A Mother's Promise

by Dilly Court

  Hetty grasped her hand, holding it to her cheek. ‘You must be brave, love. For the baby’s sake, you got to go on.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Jane whispered. ‘We was to be married. I was going to have a nice house over-looking the park with a bit of a garden for the nipper to play in. But, Hetty, I can’t raise a baby on me own. And now there’s no work, we can’t even feed ourselves. We’re all going to die, just like my Nat.’

  ‘Now you just listen to me, Jane Huggins. I don’t want to hear none of that talk. You’re going to get up from that bed, and you’re going to have something to eat. You’re weak with hunger, that’s part of your trouble. We’re going to be all right. I’m going to see to that.’

  Jane raised herself on her elbow. ‘But how? If we can’t work, we can’t earn any money.’

  ‘That’s true, and I ain’t pretending things is going to be easy, Jane. But you and me is the eldest and we’ve got to keep our spirits up for Sammy, Eddie and your nipper when it comes. As I see it, there’s only one thing we can do. We got to pack up and leave here, afore the landlord has us thrown out on the streets for not paying the rent, or old Clench has me for his breakfast when I can’t pay him his tanner on Friday.’

  Jane sat up and the wooden pallet creaked with her movement. ‘Where shall we go?’

  ‘We’ll have to beard the lion in his den, or should I say lioness?’ In spite of everything, Hetty managed a wobbly smile.

  ‘No, not Granny Huggins!’

  ‘Can you think of anything better?’

  Jane shook her head. ‘Maybe the workhouse would be easier to take than asking Granny Huggins for help. She hates us, you know she does.’

  ‘Hate us or not, she’s our father’s mother and she’s family. She won’t turn us away in our hour of need, not if I’ve got anything to do with it.’

  Jane’s eyes widened with horror. ‘But you know what she’s like, Hetty. What will she say when she knows I’m in the family way and unmarried?’

  Hetty rose to her feet. ‘We won’t tell her. We’ll buy a brass ring from the pawnshop and I’ll tell her that you and Nat were married last Christmas. From now on, Jane Smith, you are a respectable widow.’

  ‘My Nat will be turning in his grave,’ Jane said sadly. ‘And your Tom won’t think much to our moving away neither.’

  Hetty sighed. She would have to go round to Dye House Lane and make things right with Tom. She just hoped that he would understand.

  Granny Huggins’ house in Totty Street was in the better part of Bethnal Green, as close to Victoria Park as the late Grandpa Huggins could afford on a bank clerk’s wages. Situated in the middle of a row of terraced, red-brick houses, the two-storey dwelling boasted sash windows and a fanlight above the front door. There was no front garden, but Hetty could remember a back yard with a stunted, purple-flowering tree growing out of the wall, and a wooden gate which led into the busy thorough-fare of Grove Road. It was not a large house, although it had seemed enormous to Hetty on the odd occasions when Pa had taken her there as a child, but it was a miniature palace compared to their home in Autumn Road. She dropped the burden she had been carrying onto the pavement. Their few possessions had gone into two sacks with room to spare. Jane put hers down with a sigh of relief. ‘Me back’s breaking, Hetty. Thank the Lord it weren’t no further. I can’t go another step.’

  Sammy and Eddie had their bedding rolled up and strapped to their backs so that they looked like a couple of small snails. They shrugged off their loads, looking about them wide-eyed with curiosity. ‘Is this it, then, Hetty?’ Sammy asked breathlessly. ‘Does our granny really live here all alone?’

  Hetty ruffled his dark curls, smiling. ‘She does, Sammy. At least she did. I hope the old girl hasn’t moved house or gone and kicked the bucket.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Jane said tiredly. ‘Not even as a joke. She was sprightly enough at Pa’s funeral.’

  Hetty lifted the iron doorknocker, and then hesitated, clutching it in her fingers. ‘That was six years ago, just before Eddie was born. Surely someone would have let us know if she had died?’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Jane said, hopping up and down. ‘Knock on the door, Hetty. I don’t care who answers it, but I need to relieve meself something shocking. I’ll wet me knickers if they don’t come quick.’

