by Ruthie Lewis
Outside the church in Bermondsey, George stopped and took Grace’s hand. ‘Are you sure, lass? You still want to go through with this?’
‘I’m sure,’ Grace said. ‘This is the best thing for us all.’
George looked up at the grey late-winter sky. ‘Do you suppose she’s up there watching us?’
Grace smiled. ‘I’m sure of it.’
George nodded. ‘So am I.’ He looked at Grace. ‘I’ll try to make you happy, lass. I can’t promise I’ll do it all the time, but I’ll try.’
‘You’re a good man,’ said Grace, and she kissed him on the cheek. ‘Now, let us go and get married.’
Mela was waiting for them in the church porch, fair and bright in a handsome coat and bonnet. She kissed Grace and smiled at George. ‘Come along, you two. This is a wedding. Do try to look as though you are actually happy!’
George grinned. ‘How do you do, Miss Clare. Thanks for coming to stand up with Grace.’
‘There is nowhere else I would rather be,’ said Mela, taking Grace’s arm.
Mickey Doyle, the best man, was waiting inside the church. Grace wondered how he had managed to get time off work. George’s employers had grudgingly allowed him the morning off, unpaid, in order to get married but would not release any of his workmates. The only other people were a few women, Brigit and Louisa and, to Grace’s surprise, Mrs Lane. She must really have cut her ties with the vicar’s wife, Grace thought.
And there was Reverend Soames, white-haired and bearded in his white cassock, beaming at them like Father Christmas. ‘Welcome,’ he said genially. ‘If you are ready, my children, then let us begin.’
Afterwards, Grace could remember little about the ceremony. She was aware of herself speaking the words required of her, mechanically and without emotion, and the murmur of George’s voice beside her, and the rector’s rich baritone pronouncing them man and wife. They moved through to the vestry where the parish clerk waited while they signed the register, Mela adding her signature in firm writing beneath Grace’s own.
‘Congratulations, Mr and Mrs Turneur,’ the rector said smiling.
‘Thank you very much, sir,’ George said, and Grace repeated his words. She still felt rather distant and removed. This is not how one is supposed to feel on one’s wedding day, she thought.
Outside the church Mela kissed her. ‘I must get back,’ she said. ‘Unless there is anything you would like me to do?’
‘No,’ said Grace. ‘Thank you for coming, Mela. I’m so glad you were here.’
Mela smiled. ‘I meant what I said. I wouldn’t be anywhere else. My dear Grace, I know it is your wedding day, but would you be willing to talk school business for a moment?’
At the mention of the school the mists surrounding Grace cleared a little. ‘Of course,’ she said.
‘I may have found you a teacher. A lady called Agnes Korngold came to see us. Her real name isn’t Agnes, it’s something unpronounceable, and she comes from Poland. Poor thing, her husband was killed by the Russians and she came here seeking sanctuary. She’s a teacher, and she speaks English very well; her mother was the daughter of an English cloth merchant. Papa knows the family, he has done business with them in the past. Anyway, to cut a long story short, she was looking for work at the Clare School, and we offered her a post for five half-days a week.’
‘And?’ Grace prompted.
‘And, she teaches in the mornings but has afternoons free. I told her about your school, and she is interested.’
‘I cannot afford to pay her,’ Grace said.
‘That’s all right. She has a little inheritance on her mother’s side, and with that and what we pay her, she says she gets by. She is willing to volunteer.’
‘Does she know it is dangerous?’
‘I told her about the gangs. She said it cannot be any worse than Zitomir when the Cossacks are on the rampage. I don’t know where Zitomir is, but it sounds quite horrible. She wants to meet you. May I send her to you?’
‘Of course. Oh, Mela, thank you so much.’
Mela kissed her and departed. The other guests had gone too, leaving them to their privacy. Grace took George’s arm and they walked east towards Rotherhithe, the wind whistling around them. ‘What were you and Miss Clare talking about?’ George asked.
‘She has found me a teacher,’ Grace said.
