by Ruthie Lewis
‘I think we should call him Radcliffe,’ said Albert.
Grace and George both stared at him. ‘Why Radcliffe?’ asked Grace.
‘I don’t know,’ said Albert. ‘I just like the name.’
‘Well then, welcome to Bell Lane, Radcliffe,’ said George, scratching the dog’s ears again. ‘Right, you little rascals. Who wants to play piggy-back while Auntie gets the food ready?’
*
That afternoon Grace went to the market to buy bread and eggs and mutton, and then went to see Mr Jackson the ironmonger. He rummaged around in his stock and came up with a cast-iron lock, old but heavy and strong, and two keys. ‘Happy to donate these to the cause,’ he said. ‘Rufus is fretting the day away. Doesn’t know what to do with himself when he’s not at school. Tell me when the rebuilding work starts and I’ll come and lend a hand.’
December dusk was falling when she came out of the ironmonger’s and almost ran into Mrs Hobbes. The vicar’s wife was wearing a shapeless coat with a rabbit fur collar turned up, hiding her neck and making her look more than ever like a disapproving turtle. ‘Miss Perrow!’ she said. ‘How good it is to see you.’
‘And you also, ma’am,’ said Grace. What hypocrites we are, she thought. We cannot stand each other, and we both know it.
‘I was so sorry to hear of what happened to your little school,’ said Mrs Hobbes, her voice resonant with insincerity. ‘Not at all surprised, of course, but sorry. I don’t expect you’ll have the heart to carry on now, will you?’
‘On the contrary,’ said Grace. ‘I intend to rebuild and carry on exactly as before. Indeed, I hope to recruit still more pupils.’
A look of vexation passed across the turtle’s face. ‘I am astonished,’ said Mrs Hobbes. ‘I assumed you would have learned your lesson by now. Miss Perrow, when will you not realise that these people do not want or need your help? They are content with their lot, and desire nothing further. Why do you persist in interfering?’
Grace felt the time had come to speak honestly. ‘Because I do not agree with you,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe they are content. They want something better, if not for themselves, then certainly for their sons and daughters. The children I teach are hungry for learning, Mrs Hobbes, and I intend to feed that hunger. Nothing you say will persuade me to change my mind.’
‘Is that so?’ Affronted, the vicar’s wife glared at her. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘We shall see about that. I bid you good day, Miss Perrow.’ And, gathering her coat more closely about her, Mrs Hobbes marched away down the street.
*
Mr Gould was as good as his word. A wagonload of timber was dropped off at the railway arch and on Sunday, after church, George, Mr Jackson, Mickey Doyle and a couple of his fellow dockers, and Elijah Berton and some other men from the engine factory went to the arch and built a stout wooden wall nearly as high as the arch, covering the remaining gap with another sheet of sailcloth. The stove and chimney were refitted, and instead of a canvas flap there was now a sturdy pine door. Mr Jackson fitted the lock and gave Grace both the keys.
‘Thank you,’ Grace said to them. ‘I am quite overwhelmed by your kindness.’
Elijah Berton shuffled a little and scratched his ear. ‘It’s us that’s in your debt, ma’am,’ he said. ‘What you’re doing for our kids. You can’t put a price on that.’
Two weeks before Christmas, the school reopened and the children came streaming in, barefoot and ragged as ever but with faces bright with excitement. Grace’s heart glowed with warmth when she saw them, but then she looked at the empty spot where Jimmy used to sit and felt again the pang of loss.
Nor was there any sign of the Angels. They had not come near the school since it was attacked, and not for the first time, Grace wondered why. Were they afraid the Bull Head Gang might return? She looked at the ground around the stove where they used to sleep, and realised to her surprise that she missed them, too.
The children were all talking at once, chattering like little birds. Even Nathan and Lettice seemed more lively than she remembered. She clapped her hands to silence them. ‘Good morning, children,’ she said.
‘Good morning, Miss Perrow!’ they chorused.
Grace smiled at them, and watched their faces beam back at her. ‘Let us begin,’ she said.