  Hetty knocked on the door. They waited, listening for the sound of footsteps. The narrow street was empty of people and traffic, although a few net curtains had been fluttered by unseen hands as they had walked past. The inhabitants might be invisible, but Hetty could hear sounds of activity coming from the Great Eastern Railway depot on the other side of the Regent’s Canal, which was just a street away. Shouts from men working on the canal banks floated over the chimney tops, and the rumble of cartwheels and the clip-clopping of horses’ hooves came from the heavy traffic in Grove Road. Hetty crossed her fingers, praying that they had at least one relation still living, that is, if you could call Granny Huggins a relation. After all, hadn’t she virtually disowned her one and only son for marrying beneath him? What sort of person would do a thing like that? The door opened and a tall, gaunt woman stood on the threshold, staring at them with a hostile scowl. ‘What d’you want?’ she demanded. ‘No hawkers or beggars.’ She was about to slam the door in their faces when Hetty put her foot over the doorsill.

  ‘Granny, it’s me, Hetty.’

  Very slowly, Granny Huggins opened the door. Her eyes were hard as chips of granite as she looked Hetty up and down. ‘Hetty who?’

  Hetty’s temper flared, but somehow she managed to keep her voice down. ‘I know we haven’t seen each other for six years, Granny. Surely you remember me and Jane? Sammy was little more than a baby when our Pa died, and Eddie wasn’t yet born, but we are your grandchildren, and we – we . . .’ Hetty could not continue in the face of such open hostility. She bit her lip, fighting back tears of exhaustion and disappointment.

  Jane pushed Hetty aside. ‘You know very well who we are, Granny Huggins. Are you going to keep us standing on the pavement all day? Because if you do, then I’ll just have to piddle right here and now.’

  ‘I see you are as common and vulgar as that woman my son was foolish enough to marry, and, by the looks of you, you’re no better than you should be. Get off my doorstep, the lot of you. I said my piece twenty years ago to your father, and I haven’t changed my opinion. Now go before I call a copper and have you arrested for begging.’

  Hetty raised her chin and looked her grandmother in the eye. ‘There’s no call for that sort of talk. We know where we’re not wanted, and I’m only sorry that my little brothers had to hear you speak to us so. As for Jane, well, I’ll have you know, Granny Huggins, that she’s a respectable widow.’

  Sammy, who had been silently taking all this in, suddenly erupted into an angry frenzy and he head-butted his grandmother, so that her knees buckled and she staggered backwards into the narrow passage. ‘I hates you, you old witch. Hetty said you was our granny, but you’re just a mean, wicked old woman.’

  ‘Sammy, don’t.’ Hetty grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away before he could lash out again. ‘That ain’t the proper way to behave and you know it.’ She held on to him, even though he was wriggling like an eel, and she cast a warning look at Eddie. ‘And don’t you join in neither, young man.’

  Granny Huggins clutched the door jamb for support, and, for a moment, Hetty thought she was going to scream for a policeman, but then something strange happened. Granny’s lined face cracked into a grin. ‘So you’re Sammy, are you?’

  Hetty prodded him in the back. ‘What d’you say, Sammy?’

  He scowled. ‘Yes’m.’

  ‘You know something, Samuel Huggins? You’re the spitting image of your father when he was a boy.’ Granny stood back, holding the door wide open. ‘I suppose you’d better come in. But don’t think I’m an easy touch, because I ain’t.’ She jerked her head in Jane’s direction. ‘The privy is outside in the back yard, a
nd wash your hands after you’ve been. I don’t want that trollop’s dirty habits coming into my house.’ She pressed herself against the door as Jane rushed past her. ‘And you, boys! Behave yourselves in my house, or you’ll get a clip round the ear from me. Understand?’

  ‘Yes’m,’ Sammy and Eddie murmured in unison as they filed past her.

  Granny Huggins stood with her arms akimbo, glaring at Hetty. ‘You can come into my parlour and tell me what the devil you mean by bringing your tribe here and disturbing my peace. I want no soft-soaping, just the plain truth. I can’t stand liars or toadies, so you’d best come straight out with it and no nonsense. And don’t think you’re staying here, because you ain’t.’ She led the way down the dark passage to the room at the back of the house.

