Jubilee (Book 1 of The Poppy Chronicles)

by Claire Rayner

  ‘I have a mind of my own, for heaven’s sake!’ she flared. ‘You make me feel as though I were an object you saw in a warehouse and coveted.’

  ‘I did covet you. Good word, that. I coveted my neighbour’s sister –’ He laughed. ‘Yeah, imagine that! I’ll have those brothers o’ yours for misbocher –’

  ‘What?’

  He sighed. ‘The sooner you learn a bissel Yiddish the better for both of us. Misbocher, family. They’ll be my relations –’

  ‘You see how ridiculous it all is?’ she said despairingly. ‘Can you imagine the sort of fuss there’ll be if I even suggest it? And anyway, I haven’t said yet that I want to –’

  ‘Oh, Millie, come on! You aren’t one of these simpering madams that play games with men, are you? You don’t say no when you mean yes. You’re a woman, you do what you want, when you want. Like you wanted there in the Park –’ And he looked back over his shoulder through the gate to the grass and grinned softly. ‘And you wanted it, didn’t you? So don’t go playing no games with me. Say you want to marry me, and be done.’

  She opened her mouth to tell him again that it was impossible. They were too different, too hopelessly divided by their past lives, their families, every aspect of themselves. She had even made a promise on her father’s life that she would not. And she listened with amazement as the words came out.

  ‘Yes, I want to. I want to marry you. I don’t know why, and I know it’s impossible but I want it. And not just because you decided, either. It’s my own decision, not yours.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. Home, now. You look worn out –’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said a little tartly.

  ‘Listen, Millie –’ They began to walk along the Bayswater Road, he with his arm tucked tightly into hers. ‘There’s something we got to get clear. You got to stop all this business o’ thinking people are getting at you about how you look. I said you looked tired. This wasn’t no insult. It was just the way it is. You look tired out, and entitled to. No need to get sharp about it, is there?’

  ‘I don’t mean to be sharp. It’s just that – well, I ought to be used to it, I suppose. Being plain. It’s not as though I was ever any different, even when I was a child. People used to ask my mother if I was accomplished and you could see them thinking – she’d better be – she’s got nothing else to commend her, poor thing. But I’m not accomplished at all. I can’t sing and I have no conversation and I’m dull as well as plain and —’

  ‘No,’ he said strongly. ‘No, no, no. I won’t have it. Plain you ain’t. Interestin’, yes. Different, yes. But plain an’ dull, no conversation? That’s nonsense, an’ I won’t listen to it. First time I heard you talk I thought – there is a lady. And you’ve got a lovely voice, an’ all. Low, like. Most women you hear talkin’ it’s like a henhouse, cluck cluck cluck –’ And he lifted his own voice an octave and clucked to such good effect that she chuckled, for all her weariness.

  ‘That’s better. Bit of humour, that’s what we need. I don’t want to hear you ever talking that way again. Understood?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said and stopped walking. They were at the end of the Terrace and she peered along its length and bit her lip anxiously. But there was no one about at all, not so much as a late roisterer, and she untangled her arm from his and said, ‘Listen, Kid, I –’

  ‘Call me Lizah,’ he said. ‘Everyone calls me Kid. For you I want to be special, you know? Real close, like the family. Lizah.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Lizah – listen, I want –’ And then she stopped and looked at him and said, ‘I’ve just remembered. You – there in the Park, after you – when you – Well, anyway. You called me Mildred. I used to beg you to call me that, and you wouldn’t, said I had to be Millie. But then you said Mildred to me –’

  He was silent for a long time, so long she thought he hadn’t heard her and she bent her head to look in his face, for his own head was bent too, but then he glanced up at her and said awkwardly, ‘I know. Did you mind?’

  ‘Mind? No. I was – it felt different, that was all. Why did you?’

  ‘Because it was different. Mildred,’ he said and grinned at her and then leaned forwards and tilted his chin up so that he could kiss her and she returned it. No passion now, just closeness and kindness and a feeling of rightness and she smiled too.

  ‘I must go in,’ she murmured. ‘If I can get in –’

  ‘I’ll come with you –’

  ‘No. Let me see first if I can manage. If I need you I’ll wave. Stay here – and wait –’

  ‘We’ll meet tomorrow? Tonight? Nine o’clock, like we used to?’

