The Tea Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Burton sat silently. He looked at her, then he looked off into the air, mulling her words.

  Fiona took this as a hopeful sign. He hadn’t said no, and he hadn’t sacked her, either. At least, not yet. She knew the girls had heard her. She felt their eyes on her back, felt the weight of their desperate hopes on her shoulders. It made sense, her idea, she knew it did. Oh, please, please let him think so, too, she prayed.

  “It’s a good idea,” he finally said, and Fiona felt her heart soar. “Mr. Minton,” he continued, “when you’re finished here, I want you to implement it with the remaining girls.”

  “But Mr. Burton,” she said, her voice faltering, “I – I thought you might let them stay …”

  “Why? You’ve just shown me how to get forty girls to do the work of a hundred. Why should I pay fifty-five?” He smiled at his companion. “Higher productivity at a lower cost. That should make the bank very happy, Randolph.”

  The fat man chuckled. “Quite,” he said, reaching for another ledger.

  Fiona felt as if she’d been slapped. She turned and walked out of Minton’s office, humiliated. She was a fool. A bloody great fool. Instead of restoring her friends’ jobs, she’d confirmed they weren’t needed. She’d walked right up to William Burton and handed him a way to get more work done with fewer people. And when he was done here, he would probably go to his other factories in Bethnal Green and Limehouse, implement her ideas, and sack girls there, too. Would she ever, ever learn to keep her temper under control, to keep her mouth shut?

  As she walked by the girls, her cheeks burning, ashamed of herself, she felt someone take her hand. Thin, fragile little fingers wrapped around her own. It was Amy. “Thank you, Fee,” she whispered. “For trying, I mean. You’re so brave. I wish I was brave like you.”

  “Oh, Amy, I’m daft, not brave,” Fiona said tearfully.

  Amy kissed her cheek, and Violet did, too. Then Gem told her to get back to work, quick, before she found herself in line with the rest of them.

  The evening sunshine that warmed Joe’s back seemed ill-suited to the squalid lanes and narrow streets of Whitechapel where he and Fiona walked. Unkind rays slanted onto tumbledown houses and shops, exposing the crumbling rooftops, scarred brick walls, and stinking gutters better left concealed by mist and rain. He could hear his father’s voice saying, “Nothing like the sun to make this place look dreary. It’s like rouge on an old whore, only makes things worse.”

  He wished he could do better for her. He wished he could take her to someplace stylish like one of those pubs with red velvet wallpaper and etched glass. But he had very little money and all he could muster by way of entertainment was a walk down Commercial Street to window-shop and maybe a penny’s worth of chips or ginger nuts.

  He watched her as she looked in the window of a jeweler’s, saw the hard set of her jaw, and knew she was still torturing herself over Burton, over those girls who’d been sacked. He’d called for her just after supper, and she’d told him about it as they walked.

  “You didn’t really expect to win, did you?” he asked her now.

  She’d turned to him, disconsolate. “That’s the thing, Joe, I did.”

  Joe smiled and shook his head. “I ’ave myself a lass with brass balls, I do.”

  Fiona laughed and he was glad of her laughter. She’d been crying over her workmates earlier, bitter tears of sorrow and rage. He couldn’t stand to see her cry. It made him feel useless and desperate. He put his arm around her, pulled her close, and kissed the top of her head. “Twelve and six,” he whispered to her, as they resumed their walk. “Sod William Burton.”

  “Twelve and six?” she said, excited.

  “Aye. I added a bit. Business was good this week.”

  “ ’Ow are things with your father?”

  Joe shrugged. He didn’t feel like getting into that, but she pressed him and he finally told her that they’d had a big row today.

  “Again? What was it over this time?”

  “Getting a second barrow. I want to and ’e doesn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it’s like this, Fee,” he began, agitated. “We’re doing all right with the one barrow, but we could be doing a lot better. The business is there. Last Saturday – you saw it – we couldn’t even keep up with the punters. We actually ran out of stuff – ran out, Fee – with people wanting to buy! We could’ve turned over another crate of pippins, plus figs, potatoes, broccoli – but you can’t sell off an empty cart. For two months I’ve been telling Dad to get another barrow and divide the goods between them – fruit on one, veg on the other. But ’e won’t ’ear of it.”

