In Love and War (7 page)

Elsie rose to her feet. ‘I've nowhere to stay. I'm afraid I've wasted your time.' She was about to leave the room but Charlotte barred her way.

‘Sit down before you fall down. You're as white as a sheet.' She opened the office door. ‘Rosemary, bring us two cups of tea, there's a good chap.' She guided Elsie to the nearest chair. ‘When did you last eat?'

‘Breakfast, I think. Yes, it was breakfast.'

‘And it's now five o'clock. How do you expect to look after refugees if you can't take care of yourself?' Charlotte perched on the edge of her desk, swinging a booted foot and puffing on her cigarette. ‘How old are you, Elsie?'

‘I'm twenty-one, Miss Greenway.'

‘That's something. I thought for a moment you might still be a minor. You look very young, and you're newly arrived from the country. Do you have any friends in London?'

Elsie thought of Marianne but abandoned the idea. She shook her head. ‘No.'

‘And you have nowhere to stay?'

‘No. I was hoping to find a hostel somewhere. Mr Soames said there were such places for working girls.'

‘And who is Mr Soames?'

‘He's the butler at Darcy Hall, where I was employed in the kitchens, although I'm a trained lady's maid.'

Charlotte looked up as the door opened and Rosemary walked in carrying two tin mugs of tea. She placed them on the desk. ‘Is there anything else, Charlie?'

‘Not unless you've got any biscuits out there. I think Miss Mead is in need of a little sustenance.'

Rosemary shot a curious glance at Elsie. ‘I think there are a couple of ginger nuts in the tin. Will they do?'

‘Capital. Bring them in, old thing, and then you'd better pack up for the day. You were here before I was this morning.'

‘Thanks, Charlie.' Rosemary winked at Elsie as she left the room, returning seconds later with three ginger nuts on a chipped saucer. ‘You can see that we don't waste money on fine china, Miss Mead.'

Elsie managed a weary smile as she took a biscuit. ‘Thank you.'

‘You look done in, if you don't mind me saying so,' Rosemary said, frowning. ‘Have you come far?'

Charlotte took the saucer from her and laid it on her desk. ‘Miss Mead has nowhere to stay. Have we got any addresses she might try? Most of the lodging houses will be full but she might be lucky.'

‘It's all right,' Elsie said hastily. ‘I don't want to put you to any trouble.'

‘Have you got enough money to pay for a bed and a hot meal?'

‘I don't know why, but I thought it would be provided. I realise I was wrong, but I thought a charity would look after its staff.'

Rosemary chortled with laughter. ‘You are fresh from the country, aren't you, Elsie? This is London, my love. Everything costs and most of the ladies who work here are bored rich women who normally wouldn't get out of bed until midday. I'm the exception but I'm an out of work actress and they do pay me a measly few bob for the privilege of being involved in a good cause.'

‘Rosemary is paid from the amenities fund, as you will be should you decide to stay. We're very short of helpers who are fluent in any language but their own, and I can't afford to send you back to Dorset.' Charlotte stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Come on, Rosie. Surely you must know of a place nearby where Elsie could get a bed for the night?'

‘You can come home with me,' Rosemary said with a cheerful grin. ‘I rent an attic room in Crawford Street. It's not exactly Buckingham Palace but it's clean and dry. Breakfast and supper are included in the rent. Mrs Crabtree isn't the world's best cook but I've a good supply of milk of magnesia.'

Elsie looked from one to the other, receiving a nod and a smile from Charlotte. ‘Rosie has an impish sense of humour, but she'll look after you. Go with her now, Elsie, we'll have another chat in the morning.' She reached for another cigarette. ‘I'll see you both at eight o'clock sharp. There's another trainload of refugees to meet at Victoria station at nine and we need to be there early.'

It was raining outside and Rosemary had a brief struggle to unfurl her umbrella, half of which hung limply like a broken arm. She set off along Baker Street at the quick pace which Elsie had come to recognise as the London walk. Everyone here seemed to be in a tearing hurry to be somewhere else. Their legs worked like pistons as they marched, heads down, towards the tube stations, while others came to a sudden halt at bus stops, tagging on to the end of long queues.

‘We'll walk,' Rosemary said firmly. ‘It's not far and most of the buses have been commandeered to transport the troops, so the ones that are left are infrequent and overcrowded.'

