A Mother's Promise (7 page)

She closed her eyes, turning her face up towards the sun. All her problems seemed far away at this moment, until a loud splash and the sound of Sammy screaming brought her back to reality with a jerk. She sat bolt upright, opening her eyes in time to see Tom diving over the side of the boat after Eddie, who had tumbled overboard. ‘Eddie!’ Hetty leaned forward, catching hold of the seat of Sammy’s pants as he hung over the side shrieking his brother’s name. ‘Don’t, Sammy. You’ll fall in too.’

Encouraging shouts were coming from onlookers on the bank, and a man ripped a lifebelt from its stand and tossed it into the water. Hetty covered her mouth with her hands. She could see Tom’s head and his powerful arms slicing through the water, but Eddie had disappeared beneath the surface. She was sick with fear as she leaned over the side of the boat, peering into the lake, but the green depths were murky and filled with gently swaying water weeds. She held her breath as Tom surfaced, but he had not found Eddie. He shook the water from his eyes, gulped in air and dived again. Sammy threw himself into Hetty’s arms, sobbing against her shoulder. She prayed silently to God to save
her little brother. There was a deathly hush as those on the bank watched and waited. The surface of the lake had smoothed to a glassy sheet and the boat drifted aimlessly. The world had stopped turning. She was certain that both Tom and Eddie had been sucked down into the cold depths. She had a horrible vision of them both trapped by the long tendrils of waterweed, their faces upturned towards the light as they slowly drowned.

Then, so suddenly that everyone on the lake-side uttered a loud cheer, Tom’s head broke the surface and he had Eddie in his arms. He reached for the lifebelt and the man on the bank, who had steadfastly held on to the rope, dragged them slowly towards dry land.

Hetty buried her face in Sammy’s soft brown hair and held him close. Sometimes she lost her temper with her small brothers, but at that moment she realised just how much she loved them. ‘Thank you, God,’ she murmured. ‘I swear I’ll never shout at either of you, ever again.’

Sammy drew away from her, wiping his eyes on his sleeve and grinning. ‘Is that a promise, Hetty?’

She hugged him, laughing from sheer relief. ‘It is, but don’t expect me to keep it. ‘She kissed him on the cheek and he pulled away, scrubbing at his face.

‘Eddie will be all right, won’t he, Hetty?”

She had been so relieved to see Eddie saved from the water that it had not occurred to her that his life might still hang in the balance. The boat had drifted a good way from the bank, but she could just see Tom kneeling over Eddie’s inert figure. The crowd had gathered around them, watching in silence as Tom pumped Eddie’s small arms up and down. ‘Breathe, Eddie,’ Hetty shouted. ‘For God’s sake, breathe.’

Afterwards, she was never certain whether she had actually heard Eddie take that crucial gasp of air, and the coughing and spluttering that followed, but she did hear the onlookers’ sigh of relief and the sound of their clapping came to her clearly across the water. ‘He’s going to be all right, Sammy.’ Laughing and crying at the same time, Hetty gave Sammy a hug, but he wriggled free from her grasp, pointing to the oars as they hung uselessly in the rowlocks.

‘Can you row, Hetty?’

She slithered over to the seat that Tom had so recently vacated and gingerly took an oar in each hand. ‘I dunno if I can, Sammy. But I’ll have a bloody good go.’

Sammy’s eyes widened. ‘You swore, Hetty. You said a bad word.’

‘I know I bloody well did,’ Hetty said,
heaving on the oars. ‘But don’t you let me hear you using bad language, my boy. You do as I say, not as I do.’

Sammy chuckled. ‘That’s what Ma used to say. I remember that.’

Hetty managed a smile, although she had just missed her stroke and almost toppled backwards in her seat. She tried again. ‘This might take a while, Sammy. ‘It was not as easy as Tom had made it look. After just a few minutes, Hetty’s arms were aching and her back was in torment as she tried to synchronise her efforts. She realised that they were heading in completely the wrong direction and she attempted to turn the boat, very nearly capsizing them. Then, quite suddenly, and as if by magic, the boat started to move all by itself. The oars barely touched the water and yet they were moving towards the bank and the appreciative crowd of bystanders.

Sammy leaned over the prow to stare into the water. ‘Hetty, it’s Tom. He’s towing us.’

