by Mary Hooper
I decided to tell her – for I thought I should introduce the idea as soon as possible – that we might not be able to find Will. ‘He could be anywhere.’ I looked at her carefully, trying to judge her mood. ‘We might not find him. We might have to go home and wait for him to come back to us.’
‘But you said he . . .’
‘I didn’t realise how big London was, Betsy.’
‘I hate Will!’ she suddenly cried. ‘I do! We both hate him, don’t we?’
‘Hush, no, of course we don’t,’ I said, but there was no conviction in my voice.
Chapter Thirteen
I carried on for several days at Mr Holloway’s, being paid daily. I milked twice a day (thankfully, my milk round in the afternoons was shorter and closer) and between times endeavoured to get the cows, churns and milk pails as clean as I could. After only three days, I was pleased to see that the cows all began to yield a little more milk and, though Mr Holloway did not actually comment on this, he did nod and look pleased when I told him.
Some of what remained of the milk was sold to people who came to the door of the dairy, and the rest was taken away by Mr Holloway. I did no churning of butter nor making of cream or cheese during this time: there was never enough milk. Besides, Mr Holloway told me that those living in the nearby tenements could not have afforded such items. Over those days I grew to know my cows a little, for when your cheek is pressed up against the warm flank of an animal for twenty minutes or so, you do come to feel a kind of understanding between you. The duty I very much disliked was the diluting of milk with water, for I’d long believed that the milk’s quality was dependent on how happy the cows were, and that a miserably thin liquid showed badly on both stock-keeper and milkmaid. Those finer feelings, however, had to be pushed to one side for the time being, for I knew I had to go along with London ways if I was going to survive.
Betsy was nearly always at my side, and I was constantly trying to keep her occupied in one way or another. My life had become a struggle and I sometimes felt as though I was one of the street jugglers, trying to keep ten coloured balls in the air at once. When I was not milking, or scrubbing and scouring, or walking along the road under the weight of the yoke, I was trying to keep Betsy from running off, telling her tales to try to amuse her or cajoling, chastising or pleading with her.
On what should have been my seventh day of employment at the dairy, something awful happened: Betsy became ill. She woke in the small hours vomiting – an action that was so strange and alien to her that it made her scream in fright between bouts. I was kept busy comforting her, running up and down the stairs fetching water, cleaning up, emptying the chamber pot into the closet in the yard and returning it to the room for the next attack. At one point, the poor child made so much noise in her panic that our neighbours in the next rooms banged on the door and shouted at us – not to offer help, but to bring down curses on our heads for disturbing them. I was very frightened at all this, and felt I could not cope, for we had been a healthy bunch in the country and I had little to no experience of disease or illness. Terrified, I wondered what would happen if I caught this malaise as well. Who would look after us?
As the clocks struck four o’clock that morning I was wide awake and worried. Betsy was not vomiting so much, but lay shivering on the bed under the weight of all the clothes we possessed while I, lying on the edge of the bed and freezing cold in my undershift, stroked back her hair from her face and made soothing noises. I did not know what to do. I had to go to work – my cows would be waiting for me and unless I worked I couldn’t afford to pay for the room – but how could I possibly leave Betsy? What if she became worse? What if she died?
With this thought uppermost in my head, I began weeping. I should never have brought her with me! I should have come to London alone, run my errand for Miss Alice and then gone home. On my own, I surely wouldn’t have been so distracted as to lose that bag. To think that I’d been so naive to believe that, amidst all the thousands of people in London, I’d find Will! Especially, I thought now for the first time, if he didn’t want to be found . . .
I must have fallen asleep again because daylight was showing through the thick frost on the windows by the time I rose. I thought about how I felt: was I sick or aching? Was my throat or head hurting? The answer to all these questions was no, so I carefully took my shawl off the bed and wrapped it around me, then examined Betsy. She was sleeping, pale and still, but I could not tell if it was a healthy sleep or one of total exhaustion. Her hair was stuck around her face and sweat beaded her brow, yet her body remained cold and her fingers and toes were tinged with blue.
