The Best of Sisters (41 page)

‘But, Freddie …’

‘You mustn’t concern yourself about me, poppet. Don’t deny me the opportunity to make up for six long years on the other side of the world, when I could do nothing to help you.’

Leaning her elbows on the table, Eliza rested her head in her hands. Her mind was a jumble of confused thoughts. Brandon’s lies and betrayal,
Dolly’s illness, Daisy’s warning to keep her hands off Freddie: their faces and voices merged into a deafening tumult.

‘Is it such a hard decision?’ Freddie’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘You can trust me, Liza. I won’t let any further harm come to you, Dolly or young Millie. I know you think of me as an old man, but I want to look after you, my dear. And you’ll be close to Tommy. Millie will be safe from men like Brandon and …’

Eliza remembered Millie, standing in the bitter cold, holding the horse. She jumped to her feet. ‘I left Millie at the corner of the street. She’ll be soaked to the skin and like as not catch a chill.’

Freddie caught her by the hand. ‘Will you come with me, or not?’

‘Let me go, Freddie.’

He stood up, gripping her hand tightly. ‘Tell me that you’ll accept my offer.’

She met his unwavering gaze with a hitch in her heart. Living in Freddie’s house would be heaven and hell rolled into one. She could still see the rumpled bed in Daisy’s room; the bed that she almost certainly shared with Freddie, and where they performed the act that was supposed to be one of love. Eliza remembered all too clearly the stories told her by the unfortunate girls who worked for Mrs Tubbs, the brothel keeper in Old Gravel Lane. Her recent experience with Brandon was muddled up with the
memory of that day, years ago, when she had gone to Freddie’s room in Anchor Street. She had never been able to forget the spectacle of Beattie’s bare buttocks and bouncing breasts as she straddled Freddie on the bed, or the grunts and groans that they had been emitting, like pigs in Smithfield Market. How could she live in a house where he cohabited with another woman? Freddie was the only man she had ever loved – would ever love. Imagining what went on behind closed bedroom doors, with her own brother’s widow, would be too much to bear.

‘Would it be so terrible to see me every day?’ Freddie’s voice hardened. ‘Or are you secretly in love with that bastard Miller? Is that what has come between us?’

Shocked, Eliza’s eyes flew to his face and she recognised genuine pain. She was about to deny his accusation when Millie burst in through the front door, bringing with her a gust of damp air.

‘I’m soaking wet and chilled to the bone, Liza. Did you forget I was stuck there holding on to that old nag?’ She came to a halt, staring from one to the other. ‘What’s up?’

Freddie picked up his hat and gloves. ‘I’ve offered you all a home with me, but Eliza is being stubborn.’

‘Oh, Liza, no. You can’t think of turning down an offer like that. Think of me. Think of Dolly.’

Eliza glanced at Dolly, who was sleeping
peacefully in spite of their raised voices. She met Millie’s troubled eyes and she could see Brandon’s shadow looming over her. Last of all, she looked round the tiny room that had been her home and her safe haven since Ted had rescued her from the clutches of Uncle Enoch. Wherever she cast her eyes there were mementoes of past and happier times. The china dog that Ted had won for her at a street fair in Spitalfields; the brass clock on the mantelshelf that lost five minutes in every hour; the dog-eared Bible that was the only book in the house and from which Ada read passages to Dolly; the grease stain on the wall shaped like a mushroom, where Millie, years ago, and in a rare fit of temper, had thrown her bread and dripping because she had wanted bread and jam.

Eliza gave a start as Freddie laid his arm around her shoulders. ‘I know it’s hard for you, Liza. But you haven’t got much choice. If you stay here the Millers will send in the bailiffs and take everything.’

‘There’s so little,’ Eliza said, choking on a sob. ‘But it all means so much to me.’

‘We’ll take everything we can pack into the dog cart. Miller can take the chandlery from you, but we’ll take legal advice as to the house in Bird Street. We won’t let them take that without a fight.’

Millie uttered a strangled cry. ‘What will
happen to Ada and the nippers? And what will Davy say when he comes ashore to find his family thrown out into the gutter?’

