The prospect of a welcome at the other end of her journey from someone like Sophia or Grandma brightened her and she was lulled into sleep by the rocking of the train as it chugged through a dark world. She stretched along the bench with her head resting on the carpetbag and slept for several hours.
When she woke it was dawn and from the window she saw street upon street of closely built houses; grim-looking factories; grimy workshops; inns and alehouses on every corner and more horse-drawn traffic than she had ever seen in her life. Carriages, carts, lorries, horse-drawn trams jostled and collided at intersections and around corners. She leaned forward and watched entranced, longing to be out among such excitement and energy.
When they finally drew into the terminus, she heaved up her bag and was one of the first out onto the platform, striding along towards the metal gate.
A line of hansom cabs stood in the forecourt and, remembering her bounty of silver, she went straight for one and called up to the cabbie, ‘The Plume of Feathers, Whitechapel High Street…’
Her assurance made the man in the box think her city-bred and he asked, ‘Is that the Plume at the east end or the west?’
‘The west,’ she hazarded, hoping she was right, for she did not want him to revise his opinion of her. What she wanted most of all now was to be accepted as one of the confident-looking people who walked along London streets as if they owned them.
The city thrilled her. All her life she had been waiting to be thrust into this mêlée. The shouting of the cabbies and the wagon drivers; the rattling of wheels on stone-paved streets; the din of voices rising like an undercurrent beneath it gave her a surge of excitement that made her fingertips tingle. She stared eagerly at the clothes of the people on the sidewalks and the goods displayed for sale in shop windows.
It seemed that London was the richest city in the world, for everywhere there was finery, luxury, ostentatious expense. Eagerly she clasped her hands together in her lap as she was borne along through the sea of traffic.
The journey took more than an hour because of the heavy press of cabs and carts at every junction, but time did not hang heavily on the passenger because she was so enthralled with everything on the route. When at last they drew up before the ornate front door of the Plume of Feathers public house, she asked the cabbie, ‘How much?’
‘Two bob,’ said he and she fished in her bag to extract three shillings which she presented to him.
‘Two bob,’ he said, handing one back but she waved it away.
‘Keep it, that’s for you,’ she said grandly and he looked surprised, for he had not expected even a penny tip from a girl so plainly dressed.
The door of the bar was half wood and half frosted glass engraved with lions, flags and a huge plume of Prince of Wales feathers. She pushed at it but she did not know her own strength for it went back with a wide swing leaving her standing in the open space with her bag in her hand and her hair wildly escaping from its combs.
Some men at the bar gazed at her in astonishment before the bartender said, ‘Women in the snug only, miss. Next door…’
With a bare arm he pointed to the left but she shook her head. ‘I don’t want a drink. I’m trying to find Mrs Cora White.’
‘Might have guessed,’ muttered one of the drinkers, sinking his face into his glass.
The others laughed and the barman said, ‘That’s next door too, next to the snug. You’ll find the door two up.’
Can this be the place or were those men playing a joke on me? Kitty wondered when she stood at a black-painted door bearing a shining brass plate engraved with the words:
EXCELSIOR CLUB.
MEMBERS ONLY.
There was a bell-pull at the side and she yanked it, hearing its tolling far back in the building. After a few moments the door was opened by a manservant in a dark tailcoat and a green-and-gold-striped waistcoat.
‘Ye-es?’ he asked, eyeing her up and down.
‘I’m looking for Mrs Cora White,’ she said, proffering her letter.
He took it in finger and thumb (he was wearing white gloves, she noticed) and told her, ‘Wait there.’ Then he closed the door and left her standing on the pavement.
A curious head was poking out of the Plume of Feathers’ door and she heard the men laughing. She turned her back and stared at the sky but, fortunately, she did not have long to wait. Soon the black door opened again and the footman told her, ‘Mrs White will see you.’
Inside there was a curious smell, not unpleasant and somehow reminiscent of her childhood. Then she remembered what it was. Tibbie Mather’s washhouse used to smell like that on Mondays when she did her weekly laundry in the big iron boiler.
