Orphan of Angel Street

by Annie Murray

  For the first time the officer smiled. ‘Bright little thing you’ve got here.’

  ‘Oh yes, she’s a good ’un,’ Mabel agreed, nodding like a mad horse.

  ‘And where d’you go to school, Mercy?’

  Mercy’s eyes met Mabel’s for a second. Mabel had strictly forbidden Mercy to go to school, out of pure spite since she got the chores done anyway.

  ‘Down Alcester Street.’

  ‘And do you get on well there?’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s very nice.’

  ‘It’s just a pity about some of the neighbours round ’ere,’ Mabel was saying in her poshest voice. ‘Where I used to live in Handsworth, you got a better class of person. But ’ere . . .’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Lord knows what ’er out there’s been telling yer, but it’s a pack of lies. We’re quite ’appy us, aren’t we, Mercy? We’re a family, and we stick together.’

  Mabel showed the woman out at last, all smiles, as if she quite believed the fairy tale she’d been spinning.

  ‘Well, we soon got shot of ’er,’ she said. Then turned and saw the granite hard expression on Mercy’s face.

  ‘I’m a good little liar, ain’t I? D’you know why I lied for you? Because of Susan. I don’t care what happens to you. If she took you away and put you in prison I’d be the happiest person alive. But whatever you do I’ll never leave Susan. I did tell ’er one true thing though – that I go to school. And if you don’t let me go, and if you don’t treat us right from now on I’ll get her back and tell her what sort of a mom you really are!’

  Chapter Nine

  November 1913

  ‘You’re vile and disgusting – the pair of yer!’

  Elsie, sleeves rolled, was gathering in washing from the line slung across the yard, an expression of fury and revulsion in her blue eyes.

  Stan Jones, still fastening the last of his fly buttons was swaggering along the yard from the privy at the far end on his way to his Saturday evening rendezvous with Mabel. Cocky as ever, he spat out the cigarette stub from the corner of his mouth and crushed it with his heel, smirking at Elsie.

  ‘Just mind yer own, eh? If you was getting a bit more of it you wouldn’t need to stick yer nose in everyone else’s business, would yer?’

  ‘What about that wife of yours?’ But Elsie was shouting at an empty space. Mabel had left the door unlocked and ready for him.

  ‘Where are yer then, yer great big beautiful hussy?’ Stan blared up the stairs in high spirits, not caring who heard. He knew Mabel would be waiting. She always was. She’d undressed, putting on her newest pair of bloomers and a camisole which pulled tightly across her breasts, and was lying on her bed in the dreary room with her hair hanging loose and what she hoped was a seductive smile on her face.

  Stan made a loud noise of appreciation on seeing her, hand going straight back to his belt buckle.

  He stopped. ‘You ’ave got shot of them two?’

  Mabel gave a girlish giggle. ‘Packed ’em off into town. What about ’er?’

  This was ritual, questions they always asked.

  ‘She won’t be back from ’er mom’s for a good while yet.’

  Stan leant over and pulled up Mabel’s camisole. She squirmed with pleasure, flexing her back as his hands moved over her breasts. Getting a bit of life for herself she was, at last. Stan’s loud and urgent arousal was very gratifying, especially as he got no joy with that miserable scarecrow of a wife of his. And maybe – though she’d never mention this to Stan – maybe she’d catch for a babby. Things could get better. Maybe Albert had been her curse?

  Stan ran his hands up and down her flesh, forcing her like sweet dough, eyes narrowing.

  ‘You’re a real woman, Mabel. By God you are.’

  Now it suited Mabel to have the house to herself she’d relaxed her strictures about Susan going out. Every Saturday, late in the afternoon, Mercy pushed her into town.

  ‘It’s the best bit of the week!’ Susan said many times. Being out of the gloomy confines of their yard in Mercy’s company and going to see all the shops and market stalls – heaven! And Mercy enjoyed it too, hunting for bargains and seeing all the sights. She was canny with money and Mabel, lazy as she was, had long trusted her to do the shopping. It was hard work on the way home though, pushing the chair and the bags back. The middle of Birmingham was like the dip in the middle of a saucer, hills all around.

  ‘Thank heaven Mr Pepper’s put some new wheels on ’ere,’ Mercy said as they bowled along the backstreets. ‘The other ones was on their last legs.’

