The Doorstep Girls Read online

  He knew that wasn’t true, but knew better than to argue with her. He sighed and went across to the bed where Freddie was sleeping. ‘He seems easier,’ he said. ‘Looks a better colour. What about Bessie? What did ’quack say about her?’

  ‘Nowt much,’ she said quietly. ‘Onny that she’s dying and was tekking strength from Freddie.’

  Bob glanced at her and moved across to look down at Bessie. Then he knelt at the side of the mattress and put his hand against her face. ‘Gone,’ he whispered. ‘She’s gone.’

  He stood up and gave a shudder. Lizzie came over and stood next to him. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked softly. ‘I’d never have thought she’d go quietly! She was breathing when Ruby was here.’

  ‘She’s not breathing now.’ He bent his head and gave a deep sigh. ‘Poor Bessie.’ His voice cracked and she put her hand on his arm.

  ‘Aye, poor lass,’ she murmured.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘It was a long time ago and I’ve never really said that I was sorry for ’grief I gave you over Bessie.’ He put his arms around her. ‘But I never would have left you, Lizzie. It was just – just a time of madness, that’s all.’

  She leant her head on his chest and sighed and didn’t see the glisten as he blinked his eyes. ‘It’s all right,’ she said softly. ‘It’s all forgotten now.’

  The carriage drew up by the Vittoria Hotel and Grace and Martin got out and walked by the riverside. ‘It would be a good opportunity for you, Grace,’ Martin persuaded after hearing all her reasons why she shouldn’t take up Miss Morris’s offer.

  ‘But I have no education, Mr Newmarch,’ she cautioned. ‘How could I possibly help her? I’m completely ignorant on so many subjects.’

  ‘You can read and write and have a good mental understanding, and if I recall,’ he said, ‘in her letter, Miss Morris said that she would help you to improve on any skills which you might think you were lacking. Believe me,’ he insisted, ‘Miss Morris would not have asked you if she thought for one moment that you were not able to do whatever it is she asks of you. She does not suffer fools gladly.’

  ‘No,’ Grace reluctantly agreed as she remembered Miss Morris’s formidable manner. ‘That I can believe. But Wakefield is a long way from home,’ she added weakly. ‘And I don’t know what Ma and Da would say about it.’

  He turned to her. ‘How old are you, Grace?’

  ‘Nearly seventeen, sir.’ She looked across at the Vittoria. ‘Last year, me and Ruby celebrated our sixteenth birthdays with Daniel. He bought a glass of ale at ’Vittoria which we all shared. We said that it was ’best birthday we’d ever had.’ She sighed. ‘We were all so happy and excited at being grown-up. We didn’t know what ’year would bring.’

  ‘What did it bring?’ he asked, watching her closely. ‘And who is Daniel?’

  ‘Ruby and me lost our jobs at ’mill and couldn’t get any work. I went to Dock Green and spoke about injustice.’ She bit her lips together. ‘Ruby’s ma sold Freddie to ’chimney sweep. My ma hurt her back and couldn’t work. Then Ruby had to –’ she paused. ‘Well, you know – and Daniel, he had to give up his apprenticeship and go to sea to earn money.’ She gave a fleeting smile. ‘He should be home soon. He said he would try to get back in time for our next birthdays.’

  ‘He’s a friend, then? This Daniel?’

  ‘Yes. A good friend.’ She nodded vaguely, her mind preoccupied. ‘But in spite of everything, not having any work or money, I’m glad that I’ve been to those other towns, and seen how it isn’t only us that’s suffering. Other folks are deprived just ’same. Even worse, some of them, like that poor, wretched woman and her young son who had been down ’mine.’

  She hadn’t been able to get her and the boy out of her head. ‘God bless you, Miss Grace,’ the woman had said. ‘Do what you can for others like him.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it, Grace?’ he asked quietly. ‘Are you going to let them go on suffering?’

  She turned to him and stared. Was he reading her thoughts? ‘Me? What can I do? I’ve no power to help them. I’m just a nobody. I don’t know any important people.’ She continued to gaze at him. His eyes are such a deep brown, she thought. Unfathomable. It’s not possible to know what he’s thinking.

  ‘But you do, Mr Newmarch,’ she said boldly. ‘You know all ’right people. You could talk to them, tell them what’s happening.’