  Hetty stood in the doorway, staring in amazement at the bright array of silk, feathers and ribbons that were littered over the table in the centre of the room. Despite the heat of the day, a fire burned in the range and a kettle hummed and bubbled on the hob. The mantelshelf was draped in faded green velvet and in the centre of it stood a large, black marble clock. On either side were two pot dogs, a spill jar decorated with cabbage roses and a framed daguerreotype of a bewhiskered gentleman whom Hetty recognised as Grandpa Huggins. He had died when she was just seven, but she remembered his kindness to her, his deep booming laugh, the way his whiskers had tickled when he kissed her and the smell of peppermint on his breath. He had always carried a poke of peppermint creams in his waistcoat pocket, and she could, if she closed her eyes, still taste the soft sweet confection.

  ‘Well, then, sit down,’ Granny said, picking up the poker and jabbing it at the embers of the fire. ‘I suppose you want a cup of tea?’

  Hetty went to take a seat at the table and immediately leapt up, realising that she had almost sat on a half-finished bonnet. She picked it up and put it on the table. ‘Are you a milliner, ma’am.’

  ‘No, I’m a chorus girl at the People’s Palace! What do you think all this is? Ain’t it obvious?’ Granny Huggins took a knitted pot holder from a hook and picked up the kettle. She poured a little water into a brown china teapot and swirled it round, glaring at Hetty. ‘How do you think I’ve supported meself all these years since your grandpa died? I certainly didn’t have any help from my son. He was too busy with his own family to care what happened to me.’

  ‘That’s not fair. You disowned my pa when he married our mum, and you couldn’t even bring yourself to speak a word of comfort to her at his funeral. You’re a hard-hearted woman, Granny Huggins. I’m sorry we bothered you. I’ll get the young ones and Jane and we’ll leave right now.’

  Granny tipped the contents of the teapot into a slop basin. ‘Oh, sit down, and stop being so dramatic. You get that from her. My Samuel was always a down-to-earth, quiet sort of boy, just the sort to be led astray by a pair of big blue eyes.’ She spooned tea leaves into the pot and added the boiling water. ‘There, now. While that’s brewing, you can tell me why you’ve come here today, and what it is you want from me.’

  Reluctantly, Hetty sat down and told her as briefly as possible what had brought them to such straits. Granny Huggins listened with her head on one side, staring at Hetty with shrewd, dark brown eyes that gleamed like black boot buttons.

  ‘So you see,’ Hetty concluded, ‘we need somewhere to stay, just temporary, mind you, until I can get together enough rent money for lodgings elsewhere.’

  ‘I suppose you owe money to all and sundry. Let me tell you, young woman, I won’t have debt collectors banging on my door,’ Granny said, folding her arms across her flat chest. ‘I’m a respectable widow, and my business depends on my good name. Also, I got my paying guest to consider. Mr Shipworthy is a clerk at the Bethnal Green branch of Tipton’s Bank, just like my Harold was, God rest his soul. Mr Shipworthy has a very good position, and he pays his rent and minds his own business.’

  Hetty bit back a sharp retort. ‘We would do our best to keep out of his way, ma’am.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t want them young hooligans aggravating him with their wild ways and noise. Boys are dirty, noisy creatures, all except my Samuel, of course. He was a little angel.’

  Hetty put her cup down on its saucer. ‘I promise that they won’t misbehave, and we don’t need much room. Why, this is a palace compared to the place we’ve just left.’

  For a moment, she thought that Granny Huggins was going to smile, but she merely nodded her head, as if to agree that her home was vastly superior. ‘All right. Seeing as how you are my blood relations, I can’t very well turn you out on the street. But it’s only temporary, mind you. A few days at the most. You can have the spare bedroom upstairs. Mr Shipworthy has the downstairs front room, and none of you must ever intrude on his privacy. I want that fully understood.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I promise to keep the boys in order.’

  ‘You’d better, or you’ll be out on your ear.’

  Someone knocked on the door and it opened just far enough for Jane to peep into the room. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘You can, but you may not,’ Granny said severely. ‘That’s another thing. You both speak like costermongers’ girls, and the boys are dirty little street urchins. If you’re going to stay here, I want you to speak properly, wash regularly, and one hint of fleas, bedbugs or head lice, and you’ll have to go on your way.’ Granny stood up, smoothing down her starched white apron. ‘You, girl – Jane. Take your brothers out into the washhouse and give them a good scrub down. They are not coming into my house until I’m certain that they are not infested. That goes for both of you too. You can heat some water in the copper, wash your hair with carbolic soap and then throw all your clothes in to boil. I keep a clean house. Cleanliness is next to godliness, as you will soon discover.’