  ‘Let me ask for the meat this time,’ Susan said. She loved being out, learning to shop, use money, all the things she had never been allowed to do. Mercy felt very sad for her sometimes. She demanded so little of life, Susan did, while Mercy was restless and hungry for it.

  She pushed Susan to Jamaica Row first, round the back of Smithfield Market where were sold a great variety of livestock, feed, straw . . . At the meat market Susan shouted out for ‘a bag of cagmag, please, and proudly held out the coins from Mabel’s little pouch of hard-earned money as the red-faced butcher swung over a bag of the cheapest off-cuts of meat.

  ‘We’ll get a rabbit later.’ Mercy had to yell over all the racket of the carts clattering and shouting voices of this bustling area. ‘When they’re selling stuff off cheap.’

  The Bull Ring was also full of its usual activity.

  ‘Ooh,’ Susan called out as Mercy slowly manouevred her through the crowds and past St Martin’s Church. ‘Can yer smell that?’

  There was a delicious aroma of meat roasting in Whiteheads’ cook-shop just opposite the church. Mercy felt saliva gush into her mouth. They were used to the fact that whenever they ate they were left wanting more, but she was ravenous now after the exertion of pushing Susan along.

  ‘Let’s ’ave some,’ she said. ‘A penny dipper – on the way ’ome.’

  ‘We can’t – she’ll kill us!’

  ‘She won’t – you know what she’s like Sat’dy nights nowadays.’

  Poor Susan had grown used to balancing loyalties between Mercy and her mom, but she knew Mercy was right about this. The girls were completely ignorant about what Mabel got up to with Stan Jones. All they knew was that when they got back on Saturday nights, they found Mabel sated and mellow and not in the mood for a fight.

  They meandered along to the market stalls, low sunlight slanting between the tarpaulins, amid the cries of the stallholders.

  They bought onions from a lad not much older than them who winked as he tipped them into their bag.

  ‘’Aving a nice stew, are yer? You’ll want some swede as well – lovely swede, we got today.’

  ‘I can’t abide swede,’ Mercy said. ‘Give us a pound o’ carrots instead, eh?’

  With Susan holding the meat and veg on her lap they moved along Spiceal Street.

  ‘Oh look!’ Mercy cried, stopping outside a shop. ‘I wish I could get some of them for Johnny.’

  The shop, Green’s, sold all sorts of leather goods. There were piles of trunks outside and hanging in the window were footballs, wallets and beautiful, sleek pairs of boxing gloves. ‘Wouldn’t ’e love them – and those footballs for Jack!’

  Johnny and Tom were both out at work now, Tom the more studious of the two, apprenticed to Stern’s, the silversmiths, Johnny a delivery boy for a bakery. And Bummy had decided that now he’d come of age he could go along to the boxing with him.

  The prices in the shop were way beyond anything they could imagine.

  ‘Someone somewhere must ’ave some money,’ Susan said. ‘Why do some people ’ave money, Mercy, when the likes of us ’ave hardly any?’

  Mercy shrugged, walking on. ‘S’pose they own the factories and shops. That’s just the way it is.’

  Susan was growing despondent. She eyed a shop selling bolts of cloth and sighed, wishing so hard that she could do something better. Really learn to sew properly, make things. She had been doing odd bits of mending for people under E
lsie’s guidance and word was beginning to spread round the street, but she still had only the most basic needles and threads. She never normally complained, but suddenly she saw their poverty for what it was for the first time.

  ‘Blimey, what a racket!’ Mercy stopped again.

  This shop sold pets, and outside stood cages with African grey parrots, cockatiels, budgerigars and finches making such a noise that Mercy laughed.

  But Susan remained quiet. Mercy stooped and looked into her face. ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘I’ll never do anything me, will I? I’ll always be just an ’opeless cripple.’

  Susan hardly ever talked like this. Mercy took her hands and spoke fiercely into her ear.

  ‘You won’t, Susan. Not long now and I’ll be out at work – we’ll ’ave two wages coming in.’ Even with Mabel’s pay, the carding and the few pennies Susan received for her mending, there was barely enough to pay the rent and eat, let alone keep them even adequately clothed.