I shivered and sighed, scratching on the window to try and see through the layer of frost to the street below. By now, of course, Mr Holloway would realise that I hadn’t turned up to milk the cows. I should have gone and explained things to him, but was too scared to leave Betsy – and too nervous about what Mr Holloway might say. I felt sorry for my cows when I thought about him discovering them unmilked and, cross and heavy-handed, taking the pail to them himself, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I could only remember one piece of advice from my mother regarding health matters and that was to feed a cold and starve a fever, but this was of little help now, for I was not sure if Betsy had either or both. I thought back, but couldn’t remember any of my brothers or sisters being sick enough to stay in bed – although we had all had the spotted fever, of course . . .
Remembering this, I peeled back the coverings on Betsy and looked for spots, but there were none. The blanket was damp and cold from where I’d tried to sponge it clean, however, and when I moved it Betsy shivered in her sleep and wrapped her arms around herself, whimpering, so I knew I must try to warm her.
Carefully I removed my clothes from the bed and got dressed. I had errands to run: I must buy wood and perhaps coal for the fire, purchase some food, and also ask at an apothecary’s for a cordial or powder to help Betsy. I looked in my pocket: I had a few coins, but – now that I wasn’t working – when they were gone, absolutely no means of getting more.
I checked on Betsy again and again as I was tidying myself to go out, nervous about leaving her, then crept down the stairs, luckily not meeting any of those we shared the house with. I turned in the direction of St Paul’s rather than go near to Mr Holloway’s.
The wood was easy to buy, for almost every shop sold bundles of firewood, but I was shocked at the price of coal and decided we must manage without it. At a fish stall, I bought the very cheapest of fish: four sprats for a penny, which I intended to cook on the open fire, and spent another penny for some bread to help the bones go down. I did not manage so well in the apothecary’s shop, however. The one I visited was near to the cathedral, heavily scented with herbs and well lit by both candles and oil lamps. A lady dressed in purple silk with a white fur jacket was there wanting to purchase something with which to wash her hair, and the two gentleman assistants were so engrossed in discussing, searching for and weighing out what she wanted from the bulbous jars that, although I coughed a few times, they took no notice of me at all.
I waited patiently for some moments and then tried a tentative ‘Excuse me’, which was ignored. I tried again and then, feeling my face reddening with embarrassment, backed slowly towards the door. When I reached it, I flung it open and ran for home, hearing and ignoring a commanding call from behind me of ‘Close the door, if you please!’
I walked along, furious and tearful, but then caught sight of my reflection in a shop window. Why, with my dress stained and mud splattered, my face unwashed and hair tangled, I looked like the poorest sort of beggar.
I sighed heartily. Beggar I would be soon enough.
I might have stopped at one of the quack doctors for a tincture for Betsy, but I was in too much of a hurry to get back to her. Besides, the first quack I passed had a big crowd about him and was in the middle of a shouted tirade against the wickedness of all apothecaries and surgeons and did not seem
about to stop. One other man, who had set up a table inside the wide doorway of a tavern, was wearing the mask of a wild animal and was roaring at passers-by to emphasise that his medicine would make you as strong as a lion. He was doing this with such vigour, however, that I was frightened to approach him.
Thus I had to trust that Betsy’s malaise was nothing serious and would go in its own good time.
Chapter Fourteen
I hurried back to the lodging house with the newspaper-wrapped parcel of sprats under my arm, hoping that Betsy wouldn’t have woken up and wondering how I was going to cook the fish. I knew how to make little dishes from milk: puddings, custards and flummeries, but I had never before cooked fish or meat. I’d seen a little trivet affair standing in front of the grate in our room and intended to place the fish on this so it could be smoked by the fire.