Raising herself on her hands, Hetty could just see the top of Tom’s head as he gripped the painter in his teeth and swam towards the shore. In a matter of minutes they were safe on dry land. Eddie was being comforted by a motherly lady. ‘He had a lucky escape,’ the woman said, smiling as Hetty flung her arms around her little brother. ‘I saw him go
toppling into the water and I thought he was a goner. But that man of yours is a real hero, missis. I’d give him a big kiss if I was you.’ She shuffled off after her husband and four shabbily dressed children.

Tom had taken off his shirt and he was attempting to dry his hair with it, even though the garment was sodden. ‘Well then, Hetty. What are you waiting for?’

The few people who were still standing round staring at them murmured encouragement. ‘Go on, girl,’ said a costermonger in his pearl-studded Sunday finery. ‘Give him a smacker. He deserves it.’

Hetty felt herself blushing and she shook her head.

‘Go on. Don’t be mean,’ shouted the coster’s wife. ‘If I wasn’t a happily married woman, I’d kiss him meself.’

Glancing at Tom beneath her lashes, Hetty felt her heart give a little squeeze as she saw his muscular torso, glistening with droplets of water. She had never seen him bare-chested and she was suddenly ashamed of the feelings it aroused in her. She was about to turn away, but Tom seized her in his arms and kissed her soundly on the lips, much to the approval of those watching. Hetty placed her hands flat on his chest in an attempt to push him away, but the touch of his warm skin slicked with
water was enough to take her breath away. She could feel his heart pounding away like a galloping horse, or was it her own blood hammering in her ears that she could feel through her fingertips? She did not know, but somehow she managed to wriggle free from his grasp. Covering her confusion, she turned to Eddie and swept him up in her arms. ‘You bad, bad boy. Don’t never do nothing like that again. D’you hear me?’ She burst into tears.

Tom put his arm around her shoulders, leading her away from their audience. ‘Come on, boys,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Let’s get your sister home. She’s had a nasty shock, and you, young Eddie, need a change of clothes.’

‘But I ain’t got no change of clothes,’ Eddie whimpered.

Tom chuckled. ‘Well, at least those ones have had a wash. Come on, Hetty, let’s get you home for a nice hot cup of tea. We can’t very well go to the refreshment rooms looking like shipwrecked mariners, now can we?’

‘N-no,’ Hetty said, sniffing. ‘But I’m all right, Tom. Really I am, and I don’t know how to thank you for what you done.’

Tom gave her shoulders a squeeze. ‘Another kiss wouldn’t go amiss.’

‘You’ve got a cheek, Tom Crewe.’

‘Come on, just a little kiss,’ Tom said, stopping in the middle of the pathway and twisting
her round to face him. His dark eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘A little kiss for the hero.’

Hetty met his gaze and once again her heart thudded erratically inside her breast. She realised, in spite of the fact that Sammy was tugging at her sleeve and Eddie was complaining that he was cold, that she actually wanted Tom to kiss her again. The touch of his lips had lit a flame within her and she wanted more. She tossed her head. ‘Certainly not. You’re making a show of us, Tom.’ Her pulses were racing and she could not look him in the eye. She walked off without giving him a chance to reply.

Seemingly no worse for his ordeal, Eddie ran on ahead with Sammy close on his heels. Hetty could hear Tom striding along behind, but she neither slowed down nor turned her head to look at him. She had no time for romance. If you let a bloke get close to you, the outcome was inevitable. Wasn’t Jane a fine example of that?

Tom made no attempt to catch her up, and for a moment Hetty forgot all about him as she stopped behind a crowd that had gathered around a woman who was speaking from a soapbox. Hetty had heard the name of Bryant and May mentioned and she was suddenly curious. Could this be Mrs Besant, the woman who had been interrogating the
girls at the match factory? Tom caught up with her but she brushed off his suggestion that they ought to head off home. ‘Leave me be, Tom. You go on home and get dry. I’ll only be a short while.’

There was something compulsive about Annie Besant’s oratory, and Hetty listened intently to her scathing remarks about unscrupulous employers who put profit before the welfare of their workers. When she had finished speaking, Mrs Besant held up a newspaper. ‘If you wish to learn more about the plight of the matchgirls and their appalling treatment by their bosses, then read my article in
The Link
, which will appear next Saturday, the twenty-third of June. In it you will find all the shocking details of the way in which these women, girls and even children have been exploited.’

‘Come on home, Hetty,’ Tom said softly. ‘Let her talk, but don’t get involved. We can’t afford to listen to well-heeled, middle-class ladies like her. It’s all right to have principles if you’ve got food on the table and the rent money in your pocket. She ain’t got nothing to lose. We have.’