‘We won’t let that happen,’ Freddie said calmly. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, they can come and live in the old servants’ quarters in my house. There’s plenty of room for all.’ He took Eliza by the hand, speaking to her gently. ‘Liza, my love, I care about you more than you will ever know. But the choice is yours: what is it going to be?’

She had to get out of the house. Eliza’s head was ringing with the sound of Daisy’s shrill voice haranguing Freddie for his failures and inconsistencies. She had not forgiven him for reneging on his promise to become a fashionable, if unqualified, practitioner of medicine. Daisy, it seemed to Eliza, had social aspirations far above her station. She never lost the opportunity to nag Freddie for his apparent lack of ambition. Neither had she forgiven Eliza for losing the chandlery that was Tommy’s birthright. In fact, Daisy was not a happy woman. She had objected to having Eliza, Millie and Dolly foisted upon her, but she had grudgingly allowed them to have two rooms on the ground floor: one for Dolly with all her possessions arranged around her and the other to be shared by Eliza and Millie. This was a particularly small room at the back of the house, overlooking the stables, and sparsely furnished with two narrow beds and a washstand. Freddie had no say in all this and, when he had asked Eliza if she was happy with the arrangements, she had somehow managed to
convince him that she was perfectly content.

The fact that Daisy accepted their presence at all was, as Eliza soon realised, because they were proving useful to her in running the establishment. She had willingly relinquished her role of housekeeper to Eliza, and she had not put forward any objection to the Little family’s moving into the basement rooms. In fact she had appeared delighted to have an unpaid servant in Ada, who did most of the cooking. Sukey had been relegated to the position of scullery maid, which had caused a few fights until Eliza was forced to intervene and put her in her place.

Despite her apparent generosity to the Littles, Daisy had been uncompromising when it came to Mille, insisting that she took on the duties of unpaid housemaid. Millie never complained, but there was enough work to keep a small army of servants occupied, and at night she fell into her bed so exhausted that she was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow. Eliza helped her as much as she could, and she held her tongue, something that she was becoming used to nowadays, but it distressed her to see Millie wearing herself to a shadow with hard work. This state of affairs could not be allowed to drag on for long, but, in the meantime, and until she could think of an alternative, they must make the best of things. At least Daisy seemed to tolerate Dolly, mainly, Eliza thought, because Tommy had taken such a
liking to her and they played the royal game together. If she was the housekeeper and Millie the skivvy, then Dolly was the uncrowned queen of the nursery.

After their hurried departure from Hemp Yard, Freddie had enlisted the help of Arnold and Dippy Dan to move everything out of the house, making several journeys with the dog cart until Dolly’s bits and pieces of furniture were safely removed to Dark House Street. As Arnold and Dan were now without work, Brandon having made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with them, Freddie’s soft heart was touched and he allowed Arnold to bring his aged mother and install her in the loft above the stables. Dan slept on a pile of straw in the stall next to Nugget and both of them seemed happy with the arrangement.

Huddled in the thick folds of an old cloak that had belonged to Daisy, and that she now considered too old-fashioned and shabby for her smart person, Eliza was grateful for its warmth as she walked along the quay wall. It was February, and a cold north wind brought with it spikes of sleet. The gunmetal-grey clouds promised snow later, but Eliza was oblivious of the weather, content simply to be out of the house for a while. She needed time to think and to work out a plan for their removal from Dark House Street.

They had been living in Freddie’s house for almost three months now, and although she was earning her keep, Eliza felt that she was living on charity and she hated it. She tried to like Daisy, who for all her faults was neither unkind nor unfeeling, but Eliza could not bear to see her going upstairs at night with Freddie. She had discovered that they had separate rooms, but whether he left his own bed to visit Daisy was an unsolved mystery. Sometimes, in the small hours of the morning when she could not sleep, Eliza was certain that she heard footsteps padding along the corridor directly above her room. Tormented by her own imaginings, she tried desperately to think of a way in which she could get back her business and become independent, but a solution always evaded her.

