I leaned against the wall, suddenly weary. I wished I could skip the next five years overnight. I would be trapped in Cripps Alley for such a long, long time. It was no use hoping that Mildred would sicken and die when the new baby was born, like my own poor mother. Mildred was as strong as an ox. She could have another baby each twelve-month without any problems. When she had Bert she’d given birth only a couple of hours after her first pain, and was up and about within a day, whereas Mrs Watson was flat on her back in bed for a week after she had her little Tommy.
‘You all right, Clover?’ It was Mrs Watson herself, calling from her doorstep, Tommy on her hip, her little girl, Alice, butting her head against her knees. Tommy was wailing mournfully, though she was joggling him up and down, trying to distract him.
‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you,’ I answered.
‘You don’t look it. That poor head of yours has swollen right up,’ she said.
‘I’ll be as right as rain tomorrow, you’ll see,’ I told her.
‘You’re a plucky kid, Clover, I’ll say that for you. And you’ve got a knack with all the little ones. Look at little Bert, happy as can be. My Tommy won’t stop wailing. He was at it all night long and he still won’t quieten,’ she said. ‘I’m desperate for a bit of sleep.’
‘I’ll mind him for you for a couple of hours, and little Alice too,’ I offered. I still felt guilty about her washing being spoiled – and I loved her calling me plucky. Fancy, two people praising me in the space of half an hour! It made me feel warm and special, aching head or not.
‘Oh, Clover, I couldn’t possibly. You’ve got enough on your hands, plus you must be feeling pretty poorly,’ said Mrs Watson, though she looked tempted.
‘Go on, I don’t mind a bit.’ I set Bert back down on the pavement. ‘There now, Bertie, have another little crawl. Alice, you keep an eye on him for me while I give your brother a cuddle so your poor ma can take a little nap,’ I said.
I took Tommy out of his mother’s arms. He was red in the face with crying and his damp little body felt hot.
‘Perhaps we should loosen his shawl?’ I suggested. ‘It’s a very fancy pattern. Did you crochet it yourself?’
‘No, I got it from the used-clothes stall down the market last week – good as new.’ She looked at my ragged frock. ‘You ought to tell your ma to go there – you can get some lovely little outfits at sixpence a pop.’
‘I doubt she’ll be buying me any clothes in a hurry, new or used,’ I said, rocking Tommy. I looked at his flushed little face. ‘You know what, I think he’s teething. Our Bert used to get those bright red cheeks. I used to rub his gums with teething jelly. I think we’ve still got some at home. I’ll try him with it.’
‘Bless you, Clover,’ said Mrs Watson. ‘Come and wake me in two hours then, dear.’
I was more than ready to do so because Tommy didn’t settle properly, though the jelly soothed him for five minutes because it was so sweet. Bert didn’t appreciate my fussing over Tommy and started crying for attention himself.
‘Dear goodness, why do babies have such powerful lungs?’ I said to Megs. ‘You’d feel so much more obliging if they whispered sweetly.’
I’d been flattered by Mr Rivers saying I was a good little nursemaid, but I couldn’t quieten poor Tommy. He was hotter than ever, his fluffy hair stuck to his head with sweat. I took the shawl off him altogether and gently blew on his face, but it didn’t cool him and he was still sadly fretful.
Megs took his fancy white shawl and wrapped it over her head and round her shoulders. ‘Look, Clover, I’m a bride,’ she said, smiling.
‘A very beautiful bride,’ I said, rocking Tommy, who wailed louder than ever. ‘Be a bride if you like, but I wouldn’t have babies if I were you.’
‘Naughty bad babies,’ said little Mary smugly. She and Jenny imitated them, adding to the caterwauling. Alice hung back at first, but soon joined in their play, especially when I turned an old torn pinny into a baby for her.
Mildred was trying to nap too, and came to the door threatening blue murder if we didn’t all button it immediately, but she kept her fists by her sides and had another anxious glance at my head. ‘Better put some more of that ointment on, Clover,’ she said.
I smeared it on, and put some on Tommy’s flaming cheeks too just in case it helped. Then I carted him back to the Watson house, Alice trotting beside us clutching her pinny baby. Mrs Watson was deeply asleep in an armchair, her head nodding on one side, but as soon as she heard Tommy she sat up straight, sighing.