  They found out that this was no idle threat. Granny stood outside the washhouse, issuing instructions while the boys were stripped of their clothes, scrubbed until their pale skins were lobster-pink, and had their hair washed with strong-smelling carbolic soap and rinsed with vinegar. Then, wrapped in bed sheets, they were sent into the yard to dry off in the sun.

  ‘You girls next,’ Granny said, poking the boys’ clothes with a copper stick as if expecting vermin to leap out at her. ‘Everything has to go in the copper and be boiled. If you don’t do your hair properly, I’ll shave your heads. That goes for you girls as well as the boys.’ She stamped off into the house.

  Jane stood in her shift with her arms wrapped protectively around her bulging belly. ‘I never been so insulted in all me life.’

  Hetty stepped out of her clothes and began to wash her slender body, shivering as the rapidly cooling water trickled down her legs. ‘Just do it, Jane. Be grateful that the old besom has taken us in. I’ll find us somewhere better, but first I’ve got to get work and earn some money. I’m afraid we’ll just have to put up with things, for the time being at any rate.’

  When they had finished their ablutions, Granny Huggins made them all line up in the yard, still wrapped in bed sheets, while she examined their hair for lice. When she was satisfied that there were none, she went back into the house to fetch a bundle of clothes. She flung a couple of yellowed cotton shirts at Sammy and Eddie. ‘These belonged to your grandpa, so you take care of them. They’ll cover you up until your rags are washed and dried.’ She turned to Hetty and Jane, who stood with their hair dripping wet and the sheets tucked up to their chins. ‘These dresses might be old, but they’re clean, and are a sight better than what you were wearing. I want them back, mind! Washed, ironed and in the same state as they are now. And don’t think you’re going to have it easy while you’re staying here. Each one of you will have to earn your keep.’

  That night they slept in Granny Huggins’s back bedroom. Hetty and Jane had to share the iron bedstead, which had a mattress that was as bumpy as a rutted cart track. The boys slept on their palliasses, which had been hung over the washing line in the yard and beaten until they began to burst at the seams. Jane had fallen into
a sleep of complete exhaustion almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, but Hetty lay awake staring at the ceiling and wondering if she had done the right thing by bringing them all here. It seemed unnaturally quiet without the familiar sounds of the Brinkmans moving about overhead. The sheets smelt of mothballs and the whole house reeked of carbolic soap, but that was infinitely preferable to the stench of sewage which had often seeped up through the flagstones in Autumn Road. Hetty turned on her side and curled up small, so as to give Jane more room. Tomorrow she must find work. Tomorrow – Hetty closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  Next morning at breakfast, Eddie had his head bent over his food, but Sammy had already finished his, and was peering myopically at Granny who was helping herself to a bowl of porridge. Jane was too busy eating to notice and Hetty was about to say something when Granny turned her head to glare at Sammy. ‘Lord above, what’s the matter with the boy? Why is he squinting at me like that?’

  Hetty laid her hand on Sammy’s shoulder. ‘His eyes are weak from working twelve hours a day making matchboxes. I think he might need spectacles.’

  ‘Hmm!’ Granny slopped a ladleful of the thick gooey mixture into a bowl. ‘That’s what comes of having a matchgirl for a mother.’

  Hetty leapt to her feet. ‘Is that all you can say, Granny? You can’t blame everything on our poor mother. She was a saint if you ask me, and she worked her fingers to the bone to keep us after Pa died. I’d have bought Sammy some specs if I’d had the money, but it was all I could do to feed and clothe us.’

  Granny’s dark eyes narrowed to slits and she pursed her lips. ‘I’m sick of hearing about her. But if the boy needs spectacles, then that’s what he shall have. I know where I can get them cheap in the market. Sammy, stand up when I address you, boy.’

  He jumped to his feet, eyeing her nervously. ‘Yes’m.’