Freddie had instructed his solicitor to take on the case, but fighting the Millers through the courts would be costly and probably doomed from the outset. Eliza could only hope that the solicitor might find a small loophole in the law that would allow her at least to keep the house in Bird Street. Brandon had taken possession of it, but, so far, nothing had been legally assigned to him. With the dwelling in Dark House Street so full now, Eliza worried that Freddie’s generosity was getting in the way of whatever plans he had made to earn a living. She had no idea how much money he had, but she couldn’t help feeling that
his casual attitude to his dwindling fortune would soon bankrupt him.

A gust of wind snatched the hood from her head, tugging at her hair and tweaking long strands from the combs that held it in place. She paused for a moment, brushing a stray lock from her eyes and staring down into the roiling waters of the Thames, thick and dark as bitter chocolate. It was only mid-afternoon but the winter dusk had already gobbled up the far bank of the river, and the masts of ships loomed high above her, piercing the lowering clouds. It was not the sort of weather to be out in, but Eliza needed time on her own. She had left Tommy playing the royal game with Dolly and, at the thought of him, she found herself smiling.

The one good thing to come out of her enforced stay in Dark House Street was that she had grown close to Bart’s son. She had come to know and love Tommy and had slowly won his trust and, she hoped, his affection. Daisy was not a bad mother, but she seemed more interested in striving towards respectability and making a place for herself amongst the wives of City merchants. This entailed going out to tea with her wealthy acquaintances, spending a lot of money on new gowns and bonnets, and taking hackney cabs when she could easily have walked the short distance to their homes.

As Eliza stared down into the turbulent water,
a lamplighter hurried along the quay using his long pole to ignite the gas lamps. They fizzed and popped, flickering inside their glass prisons like trapped sunbeams and making eerie reflections on the water. Eliza shivered as she recalled her childish fantasy that there were dead people beneath the ripples, holding up lanterns to light their way to the afterlife. She walked on, briskly this time, towards a tea clipper that was in the process of being unloaded. As she drew closer to the huge ship, she could just make out the name on its bows and her heart did a bunny hop inside her chest. Keeping well out of the way of the cranes and the men going about their work, she stepped over cables and chains, shielding her eyes against the driving sleet. Then she saw him. Coming down the gangplank with his ditty bag slung over his shoulder. She would have recognised him anywhere.

‘Davy. Davy.’ She broke into a run, leaping coils of rope and dodging in between oak barrels. He had seen her. Davy dropped his bag on the cobbles and held out his arms. Eliza threw herself into them and clung to him, laughing and crying at the same time. He was holding her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. He was stroking her hair and he kissed her on the forehead and then the tip of her nose. He smelt of salt water, oiled wool and tea.

‘Liza, my little Liza.’ Davy’s voice cracked with
emotion and then he frowned. ‘What the hell are you doing here on your own?’

Eliza wrapped her arms around his waist, looking up into his tanned face. ‘I’m not alone any more, Davy. You’re here. You’re home. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.’

‘Move along, cully. You’re in the way.’

A gravelly voice from behind them made Davy turn his head. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said, grinning, ‘but I haven’t seen me girl for six months or more.’

‘No, Davy. Don’t get me wrong.’ Eliza pulled free, realising to her horror that he had mistaken her genuine pleasure on seeing him for something deeper.

He looked down at her and smiled. ‘That were a welcome fit for a king. It’s almost worth being away for more than half a year to come back to that.’ He bent down and picked up his ditty bag. ‘Come on, darling, let’s go home.’

‘Davy, wait.’ Eliza laid her hand on his arm. As if it weren’t bad enough that she had given him false hope, now she must tell him that his family had lost their home and that they were all living on Freddie’s charity. She took a deep breath. ‘Davy, I got to tell you something.’

As they walked, arm in arm, Eliza told him everything that had happened since he had left Wapping. It was almost dark by the time they reached Freddie’s house and, typical of his
disregard for economy, light spilled from all the windows. Sounds of children’s voices emanated from the basement area and young Artie was hanging by his breeches from one of the area railings, blue in the face and shouting for help. Davy quickened his pace and lifted his brother to safety. ‘It’s lucky that spike didn’t go right through your bum, you young rascal.’

Artie stared up at him with tear stains leaving trails down his dirty face. ‘Davy? Is it really you?’

‘It’s me all right, young ’un. Now what was you doing playing the fool with rusty iron railings?’