Kitty wondered if Mrs White ran some kind of upper-class laundry, for the fittings of the long, deep hall were sumptuous. The floor was carpeted in deep red patterned with blue and green and the furniture was massive carved mahogany with heavy legs and ornamented fronts. The side tables were covered with dozens of studio photographs in ornate silver frames and a huge looking-glass hung on one wall. It showed Kitty’s bedraggled reflection and she made a belated attempt to tidy her hair with her hand as a tall, thin woman in a dove-grey gown with a high bustle at the back swept into the hall.
Jet-black hair was piled high with a curled fringe along her forehead and she wore long golden earrings that tinkled as she walked. She bore no resemblance to Sophy or Grandma and Kitty wondered if she had been fathered by yet a third man.
She was carrying Grandma’s letter in her hand and waved it at Kitty as she asked, ‘How are my sisters?’
‘Very well. Grandma’s got a touch of rheumatics but nothing too bad.’
‘She’s given up boxing I hope – at her age. She’s seventy-seven, you know. I expect Sophy’s still got that awful bird, mangy thing.’
‘Yes, yes.’ One yes for each question, thought Kitty, though Grandma hadn’t given up boxing.
‘They seem to think well of you, but you know that, don’t you? You’ll have read the letter,’ said Mrs White.
It was obvious that she would have considered Kitty lacking in enterprise if she hadn’t, so she nodded. ‘Yes. I thought a lot of them too.’
‘What’s the story then? Why did you have to bolt?’
Kitty put her bag down on the floor and said, ‘They wanted a new boxer and he wouldn’t come unless he got me as well as the money.’
Mrs White nodded. ‘Huh, boxers. Beattie was always daft about boxers. I couldn’t see it myself. They’re all punchy by the time they’re thirty. Jockeys are much better. Give me jockeys every time. You take my tip, dear, stick to jockeys.’
Kitty nodded, slightly bemused by this talk of jockeys but amused at the same time.
Mrs White smiled slightly and said, ‘I think we’ll get on, you and I. What can you do?’
‘I worked on a farm once. I don’t mind hard work. I’m very good at counting, though I’ve not done much of that recently… I know quite a bit about birds and wild flowers… I can pretend to box and take a fall… but I’m not much of a cook or anything like that and I’m no good at ironing, I’m afraid.’
‘Ironing! Birds and wild flowers!’ exclaimed Mrs White, looking at the manservant, who raised his eyebrows. ‘We’ve not got much call for that in Whitechapel. The counting might be a help though. Are you a virgin?’
By the tone she used she might have been asking if Kitty could do fancy needlework. The girl shook her head. ‘No, I’m not.’
‘That’s good. I like my girls broken in. I don’t hold with some of those places you find round here. Disgusting I call it,’ Mrs White’s face assumed an expression of outrage.
Kitty felt a surge of panic. ‘I’m not a prostitute, Mrs White. I won’t sleep with a man for money. That’s why I came away from the boxing show. I was happy there but I wouldn’t go with Poole and Grandma never asked me to!’
‘That’s all right. My girls make their own decisions. If they set up with a client or not, it’s nothing to me. They can make a bit on the
side so long as they’re discreet, but I don’t sell them… I sell the bathhouse and if there are pretty girls working in it, the customers are pleased.’
‘The bathhouse?’ That explained the soapy smell. ‘What exactly would I have to do?’ Kitty asked suspiciously.
‘Whatever you fancy. You’ll catch the eye anyway. Some girls fetch and carry soap and towels, glasses of wine, things like that; some keep the appointments book or tally up the chits, but it’s men that do the washing and the massages. More discreet you know. Saves embarrassment on both sides.’
Kitty thought rapidly. ‘I could tally up. I’m very quick at counting.’
Mrs White nodded thoughtfully. ‘Maybe. We’ll give you a try and see how you do. I don’t suppose you’ve anywhere to stay. Take her up to the attic and find her a bed, Laverty. Then she’ll have to get a decent gown. Show her where to go and charge it to me. I like my girls to look smart. You can pay me back out of your earnings.’