Elsie was too tired to comment and it took all her concentration to keep up with Rosemary's long strides. The rain trickled off the idly flapping part of the umbrella, soaking the woollen hat that her mother had knitted before the disease consumed her fragile body. Rosemary ploughed on, crossing roads and weaving her way between the traffic with blatant disregard for the danger. Elsie was at once impressed and terrified as the horns of the motor cars blasted in her ears and the shouts of the carters and cabbies merged into an irate chorus.

‘Clay Street,' Rosemary said breathlessly. ‘We're almost there.'

Elsie's spirits rose as they hurried along Crawford Street. The terraced Georgian houses were well kept and prosperous-looking with an air of quiet respectability, but Rosemary took a turning on the left and they were in a different world. Clay Street was a narrow thoroughfare lined with a mixture of mews cottages, workshops and four-storey buildings of indeterminate age and no particular architectural style. There was a gas lamp at each end of the road, but in between was a pool of damp darkness. Rosemary seemed undeterred and she marched up to one of the taller buildings and knocked on the door. ‘Mrs Crabtree doesn't allow us to have a house key,' she said cheerfully. ‘But there's always someone who will let me in.' She let down her umbrella and gave it a vigorous shake. ‘Someone's coming.'

The door creaked as it opened and they were admitted by a small woman wearing an old-fashioned black bombazine dress. Her grey hair was scraped back into an uncompromising bun, skewered with what looked like a pair of knitting needles. Elsie did not like to stare. ‘Who's this, Miss Brown?'

‘A friend, Mrs Crabtree. She needs a bed for the night.'

‘I got no spare rooms, Miss Brown. You know that as well as the next person.' She stared pointedly at Elsie's suitcase. ‘Can't take in no one. Full up.'

‘She can sleep on the sofa in my room, Mrs Crabtree. Just for tonight. Miss Mead is new to London and has nowhere else to go.'

‘It'll cost you two shillings and that includes supper and breakfast. I can't say fairer than that.'

Elsie was about to protest that Mr Soames had told her she could get a week's lodging for three and six, but Rosemary sent her a warning glance. ‘Thank you, Mrs Crabtree. I'm sure that's agreeable, isn't it, Elsie?'

The front door was still open and she could hear the rain beating down on the pavement, and somewhere along the street a gutter was overflowing. Elsie shivered and nodded her head. ‘Yes, that's fine, thank you.'

‘Well shut the front door then,' Mrs Crabtree said irritably. ‘You're letting the damp in and the heat out.' She stomped off along a narrow passageway, disappearing into the dark.

Elsie closed the door. ‘It seems a bit expensive to me, Rosemary.'

‘This is London, love. You can't afford to be too fussy and there's a war on. Accommodation is hard to find, as you'll discover when you have to help the Belgian refugees. I'd say that's the hardest part of the job, but we do our best. Follow me. It's a bit of a climb but we're young and healthy.' She headed for the stairs and Elsie followed her.

The top landing was narrow and uncarpeted. Their footsteps echoed off the sloping ceiling and they were in almost complete darkness. A small roof window was encrusted with soot and bird droppings and it leaked, but Rosemary did not seem to notice and she walked to the end door, unlocked it and went inside, beckoning to Elsie. ‘This is it. Home sweet home.' She lit a gas mantle and it fizzed and popped, sending out a dull yellow light and leaving a distinct odour hanging like mist in the stuffy atmosphere. Propping her wet umbrella up against the wall, she took off her outer garments, tossing them over the back of a chair. ‘Make yourself at home, Elsie.' She went down on her hands and knees in front of a small cast-iron fireplace and struck a match, setting light to the twists of paper and kindling. ‘It's not too cold, but I do love a fire in the evening. It's extravagant, I know, and it's hard work carting coal up from the cellar, but it's my one bit of comfort and I refuse to do without it, even though old Crabtree charges me twice what it costs her to buy the coal. She's a tight-fisted old skinflint.' She sat back on her haunches watching the flames lick up the chimney. ‘Supper is at six sharp, so we have to be downstairs a bit earlier or we won't get a seat at the main table. If we have to sit by the window we get the leftovers, and they're always cold.'

