‘Have you all brought sandwiches?’ asked Miss Garton.
Most had, though one boy was found to be eating his. He was told off, and all the food – sandwiches wrapped in newspaper – was put in a cupboard to one side of the classroom. Many of the children found this disturbing. Another teacher then brought round wooden-framed slates with the slate pencils, and Miss Garton began to write in chalk on the blackboard. Class 1, St Jude’s Mixed Infants, repeated after her the letters she had written. Then they began to try to copy them on to their slates. The children of the East End, having been organised, were now beginning to be educated.
Lily came out at four o’clock like a zombie. The rituals of lessons, playtime, dinner-time, scripture and learning the Lord’s Prayer had stunned her. She had enjoyed an experience called ‘singing’. She was impressed that the school had a piano, just like pubs, but was disconcerted to find that you had to use the proper words to go with the tunes. Making them up for yourself was not, as Miss Garton had told her, either clever or funny. When Lily found Martha Barrington at the school gate to collect her, she felt no surprise. After a day like that, anything might have been expected.
‘Your mum’s having your baby brother or sister,’ Martha told her, as the Barrington boys joined her with exclamations of wonder. They were old enough to walk home by themselves now, though Martha threatened that if she found them playing in the streets she would begin to collect them from school again herself, thus humiliating them in front of their friends. Playing in the street, as all respectable people knew, was the start of a ruinous life. It could lead anywhere.
As they walked back to French Street, Lily asked, ‘Will the baby be there when we get home?’ She had overheard many conversations along the lines of: ‘Poor thing – she laid there for two nights and three days; the doctor came but there was nothing he could do’ or ‘I’d done a bit of shopping down Whitechapel, come home tired and put my feet up, then I felt the first pains, sent the boy running for a midwife and blow me if the baby didn’t come before she arrived. “You took your time,” I said.’
Martha told Lily, ‘I don’t know. But to give her a chance I’m taking you for tea and a bun at Elliott’s.’ This was an affair for high days and holidays. James, John and Lily rushed Martha to the little café, where they were indulged with glasses of milk and two iced buns apiece. Then Lily suggested that it might be a good idea to go home and see the new baby. She was worried now that the anticipated baby was there, and hoped it would be a girl. She was afraid that a boy, like Eddie, would die, and had already decided that if the promised baby turned out to be a brother, she would take no notice of it.
When they arrived home, the baby had been born – to Martha’s relief, for she had dreaded bringing Lily into the drama which could surround a birth. The midwife, with Rose goggle-eyed beside her, was washing the infant in an enamel bowl of warm water in the kitchen. When Martha and the children came in, she handed the child wrapped in a towel to Martha, mouthing the word ‘boy’ at her, then went back into the bedroom to tend Queenie.
Rose, gazing at the baby in Martha’s arms, said, ‘Mum didn’t half holler. Then I heard the baby crying.’
‘Well, he looks healthy enough,’ declared Martha.
Lily said nothing, but thought: a boy – that’s it, then, I’m not going to speak to him, ever. She turned her back and went to the kitchen cupboard. She opened it and took out her one book, bought from a second-hand stall for her by Charlie, then sat down at the kitchen table and began to turn over the pages, looking at the pictures.
Lily’s decision to have nothing to do with the new baby, christened Leonard, could hardly hold good in a two-room flat. In addition, being the oldest child in the family, there was no doubt about what was expected of her. She might be only five but she was to be her mother’s little helper. Queenie had a new baby and Rose at home, and all the domestic work to do, so Lily was obliged to fetch and carry, run to the corner shop for tea or milk, fill the kettle at the pump in the yard, fold and put away clothes, and each morning, before school, make the two little beds on either side of the kitchen door in which she and Rose slept.
As she got older and more capable, her duties would get longer and harder. Not much more than a year later the situation became worse, for Dan was born.
