The Best of Sisters (33 page)

‘Well, now you’ve had your game with me, Mr Miller, I think I’ll be going.’ Eliza rose to her feet and was about to leave when Aaron motioned her to sit down.

‘I have something to say to you that is just between the two of us.’

She hesitated for a moment, but there was too much at stake to allow mere pride to get in the way. She sat down. ‘Well?’

‘Have you wondered why I am investing heavily in the chandlery, Eliza?’

‘I thought that was your business. I’d have been a fool to turn down such an offer.’

Leaning back in his seat, Aaron spoke slowly, never taking his gaze from her face. ‘The night of the fire might have been the first time I ever spoke to you, but I’ve watched you growing up. I would have liked to have had more to do with your upbringing, but Enoch refused to allow me anywhere near you.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Aaron smiled. ‘How could you understand? The reality is that I knew your mother before she met your father.’

The truth struck Eliza like a thunderbolt. ‘You was in love with her?’

‘I was in love with her. When I first laid eyes on Lucy, I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was everything I could have wanted in a woman.’

The mention of her mother’s name cut straight to Eliza’s heart, and her hand automatically went to touch the brooch at the neck of her bodice. For a while she had replaced it with the
delicate lover’s knot that Davy had given her, but when dressing this morning she had opted for the mourning brooch, perhaps as a talisman; she had not given it any thought until this moment. ‘I – I don’t know nothing about her, except what Bart told me. He said she was always smiling; she had golden hair and smelled of violets. But I don’t understand how you knew her. I mean you’re a rich man and my dad was just a waterman.’

‘I wasn’t always rich. Lucy’s father owned the granary where I worked as a clerk. I’ll never forget the first time I met your mother. It was a bitterly cold day in January, and she came into the office like a breath of spring sunshine. Her hair was just like yours, a shining golden halo, and her ringlets bobbed every time she moved her lovely head. She had the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen and they were always laughing. I fell in love with her there and then.’

‘And did she love you?’

Aaron’s face contorted with pain. ‘Yes, she did. To my amazement, the dear girl returned my feelings. I adored her, but I was near penniless, a humble employee, and I hadn’t anything to offer her.’

‘So did you just give up without a fight?’

‘No, I did not. I begged her to run away with me and she agreed. But your grandfather, Harry Henderson, discovered our secret. He sacked me
and he sent Lucy to live in the country with an old aunt.’

‘Didn’t you try to see her?’

‘I had to find work. I couldn’t support myself, let alone a wife, if I was not earning. I was well in with the warehouse manager and he bore a grudge against your grandfather. He took me on again, but this time only as a common labourer. The next thing I knew, Lucy was married and completely out of my reach.’

Eliza was silent for a moment, trying to work things out in her head. ‘But,’ she said slowly, ‘if my grandfather disapproved of someone like you, why would he let her marry a mere waterman?’

‘I wasn’t in his confidence.’ Aaron lowered his gaze, staring at his fingers as they drummed out a nervous tattoo on the desk. ‘Old man Henderson cut Lucy off without a penny. He wouldn’t have anything to do with her after she married, even though she was his only child.’

‘Didn’t her mother try to stop him treating her so bad?’

‘Lucy’s mother died giving birth to her.’ He raised his eyes to her face with a twisted smile. ‘It’s ironic, Eliza, but history seems to have repeated itself. My beautiful Lucy died in childbirth, God rest her soul. I was tempted to make myself known to you after Enoch died, but I could see that you were managing quite well on
your own, and so I simply kept an eye on you and even put a bit of business your way. Maybe I should have come forward earlier, but I think it was my pride that stopped me. It took a fire to bring us together, Eliza.’

‘I can’t take it all in,’ Eliza said, getting to her feet and pacing the floor. ‘It’s not the picture of her that I had in me head.’

‘Your mother was a flesh and blood woman, Eliza. I did love her and I believe I could have made her happy, if only Harry had given me a chance to prove myself.’

‘So how did you do it then?’ Eliza came to a halt in front of the desk. ‘How did you get to be so rich?

