by Erica Brown
Mary put the tray down on a table with thin legs, which wobbled slightly as if the weight was too much to bear.
Her task done, Mary hobbled towards the door.
‘The tartan’s nice,’ said Blanche.
Mary paused, looked at the door as if preferring to go through it rather than speak. At the last moment she looked back at Blanche. ‘A Scotsman left it. He used to wear it, so he said.’
Blanche touched the lace trim on one of the bolsters. ‘And this? It’s very fine.’
Mary’s taut expression relaxed a little and one side of her face rose in a smile. ‘They were pantaloons that got ripped at the waist. I used the legs to make them. That’s why there’s only lace at one end.’
‘They look very grand.’
Mary looked around the room as if it held memories that were hers and hers alone. ‘This used to be my room. I wanted it to look pretty.’
Blanche tried not to stare at the half of her face hidden by the fall of hair. There were too many cruelties in the world, and Mary seemed to have her fair share of them.
After she’d gone, Blanche ate the broth, the bread and the unexpected piece of cheese. There were two cups on the tray. One held milk and the other was undoubtedly gin judging by its smell. Blanche chose to drink the milk.
Although the bed linen seemed clean enough, she did not undress and willed herself to rise before dawn. She wanted to be out of the house before Mrs Harkness arose and demanded she pay for her board, though – she suspected – not in cash. And Cuthbert Stoke would be right behind her.
It pained her to think of what she and Nelson had done. She also felt a fool for believing all this time that Otis Strong was her father. Why hadn’t her mother told her the truth? At least then she would have directed her attentions elsewhere, perhaps responded more warmly to Tom’s affection.
As her eyes began to close, the advice her mother had consistently given her, slid into her mind.
In this world, security matters above all else. While your looks last, grab the first man who offers you security. That way you don’t starve and don’t keep house or do laundry for no other woman.
Ma was right. My, but she’d be pleased to know that I’ve had two marriage proposals, she thought, as she began to drift into sleep, the leg of cotton pantaloon soft against her face. Despair was not far away. Marriage had been a viable option before she’d made love with Nelson, before she’d found out he was her brother. How could she face either Tom or Conrad, let alone accept one of them as a husband, especially if… Her hand automatically went to her stomach. Please God, no, she pleaded as she fell swiftly and suddenly asleep.
She slept deeply, hardly aware of sound or movement, mostly due to the fact that the milk she had consumed – liberally laced with something ground from fungus – was more liable to make her sleep than the gin she had left alone.
As she slept, two shadows fell over her. The first was that of Mrs Harkness. The second was of a middle-aged gentleman with white side-whiskers and a portly waistline.
Mrs Harkness said nothing, but her eyes saw everything. Like maybugs, they danced between her companion and Blanche.
The man used his walking stick to lift the single blanket covering Blanche. ‘She’s still dressed,’ he said in a disconsolate manner.
‘Five guineas!’
‘For flesh I cannot see?’
‘Five guineas.’
He let the blanket fall back onto the bed, and tutted. ‘I hope she’s worth it.’
Blanche did not wake before dawn. When she did at last open her eyes, the sun was streaming through the window. Outside, people were shouting and laughing and someone or something was squealing in terror.
She struggled to her feet, staggered to the window and looked out. Below her ragged children were chasing a pig towards a narrow alley where a broad-chested man stood hugging a meat cleaver to his chest.
Blanche covered her eyes against the sight of blood and the glare of the sun. Her head hurt. She guessed the reason why and dipped her face into a bowl of water that someone had thought to leave there. She couldn’t remember seeing it the night before.
She put her ear to the door, listening for any sign that Mrs Harkness or Cuthbert Stoke were coming up to claim her. She heard nothing, but even before she tried the door handle, she guessed it wouldn’t be too easy to leave. The door refused to budge, and no amount of kicking would open it. Sometime in the night, a key had been turned and even before she looked for it, she knew her bag had been taken.