  ‘I swear to you, Susan, soon as I get some money of my own you’ll ’ave everything you need. I’ll set you up so you can always earn a living no matter what happens to the rest of us.’ Susan was smiling and starting to cry all at the same time.

  ‘I’ll always look after you, Susan. And you know what else? I’ll get you one of these birds and you can teach it to talk to you!’

  Susan wiped her eyes and, as Mercy straightened up, someone tapped her shoulder and she turned, frowning. For a moment she couldn’t think who it was, then the frown melted into an overjoyed smile. ‘Dorothy! Dorothy Finch!’

  To Mercy’s surprise, Dorothy’s dark eyes were brimming with emotion. ‘Mercy? It is you, isn’t it?’ Her hand lifted to her mouth for a moment and she stood staring, seeming overwhelmed.

  Mercy introduced Susan to Dorothy, but Dorothy, wiping her eyes, barely seemed to hear her.

  ‘Look at you – you’ve grown!’

  Mercy saw Dorothy examining her hungrily, taking in the state of her ragged clothes, the worn-out boots of Jack’s that Elsie had handed on to her and her pallid, slum-dweller’s skin, and her anger spilled out.

  ‘She ’ad no right to do it, Mercy, that woman, taking you from Hanley’s like that and hiding you away so none of us knew where you’d gone. Miss Rowney was – well, she was upset like.’ This was a slight exaggeration of the truth and Miss O’Donnell’s reaction had been ‘Good riddance. She came from the streets and now she’s gone back to ’em.’

  Mercy’s eyes widened with fear. An awful dread seized her.

  ‘I don’t want to go back,’ she gabbled. ‘I can’t go back there – I want to stay ’ere, with Susan. I’m never leaving ’er!’

  Dorothy smiled, remembering Mercy’s devotion to little Amy Laski.

  ‘I don’t work at Hanley’s no more. I went back after – into service, I mean. Listen Mercy, where’re you living?’

  ‘Nine Court, Angel Street. Behind St Joseph’s.’

  Dorothy nodded. It was a poor, run-down area of the sort she knew well, having grown up on a back yard herself. No wonder the child looked so ragged and pasty-faced.

  ‘And what about that woman? She treat you all right?’

  Mercy’s expression of utter loathing spoke more than words could have done. ‘She’s awright,’ was all she said. At least the beatings had mostly stopped.

  ‘Look, I’ve got to get back to the mistress. But I’ll come and see you, soon as I can.’ Tearful again she held Mercy tight in her arms. She seemed reluctant to let her go.

  Feeling choked herself Mercy said, ‘It’s really lovely to see you again, Dorothy. I never got time to say goodbye to you.’

  She watched Dorothy’s familiar, straight-backed figure move away into the crowd. Dorothy turned more than once and waved her hanky.

  ‘Ever so good to me, she was,’ Mercy said, her throat aching. She remembered the red jelly Dorothy had brought her in the cellar and felt as if she were watching her only family walk away.

  ‘She looks a nice, kind lady,’ Susan said, a wistful note still in her voice.

  ‘Come on—’ Mercy rallied herself to cheer Susan. ‘Let’s go and see what’s going on up New Street, shall we?’ Dorothy Finch returned to her employer’s house in an elegant street in Handsworth, in a state of turmoil.

  As soon as she’d caught sight of Mercy’s bright hair in the Bull Ring she’d been certain this was the child she’d lost sight of two years before. The child she had watched so carefully and fondly from infancy.

  She went straight to the large sitting room at the front of the house where she found her mistress, Mrs Neville Weston, sitting with the nanny and the two small Weston boys. Robert, a sturdy dark-haired five-year-old, had the florid complexion of his father and Edward, three, was slender, fair and fragile in looks.

  Grace Weston looked up, bewildered to see her maid appearing at this time, for this was her afternoon off.

  ‘Could I have a word with you, ma’am, in private?’

  Grace eyed the nanny and children, and there was something about the breathless catch in her maid’s voice which hastened her to say, ‘Would you please take them up and run a bath now?’ The boys began a whining protest at the nanny’s attempts to hustle them away. Grace went with them to the hall and stood beside the polished bannister smiling up at them. ‘I’ll come and see you in just a little while. We’ll have a story – as a special treat.’

  There was still a smile in her eyes as she came in and closed the door.