  “Why not? It makes sense.”

  “ ’E says we’re doing fine as is. We make a living and there’s no need to do anything risky. ‘Don’t tamper with success,’ ’e says. Christ, ’e’s always dragging ’is feet! ’E just doesn’t see the bigger picture. I don’t want to just make a living, I want to see a profit and make the business grow.”

  “Never mind your father, Joe,” Fiona said. “Another year or so, and ’e won’t be sitting on you anymore. We’ll be out on our own, making the biggest success ever out of our shop. For now, you’ve just got to put up with it. There’s nothing else you can do.”

  “You’re right about that,” he said gloomily. But he wondered if he could put up with it. The tension was getting worse. He didn’t want to tell Fiona – she’d had enough upsets for one day – but he and his father had almost come to blows.

  He didn’t tell her, either, that right after their row, after his dad had stalked off for a pint leaving Joe all on his tod, Tommy Peterson had appeared. He’d complimented the barrow, noted the brisk business Joe was doing, and invited him to come round to his Spitalfields office tomorrow. Joe was certain Tommy was going to suggest they get another barrow, and maybe even offer them better terms on larger orders to fill it. What would he tell the man? That his father wouldn’t let him? He’d look a right git.

  Joe and Fiona walked on in silence as the evening turned cool. Summer was on the wane. It would be autumn soon, and the cold weather and rainy skies would curtail their evening walks. Joe was wondering how on earth he could get more money so they could open their shop and get married sooner, when Fiona suddenly said, “Let’s take a shortcut.”

  “What?”

  She was grinning at him mischievously. “A shortcut. There.” She pointed at a narrow alley that cut between a pub and a coal seller’s office. “I’m sure it leads back to Montague Street.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “What? I’m just trying to get ’ome faster,” she said innocently, pulling him after her.

  As they entered the alley, something with tiny scrabbling feet shot out from between the beer barrels stacked inside. Fiona squealed and stamped her own feet.

  “It’s just a cat,” Joe said. “Of the … um … pygmy variety.”

  Giggling, she pushed him against the wall and kissed him. It wasn’t like her to be so bold. Usually he kissed her first, but he found he didn’t mind it a bit. In fact, he quite liked it. “Is that what this is about?” he asked. “Are you trying to ’ave your way with me?”

  “If you don’t like it, you’re free to go,” she said, kissing him again. “You can leave anytime you want.” Another kiss. “Just say the word.”

  Joe considered her offer. “Maybe it’s not so bad,” he said, putting his arms around her. He kissed her back, long and deep. Her hands were on his chest, he could feel the warmth of them through his shirt. Gently, he moved his hand to her breast, expecting her to stop him, but she didn’t. He could feel her heart beating. The feel of it under his palm, so strong and yet so vulnerable, completely in his keeping, overwhelmed him. She was his soulmate, as much a part of him as the very flesh and bone that made him. She was with him, in him, in everything he did. She was everything he wanted from his life, the very measure of his dreams.

  Hungry for her body, he pulled her blouse and camisole free of her
skirt and slipped his hand underneath. Her breast was soft and heavy in his hand, like wine in a skin. He kneaded her flesh gently. A small breathless moan escaped her. The sound of it, low and urgent, made him painfully hard. He wanted her. Needed her. Here. Now. He wanted to lift her skirt and thrust into her, right against the wall. It was so hard to control his desire for her. The softness of her, the smell and taste of her drove him mad. But he wouldn’t. He didn’t want their first time to be like that – quick and hard in some filthy alley. But something had to happen, and fast, before the ache in his balls turned into a crippling, blue agony.

