Tilly True (32 page)

‘I do hope we get home before Francis,' Harriet said, giggling as they subsided onto their seats beneath a pile of shopping. ‘He'll have a fit when he sees all this.'

With her more modest purchases of two dress lengths of Indian muslin, two dress lengths of cotton lawn, two pairs of lace mittens and a pair of satin dancing shoes, that were simply too pretty to resist, Tilly's purse felt much lighter than it had been before and she was consumed with guilt. She had meant to spend her money on presents to give her family when she paid them the visit that she had been putting off for days. She knew she must go and see Ma and Pops and break the news that she had married without their consent. Barney had given her age as twenty-one on the marriage licence, so that she did not need parental consent, although she would not reach her majority until the following May. But it was not the deceit that worried her, it was her parents' reaction to the fact that she had married above her station, out of her class, and had done it without telling them.

‘Tilly, you're off in one of your daydreams again.' Harriet nudged her in the ribs. ‘We're here.'

Startled out of her thoughts, Tilly struggled to her feet and helped Harriet with her parcels as they negotiated the swaying, jolting stairs of the vehicle to alight in Broad Street.

Luckily for Harriet, Francis had not returned home and she was able to put her purchases away in her wardrobe without his seeing them. They were sitting at the table in the window poring over dress patterns when Francis burst into the room with his normally sombre features split in a huge grin. He waved three pieces of card at them. ‘I've got the tickets. Our passage to India is booked and we're sailing on the sixth of August.'

Jumping to her feet, Hattie threw her arms around his neck. ‘We're going at last. How splendid.'

Disentangling himself, Francis was still smiling. ‘Well, it is rather. We're sailing for Bombay on the P & O Steamship
Malta
. We'll be travelling on by train to Delhi where we'll be living in a house close to the mission school. Everything is arranged, down to the last detail.'

Dragging Tilly to her feet, Hattie danced her round the room. ‘Isn't this spiffing news? Thank goodness we bought all those clothes and dress fabric today.'

Francis let out a long sigh. ‘I hope you haven't been too extravagant, Hattie.'

‘Who, me? Of course not,' Harriet said, smiling happily.

With less than a month until their departure date, they had to find a dressmaker who could make up their lengths of material. Harriet had heard of a respectable widow living in Tanner's Passage, near Billingsgate, who, due to straightened circumstances and with a crippled child to care for, supplemented her income by dressmaking. Mrs Scully proved to be a pleasant, sensible woman who understood their needs, but as time was short she said she could only promise to have a maximum of three gowns ready in the given time. When the measuring was done and the dress patterns discussed, Harriet was eager to return to their lodgings, but Tilly's conscience had been bothering her for days. They were so close to Red Dragon Passage that there was no excuse for putting off her visit home for a day longer. As Harriet was nervous about negotiating the streets and alleyways in this unfamiliar part of town, Tilly walked with her as far as the Monument and saw her safely onto a horse-drawn omnibus that would take her close to Bunbury Fields. Counting the coins in her purse, Tilly decided that she would spend the money on small gifts for the family, and walk the rest of the way home. Perhaps she was just putting off the inevitable, or maybe she was genuinely saving her pennies, she didn't know; but for the first time in her life, Tilly was apprehensive about telling Ma and Pops what she had done.

Nellie stared at her present, a pair of woollen gloves that Tilly had purchased in Petticoat Lane.

‘Don't you like them, Ma?'

Setting them carefully on the table, Nellie raised her eyes to Tilly's face. ‘Why didn't you tell us?'

Staring down at her hands clasped tightly on her lap, Tilly shrugged her shoulders. ‘It all happened so quickly.'

‘Too quickly if you want my opinion, miss. And it weren't legal without our consent. You're not twenty-one yet.'

‘Ma, don't be angry. I love Barney and he loves me. He was about to be sent off to India to fight for his country. We hadn't any choice.'

‘You're in the family way.'

It was a statement and not a question. Tilly was startled by the accusing look in her mother's eyes. ‘No, it wasn't that.'