‘Oh, lass, that is good news. I know how you’ve been worrying.’
‘It is wonderful news,’ said Grace. ‘Now I need to think about how to divide them up. Reverend Hobbes would doubtless insist that I teach the boys separately from the girls, but I’m not going to do that. They all need the same education. No, I’m going to have one class for more advanced pupils, like Rebecca, and another for the young ones and the ones who are struggling, like poor little Nathan. That way I can concentrate on them, and really help them along.’
‘You’re wonderful with them kids,’ George said. He added wistfully, ‘I wish I was young again, and could get an education.’
‘It’s not too late,’ said Grace smiling.
‘Yes, it is. I’m far too old a dog to be learning new tricks now.’
Back at home Grace put on an apron and prepared a meal while George went upstairs and changed into his work clothes. After he had eaten he kissed her on the cheek as usual and departed for work. Albert went into the parlour room to read by the fire, but in the doorway he turned suddenly and smiled at Grace.
‘I think I shall like calling you Mummy,’ he said.
They passed the evening together as usual, and the children departed for bed. George yawned and kissed her on the cheek again and went upstairs too. He had been coughing less today, but he was finding his work physically tiring. He needs to eat more, Grace thought. I know he holds back at meals so the children have enough, but he mustn’t let his strength run down.
I must do more to look after him. I forget sometimes that he needs me too. And now I am Mrs Turneur . . .
Yes. It really is going to take time to get used to that.
After a while she started to yawn, and she closed the coal stove and went quietly upstairs herself, carrying an oil lamp to light her way. She could hear George breathing gently in his bed. Softly, she opened the door and went into the other bedroom, and stopped in astonishment. The twins were curled up together in the bed she and Daisy had been sharing, and Albert was fast asleep on the truckle bed.
There was no room at all for her.
Her first thought was to wake the boys and tell them to go back to the other room, but she stopped. For heaven’s sake, she told herself, I’m a married woman. I can share a bed with my husband.
Quietly, she undressed and put on her nightgown and then, carrying the lamp, went through to the other bedroom. George stirred as she came in, and then opened his eyes and sat up, looking at her in surprise. ‘Grace? What is it?’
‘Were the boys here when you came up?’
‘Yes, of course.’ George looked around in wonder. ‘What? Where have they gone?’
‘To bed in the other room,’ Grace said. ‘They have decided that now that we are married, we must share a bed. I suspect the hand of Albert behind this. You know how he likes things to be organised and proper.’
‘But . . .’ George said, and she thought he sounded nervous. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘It looks like I’m sleeping here,’ Grace said. ‘If you don’t mind, that is.’
George looked even more anxious. ‘Will that be all right? I mean . . . You remember what we talked about?’
‘Indeed I do. And nothing has changed,’ Grace said. ‘At least not for me.’
George shook his head. ‘Me neither.’
They looked at each other for a moment, and then Grace started to giggle. ‘This must be one of the strangest wedding nights ever.’
‘I reckon it happens more often than you think,’ George said. He moved over to one side of the bed, making room for her. ‘All right, lass. Climb in.’
Grace extinguished the lamp and lay down on the other side of the bed, drawing up the covers and feeling the draught from the window as the wind moaned around the house. ‘Goodnight, Mr Turneur,’ she said gravely.
She heard the smile in his voice in the darkness. ‘Goodnight, Mrs Turneur.’
After only a moment, George was asleep again. Grace lay and listened to his gentle breathing, feeling the warmth of him in the bed beside her. It felt very odd at first; she had shared a bed with Rosa when they were children, and then with Daisy since moving here, but this was different. After a while she found that his presence next to her was actually calming and rather soothing. Her body relaxed and she fell asleep, and slept deeply and well.
Chapter 11
Agnieszka Korngold was a round-figured woman dressed severely in black with steel-rimmed spectacles perched on her nose. Her age was impossible to tell; Grace thought she could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty. ‘Please, call me Agnes,’ she said when Grace tried to pronounce her first name. ‘Back in Zitomoir, I was Agnieszka. Here, I am always Agnes.’