Lily was now seven, and involved in the vivid, terrifying complicated world of classroom and playground at St Jude’s. She hated helping Queenie shop, carrying a string bag beside an old pram containing Lennie and Dan, while holding Rose’s hand firmly in case she escaped. She hated having to stop playing with her doll to go and peg nappies on the line outside before Queenie raced out to prop it up. She detested half filling a bucket – she was too small to haul a full one – at the tap in the yard, and carrying it to the kitchen, only to have to go back for more. Her decision not to become attached to any new brother she might acquire, in case he died, soon collapsed, to be replaced by sheer ordinary dislike of both boring, burdensome babies. She envied James and John Barrington, still living next door, because they were twins, because they were boys, and because they had no little brothers or sisters.
Everyone assumed that Lily had forgotten Eddie’s death, but deep down she had not forgotten and never would. She never spoke of him, and nor did Queenie or Charlie. Yet the tragedy had changed them both. It had made Charlie gloomy, patient and thoughtful and had turned Queenie into a woman masking intense distress with frantic activity, noisy, attention-seeking behaviour, and meanness. She had become a woman who would not spend a penny if a halfpenny would do, and who would if possible avoid spending the halfpenny. She had seen her child die, a death that might have been prevented if he had not met the illness weakened by poverty, and if they had been able to call the doctor early enough. Queenie now scrimped and saved, took in laundry when there was no immediate need to do so, and hoarded all the money she could. However much Lily and Rose begged for hair ribbons, or pennies for toffee, they could not make Queenie open her purse.
At Christmas 1893 the headmaster of St Jude’s sent each parent a hand-written letter inviting them to the carol service to be held in the church. A choir had been made up from the school’s best singers, and they would be performing several carols at the service. Lily, who had borne the letter home, entered in a state of excitement and confusion. Miss Garton, who was still her teacher, had, she claimed, said it was particularly important that Mr and Mrs Strugnell attended, as Lily was singing a solo.
Queenie, with four children under eight in a two-room flat, barely bothered with the note. In any case, she had heard more than she wanted about St Jude’s choir, and had, in fact, only a week before been forced to scoop Lily off the freshly scrubbed kitchen table as she stood on it giving her sister and brothers a full-throated rendition of ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’. This was in fact what her daughter would be singing alone, standing at the end of the choir stalls at St Jude’s.
‘Please come, Mum, and hear me sing my carol,’ Lily said. ‘I’ll be important.’
‘Important,’ said Queenie scornfully, looking down at the small, fair-haired girl in her short dress and heavy boots. ‘We all know how importance ends up.’ Lily didn’t, and it was probable that Queenie didn’t either. It was a remark based on the age-old belief of the poor, that it was dangerous to set yourself up to be different. It would only result in something or someone coming and knocking you off your perch.
Lily was momentarily discouraged by Queenie’s attitude, but, although not quite comprehending herself the large part she was to play in the proceedings, added, ‘Miss Garton says I’ll need a clean dress and a white pinafore.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Queenie responded nastily. ‘So perhaps she’ll give you the money for the pinafore.’
The truth was that after the initial shock during ‘singing’, when Lily discovered that set words had to be sung to particular tunes, she had triumphed in all the classes. She had a good ear and a true voice with great definition and some strength. And, innately
musical, she sang with expression, for she understood what the music, as well as the words, was trying to say. Lily was that rare kind of singer, one whose good voice combined with an instinctive understanding of music.
The St Jude’s choir, painfully drilled for the occasion, was to sing three carols during the afternoon service at the church, and Lily Strugnell, aged seven, would be the only soloist. Queenie and Charlie did not fully understand this, because Lily barely understood herself what was to happen. However, she was very worried about not producing the white pinafore demanded by her teacher. She knew it was important and thought she would get the cane if she didn’t. That was what happened when you got important things wrong. Accordingly, she tackled Charlie when he came in from work. Charlie, tired and trying to smoke his pipe and read his paper after supper, would rather not have been disturbed during one of the rare lulls in the Strugnell household. Lennie and Dan were asleep in the bed under the window of their parents’ bedroom, and Rose was sitting quietly on her own bed, on one side of the kitchen door, playing with her wooden doll, Ginny.
‘I’ve got to have a new pinafore for the carols, Dad,’ Lily pleaded.
Charlie, taking his pipe from his mouth, said, ‘Pinafore? What pinafore?’