  He took her hand and guided it. She touched him over his trousers, then inside. He showed her how to move her hand, and she did, rubbing him there, stroking him until his breath came hot and hard, and he groaned into her neck and his whole body shuddered in a sweet release. Then he leaned back against the wall, eyes closed, his chest heaving.

  “Joe,” he heard her whisper anxiously. “Are you all right?”

  He chuckled. “Oh, aye, Fee. Never better.”

  “You sure? I … I think you’re bleeding.”

  “Crikey! You pulled it off!”

  “Bloody ’ell!” she screeched.

  He couldn’t help laughing. “Sshh, I’m just teasing you.” He wiped at himself with his handkerchief, then tossed the crumpled cloth. “Can’t take that ’ome to me mum to wash.”

  “You can’t?”

  “Oh, Fiona, you don’t know anything about it, do you?”

  “You don’t know so much, either,” she said crossly.

  “I know more than you do,” he said, bending to kiss her neck. “I know ’ow to make you feel as good as you just made me feel.”

  “It felt good, then?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “What was it like?”

  He lifted her skirts, and fumbled with her drawers for a few seconds, before getting his hand inside. He caressed the insides of her thighs, amazed that skin could feel so silky, then his fingers found the soft, downy cleft between them. He felt her stiffen. She looked at him, her eyes wide and questioning. He heard her breath quicken, heard himself whispering to her in the darkness … heard the church bell, two streets over, strike the hour.

  “Oh, no … oh, blimey!” she cried, pulling away from him. “I forgot the time! It’s nine o’clock! Me mam’ll skin me. She’ll think I’ve been murdered. Come on, Joe!”

  They fumbled themselves back together in the dark, buttoning blouses, tucking in shirts. Why was it always like this? he wondered. Why were they always snatching a kiss in an alley or down by the river in the mud?

  Fiona fretted, wondering aloud how she was going to explain being late. They ran all the way back to Montague Street. “There, Fee, got you back before you were even missed,” he said, giving her a quick kiss on her step.

  “I ’ope so. At least me da’s not ’ome. See you tomorrow.” She turned to go, but before she did, she looked back at him one last time. He was still watching her, waiting to see that she was inside with the door closed before he went.

  “Twelve and six,” she said.

  He smiled back. “Aye, luv. Twelve and six.”

  Chapter 5

  Kate Finnegan looked at the huge pile of laundry in front of her and groaned. Bedsheets, tablecloths, serviettes, blouses, frothy nightgowns, camisoles, petticoats – she’d have to pack them with the skill of a stevedore to fit them all into her basket. And what a treat the long walk home would be with it all balanced on her shoulder.

  “Lillie, you tell your missus it’s going to cost ’er double for a load this size,” she shouted from Mrs. Branston’s pantry.

  Lillie, Mrs. Branston’s maid, a gangly, red-haired Irish girl, poked her head in. “Sure, I’ll tell her, Mrs. Finnegan, but good luck getting it. You know what she’s like. Tighter than a duck’s arse. Will you have a cup of tea before you go?”

  “That sounds lovely, but I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

  “Oh, no fear of that,” Lillie said cheerfully. “The missus has gone up to Oxford Street shopping. She won’t be home for ages.”

  “Then put the kettle on, lass.”

  When she finished packing, Kate took a seat at the kitchen table. Lillie mashed the tea and brought the pot to the table along with a plate of biscuits. They talked the pot dry – Kate about her children, and Lillie about her young man, Matt, who worked at the Commercial Docks.

  “Do you see ’im much?” Kate asked. “With you ’ere all day and ’im across the river?”

  “Oh, aye, Mrs. Finnegan. He’s like me shadow these days, with them murders going on. Walks me here in the morning on his way to the docks and he’s back again at night. And to tell you the truth, I’m awfully glad of it. I don’t like being out after dark anymore.”

  “I don’t blame you. You’d think those women would be too scared to walk the streets, wouldn’t you? But Paddy says ’e still sees them out at night.”

  “They don’t have much choice. If they get off the game, they go hungry.”