‘Where is Zitomir?’ Grace asked.
‘Poland,’ came the response. ‘I was born there, and I lived there for many years. Then one day, the Cossacks came. They were like wild animals. They spared no one. They killed my husband and many others, women, even children, and then they burned our synagogue.’
‘Heavens!’ said Grace in horror. ‘Why did they do these things?’
‘Because we were Jewish,’ said Agnes.
‘That is surely not a reason to kill innocent people!’
‘In Zitomir, it is,’ Agnes said simply. ‘After the attack, I realised there was nothing left for me there. I came to England to start a new life.’
‘I am so sorry,’ said Grace.
‘Do not be. What happened is God’s will.’
Perhaps, thought Grace, but if it happened to me, I would not take it so calmly. Aloud she said, ‘I am so grateful to you for coming. Let me show you the school.’
They walked from the railway station to the school, and Grace unlocked the door and lit a lamp. Agnes stood for a while, looking at the rows of desks under the brick arch, the bare earth floor, the little cabinet of books. ‘It’s not much, I know,’ Grace said.
Agnes smiled, and in a moment her face was transformed. She must once have been quite a beautiful woman, Grace thought, before her life was torn apart. ‘Great things come from small beginnings,’ she said.
‘I hope so,’ said Grace. ‘You have seen how primitive everything is. Are you still willing to volunteer?’
‘By God’s grace I have my life,’ said Agnes, ‘and I am comfortably provided for. I wish to put something back, to give something to this country that has given me a home and sanctuary. ‘When do you wish me to start?’
She started a couple of days later, once Grace had a chance to divide the children into two classes. As she had discussed with George, she sent Rebecca and some of the older children into the afternoon class where Agnes would teach them, and kept the younger ones including her own stepchildren – she was still not used to thinking of them as such – and the ones who were struggling, like Nathan and Lettice, in her morning class. Right from the beginning, the arrangement worked well. Grace had given Agnes her own key so she could come and go, and she always left the makeshift classroom immaculate when she departed in the evening.
She had been worried for Agnes’s safety, and right at the beginning had warned her about the gangs. As Mela had said, Agnes was dismissive. ‘I have no fears. I have seen far worse than a few street toughs. You must not worry for me, Grace. But have a care for your own safety.’
*
February turned into a cold windswept March, which in turn gave away to a damp showery April. The air grew a little warmer, and wildflowers began to appear in the marshes south of the docks. Just after Easter a strong east wind pushed the high tide up the Thames and most of Rotherhithe flooded; George and the other men building the new dock worked in a foot of water, and more water dark with silt lapped around the door of the houses in Bell Lane. The glue factory was flooded and had to shut down for several days, and for a while the air smelled almost clean. When the water receded, men began clearing the barren fields near the engine works and putting up a new factory. Rumour said this one was for weaving carpets and other textiles. The owners were the firm of Crompton and Rhodes, the same business that owned the garment factory where Rosa had once worked.
More factories meant more houses for workers, Rotherhithe was still growing apace. ‘And that means more work for bricklayers,’ said George cheerfully. ‘It’s all good news, lass.’
His cough had improved as the weather became warmer, and Grace’s concern for his health had receded a little. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Maybe then you can get a job with a firm that pays better.’
He grinned at her. ‘Is this you being a nagging wife?’
‘Maybe,’ said Grace, grinning back. ‘I thought I might try it, and see if it suited me.’
Life at the little house in Bell Lane had settled into a gentle routine. Much to her own surprise, Grace had slotted easily into the role of wife and mother. She had been worried about superseding Rosa, but for George and the children there was no question of this. Life was like a story, moving on, and she was part of the next chapter. There were still times when someone addressed her as Mrs Turneur in the market or in the street, or at school, and it took her a moment to realise they were talking to her; there were still times when one of the children called her ‘Mummy’ and for a split second she looked around half-expecting to see Rosa standing there. Harry was the first to notice this, and he decided to clarify the situation using his own form of logic.