Suddenly realising that Betsy must have something to drink, I asked a passer-by and was directed to a proper dairy just off the Strand. This had a brass engraving above the door naming it the Nell Gwyn Dairy and saying it had been there since the days of Charles II. A card in the window respectfully informed the public that their freshly churned butter could be made into ornamental figures and that, although no cows were kept on the premises, fresh milk was delivered from the country twice a day. The shop stood, glossily tiled and painted, to serve the magnificent houses around Whitehall – and was as different from Mr Holloway’s dairy as it was possible for a place to be. The milk I purchased here was, of course, a much better colour and consistency than that offered by his animals, for I could see it had not been tampered with. It was quite costly, though, being one penny for a small can.
The front door of the lodging house was standing open when I arrived back, and I stepped in as lightly as possible, for I owed Mr Burroughs for my lodging charges. I’d only put one foot on the bottom stair, however, when I heard him shout, ‘You come along here, girl!’ and I had no alternative but to go in to him. He was in the first room of the house, as he had been before, lying back in a rocking chair with his gnarled feet on the mantelpiece.
‘You owe me money, I b’lieve.’
I nodded. ‘I do. I was just about to come and give it to you.’
He gave a mocking laugh. ‘Were you indeed?’
‘I was!’ I delved into my pocket and brought out a shilling. ‘That’s for last night and tonight,’ I said. I did some sums in my head. I had just enough left to pay for one more night’s lodging and some food for the following day, but after that we would be penniless. Surely Betsy would be better by then and I could go and find a way of earning more money?
‘That’s not enough,’ said Mr Burroughs. ‘The price has gone up.’
‘But . . . why?’
‘That’s a lovely room you’ve got – too good for sixpence. Should be eight.’
‘But I haven’t got that much.’
He shrugged. ‘And you’ve been disturbing my other guests in the night. They’re threatening to go elsewhere, and if they do I shall set their lodging charges at your door.’
‘But last night we couldn’t help it – the little girl with me was sick!’ I protested.
He shrugged again. ‘What’s that to me?’
‘She was frightened because we haven’t ever been away from home before,’ I said, hoping to soften his heart. ‘My mistress sent me from the country to collect a newly published book, and our portmanteau –’
‘Got took as soon as you arrived,’ he finished, to my great astonishment. ‘Or was carried orf by a highwayman. Or fell orf the top of the coach. And now you can’t pay your way. I’ve heard it all before.’
‘But it’s true!’
‘ ’Course it is,’ he snorted. ‘You girls come up from the country believing that a pretty face is going to work miracles. Think you’re going to snare a rich patron, don’t you? Well, it won’t work for me! And let me tell you now that I won’t have anything of a doubtful nature going on in my rooms.’
I knew what he was referring to and felt very affronted. ‘I can tell you now I would not dream of –’
‘You come to London with your bastard child, to a respectable, God-fearing house, and think to use my honest lodgings as a place of dalliance.’
I was tearful and enraged by this time and longed to retaliate, but did not dare do so in case he threw us out on to the street. I took a deep breath. ‘Then rest assured I will leave here as soon as I am able, and find somewhere more suitable to a well-brought-up girl and her charge.’
He snorted.
‘I will leave tomorrow.’
‘Not afore you’ve paid me what you owe me,’ he said, turning back to his contemplation of the fire. ‘One shilling and four pence.’
I was absolutely furious, yet I had no alternative but to pay him even though it pained me deeply to do so. I now had tuppence left in the world.
My heart was in my mouth when I pushed open our door, but all was quiet in there. The rancid smell of sickness hung in the room, however, and it was so cold that my breath puffed out in front of me like steam as I went to check how Betsy was. Finding her very pale and still sleeping, I became frightened that she might have fallen into some sort of coma, so woke her. I regretted this immediately, of course, for she began weeping high and loud, saying that she wanted to go home.