  “Father Deegan was going on about the murders on Sunday,” Kate said. “The wages of sin is death, and all that. I wouldn’t go against ’im, ’im being the priest, but I feel sorry for those women. I do. I see them sometimes, yelling and cursing, all drunk and broken-down. I don’t think any of them chooses the life. I think they end up there because of drink or ’ard times.”

  “You should hear Mrs. Branston going on about it,” Lillie said angrily. “Handmaids of Satan she calls those poor murdered women. T’inks they deserved what they got because they were hoors. It’s fine for her, all tucked up in a nice warm house, money coming out of her arse.” Lillie paused to take a sip of tea and calm herself. “Ah, well, no use in getting worked up over the missus. As me gran used to say, ‘Morality is for them who can afford it.’ And anyway, Mrs. Finnegan, it’s not the murders, it’s what’s going on down the docks that’s really got me worried.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “They’re doing the right t’ing, I know they are, but if they strike, God knows when me and Matt will be able to get married,” Lillie said anxiously. “Likely be another year.”

  Kate patted her hand. “Won’t be that long, luv, don’t you fret. And even if it takes a little longer than you thought, your Matt’s a good lad. ’E’s worth the wait.”

  Her reassurances to Lillie made Kate sound easier about the threat of a strike than she felt. Paddy believed a strike was a certainty, the only question was when. Just last week she’d sat down with pencil and paper and tried to figure how long they could last if he walked off the docks. A few days. A week at the most.

  He usually earned about twenty-six shillings a week for sixty-odd hours of cargo work. A bit more when the wharf was busy, less when it was not. In addition, he often picked up another three shillings by taking a shift as a night watchman or by taring tea – dumping the crates and raking the leaves into piles – for the graders, which brought the total to twenty-nine shillings or so. He kept two back for beer, tobacco, and newspapers, and one for the union, and handed the rest over to Kate, whose job it was to stretch them out farther than the Mile End Road.

  She supplemented her husband’s wages by taking in washing, which netted her four shillings a week after paying for soap and starch, and by renting a room to Roddy and cooking his meals – for which he paid her five shillings a week. She also had Charlie’s wages at about eleven shillings and Fiona’s at seven, minus what they kept back – Charlie for beer and his kingsmen, Fiona for her shop – that came to another fifteen, which gave her about two and ten, give or take a shilling.

  Weekly expenses included the eighteen-shilling rent. The house was very dear – many families only rented one floor for eight or ten shillings – but it was a warm, dry house, free of bugs, and Kate was convinced that crowding was only a false economy, for whatever you saved in rent, you’d lose again on doctors and missed work. Then there was coal – a shilling a week now, but that would go up to
two in the winter, and lamp oil – another sixpence.

  That left about one and nine, all of which she could’ve spent on food and still not provided the kinds of meals she wanted to. She limited herself to twenty shillings for the weekly purchase of meat, fish, potatoes, fruit and veg, flour, bread, porridge, suet, milk, eggs, tea, sugar, butter, jam, and treacle to make three meals a day for six people – not counting the baby. There was the shilling for burial insurance, and another for the clothing fund – a little tin in which she faithfully deposited a shilling a week against the day somebody’s coat or boots wore out, and two more for the strike fund. She’d started that one two months ago and it got its coins every week now, even if she had to scrimp on meals to find them. That left about four shillings to cover everything else: doctor’s bills, boot black, rusks, throat lozenges, matches, needles and cotton, collars, soap, tonic, stamps, and hand salve. Often there were only a few pennies left by the time Saturday rolled around.

  She and Paddy had struggled so hard together to reach their current standard of living. He was a preferred man at the docks now, a man with steady employment. He was no longer the casual he’d been when they were first married – tramping down to the waterfront at dawn every day for the call-on, where the foreman picked out the strongest for a day’s work and paid them threepence an hour. Fiona and Charlie both worked now and their wages helped immensely. They were poor, but they were among the respectable working poor, and that made all the difference in the world. Kate didn’t have to pawn things to eat. Her children were clean, their clothes were neat, their boots were always mended.