*
One morning before Christmas there was a knock on the new door and Walter Ringrose walked into the school. Grace was startled to see him, but felt a happy smile appear on her face as he came towards her. ‘I hope I am not intruding,’ he said. ‘I wanted to see how your enterprise was prospering. I see that your fears about not having any pupils were unfounded. Would you mind if I stayed to watch you teach?’
‘I would be happy to have you stay, if the children are content.’
He turned and said to the class, ‘I am a friend of Miss Perrow’s. Would you allow me to stay and take part in your class? I am always keen to learn and I hear that Miss Perrow is an excellent teacher.’
The children nodded. ‘She is a wonderful teacher,’ one of them said. ‘You can learn lots of things from Miss Perrow.’
‘I am certain I shall.’ He settled himself into the space on a bench where Jimmy had once sat and spent the rest of the time helping the children in their tasks, giving every evidence of enjoying himself hugely. The children responded to his kindness and sense of fun and asked when he would be coming back.
At the end of lessons, when most of the children had left, he came to Grace to thank her for welcoming him. ‘I heard from Mr Raikes that you had had some trouble,’ he said. ‘I wanted to come myself and see if you and your school were well.’
‘It has been a difficult time,’ agreed Grace soberly, ‘but the children have been wonderful and have returned, as you see.’
They talked for some time about the progress of individual children and Grace welcomed this rare opportunity to talk to someone who understood the joys and challenges of teaching. Mr Ringrose had some excellent suggestions to make and they found themselves talking for over an hour. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she said finally, realising the time, ‘the family will be waiting for their dinner. I must go. Thank you so much for your visit, Mr Ringrose. It was a pleasure for the children and for me.’
She ran home quickly to discover that Albert had taken on the making of the meal; George asked where she had got to and when she explained he said, ‘That Mr Ringrose is a kind man to come and check on you.’
‘Yes,’ said Grace absently, still mulling over the morning in her mind.
*
Hard work and the tensions with the gangs, her concern for Jimmy – and, if she was honest, for Mary and the still-absent Angels – had masked her deeper grief, but as Christmas grew closer Grace found herself thinking of Rosa more and more often. Christmas itself, she knew, would be hard for all of them.
What George was thinking, she did not know. Outwardly he remained as cheerful as ever, doting on the children and spending whatever time he could with them. He never spoke of Rosa, but Grace knew he missed her bitterly. She knew also that she herself was the rock he leaned on, the pillar of strength that helped him get through life and carry on.
The twins, on the other hand, often talked about their mother, sometimes as if she was still alive, and when they did it nearly broke Grace’s heart. But they were sunny little souls, and the addition of Radcliffe to the household had helped them too. He was very gentle with the children, and Harry and Daisy spent hours playing with him. Albert was more like his father. Grace never heard him mention his mother, but ever since her death he had stayed close to Grace in a way that was partly protective and partly clinging on for comfort. He was, Grace knew, beginning to regard her as his new mother.
She was not sure what to do about this. She had come to live at Bell Lane in order to look after her sister’s family. Somehow she had imagined it a temporary situation. She still hoped to someday marry and have her own children. Yet every day that passed she felt the bonds that tied her to the c
hildren becoming tighter.
They were in the market one afternoon, a raw, frozen day with clouds dark and low and a few snowflakes drifting on the wind. A barrel organ wheezed steadily, playing a tune Grace could just about recognise as ‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen’. She held Harry tightly by the hand to keep him from running off after the organ grinder, and led him, Albert and Daisy through the crowds of people buying yule logs, festive wreaths and mince pies, Radcliffe trotting at their heels. Albert sniffed the air appreciatively as they passed the pie stall; he liked his food. Radcliffe looked interested too.
‘Would you like a pie?’ Grace asked.
The boy smiled and nodded. Grace set down her shopping basket and checked her purse. There were still a few coins left, and she pulled out a halfpenny and handed it to the woman keeping the pie stall. The latter crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Grace.
