The Miller's Daughter (27 page)

‘So that’s all the thanks I get, is it?’ His frown deepened and he growled, ‘We could live in a palace if you weren’t so stubborn. What’s the good of hanging
on—’

Emma held up her hand. ‘Don’t start all that again, Leonard. Just take Charles to school, will you?’

‘I’ve people to see. I can’t be playing nursemaid to him.’

Emma looked down at the quiet little boy who stood solemnly waiting to be told where he was to go that morning. Suddenly, she was filled with maternal love for him and swept him against her.
‘Don’t look like that, Charles. It’s the same school you’ve been going to and we’re even a little nearer to it. You’ll still have all the same playmates.
That’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Can’t we go back home?’ he said, his mouth muffled against her bosom.

‘Oh, darling, it’ll be much better here once I get it all cleaned up. Besides, you didn’t like it in that one stuffy room, did you?’ she asked in surprise.

He pulled back his head and looked up into her face. ‘I don’t mean
there
. I mean home – back to the mill.’

Behind them Leonard swore and moved towards the back door and out into the back yard. They heard the gate flung open and feet marching down the passage between theirs and the neighbouring
house.

Swiftly Emma smoothed the lock of hair from the boy’s forehead and said quickly, ‘We’ll talk about it later. I’ll try to explain it all to you. But now you must hurry
after your dad for him to show you the way to school. I’ll meet you this afternoon.’

She hustled him out of the front door and watched whilst he scampered down the street after the tall figure of his father striding angrily away. Satisfied that he had caught up with Leonard.
Emma pushed the door shut and turned to survey the work that awaited her.

At that moment young Billy began to wail.

After she had fed and settled the baby, Emma felt exhausted again. She had thought she felt stronger, but now the sudden upheaval in the middle of the night, their arrival in a
cold, empty house and the thought that all her possessions, such as they were, were just dumped amongst the debris in the front room, overwhelmed her. She sat down on the floor on the bedding where
they had slept for what had been left of the night and dropped her head into her hands. She felt lost and so lonely. Here in a strange city, removed from all her friends, still weak from
childbirth, and with a husband who at one moment seemed good tempered and generous, the next moody, irritable and short of cash.

She heard a scuffle in the far corner and raised her head. What she saw made her mouth drop open in horror. Snuffling amongst the rubbish littering the corner, was a huge rat and only a couple
of feet away lay her infant son in his cradle. Emma was by no means afraid of the creature – wherever there was grain and animal feed there would always be rats and mice – but the sight
of a mangy sewer rat inside her home angered her. She scrambled to her feet and the creature scampered across the floor, running round her in a wide arc, seeking a way out. Emma threw her broom at
it, but missed and the animal scuttled out of the open door into the scullery. Following, Emma opened the back door into the yard and then banged the broom against the sink until the rat appeared
and ran for the open door. She tried once more to hit it, to kill it, but again she missed and the rat escaped.

Breathing hard she went back into the living room and looked about her. The place was filthy, worse than the accommodation they had just left and that had been bad enough.

‘We’re not staying here, Billy Boy,’ Emma said and picked him out of the cradle. At his sleep being disturbed, the child whimpered. ‘And you needn’t start making
that noise. I’m not in the mood.’

She wrapped him warmly in a blanket and carrying him in the crook of her arm, she stepped outside the front door and looked up and down the street. ‘Come on,’ she said firmly.
‘You and me are going house-hunting.’

Her temper carried her for two miles, down first one street and back up another. Up and down until fatigue overcame her again and she leant against a wall feeling sick and faint. Then she was
angry with herself for allowing her stubbornness to make her act so foolishly. Her fury with Leonard for bringing his young family to such a place had spurred her out to walk the streets in search
of a To Let sign. So far she had seen two, but the houses looked no better than the one they had come to the previous night.

‘You all right, dear?’ said a friendly voice beside her and Emma opened her eyes to see a woman, laden with shopping bags, obviously making her way home from the city centre,
standing in front of her.

Emma smiled weakly. ‘I’ll be fine, thank you.’

The woman nodded and made as if to move on, but Emma stopped her by asking, ‘I don’t suppose, by any chance, you know of any decent houses to let round here, do you?’

