. Mr Tooley thought about how she always sent him birthday and Christmas cards, and with each card there was always a little affectionate note. Rosie was pure gold, with none of Milly’s selfishness or shallowness. Her adoption by Boots and his wife Emily had to be the best thing that had ever happened to her. But what was this toff’s interest in Milly all about? ‘It beats me, Mr Armitage, you asking a question like that.’

  ‘I’d be obliged, Mr Tooley, if you’d answer it,’ said Major Armitage.

  ‘Well, I can tell you yes, she did ’ave a child,’ said Mr Tooley. ‘Out of wedlock on account of fallin’ from grace, as they say, which considerably upset me and her mother.’

  ‘Was the child a boy or a girl, Mr Tooley?’ Major Armitage was asking his questions in a quiet, civilized fashion.

  ‘A girl.’

  ‘A girl. I see.’

  ‘And grown up lovely, believe me,’ said Mr Tooley, ‘but would you mind telling me what business it is of yours?’

  ‘I’m her father,’ said Major Armitage.

  ‘God save the perishing Navy, you’re what?’ said Mr Tooley.

  Major Armitage unbuttoned his coat, slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and drew out a silver cigarette case. He opened it.

  ‘A cigarette, Mr Tooley?’ he said. Mr Tooley was more in need of a large brandy than a cigarette, but he took one. A match was struck, and its flame served to light the cigarettes for both men, when Major Armitage then said, ‘Yes, I’m the father of the girl, Mr Tooley. It happened, I’m afraid, at a time when London was full of people intoxicated by the fact that the country was at war with Germany. It was, of course, the intoxication of the self-deluded, and a large number of us lost our heads, including your daughter and me.’