  ‘I can,’ he agreed. ‘And so can you. You’re seventeen. A woman. Go to Miss Morris. Complete your education. Then you can tell those in power, as other men and women are doing, just what is happening, and you can relate from your own experiences and those of the people close to you.’

  She felt weak with emotion. She wanted to, she hated the injustice of what was happening around her. But could she do it? Did she have the courage?

  ‘How would I live?’ she wavered. ‘I couldn’t expect Miss Morris to keep me for nothing.’

  ‘I think you would find that Miss Morris would be prepared to keep you in return for your services.’ His eyes were suddenly lively. ‘She might even be prepared to pay you a small salary.’

  ‘Oh!’ Her doubts were crumbling, yet she still felt unsure of her own ability.

  ‘Tell me, Grace,’ he asked, ‘why did you speak at Dock Green? Why did you deliberately take your stool, walk there on that miserable day, and stand up to speak?’

  ‘Cos I was angry,’ she said.

  ‘Are you not angry now?’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘But I’m also very tired, and I don’t think I’ve got ’energy to do it now.’

  For a moment, alarm showed on his face, then he took her arm and said, ‘I missed my midday meal today and I’m quite hungry. What would you say if I suggested we go into the Vittoria and have a pot of chocolate and a slice of cake, and continue our discussion in there?’

  She had no option but to comply as he was steering her in that direction, and besides she was feeling faint and needed to sit down. She had had only a slice of bread this morning, and now, with the worry of Miss Morris’s request, she felt quite light-headed.

  There were few people in the hotel, and they were shown to a table by the window where they could see out to the Humber. Martin ordered a pot of chocolate for Grace and a glass of ale for himself. He also asked for fresh bread and slices of beef and ham, to be followed by apple tart and cheese.

  ‘Eat up,’ he said as Grace hesitated. ‘I can’t eat all of this myself.’

  ‘Erm – Mr Newmarch. I have to ask you something.’ She blushed and lowered her eyes. ‘I hope that you won’t take offence at what I’m going to say, but I –’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Tears gathered in her eyes.

  ‘What is it?’ he said in concern. ‘You can speak of what’s troubling you. I promise I won’t be offended.’

  ‘It’s just that –’ She didn’t dare look at him but kept her eyes firmly on the table. ‘When Ruby went to meet your brother, he brought her here to ’Vittoria and gave her food such as she’d never seen in her life before, and then, and then –’

  She looked up and saw his lips twitch momentarily.

  ‘Ah!’ he said gravely. ‘And you thought that maybe I – had the same evil intentions?’ Damn, he thought as he saw doubt and confusion written on her face. ‘Grace, I have done you a great disservice and I apologize profusely.’

  Her eyes widened and her lips parted in dismay. So was that his intention after all?

  ‘I should not have brought you here. I am so very sorry! I don’t know what I was thinking of.’ He banged his forehead with his fist and gave a vexed exclamation. ‘A gentleman should never bring a young lady to such an establishment on her own. It is quite unthinkable. To meet you and a friend by chance in the foyer and invite you to partake of refreshment, is of course a different matter entirely. But to invite you particularly and alone, well, of course you would gain the wrong impression!’

  She opened her mouth to say something, but he continued, still bea
ting his head with his fist. ‘Good heavens! If it had been Miss Gregory or Miss Emerson, why – they would be either drawing up a marriage contract or informing the world I am a philanderer!’

  ‘Oh, but I never meant –’ She blushed even more and he thought how pretty she looked with colour in her cheeks. ‘It was just with Ruby –’

  He gave up teasing her, for he saw that she thought he was quite serious. ‘It was different for Edward and Ruby,’ he said gravely. ‘Quite different, and you have nothing to fear from me.’

  ‘I did know, really,’ she confessed. ‘But I’m onny used to plain speaking.’ She gave a sudden shy laugh. ‘And as for making up a marriage contract! Well, we both know that couldn’t happen!’

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I suppose we do.’ He leant towards her. ‘But perhaps we can be friends? Like you and Daniel?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She began to toy with her fork on the plate. ‘Daniel’s ’same as me and Ruby. We’re different from you, Mr Newmarch.’

  ‘I see.’ He sounded disappointed. ‘But that shouldn’t preclude us from being friends, should it? Or is Daniel special to you? Perhaps he wouldn’t approve?’ He watched her closely as he waited for her answer.

