‘Your busy little friend’; that was how he had always referred to her, his thick lips moving in the semblance of a smile; but he had known, and she had known, that he was being insulting. Why hadn’t Rebecca been able to see the type of man he really was? But she hadn’t, in spite of Sarah’s repeated warnings. And so Rebecca had married him . . .
It hadn’t been too bad when old Mrs Dalton was alive. Sarah pictured the formidable virago in her mind. Willie’s mother had actively encouraged her to call at the house, and Willie had tempered his attitude accordingly, but with his mother’s passing the resentment that had always been lurking under the surface had turned into open hostility. Oh, he was a horrible, horrible man.
Sarah shivered suddenly, before pushing open the kitchen door and stepping into the warmth of Hilda’s domain.
The elderly cook turned from stirring a pan of soup at her entrance, nodding her head as she said, ‘All quiet out there now? What a to-do, eh? Mind you, my Arthur always used to say, the gentry have too much time on their hands for dillydallyings. Half of ’em are skittering from one bed to another, it’s a wonder any of them find their way home at night, if you ask me. They ought to talk about this tidal wave of divorce that has hit the country, and I don’t agree it’s all down to the war. Fifty thousand divorces they reckon this year, you know. Fifty thousand! That’s double what it was two years ago, and now they’ve cut the time between the decree nisi and the decree absolute from six months to six weeks. What sort of an idea is that giving people? And it all comes from the top, I’m telling you, Sarah.’
It was one of Hilda’s pet hobby horses, and Sarah had heard it all before, so now she said, ‘Well I wouldn’t blame Lady Margaret if she wanted a divorce, Hilda.’
‘Well no, perhaps in those circumstances. Mind you, she must have known what he was like before she married him.’
‘She might not have.’ Sarah sat down at the kitchen table and pulled a metal bowl of peapods towards her as she spoke.
‘I’d dare take a bet on it. Besides which, looking like she does, I suppose she thought any man was better than no man at all.’
Sarah shut her eyes for a moment before opening them and starting to shell the peas. Hilda didn’t mean to be unkind, but that made it worse somehow. People could be cruel, oh, they could. There were times when she could honestly say she hated people.
As though it was yesterday she could hear Mary Owen, and Jane, and the rest of their cronies, chanting out the song Mary had made up about her, the soft chorus bitingly distinct in the dark dormitory.
Sarah Brown, Sarah Brown,
Mam’s on the streets and da’s a navvy,
Didn’t want her, couldn’t keep her,
Left poor Sarah in some old lavvy.
It had started on the first night she had returned to the dormitory from the hospital, and continued every evening for a week, until she had rounded on Mary, who had been a good deal heavier and bigger than herself, dragging her out of bed by her hair and pinning her against the wall, whilst threatening she would bash her face in if she ever uttered the words again. Like all bullies, Mary was something of a coward, and the chanting had stopped, although other, more subtle forms of spitefulness had continued.
The only bright spot in her days had been when the doctor called and she managed to have a word with him. She had always seemed to sense when he was in the building, and had homed in on him like a small and very determined pigeon, something which had often seem to amuse him. And then the war had started, and Dr Mallard had gone away to fight, and that had been that.
She had heard, some time after the war had ended and when she was first working for the Robertses, that Dr Mallard had been a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese. She hadn’t liked the thought of that. She had been glad he was alive, but from the news reports, and the way Mr Roberts had spoken about the atrocities committed on their soldiers, she had wondered if he might have been better off if he had been killed outright.
‘Has Peggy told you she’s thinking of moving out and taking a course in book-keeping and typing?’ Hilda’s voice penetrated the past. ‘Seems she’s always fancied the idea but her father wouldn’t hear of it, wanted her working and sending her wage home the minute she was able.’
‘Moving out?’ Sarah finished the last of the peas, and rested her hands on the table, her brow furrowed. ‘I don’t like the idea of that, Hilda. She’s very vulnerable at the moment, and where would she go?’
‘Oh, there’s lots of families in the East End who take in the odd paying guest to make ends meet, decent folk most of them, she’d be all right,’ Hilda said stolidly.
Sarah nodded slowly. She hoped so, but Peggy was a very young fifteen-year-old and, as the incident with Sir Geoffrey had proven, could be both foolish and naive on occasion. But then, the young maid was little more than a bairn.
The northern word, which had sprung so naturally to mind, brought Maggie into the kitchen, and suddenly the longing to see her again, and Florrie and Rebecca, was so strong she could taste it. Those three knew all there was to know about her, and they didn’t mind. She didn’t have to pretend with them, to talk properly all the time, to act a part. They accepted her for what she was. But then, she didn’t know what - or more to the point, who - she was herself, not really. She never would until she confronted the woman who had given birth to her then abandoned her so completely.
The weight in her heart seemed to drop right through her so her feet were tethered to the floor, and she remained quite still, half leaning on the table, as Hilda bustled away to the dining room with the trolley containing the soup tureen and bread basket.
