“Well, as it happens, I think that I might be able to do something for you. You need first of all somewhere to live, somewhere where you’ll be safe and reasonably comfortable while you get yourself started.”
“You know of somewhere?” Too much to hope for, surely?
Margaret Wharton nodded. “I think I do, yes. The woman I have in mind usually takes young gentlemen, but I’m certain that if I asked her—” she was rummaging amongst a pile of papers on the table, “—ah, here it is, yes: Linsey Grove, Upton Park. Ellen Alden is a widow with a son who is not, unfortunately, strong; her father once worked for my family. Ellen does a lot of good work for the Refuge. I remember that she mentioned last week that their last lodger had left. So providing the room is still vacant—” She reached for pen and paper.
“Oh, that would be so kind.” Upton Park. A faint vision of green: trees, and grass. Surely with a name like that it must be a little more like home, less like the decaying ant-heap that was the East End?
Lady Margaret held up a warning finger. “No special treatment, mind. If I know Ellen, her rules are rigid and not to be broken. She is a woman of very high Christian principles. She may even at times appear a little harsh. But you’ll find no cleaner nor more comfortable home than hers. You’ll be in good hands.” Margaret Wharton grinned suddenly in a most unladylike way. “I doubt even your Johnny Cribben would take on Ellen Alden at her best.” She sobered. “Once you’re settled you should be able to obtain a place in a commercial school or college – I believe there are quite a number in that area. Or if the fees are too high you could go to night school and work during the day. Would you be prepared to do that?”
“Yes. Oh, yes. Anything.”
“Good. Then after you’ve had a wash and some breakfast come back to me here; I’ll have a letter for you to take to Ellen and instructions as to how to get there.”
Molly slipped from the table. With the resilience and optimism of youth she felt as if a door, tight shut against her, had been opened to show her the world. “Thank you so much. I’ll never forget it.”
Lady Margaret patted her hand. “Gently, now, gently. You’ve a long way to go, and it won’t be easy. This is just a start.”
Molly, as she ran to a breakfast of none-too-fresh bread and sugary jam, thought she had never heard such a happy phrase. Just a start…
Chapter Five
With the clouds and rain of the previous day entirely cleared, Upton Park greeted her with golden October sunshine that gilded the marching rows of undistinguishable houses and lit smoke-darkened brick and tile with a deceptively mellow glow. Sitting in the train, Molly had swiftly relinquished the hope that Upton Park’s nature might suit its name, since the view from the window had soon relieved her of such a misconception. Street after featureless street had slid past, the avenues straight as lines ruled on a map. Long and narrow strips of garden ran to the railway embankment, the degree of their cultivation varying enormously, from shabby wildernesses of nettles and weeds to ordered patches that marched with military precision from neat back yard to tiny, tended vegetable plot; the small houses stood wall to wall, shoulder to shoulder, like an invincible marching army. Yet the scrubbed doorsteps and shining, red-tiled paths pleased the eye and the tiny privet-hedged gardens gave at least some illusion of privacy to the lace-curtained windows and porched doors, though there were many roads where both doors and windows opened straight to the pavements with no pretension to seclusion.
She stood now in a wide, busy thoroughfare that was flanked with shops and business premises of all kinds, amongst which were more than a few public houses.
“Paper, lady?” The urchin’s voice, sharp and unexpected, made her jump.
“No, thank you.” The boy turned away. “Oh, wait, though. Yes, I will take one.”
The child held out a paper in a grubby hand, took her money and with a cheeky grin wandered off into the crowds calling.
Molly hitched her bundle further up her shoulder, tucked the paper under her arm and, armed with Lady Margaret’s somewhat vague directions, marched into the busy afternoon streets.