‘Then why did a toff stoop to marry a common girl from Whitechapel, I'd like to know? Or do you class yourself as a lady now, Tilly? Are you too grand for your family?'

Shaking her head, Tilly was close to tears. ‘No, Ma, of course not. I'm just the same. I'm still your Tilly.'

‘No,' Nellie said, slowly. ‘No, you're not. Just look at you. It would take your dad a sixmonth to earn enough money to buy them kid boots and that outfit. You married above your station and only grief will come of it.'

Wiping her eyes on the back of her hand, Tilly sniffed. ‘He loves me, Ma. He really loves me and I'm going to India to join him.'

‘Is this one of your tales, Tilly? You always was one for making up stories.'

‘No, I swear it's the truth. I'm going with Francis and Hattie. We're sailing for Bombay on the sixth of August and I'll be staying with them in Delhi until Barney sends for me to join him.'

Getting slowly to her feet and wringing her apron between her hands, Nellie stared at Tilly, shaking her head. ‘What I'll say to your dad I just don't know. You've always been a worry to me, in work and out of work like I don't know what. Never settling down with a good honest man of your own class.'

‘You mean like Molly with her stingy shop assistant husband and a baby every year? Or Emily hitched to a man who tried to rape me; a vicious brute who's older than her own father?'

‘Don't talk like that, Tilly. I know what you said happened when you was with Bert, but we only got your word for it. You know how you make things up sometimes; you get carried away with your imaginings.'

‘But I swear that was true, Ma. Every last word was true.'

‘So you say, ducks, but up to now Bert's been a good son-in-law and husband. He's provided Emily with a nice home and now he's looking to move them to a better place, what with her thinking she might be in the family way again.'

‘And that's the life you wanted for me too, is it?' Frustration, disappointment and a growing feeling of resentment bubbled up inside Tilly's breast, and as she jumped to her feet she was shaking all over. ‘How can you be so mean to me, Ma?'

‘I ain't being mean, I'm just being realistic. You've chosen your own path but it's not going to be an easy one and I can see nothing but trouble.'

‘I'm sorry you feel like this. I just come to say goodbye to you all. I'll wait for Pops and the nippers to come home and then I'll be off.'

The thin cotton of Nellie's apron ripped beneath her twisting hands and she stared down at the torn material with her face crumpled in dismay. ‘Now look what you've made me do. You'd best not hang around, Tilly. Bert and Emmie have taken the nippers to Victoria Park for a special treat for Lizzie's birthday. I don't want any upset when they comes home.'

‘Oh, no. I'd clean forgotten it was her birthday.'

‘Yes, you was too wrapped up in your own affairs and your new family to care about your blood kin.' Nellie went to open the door. ‘You'd best go, Tilly. Your dad will be home any minute and I don't want to witness you breaking the poor man's heart.'

Unable to speak, Tilly placed the brown paper bags containing the small gifts that she had bought for the family on the kitchen table. At the door she paused, waiting for the slightest sign from her mother, longing for a conciliatory hug, but Nellie stared straight ahead, refusing to meet her eyes.

‘Say goodbye to everyone for me, Mum.'

‘Best hurry. The toffs will be waiting for you and you mustn't keep the gentry waiting.'

‘Oh, Ma, that's so unfair.' Tilly's voice broke on a sob and she ran into the street, blinded by tears. At the end of Red Dragon Passage, she bumped into a man just coming round the corner.

‘Tilly?'

‘Oh, Pops.' Flinging her arms round his neck, Tilly buried her face against his shoulder and sobbed.

Ned patted her back. ‘What's all this, my ducks? This ain't like you, Tilly girl.'

Unable to get the words out, Tilly shook her head; once started, the tears were flowing too fast to stop.

‘Tell you what,' Ned said, shifting position so that his arm went about her shoulders. ‘We'll go to the pub and you can tell me everything over a glass of port and lemon.'

Sitting on a wooden settle, his pipe clenched between his teeth, Ned listened while Tilly told him everything. For a moment he was silent, smoking and sipping his pint of porter.

‘Are you angry with me too, Pops? Please don't be. I never meant to do wrong.'