There was a hole at the beginning of her life, a wide gaping hole, instead of a family with grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. She could be anyone. Even her name wasn’t her own - it hadn’t been chosen for her by her parents, merely assigned to her by strangers. Had her mother hoped she would die in that freezing toilet? Had she really wanted her own flesh and blood dead? She had to find her one day and ask her that, among other things. She would never feel completely at peace until she did.
‘One day . . .’ She said the words out loud, but softly. She would do it one day. She brought her lips tightly together and drew them inwards between her teeth. What was it Maggie always said? Oh yes: ‘Choose your own road and then you’ve only yourself to blame if it comes to a dead end.’ Maggie was full of such aphorisms, born of her northern roots. Well, she had chosen her own road and she was going to make sure it didn’t come to a dead end. It was up to her.
She nodded to herself, narrowing her eyes. And one day she would find her mother and show her that she had succeeded in building a life for herself, that she was worth something. She just wanted to see her mother’s face once, talk to her, ask her why, that would be enough. It would, it would be enough.
The emotion in her chest caused her body to sag briefly, and she consciously turned her mind away from herself and back to the problem in hand, namely Peggy. She would go with the girl if Peggy decided to take lodgings somewhere, make sure she was with a good family and so on, before she let Peggy move in. Peggy had as much right to choose her own road as she did, but the fewer byways and culs-de-sac available to the little maid, the better.
That thought was still with her when, a few days later and with the confirmation that there would be no ‘complication’ arising from Sir Geoffrey’s attack on Peggy, Sarah accompanied the girl to a street in Whitechapel.
‘It’s number forty-four.’ Peggy was clutching a card she had obtained from the local newsagent’s window as they walked along the street of terraced houses, the murky winter twilight accentuating the grimness of their surroundings. They passed a group of raggedy urchins intent on a noisy game of hopscotch on the greasy pavement, and Sarah was disturbed to notice that despite the coldness of the evening one or two of them were without coats or jumpers. Not that shivering children were a new sight; no, far from it, she told herself silently. Up north they were ten a penn
y. But this was London, where the streets were supposed to be paved with gold . . .
‘I hope you’re going to like this one, miss.’ Peggy’s tone was slightly reproachful. They had visited three houses so far, and Sarah hadn’t approved of any of them. ‘With me course being in St Martin’s Street I don’t want to live too far away, and the new maid is starting Monday. I need to get somewhere today.’
‘It’s very important you get the right establishment, Peggy.’
There was a long pause and then Peggy said, ‘I don’t think any of these will be establishments, miss. They’re just ordinary houses, like me mum’s.’
‘Nevertheless, we’ll know the right one for you when we see it.’
Sarah had to admit that forty-four, Ash Street was an improvement on the adjoining houses either side. There were no cracked windows for a start, and the step had been freshly whitened. The front door was painted a dark sedate green, and the brass knocker, a grinning elf’s head, was polished and gleaming.
‘Let me look at that advertisement again, Peggy.’
Sarah took the card and read, ‘Room available with respectable family, very reasonable and evening meal included.’ The advertisement was written in large round capital letters with a pencil, and was reminiscent of Maggie’s laboured scrawl. It was that, along with the ‘respectable family’ which had prompted Sarah to pursue it, despite the district.
‘I’ll knock, shall I, miss?’
‘Yes, all right, Peggy.’ At the last house Sarah had forbidden Peggy to do even that.
The door was opened by a small, plump, middle-aged woman, and a pair of bright eyes assessed them for a moment before the woman said, her voice rough but not unfriendly, ‘Yes, ducks?’
‘Good afternoon. I understand you had a room to let? Is it still available?’
The woman hesitated, then said, ‘Well, there’s someone bin round earlier, but ’e ain’t let me know one way or the other yet.’
‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ They all stood in silence for a moment, and Sarah was just about to say, ‘We’ll perhaps come back another time,’ when the woman seemed to come to a decision, thrusting out her hand in a sweeping motion as she said, ‘Come in then, come in.’
Once in the hall, which again was clean but painted in a dingy brown, Sarah and Peggy followed the woman down the passageway, passing two closed doors on the left and the stairs to their right, to find themselves in a small, square, stone-floored kitchen which was spotlessly clean. And immediately, as though Sarah had made some protest, the little woman swung round, looked directly at her and said, ‘I don’t normally show folks in ’ere, love, but I’m in a bit of a fix. Me old mum’s bin taken bad, an’ she ’as the front room, an’ the doctor’s just talkin’ with me ’usband now in the livin’ room. ’E’ll be finished in a tick if you can ’ang on a while?’
‘Oh yes, yes of course,’ Sarah said quickly, ‘you should have said. We can easily come back another time if you’d prefer, or we’ll wait here while you have a word with the doctor?’
‘No, like I said, ’e’ll be finished in a tick. I just wanted to thank ’im afore ’e went, ’e’s bin so good with ’er, you know? Some of ’em can be right touchy when the old ’uns play up, an’ me mum’s no angel, tell you the truth, but ’e’s bin as patient as Job.’
