by Pam Weaver
‘Oh, please do,’ Mrs Ruddock interrupted. ‘Go on, Moira. This is fascinating.’
‘I don’t hold with them foreigners,’ Mrs Toms said. She might not have been as well off as the others but that didn’t stop her from being a sour-faced woman not averse to expressing her opinions, no matter how abrasive they might be. ‘It’s not right, them helping themselves to what’s ours.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’ Moira blew out her cheeks and put her fist to her chest.
‘You all right, love?’ interrupted Mrs Ruddock. ‘You look a bit pale.’
‘Touch of indigestion, that’s all,’ Moira said dismissively.
‘While the princess was in the fitting room,’ Frankie began, her eyes glistening with excitement. ‘A man in a great big fur hat came to the shop. As soon as the princess heard his voice she was very scared, wasn’t she, Mummy? They had to hide her in a big basket.’
The two women gave Moira a quizzical look.
Moira went on. ‘Like I said, it was a long time ago. The Princess Natalia Alexeievna wanted a wedding trousseau. When she came to the workshop, the only clothes she had were what she stood up in.’
‘I can’t believe that,’ Mrs Toms remarked. ‘I always thought people like them were rolling in it.’
‘I read somewhere,’ said Mrs Ruddock, ‘that when they lined that Czar Nicholas and his family against the wall and shot them, the bullets ricocheted from their bodices because of the precious stones hidden inside the seams. It was a regular blood bath, so I’m told.’
Doreen let out an audible gasp.
‘Do you mind,’ Mrs Toms scolded. ‘Remember the children.’
Quick to apologise, Mrs Ruddock blushed. ‘Sorry.’
‘I don’t know why you feel sorry for them,’ said Mrs Toms. ‘They treat their people like dirt and they’re full of superstition and devil worship.’
‘Come, come,’ said Moira. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as that.’
‘So did your princess have precious stones in her bodice?’ Mrs Ruddock asked.
Moira looked away, as if the truth was being dragged reluctantly from her, then nodded. ‘Not only diamonds and freshwater pearls but an emerald or two as well. It was my job to unpick the seams without spoiling her clothes.’
‘Go on,’ Mrs Ruddock gasped incredulously.
‘The workshop was in London near a rough area they called Little Russia,’ said Moira. ‘And this Bolshevik burst through the front of the shop demanding to know where the princess was. We were all terrified. Even Madam said he looked very frightening.’
‘Did someone go for the police?’ Mrs Toms asked.
Moira let out a hollow laugh. ‘You’d be lucky to find one. It was so bad around there that the police had to walk around in twos. Anyway, like Frankie said, I shoved her into the big linen basket and we all covered her over with material.’
With a look of horror on her face, Mrs Toms clutched at her throat.
‘The other girls distracted him while I wheeled the princess down to the boiler room in the basement,’ Moira went on. ‘We left her under the covers, praying to her favourite saint.’
Mrs Toms tutted disapprovingly.
‘Sounds like something out of a book,’ said Mrs Ruddock.
Moira smiled mysteriously.
Mrs Ruddock’s eyes widened. ‘But did she survive?’
‘Oh yes,’ Moira said. ‘Soon after that, she set sail for New York on the Cunard ship Berengaria. I went down to Southampton to wave her off.’
‘I hope she gave you something for saving her life,’ Mrs Ruddock remarked.
Moira shrugged absent-mindedly and looked down at her fingernails. ‘Why should she? I only did what anyone else would do.’
‘How disappointing,’ said Mrs Ruddock. ‘You know, when you first came to Broadwater, I heard a rumour that you’d got a stash of jewellery hidden somewhere.’
‘Did you really?’ Moira teased.
‘You could have easily kept a diamond or two,’ said Mrs Toms. ‘Who would know?’
Moira looked her straight in the eye. ‘I would know, Mrs Toms,’ she said tetchily. ‘I’ll have you know, I’m an honest woman.’ Embarrassed, Mrs Toms looked away. ‘Besides,’ Moira went on in a more relaxed tone, ‘the princess knew exactly how many she’d got. We’d helped her count them.’
‘I still think she should have given you something,’ Mrs Ruddock said stoutly.