‘For the church,’ said Lily. ‘I have to sing in the church and I have to have a clean dress and a new white pinafore.’
‘Who says so?’
‘God,’ said Lily. ‘And the Baby Jesus and Miss Garton.’
Charlie, scarcely a religious man before Eddie’s death, had lost any faith he might have possessed after the cruel bereavement. In fact, Queenie had had great difficulty in persuading him to allow Leonard and Daniel to be christened in church. ‘What will people think?’ she had appealed.
‘If that’s all there is to it,’ Charlie had said, ‘then it’s not worth the bother, is it? People can think what they like. If you can tell me,’ he had added, ‘that you really believe in your old man up in the sky, then let’s have the baby christened. But I don’t see you round the church on your knees, Queenie, and no power on earth would get me into the ruddy place again, after what we went through with Eddie.’
It had taken the arrival of his sister, Lily’s Aunt Mavis, in tears, to get Charlie to give permission for Lennie’s christening, and even then he refused to attend the ceremony. This had caused Queenie to rave and rail, and Mavis to declare him a heathen. But Charlie stood firm. He did not go to Dan’s christening either. So the news that the purchase of a pinafore was a religious requirement greatly annoyed Charlie.
Charlie said to Queenie, across Lily’s head, ‘What the hell’s all this about? I told you they’d be better off at the normal school. They wouldn’t get so much of this God nonsense there.’
Lily began to cry. ‘Tell them, Rose. Tell them I must have a pinafore when I sing my carol.’ But Rose, jealous of what she perceived to be future fame for Lily, went on playing with her doll, murmuring, ‘All right, Ginny. I’ll buy you some toffee tomorrow. And a nice pretty dress. And a ribbon.’
It took a visit from Miss Garton herself to settle the matter. Queenie, going to the door with young Dan draped bawling over her shoulder, found, standing in the darkness of the December afternoon, a black-haired lady in a good black coat and a felt hat with a red ribbon on it. She also wore – and this was the giveaway – shoes with a buckle and a little heel, not boots as normally worn by the local women. The welfare lady? wondered Queenie? Had she been informed on as a bad mother by some malicious neighbour? Or could it be the vicar’s wife, visiting poor families? Though the intimidating woman was very little older than Queenie, and earned, truth to tell, very little more than Charlie (though of course he had mouths to feed), Queenie felt that a gulf as wide as the Thames lay between herself and Ruth Garton. And in a way she was not wrong.
‘Mrs Strugnell?’ enquired Ruth, and her voice, clear and clipped, confirmed all Queenie’s suspicions that here was a representative of authority. Queenie merely nodded. ‘I’m Ruth Garton, Lily’s teacher. May I come in?’
Queenie felt a surge of rage about Lily, who had somehow brought this down on her. ‘Well, Miss Garton,’ she said, ‘we’re in a bit of a muddle, I’m afraid – you’ll have to excuse—’
‘Don’t let me worry you,’ said Ruth cheerfully. ‘And there’s nothing wrong.’
She followed Queenie down the passageway, avoided the pram and entered the kitchen. Lennie was on the floor, making his wooden horse jump round the table leg. Lily, who had been sitting down, jumped up, appalled, stood up straight and gave vent to an automatic ‘Good morning, Miss Garton’, though of course it was afternoon. The kitchen was full of steam and the smell of a cauldron of nappies boiling on the stove.
‘Cup of tea?’ enquired Queenie, dreading what Ruth would think of their ill-matched cups; dreading, indeed, what she might have to say. What had Lily done?
‘No, thank you,’ said Ruth, quite easily. ‘I’ll sit, if I may.’ From a seat at the kitchen table she explained the situation. Lily, who was, she said, a child with an extremely beautiful voice, was shortly to sing a solo at St Jude’s carol concert. Many important local people would be coming. She was sure Mr and Mrs Strugnell would be proud of her, but – and this was the problem – Lily would have to look very smart for the occasion. She was, of course, said Ruth, a well-kept child, always clean and neat, a credit to her mother, but this was a special occasion, something out of the ordinary, and for it she needed to be particularly smart. If, Ruth Garton said delicately, there was any financial difficulty, she had permission from Mr Hardwick, the school’s principal, to offer help. At this Queenie bridled, for, sparing as she was, she shied from any suggestion of charity. ‘That’s quite all right,’ she said. ‘Just tell me what’s needed and Mr Strugnell and myself will make sure it is provided.’
