by Dilly Court
‘That’s enough, the pair of you,’ Aggie cried angrily. ‘If I hear another word from either of you, you’ll go and wash in the back yard. I won’t have such behaviour in my kitchen.’ She turned on Luke, who had begun to recite his poem out loud. ‘And you can stop your drivelling, young man. You fill your head with them heathen words when you could be learning the psalms or reading the Gospels. Your pa named you after the apostles, but he couldn’t have foreseen how you would all turn out.’
Lily hurried over to rescue the pan of stew that threatened to boil over. ‘Don’t you think it’s time we had supper, Aggie? The boys have been working hard and they must be starving.’
Aggie shrugged her shoulders, bristling like a small, fat hedgehog. ‘I won’t stand for childish bickering in my kitchen.’
‘Of course not,’ Lily said gently. ‘And I’m sure Molly and Mark will apologise for their bad behaviour.’
‘Blame it on the fog,’ Luke said dreamily, picking up his damp shirt and putting it on. ‘Everyone goes a little mad in a London particular.’
Aggie cast her eyes up to the ceiling. ‘What a lot of nonsense you talk, Luke. Make yourself useful and set the table. And move away from my range, I want to get the bread out of the oven. Lily, go and fetch your grandpa.’
Obediently, Lily went to the door, but she hesitated. ‘What about Matt and Nell?’
‘They’ll come when they’re ready. I just hope that greedy gannet of a doctor doesn’t think he’s going to get fed as well as drinking our brandy. There’s not enough to go round for him as well.’
Half an hour later the family were seated around the kitchen table having finished their meal of vegetable stew and bread hot from the oven. Dr Macpherson had reluctantly gone on his way, but it had taken all Lily’s tact and diplomacy to persuade him to leave before they sat down to supper. He had sniffed the air like a hungry hound and praised Aggie’s cooking, adding wistfully that his housekeeper was sadly lacking in the culinary art. In desperation, Lily had given him what was left of the brandy, assuring him that it would keep out the cold. It was a small price to pay, Matt had admitted reluctantly, as the doctor was notorious not only for having a hearty appetite, but he was inclined to linger after dinner telling tales of his past exploits while he smoked a pipe or two of Grandpa’s baccy. Nell said she could understand why he had remained a bachelor all his life as no woman would put up with him, but she tempered her criticism by acknowledging that Dr Macpherson was a good physician. He had tended the young Frenchman’s injuries with considerable expertise and given him a dose of laudanum that should make him sleep until morning.
Grandpa Larkin pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair at the head of the table. ‘Well then, tell me all about this Frenchie, Nell. Who are we harbouring under our roof? He might be a felon for all you know.’
‘Oh, no, Grandpa,’ Molly said hastily. ‘He is a gentleman.’
Grandpa eyed her with a cynical twist of his lips. ‘If the fellow is unconscious, how do you know what he is?’
‘He wears expensive boots, so he must be someone important,’ Molly said, giggling.
Nell frowned at her. ‘It’s no laughing matter. The poor man is in a bad way. He might not be able to tell us anything for days. Dr Macpherson said he’s suffering from concussion as well as a fever. His ankle isn’t broken, though. It’s just a bad sprain.’
‘Well, he’s harmless enough at the moment,’ Matt said calmly. ‘With an ankle injury and a whack on the head, he’s not going to cause us any trouble for the while. But I suggest we ought to take turns sitting at his bedside until he’s conscious and can tell us who he is. He may be able to give me some information about the ship.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Molly volunteered. She glanced round the table. ‘Why are you all staring at me like that?’
Mark pushed his chair back from the table, grinning from ear to ear. ‘When did you ever offer to do anything to help anyone, Molly?’
‘It’s not the job for a young girl anyway,’ Matt said, rising to his feet. ‘We’ll take it in shifts. Mark can do midnight until two, Luke can do the next watch and I’ll take over at four. If the fellow comes to his senses by morning I’ll be in a position to find out exactly who he is.’
