I rambled on while Megs breathed in and out so shallowly that her little sunken chest barely moved. I could feel her heart beating fast. I stroked her very gently, trying to soothe her. After a very long time I fell asleep but was woken by Megs wriggling, kicking her legs.
‘What is it, darling?’ I asked in alarm.
‘We’ve got so much room!’ said Megs. Her throat was raspy but she sounded almost normal.
‘Oh, Megs, I think you’re getting better!’ I said. ‘We’ve got the bed to ourselves because you’ve had the fever.’ I felt her forehead. She was still very hot, and when I stroked her cheeks I could still feel the bumpy rash, but at least she was properly awake now.
‘I like it, just you and me,’ she said.
‘I like it too, Megs,’ I agreed.
We cuddled close and I sang the lullaby song again, over and over. Megs’s head lolled against my arm, making it ache, but I didn’t move. I lay still and clung on to her.
But in the morning . . . Oh, I can hardly bear to say it. I woke up and Megs was still in my arms, but she wasn’t burning hot any more. She was cold and still. I shook her gently. I shook her harder. Then I clutched her close.
‘Megs, Megs, oh, my Megs,’ I cried, and I started sobbing.
The door opened and Pa and Mildred peered round it fearfully.
‘No!’ Pa groaned and covered his eyes.
‘Oh my Lord.’ Mildred started crying, though she’d ignored poor Megs all her short life.
The other children clamoured behind them, but Mildred pushed them away. ‘Downstairs, now, this instant,’ she commanded.
‘But we want to see poorly Megs!’ said Jenny.
‘She’s not here any more,’ said Mildred. ‘She’s gone to join the angels in Heaven.’
‘No, she’s not,’ said Richie. ‘She’s lying there in our bed – I can see her!’
‘I want to see her,’ said Pete, trying to thrust his head through Pa’s legs.
‘Get away, all of you. Do you want to get the fever too?’ said Mildred.
‘Yes, go away!’ I cried, desperate to be left alone with Megs so I could whisper to her and stroke her and beg her to come back to me.
‘You must leave her be, Clover,’ said Pa. ‘You’ll catch it off her.’
‘You’ve already shut me up in that terrible cupboard for fear I’ll catch it. I haven’t got the fever and I don’t care if I do have it anyway,’ I sobbed. ‘I’d sooner be dead now that Megs is gone.’
‘Stop that dreadful talk. I’ve already lost your dear mother and now your poor little sister. You can’t put me through any more heartache,’ said Pa. ‘Can’t you talk sense into her, Mildred?’
‘You know she never listens to a word I say,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve tried my best with her but she’s too wayward, even for me. There now, Arthur. Don’t take on so.’ She put her big arms round him and let him cry on her shoulder like a baby. The sight of their embrace turned my stomach. How could Pa love that great hard lump of a woman? I knew my mother had been little and soft and gentle.
‘You’ll be meeting our real mother soon,’ I whispered in Megs’s ear when the rest of the family had at last retreated, Mildred sending Jenny off to fetch Mrs Wilkes at the end of the alley to do the laying out. ‘You’ll fly up to Heaven and the angels will reach their arms down through the clouds and haul you up. You’ll be in this magical shining land, and Mother will coming running towards you and clasp you in her arms, so happy to see you.’
I tried to believe this myself, but that vision of a happy, carefree Megs was so different from the poor scrap of a girl lying on the bed, as still and stiff as one of Mr Dolly’s wooden figures. I waited in dread for Mrs Wilkes to come, knowing she’d send me away. But I heard Jenny return home wailing.
‘She says she can’t come, Ma! She won’t go near our Megs because of the fever. She says she’s got five children of her own and daren’t put them at risk,’ she cried.
‘Oh dear Lord, what are we going to do now?’ Pa said, in despair.
Mildred went out herself to fetch a midwife who also did laying out, but she wouldn’t come either.
‘I’ll have to do it myself then,’ she said grimly. ‘Though Lord knows how we’ll bury her. I went into the undertaker’s in Harrison Road and they won’t come – they say they haven’t got the right facilities.’
‘So what are we supposed to do? Bury the poor little girl ourselves?’ Pa cried.