The woman looked her up and down, as if assessing her, and, presumably liking what she saw, said, ‘Sorry, I don’t, but you could try the shop on the corner of the next street,’
she accompanied her words with a nod of her head indicating the direction. ‘Folks often put adverts in his window. Y’know, things they want to sell and that, and things they want. They
often have rooms, or houses, to let an’ all. You could try there.’

Emma smiled. ‘Thank you, I will. You’ve been very kind.’

‘Don’t mention it, dear.’ She nodded again. ‘Mister Keenes’ll make you a cuppa. He does sometimes for his customers. He’s got a little table and chairs in one
corner.’ She grinned. ‘Go in and sit there and mebbe he’ll ask you, seein’ as you look a bit peaky. He’s a nice feller.’

Right at this moment, a sit down and a cup of tea sounded like heaven to the weary Emma. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, earnestly. ‘Thank you very much.’

The shop door bell clanged as she entered. Inside it was a typical general store, a real corner shop serving the cluster of streets nearby. The shelves lining the walls were filled to
overflowing with all manner of groceries and provisions to the point where they bowed in the centre under the weight. On the floor stood sacks of potatoes and carrots. There were two women in the
shop, one being served by the huge, rotund man behind the counter, a copious white apron stretched over his paunch, the strings tied twice around his middle. His bald pate shone in the morning
sunlight that slanted through his shop window and he beamed at her, his jowls creasing in welcome. The other woman waited for her turn and Emma, seeing the table in the corner near the window,
squeezed past her and sat down thankfully on one of the chairs. As the rocking movement of being carried stopped, the baby began to whimper and the two women turned to look at Emma and her child.
The one still waiting for attention moved closer and bent to look inside the folds of the shawl.

‘Ah, poor little mite. Not very old, is he?’

‘Four weeks,’ Emma said.

The woman scrutinized the shadows beneath Emma’s eyes and, straightening up, said, ‘Mister Keenes, could this lady have a cup of tea, d’you think? She looks fair done
in.’

‘Right away, Mrs Porter. Whatever you say.’ Emma saw the big man touch his forehead, as if touching a nonexistent forelock. He winked good-naturedly at Emma and then disappeared
through a curtain into the back of the shop. The bell clanged and the first customer, who had now been served, nodded goodbye and left.

Mrs Porter, still standing before Emma and obviously not in any rush to be served said, ‘Not from round here, are you? I haven’t seen you before.’

Emma shook her head. ‘I’m house-hunting. I seem to have walked miles this morning. And the only places I’ve seen are as bad as the one I’m trying to leave.’

Suddenly she found herself pouring out her story to this stranger. ‘We were in one room in a big house, you see, and it really wasn’t suitable with another child. My husband found
this house and we moved last—’ she paused and altered her wording slightly, ‘yesterday. But it’s awful, worse than the room we left, and that was bad enough. A woman I met
in the street,’ Emma nodded her head through the window, ‘said people often put advertisements in this shop window, but I had a look as I came in. I couldn’t see any.’

Emma could no longer keep the weariness from her voice, nor stop the tears of fatigue and disappointment from welling in her fine eyes. Mr Keenes appeared from behind the brown curtain bearing a
mug of tea and a freshly baked buttered scone. Emma couldn’t remember ever having seen a more welcome sight.

‘How – how much?’ she stammered, realizing she had very little money in her pocket.

‘Have this on me, lass,’ the big man boomed with hearty kindness. ‘Likely you’ll be a good customer, eh?’

Emma smiled her gratitude. ‘I’d like to be, Mr Keenes. Really I would, and thank you. You don’t know how welcome this is.’ She sipped the tea and took a bite from the
scone and the baby began to wriggle in her arms. She glanced down at him, knowing he would be getting hungry again soon.

Mrs Porter sat in a chair opposite and beamed. ‘Well, m’duck, this must be your lucky day. The advert’s not gone in the window yet, ’cos it only happened
yesterday,’ Emma stared at her, holding her breath as the woman finished triumphantly, ‘the house next door to me is empty. The beggars did a moonlight last night.’

Emma said nothing. She knew, now, what a ‘moonlight’ was and the scathing way in which Mrs Porter was describing her neighbour’s hurried departure, made Emma shudder
inwardly.