Ned's pale blue eyes took in Tilly's appearance and he nodded, slowly. ‘I know, love. You never do mean any harm, not even when you makes up the biggest whoppers, I knows that. But to be fair to your ma, I'd say you have done us wrong by marrying out of hand. It's not the sort of thing that a mother can forgive easily, specially when she considers the party to be unsuitable for her daughter.'

‘But, Pops, Barney is a gentleman and I love him.'

‘Well, as I see it, girl, the harm's already been done. At least he's done it all legal and proper, which goes a long way in my estimation. But if he so much as harms a hair on your head, he'll have me to answer to.'

‘He won't, I know he won't. Give me your blessing, Pops, and I'll go to India much happier.'

Sucking on his pipe, Ned shook his head. ‘Without knowing the cove, I can't. I have to be honest with you, Tilly, I always hoped as how you'd marry a waterman or a lighter-man like meself: a good, honest, hard-working man, like young Clem Tuffin for instance.'

‘Clem? But he's gone off to join the army.'

‘He might not have, if you'd given him a bit of encouragement. He thought a lot of you, Tilly, he told me so afore he went off to India with his regiment.'

‘India?'

Ned grinned and his tanned face fell into walnut wrinkles. ‘Shouldn't be surprised if you don't bump into him one day. Now there's a thought.'

‘I like Clem, Pops, and he's been good to me, but I love Barney and he's my husband. I know you don't approve, but at least wish me well. I don't want to leave you with bad feeling between us.'

Leaning across the table, Ned held Tilly's hand. ‘You'll always be my little girl, Tilly, love. Just you take good care of yourself.'

Tilly clasped his hand to her cheek, unable to hold back tears. This hand, calloused and roughened by years of toiling on the river, had comforted her when she was in trouble as a child. It had always been a kind and comforting hand, stroking her hair or tickling her ribs to make her laugh. It had never once been raised to her in anger and to let go of it meant leaving the security of childhood well and truly behind. Tilly was suddenly afraid.

Ned's eyes were moist with sympathy and understanding. ‘You'll be all right, girl. You're a true True.'

The silly pun on their name had always made her laugh and Tilly smiled through her tears. ‘I love you, Pops.'

Standing at the ship's rail, Tilly watched the muddy waters of the Thames estuary merge into the cold, grey turmoil of the North Sea. The flat Essex salt marshes disappeared into a thin brown line as the engines of the SS
Malta
picked up speed. The iron railing felt cold beneath her fingers and the sea spray tasted salt on her lips as though she had been crying. She had shed tears, plenty of them, after parting with Pops. The desolation Tilly had felt as she caught the omnibus back to Bunbury Fields had been chilling and absolute; her mother's anger and disappointment was etched into her soul and she had not even been allowed to say goodbye to her brothers and sisters.

Gradually, as their departure date had drawn nearer, there had been so much to do that she had been swept up in the inevitable dress fittings, making lists and packing the cabin trunks that Francis had somewhat reluctantly provided. As well as clothes, they had been advised to take medicines such as quinine for fever, Dr Collis Brown's chlorodyne tablets (guaranteed to relieve everything from neuralgia to palpitations and hysteria), Sloan's Liniment, laudanum, disinfectants, toothpowder and soap. Francis had taken them to Henry Heath's emporium in Oxford Street, insisting that they must have tropical hats or topees to ward off the harmful rays of the Indian sun. The topees had cost him a guinea apiece and he had not been amused when Tilly and Harriet were trying them on for size, making fun of each other and ending up with a fit of the giggles. Francis had paid up as if parting with the money gave him physical pain and he had not spoken a word on the journey home.

‘Isn't this exciting?'

Harriet's voice from behind her made Tilly jump. ‘Actually I'm feeling a bit sick.'

‘Already? But we've hardly set to sea.' Holding onto her hat, Harriet peered anxiously into Tilly's face. ‘I thought you said you were a good sailor.'

‘I've only been on the Woolwich Free Ferry. I was sick then, but I thought it was the stench of the engine oil and the river that made me ill.'

‘Well, never mind. Come back to the cabin and I'll get the steward to bring you a cup of tea.'