The Long Walk Home (39 page)

His tone was ironic and so like his normal manner that she felt a jolt of disappointment. So he hadn't changed after all.

'It is not a subject for derision,' she said coldly. 'I have met good people who help others who have less than themselves. I met a poor woman who gave me food and shelter when I had nowhere else to go and asked for nothing in return. I have met a clergyman and his wife who give destitute boys an education and hot food every day. They are not rich or philanthropic; they beg from those who can afford to give even a little.'

He shook his head wearily. 'I didn't mean to mock, Eleanor,' he said, 'although I have done that so often that it is almost second nature to me. But what I meant to indicate to you is that you might not, will not, be in a position to distribute such largesse as you might wish to, for we shall be almost penniless. I have no profession, and if your grandfather should have his way, then we would have no home either.'

'But you said that he couldn't,' she exclaimed.

'He can still take me to court, and even if he loses it will cost us money. The house will have to be sold.'

Eleanor saw that he was tiring and she left him to sleep. Besides, she was hungry and desperate for something to eat.

As she passed the drawing room she peeked in. The room was shuttered and the furniture shrouded in dust sheets, and the curtains were closed.

Down in the kitchen a smell of beef hotpot greeted her. Mikey and Sam, their hands and faces freshly scrubbed, were already attacking their second helpings.

'Come along, Miss Eleanor,' Mary said. 'You're so thin I'm sure you haven't eaten since you left all those months ago.'

'It's not quite as long as that,' Eleanor said as she washed at the sink, 'though it seems twice as long. I didn't know you could cook,' she added.

'Neither did I.' Mary smiled. 'But when I saw the state of your poor father I knew I had to learn pretty quickly. He had lost so much weight with the worry and everything.'

Eleanor nodded. How much did Mary know, she wondered? Had her father confided in her?

'Mary,' she said, 'have you met my grandfather?'

'Yes, Miss Eleanor. I opened 'door to him when he came 'first time. He calls a spade a spade, I'll say that for him.' She stood pondering. 'But I reckon he's all right. He gave me his address anyway, in case I should need to get in touch with him. He saw your father's state of health and I think he was concerned, though he didn't say so.'

'So where is he staying?'

'At 'Vittoria. For another two days, and then he's travelling home.'

'I don't even know where he lives,' Eleanor murmured as she gratefully tucked in to the hotpot. 'No one has ever said.'

'Wakefield, Miss Eleanor. That's where he's from. That's where your mother was born.'

No one ever spoke of him, Eleanor thought.

I assumed he was dead as I know my grandmother is, and as my father's parents are. I shall go to see him tomorrow before he leaves for home.

Early the next morning, freshly bathed and in clean clothes, Eleanor set off towards the pier and the Vittoria hotel.

Mikey and Sam had slept on palliasses in the kitchen as Mary insisted she had to thoroughly air the beds upstairs before they slept in them, whereas Eleanor's had been kept constantly in readiness. They too had bathed; Mary had found Mikey a blade to shave with and they were dressed in clean shirts, Mikey in one which had been Mr Kendall's and Sam wearing one which had belonged to Simon. Now they were going in search of Mikey's sister Rose and his brothers, Ben and Tom.

'I'll have to go to 'workhouse first,' Mikey said as they walked out of High Street. 'They should know where they are, or at least where they went, and mebbe the boys are still there, though Rose will surely have left.'

But Mikey had forgotten that the workhouse, which had been in the centre of Hull for so many years, had been moved out of town into a brand new purpose-built building.

'It's onny a short walk,' he told Sam, 'a mere nothing for us.'

They walked along the Anlaby Road and came to the redbrick building and sought out the matron. The boys were still there, she told him, but at school. 'Your sister left. She got regular work and found a room she could afford.'

The matron said she thought Rose was still working in a mill. 'But I might be wrong.' She shrugged, and Mikey got the impression that she didn't really care, for once the residents had left the workhouse what happened to them was nothing to do with her.

I'll come back and see the lads tomorrow, he decided, and they'll tell me where Rosie is. But he felt despondent. Tom and Ben will be expecting that I've made my fortune whereas things are just 'same as they were before.