The last remark was addressed to Kitty, who knew she looked anything but smart. Grandma had bought her dark grey gown when she first joined the boxing booth and she’d worn it ever since. It was faded by now.
To her surprise she found that not only was Laverty, the footman, going to tell her where to buy a gown but he intended to accompany her. He was still wearing his livery as they walked out into the street and everyone they met seemed to know him, nodding and exchanging greetings as they went along.
They did not have far to go and soon stopped in front of a large shop in which gowns were displayed in the window. Laverty pointed at one of lavender silk and said, ‘That’d suit you. Just your colour, dear.’
He had a funny, lisping way of speaking that amused Kitty.
‘I like brighter colours myself,’ she said but he shook his head vehemently. ‘Oh no, not with that hair. Take it from me, dear, lavender or pale blue, leaf-green or primrose-yellow. Madame will send anything else back. Pale colours are more discreet, not so tarty.’
‘Oh, all right. Will I go in and try it on? asked Kitty.
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Laverty.
‘You don’t have to,’ she protested, flustered by the idea of parading before him in her petticoat, which she was sure would not come up to his standards.
He grasped her elbow and said with a laugh, ‘Don’t worry about me. If the Venus de Milo walked in stark naked, I wouldn’t even twitch. The Boy David, though, that’s a different matter!’
They bought the lavender dress, which did suit Kitty very well. It had a bustle at the back like the gown Mrs White had been wearing, and Kitty loved herself in it, turning to and fro in front of the long mirror, admiring the way it made her look tall and elegant.
Laverty sat watching with an amused smile on his face. ‘The sparrow turns into a peacock, eh?’ he said. ‘I wonder how long it’s going to be before some customer snatches you up from under Madame’s nose. The good ones always go quickly.’
Kitty frowned at him in the mirror. ‘Nobody’s going to snatch me unless I want to be snatched, I can assure you of that.’
‘Ha ha,’ said Laverty. ‘Just you watch out for those little men then. There’s nothing so dangerous as tough little men and you’re going to meet plenty of them at Mrs White’s.’
The rustling parcel under her arm, which she would not allow Laverty to carry, gave her a thrill of excitement. Sophia’s mynah had hit the spot when it pinpointed Kitty’s weakness for fine clothes because after her ragged childhood, it was an indescribable thrill to have a new dress, and not a hand-me-down. She could have danced along the Whitechapel pavement, for she felt sure that another adventure was about to happen, and she knew that she could look after herself whatever it was that Fate threw at her.
‘What exactly is the Excelsior Club?’ she asked Laverty as they strolled past busy shops selling everything from fruit to lengths of lovely materials.
He looked at her with arched eyebrows. ‘You mean to say you came to Madame’s and don’t know that?’
‘Her sisters sent me.’
‘Oh them. They’re the only people Madame’s frightened of. That explains this. I was wondering why she was so keen to spend money on you…’ he said, rapping the parcel with his knuckles. ‘She’ll look after you if you’re from them. You’re not a member of the family, are you?’
‘Adopted,’ said Kitty shortly, recognising that Grandma’s influence was worth a lot even in Whitechapel.
‘And they didn’t tell you about the club?’ asked Laverty.
‘They didn’t have time. A boxer was after me and they got me away as quick as they could.’ This seemed quite ordinary to Laverty, who nodded.
‘Those boxers are the very devil. Did he get you?’ he said slightly enviously.
‘Of course not! What happens at the club?’ persisted Kitty.
He laughed. ‘What doesn’t happen at the club! Seriously, it’s a bathhouse for London’s sporting men, especially jockeys who have to lose weight fast. They come in and sweat in our hot rooms, have a massage, drink champagne and play cards or spend time with the girls. We’re the best bathhouse in London. We get all the big names. You’ve heard of Freddy Farrell? He’s a regular with us.’
Kitty shook her head. She’d never heard of Freddy Farrell and Laverty was shocked.
‘Where have you been? Freddy Farrell’s the Prince of Wales’s favourite jockey! He’s won forty races this season already. And we get more than Freddy, we get all the others as well – Sam Malone, Tom Titmarsh, Tod Anson, the American jockey. And because they come, we get the nobs too. Madame Cora’s place is famous.’