Ruth then told her that a white pinafore and a white hair ribbon would be all that was necessary. Lily’s feet, she said, perhaps rather tactlessly, would be hidden under the choir stalls.
After the formal exchanges, conducted by Queenie in a state of barely masked flustered fury, Ruth Garton left.
Once the front door had closed, Queenie boxed Lily’s ears thoroughly, shouting, as Lily sobbed, ‘How dare you show me up like that! How dare you bring teachers to my door! Why didn’t you tell me, you stupid little cow! Shamed – I feel ashamed.’
Lily, crying, said, ‘I told you, Ma. I told you I needed an apron.’
‘Don’t you call me a liar,’ shouted Queenie. ‘Don’t you dare speak to your mother like that,’ and was about to smack her daughter again when Lily, tears running down her face, shouted, ‘I did tell you. Don’t you dare hit me again!’
‘Dare? I’ll tell you what I dare,’ yelled Queenie, pursuing Lily, now dodging, round the kitchen table.
Rose, her legs up on the bed, looked on, as did little Lennie from under the table, while Dan, still in his mother’s arms as she ran, screamed and screamed. Then Lily, realising that nothing could be worse than Queenie’s beating, got to the kitchen door, flung it open, yelling, ‘Mean thing – I did tell you!’ and ran out, along the passageway and through the front door into the street. Fearful of Queenie, she did not stop running for some minutes. When she paused, breathless, on a corner, she decided to run away from home forever. Walking on, though, she realised that with no money, not even a coat, her options were few. She could go to her father’s sister, Mavis, who lived at Gravesend. She was stern, but, Lily thought cunningly, she was all in favour of church. So she would tell Queenie off for hitting her about the pinafore. But to travel you had to buy a ticket, and she had no money.
A few snowflakes now sprinkled down into the dark street. Lily, though, was still angry and resolute. Piecing together her rage and her desire never to go home again, Miss Garton’s astonishing remark – ‘a child with an extremely beautiful voice’ – and a sight she had seen ever since she could remember, people singing for money outside the pub, she headed immediately for the King’s Head in Wh
itechapel Road. She had no idea where she was, but a few enquiries later she was going in the right direction. A coatless seven-year-old in December snow, asking directions for a pub, was not so unusual in that area that any of the people from whom she asked the way thought very much of it.
Once in the well-lit bustling street, full of buses, carts and carriages, lined with stalls selling old clothes, cockles and mussels, hot fish and chips, vegetables, and second-hand pots and pans, she pushed her way through many legs to the King’s Head. Light flooded into the street, and there was the sound of voices from inside the pub. Snowflakes settled on Lily’s blonde head as she raised her voice against the sounds of the traffic and vendors’ cries of ‘Cockles and mussels, alive-alive-o’ and ‘Onions, penny a pound’, and started to sing the old Salvation Army favourite, ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, her hand stretched out for money. Fairly soon a drunk came from the pub and thrust a penny into her hand, saying, as he lurched away, ‘Cheer it up, dearie. You won’t get much that way.’
‘Thank you, thank you, kind sir,’ Lily said, in a true street-singer’s whine, stuffed the money into the pocket of her dress and, seeing the point of good advice, launched into ‘Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam’. ‘Little darling. She’s like a little doll,’ said one woman, giving Lily a silver threepenny bit. Lily, singing on, heard her say to her friend, as they continued on down the street, ‘No coat at all in this weather. Isn’t it sad?’
‘The parents drink, I expect,’ said the other.
Lily, inspired, instantly switched to the temperance favourite, ‘Father, Dear Father, Come Home to Us Now’. A small crowd gathered. Lily cast her blue eyes up at the falling snow, and in her sweet, true voice, fairly sobbed out:
‘Father, dear Father, come home with me now,
The clock in the steeple strikes one,
You promised, dear Father, that you would come home,
Elizabeth and Lily Page 4