‘Let me out of here,’ she shouted and banged her clenched fists on the door. No one came.
Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes. How dare these people take her belongings, her mother’s earrings and the money for a passage home! How dare they imprison her!
She hammered on the door until her wrists were sore. Despair mixed with anger as she slid to the floor, tears escaping from the corner of her eyes and running down her cheeks. Never had her life seemed so bleak. She was now trapped, compromised by her own half-brother, and penniless.
Eventually, she wiped her face on the hem of her dress and blew her nose. Crying was not going to solve anything. Blanche contemplated what to do next. Sometime during the day, food would be brought, though it was unlikely that Mary would come alone.
She cursed herself for being so stupid. Acting innocent had been her undoing. Drinking the milk and avoiding the gin had also proved a mistake. Both had been drugged no doubt.
Then the tartan drape at the window caught her eyes. It was long and strong, and although the window was small, there just might be a chance…
There was no time to waste. She bent down, pulled the back of her skirt through her legs and tied it at the front. The old style dress gave her freedom of movement, unrestrained by corsets and hoops. Thank goodness for that, she thought, and blessed her mother’s inclination for the tried and tested and the fact that Barbados had been way behind when it came to fashion.
The grey slate roof outside the window looked safe enough, though it was wet with moss and copper nails stood exposed where slates had cracked and fallen into the dark abyss that was Cock and Bottle Lane. Blanche eyed an open window in the house directly opposite and calculated that it was no more than a broom handle distant. She didn’t have a broom. A breeze stirred her hair and the tartan drape brushed against her face. Strongly woven, she decided, and gave it a tug. It was long but not wide, and looked as though it had been cut in half along its length in order not to swamp the small window.
‘If I tie this around here… ’ she muttered to herself as she tied it around the middle upright of the window, and used a bowline, a loop with tightened ends.
She was pleased with the knot and it gave her great satisfaction to throw the tartan out of the window and watch it dangle – but too far from the ground.
She groaned. Building a new life for herself after Barbados, after Nelson and Marstone Court, was not going to be easy. Prostituting herself for the likes of Cuthbert Stoke and Mrs Harkness would not bring her security, just looking at Mary was enough to tell her that.
She looked into the alley below. Two mongrel dogs were mating on the cobbles and a fat woman smoking a pipe watched with bemused interest while a small girl of about seven kicked at them.
Blanche tried waving, the only way she could possibly attract someone’s attention. She feared shouting would only bring her to the attention of Mrs Harkness.
‘Leave the poor creatures alone,’ shouted the woman.
‘Mind yer own fuckin’ business,’ the child shouted back.
Shaking her head, the fat woman disappeared into the doorway behind her.
A chimney sweep entered from one end, brushes carried over his shoulder like a military man about to do battle. A small boy followed.
The small girl ran towards him. ‘Fancy a bit of slap and tickle? I know a tart who’s willing.’
‘No I don’t. I got work to do.’
The child’s attention was drawn
to a sudden noise at the other end of the alley.
A pedlar bustled through, brushing her aside none too gently. A pair of beggars followed him arguing as to who was going to be the blind man that day, and who would be the nigger. Their voices ricocheted around the narrow alley so she heard everything twice. The sound of their voices was replaced by the trundling of cartwheels. A man appeared pushing a handbarrow on which lay two rough wooden boxes.
The young girl rushed up to him, saw what was on the cart and asked, ‘Is they dead uns?’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Fancy a live un?’
‘Off with ya,’ he shouted, and lashed out at her with one hand. The cart toppled slightly. One wheel hit a rut displacing the lid of one box and revealing a small corpse wrapped in a scrap of old blanket. The man cursed, adjusted the lid and hit it shut with a clenched fist. The other box was even smaller. There were no mourners to follow the dead children to their grave.
Blanche watched silently, wished she were home, wished she were anywhere rather than in this grey city in this grey country with these grim people.
