A Mother's Promise

by Dilly Court

  Despite the family’s initial misgivings about Hetty’s business venture, she had so far proved them to be unfounded. They were all doing well and she took great satisfaction in the knowledge that everyone had enough food to eat and footwear that fitted properly. They had new clothes and did not have to search the local dolly shops for other people’s cast-offs. The boys attended school regularly and Tom had given Jane an engagement ring which she flaunted proudly, refusing to take it off even when she was working in the coffee shop. Natalia had celebrated her second birthday in August, and was now a lively and mischievous toddler, who ran into Hetty’s arms when she arrived home and covered her face with kisses.

  Tom had been promoted to foreman at the gas works and he and Jane planned to get married at Christmas. They were looking round for a rented property not too far from Artillery Lane, even though Nora had assured them that they could have one of her rooms at a nominal rent. Jane wanted her own front door, she said, and her own back yard where she could hang out the washing, especially now that there was another baby on the way, which would be born in early spring. Granny was tight-lipped with disapproval at this announcement, and even though she said very little, she made her feelings perfectly plain. Nice girls did not behave in that way. Hetty took the news in her stride. She was not surprised, nor was she shocked. She had never given herself to a man, but she knew that if Charles had stayed on in London things might have been different. She was not sure whether she would have been strong enough to resist temptation, and Jane’s news made her yearn for him even more. His letters were becoming sporadic, and Hetty couldn’t help worrying that he might be forgetting her. When he did put pen to paper he still addressed her fondly, but he seemed to be slipping further and further away from her. Sometimes she wondered if she would ever see him again, but she quickly put all such thoughts out of her mind. They were meant for each other, of that she was certain.

  She had seen very little of George in the busy months when she was setting up the coffee shops. He still came round to Princelet Street to see the children, and he had given Natalia a beautiful doll for her birthday, from which she refused to be parted. Dolly went everywhere with her and Talia could not sleep unless her favourite toy was tucked up in bed beside her. George had also gone to the enormous expense of buying one of Richter’s Anchor Stone building boxes for Sammy’s birthday. The composite stone bricks had kept all four boys occupied for hours building castles, houses and forts. Hetty knew that the children loved George dearly and he had become almost a father figure to them, which she thought was ironic since he was most definitely not the marrying kind.

  ‘You spoil them, George,’ Hetty said when he turned up unexpectedly one Sunday with a bag of violet creams, boiled sweets and sugared almonds for the children. He gave her one of his unfathomable looks and a wry smile. ‘Well, since I will be unlikely to have any children of my own, I might as well spoil these ones who are very close to my heart.’

  ‘If you stopped chasing after everything in a skirt and settled down with one girl, you could have a family of your own,’ Hetty said with more acerbity than she had intended. Her mind was on Charles and his failure to reply to her last letter. She shot George a sideways glance beneath her lashes. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that.’

  He laid his hand on his heart and rolled his eyes. ‘You know there’s only ever been one girl for me, Hetty, and she is standing not a million miles from here.’

  Sammy and Eddie curled up with laughter at his antics and Hetty smiled. ‘You are such a clown, George. Can you wonder that no one takes you seriously?’ She gathered up the ledgers that she had been attempting to study at the kitchen table, and she took them up to her room. She tried to settle down to do the books but she could not concentrate. In the end she abandoned her work and began to pace the floor. What was the use of being successful in business if the man you loved was thousands of miles away? The fear that she had been pushing to the back of her mind was rapidly turning to panic. The long separation from Charles was working its destructive evil – he was forgetting her. If she did nothing then all was lost. Her heart would be broken and all the money in the world would not make things right. If he would not come to her, then she must go to him. It was as simple as that.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘What?’ Miss Heathcote cried with her eyes almost popping out of her head. ‘You want to go to America?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Heathcote. I’ve worked very hard for you since February and in a few weeks’ time it will be Christmas. I want to go now. I must go now.’

  ‘You want to run halfway across the world after a man?’ Miss Heathcote’s voice rose to a bat squeak. ‘You must be out of your mind.’