More than an hour and several mistaken turnings later, she at last found Linsey Grove. By this time she was hot and untidy and, to her own irritation, was beginning to feel almost as great a vagabond as she looked. Linsey Grove was a short street, lined with dusty plane trees, the houses a little larger and better kept than some she had seen in her wanderings today: the paths were swept, the gardens tidy. She found number twenty-six – a well-kept house even amongst its respectable neighbours – and after only a second’s hesitation pushed through the heavy brown-painted wooden gate. The porch was shining clean and decorated with brightly glazed brown-and-green tiles, the heavy knocker was polished to rival gold, and the slanting afternoon sun glittered upon the leaded stained glass of the front door. She brushed herself down, pulled her wretched untameable hair back behind her ears and, as an afterthought, dumped her bundle almost out of sight beside the porch before she knocked twice, hard, on the door, then folded her hands demurely around Lady Margaret’s letter and waited.
It was a full minute before sound and movement beyond the coloured glass bespoke an answer. When the door opened it was to reveal a tall and angular young man with thin, sandy hair and pale, weak-looking eyes whose hesitancy clearly spoke of lack of confidence rather than unfriendliness and whose face the moment he began to speak flushed an uncomfortable scarlet.
“Y-yes?”
She smiled, with intention, the most charming smile she could manage. “Mr Alden?” – as close as she could come to Margaret Wharton’s clear-vowelled, well-modulated voice, the soft consonants of Ireland deliberately hardened. She suspected from the way that he screwed his eyes up that, looking into the sun, he could make out few details of her appearance.
“Y-yes?”
“I wonder, is Mrs Alden at home? I have a letter for her. From Lady Margaret Wharton.”
“N-no.” The young man’s large, bony hand was rubbing with nervous movements on the shiny paint of the door. “N-no, I’m afraid she isn’t. C-could you perhaps c-come back later?”
Her heart sank, and her feet throbbed painfully. Beyond him she could see polished lino, shining wooden banisters, and through an open door a clean and comfortable kitchen. She sighed tiredly, let her shoulders droop dispiritedly, bowed her curly head a little. “Oh dear, how disappointing.” Her voice was a breath from tears. “Have you any idea how long she’ll be? I’ve come a very long way…”
The young man fidgeted uncomfortably. “I-I’m not sure. Not long, though. At l-least, I shouldn’t think s-so.”
She lifted a brave little chin, watched him with wide, artless eyes and let the awkward silence stretch on. The sun gilded her wild curls, glinted gold dust on long, tangled lashes; she looked fragile and forlorn. Some emotion, totally unfamiliar, stirred within Samuel Alden’s breast. He was not used to small, helpless-looking females.
“P-perhaps,” he said to his own astonishment, “you’d l-like to c-come in and wait? I c-could make a c-cup of tea?”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly put you to that trouble—” She opened her wide-set, sun-silvered eyes; Sam fell into the lavender depths and drowned.
“It’s n-no trouble. Honestly. P-please—” He stepped back, inviting her into the hall with a shy and awkward gesture. With a feeling of indescribable relief, and totally unaware that in her efforts to gain some respite for her aching feet she had inadvertently sparked the beginnings of devotion, Molly picked up her bundle and stepped across the shining red doorstep.
The house was almost obsessively neat and clean, the furniture polished to a miraculous shine, no single picture or ornament out of line, no speck of dust, no smear or grubby mark daring to besmirch paintwork or wall. After the dirt and squalor of Whitechapel it was another world; the very air smelled clean. Molly followed her guide along the hall and into a kitchen that looked as if no human agency could be responsible for its immaculacy.
“P-please sit down.” Sam’s pale eyes had widened in a surprise he had not the art to conceal; here in the cool shadows of the kitchen and away from the glare of sunshine he saw clearly for the first time the patched homespun, the battered boots, the marks of violence about the small, vivid face. Molly laid her precious letter upon the scrubbed table and faced him squarely; let him look. He flushed under her slightly defiant gaze and turned to the black kitchen range that, polished to a steely sheen, ran almost the length of one wall. Molly sat down and watched him in silence as he filled the kettle and set it on the hob; seeing the house, and the son, a strong picture was forming in her mind of the woman, Ellen Alden. Letter or no letter, first impressions would count.
“Excuse me.”
Sam turned. In his every movement, in every aspect, he was awkward: his hands seemed too big for his thin wrists, his shoulders stooped, his fine sandy hair fell untidily across his eyes, his face looked very pale and shadowed, as with ill-health.