‘The Harrison Road lot said we’d have to go to Ernest Payne’s in the High Street,’ said Mildred. ‘But they’re just for the gentry – everyone in full black, with fine horses and coffins covered in flowers. They’ll cost a fortune. We can’t have them.’
‘Then we’ll have to pawn something,’ said Pa. ‘My Megs isn’t going to have a pauper’s funeral.’
‘We haven’t got anything worth pawning. I don’t know – what was all that fancy talk when we first met? You were certain to be foreman, you said, making out we were going to live like gentry. And now look at us, stuck in this hovel – seven kids and another on the way!’
‘Six kids,’ said Pa, and started weeping.
I listened to them squabbling, hating them. I put my hands over Megs’s ears, though I knew she couldn’t hear them.
‘I wish I could pay for your funeral, Megs,’ I whispered. I had my five shillings in Mr Dolly’s purse, but I knew it wasn’t enough for a proper funeral. ‘You deserve the grandest funeral ever, with folk weeping on the pavement as your carriage trundles by, all shiny black and gleaming brass, drawn by horses with purple plumes.’
I lay talking to her, but all the while she grew colder and colder. I tried wrapping another blanket round her but it had no effect. I pulled the blanket up over my own head too, wanting to shut out the rest of the world, but I still heard the front door slamming and Mildred shouting and the children crying.
It was suffocating but I stayed there, as still as Megs, until, a long time later, I felt someone pulling at me, tearing off the blanket.
‘Get up, Clover! Get up at once!’ It was Mildred, hiding under her apron again. ‘The funeral people are here to take Megs away. You must get out of bed this instant.’
I saw a man and a woman at the door. They were dressed from head to toe in crow black, with strange veils over their faces.
‘Say goodbye to your sister, dear,’ the veiled woman said firmly.
I kissed Megs on her chilly forehead. She didn’t feel like my soft little sister any more. She didn’t even look like her now, with her eyes glazed and her mouth open. I had to leave her with them, and then watch as they carried her down the stairs, wrapped in white cloth. It covered her completely, but one small grubby foot lolled out underneath.
The other children were watching fearfully too, held back by Mildred. The girls clung to her, and little Bert sat astride her stomach, with Richie clutching her skirts – but Pete was bolder.
‘I need to give Megs back her marble!’ he said, starting to cry. ‘She found it – a great green glass marble with gold swirls – but I wanted it so badly I took it from her and wouldn’t let her have it back. I want her to have it now. Please wait while I find it.’
‘She won’t be needing any marble now, laddie,’ said the man, and they made their way out of the door. He paused on the threshold. ‘We’ll be informing the public disinfectors, missus.’
‘Please don’t,’ Mildred begged. ‘There’s no need. The two girls were kept separate. And I’ll scrub the whole house from top to bottom, I swear I will. For pity’s sake, don’t tell them.’
‘It’s the law, missus. It’s more than my job’s worth to keep quiet. It’s the Sanitary Act, see. You’ll get fined or sent to prison if you don’t let the disinfectors do their work,’ he said.
‘But we can’t afford it! The funeral’s going to cost a fortune as it is,’ Mildred wailed. ‘We’re clean folk. I keep this house spotless. The fever didn’t start here. The big girl brought it into the house and gave it to her sist
er.’
‘Doesn’t matter where it came from. The room where the little lassie lay has to be purified, and all the clothes and bedding taken off to the disinfecting oven, where they’ll be thoroughly cleaned of infection before you can have them back. I dare say they’ll be round some time after noon to start their task. Good day to you, missus. Please accept our sympathy for your sad bereavement.’
The black ghouls departed, but within three hours the public disinfectors arrived. I’d seen them before, when there was an outbreak of scarlet fever at the other end of the alley. That time I’d backed away from these ghostly men in white, pulling their sinister handcart behind them. It was difficult remembering that, underneath their white smocks and trousers, they were only ordinary working men. The little children thought they’d be shovelled into their carts, the lids slammed on them.
Mildred and some of the other mothers found this a useful threat. ‘You quit doing that or the infection men will come and catch you,’ they said. I was big enough to know this was nonsense now, but I still trembled at the sight of them. They were more rough and ready than the funeral folk.