  Hetty acknowledged this barb with an attempt at a smile. ‘I think I must be a little crazy, but I have to see him face to face. I must find out if he still feels the same way about me.’

  ‘This is outrageous behaviour. I won’t let you go. I need you here.’

  ‘It would only be for a few weeks, Miss Heathcote.’

  ‘A few days would be acceptable, but a few weeks – no, no, no.’ Miss Heathcote clasped her hands to her chest. ‘My heart is racing. I think I’m having one of my seizures.’

  Hetty had witnessed this display too often to be moved. ‘You are quite well, ma’am. Breathe slowly and please listen to what I have to say.’

  Miss Heathcote glared at Hetty and her face had paled to the colour of parchment. ‘Go on.’

  Hetty knelt at her feet. ‘Miss Heathcote, I love a wonderful man but his father has forced him to take up a position in the family banking business and will not allow Charles to return to England. I must go to him, can’t you see that?’

  ‘No,’ Miss Heathcote said, scowling. ‘No, I cannot.’

  ‘But I love him, ma’am. I have saved every penny I could so that I have my fare to Philadelphia. All I ask is that you grant me leave for a month or two so that I can travel to America and see him.’

  Miss Heathcote’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment and when her voice came it was just a whisper. ‘You will not go. You cannot abandon me.’

  ‘I am not abandoning you, ma’am. I will return, I promise.’

  ‘You will not. You will marry your lover and he will persuade you to stay in America. I cannot run the business on my own, I simply cannot.’

  Hetty took Miss Heathcote’s cold hands in hers and squeezed them gently. ‘If you say that then the men have won. You will have proved nothing to them other than that a female cannot manage without a man’s help.’

  ‘I will be totally humiliated.’

  ‘No, ma’am, you will not. You will manage magnificently. Dorrie can run errands for you. Peters will take her to the coffee shops and she can collect the books and bring them back to you here. The manageresses are all capable of running the day to day business and no one need know that I am away. If they ask her, Dorrie can tell them that I am occupied elsewhere. You know as much, or even more, than I do about profit and loss, and I assure you that it will be just for a few weeks. I will come back with Charles or without him, but I will return.’

  ‘Do you promise?’

  Hetty rose to her feet and made the sign of a cross on her chest. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die!’

  Miss Heathcote was silent for a moment and then, very slowly, she nodded her head. ‘I can see that your mind is made up, and that nothing I can say or do will turn you from your chosen course.’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘I know that you would not desert that wretched family of yours. You turned down my offer of accommodation because you would not leave them, and, based on that, I believe you when you say you will return. But if you let me down, Hetty . . .’

  ‘I will not, ma’am. Everything I have worked for is here in London. My family are here and I know that if Charles really loves me he won’t make me choose between him and them. He is a fine man, Miss Heathcote. I am sure when you meet him . . .’

 
‘Enough. I will never meet this creature who threatens to take you away from me. Bring him back to London if you will, but don’t expect me to have anything to do with him. You know how I feel about men, Hetty. You may go to America but I want you back here in as short a time as possible. Do you understand me?’

  ‘I do, ma’am, and thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me, you silly girl. He’ll break your heart as that wretch broke mine all those years ago. I know exactly how that feels so don’t come crying to me when it happens. Now go away and make your arrangements. Send Dorrie to me. I have a headache and she knows how to massage my head to take the pain away.’

  Having persuaded Miss Heathcote, Hetty braced herself to break the news at home. As she had expected, Granny was downright angry. ‘You can’t put your faith in toffs, Hetty,’ she said, frowning. ‘Especially them as comes from foreign countries. He’s back at home now and he’ll have other fish to fry.’

  Nora nodded her head emphatically. ‘Charles was a real charmer but he’s been gone a long time, girl. He’s back with his own kind now.’

  Sammy ran to Hetty and threw his arms around her waist, clinging to her with desperation written all over his small face. ‘Don’t go away, Hetty. You mustn’t leave us. Please don’t go.’