“I wonder if I might tidy myself a little?” Molly looked down at her spread, dusty skirt and added with beguiling honesty, “I wouldn’t give myself houseroom looking like this.”
He stared. “You’ve c-come about the room?”
She nodded.
Sam was aware of an odd mixture of emotions: pleasure, doubt, something, for him, close to excitement. “M-Mother usually only takes gentlemen.”
“Yes. So Lady Margaret explained. But she seemed to think that her letter—?” Molly gestured towards the envelope, letting the sentence hang unfinished in the air.
Sam ducked his head in a kind of nod. “P-possibly, yes.” And for the first time he smiled, a fleeting, wry twitch of his long mouth that irresistibly brought an answering response from Molly’s. “L-Lady Margaret’s the only p-person I know who c-can make M-Mother do something she doesn’t really w-want to—” The kettle had begun to sing. “If you g-go through there,” he said, pointing to a small door leading into a lean-to beside the kitchen, “I think y-you’ll find everything y-you need. T-tea will be ready soon.”
“Thank you. I’ll be only a couple of minutes.”
She scrubbed her hands and face sore in an enamel bowl of cold water with soap that seemed to be made of sandstone and inspected her broken lip in a damp-speckled mirror that hung on the wall. The swelling had gone down considerably, though a faint shadowing bruise marked the pale skin around it. She wetted her comb and tried to slick her rebellious hair down, whispering an imprecation that owed a lot to brother Cormac as it sprang inevitably back to its accustomed dark halo of curls. She brushed at her dusty clothes, rubbed the towel – in the absence of anything else suitable – across her boots, and thus prepared re-entered the kitchen where Sam was pouring the tea. As he lifted his head to smile shy acknowledgment of her return they both heard the sound of a key in the lock, and for a fraction of a second Sam froze before carefully placing the teapot in its little flowered stand and turning towards the door.
“Sam? Sammy!” The voice was authoritative.
“Here, Mother,” he said, opening the kitchen door.
Molly stood, small and composed, her back so far as was possible to the light, her hands clasped before her as Ellen Alden swept in, as tall and spare as her only son, but with none of his ungainliness and the poise of a woman who knows herself to be completely in command of almost any situation. As Ellen eyed the small stranger in her kitchen with arid surprise, Molly thought that in her youth Mrs Alden must have been a striking-looking woman; her skin was dark, her thin, high-bridged nose dominated her face. But her lips were narrow and almost bloodless, drawn constantly to a straight and uncompromising line, and her eyes were not friendly as she waited with icy composure to be informed of the patently unacceptable reason for this intrusion.
“M-Mother, th-this is—” Sam stopped in confusion, stumbling more than ever over his words, “—a y-young w-woman from L-Lady Margaret—”
Dark brows rose, unimpressed and questioning.
“I have a letter.” Soft voice, downcast eyes. Molly picked up the envelope and held it out.
“So.” Ellen Alden held the long envelope in her hand and looked at it, the inscription written in Lady Margaret’s bold and scrawling hand seeming to cause some softening in that hard face. She laid the letter back on the table and lifted her hand to draw a long hat pin from her hat, then remove the hat from her smooth dark hair. Sam stepped forward and took the hat from her, helped her carefully from her long black coat.
“I’ve t-tea made, M-Mother.”
“Thank you, Sam.” Molly, intercepting with some astonishment the look that Ellen Alden bestowed upon her anxious son, and with aching memories of her own mother and laughing, handsome Danny to assist her, knew beyond doubt that Sam, unlikely as it might seem, was doted upon. She watched the young man as he poured tea for his mother, sugared it carefully, placed it on the table before her as she slit open the envelope.
There followed a long silence during which the ticking of the kitchen clock sounded thunderous.
At length Ellen Alden lifted forbidding eyes from the paper before her and studied Molly quite openly, her gaze missing nothing, not the patched and threadbare clothes, nor the boots, nor the evidence of violence on her face. Neither did she miss the promise of beauty in that thin, tired face, the curves of the small body beneath the ragged clothes.