‘Well, I’m glad you didn’t include me in your grand plan,’ Grandpa said. ‘I don’t hold with taking strangers into the house; especially not foreigners. They’re all right in their place, but that doesn’t mean that I have to trust them, especially in a home filled with young females.’ He tapped the side of his nose and winked at Matt. ‘If you get my meaning.’
‘I do, Grandpa. And I agree with you. Nell can tend to the fellow, but I want Molly and Lily to keep away from him, at least until we know more about his background.’ Matt took a pan of hot water from the range. ‘I’m going to have a strip-wash, so you girls keep out until I’ve done.’ He glanced over his shoulder at Luke. ‘And it wouldn’t hurt you to do the same. I can see the tidemark round your neck from here.’ He strode into the scullery and closed the door.
Grandpa struggled to his feet. ‘I’m going to my room, but I’ll take a cup of cocoa at nine, if it’s not too much trouble for one of you girls.’ He looked round the table but Aggie was piling the plates up ready to be taken to the scullery, and when no one volunteered he adopted a martyred expression and sighed heavily. ‘You’d think that one of you healthy young girls would take care of their aged grandpa.’
Lily glanced at Nell and Molly and she could see that neither of them was going to offer. ‘I’ll see to your cocoa, Grandpa.’ She was just as tired as the rest of them, but since everyone expected her to act as unpaid skivvy she knew she was outnumbered.
‘Good girl, Lily,’ Grandpa said with a nod of approval. ‘I know I can always count on you.’ He shuffled out of the room, holding his hand to his back as if to demonstrate his disability, which seemed to shift to different parts of his anatomy according to his needs.
‘He’s an old fraud,’ Mark said as the door closed on their grandfather. ‘I’ve seen him nip around like a two-year-old when he thought no one was looking.’ He slapped Luke on the shoulder. ‘C’mon, fellow, let’s leave the women to do their work.’
‘Eh? What’s up?’ Luke gave a start, looking like someone awakened from a deep sleep. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘You were day-dreaming, as usual,’ Nell said with a reproving frown.
‘I expect he was making up one of his boring poems.’ Molly made a face at Luke who was blinking like a startled owl.
Lily felt instantly sorry for him. Poor Luke was always the butt of Mark’s jokes, and Molly was just as bad. She gave him an encouraging smile.
Aggie was not so sympathetic. ‘Both of you boys can get out of my kitchen. I want this place cleaned up so that I can sit by the fire and put my feet up.’
‘Get up you jackass.’ Mark chuckled as he dragged Luke’s chair away from the table, tipping it so that his brother slid from his seat.
‘Can’t you leave a fellow in peace?’ Luke grumbled.
‘You heard what Aggie said. You’re in the way, little brother.’ Mark cuffed him gently round the head. ‘The girls have the clearing up to do so you’d best go and soliloquise somewhere else.’
Luke grinned sheepishly. ‘Sorry, Aggie. I was miles away. I’ll go now.’
‘Men. You’re all the same,’ Molly called after them as they left the kitchen. ‘That’s right; leave us to do all the work.’ She pointed to their chairs, carelessly abandoned without having been tucked back under the table. ‘They expect to be waited on hand and foot. You’d think we were their blooming slaves.’
‘That’s just the way it is,’ Nell said calmly. ‘And probably the way it will always be. Don’t forget they were risking their lives fighting that fire, so perhaps we should be glad to look after them.’
‘Nell’s right, it’s the way of the world.’ Aggie lowered herself into her chair by the range. ‘Women were put on this earth to look after t
heir men. I don’t know what the good Lord was about, but that’s how it’s always been and that’s how it will continue. Anyway, I’ve done my bit for you all today. It’s your job to wash and dry the dishes when Matt has finished in the scullery. I’m going to have forty winks and I don’t want to hear you girls squabbling.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Molly muttered beneath her breath but just loud enough for Lily to hear. ‘There must be more to life than this. I’m going to marry the first rich bloke that asks me.’
Nell stood up, brushing crumbs from her skirt. ‘I’m going to check on my patient, just to make sure he’s all right.’