‘Well, she did offer me a job in America,’ said Moira. Glancing at Mrs Toms she added, ‘and she did give me a little box of something to steer me in the right direction in the future.’ Her gaze drifted towards the mantelpiece.
‘America!’ cried Mrs Ruddock. ‘Why on earth didn’t you go? If someone offered me a job in America I’d be off like a shot.’
Mrs Toms didn’t seem impressed. ‘That box looks like a set of tarot cards. You should throw them away,’ she said, nodding at the mantelpiece. ‘I wouldn’t want them in my house.’
‘Perhaps under different circumstances I might have gone to America,’ said Moira, ‘but by that time I’d promised to marry Frankie’s father.’ She gazed lovingly at her daughter. ‘I had made my choice and I have no regrets.’
‘You two had to wait a long time to get married, didn’t you?’ Mrs Ruddock observed.
‘Her father and I had to wait until I was twenty-one,’ said Moira. ‘That was two years after the war. Besides, Ernie was injured in the trenches. He was a sick man. He needed time to recover.’
Mrs Ruddock pulled a face. ‘Mustard gas?’
Moira nodded. ‘He was in a sanatorium for most of the first three years of our marriage.’
Mrs Ruddock looked away. ‘Poor devil.’
‘See? What did I tell you? You should have got rid of those tarot cards,’ Mrs Toms said staring at the mantelpiece again. ‘Witchcraft and divination are the sins of Jezebel.’
The door suddenly burst open. ‘Good God,’ a man’s voice boomed. ‘Haven’t you hens finished clucking yet?’
Frankie jumped out of her skin and at that point the party broke up. Nobody bothered to ask who the man was. They all knew young Mr Knight and they knew he was Moira’s landlord. If Mrs Toms and Mrs Ruddock wondered why he’d walked in uninvited and in such an over-familiar manner, they kept their thoughts to themselves.
Mrs Ruddock rose to her feet. Young Mr Knight belched loudly and sat in her chair, making himself very much at home as he helped himself to a piece of cake and pulled an empty cup towards him.
Mrs Toms looked down her nose. ‘You disgusting man. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
Mr Knight’s lip curled as he put up two fingers. Mrs Toms rose to her feet with a horrified look on her face. ‘Doreen, get your coat. We’re leaving right this minute.’
Frankie didn’t like young Mr Knight. He was loud, and brash, and sometimes he frightened her. He didn’t seem to have a proper job so he’d taken to turning up whenever he liked. Frankie had seen him walking around the street with a little red book. When he stood near a wall with one foot up behind him, people would sidle up to him shiftily and give him money. Then he’d write something in the little red book. One time when she’d been watching him, a policeman came around the corner. Young Mr Knight stood up straight and began hurrying away but not before he’d snarled at Frankie, ‘And you can keep your big fat trap shut.’
By now Frankie’s friends had put on their coats or cardigans and her mother, tight-lipped and pink with embarrassment, had said her goodbyes. When everyone was gone young Mr Knight poured himself a cup of tea from the pot. ‘This is cold,’ he complained.
Moira glanced at Frankie. ‘I think it’s bedtime, darling,’ she said softly.
Frankie began a half-hearted protest but in truth she was very tired and she didn’t want to stay up if young Mr Knight was there. She kissed her mother goodnight and took her dolly with her. Later, as she lay in bed with the princess doll on the chair beside her, Frankie could hear raised voices downstairs.
‘You had no right to burst in like that.’
‘I’ll go where I please.’
‘This is my home and you should treat me with respect.’
‘Ah, ah,’ said Mr Knight in a scolding tone. ‘This is my house. My house,’ he continued, his voice becoming more strident. ‘You only pay the rent.’ There was a short silence, then he said in a softer tone, ‘Come on, Moira. I don’t want to quarrel with you. Be nice to me.’
Frankie heard the chair legs scrape on the kitchen floorboards.
‘Don’t you touch me!’ her mother exclaimed. ‘What me and my Ernie had was something special. I’m not interested in anyone else, least of all you.’
Alarmed, Frankie sat up in bed.
‘Come on, woman. What’s the matter with you?’ Mr Knight said. ‘He’s been dead for years. You must be gagging for it by now.’