  That started Eddie off and he too threw himself at his sister, sobbing and begging her not to go away. Wilfred and Stanley also began to cry and that set Natalia off, although Hetty realised that she was too small to understand what exactly was going on and was merely taking her cue from the older children.

  ‘I think you’re all being very unfair to Hetty,’ Jane cried, hurrying to her side. ‘Hasn’t she worked her fingers to the bone for us? When our ma died, Hetty became mother and father to the boys and me. She never gave a thought to herself and she suffered cruelly at the hands of old Clench, but she never gave in. She’s a proper businesswoman now and we’ve all benefited from her hard work. I say, if she really loves Charles, she should have the chance to go and find him. I wish I had her nerve, I really do.’

  ‘Well said, love.’ The sound of Tom’s voice made everyone turn round to look at him as he entered the room.

  Jane greeted him with a hug. ‘I knew you’d see it my way, Tom dear.’

  He lifted her off her feet and kissed her long and hard.

  ‘Oy, you. Put her down. There’s nippers present,’ Granny said crossly. ‘I dunno what young people are coming to these days.’

  Nora dug her in the ribs. ‘Aw, c’mon, Mattie. You was young once. I’ll bet you and your Harold acted just the same.’

  ‘We did not,’ Granny retorted hotly. ‘At least, not in public.’

  Nora gave her great wheezing chuckle and Hetty felt the tension lessen. She smiled reassuringly at Sammy and Eddie. ‘Now listen to me, all of you. I am going to Philadelphia but I won’t be there for long and I will be coming home as soon as I can.’

  ‘Will you bring Charles back with you?’ Sammy asked, pushing his spectacles a little higher on the bridge of his snub nose.

  ‘I hope so, Sammy, love. I really do.’

  A fever seemed to be running through Hetty’s blood. Her desire to see Charles again surmounted everything, and she went ahead with her plans with the same single-minded determination that had set her on the road to success in business. She did the rounds of the shipping company offices in the City and eventually managed to get a passage on the Ohio, sailing from Liverpool on 7 November for Queenstown and then on to Philadelphia. This was no luxury cruise liner, although there were first class berths, but Hetty could not afford one of these and she settled for steerage. The journey, she was told, would take about two weeks, although in fair weather the voyage could take as little as nine days. Hetty was not optimistic about crossing the Atlantic in the late autumn, but she was not going to be put off by the thought of sea sickness or stormy waters.

  Tom and Jane insisted on seeing her off at Euston. Hetty would have preferred to get the tearful goodbyes over at home, but they were adamant that she should not go alone and Hetty had not the heart to disappoint them. She had meant to tell George about her plans, but she kept putting it off. Then there was so much to do and so little time in which to complete the necessary arrangements that somehow it slipped her mind. Miss Heathcote had to be primed as to any problems that might arise in any one of the coffee shops so that she was ready to deal with them, and Dorrie had been given explicit instructions as to what to say when she visited them on her own. Peters, the strong taciturn coachman who protected them both like a snarling bulldog whenever danger threatened, had been told to guard Dorrie as if she were his own child, and Hetty was confident that he would not let her down. All the same, she worried about leaving everyone to cope without her. If her desire to see Charles had not been so great, she might have changed her mind.

  ‘Don’t wait,’ she said to Jane, who was leaning on Tom’s arm and looking rather pale. This pregnancy was not going quite so easily as her first and Hetty knew that she was suffering badly from morning sickness and fatigue.

  ‘I want to see you off,’ Jane insisted.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, ducks?’ Tom asked anxiously.

  ‘Yes, silly. It’s just the usual. I expect it will pass in a minute.’

  ‘You’re doing too much at that shop,’ Tom grumbled. ‘You should leave more to young Sal. She’s a capable girl.’

  ‘Don’t nag me, Tom. We ain’t married yet.’

  ‘No, but we will be at Christmas.’

  Jane clutched Hetty’s gloved hands. ‘You will be home in time for our wedding, won’t you, Hetty?’ Her brown eyes were swimming with tears and her lips trembled.

  Hetty gave her a hug. ‘Of course I will, stupid. Would I miss my own sister’s wedding to my best friend?’