‘Mummy was Mummy,’ he announced, ‘and now you are Mummy. I shall call Mummy Mummy, First Mummy, and I shall call you Second Mummy. That way when I say first mummy you will know I mean Mummy Mummy, and when I say second mummy you will know I mean you mummy, Mummy.’
He grinned up at her. ‘I hope that makes sense to you, Harry,’ Grace said. ‘Because if so, you’re the only one.’
News of their marriage spread through the community, and was met with a mixed reaction. The vicar’s wife and her friends continued to cold-shoulder Grace in the street, and one or two women in the market still scowled at her. There was a rumour, too, that the vicar had preached a sermon railing against fornication and denouncing false marriages. On the other hand, kind Reverend Soames had preached another sermon about tolerance and understanding, and on the whole it seemed more people were listening to him. Most of Rotherhithe understood exactly why Grace and George had married. For them the marriage had corrected the situation that had so worried them. They knew how fine the line was between life and death, and how easily many of them could be in the same situation.
*
In the spring of 1868, death came easily to the crowded streets of south-east London. An outbreak of fever forced Grace to close the school for a week to prevent infection. More than thirty people died, though fortunately her pupils and their families were all spared. But even more ominous, rising like a shadow over Rotherhithe, was the ongoing war between the gangs.
‘It’s getting very bad,’ George said, one evening after the children were asleep. ‘The Deptford gang are finished, they say. The Bull Heads caught two of their leaders and . . . well, you don’t want to know what happened to them. That was pretty much the end of it. The rest of the gang dispersed, or went over to the Bull Heads and joined them instead. But the Black Crows, now, they’re a different matter. They’ve been moving in on Jamaica Road, demanding the shopkeepers pay ’em for protection, or threatening to burn them out if they don’t. That’s Bull Head territory, and they’ll fight back.’
‘Goodness,’ said Grace. ‘Is there no one who can do anything?’
‘Don’t reckon so,’ said George. ‘You saw for yourself how useless the peelers are, and no one from outside is going to step in.’
�
��Why ever not?’
George shrugged. ‘Why should they? We’re just poor working folk. If we get caught in the middle of it all, and stabbed or beaten, well, we’re expendable, ain’t we? There’s plenty more who’ll fill our places. That’s how the high and mighty see it.’
‘If we all stood up to these gangs, every one of us, they couldn’t harm us,’ said Grace. ‘We’re too many. If the gangs found every hand was against them, they would have to give up, or move away.’
‘But who is going to be the first to stand up to them? That’s the problem.’ George rubbed his chin. ‘Although I hear tell that young schoolmaster Ringrose over in Bermondsey is doing just that. The Black Crows came and demanded protection money, and he sent them away with a flea in their ear. Sounds like he knows how to look after himself.’
‘If they come to me, they’ll get the same response,’ she said.
George looked worried. ‘Have a care, lass. Those Black Crow beggars are dangerous, even more than the Bull Heads.’
‘You said Mr Ringrose knows how to look after himself. Well, so do I.’
*
Late one morning a few days later, Grace was reading The Ugly Duckling to the children when she was interrupted by a knock at door. Radcliffe, asleep by the stove, woke up and began to bark. Grace hushed the dog, but he continued to growl, his hackles up. The knock was repeated. Frowning, Grace motioned to the children to be quiet and walked to the door, Radcliffe following her.
‘Who is it?’ Grace asked.
‘I’d like to be having a word with you, Mrs Turneur,’ came a man’s voice. ‘I’ve three little weans with me who’d like to enrol in your school.’
Grace unlocked the door and opened it, and then stopped in shock. Facing her was the largest man she had ever seen. He wore a black suit, the front of which was matted and sticky with grease, and his lank hair hung down over his shoulders. His nose at some point had been badly broken and not reset, with the result that it seemed to spread out across his face. Two enormous sheath knives hung from his belt.