‘How dare you!’ her mother snapped. ‘And I shan’t tell you again; keep your filthy hands to yourself.’
There was the sound of a scuffle but it was the sound of a slap which brought Frankie to the rail at the top of the landing. Her heart was pounding and dolly trembled in her arms.
‘Get out,’ her mother gasped. ‘Get out before I take the poker to you.’
‘There’s no need to get on your high horse,’ Mr Knight was saying. ‘We could come to some sort of arrangement, you know. How about you say yes and I reduce the rent?’
‘Clear off, I tell you,’ her mother spat. ‘Go on. Take the rent money and get out of here.’
Frankie heard the sound of coins being spilled on the kitchen table.
‘Perhaps I could come back sometime and look for that Russian egg of yours.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ her mother snapped.
‘All right, Moira,’ said Mr Knight. ‘Keep your hair on, but I’m telling you, if you say no next week, you and that kid of yours better start looking for somewhere else to live.’
Frankie heard a squeak as the kitchen door opened. ‘Just one little yes,’ Mr Knight said. ‘That’s all it will take.’
The door banged shut and Frankie heard her mother say, ‘And hell will freeze over first.’
*
The new school term began on September 5th. While she was getting ready, Frankie couldn’t help noticing how pale her mother still looked. Of course, she was also still her usual efficient self. While Frankie washed herself in the scullery, Moira made the beds and tidied the room. While Frankie got dressed, her mother made herself some sandwiches for lunch (Frankie had school dinners) and as Frankie ate her breakfast, she sat beside her at the table with a cup of strong tea. The princess doll sat opposite them.
‘So,’ her mother asked, ‘do you still like your dolly?’
Frankie nodded happily. ‘She’s the bestest dolly in the world.’
‘Best,’ her mother corrected. ‘Not bestest, just best. What are you going to call her?’
Frankie shrugged. ‘Princess something.’
Moira ran her fingers through her daughter’s pretty blond curls. ‘And why not,’ she said. ‘After all, I made that bodice from the bits my Russian princess left behind. That blue suede was from the leftovers of a skirt and the buttons came off a blouse she asked me to alter. Someone had given it to her but it was far too long and she was so tiny.’
Frankie’s jaw dropped. So she had been right. Some of the material had belonged to the Russian princess. When she got down from the table, Frankie touched the doll’s clothes lovingly.
‘Right,’ said Moira, clapping her hands, ‘off to school and don’t dawdle on the way home.’
Taking one last look at the doll sitting on the cosy chair by the range, Frankie and her mother hugged each other at the door and Moira kissed her cheek. Frankie ran up the path but stopped by the gate and ran back. Wrapping her arms around her mother’s waist she said, ‘This was my best birthday ever.’ As she hurried towards the gate, she turned and saw her mother standing in the doorway waving. Frankie waved back and called over her shoulder, ‘And thanks again for my dolly.’
Moira had plenty to be getting on with. She had taken the day off on Saturday to celebrate Frankie’s birthday, and been glad to do it, but now she had some serious catching up to do. Moira hadn’t said anything to her daughter but over the past few days she hadn’t been feeling too well. Nothing she could put her finger on, but she kept coming over all weak and she just couldn’t seem to shake this wretched indigestion.
The doctor’s wife was coming this afternoon for the last fitting of her cocktail dress. She was a good customer – happy to spend a small fortune on both material and Moira’s skill in order to maintain her reputation for being the best dressed woman in Worthing – but before that, Moira made a start on some alterations on new garments which had been bought by customers in Bentall’s. She had been thrilled to land the job as their resident seamstress. The alterations were simple enough: a couple of inches off a hem, a sleeve which needed shortening and a waist band on a skirt which had to be let out a little. These had become her bread and butter jobs. Today she had three things to alter – a nightdress which was too long, a curtain to shorten, and some buttons to move on a coat because the wearer had put on weight. She worked quickly but every now and then her left arm ached and she had to stop to give it a rub.