  ‘I thought I was your best friend, Hetty.’

  She released Jane with a start and spun round to see George standing on the platform behind her. He was smiling, but there was a hint of reserve in his eyes. ‘George!’

  ‘That’s me. You didn’t think I would let you go off to America without saying goodbye, did you?’

  ‘Well, I – I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, George.’

  Tom linked his hand through Jane’s arm. ‘Come on, ducks. Let’s get you home.’

  ‘But I want to see Hetty off on the train.’

  He patted her hand. ‘Give George a chance, girl.’

  Jane hesitated. ‘Hetty?’

  ‘You go home, dear. Tom’s right, you should try to get more rest.’ Hetty gave her a searching look, and was assailed by feelings of guilt. Perhaps she was expecting too much from her sister. ‘When I come back we’ll see about getting more help in Artillery Lane. You’ll have your hands full when the baby comes, and Natalia needs you too.’ Realising that Jane was about to protest, Hetty chuckled. ‘Don’t give me that stubborn mule look, Jane. I’m not the only member of the Huggins family who is obstinate.’

  George put his arm around Hetty’s shoulders. ‘I’ll take care of her, Jane. I’ll see her safely on board the ship.’

  For the first time Hetty noticed that he was carrying a carpet bag and she shot him a questioning look. ‘You’re coming to Liverpool with me? That’s silly. I can manage perfectly well on my own.’

  George grinned at Tom over both sisters’ heads. ‘Stubborn mules the pair of them, eh, Tom?’

  Tom nodded with mock seriousness. ‘It’ll be a brave man who takes on either of these two.’

  Jane slapped his hand but she was smiling and a little colour had returned to her cheeks. ‘All right, you win. I’ll go home and leave these two to sort things out between them.’ She reached out to pat Hetty on the cheek. ‘Take good care of yourself, Hetty, and come back soon. I want you to be at my wedding.’

  Hetty felt tears well up in her eyes and she swallowed hard. ‘I will. With or without Charles, I’ll be home for Christmas.’

  ‘Look after her, mate,’ Tom said, slapping George on the back. He turned to giv
e Hetty a brotherly hug. ‘Bye for now, ducks. Come back soon.’

  Hetty smiled through her tears but her reply was lost in the rumbling, grinding sound of the great steam engine arriving at the platform. Tom and Jane were enveloped in a cloud of steam, and by the time it cleared they had disappeared through the barrier. Hetty was left clutching the bandbox that held her precious new hat; one of Granny’s best creations.

  George picked up the suitcase which she had packed so carefully with the bare necessities for the journey, and her best gown in which she planned to dazzle Charles. ‘Come on then, girl. Let’s get on the train and find a couple of seats.’

  Without waiting for her reply he strode off along the platform, and Hetty had to run to keep up with him. ‘You don’t have to do this, George,’ she cried breathlessly. ‘I’m quite capable of travelling to Liverpool on my own.’

  He glanced over his shoulder and smiled. ‘I’m sure you are, but I need to get away from London for a couple of days. There’s a certain young lady who told her father that I’d popped the question. Outrageous lie, of course, but it might be wise for me to absent myself until he calms down, and, by the time I get back, I daresay she’ll have set her sights on some other chap.’

  This made Hetty giggle and the tears dried on her cheeks. ‘You are such a cynic, George, and a terrible flirt. One day you’ll meet your match.’

  He put down one of the cases so that he could open the door to one of the third class compartments. ‘I met my match some time ago, but she doesn’t return my affection.’

  Hetty lifted her skirts and put her foot on the step, but she hesitated, turning to give him a straight look. ‘I’m going to Philadelphia to find Charles, and, if he’ll have me, I’ll marry him.’

  ‘I know that, Hetty. He’s a bloody fool if he doesn’t see what he’s got.’

  ‘I don’t want us to fall out, but if you’re going to try to change my mind . . .’

  ‘I know your mind is made up. Believe me, darling girl, I’m just here for selfish reasons. As I said, you’ll be doing me a favour if you allow me to travel as far from London as this train goes.’