Sam shuddered as they left through the workhouse gate. 'I'm glad I never had to stay in one of them places. I'd rather take a chance out on the streets.'

'Yes, me too,' Mikey agreed, 'even though 'new place is ten times better than the old one.'

They walked back into town and Mikey decided that he would go to see Mrs Turner, Bridget's mother, and give her news of Bridget.

She was still in the same house and although she didn't at first recognize Mikey, once she did she invited him and Sam inside. Mikey thought everything looked much the same except for the small boy of about three playing on the floor.

'Did Bridget run off with you?' she asked accusingly.

'She followed me, Mrs Turner,' Mikey said. 'I didn't ask her. She saw I was going on 'ferry and came after me.'

'Where did she get the money for the fare?' Mrs Turner asked. 'She had none of her own.'

'That I don't know, Mrs Turner.' At least he was being honest about that, though he had his suspicions. 'But in the end I was glad of her company. We went to London, and that's where she is now.'

'In London! Why, what ever is she doing there?' Mrs Turner seemed flabbergasted. 'Does she have work?'

'She does, she works for a— a businessman. In import and export,' he improvised. 'She's doing very well.'

Mrs Turner's face cleared. 'Well, who'd have thought it? Bridget in regular work.' She beamed. 'I'll tell her da. He's forever saying that she'll go to the bad, so he is; but now I can tell him she's doing well.'

'I'm sorry over what happened that night, Mrs Turner,' Mikey said humbly. 'Except that nothing did. And never has.'

'You're telling me the truth now, Mikey Quinn?'

'I am,' he said. 'Absolute truth.'

'Ah well!' She smiled. 'I never really believed it was your fault. I thought it was Bridget leading you astray, but now I know I was wrong over that too.' She scooped up the small boy from the floor. 'And look who we've got to take Bridget's place. A fine son to provide for his mammy and daddy in our old age.'

Eleanor's hair ruffled in the breeze as she walked in the direction of the estuary. Halfway across the choppy water the ferry boat was churning towards the Lincolnshire shore, where just yesterday she and Mikey and Sam had stood waiting for it.

I'm so glad to be home, she thought. Even if I don't know what is in front of me. And Mikey feels the same, although he says that he feels that he achieved nothing. But he must have changed, and doesn't realize it. He's self-assured and confident and won't be put upon. Quite different, I expect, from the boy sent to prison for stealing rabbits.

She went up the steps into the Vittoria and asked at the desk if Mr James Carlton was staying there. On being told that he was, she asked if someone could send up to his room and say that Miss Kendall wished to speak to him.

'I believe he's still at breakfast, miss,' the clerk said. 'I'll see if he's finished.'

He came back from the dining room a minute later to say that Mr Carlton asked if she would join him.

A distinguished-looking gentleman with white hair and sideburns rose from his table to greet her. He bowed courteously and she dipped her knee.

'I saw you come in,' he said, 'and it struck me how much you looked like my youngest daughter and now I know why. You are Eleanor. My granddaughter!'

'Yes, sir. I am.' She sat down as invited and accepted a cup of coffee. 'I didn't know you existed,' she said. 'Mama never spoke of you. I assumed you were dead.'

'And had you known otherwise, perhaps you would have come to me instead of running away to London?'

'I went first to Nottingham to see my mother and ask her to come home,' she explained. 'And when she wouldn't I decided to go to London to find my brother. Only Simon didn't want me there. He was too preoccupied with his own life to be bothered about mine.'

'You poor child,' her grandfather murmured. 'So then what did you do? You were alone, I understand. Not a desirable situation for a young lady such as you.'

'I was frightened to begin with,' she admitted. 'It was totally unlike anything I had ever known.' She then found herself telling the story of Marie who had taken pity on her and suggested that she tried for work in the mourning shop. 'The notion of looking for work was perfectly natural to her. In her life that was what everyone did. And it was the same with the Bertrams. Work was the only thing that kept them from starvation or the workhouse door.'

'So you have learned something?' her grandfather said. 'It wasn't a wasted experience?'

'Oh, not at all,' she said. 'But the greatest thing for me was that I met someone who was to become my closest friend, and eventually saw me safely home.'