Aaron threw back his head and laughed. ‘Practical to the last, Eliza. Well, I’ll tell you; I hated the way old man Henderson had treated Lucy. As I said before, I managed to get work back at Henderson’s warehouse and I set about learning the business from the bottom upwards. When Harry grew too old and feeble to cope any more, I became the manager of the business. I paid myself handsomely and I invested my money. With some luck, and a bit of good judgement, I made a lot of money on the stock market and I bought first one ship and then another. By the time the old man died I was rich enough to buy the granary and the warehouse. The rest you know.’

Eliza stared at him, struggling to comprehend the full implication of his words. Uncle Enoch had always led her to believe that her mother was a woman of no consequence, from a poor background. It was a shock to realise that, had it not been for following her heart, her mother would have inherited a large part of the business that now belonged to Aaron Miller.

‘I’m sorry, Eliza,’ Aaron said softly. ‘This has been a bit of a shock for you.’

She clasped her hands together to stop them trembling. In the echoing, church-like silence of the boardroom, she felt suddenly so close to her mother that she could almost have reached out and touched her. Despite the worldlier picture that Aaron had painted of her, Eliza could not dispel the angelic image that she had cherished for so long in her heart. She raised her eyes to the stained-glass windows, and for a brief moment she thought she saw her mother’s face smiling at her through the shimmering dust motes dancing in the sunbeams. The faint creaking of Aaron’s chair brought her abruptly back to reality, and she turned her head to see that he was watching her with a guarded expression in his dark eyes. ‘I knew so little of my mother. You’ve given me a lot to think about.’

‘I understand.’ Aaron reached behind his chair and tugged on a bell pull. ‘I’ll get Brandon to escort you home.’

‘No, please. I’d rather be alone.’

‘It’s not safe …’

‘Mr Miller, I’ve grown up in Wapping. I can look after myself, ta.’

Aaron rose to his feet, holding out his hand. ‘You do understand why I want to help you, don’t you, Eliza? I loved your mother and I know she would have been proud of you.’

Staring at his workmanlike hand, with its square-tipped fingers, Eliza laid her own small hand in his and, looking up into his face, she managed a wobbly smile. This man had known and loved her mother; he was the only person alive who could bring her close to the young woman who, in giving birth to her, had sacrificed her own life. Eliza curled her fingers round Aaron’s. ‘I understand.’

Outside in the street, Eliza drew a deep breath. Her thoughts were confused by a multitude of conflicting emotions and she needed to be alone. Brandon had been reluctant to allow her to walk home unaccompanied, and was frankly curious as to why his father had wanted to see her, but Eliza had not enlightened him. She had refused his offer to escort her home, or to allow him to send for the coach. She needed to walk, to give herself time to think about Aaron’s revelations, which were surprising and shocking, but had brought her dead mother a little closer. She could
relate only too well to her mother’s agony of grief, having lost the man she truly loved. She could only hope that her mother had found some happiness with her father.

As she neared the solid normality of the chandlery, Eliza could see the builders raising the roof trusses with Arnold and Dan, as usual, working side by side. She stopped for a moment, taking comfort from the sturdy brick walls of the new building that would soon be her place of business. Then she realised that someone else was standing on the pavement, no more than a few yards from her.

For the second time that morning, Eliza received a shock that caused her heart to miss a beat and the world to stand still. She would have recognised that straight profile beneath a silk top hat anywhere. He appeared taller than she remembered; his skin was tanned to the colour of teak, but he didn’t look a day older than when she had last seen him six years ago. Clutching her hand to her throat, Eliza opened her mouth to call his name but no sound came.

‘Freddie?’ His name was wrenched from her lips in an involuntary cry. But was it really Freddie, or a complete stranger who reminded her of him? Was her imagination playing tricks on her? Eliza took a step forward and then stopped.

He turned his head slowly to look at her. His eyes were in deep shadow beneath the brim of his top hat. He was dressed like a gentleman of means, in a coat that was cut to the latest fashion, checked trousers and highly polished leather ankle boots. It seemed to Eliza that everything was happening in slow motion. For a frozen moment in time, it seemed to her that the world had stopped spinning: she held her breath. The hammering of the carpenters beating nails into wood resounded like a drum roll announcing a momentous event.

He was walking towards her so slowly that he might have been wading through the deep, dark waters of the Thames. ‘Freddie?’