‘You’re that Grace Perrow,’ she said. ‘Rosa’s sister. Aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Grace, puzzled by the woman’s hostile tone.
‘Then you can keep your money. I’m not serving the likes of you. Not now, not ever.’
Grace’s jaw dropped. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean, you hussy.’ The woman’s voice had raised, and other people were turning to look. ‘Your poor sister, not even cold in her grave, and there’s you moving into her house, and moving in on her husband. It’s disgusting! You’re no better than a whore!’
People were staring now, and Grace felt her cheeks flame red with embarrassment. She took firm hold of Harry, who was still wriggling and trying to get away to find the barrel organ grinder. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ she gasped. ‘In front of the children, too! Honestly, have you no manners at all?’
‘Not when it comes to dealing with tarts like you,’ the woman snapped, and she waved her arm, pointing down the street. ‘Go on, hop it! Clear off!’
Grace wanted to respond, but then she saw Albert out of the corner of her eye and realised the boy was trembling, on the verge of tears. Clutching the rags of her dignity, she ushered the children away.
That night she told George what had happened. ‘Mostly I was upset for the children,’ she said. ‘Poor little Albert. He’s such a sensitive soul.’
‘What are we going to do about this horrible gossip?’
‘Ignore it,’ said George. ‘You don’t want to be paying any attention to what people like that say. I’ll have a word with Albert and calm him down.’
‘What will you say to him?’
‘The truth,’ said George. ‘That grown-ups can be horrible to each other sometimes.’
*
That this was true was further proven the following day when, in the middle of the afternoon, Grace answered a knock at the door. She had been making pastry for mince pies, determined to give Albert the treat he had missed in the market, and her hands and apron were covered in flour. Facing her in the street was a group of women in overcoats and bonnets led by Mrs Hobbes.
‘Good afternoon,’ Grace said politely. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘We have come to make our views known,’ said Mrs Hobbes loudly. ‘The situation is beyond tolerance. We are all in agreement on this. Are we not, ladies?’
There was a murmur behind her, with some heads nodded firmly, but others of the ladies looked rather mutinous, like they had better things to do with their time and had been dragged along against their will. One of them was Mrs Lane, the severe-looking woman who had been at the vicarage when Grace called to ask about the school.
‘What situation?’ demanded Grace, though she knew full well what this visit was about. ‘Speak plainly, ma’am, I beg you.’
‘Very well. We wish to protest, Miss Perrow, in the very strongest of terms, about the immorality of your living arrangements. It is not seemly that a single woman should take up residence under the same roof as a married man, even one who is recently widowed.’
‘Yes!’ said Grace. ‘He is recently widowed, and his children recently orphaned. Their mother, his wife, was my sister. I have a right and a duty to take care of them. And my relations with Mr Turneur are entirely innocent.’
‘Oh, please,’ said Mrs Hobbes. ‘Miss Perrow, what you yourself do is a matter for your own soul, and your own conscience, if you have one. But you are exercising a malign influence on the Turneur children, and on all those children you teach at that wretched school of yours. Their lives are brutish enough, without you corrupting them still further.’
Two women at the back of the group shuffled their feet, clearly uncomfortable. ‘Corrupting!’ Grace went red again. ‘You are accusing me of corrupting my pupils?’
‘Of course you are, Miss Perrow. How can you be doing anything else, so long as you live in a state of harlotry?’
‘Oh, Mrs Hobbes!’ said one of the women before Grace could speak. To Grace’s surprise, it was Mrs Lane who had spoken. ‘That is too unkind! I’m sure Miss Perrow is only trying to do what is best for her family.’
‘That is not a matter for you to decide, Mrs Lane,’ said Mrs Hobbes firmly. ‘My instruction to you, Miss Perrow, is to cease and desist with this unfortunate school, and to leave this house at once before your wanton behaviour causes any further damage. Go back to Hackney, or wherever it is you came from, and stay there.’
She made Hackney sound like one of the outer suburbs of Sodom and Gomorrah. ‘And who will care for the Turneur children if I do?’ demanded Grace.
