Velvet (24 page)

‘Allow me to congratulate you,' said George.

‘You see, the spirits are rewarding your philanthropy,' said Madame.

Mr Grey looked puzzled for a moment, then obviously decided that ‘philanthropy' must be a good thing, for he nodded.

‘Good always comes from doing good,' said George.

‘Well, I suppose it's about time I started doing some,' said Mr Grey, ‘seeing as I've spent most of my life being bad. I was an utter cad to my wife – I've told you about that, haven't I?'

‘Yes, you –'

‘An utter scoundrel and rotter!' Mr Grey elaborated. ‘One year the wife –'

‘Hope,' Madame corrected.

‘Yes. Hope. Well, one Christmas she saved up some of her laundry money to buy Kitty a real china doll. Jointed, it was, with a porcelain face. She sat it in the top of a stocking and pinned it up over the fireplace.'

Madame glanced at George, who gave the faintest roll of his own eyes heavenwards.

‘But when I came in a bit the worse for wear on Christmas Eve I took that little dolly from its Christmas stocking and went straight to the pawnshop with it. Non-stop to Uncle's, I went! Ain't that the wickedest thing you've ever heard?'

Madame and George were both silent.

‘We didn't have no Christmas to speak of that year. Y'see, I'd already taken the leg o' pork back to the butcher's, so we had nothing but tatties.' Tears started in his eyes. ‘Oh, when I think of the terrible cruel things I've done. One year our Kitty had a pet rabbit and I put it in the pot with a couple o' turnips!'

There was an appalled silence until Madame said, ‘Come, come, Mr Grey! Let's forget the past and concentrate on the future, shall we? You've resolved to turn over a new leaf, you're going to start a wonderful charity and subsequently your wife will forgive you. Your life is improving all the time.'

‘You're one of the very few lucky people who can – with our help – rewrite the past and start again,' said George, handing him a handkerchief and bidding him wipe his eyes.

‘That little rabbit, though,' said Mr Grey, unwilling to give up the subject. ‘White and fluffy it was, with brown whiskers as long as a cat's –'

‘Mr Grey, I'm now going into trance,' Madame interrupted. After a moment she said quite briskly into the ether, ‘I'm seeking Hope, the wife of the gentleman before me. Hope passed through this vale of tears some years ago and is now on the Other Side. Hope, can you come before us again? Are you willing to speak to the man who was once your husband?'

‘Have you got her? Will she talk?' Mr Grey asked eagerly, and George put a finger to his lips to quieten him.

‘Spirits, can you help?' Madame intoned.

Mr Grey beckoned to George and whispered in his ear, ‘Have you had Conan Doyle around lately?'

George frowned and again put his finger on his lips. ‘'Spect he's busy, what with those detective stories.'

Madame's eyes remained closed. ‘Ah . . . here she is at last. You won't hear her voice, though. She'll only speak through me.'

‘I'm not surprised at that,' said Mr Grey. ‘She hates me and who could blame her?'

‘Please, Mr Grey,' protested George.

‘I've been a wicked old devil all my life!'

‘Your husband is truly sorry for the way he treated you and your daughter,' Madame said into the air. ‘He wishes to make recompense for this and is prepared to give some of his newly acquired fortune towards setting up a foundation, a charity to aid washerwomen and laundresses who have fallen on hard times.' Madame listened for a while, then nodded. ‘Hope says that to make sure that you actually do what you say, she wants you to carry out all the negotiations through George and myself. She says that too often in the past you made promises which you never kept.'

‘Fair enough, fair enough,' Mr Grey said, peering all around Madame as if hoping to catch a glimpse of his wife.

‘She wants you to sign the paperwork before you leave us.'

Mr Grey nodded absently. ‘And then will she forgive me for being such a shocking bad husband?'

Madame closed her eyes in order to commune with the spirit, then replied, ‘She will.'

‘That's good,' said Mr Grey. ‘You know,' he continued, ‘I was thinking that I ought to find my young girl Kitty, and tell her that I've been converted. She might want to come and live with me and be my housekeeper, look after her old dad in his dotage.'

‘No!' Madame's eyes sprang open. ‘Your wife doesn't want you to do this. She says that Kitty has suffered enough and must not be contacted under any circumstances.'

‘Fair enough,' Mr Grey said. ‘If that's what she says, that's what I'll do. I want to make up for being such a dreadful beast all my life.' He peered around Madame again. ‘Here, can you ask the wife if she's seen anything of my old pa up there?'

Madame closed her eyes again, then opened them and said, ‘I'm afraid your wife has gone. Now, about your foundation . . .'

Chapter Fifteen

In Which Velvet Visits Mrs Dyer’s Baby Farm

Sometimes, Velvet thought to herself determinedly on the train to Reading the following morning, the spirits need a helping hand.
The spirits need a helping hand
, she repeated to herself several times, but it didn’t make what she was about to do sound any better. She was going to steal a baby! What she was doing was fraudulent, illegal and wicked, but she was doing it for Madame, who surely had the best of reasons – amongst them the saving of Mrs Fortesque’s sanity, maybe even her life – for her plan. Did that make it all right?

Velvet had been given the money for a second-class ticket from Paddington to Reading and as she had not had the experience of riding on a train before, this part of the journey, at least, was exciting and enjoyable. As London gave way to the suburbs, then to fields with horses and cows and sheep, she managed to clear her head of worrisome thoughts and found herself exclaiming with pleasure at every new scene. Picturesque cottages, pretty churches, ponds with white ducks, allotments with rows of vegetables and blooming gardens passed in a blur of colour. Daydreaming, she envisioned being married to George and living with him in one of the little thatched cottages. However, though she could just about imagine herself in the parlour sewing a patchwork quilt, the figure of George stubbornly refused to appear beside her. George seemed too tall, too dapper, too urbane a fellow to be chopping wood or toasting hunks of bread in front of the fire.