Molly waited until the door closed behind her sister and she shook her fist. ‘She always manages to get out of doing the washing up.’
Aggie opened one eye. ‘She does her fair share. Nell took on the housekeeping when your ma ran off and you should be grateful to her. By the way, someone needs to go out into the yard and fetch water from the pump.’
Lily sighed. ‘I’ll do it or else you’ll spend the whole evening grumbling.’
‘Right,’ Molly said, perking up visibly. ‘Good girl.’
It was past eight o’clock by the time they had washed the dishes and put them away. Aggie might pretend to be asleep but she opened her eyes every so often to inspect their work and she insisted that the floor had to be swept and mopped and the table set for breakfast next morning.
After she had finished her chores Lily escaped to the privacy of the bedchamber she shared with Molly and Nell. Everyone else, apart from Aggie who slept in a small room off the kitchen, had gone to huddle round the fire in the living room, but Lily had a secret which she had managed to keep from her family for many years.
Chapter Three
Lily closed the bedroom door, taking care not to make a noise. She knew that Nell was still ministering to the injured man upstairs and the family parlour was directly below. She wanted to be alone, but she knew from past experience that if Molly heard her footsteps pattering about overhead she would come to investigate. Whereas the rest of the family might be content to sit by the fire and relax after a hard day’s work, Molly was easily bored and always on the fidget, looking for things to excite her interest. Lily placed the chipped enamel candle holder on the washstand and tiptoed over to her bed beneath the window. She sat down to take off her boots and a shiver ran down her spine. Was it her imagination, or did the shadows seem darker this evening? She told herself not to be so silly. There was nothing to harm her in the room she had shared with her sisters for the past ten years. The oppressive feeling must be due to the blanket of fog pressing against the windowpanes and blotting out the glow from the street light.
By daylight, the room was large and high-ceilinged with ornate plaster cornices, but like the rest of the house it had seen better days. The floral wallpaper was so faded that the pattern of roses and forget-me-nots was barely discernible, and the rugs scattered about on the bare boards were threadbare. It had been their parents’ room in happier times, and Lily had vague memories of gleaming rosewood furniture and a brass bedstead with a rose-coloured satin coverlet and matching curtains, now faded to dusky pink. The furniture had been sent to auction several years ago and replaced by a pine armoire with a matching washstand and three narrow iron beds. In one corner, reflecting the flickering light of the single candle, stood a cheval mirror; the one piece that had belonged to her mother that had not been sold, thanks to Nell’s eloquent plea for it to be saved. Even at the time, Lily had realised that Nell had been motivated by practicality rather than sentiment. Three girls maturing to womanhood needed a mirror if they were to present themselves to the world properly gowned. Nell was far-seeing and sensible, never one to be led by her emotions.
Lily slid off the bed and knelt on the floor, reaching beneath the iron bed frame to pull out a battered cardboard box in which she kept her most precious possession. Inside it was the only thing she owned that linked her to her mother and she prized it above everything. She took off the lid and lifted out a much smaller wooden box filled with tiny pans of colour. Ma had given it to her for her eighth birthday and she had treasured it ever since, using the paint sparingly to colour-wash the delicate pencil sketches of riverside scenes that she drew surreptitiously when the family were not about. These were executed on the back of pages torn out of old ledgers that she begged from Mr Cobbold, the ship’s chandler who lived above his shop in Wapping High Street. His daughter, Flossie, was a voluptuous brunette who had a reputation for being a flirt, but Mark could see no wrong in her and had been stepping out with her for some months now. Lily was often required to carry messages to Flossie, and it was on one of these visits that she had seen Mr Cobbold about to throw an old ledger on the fire. Paper was expensive and Lily had leapt at the chance of receiving a free supply.