  ‘Nine o’clock,’ she said. ‘Like we used to.’ And turned and went, slipping along the railings towards the house, worried about being seen even though the street was deserted.

  She tried the front door first, fitting the key she took from her pocket hopefully into the lock, but of course it was bolted and she stood for a moment, trying to think. The kitchen door? Perhaps that would be unlocked. And she turned and went down the steps and down to the area below, leaving the gate open at street level. The kitchen door was locked, but to the far side of it, almost in the corner, there was a small window half open, and she went across the paved yard and stood on tiptoes and reached up, pulling herself up by muscular effort, to look in. It was, as she had remembered, the pantry window and she could see just below it to the broad marble shelf where Cook left food to cool, and tried to visualize other things that could be there that might create a hazard. And felt reasonably secure in her certainty there was not.

  She went back up the area steps to the street and waved and there was a glimpse of white as his hand was raised and he waved back, and with one last gesture of her arm she returned down the steps, this time locking the gate behind her. Thank God, she was thinking, that Cook was so lazy and slapdash in so many ways. To leave the pantry window open was stupid in the extreme, but she had done it, and Mildred was deeply grateful.

  Getting up to the sill was much harder than she would have expected, even though she hoisted her skirts and tied them round her middle to free her legs, and her muscles were shrieking in agony by the time she managed to hook one knee on to the narrow sill. But from then on it was fairly easy, and for the first time she could remember she was grateful for her thinness, for she was able to wriggle through the small window, tight fit though it was, and emerge on the inner side.

  She sent a meat pie flying as she landed on the marble slab, and began to fumble in the dark to pick it up but then decided to leave it where it was. Let them think a marauding cat had done the damage. Any attempt to tidy it would be easily detected and would immediately prove that a human agency had been at work.

  The pantry door opened on to a stone-flagged passageway that led to the kitchen and she stood there smelling the mixture of old cabbage and paraffin from the lamps and tallow and soda and yellow soap and tried to catch her breath. Her fatigue was growing by the moment, seeming to double itself every time she made a move and as she untied her skirts her legs felt so heavy she wasn’t sure she’d be able to drag herself up the stairs to bed. But it wasn’t far now and she went across the dim kitchen, which was glowing softly in the light from the banked up fire, towards the far door that led to the second passageway which ended in the green baize door.

  It happened just as she opened the kitchen door, so pat that it seemed that it was her own action that brought the flood of light into her eyes and made her stand there blinking and holding her hand up to shield them. There on the other side of the door someone was standing, holding a lamp in such a way that nothing could be seen behind it, and she blinked and turned her head away and said, ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Well, well!’ The voice was soft and amused. ‘I been waiting for you. Time you got here. Been doing your Mission work have you, then? Been out preaching the gospel to the poor, is that it?’

  ‘Freddy!’ she said and then tightened her lips. ‘For heaven’s sake, p
ut that lamp down! You’re blinding me!’

  ‘And very suitable too, I’d say. It was what they used to do to sinners in the Bible, wasn’t it? Put their wicked eyes out?’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ she said, pretending an insouciance she was far from feeling, and tried to push past him to go towards the front of the house and her own room. Her heart was beating thickly in her chest, for now she was filled with fear, far more than she had ever known before. She had thought she was alarmed earlier, when she had been talking to Kid – Lizah – in the street, and the cab bearing her father had arrived, but this fear was twice that. It filled her mouth with a metallic taste and made her head spin.

  He didn’t move, and she had to stop and said loudly, knowing her voice shook and knowing equally that she was not able to do anything about it, ‘Will you let me pass?’

  ‘Not till I know what’s in it for me if I do,’ he said, and the insolence in his voice was so clear it seemed to ring in her head. ‘Why should I do something for nothing? If you want to go trolling round the town like some dollymop, there’s got to be something in it for me not to tell your Pa and Ma, hasn’t there?’

  ‘You’re drunk,’ she said, aware for the first time of the smell of him. Beer, mostly, and a lot of it laced his breath and now, as he laughed, she had to pull her head back, it was so disagreeable.