‘It’s not a brothel, is it?’ She’d soon find some other way of earning a living if it was.
Laverty pursed his mouth. ‘’Course it’s not. Nothing sordid like that. It’s a bathhouse, like I told you, a men’s club, but some of them like girls – though some don’t, I’m glad to say – and Madame makes sure that the girls working in the house are all eye-catchers. They carry the drinks around, things like that but all the massaging and soaping’s done by men. Very proper. The girls make their own arrangements with clients. They pick and choose… and some of them move on to comfortable berths, I can tell you. We’ve had three married into the gentry and another’s set up in Curzon Street earning a fortune. If you don’t know about Freddy Farrell, I don’t suppose you’ll ever have heard of Lucy Beresford?’
Kitty shook her head and expressed suitable amazement when told that it cost five hundred pounds a night to be entertained by Lucy, who, said Laverty, had spent six months learning how to be a lady at Madame Cora’s when she was fifteen years old and still a hoyden from the haysheds of Newmarket racing stables where her father worked. One of Cora’s jockeys brought Lucy to London with him.
‘She comes back to see us now and again,’ he said proudly. ‘She’s not got too grand though dukes and lords are running after her. The Duke of Allandale and Lord Godolphin pay court to her now and you can’t go much higher than that, can you?’
Kitty kept quiet about the fact that these were names she did know. Lord Godolphin of Bella Vista with the beautiful dark-haired wife, and the Duke, the greatest man of Camptounfoot and Rosewell! She could hardly believe what she was hearing. How Tibbie and her cronies in Camptounfoot would love that bit of gossip.
The more she heard about the Excelsior Club, the more she thought it would be amusing to be there for a while, at least till she found her feet in this exciting city. Next she went to a bank and deposited her bag of silver, which she was surprised to find amounted to nine pounds and eight shillings. Madame Cora had given her a bed in an attic with three other girls and she did not think it safe to keep her money there. The knife and the gold she always carried with her.
Then she wrote to Tibbie to tell her where she was, but asked her to keep the information to herself. Into the letter she slipped a money order for five pounds.
‘I want you to keep this money for my mother and give it to her bit by bit. Not all at once because
she’ll either waste it or give it to Big Lily. She must have had her baby by now and she’ll need things for it. I hope it’s not being brought up in rags the way I was. Buy what’s needed from this money and when I can, I’ll send you more. If you have a moment, perhaps you could write and give me news of my mother. I think of her often. I also think of you and Marie and send you both my love,’ she wrote.
Chapter Fourteen
When the letter arrived from London, Tibbie was very excited because it was the first definite news of Kitty. It was a relief to find out that she was not dead but living in Whitechapel and thriving sufficiently to send money orders to Scotland.
Kitty will always bob back up, she thought. It would not be kind to let Wee Lily go on thinking her daughter was dead but on the other hand, if Big Lily heard about the money she would certainly demand it.
The money order lay fresh and crisp in the fold of paper. It would certainly come in useful, for since the birth of her baby son Wee Lily had been sunk in lethargy and depression, and it fell to Big Lily or any kindly neighbour to tend to the child, who looked like being even more neglected than Kitty had been, if such a thing was possible.
With a pensive expression Tibbie folded up the note and wondered what was most needed in the bothy. It would soon be winter and the baby had no warm clothes. Wee Lily carried him wrapped in her shawl but often put him down under a hedge and forgot to go back for him. Unless someone looked after him he was in danger of dying of exposure.
She decided to lay out some money by employing a lassie from the village to act as nursemaid to carry the baby around and remind his mother when it was time to suckle him. He was a big, lusty child who made a terrible howling din when he was hungry, so he obviously had the will to live.
She went in search of Wee Lily, whom she found half-heartedly searching the hedgerow for eggs from stray laying hens. The baby was tied to her back with her shawl and he was crying, his face purple with rage. Wee Lily did not seem to hear him, though his screams were being vented right beside her ear.
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