  As soon as they were alone Dorothy began to sob, the pent-up emotions of relief, guilt and sorrow pouring out.

  ‘Whatever’s happened?’ Grace moved to her straight away, putting her arms round her, her fair head close to Dorothy’s dark one. For these women were much more than employer and servant. They had been a close support and bearer of each other’s confidences for some years.

  Dorothy turned her head at last and looked fearfully into Grace’s pale eyes. She saw anguish seize her mistress’s face as she said, ‘I saw her – today, when I was in town. I’ve found her. I’ve found Mercy.’

  Not many afternoons later, Dorothy arrived in Angel Street bringing with her two dresses, one in yellow lawn, the other in soft blue wool, and a pair of boots that she hoped would fit Mercy.

  Seeing both her and her gifts, Mercy blushed with pleasure and danced overjoyed round the room with the yellow dress held against her. ‘Oh Dorothy, I’ve never seen anything so pretty before!’

  ‘And this one will be lovely for Susan – look.’ She laid the blue frock against Susan, and Dorothy saw the child beam with delight. She’d been about to protest that both dresses were for Mercy, but she kept quiet. Let the other poor kid have one. The dress she had on now was a terrible grey bag of a thing.

  ‘You didn’t buy these did you?’ Mercy asked anxiously.

  ‘No – the mistress, my employer – she’s got older daughters with lots of lovely clothes . . .’ She and Grace had worked on this harmless lie together. They were in fact hand-me-downs from the daughters of friends. ‘She said I could hand them on to someone who needed them.’

  ‘She’s very kind,’ Mercy said, trying to imagine such wealth and benevolence.

  ‘You going to make ’er some tea?’ Susan asked timidly. She was rather in awe of Dorothy who, although only a servant, seemed to have appeared from a completely different existence where people still had dresses that looked new when they’d finished with them.

  Mercy ran out to the tap to fill the kettle. They talked all afternoon. Mercy could barely keep still in her excitement at having Dorothy there. She told her cautiously about her life in Angel Street, playing on the positive side for Susan’s sake. She talked about school, the Peppers, Elsie’s kindness.

  ‘Johnny and Tom, the twins, they’re my best pals – well, after Susan! And there’s little Rosalie, she’s nearly five now . . .’

  Dorothy listened, trying to keep all her attention on Mercy’s face, but she couldn’t help her gaze wanderin
g, taking in the rotten state of the place: furniture supplemented with orange crates, the broken floor, and the mean, loathsome smells of damp and mould which she found unspeakably depressing. The more so because it brought back memories of her own childhood. Going into service at fourteen had been her salvation and she was grateful for it daily.

  Preparing to leave after their chat she said, ‘Let me know if there’s anything you need, Mercy. And you, Susan,’ she added kindly.

  She was moving to embrace Mercy when Mabel came barging in from work.

  ‘I see no one’s bothered scrubbing the step.’ She was carrying on before she’d even got in. ‘Oi – what’s going on?’ Mercy heard panic in her voice. ‘Who’re you?’

  Mercy stepped forward and said proudly, ‘This is Dorothy.’

  ‘Oh yes – Dorothy who?’ Mabel’s tone was brazen but wary, her arms crossed defensively. She and Dorothy were eyeing each other up with instant mutual distrust.

  ‘She looked after me in the home.’

  ‘What’s that rubbish you’re talking?’ Mabel blustered. What with the NSPCC turning up on her doorstep and now this, Mabel was beginning to feel quite persecuted.

  ‘You’re a born liar, aren’t you?’ Dorothy said, disgusted. ‘It were only two years ago, not a lifetime. D’you think I wouldn’t be able to remember what someone looks like? Lucky for you she wants to stay here at the moment or I could make trouble for you. But I’ll be keeping an eye on Mercy from now on, and don’t you forget it.’

  Chapter Ten

  February 1914

  ‘I’ve got it – ’e give me the job!’

  Mercy tore into Elsie’s house to tell Susan. Thanks to Johnny Pepper she had her first job at the bakery in Digbeth where he was employed as a delivery boy.

  ‘Well there you are,’ Elsie smiled. She was fixing up her escaping coils of rusty hair. ‘You’re a worker. You’ll get on, you will.’

  ‘’Course you got it,’ Susan beamed. ‘I said you would, didn’ I?’