‘He’s still at it then?’ she said. ‘Thank you, Clover. I’ll take over now I’ve got my strength up again. Bless you, dear.’
‘I’m happy to help, Mrs Watson,’ I said.
I still felt happy when we went to bed, and made up a story for all the children, whispering into the dark. It was all about a kind artist who painted our picture, which hung in a special gallery. The Queen herself saw it and took a fancy to it and invited us all to tea at the palace.
The children fell asleep one by one. I was just dropping off myself when I heard an urgent banging at the door. No one ever knocked after dark unless it was an emergency.
I jumped out of bed and ran to the top of the stairs. Mildred had the door open. I saw Mr Watson standing there, looking frantic.
‘Our Tommy took a fit this evening. I ran with him all the way to the children’s hospital, a good two miles away. The nurse there says it’s scarlet fever and the poor little mite’s unlikely to pull through. Our Tommy’s been put in isolation, all alone in a little metal cot. We have to tell everyone who’s gone near him because the fever’s catching. The wife said your Clover nursed him half the afternoon!’
4
I SAT DOWN at the top of the stairs, shivering with fear. Poor little Tommy! Was he really going to die when he was only a few months old? Scarlet fever! There had been a bout of it in the alley two summers ago. Three of the four Miles children had died of it, and their mother nearly went demented.
The fever’s catching!
Would we all catch it? Oh, thank the Lord, I hadn’t let Megs hold little Tommy. But I had cradled him in my arms, rubbed my own head against his tiny hot one, put my fingers in his mouth to apply the teething jelly, even changed his soaking napkin. I couldn’t have got closer to him. So was I going to catch the fever and die too?
I clasped my arms around myself. I couldn’t die! Megs and all the other children needed me. How would they manage without me? I saw them all kitted out in black, their little white faces dripping with tears as they filed past my coffin. I pictured Pa wild-eyed and shaking, crying for his firstborn child. Even Mildred might shed a guilty tear and pray that no one had noticed the great gash above my eye.
What would it feel like when they screwed down the lid and took me to the graveyard and buried me under the earth? Would my spirit be able to squeeze out of my body and drift through a crack in the coffin? Would I be just a wisp of smoke, or would I assume a pale ghostly body?
I hoped I might be less scrawny, with long shining hair. And would I grow wings? I didn’t want to fly up to Heaven. I wanted to stay here on earth and look after everyone. Perhaps I could be Megs’s guardian angel and keep her safe and happy?
But would I actually make an angel? I hadn’t always been a good girl. I had lied enough times to turn my tongue black. I had lost my temper and raged at the boys who plagued Mr Dolly. I had cracked a few heads together in my time. I had bad-mouthed Mildred. My Lord, I had even wished her dead, and meant it too.
I wouldn’t be an angel. I’d be pitchforked down to hell to join the other devils. I thought of Pious Peter, who spouted hellfire every week at the Saturday market, describing the torments of the damned. My head started throbbing, as if those terrible pincers were already closing in on me. I was burning even though I was shivering. It seemed I had the fever already.
I put my head on my knees, struggling not to cry. I heard Mildred and Pa arguing down below, and then the thud of footsteps
on the stairs. Mildred loomed above me in the gloom, holding a candle, an eerie white ghost without a face. I reared away from her, hand over my mouth in case I screamed and woke the others.
‘That’s right. Keep your mouth covered! Don’t breathe on me!’ she hissed.
I realized she’d tied an apron across the bridge of her nose so that it hung down like a veil. Mildred was frightened of me! It seemed so ridiculous that I burst out laughing.
‘It’s not funny, you stupid girl! You might kill us all! Why did you have to dandle that Watson baby for hours? Haven’t you got your own little brother to look after? And now you’re putting him in danger – all your brothers, all your sisters,’ she spat.
I choked and my laughter changed to sobs. ‘I won’t let them catch it. I’ll go away by myself somewhere,’ I said.
‘That’s what I think you should do, in all charity, but your soft-hearted father won’t hear of it. So you’re to come downstairs with me now, do you hear? No creeping back to bed and giving them all the fever too. You’ll sleep under the stairs now, in the cupboard. And you’re to stay there all day too, while we see if the fever develops.’ She stuck out a hand, dabbed at my forehead hurriedly and then gave a little scream. ‘It’s sticky with sweat already!’