Hetty had almost forgotten his presence, but she knew that he was speaking sense. It was all very well for Mrs Besant to spout off about justice and moral rights, but she wasn’t
dirt poor like the workers in the factory. She turned to him with a reluctant smile and linked her hand through his arm. ‘You’re right, of course, and you’d best get home and into some dry clothes. We can’t have our hero catching pneumonia or the like. What would I do without you, Tom?’ She was rewarded by a broad grin, and she reached up to kiss him on the cheek. ‘You are a hero. I’ll never forget what you done today. Eddie would have drowned if you hadn’t gone in after him, and me and Sammy would have been stuck in the middle of the boating pond until kingdom come.’

Tom fingered a strand of her hair which had escaped from the confines of a bun at the nape of her neck. ‘You are beautiful, Hetty, and I love you.’

‘Don’t talk soft.’

‘But you do like me, don’t you, Hetty?’

‘Of course I do, silly. But I ain’t thinking about love and all that, not for a very long time.’

‘I’ll wait, Hetty. I’ll wait until we’re old and grey if that’s what it takes.’

‘You won’t live to be old and grey unless you get out of them wet duds and into some dry ones. Come on, let’s go home.’

On the following Saturday, Mrs Besant’s article appeared in the newspaper, attacking Bryant
and May for what she dubbed ‘White Slavery in London’. Mrs Besant and a gentleman, who introduced himself as Mr Herbert Burrows, picketed the gates of the factory, distributing the article to the women. On Thursday, 5 July, the workers downed tools and went on strike.

‘How on earth will we manage?’ Jane demanded when Hetty came home on Friday to tell her that there was no work for them today or in the foreseeable future. ‘How will we live without any money coming in?’

‘I dunno, Jane, and that’s the truth.’ Hetty slumped down at the bare kitchen table. ‘We can pay old Clench and I’ve got the one and six for the rent, but that leaves us with about threepence for everything else.’

Jane sank down on a stool, clutching her belly. ‘My baby, my baby. It will die if I don’t eat. We’ll both die.’

‘Nonsense,’ Hetty said with more conviction than she was feeling. ‘We’ll manage, Jane. Mrs Besant said she would try to raise money for us all. She’s organised a meeting on Mile End Waste for Sunday, where she’ll champion our cause. You won’t die, neither will your baby.’

Sammy tugged at Hetty’s apron strings. ‘If there’s no work today, Hetty, can we go out and play?’

Hetty smiled and nodded. ‘Go on then, but
keep out of trouble. Don’t get in no fights with them Dye House Lane kids.’ She watched them racing up the area steps, shouting and laughing as if nothing mattered. ‘They’re the lucky ones, Jane. They don’t have to worry.’

‘Neither do I,’ Jane said with a wobbly smile. ‘My Nat will look after us all. He’ll just have to cough up some of that money he’s been saving for our wedding and the new lodgings. If the worst comes to the worst, we can all live here.’

‘Yes,’ Hetty said doubtfully. ‘Of course.’ She was about to light the fire so that they could have a cup of tea, when she heard heavy footfalls coming down the steps to the front door. Someone hammered on it, calling out urgently. She looked at Jane and they exchanged worried glances. ‘That doesn’t sound like Clench,’ Hetty said, hurrying to open the door.

It was not the tallyman who stood outside, but a stranger whose face and clothes were blackened with soot. He dragged his cap off his head and his knuckles showed white as he clutched it tightly in his hands. ‘Are you Mrs Smith, ma’am?’

‘N-no, but my sister is engaged to Nat Smith.’ The bleak expression in his eyes frightened her, and Hetty stepped outside, closing the door behind her. ‘What is it, man? Tell me.’

‘It’s bad news, miss. Nat, well – there ain’t no easy way to tell you – I’m afraid there’s been an accident at the gasworks, miss. He’s a goner.’

After her initial outpouring of grief, Jane lapsed into a state of prostration, which worried Hetty far more than weeping or hysteria. Jane took to her bed and lay there, staring at the cracks in the ceiling with unseeing eyes. Nothing seemed to rouse her from her semi-comatose state. She would neither eat nor speak, but if Hetty lifted her head she would sip water from a cup like an obedient child. Then she would simply lie back, mute and unreachable in some silent nightmare of her own. Sammy and Eddie moved about the room like two small ghosts, speaking in whispers and tiptoeing around, as if terrified of awakening Jane and hearing those heart-rending sobs that had sounded more like an animal bellowing in pain than the grief of a human being.