A movement in the window opposite drew her attention. At first she thought she was looking at a bundle of rags, then she saw the pale face, the white hair and the thickly knitted shawl drawn tightly around stooped shoulders. The woman was waving at her and her mouth was opening and closing as if she were saying something.
Blanche decided she was mad, then realized that she wasn’t. The woman didn’t want to be heard. She was mouthing, ‘Throw it over here,’ and signalling that she would tie the other end around the centre frame of her window.
Blanche looked down again. It was a long way down, too far to jump. She looked across at the woman. The distance across was just as frightening, but staying where she was would mean the end of her life.
With careful precision, she flung the piece of cloth across the gap – and missed.
A loose slate slid on its nail. Blanche sucked in her breath. If it fell, someone down below might look up and see her. Leaning as far out of the window as possible, she threw again. This time the woman caught it, pulled it tight before tying it.
‘Come on,’ she mouthed, crooking her finger.
Blanche tied on her bonnet but the brim was wider than the window and too stiff to bend. Off it came, and carefully, but quickly, she climbed out of the window, hooked her leg over the cloth – and heard it rip.
Just as carefully as she’d climbed out, she backed herself up against the side of the dormer window and felt her way around its side and on to the roof.
Her heart was in her mouth. Each time she moved, bits of slate and loose rendering broke off and slithered down the roof. If she weren’t careful, it would seem as if it were raining slates. Heart beating wildly, she eased herself into a gully between her building and the one next door. Plans about what to do next whirled in her mind. Hopefully, her captors would think she had indeed clambered along the tartan to the building opposite – unless the old woman, who had now disappeared, had untied her end. Then they might think she’d dropped to the ground and run off – if she hadn’t broken her legs. After that, they’d be sure to open the door, wouldn’t they? What would be the point of locking a bedroom door if no one was in there? If she waited long enough, she could creep back, find it unlocked, and creep out.
That would have been her one and only plan if she hadn’t seen the cockerel. He came up behind her, scraping and scratching at the dirt and debris that had gathered in the gully, his head ducking and dipping among the weeds, grass and windblown seeds. Blanche wondered exactly how he’d got up there.
Turning and crawling on all fours, she edged towards him as he clucked and scraped his way along the gully, his red comb quivering with indignation, one yellow-rimmed eye watching her as he backed off the way he’d come.
Blanche got closer still, sure now that the cockerel knew of a way down, one that wasn’t too far from the ground.
The roofs to either side of the gully eventually ended. Another roof sloped off at a right angle, steeper than the others and running straight in to – a garden! At some time in its history, the building had been extended, a task that had entailed digging out the higher ground at the back of the house, though not all of it.
Once a grassy bank but now bare earth, the ground sloped up away from the house where hens clucked and scratched in the dirt, and washing was spread over the bushes to dry.
The roof at the back of the house did not exactly go into the ground but stopped about three feet short. Between the wall of the house and one built to retain the higher level, was a narrow alley.
Careful not to startle the cockerel or dislodge more tiles, Blanche peered into the rear courtyard. Rows of other backyards went off to either side. To her left was a woman using a washing dolly. Half hidden by her skirt sat a cat chewing on a mouse.
She eased back and thought about things. Such a small gap between her and freedom, but she didn’t want the woman to hear or see her.
Making sure the woman wasn’t looking, she got to her feet, quickly assessed the distance and launched herself into space.
All would have been well, but she’d forgotten that the back hem of her dress was still knotted to the front. Her skirt curtailed her leap. At the same time, the cockerel decided to move right into her path, and clucked and crowed angrily as he tangled with her feet. She barely made the jump, one foot slipping out behind her and causing her to fall headlong into the dirt, scattering the hens and hurting her nose.
Hearing the commotion, the woman stopped pounding the washing dolly and turned her head. Blanche glanced at her momentarily, just long enough to see the tangle of hair hiding one eye.
‘Wahl Wah!’ screamed Mary.