  She broke a piece of bread and started to nibble at it. ‘Ruby said –’ She lowered her eyes and gave a self-conscious smile. ‘Ruby says he’s sweet on me, but I don’t know about that.’

  ‘I’m sure that he is.’ He took a long drink from his glass and returned the smile. ‘Who wouldn’t be, Grace? Who wouldn’t be!’

  She walked slowly down the alley towards Middle Court, leaving Martin Newmarch with the promise that she would give serious thought to Miss Morris’s offer and discuss it with her parents. She felt quite bloated, as Mr Newmarch had insisted that she ate up heartily, whilst he only nibbled sparingly in spite of previously saying that he was hungry. I should have kept some of that beef for Da, she thought. I could have hidden it in my pocket if I’d thought of it.

  A woman was coming from their door and Grace looked at her curiously. She was wearing a long white pinafore over her black dress, with a black shawl over her head. Grace didn’t recognize her and wondered who she was and what she was doing there. The woman nodded and murmured something, then scurried away up the alley.

  ‘Who was that?’ she asked as she went in, and then stopped. Bessie was back in the big bed with Ruby kneeling at the side of it. Freddie was on the mattress on the floor and her mother was sitting by the fire staring into the flames. ‘What’s happened, Ruby?’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Your ma?’

  ‘Dead!’ Ruby said hoarsely. ‘At last. I’ve been expecting it for so long and now it’s come I can scarcely believe it.’

  Grace knelt at the side of Ruby. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured and glanced at the serene Bessie, with her wild hair combed and smooth. ‘But she’s at peace now.’

  ‘It shouldn’t have happened,’ Ruby said fiercely. ‘She brought it on herself. Laudanum’s been ’death of her. She couldn’t stop.’ She rose from her knees, her eyes red and swollen. ‘And I’m going to find Jamie. He’s got a lot to answer for.’

  Lizzie looked up and spoke in a low voice. ‘He has, but he was onny giving her what she was craving. If she hadn’t got it from him she’d have got it from somebody else. Your ma started wi’ laudanum afore you were born, Ruby, so you can’t blame Jamie. She took it to forget her troubles. To make life seem better than it was. Your father took it; they took it together, and then when he left it was ’onny thing that gave her any comfort, well –’ She turned her head away and sighed. ‘Most onny thing, anyway.’

  ‘But Jamie hit her!’ Ruby wept. ‘He wanted to find out about me and Edward, to make trouble so that Edward would leave me and I’d go on ’streets like Jamie wants me to.’

  I can’t bear this, Grace brooded. There’s got to be something better than this life. ‘Where’s Da?’ she asked. ‘I want to talk to him.’ She couldn’t talk to her mother with Ruby there, not when her friend was in such an irrational state. She had to handle things carefully, for Ruby would be sure to think that Grace was abandoning her if she told her she was thinking of going away.

  ‘He went out when ’woman came to see to Bessie,’ her mother said quietly. ‘He’s probably gone for a glass of ale.’

  ‘I won’t be long, Ruby. I have to ask Da something. Why don’t you lie down and have a rest next to Freddie?’ Grace suggested. ‘He’s going to depend on you now.’

  A worried look replaced the misery in Ruby’s eyes. ‘Aye, he is. But where will he live if I’m to stay with Edward? He’ll not want him at Wright Street, that’s for sure.’

  Grace tracked her father down at a nearby inn, one where Bessie had been a frequent drinker. But he wasn’t drinking, he was going amongst the crowd with his hat in his hand, collecting money for a grave at the new General Cemetery for Bessie. ‘Come on!’ He shook the hat at tardy people who were unwilling to put their hands in their pockets. ‘Bessie’s entertained all of you often enough. You can surely spare a copper to put her in a decent grave. Trinity’s full up and so is St Mary’s.’

  ‘Here.’ A man put sixpence in the hat. ‘I heard as they’ve shut all Hull graveyards. They’re that full that folks is laid on top o’ strangers wi’ just a shovelful of earth on top of ’em.’

  Grace shuddered and screwed up her face at the thought. It was true that there was a dreadful stench near the Holy Trinity churchyard because bodies were not dug in deep enough, and most people avoided walking too near for fear of what they might see.