He was so near now that they could have reached out and touched fingers. A smile of recognition curved his generous lips and, taking
off his hat, he tossed it high in the air with a whoop of delight. ‘Eliza! By God, it’s my little Liza.’ He caught the hat in one hand and set it on the back of his head, taking her by the shoulders and staring at her in amazement. ‘You’ve grown up, Liza. I can hardly believe it’s you.’

‘Oh, F-Freddie.’ Tears gushed from Eliza’s eyes as if a dam had suddenly burst.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to his chest. ‘There, there, dear girl. There’s no need for tears. I’ve come home.’

‘Here, you. Leave her be!’

Arnold’s angry voice and the sound of his booted feet on the cobbles made Freddie release his hold on Eliza and he put her behind him. ‘Hold on, fellah. I’m a friend.’

‘You ain’t much of a pal to make her cry like that,’ Arnold roared, grabbing Freddie by the collar.

‘No, Arnold, no,’ Eliza cried, in between laughter and tears. She stepped between them, holding Arnold off with the flat of her hands. ‘This is Dr Freddie Prince, you remember him. He used to lodge with Beattie.’

Arnold’s black brows knotted over the bridge of his nose. ‘I remembers him all right. He was the one what got poor Beattie in the family way.’

‘If that were true, then I would be thoroughly ashamed of myself,’ Freddie said, his smile fading. ‘In any event, I would have supported
Beattie and her child if it hadn’t been for circumstances beyond my control.’

Arnold fisted his hands, waving them in front of Freddie’s face like two large York hams. ‘Don’t you use none of your fancy words on me, you – you crocusser. You left Miss Eliza and Beattie to face the world on their own, but they don’t need you now.’

‘Please go back to your work, there’s a good chap.’ Eliza gave him a gentle shove, but his huge bulk remained as static as a stone colossus. ‘Please, Arnold, do as I ask. There’s no need to worry about me.’

He glowered at Freddie as if he would like to give him a good pasting, and then shrugged his shoulders. ‘All right, but you call me if he gets too familiar. I knows his sort.’ He shambled off, hawking and spitting on the road as if to underline his point.

‘He’s right though,’ Freddie said ruefully. ‘I’m all the things he said I was, and an ex-convict into the bargain. But I’m back now and I truly mean to make it up to you and to Beattie.’

Eliza managed a watery smile. ‘You never did nothing wrong to me. As for Beattie, I saw her baby and, unless your dad was a Chinaman, there’s no possibility that you was its father.’

‘I knew that I could not have been the father, but it’s a relief to have it confirmed.’ Pulling a large silk handkerchief from his pocket, Freddie
handed it to Eliza. ‘Dry your eyes, my dear.’

In spite of everything, Eliza found herself chuckling. Happiness was welling up inside her. Freddie had come home. He was here beside her and she wanted to dance up and down and shout for joy. All the suppressed emotion, the longing and the uncertainty as to whether her feelings for him had simply been puppy love had vanished in that first moment of recognition. She buried her face in the soft silk of his handkerchief, and inhaled the scent of him that was so heartrendingly familiar.

‘Let me have a proper look at you.’ Taking her by the shoulders, Freddie held her until she lowered the handkerchief and looked him in the face. As he wiped away the last of her tears with the tips of his fingers, a tender smile played on Freddie’s lips. ‘You’ve grown into a beautiful young lady, Liza. You were little more than a child when I was sent off to the penal colony, and now just look at you.’

There was no mistaking the admiration in his eyes, and Eliza’s heightened senses detected something more. She had seen that flicker of appreciation before; a certain look that men gave her, confirming that she was no longer a child. She lifted her face, longing for him to kiss her on the lips in the way that Brandon had kissed her, but as she glanced up at him beneath her lashes, her heart went cold.

Freddie dropped his hands to his sides with a shadow clouding his eyes, and the moment was lost. Perhaps it had never happened. Eliza searched his face for the answer, but his expression was controlled and unreadable.

‘Well now, my dear Eliza. We’ve six years to catch up on.’ Freddie jerked his head in the direction of the chandlery. ‘I can see that a lot has happened while I’ve been away.’

A cold east wind blew down the street, hurling bits of straw and sawdust into the air. Eliza shivered; the sun was still shining from a translucent blue sky with tiny puffballs of clouds tossed around like playful lambs, but she felt chilled to the bone. He took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. ‘You’re shivering, Liza. Let’s find somewhere nice and warm where we can talk.’