‘Rotherhithe folk will look after their own,’ said Mrs Hobbes. ‘We don’t need the likes of you poking your nose in.’
Grace slammed the door in her face with such force that it woke up Radcliffe, who began to bark. Tears of frustration and anger rolled down her cheeks as she went back into the kitchen. Why? she thought. Grace had given up everything to do the right thing by Rosa, George and the children. Yet Mrs Hobbes seemed determined to find fault with her and turn people against her. Was it because the Reverend had been warned off and could not interfere with her work, but his wife was acting as his willing accomplice?
Was she spreading the rumours about me? Grace wondered. Good heavens; had she perhaps even started them? Whatever the case, ignoring the rumours would not be possible, not with the vicar and his wife both against her.
Chapter 9
If the vicar and his wife were trying to sabotage the school, the attempt had mixed results. Mrs Hobbes may have been able to bring a mob to Grace’s door, but the next morning as the children were arriving at the railway arch, Mrs Lane appeared at the school door leading two boys, aged about eight and six, by the hand.
‘I’ve taught them all I can at home,’ she said. ‘If you can take them in, Miss Perrow, I would welcome it. At the moment, all they are getting is Sunday school with the vicar.’
‘And what will he and Mrs Hobbes say if I take in your boys?’ Grace asked.
‘I don’t know,’ was the tart response. ‘And I don’t rightly care.’
Mrs Lane was only the first. It seemed Mrs Hobbes had crossed a line, at least with the poorer women of Rotherhithe who disliked the vicar’s wife for her snobbishness and overbearing ways. They came forward to support the Ragged School, and by the end of the week, the number of pupils had swelled to more than thirty, so that they were forced to sit two to a bench, sharing a desk and sometimes a slate as well. Some of the children, like the Lane boys, were reasonably well turned out and had received a little home schooling; others were shoeless in patched, threadbare clothes, and some even made little Nathan, the beggar boy, look respectable. The influx delighted Grace, but she worried that the show of support would only drive Mrs Hobbes to redouble her efforts to defame her and George.
‘The way things are going, you’ll need another class,’ George said. He had started to take a real interest in the school now, to Grace’s great pleasure. He would sit in the evening and listen to Albert read to him, or Daisy reciting her sums.
‘I need one already,’ Gr
ace said. ‘We could run another class in the afternoons, but I don’t have a teacher. And I can’t run both classes and look after the house and the children at the same time.’
‘And me,’ said George smiling. ‘Write to that fellow Raikes and ask if they can find someone.’
‘What a good idea.’ Grace wrote to Mr Raikes at the Ragged School Union, explaining the situation and asking if another teacher could be found. Prompt as ever, Mr Raikes replied by post the following day.
My dear Miss Perrow,
May I offer you my warmest congratulations on the success of the Rotherhithe School. Your energy and zeal have clearly made their mark on the community, as I expected they would. Alas, I fear that teachers are a little like gold dust, being both rare and hard to find. I can only suggest that you find a suitable person in your community and train them yourself. Are any of your pupils old enough to act as pupil-teachers? If not, you might apply for volunteers among your neighbours.
I am sorry to have so little assistance to offer,
Yours sincerely,
Solomon Raikes, Esq.
Grace pondered this. She knew no one who fitted the bill. None of her pupils were yet old enough or literate enough to teach a class unsupervised. In a couple of years’ time Rebecca Berton might be ready, but not now. And the friends she had made in Rotherhithe, people like Brigit Doyle and Louisa Berton, Rebecca’s mother, had neither the time nor the education of their own to serve as teachers.
Perhaps the Clares could help, she thought. She had trespassed on their kindness enough already, and was reluctant to ask them, but her need overrode her reluctance. That afternoon she sat down in the kitchen to write a letter, but even before she began there came a knock at the door. Opening the door she found Mela Clare standing on the doorstep, wrapped in a long dark overcoat with a fur collar. Her cheeks were pink with cold and the wind had tugged wisps of her fair hair out of her bonnet.