  ‘And why shouldn’t I be? It’s good enough for that old sod upstairs so it’s good enough for me. A chap’s got to do something to drown his sorrows when he finds himself caught up with the sort of rubbish you lot are –’ And he turned his head and spat and she heard the spittle ring as it landed on the stone floor.

  ‘Go to your room at once,’ she said, with all the dignity she could gather around her. ‘I will see to it that you are dealt with in the morning. Good night –’ And again she tried to push her way past him.

  But he held his ground. ‘Oh, yes? And what’ll be the result, do you suppose, when I tells the old sod that you’ve been larking about with some Jew boy out of the gutter? Eh? He won’t be as interested in what you’ve got to say about me then, will he? Oh, I’m not daft, you know. I heard what that cabbie said and I saw that character hanging around! I know the sort he is – and that boy that kept coming here with his messages and his cheek – Father Jay my arse! And don’t you look so old-fashioned at me! Ladies I watch my tongue for, but you ain’t no lady. So I can say what I like to you.’

  She stood very still, trying to think what to do and what to say. Freddy stood swaying a little in front of her, the lamp in his hand tilted so that the flame smeared the glass chimney with a black streak, and stared at her, his eyes, red and bleary, mocking her with his insolence.

  ‘I don’t care what you say or what you do,’ she said at length. ‘I am tired and I am going to bed. Now let me pass –’ And this time she set her hand in the middle of his chest and pushed hard so that he had to give way. Or so she thought because although he seemed to yield as she pushed past him, he did not, and she felt his arm come round her waist and hold on as she tried to get away.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, in a thick voice. ‘Give us a kiss an’ a bit o’ what you been giving your fancy boy out there, whatever that was. If a stinkin’ slummer like that’s good enough for you, then why shouldn’t I have a bit o’ fun ’n’ all? You might have a face like the back of a bus, but a woman’s a woman when all’s said and done. All cats are grey in the dark –’ And his breath, hot and beer-reeking was on her face and she could bear it no longer. She whirled and, with all the strength she had, hit out. But she kept her eyes tightly closed as she did so, not able to look this hateful man in the face.

  She felt her fist hit something soft, felt his head snap back and heard his yell, but still she didn’t look. She just turned and ran blindly for the green baize door and the stairs, and bed. It was the only place she could think of going to that would be safe.

  15

  Like it or not, she had to come down to breakfast. She had woken from the deepest of sleep with a great start when Jenny came in as usual to clean and light her fire and then had lain there, her eyes closed, trying to find the courage to open them in the new day. But that didn’t help, for in the dull orange glow behind her closed lids she saw herself in the Park with Lizah and then saw herself in the dark kitchen passageway with Freddy and the juxtaposition of the two images was so disagreeable that she snapped her eyes open to stare up at her ceiling, trying to think what to do.

  Could she perhaps pretend to be ill, and keep to her room? No one would care much, and it would give her time to gather her thoughts and make sensible decisions about what was to happen now. For in the clear light of this March morning it was very obvious to her that last night she had run mad, stark staring mad. To marry Lizah Harris – it was out of the question, no matter what had happened between them. He had to be told and she had to return to normal living as soon as possible; but she needed time, and the only way to get that was to feign illness –

  And that would make Freddy believe she was afraid of him, and he would go to her father and – she sat bolt upright and swung her legs out of the bed. She had to be there at breakfast whatever happened, had to be at table to see what the situation was. Hiding here would make matters worse, not better.

  Claude, who had taken lately to breakfasting at home, was already deeply involved with his bowl of porridge when she reached the dining room, his head down over his busily working spoon and he greeted her with no more than a grunt and seemed ill disposed towards any further conversation, which comforted her. At the foot of the table the tea equipage waited for Mama and behind it stood Jane, also waiting woodenly for instructions. Mr Amberly came into the morning room just behind Mildred and went straight to his place at the head of the table, saying nothing at all to anyone, but waving one hand imperiously at Jane.