  ‘Is all finished at home?’ her father muttered. ‘Has laying-out woman gone?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘You can come home if you want to.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not yet. I’ll go to some of ’other hostelries first. Besides,’ he added, ‘I’ll not sleep tonight. Not wi’ Bessie lying there.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, Da. I need to talk to you.’ She looked up at him and thought how thin and grey he was. ‘I’m thinking of leaving home.’

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The next day a constant stream of neighbours and acquaintances came to pay their respects to Bessie. She had been well known in the district and people were genuinely sorry that she had died. Lizzie allowed some of the more disreputable characters to stay only a few minutes to view Bessie and murmur their condolences, and then firmly showed them to the door. ‘Funeral’s tomorrow,’ she said. ‘You can follow ’coffin if you’ve a mind to.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you, Aunt Lizzie,’ Ruby wept. ‘For you to let her stay here –’

  ‘She could hardly have stopped at home,’ Lizzie said ironically. ‘Not with ’Blakes living in your house. Besides,’ she murmured, ‘I owe it to Bessie. We were friends once. Now then.’ She became very brisk. ‘Go swill your face under ’pump and get off to Wright Street. You’ve got your future to think of, and it’s not here.’

  Ruby stared at her. ‘But’, she said brokenly, ‘you don’t approve of how I’m living, and neither does Mr Sheppard.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Lizzie was frank with her. ‘But I can’t think of any other way out of this hellhole. Go and see your gentleman, see if ’rumours have reached his wife.’ She shook her head. ‘Them grand folks do things different from us and it might not matter to them, but you need to know.’

  ‘What about Freddie?’ Ruby asked huskily, starting to cry again.

  ‘He can’t be moved anywhere yet.’ Lizzie glanced at the mattress where the boy was sleeping peacefully. ‘We’ll think about what to do wi’ Freddie when he’s better.’

  The rumours had reached May Newmarch. They had been circulating first in the kitchen and then been passed to the housemaids, and then to May’s personal maid Dora, who whispered discreetly to another who attended a friend of May’s. This friend, on learning of it, slyly suggested to May that if her husband was philandering with a mistress, she herself should take a lover with whom she could flirt and wh
o would bring her flowers and trinkets.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ May exclaimed. ‘Edward wouldn’t do that. We are only just married!’

  Her friend smiled and patted her coiffure. ‘I understand he has known her since before your marriage. It is a pity she is common,’ she added. ‘But don’t worry about that,’ she purred. ‘So much better if he keeps to one who will satisfy him completely, and he will not therefore trouble you too often.’

  May was furious and confronted Edward at the first opportunity. ‘How dare you!’ she shrieked. ‘Everyone knows, even the servants. Dora’s cousin worked with her at the mill! I am so humiliated.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, why?’ he retaliated. ‘She is nothing to you. You don’t know her! You’re not likely to meet.’

  ‘Not her!’ she screamed at him. ‘I don’t care about her. It’s you! You married me. I thought you would be happy with me. I didn’t know you would go chasing after some doxy!’

  Edward viewed her with distaste. ‘She is not a doxy,’ he said coldly. ‘She might be poor but she is –’ He paused. She is beautiful and adorable and she makes me laugh with her funny ways, and I never thought that I would fall in love with anyone, but I have. I’ve fallen in love with Ruby. ‘She’s a perfectly respectable young woman,’ he continued.

  ‘And you are using my money, my dowry to keep her!’ she exclaimed, bursting into tears. ‘I thought you loved me, but you don’t, you just needed to be married!’

  Quite true, he pondered. I needed the security of a good marriage, but I didn’t expect this kind of conflict. I would have been better remaining a bachelor, except I didn’t have sufficient money. He sighed a deep sigh. ‘For heaven’s sake, May! What a fuss. Why, what I spend on R—on this girl, wouldn’t keep you in hairpins.’

  She put her hand to her forehead and took a long sniffling breath. ‘I have heard that other men do the same,’ she concurred, ‘but I thought you would be different.’ She blew her nose on a lacy handkerchief. ‘Of course you will always have to hide her away. Because she’s common, isn’t she?’ She toyed with the ribbons in her hair. ‘She would shame you. You couldn’t take her into company. I don’t suppose she can even play the piano or sing!’ She gave him a defiant glance. ‘I suppose she is only good for one thing.’