‘That’s the ointment – the stuff for the cut on my head,’ I said. ‘The cut you gave me, Mildred, with your brass thimble.’
‘Don’t you dare call me Mildred. I’m your stepma, God help me. It’s my duty to chastise you. Now get yourself downstairs this instant,’ she said, wiping her hands on her skirts.
I had to go down the stairs in my nightgown. Pa was in the hallway, weeping.
‘I’m sorry, Clover, but what else can we do?’ he said. ‘Try to be a brave girl. Please God it will only be for a day or so, just to make sure you haven’t got the fever.’
Mildred opened the door of the cupboard under the stairs. I stood there, hesitating. I’d always feared that cupboard, hating it when Mildred sent me to rummage around for the broom or the dust rag or the dolly tub on washday. I knew there were insects creeping in the corners, and I often heard furtive scrabbling sounds. I hoped they were mice and not rats.
‘Get in, child. Surely I don’t have to push you!’ said Mildred. ‘Here, I’ll fetch you a blanket and a bucket in case you need to relieve yourself.’
‘It’s so dark. Can’t I have the candle?’
‘Yes, give her the candle, Mildred,’ said Pa.
‘I daren’t. She’ll likely knock it over and start a fire, and then we’ll all burn to death,’ said Mildred.
‘For pity’s sake, we can’t shut her up in the dark like an animal.’
‘It’s night-time. She’d be in the dark in her own bedroom,’ Mildred argued. ‘She has to be kept separate or she’ll pass on the fever.’
‘We don’t even know I’ve got the wretched fever,’ I cried. ‘Though I expect you’ll be glad if I sicken and die of it, Mildred.’
‘Clover! Don’t you dare talk like that to your mother,’ said Pa.
‘She’s not my mother!’
‘She’s brought you and Megs up as her own, and never stinted. And you must admit, you haven’t always been an easy child.’
‘I’ll say,’ said Mildred. ‘Now in you get!’
She pushed. I pushed back.
‘You can’t make me,’ I said, though I knew Mildred had twice my strength.
‘You don’t want to give Megs the fever, do you? Or little Bert?’ she said.
She had me there. I crept into the dark cupboard. Pa gave me an extra blanket and fetched a precious jar of strawberry jam from the larder.
‘What are you doing, handing over that jam? It’s our last jar!’ said Mildred.
‘She’ll need something to comfort her. Try to be brave, Clover,’ said Pa. ‘Goodnight, dear.’ He bent as if to come into the cupboard himself to give me a kiss.
‘Keep away from her!’ Mildred warned. ‘You’ll likely get it if you so much as touch her.’
Pa backed away and Mildred slammed the door shut. It was immediately as dark as if I’d tumbled down the coal hole. I hunched up as small as I could, sitting on one blanket and wrapping the other around me. I listened hard, imagining the scrabbling, the squeaking, the slow creep of the cockroaches. I pulled the blanket right over my head, clutching the jar.
I prised off the lid and stuck my finger in, then sucked up the sweetness, and it was indeed a comfort. Pa still loved me after all, even if it was just a little bit. Would he have run two miles with me in his arms when I was a baby? I thought of poor little Tommy, crying for his own ma and pa. I wished I knew a prayer for him.
My folk weren’t churchgoers, for all Mildred talked of her Christian duty. Mr Dolly was a follower of Charles Darwin and believed we were all descended from monkeys. I tried to remember Pious Peter’s rants.
‘Gentle Jesus, please save little Tommy. Make him get better. And please could I get better too, if I really do have the fever? Thank you. The end,’ I whispered. I hoped it would be more effective if I said it out loud, but my muttering sounded very eerie in that black cupboard. I had to calm myself with several more scoops of jam.
I couldn’t see what I was doing in the dark and was soon sticky up to my elbow, but it seemed the least of my worries. I couldn’t stop thinking of the creeping creatures shut in the cupboard with me. Should I keep as still as a statue so that they didn’t notice me? But then they might just come and crawl all over me. I moved restlessly and drummed my bare heels on the floorboards to warn them away, but after ten minutes I was so exhausted I simply lay down with the blanket over my head for protection.