Early that morning, Madame had called her upstairs and shown her some particular advertisements in
The Telegraph
. They came under the heading of
GOOD HOMES
and there were seven of them, all saying more or less the same.

A lonely widow offers a good home

to a baby under six months.

If sickly, will receive a mother’s love.

No questions asked about provenance.

£12 annually, or for £20 would adopt entirely.

Velvet knew about baby farms, of course. Knew that many a young girl, desperate to keep her employment and her reputation, would sometimes give birth in secret and take her baby straight to a woman who would mind it until she was able to take care of it herself. If, as often seemed to happen, the baby died before she could reclaim it, then the girl would mourn the loss in private and try to get on with her life. Mrs Amelia Dyer of Reading had such a baby farm, and it was hers which had been selected by Madame.

Velvet was wearing her oldest clothes (those she’d been wearing the day she’d arrived at Madame’s, which she’d hoped never to wear again), her hair was deliberately unkempt and she had no gloves. She was posing as a girl in the family way and, wearing a roll of muslin as padding, might have been trying to conceal a pregnancy of seven months’ duration, or merely have been plump. To save her from any unpleasant comments or unwelcome speculation whilst on her journey, however, Madame had supplied her with a cheap wedding ring and Velvet, her hands crossed over the lid of her wicker basket, kept this in sight.

George had studied a map of Reading and had told Velvet where to go on leaving the station. He had also kissed her and said it was a wonderful thing that she was doing for Madame – for all of them – and she should feel very pleased and proud that she was helping in such a significant way. The closer she came to her destination, however, the more she realised she did not feel either of these things; she just felt ill. Her hands trembled, beads of sweat stood out on her forehead and there was a dull ache in her stomach. What was she doing here? How had she got herself into this situation? When she had said that she would do anything to stay with Madame, she hadn’t envisaged
this
.

Mrs Dyer’s terraced cottage was at the end of a row of equally shabby dwellings. In the front yard was a broken-down perambulator, a chair with two legs, a quantity of old wood, several stained mattresses of various sizes and two large, filthy dogs fighting over a bone. It did not seem the sort of place where one would choose to leave one’s child, but Velvet realised that unmarried mothers had little choice, so great was the stigma against them that it was well-nigh impossible for them to obtain work or shelter. To have their illegitimate children cared for was difficult, too, for most children’s homes were attached to the church and would only take orphaned or desperately poor children who’d been born in wedlock.

Velvet tapped on the front door, listening for any noises. Madame had assured her that Mrs Dyer would have at least half a dozen babies, but that they would be drugged with opiates to make them docile, so it was unlikely she would hear any crying in the house. Drugged babies were also too sleepy to drink milk, and this saved money. Of course, sooner or later, Madame explained, lack of nutrition would lead to a baby’s death, but the baby farmer would pocket the monthly fee for as long as the mother continued to send it. If the mother wrote to ask about her child, a false report would be given, and only if she turned up at the door to enquire would the sad news be given out that the child had just died. Recalling all these details, Velvet shuddered as she tapped at the door again.

This time a rough female voice shouted, ‘Round the back!’

Velvet took a deep breath and, walking round, tried to affect the gait of a pregnant woman, putting her hand on her back as if it pained her. ‘Mrs Dyer?’ she called.

Attached to the back of the cottage was a little glass outhouse looking as if it had been constructed of ancient doors and windows. Just outside sat a stout middle-aged woman smoking a clay pipe. She wore a dirty apron over a black cotton dress and her hair was patchy and balding.

‘Who wants ’er?’

Velvet fought to control a sudden urge to be sick, reminding herself that she was supposed to be anxious and desperate. ‘I saw . . . saw your advertisement in the paper.’

Mrs Dyer looked her up and down. ‘Expecting, are you?’

Velvet nodded.

‘Know who the father is?’

Velvet nodded again.

‘Has he got money?’

‘He has not,’ Velvet sighed. ‘And his parents have sent him to France in order to keep us apart.’ She had cooked up this sad tale on the train. ‘They say we are never to see each other again.’

Mrs Dyer blew out a cloud of smoke through lips which were cracked and stained with nicotine. ‘Usual tale,’ she said. ‘Want me to adopt it, do you?’

Velvet had already decided she could never in a hundred years leave a baby – even an imaginary baby – with such a woman. ‘No, just to have it minded.’

‘A year’s fee in advance is my terms. That’s twelve pounds. You’ll need to provide clothes and bedding for the year, and there’s no refund if the child dies.’

Velvet looked round. There was no evidence of any children: no cots, toys, or clothes drying, no napkins, bottles or any other nursery paraphernalia. ‘Have you many babies here?’

‘One or two,’ Mrs Dyer said. She coughed and spat on to the ground. ‘A mother’s love, I gives ’em.’

Velvet shivered.

‘Got somewhere to lie-in, have you?’

‘Not yet. I . . . I have about a month to go, I believe. I’m trying to persuade my sister to take me in.’

Mrs Dyer puffed on her pipe. ‘You better book a place here for the child, then, because you’ll not find many what’ll take bastard children.’

Velvet nodded, thinking how fraught, how achingly desperate a young girl would have to be to leave her baby here, with such a woman.

‘I’ll need a deposit, non-refundable, in case of anything going wrong.’ Velvet winced and Mrs Dyer added, ‘Risky business, childbirth. Plenty don’t make it through.’

Velvet handed over the ten-shilling note which Madame had given to her for a deposit, adding, ‘Here’s something else that my sister said you’d like.’ She delved into the basket and brought out a bottle of gin. ‘She said you may look especially kindly upon my child if you have a little treat.’