“Lady Margaret suggests – asks, even, that I should take you as a lodger,” Sam’s mother said at last, bluntly. “She assures me of your good character, despite outward appearances, and takes responsibility herself for your good behaviour.”
Molly breathed a small prayer of thanks to the woman who had made such a decision on such short acquaintance.
“She talks of the charity and duty of a Christian—”
The word charity brought blood to Molly’s cheeks.
“I can pay,” she said, shortly.
“Yes. She tells me that also.” The reply was cool, the slightly raised eyebrows next to insulting.
Ellen Alden looked back at the letter. Every instinct urged her to turn this ragged, self-possessed urchin away, back into the streets where she undoubtedly belonged. Yet the personal connection with Lady Margaret Wharton, however tenuous, was something that meant as much to her as almost anything else in her life except her son. Supposing, through offence – for the letter was couched in terms of a personal favour – that the connection should cease? Ellen Alden was far from being a stupid woman. She knew how much her position of strength in the hierarchy of the women of the Chapel depended upon her personal acquaintance with Lady Margaret.
“You know that I usually take gentlemen? That I have never even considered taking a young lady?”
“Yes.”
Ellen, unkindly, allowed the defeat that showed in Molly’s eyes to last a moment longer than necessary before she added, “However, since this comes as a special request from Lady Margaret—”
Had she seen the look of pleasure that lit Sam’s face she might instantly have reconsidered. But she did not; she was watching Molly.
“—I am willing to give you a trial. Shall we say a month?”
Molly relaxed suddenly, her tight-clasped hands easing their grip; the smile she bestowed upon Ellen was brilliant, beautiful, and entirely wasted. The dark unfriendly eyes did not change.
“The rent is four and sixpence a week.” Molly’s eyes widened a little, but she did not protest. “You may use this kitchen for an hour each evening. The bath is there—” She pointed to the door leading to the outhouse. “You may use it once a week, on a Thursday evening. Sam and I are always at Chapel on a Thursday. There are, you understand, certain rules that I shall expect you to abide by.”
“Of course.”
“The door is locked at ten each evening. Including Saturdays.” She paused, waiting for argument. Molly said nothing. “No male visitors at any time, of course. Females you may entertain at certain times in your room providing you give me notice.”
&nbs
p; “I don’t know anyone,” Molly said quietly. “I don’t expect I’ll be having many visitors.”
Mrs Alden ignored the interruption. “Lady Margaret mentions the possibility of commercial college or some such thing?”
Molly nodded.
“Very well. A month, and we’ll see. Come, I’ll show you the room.”
They climbed the stairs in silence and Molly followed the woman into a large bow-windowed room in the front of the house. It had the same air of ordered cleanliness as the other rooms Molly had seen; the furnishings comprised a bed, a deep armchair, a table covered in a heavy, dark red cloth that matched the bedspread and the curtains, a wardrobe that looked big enough to live in and a washstand with jug and basin. Molly added in her mind’s eye the touches of personal habitation, noted the blaze of an afternoon sun in the window, the dusty leaves of a plane tree outside, and thanked the star that had led her to this room.
“I’ll leave you, then, to—” Ellen eyed disparagingly her scruffy bundle “—unpack. At the end of the street is a pie shop. You’ll no doubt need some supper.”
“Thank you.”
Ellen inclined her head and turned to go. “The rent is due each Friday,” she said before she closed the door, “promptly, if you please.”
“I could give you a month in advance.”
“That won’t be necessary,” the woman said sparely. “A week will do, payable tomorrow.” Molly waited for the firm click of the lock, then pulled a ferocious and childish face at the closed door. But the sight of the golden, sunlit room – hers, all hers, while she could pay the rent – more space and more comfort than she had ever had in her life, lifted her spirits and sent them soaring. With an overwhelming feeling of happiness she threw herself backwards onto the bed and lay, arms spread wide, luxuriating in the feel of the sun on her face through the glass, the rainbowed glory of it in her half-closed eyes.
A month – Ellen grimly marched back down the stairs – if the baggage can manage to stay in one place for that long. A little gypsy if ever I saw one. One foot out of place, just one, and out she goes, Lady Margaret or no.
Molly Page 6