I’d lost the jam-pot lid, and though I felt around for a while it seemed to have rolled into a corner somewhere and was lost. I was scared the cockroaches might glide silently up the open jar and into the jam and then I’d eat one by mistake, so I clutched the jar too, my hand protectively over the top. It was very uncomfortable and I was stifling under the blanket, but surprisingly I fell asleep almost immediately.
I was woken by footsteps pattering down the stairs above my head. I had no idea if it was morning or still the middle of the night. Then whoever it was ran to the front door and rattled the bolt, but their hands weren’t strong enough to slide it open. Then I heard crying.
I edged forward on my knees until my head was against the cupboard door. ‘Megs?’ I called.
‘Oh! Oh, Clover, where are you? I’ve been looking and looking for you!’ Megs wailed.
‘It’s all right. Don’t cry. I’m here,’ I said.
‘Where? Clover, I want you! I need a cuddle!’
‘I’m here, darling. In the cupboard under the stairs.’
‘Don’t tease,’ Megs said.
‘I’m not teasing, it’s true. I’m in here.’
‘In here?’ Megs thumped on the cupboard door and then I heard her turning the handle.
‘No, stop it! You mustn’t come in,’ I insisted.
‘But I want to. I want you. Please let me in. Why are you in the horrid cupboard?’
‘Mildred shoved me in here.’
‘Oh, I hate her! She’s so cruel. I’ll get you out right now!’ said Megs.
‘No, no, you don’t understand. I have to stay in the cupboard for a while because I might have the fever and you could all catch it from me,’ I said.
‘The fever?’
‘Scarlet fever. Little baby Tommy has it. That’s why he was so poorly. They’ve only just found out. So I have to stay here by myself in case I get the fever too.’
‘Will you?’ asked Megs, crying harder.
‘I don’t know. I don’t feel very well but maybe I’m just frightened.’
‘I’m coming in too!’ said Megs. ‘I don’t care about the silly old fever. I don’t feel well either. Please let me in, Clover.’ She turned the handle again and managed to get the door open a crack. I pulled on it hard so that she couldn’t prise it open any further.
‘No, you mustn’t,
Megsie. We’ll be able to have a big hug the very second I come out. We just have to wait a day or so,’ I said.
‘A whole day?’ Megs exclaimed. ‘I can’t wait that long!’
I wondered how she would bear it if I died of the fever. I took hold of my hair and pulled it hard, jerking my head from side to side.
I’m not, not, not going down with the fever! I chanted inside my head.
‘Clover?’ Megs quavered. ‘Oh, Clover, you haven’t caught the fever and died right this minute, have you?’
‘No, no, I’m still here, and I’m going to curl up and go to sleep. And you’re going to go back upstairs and get into bed and go to sleep too,’ I said.
‘But I have to cuddle against you to go to sleep,’ Megs protested.
‘Cuddle Jenny instead,’ I said. ‘Off you go now.’
‘You promise you’ll come out when the day’s over?’
‘I promise,’ I said, though I wasn’t sure Mildred would think it long enough. I didn’t know how long the fever took to develop. I curled up under the blanket again and imagined the fever spreading from my aching head down my arms and body and legs until every part of me was hot and itching.
No, no, I haven’t got the fever! I’m perfectly well. I’m just hot and itchy because of this horrid old blanket. I’m NOT getting the fever. I can’t get ill and die because I have to look after Megs and little Bert and all the others. I have to look after ME. I’m going to work for Mr Dolly and make beautiful dolls for lots of little girls, and I’ll read all the books on his shelf and know as much as he does, and my brain will practically burst with all this knowledge and I’ll have to wear the biggest size bonnet to keep it safe inside me.
Then I remembered Mr Dolly reading me passages from his special friend Mr Shakespeare. There was one lovely little song the fairies chanted. I could only remember snatches of it. Philomel, with melody. Sing in our sweet lullaby. Lulla, lulla, lullaby.
I sang it over and over in my head, hoping it would somehow reach Megs and soothe her. It soothed me too, and eventually I fell asleep again. I only woke when I heard Mildred thumping down the stairs.
Clover Moon Page 5