Elsie took off her wet garments and copied Rosemary by hanging them over the back of the second of the two kitchen chairs set around the small pine table. She glanced around the room, which appeared to have been furnished from second-hand shops and auction sales. Nothing matched, and the single bed had one leg propped up on a brick. Rosemary's clothes hung on what looked like a washing line strung between two beams and the only other furniture was a chest of drawers and a sofa that sagged in the middle, and was draped with an old patchwork quilt. ‘It's very kind of you to put me up like this,' she murmured, wondering how Rosemary could bear to live in such a dingy, colourless room.

‘I'm glad of the company.' Rosemary leaned forward to pick lumps of coal from the scuttle with a pair of tongs. ‘And to tell the truth I was a bit like you when I first came to London.'

‘Where did you live before you came here?' Elsie moved to the sofa and sat down.

‘I grew up in Essex. We had a nice place in Leytonstone, but then my father was painting a house and the scaffolding broke. He died a week later in hospital.'

‘I'm so sorry. That's dreadful.'

Rosemary nodded. ‘It was such a blow, and then a year later my mother remarried. I tried to like Albert but we just didn't get along, and then one day when Mum was out he . . .' Rosemary broke off, taking a deep breath. ‘Well, he behaved towards me in a way that wasn't how a stepfather should treat his daughter.'

‘What did you do then?'

‘I slapped his face and I told Mum, but she didn't believe me, and he was a good liar. I packed a bag that night and went to stay with my gran in Walthamstow. She paid for me to learn shorthand and typing, but then last year she died and I was all alone. I applied for a job in a law office in Lincoln's Inn and that's where I met Charlie. She's a qualified solicitor, but she gave it up at the outbreak of war and joined the Women's Emergency Corps.'

‘She gave up a well-paid job?'

‘She has independent means. Her father is a High Court judge and her mother is a member of the Women's Social and Political Union. Charlie talks about the Pankhursts as though they were part of her family, but she's a brick and I'd do anything for her.' Rosemary piled more coal on the fire and stood up, shaking out her skirts. She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Look at the time. I'd better show you where the bathroom is. I hope you brought a towel with you; Mrs C doesn't supply linen. Then we should get down to the dining room before the travelling salesmen get there. You'd think they hadn't eaten for days the way they shove food into their mouths, and then there are the permanent lodgers, they're even worse. You have to be quick here – it's boarding house reach, as my mum used to say.' She hurried to the door and held it open. ‘Come on, Elsie. This will be an experience you won't forget in a hurry.'

The bathroom was on the first floor and there was a separate lavatory next door. ‘Mrs C is proud of her bathroom,' Rosemary said, chuckling. ‘The enamel's worn off inside the bath and it scrapes your bottom when you sit down, so be careful. Oh, and there's only hot water first thing in the morning and early in the evening, so you've got to be quick if you want a warm bath. There's always a queue, so you have to judge your timing as this is the one and only bathroom. There's another lavatory in the back yard if you're desperate.'

‘We had a zinc tub in front of the fire at home,' Elsie said, smiling. ‘And the privy was in a little shed built over a stream. You can imagine the rest.'

‘C'mon,' Rosemary said, tugging at her hand. ‘Let's get to the dining room before the men. It's stew with sinkers.'

‘Sinkers? What are they?'

‘Dumplings, but when Mrs C makes them they really are sinkers. They're heavy and floury but they're filling, so eat as many as you can because there's precious little meat in the stew and not too many vegetables either.'

The sinkers lay heavily in Elsie's stomach, but she managed to get some sleep on the lumpy sofa, even though the springs stuck into her each time she moved. She awakened to find Rosemary up and dressed. ‘If you hurry you might get to the bathroom before the others,' she said cheerfully. ‘They're a lazy lot and lie in bed until the last moment.'

Wearing a borrowed bathrobe, Elsie raced downstairs to the first floor and just managed to slip into the bathroom before a sleepy-looking middle-aged man who complained loudly as he stood outside the door. She gave him an apologetic smile when she emerged, having had a strip wash in tepid water. He muttered something under his breath and slammed the door. ‘I'll get up earlier tomorrow,' she murmured as she went upstairs. She paused when she reached the top landing, wondering if she could start work and find alternative accommodation at the same time.