‘Keep them kiddies well away!’ they told Mildred gruffly. ‘Where’s the sick room?’
I knew what they were about to do. I ran up the stairs in front of them and tried to snatch Megs’s discarded nightgown and her hair ribbon, desperate to keep them as mementoes, but they caught me before I could hide them.
‘Don’t be daft, miss. They’re infectious. They all have to go in the disinfecting oven,’ they said, snatching them from me with their soiled white gloves and then pushing me roughly from the room.
I heard them stripping the bed, gathering up all the clothes and pulling down the ragged curtains with two quick wrenches. When they came down the stairs I saw that one even had our old rag rug under one arm.
‘You’ve taken everything!’ Mildred protested. ‘Look – there’s trousers there belonging to the boys, and all the baby things. Those children never had the fever, only the one, little Megs.’
‘It’s all infected material and has to be fumigated,’ they said gruffly. ‘They’re mostly rags anyhow.’
‘How dare you! All the kids are decently clothed. What are they meant to do now, run round naked?’
‘They’ll get them back again in due course, once the room itself has been disinfected,’ said one man.
This was even more of a trial. They lit a sulphur fire which had to burn for a full twenty-four hours. Mildred and Pa had to have the children crowded in with them again. I couldn’t bear the thought of claiming a corner of their bed and slept in a chair downstairs, thinking of Megs. Her funeral had been fixed for the Friday, but to my horror Mildred said I couldn’t go.
‘None of you children will be attending,’ she said. ‘We can’t afford to kit you all out in black, not with the expense of all this wretched disinfecting. We’re going to have to whitewash everywhere before they’ll even let us have your old kit back, and then it’ll doubtless stink to high heaven.’
‘I have to go! Megs is my sister! She meant far more to me than she did to you or Pa!’ I declared.
‘Hush now. Your pa and I have to go to the funeral because we’re the parents. It wouldn’t look decent if we didn’t. Your pa will wear his good suit and I’ve got my black winter coat, and I dare say I’ll find a scrap of black veiling to pin on my hat,’ said Mildred.
‘Can’t I borrow your black coat and go instead?’ I asked.
‘Of course not. I’m her mother.’
‘You’re not her mother, that’s the whole point. I don’t think you cared about her at all. I loved her more than anybody so I should go. I have to go,’ I insisted.
‘Hold your tongue, Clover Moon! I did my best to give little Megs a mother’s love.’ Mildred sighed sentimentally.
‘What lies!’ I cried indignantly.
‘I tried with you too, but you’ve always been contrary, contradicting every word I say! Who do you think you are, you uppity little madam? I wonder you’re not crippled with guilt! If it wasn’t for you being a busybody and minding that Watson baby then Megs would never have caught the fever,’ Mildred hissed.
I flinched as if she’d spat acid at me. I wanted to run up to the bedroom and cry in private but it was all sealed up and stank of sulphur. I slammed out of the house instead.
In the alley the children were playing marbles – but not Jenny, Richie, Pete, Mary or little Bert. They were huddled up together at one end, heads down. I sat beside them, putting my arms around as many as I could.
‘It’s so sad, isn’t it?’ I said softly. ‘I can’t take it in, can you? But we must try to be happy for Megs, even though it’s so terrible for us. She’s with the angels now.’
‘She’s not with me!’ protested little Angel from five doors along. ‘She’s not to come anywhere near me! My ma says I must keep away from all of you or she’ll give me a whipping.’
‘Yes, keep away – especially you, Clover. Our ma says you’ll give us the fever,’ Sukey shouted.
‘I haven’t got the wretched fever,’ I said, but when I approached her she actually threw a stone at me.
She was only small but she had a good aim. It hit me on the temple, where my head was still sore from Mildred’s blows. It hurt a lot, but my feelings were hurt even more. These children were my friends. I’d played with them since they were babies, telling them stories and making up games and giving them little treats, and yet now they were all turning on me as if I were a bogeyman.