‘So Mr Rabinski will be looking for new tenants. He’s a good landlord. I can vouch for that ’cos he’s ours an’ all. I don’t know how they’ll have left
the place though ’cos they were mucky beggars. I didn’t have anything to do with ’em. Kids were rowdy and little devils, I wouldn’t let our Joey play with ’em, even,
and he’s no angel.’ She smiled fondly and Emma guessed she was referring to her own son. ‘But he’ll put it to rights for you, will Mr Rabinski. Lovely little man, he is.
Poor soul. His wife died only a few months ago and he’s no family. He owns three or four houses in our street and runs a bakery. Mr Keenes gets all his bread and cakes from Rabinski’s,
don’t you, Mr Keenes?’

‘That’s right, Mrs Porter. He’s a good man is old Rabinski. A real gentleman, always very correct and very polite. A bit formal, if you know what I mean, but a good
man.’

‘A bakery?’ Emma murmured, feeling a sudden surge of hope. It seemed like a good omen. ‘Do – do you think he would consider us, then?’

Mrs Porter’s beam widened. ‘’Course he will, if I tell him I’ve found him someone.’

Suddenly, tears of thankfulness spilled over and ran down Emma’s cheeks.

‘There, there, m’duck. Don’t take on so. You come along with me and we’ll go and see him right now.’

‘Thank you, oh, thank you,’ was all Emma could say.

Mr Rabinski was as nice as Mrs Porter had assured her he would be. A small, sad looking man whose age was difficult to guess for the wiry, grey beard that covered half his
face. He was dressed in a long black frock coat and wore small, round, wire-framed spectacles half way down his nose, over which he peered at his customers, his head bent forward, his eyes slanting
upwards. His English was excellent except for a slight accent that was the only reminder of whatever had once been his native country.

‘You take the keys,’ he offered at once. ‘If Mrs Porter likes you, that is good enough for me.’

‘Thank you, you’re very kind,’ Emma smiled as he waved her away.

‘You move in wheneffer you want. Let me know if there is anything you need, uh?’

‘Thank you,’ Emma said again.

‘I’ll help you clean it, m’duck, if it’s bad,’ Mrs Porter offered, trotting along beside Emma. ‘They were only in there three or four weeks.’ She
sniffed. ‘Mind you, that’s long enough for some folks to make it into a pigsty.’

The kindly woman had insisted on taking Emma to Mr Rabinski’s bakery in the next street and now they were on their way to the house two streets away. In her arms, Billy whimpered and then
his cries became more insistent.

‘Hungry, ain’t he?’ Mrs Porter nodded. ‘That’s a hungry cry, that is.’

Sighing, Emma shifted the baby’s weight in her arms. ‘I’m afraid you’re right.’

‘Well, not far now, m’duck, and you can come into our place and feed him first and then we’ll go and inspect next door.’

Once more Emma thanked her and glanced at the little figure walking beside her. Mrs Porter was thin but every movement was energetic. She was dressed in a black skirt and hip length coat. She
wore black stockings and shoes, lace-ups with a small, cubed heel. From under her grey hat, pulled down low over her forehead, her sharp eyes missed nothing. She was carrying heavy shopping bags,
but these seemed to be no trouble to her for she chattered nonstop, hardly seeming to pause to take in a breath.

Emma hid a smile; Mrs Porter was not quite what she would have imagined a guardian angel should look like but without a doubt, Emma thought, that was exactly what she was.

When Billy had been fed and Emma had rested, Mrs Porter, obviously enjoying her importance, ushered her next door.

The terraced house, separated from Mrs Porter’s by a shared passage running between the two, was of much the same design as the one they had arrived at the previous night but the
difference was noticeable the moment they stepped over the threshold from the street and straight into the front room.

‘Rent’ll be ten and six a week,’ Mrs Porter said, ‘and he comes on a Saturday afternoon every four weeks.’ She laughed and nodded knowingly, ‘’Spect he
reckons that’s when he might catch most of the fellers at home.’

Not much chance in our house, Emma thought. Most Saturdays, Leonard disappeared after dinner and didn’t appear again until the early hours of Sunday morning, flushed and walking very
unsteadily. But she said nothing and listened as Mrs Porter extolled the virtues of the little house.

‘This ’ere’s the front room. We don’t use ours much, ’cept at Christmas and if we have folks in, like. But there’s a nice fire grate and it’s furnished
nicely, ain’t it?’ She looked at Emma for reassurance that her own standards were shared by her prospective new neighbour.