  In the subsequent bustle of supplying the master with his wants, his bowl of porridge and his plate of kidneys and eggs and his tea in its double-sized cup as well as his newspaper no one paid any attention to Mildred at all, not even Maud when she came drifting in, pale and a little damp about the forehead and interested only in taking a little black tea, and no food at all. And Mildred’s spirits began slowly to stir and lift their heads above the parapet of her fear. Perhaps, after all, there was no outcome of last night’s events? Perhaps Freddy too had woken to realize how stupidly he had behaved and had decided to say nothing to anyone?

  But then, the door opened as Jane left the room behind her, and she knew he was there; she felt him come in. She did not have to turn her head to know it was he and she sat rigidly, her cup at her lips, trying to pretend she was drinking tea in the normal manner and very unsure of her success.

  ‘Extra postage is due on one of the letters just arrived, sir,’ Freddy murmured into Mr Amberly’s ear. ‘Shall I pay it, sir?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Extra postage due, sir. Tuppence, sir,’ he murmured a little more loudly.

  ‘Who’s it from?’

  ‘Can’t say, sir,’ Freddy said. ‘It’s addressed to madam, sir.’

  ‘Hmph,’ Mr Amberly said and turned his head and squinted at the letter on the salver that Freddy was holding towards him. ‘Send it back to whoever sent it. I’m not paying tuppences for any fool that can’t be bothered to stamp a letter properly.’

  ‘What is it, Edward?’ Maud looked vaguely down the table at her husband, suddenly aware that her name had been mentioned. ‘A letter for me?’

  Her husband ignored her. ‘Take it away. Give it to the postman,’ he grunted and returned to his paper as Maud lifted one hand towards Freddy to take the letter from him. But he stared insolently at her and walked past her and out of the room, taking it with him.

  For a long moment Maud gazed down the table at the back of her husband’s newspaper, patches of red appearing in her pallid cheeks, but the spark of her anger seemed to die as fast as it had been kindled and she let her shoulders sag and went on sipping her
tea, her eyes down as she stared at the tablecloth.

  Quite why Mildred interfered she did not know. It was, perhaps a combination of things; her own tension, for she was so taut inside she felt that if she moved she would give out plangent little sounds, and her anger at Freddy, exacerbated by the way he had walked past his mistress with that look on his face which so clearly displayed his scorn, or perhaps it was her new mood of foolhardiness, for after what she had done last night, anything seemed possible.

  ‘I will fetch your letter back, Mama,’ she said loudly and got to her feet. ‘You need not fret about the twopence. I think I can manage to find that for you.’ And she went to the door.

  The newspaper at the head of the table rustled and was lowered. ‘What was that?’

  ‘I said I will fetch Mama’s letter,’ she said even more loudly and looked at him with her chin up. ‘It is Mama’s letter and you have no right to send it away.’

  He stared at her, his reddened eyes squinting in the thin morning light. His face looked yellow this morning and seemed to sag more than usual. ‘I said it was to be sent away. I pay no tuppences for the sort of fools that write rubbishing letters to Mrs Amberly. I’ve told her so before, have I not, Maud?’

  ‘Yes, Edward,’ she said after a moment, still keeping her gaze fixed on the tablecloth.

  ‘So sit down and mind your business,’ he growled and again glared at Mildred.

  ‘It is as well I did not mind it last night, Papa,’ she said, her courage sharpened by her anger. ‘Had I done so you’d be sitting there in the hall yet, in as disagreeable a state as any man –’

  ‘Hold your tongue!’ he shouted. ‘How dare you speak so to me? A man eats a bad oyster and –’

  ‘More costly liquor than bad oysters,’ she said and held her ground by the door, and Claude looked up and threw a scared glance from his father to his sister and then got to his feet and positively scuttled from the room with a muttered ‘’Bye –’ Basil was coming in as he reached the door and Claude pushed on him, hurrying him out again, and Mildred saw his startled face and his anger as Claude firmly closed the morning room door behind them, and could have laughed. But she did not, remaining staring at her father, and not knowing for the life of her why she had started this stupid argument. What did she care for Mama and her letters? Was it not true that all she ever got were silly gushing fusses from those of her old schoolfriends who still remembered her and wished to maintain the acquaintance? Why should she, with so many of her own affairs to concern her, become embroiled in this manner?