She worked steadily until lunchtime, when she stopped to stretch her legs with a walk around the garden and to eat her sandwiches. She lifted her arms about her head a few times to ease the dull ache in her chest after sitting hunched over her work for so long. After she’d had a cup of tea, she put the doctor’s wife’s dress on the tailor’s dummy and settled down again with her sewing but she was soon interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. She glanced up at the clock. Was that her customer? No, it was too early for her. She said she’d come by after she’d finished a game of golf.
When Moira opened the door, she let out a gasp of surprise. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ Her visitor hovered on the step until she said, ‘I never expected you to come so soon.’ And stepping aside, she let her visitor in.
*
It was hard to concentrate on her lessons. More than once, Frankie’s mind drifted back to Hillbarn and the picnic she’d enjoyed on her birthday. In her imagination she could feel the sun on her back while the bees were humming around the blackberries. They’d eaten the ones they’d picked on Saturday for lunch on Sunday and they’d gone back for some more in the evening. Those blackberries were in a large bowl on the draining board and her mother had said she would make a blackberry and apple pie for their tea. Frankie was looking forward to it.
In the morning, Frankie and her class had to practise their best writing. Miss Smith had written ‘The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’ at the top of the page in her writing book and she had to copy the beautiful copperplate hand. It was quite hard work even if she did have three horizontal lines on the page to aid her. As she concentrated with her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth, Frankie was thinking of her dolly. What should she call her? What did mummy say the princess was called? She’d heard the name umpteen times but she still couldn’t quite get her tongue around it. ‘Alexy Vena’ or something like that. She’d have to ask mummy to say it again when she got home.
They had PE after break and Frankie did ten star jumps. She sat with Jenny at the dinner table but Doreen was monitor so she sat at the other end of the form. It was mutton stew. Frankie didn’t much care for mutton stew. You often had big lumps of slimy mutton fat and of course you had to eat everything on your plate or you got into trouble. Getting it down was slow going and not very enjoyable but they had semolina and strawberry jam for pudding. She didn’t mind that, especially the jam.
In the playground, Doreen seemed a bit stand-offish. Frankie didn’t understand why but then someone told her it was because Doreen’s mum didn’t like Mrs Sherwood’s fancy man. Frankie didn’t understand what that meant but she could tell that Doreen and her mum weren’t being very nice and it upset her that her
friend had stopped talking to her.
They did sums in the afternoon and then Mr Bawden read a book to the class. He began with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, an exciting story about a boy and his adventures in America. Frankie held her breath as Mr Bawden read the bit where Tom and his friend, Huckleberry Finn, see Injun Joe murder Dr Robinson in the graveyard. Then, terrified that Injun Joe might do them harm, Tom and Huck swear a blood oath not to tell. The class had heard it all before but it didn’t dampen their enthusiasm for a ‘ripping yarn’, as Mr Bawden called it.
Remembering her promise, Frankie didn’t dawdle on the way home, but as she turned into her road there was a St John Ambulance outside her gate. She broke into a run just as Mrs Dickenson, their next-door neighbour, came out of Frankie’s house. Frankie tried to dodge past her but Mrs Dickenson stopped her from going indoors.
‘It’s no good going in there, dear,’ she said. ‘You come along with me.’
‘Why?’ Frankie gasped. ‘What’s happened? Where’s my mummy?’
Two men in blue uniforms came out of the front door. One of them glanced at Mrs Dickenson. ‘Is this her?’
Mrs Dickenson nodded.
‘You get the stretcher, Charlie,’ he went on. ‘I’ll deal with this.’ He came towards Frankie and bent down. ‘Now then, little girl,’ he said with a fixed smile which was a little scary, ‘you mustn’t cry. Your mummy wouldn’t like that, see? You have to be brave. So do what the nice lady says and go over to her house.’
‘But I live here!’ Frankie cried. ‘This is where I live with my mummy.’
‘That’s as may be,’ the man said a little more firmly, ‘but you have to stay away until the police come.’
Frankie stared at him in horror. Police? What on earth was he talking about? Pushing against the man’s leg, she struggled to get past him. ‘Mummy, Mummy!’
‘No good shouting like that,’ said the man curtly. ‘She can’t hear you no more.’
Frankie looked up at him helplessly.
‘Your mother is dead,’ he said quietly.
Two