She laid out her treasures on the floor: a squirrel-hair brush that had lost some of its bristles, the stub of a pencil that would soon be too small to hold and a penknife with a rather rusty blade that had once belonged to Luke, but he had given it to her when the tip of the blade had snapped off. At the bottom of the box were the torn-out pages from Mr Cobbold’s ledger noting transactions conducted ten years ago. Scrambling to her feet, Lily went to the washstand and filled her tooth mug with water from the willow-pattern jug. She went back to sit cross-legged on the floor by the bed, taking the candle with her. Placing it close enough to throw its paltry light on her work, she began to paint.
As she worked, the river scene that she had sketched the previous day began to glow with colour. She recaptured the golden light of the autumn sunshine glistening on the water, and the reflections of the ships tied up alongside the wharves. She lost track of time. She was no longer sitting in a cramped position in a cold, dark, comfortless room, she was living in the picture she created. She could feel the sun warm on her face and hear the swish of the water as it lapped and sucked at the stanchions of the wall beneath the dockmaster’s house. In her head she could hear the shouts of the men working the cranes on the wharves, the flapping of sails as vessels left port and the rumble of barrels being rolled over cobblestones.
She was brought abruptly back to earth by the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside the room, and she held her breath, poised and ready to slide her guilty secret back beneath her bed should anyone come in and catch her indulging in her forbidden art. The danger passed and the pitter-patter of feet faded into the distance. Lily breathed a sigh of relief; it must have been Nell coming from the attic room and going downstairs to join the others in the parlour.
After another half an hour, when her eyes were sore from peering at her work in the dim light, Lily stretched her cramped muscles and began packing her things away. Soon her sisters would be coming to bed. Nell would be horrified if she discovered how her youngest sister spent her free time. She had made it painfully clear that she considered Lily’s love of art and painting was to be discouraged, and Matt had agreed with her. He had once caught Lily sitting on the wall outside the house with her paints spread out around her and he had reacted angrily, accusing her of idling away her time. But behind his anger Lily had sensed his deep-seated fear that she would take after their mother. She had tried to explain that drawing and painting were as much a part of her as Luke’s poetry was of him, but Matt had simply not understood. She had begged to be allowed to keep her paints, but Nell had taken the box and locked it in a cupboard and Lily, who had been eleven at the time and still pining for her mother, had cried herself to sleep for many nights. She had continued to plead for the return of her paints, but Nell had been adamant. Look where dabbling with art had led their mother, she had stormed. Ma would still be with them if she had not taken up with that dreadful fellow and Lily would go the same way if she wasn’t careful. It had taken Lily months to find the key to the cupboard, and when she had rescued her paintbox she had vowed to keep it safe from prying eyes. That was her secret, and so far she had managed to keep it from the family.
A draught of c
old air laced with the faint odour of tobacco smoke wafted up from the parlour as Lily made her way downstairs. For a moment she thought she might find her pa seated in his chair by the fireplace, smoking his favourite briar pipe, but when she opened the door it was Matt seated in the saggy old armchair by the fire. With his strong profile and dark hair brushed straight back from a high forehead, he looked so much like their father that it brought a lump to her throat. She slipped into the room unnoticed and went to sit on the window seat. It was draughty here too, but she was used to the cold and she knew that it would get much worse as winter progressed. The old house had been built on a promontory and the cold easterly wind blew from the North Sea, whistling across the Essex marshes and picking up noxious smells from the tanneries, sewage works and manufactories to the east of the River Lea. It was not the most beautiful place in which to live, but Lily loved her home and the river that flowed past it on its way to the sea, carrying ships to far-off lands and bringing them safely home laden with exotic cargoes. The whole area might be dirty and dangerous, but for Lily the river and its wharves held an endless fascination.
She curled her legs up beneath her, studying the faces of her brothers and sisters with the eye of an artist. Nell, with her dark hair, sleek as a raven’s wing, confined in a severe chignon at the back of her neck, was fully occupied turning the collar on one of Luke’s shirts. There was something serene and beautiful about Nell and Lily was secretly in awe of her. Then there was Luke who had his head in a book as usual, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world. His red-gold hair flopped over his forehead and his thick eyelashes formed corn-coloured crescents on his tanned cheeks. His generous lips moved silently as he read, and Lily could relate to his ability to vanish into a world created by words.