The sharp little eyes moved over Sarah in her smart suit, and then Peggy at the side of her, and again the little woman seemed to make up her mind about something as she said, ‘Look, love, why don’t you go up an’ ’ave a look at the room yourselves? I wouldn’t ’ave let ’im who was ’ere afore you go up there, bit of a shifty customer me ’usband thought ’e was, but ’e won’t mind two young ladies like yourselves goin’ up. I’ll come up in a minute. You do know the room’s for one?’ she asked Sarah.
‘Oh yes, yes, I do. It’s for Peggy here as it happens, but I wanted to make sure . . . well, that she was somewhere . . .’ Sarah couldn’t think how to put it without sounding offensive.
‘I know what you mean, ducks, don’t you worry. Can’t be too careful in this day an’ age. Me old mum still remembers when Jack the Ripper did away with all them women. She couldn’t ’ave bin much older than this young ’un ’ere, it was nearly sixty years ago now, but right to this day she won’t go out by ’erself after dark. Course, ’e only ’ad them that weren’t any better than they should be, but like she says, when it’s dark an’ there’s no one about, who’s askin’? Bit late after to find out you’ve made a mistake, ain’t it?’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
Sarah could feel Peggy shaking at the side of her and she wanted to laugh herself, but she kept her head averted as she turned and followed the woman back down the dark hall.
They had just reached the bottom of the stairs, the woman standing to one side as she said, ‘Me name’s Mrs Cole, by the way,’ when the door to the room they had just passed opened, and a voice could be heard saying, ‘I’ll call in again next week, Mr Cole, but if you need me before then you know where I am.’
And then everything seemed to take on a crystal bright clearness. Peggy just behind her, Mrs Cole’s squat little figure to one side of a large aspidistra in a shiny green tulip-shaped pot, the open door and the tall dark handsome figure emerging from the room.
‘Dr Mallard.’ She must have spoken the name out loud, although she had no conscious recognition of doing so, because his face turned to her, and then he said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t quite . . . ?’ and the brightness shattered. He hadn’t remembered her.
Chapter Eight
Rodney Mallard had been more than a little irritated when the youngest of the Cole children had banged on the surgery door earlier that afternoon.
The morning surgery had been a full one and the list of home calls endless, and his stalwart housekeeper-cum-receptionist, a big stout lady with a voice like a foghorn but a very warm heart, had had to keep his dinner hot for over an hour. He had just finished his meal and settled down in front of the fire with a cup of tea and the morning paper, when little Bertha Cole had made her presence known.
‘It’s me gran.’ He could hear Bertha’s shrill treble although Mrs Price’s gruffer tones were unclear. ‘Me mum says can the doctor come quick please?’ A pause, and then, ‘But me mum says now.’
Rodney rose, calling as he did so, ‘It’s all right, Mrs Price, I’ll deal with this,’ and joined his housekeeper in the hall, there to see Bertha Cole dancing about on the doorstep in an agony of urgency.
‘Me mum says now, Dr Mallard.’ Bertha was only six but formidable in her own small way. ‘You’ve got to come now, me gran’s bin took bad.’
‘All right, Bertha, all right.’
Rodney knew better than to argue with this small scrap of humanity; besides which, Bertha’s mother was not one to panic unnecessarily. The grandmother - his main patient in the household - was also too stoical for her own good, constantly playing down her bad heart to the point where it became dangerous. He could appreciate the old lady’s desire to remain as independent as possible, being the same way himself, but in her determination to be autonomous she often pushed her frail body too far.
But he liked her; he liked the dogged old warrior very much, Rodney thought now as he pulled on his overcoat and took his case from Mrs Price, even though she certainly didn’t make his life any easier with her stubbornness. But she was a real person somehow; she had grappled with life from childhood like so many of her class, raising a family and living a good life in spite of grinding poverty and a severe lack of education. It was people like Lena who reinforced his conviction that he was where he should be, rather than in a nice private practice doling out sugar lumps and a sympathetic ear to patients who were as healthy as he was.
The Coles’ house was only three streets and a few minutes walk away from his surgery, and didn’t necessitate the use of his car, and as Rodney walked along the dirty pavements and narrow back alleyways with the child skipping at his side, he talked easily with his sma
ll companion.
Once in the house, he had a brief word with Bertha’s mother before opening the door to his patient’s room, and as he stepped into the limited space it struck him - as it always did when he visited this particular family - that love was a powerful medicine. By rights, the frail old woman in the narrow iron bed by the window should have been dead years ago, but such was her love for this family, and theirs for her, that in spite of her grossly enlarged heart she continued to battle on.
‘’Ad to call you out, did she? I told ’er to leave well alone,’ the quavery old voice gasped slowly.
Rodney shook his head at the old woman whom he had come to understand very well over the two years in which he had been treating her, and his voice was soft but firm as he said, ‘Your daughter was worried about you, and I can understand why. You’re not being fair to her, Lena. You know that, don’t you? Look at you, your lips are blue and you can barely breathe. Now, be a good girl and keep quiet for a minute or two while I examine you, and we’ll go from there.’
Alone Beneath The Heaven Page 13