Orphan of Angel Street

by Annie Murray

  She thought of the hours Susan had spent with him, talking to him. The house felt so desolate now.

  She went to take her leave of the Peppers. Time seemed frozen in their house: Tom forever lying there, Elsie with him, shrunken and pinched in the face. She couldn’t say goodbye to Alf or Jack as they were out at work, Rosalie was at school and Johnny was gone. He’d joined the police, was in lodgings somewhere across town.

  ‘I’m not really saying goodbye, not for good.’ Elsie and Tom looked like ghosts in the dark little slum room.

  Elsie came over, opened her arms and drew Mercy into them. Mercy put her arms round Elsie’s waist, feeling her thinness, breathing in the greasy smell of Elsie’s old green woolly. For the first time Mercy could ever remember, Elsie, once strong, vibrant Elsie, sobbed her heart out there in her arms.

  ‘Oh Elsie, don’t, please . . .’ Mercy’s own tears were falling. She stroked her hands along Elsie’s back. ‘I’m not really going. I’ll come back all I can to see you, and Tom. I’m sorry for leaving you . . .’

  ‘Can’t yer stay?’ Elsie drew back, wiping her bony hand across her eyes. ‘No, I know it’s wrong of me to ask you. But you could come and stop with us, away from Mabel. And you’d be near Tom . . .’

  ‘Elsie—’ Mercy steered her to the table and gently sat her down. ‘You know I can’t always stop with Tom, don’t you? That we can’t be anything to each other now, not as ’e is? I did love ’im, you know I did, with all my heart. But ’e’s gone, and I can’t – my Tom’s not here any more.’

  Elsie’s watery eyes looked up at her. ‘I know, bab. And my Tom too. ’Course I know that. It’s bad of me. At your age I was marrying Alf and having Maryann soon after. Never see her from one year to the next, now do I? Not as if Coventry’s very far off.’ She looked round at Tom. He seemed to be sleeping, his mouth hanging open.

  ‘Sometimes I think about finishing ’im off, d’you know that? My own son.’ She started crying again. ‘Who’s ever going to look after ’im but me?’

  Mercy couldn’t answer her. She was weighed down by the truth of her words.

  ‘Elsie, can I have a cuppa tea with yer before I go?’

  ‘’Course you can. Look at me, wallowing in self-pity. Some send-off for yer.’ She went to stand up.

  ‘No – let me do it, you sit there.’ Mercy saw Elsie sink back on the chair with relief.

  She got out two of Elsie’s willow-patterned cups and laid them on saucers. The two of them sat sipping a strong brew of tea together. It was like old times, yet Mercy could already feel she was slipping away, that her life was elsewhere. She could come and visit, but it would never be the same again. Tears stung her eyes, but she fought them back. No more of that.

  Before she left she went to Tom’s bed. With a pang she saw that asleep, he looked more like his old self, the accusing blankness of his eyes hidden behind quivering eyelids.

  ‘Goodbye, love,’ she whispered. And leant over to kiss him. His face smelt of coal tar soap.

  Elsie looked her over at the door, smiling bravely.

  ‘You’ve grown up to be a right stunner, Mercy. And God knows you deserve a bit of happiness.’ She took Mercy’s arm for a moment. ‘If you run into Johnny, ask ’im to come and see me. I’m not going over there begging.’

  Mercy nodded. ‘’Course I will.’

  ‘Come on.’ Elsie summoned all her energy. ‘You can’t go without seeing everyone.’

  She went round the yard, digging them all out of their houses: Mary Jones in her apron, Josie Ripley, the Mc- Gonegalls, everyone except Mabel.

  ‘Don’t forget us, Mercy!’

  ‘Ta-ra bab – come back and see us—’

  ‘’Cos we ain’t going nowhere!’

  ‘Give us a kiss . . .’

  ‘Ta-ra – God bless, love – bye!’