I sat on the bed, put my arms around her and rocked her. ‘Everything will be all right. You’ll feel better tomorrow and then we’ll start looking for Will again,’ I said. ‘I’ll get a fire going now and then I’m going to cook our dinner. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
I laid up a fire with the sticks and a little of the newspaper and, with the help of an old tinderbox left in the grate, managed to get it alight. I talked to Betsy all the time as I did so, shushing and singing to try and cheer her, telling her of all the people I’d seen when I’d been out, of the gown worn by the aristocratic woman in the apothecary’s, of the quack doctor with his animal mask, of the bill I’d seen advertising a troupe of singing mice. Inside, however, I was feeling quite desperate. I loved Betsy, but felt ill equipped to cope with her. If I had been the eldest in our family it might have been better, for I would have been well versed in the ways of infants and their wants and needs, but I was the youngest of nine and so had no practice.
When the fire was going reasonably well I put the sprats on the trivet to cook them but, once they were smoked through, found they were stubbornly stuck on to the metal grill affair. I had to scrape them off, so they didn’t look very appetising, but, after carefully picking out the bigger bones, we ate them as best we could with some bread. Despite my encouraging her every mouthful, Betsy only ate a pitifully small amount. While I chewed on the ill-tasting pieces of fish (there was a reason they were four for only a penny) I tested myself constantly as to how I felt: did I feel nauseous, giddy or faint; did my limbs or my head ache? What I feared most was that I would catch whatever malaise Betsy had and become desperately ill. Following this, Betsy (so my imagination ran) would be quite unable to fend for herself and so have a relapse, then we would both die and the wicked landlord would discover our bodies some days later. Would our sad demise be in the London papers, I wondered? Would Will get to hear of it?
When I could not persuade Betsy to eat any more, I told her to lie down and close her eyes. Going to tuck the blanket around her, I found it still damp, so I shook it out and put it over the chair in front of the fire to air. I then wrapped Betsy tightly in both her shawl and my own to keep her warm. She smiled a little at this, but did not speak, seeming to have no strength left in her. She had stopped vomiting, however, and I thought that this was a good sign. I poked the fire so that a flame sprung up, but without coal there was no hot centre to the fire and the flimsy sticks of wood were being eaten quickly by the flames, burning one after the other as fast as I could put them on. How short-sighted I’d been; I should have bought two bundles!
I looked at Betsy: she was sleeping well enough, but I couldn’t go out and leave her with
a fire burning only a foot or two away. I didn’t want to wait until the fire had gone right out, though, because it had taken me many minutes to get it started.
The flames burned lower, the wooden sticks charring, then crumbling to nothing, until I had just four pieces of wood left. Outside I heard the clocks striking noon – dinner hour – and the cries of the piemen and hot-potato men to ‘Come buy!’ increased in number and volume. How I would have loved a hot potato, perhaps with a smear of my dairy butter and a little of Mrs Bonny’s best cheese on top. But I tried to put this thought from my mind.
I left the addition of each of the remaining sticks of firewood until the last possible moment, until there was just one left. After putting these on, I rolled up the remains of the fish – all the bones and heads – in the newspaper they’d been wrapped in and burned that, and as this spurt of flames died away, looked around the room for something else. We had nothing suitable: no spare clothes, no spare anything. Our shoes would have burned well, but we certainly could not do without them.
My glance fell on the one chair in the room. It was a shabby enough thing: an old kitchen chair with a rush seat, battered and rickety, its joints loose.
Could I?
It was surely not worth more than a penny or two. Besides, the landlord would probably not even know it had gone until we’d left the house.
Undecided, I waited until my last piece of wood had almost burned through, then picked up the chair and shook it a little, just to see what would happen . . . to see whether it was ready to be broken up. I found that it was, for it only took a couple of shakes for one of the spurs holding the legs in place to fall out.
I left it lying on the floor while I thought about it, until Betsy gave a shuddering, shivering sob in her sleep which near broke my heart. I touched her face; she was still icy cold. People could die of being cold, I knew that; every winter we’d hear about one or two travelling beggars who’d frozen to death in the hedges.