'I should like to meet this saviour,' he smiled. 'How did she help? With money for the train journey or as a companion?'

'Why no,' Eleanor said. 'You don't understand. We walked. We had no money for any other transport. And it was not a female, but Mikey Quinn, my greatest friend, who was once in prison for stealing a pair of rabbits.'

She felt her grandfather's eyes searching hers. 'You travelled alone with this Michael Quinn? With no other female companion?'

She shook her head. 'Mikey,' she corrected. 'And Sam. Sam's an orphan. His brother lives with a parson and his wife. They run a school for poor boys and give them a hot meal once a day, and they also set up soup kitchens for the poor of the district.'

'Indeed! That is most commendable.'

'Grandfather,' she said. 'About the house.'

'Ah!' Mr Carlton smiled. 'I wondered when we might get round to the house. You have heard that I am going to try to get it back?' When she nodded, he murmured, 'I would never sleep easy again if I thought that your father was going to keep it for himself.'

'He said it's the law,' Eleanor said quietly.

'And so it is,' he replied brusquely, 'and it is time the law was changed! How preposterous that a woman should have to give up everything once she is married. And I suppose . . .' He lowered his voice, for it had risen rather and other people in the dining room were looking their way. 'I suppose your father has sent you here to plead on his behalf? Now that you have come home he has to give you a roof over your head, that kind of thing? Well, you don't have to worry about that, my dear. I will provide for you if your father can't.'

Eleanor swallowed hard. 'Well no,' she said. 'That wasn't what I was going to say. And besides, Father doesn't know I'm here. Mary told me where you were staying.'

He frowned. 'Mary? Who is Mary?'

'Father's servant, or I suppose she's housekeeper now.'

'So why then have you come, my dear, if it isn't about the house? Curious, were you, to meet your grandfather?'

'It is about the house,' she said. 'I want it.'

After leaving Mrs Turner, Mikey took Sam on a tour of Hull. He showed him the first dock, now renamed Queen's Dock after Victoria's visit, and explained the ring of docks which ran through the town and out into the Humber.

'Seems there might be work here,' Sam said. 'Shall we try now?'

'No time like 'present,' Mikey said. 'But I'll finish showing you 'main areas and then we'll have a plan of campaign. Thing is, though, Sam, I've been thinking that I don't want to spend my life doing menial jobs. I need an education to improve myself.'

'Yeh,' Sam agreed. 'I keep thinking about William. The Goodharts have taught him to read and write and now he's getting an even better education cos of the sponsor and he's younger than me. I know nothing,' he added glumly. 'Only what I've picked up from folks I know. Eleanor promised she'd teach me to read, but then she decided to come home.'

'I'm sure she still will,' Mikey said. 'Just as soon as she's settled. But I gather there's some problem over her father.' He thought for a minute, and then said, 'I've got an idea. Come on. There's somewhere I want to go. If it's still there, that is. It was when I left Hull five years ago, onny I was too young then to tek advantage. But now I'm not.'

'What?' Sam asked. 'Where?'

'Mechanics' Institute,' he said. 'It's there to give ordinary folks a chance of education or train them for an apprenticeship.'

'Don't we have to have a job first?' Sam asked, scurrying to keep up with Mikey's urgent steps.

'That's what we've to find out,' Mikey said. 'Come on, it's not far.'

They left the dock behind them and set off along George Street, turning the corner into Grimston Street.

'It's still here,' Mikey said triumphantly. 'Let's go in and see what they can do for us.'

They came out half an hour later, Mikey much more subdued than when he went in. It seemed he had to prove his worth before he would be accepted as a scholar, although the reading room was open to him if he wanted to browse through the books there. That's no good, he thought. I'm not a good reader.

'We'll have to find work,' he said to Sam. 'So back to 'docks we go. At least we can say we have experience even if we can't provide references. And if we find work then we can pay rent for a room. We can't expect to stay with Ellie for too long.'

They went back to the dock and into the office. Mikey introduced himself as Mikey Quinn, formerly of Hull and lately of London, with his workmate Sam Hodges. 'We work as a team,' he said. 'Experienced in handling fragile or heavy goods at Wapping wharves.'