The dolly fell on to the cat. The cat yowled, dropped its catch and ran. So did Mary. Limping as fast as she could, she ran through an open door, screaming for Mrs Harkness.
‘The minx!’ A man’s voice.
‘Out of my way.’ Mrs Harkness, followed by a thump and a squeal of pain from Mary.
Blanche got to her feet and, without undoing her skirts, ran as fast as she could. Laundry fell from bushes as she pushed herself through a gap and found herself in the yard of another house. Fortunately, this one had a door in the wall. Struggling at first, she pushed at the rusted catch. It was stiff, probably unused for years, but eventually it sprung upwards.
Blanche ran, not stopping until Cock and Bottle Lane was behind her and she was by the river, looking down on to the water, panting, desperate and almost feeling like throwing herself in.
‘You are in some kind of trouble?’
Blanche lifted her head and fell into the arms of Conrad Heinkel.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jimmy Palmer was dead, Jeb was dead, and thirty orphaned boys had been given temporary shelter in a disused warehouse directly opposite where their training ship had been berthed.
Bespectacled and a confirmed landlubber as well as a Wesleyan, the rotund Mr Trinder had encouraged members of his church to donate food, money, blankets and other necessities so that the orphan boys wouldn’t be forced to return to their lives on the streets. Tom was grateful that someone else was doing something. There were too many other things he had to deal with at present. Firstly, there was Jeb’s funeral, which was carried out in accordance with the family’s wishes rather than Jeb’s. Although a confirmed Wesleyan, the service was to be at St Michael’s, internment to follow in the family mausoleum.
A host of relatives, noticeably absent during Jeb’s years of illness, arrived en masse. Most carefully avoided Tom.
‘The adopted son… a bare-knuckle fighter… a mere sea captain… drink and whoring…’ Like a never-ending litany, his exploits were whispered from one ‘mourner’ to another. He ignored the disdain in alien eyes and sought those he knew. If Jeb had been present, they would at least have been civil. Now he was gone, they saw no reason to be.
His eyes met those of Jeb’s eldest remaining daughter Ra
chel. At first she beamed, glad to see him, but her husband intervened before she could approach him.
He reached for a glass of Madeira. He might as well live up to his reputation.
Ruth and Leah, the two other remaining daughters, did approach him. Ruth was kind, smiling gently and touching his arm as she said, ‘Thank goodness he had you, Tom.’
Leah, as dark and pink-cheeked as her mother and just returned from China, threw her arms around his neck and kissed his chin.
‘Leah. People are looking. You’re being unseemly,’ said Ruth reproachfully.
Leah blinked back her tears and held Tom at arm’s length. ‘They may think it’s unseemly. Our father wouldn’t.’
‘And that’s the truth,’ said Tom.
Leah stayed close to him. They both watched as the black-plumed horses pulling the hearse made their way down the drive followed by the mourners, some in carriages and some on foot.
‘Aren’t you coming?’ Leah asked him.
Tom shook his head, took off his hat and fingered its brim. ‘No.’
Leah’s husband called her, but she was slow to obey. ‘You’re going away, aren’t you?’ she said.
Tom didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
She patted his arm. ‘You filled a gap in his life, Tom. I’m grateful you did, and so was he.’
He did not tell them about Jasper. What good would it do? Father and son were at rest in the same churchyard. He watched them go and felt no guilt about not going himself. He’d stayed close to Jeb in life, and that was all that mattered.
‘Will you go back to sea?’
‘I’m not sure. I have some questions to ask and answers to find.’
By the time the funeral party had returned like a flock of carrion, he’d gone. His adopted sisters were disappointed not to see him there. Horatia was beside herself, running through the house, searching his room, Jeb’s old room, the library, anywhere he might be hiding. At last she found her way into the attic, stared at the portrait of her grandmother and sunk to her knees. She hadn’t seen it since she was a child. The skin was lighter, but the eyes were the same grey, and the mole… there was no doubt about it. Blanche too was a granddaughter of Patience Strong.