Maybe I was. I didn’t seem to catch the fever myself, but perhaps I simply passed it on to others. I stood up and stepped away from my siblings. Bert wailed and held up his arms, wanting a cuddle, but I didn’t dare pick him up now.
‘You look after him, Jenny, just in case,’ I said.
I set off up the alley and into the street. I knew people here were unlikely to know about poor Megs and the fever, but it seemed as if they were backing away from me, dodging out of arm’s reach, their heads turned. I started to think I was doomed to wander the streets alone for ever, with not a soul talking to me. I’d march on and on and on, day after day after day, until I reached the sea, and the three ships would sail away from me and I’d walk on though the waves while the fish swam away from me in terror.
I didn’t know where I was walking, but my feet did. Down Winding Lane, round the marketplace, along the High Street, into Merchants Lane, past the draper’s, the coffee shop, the stationer’s, to Dolls Aplenty. But I didn’t go in. I stayed outside, looking at the wooden dolls in the window. I stared until I could still see their black eyes and pink cheeks and red lips when I closed my eyes. I longed to shrink to doll size so that I could clamber in and pose with them, and be a stiff wooden creature without a heart.
7
THEN I HEARD the tinkle of the shop bell and Mr Dolly’s gentle voice.
‘Good day, Clover. Aren’t you coming in to see me?’
I covered my mouth with my hands. ‘I can’t, Mr Dolly! You mustn’t come any nearer! I might infect you with the fever!’ I said urgently.
‘My dear child! What are you talking about?’
‘It’s true. There’s scarlet fever in our alley. Little baby Tommy died of it, and I was looking after him, and our Megs dressed up in his shawl and she caught it too – and now . . . now Megs has died and I don’t see how I can manage without her!’
‘Oh, my poor child,’ said Mr Dolly, and he came right out of the door, limping towards me.
‘Please get back! I couldn’t bear it if I gave it to you too,’ I said.
‘Have you any symptoms of the fever yourself, Clover?’ Mr Dolly asked urgently. ‘Do you feel hot? Do you have a headache or a sore throat? My Lord, what’s that dreadful gash on your forehead?’
‘That’s nothing to do with the fever, that’s just where Mildred hit me,’ I said.
‘That dreadful stepmother? Why doesn’t your father protect you?’
‘He doesn’t see her do it.’
‘He must know! He’s got eyes in his head, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes, but he doesn’t want to know,’ I said. ‘Mr Dolly, I must go. I shouldn’t have come here.’
‘You must come inside and let me look after you. I’m pretty sure you don’t have the fever – and it’s not of enormous consequence to me if you do. I’m old now. I’ve lived enough life already.’
‘But what if children come to your shop with their parents or nursemaid to choose a doll? Couldn’t they catch it if I’ve been inside?’
‘I doubt it – but perhaps you’re wise to be cautious. Well then, we’ll take a little walk together where no children go. I’m not sending you away while you’re in such distress. Wait here a moment. Promise you won’t run away?’
He dodged back inside his shop, and after a minute returned with a big yellow silk scarf patterned with orange stripes.
‘There we are,’ he said, turning his shop sign to CLOSED and locking the door. ‘I’ve never taken to this scarf. Too fancy by half. So you pop it round your face like a flamboyant little highwayman so there’s no possibility of spreading any germs and we’ll toddle off.’
‘But you can’t close your shop now. You might miss another customer like Mr Rivers,’ I protested.
‘I don’t think there will ever be another Mr Rivers,’ said Mr Dolly. ‘I haven’t had a single customer in the shop today. The last purchase was on Saturday, and that was a penny doll’s-house doll. Now tie the scarf and come along.’
I did as I was told.
‘You wear that scarf with style, dear. If you had a pistol in your pocket I’m sure you could make your fortune,’ said Mr Dolly.
‘I need a fortune,’ I said sadly. ‘Megs is having a grand funeral on Friday but Mildred won’t let me go because I haven’t anything black. Do you think my five shillings would be enough to purchase a set of mourning clothes? Just a hat and a dress and a coat – and maybe a pair of black boots, because the soles of my old brown ones are flapping. I daren’t go to the second-hand stall because that’s how poor Mrs Watson’s baby caught the fever – from the shawl she bought there.’
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