  They walked down the entry out of the yard as if in triumph, and after all the hugs, pats and kisses, they waved her off down Angel Street. Everyone turned to stare at the beautiful, golden girl after whom the street might have been named, carrying her bundle, a flower in her hat, as she turned to wave a last time, then was gone.

  Her room in the Adair house was simple, as Margaret Adair had told her it would be, but she loved it immediately. It was small, squeezed in at the top of the stairs, with just enough room for a bed, a chair and a small white chest of drawers. Resting on it were a pewter candlestick and a bowl and pitcher decorated with honeysuckle. There was a little tasselled rug laid beside the bed on the bare boards, and a high window through which she could only see sky, unless she stood on the chair and looked down across the garden. A small rectangular mirror hung on the wall beside the door, in a white frame.

  That evening, as she was stowing her few belongings in the chest of drawers and feeling strange and lonely, she heard a knock at the door, accompanied by giggles.

  ‘Come in?’

  More giggles as the door opened and Mercy saw Emmie, the freckly maid, followed by a younger girl with wavy brown hair and enormous brown eyes who Mercy knew must be Rose. Both of them were dressed in plain grey frocks and both had the titters and couldn’t seem to stop.

  Mercy watched as they sat down on her bed, feeling the infection of their laughter until a grin broke over her face and she was giggling too. The three of them ended up prostrate with laughter on the bed before anyone had spoken a word.

  ‘Ssshh!’ Rose sat up after a time, trying to sober them. ‘Or she’ll be after us.’

  ‘Mrs Adair?’ Mercy asked, surprised.

  ‘No.’ Rose was scathing. ‘The old tartar – Radcliffe, the nanny. You want to watch ’er, she’s a right mardy cow.’

  Rose jumped off the bed suddenly and strutted about, face like a po’. ‘What this child needs is a regular routine . . .’

  Mercy laughed with recognition. She already liked Rose a great deal. ‘I saw her – when she was here yesterday.’

  ‘We reckon she’s a witch,’ Rose said, plonking herself down again. ‘Don’t we, Em?’

  Emmie, taller, older, had a lot less to say.

  ‘We just couldn’t believe it when she took you on,’ Rose said. ‘You going to be a companion or summat? We thought ’e’d make ’er ’ave another Radcliffe. Someone all starchy with a face like the back of a tram. ’Ow old’re you?’

  When Mercy told them they gasped in amazement.

  ‘You’re only a year older than me!’ Emmie said.

  Rose was seventeen, and in charge of cleaning the upper floor, and Emmie worked downstairs. They both helped out in the kitchen. The cook, Mrs Parslow, was apparently all right once she got to know you.

  Mercy could see Rose was busy having a good look round at what little Mercy had brought with her. ‘You been in service before?’

  ‘Not like this, no.’

  ‘You got a nerve!’

  ‘They awright then – to work for?’

  ‘Not so bad. Mrs Adair’s scared of ’er own shadow, ’er is. ’E’s awright, when ’e’s in a good mood . . .’

  ‘Which ain’t been very often lately,’ Emmie commented.

  Mercy felt thoroughly cheered up by their company. It was a long time since she’d had a laugh with anyone her own age. The two of them took her to see the room they shared. Rose led them along the landing. On the way she leant close to Mercy, pointing to a third door and whispering, ‘That one across there is Radcliffe’s – when she’s not down there scaring the wits out of that poor babby.’

  They sat for a few moments in Rose and Emmie’s room where there were two beds and a small window facing the road.

  ‘I think I’d better go down,’ Mercy said.

  ‘Eh – if you’re ’er companion,’ Emmie said as Mercy stood up, ‘does this mean we ’ave to wait on you?’

  Mercy grinned. ‘Oh, I blooming well hope so!’

  ‘I want you to know,’ James Adair told her, ‘that I am at first only employing you for a trial period of one month.’

  Mercy stood before h
im in the front parlour. Mr Adair turned away and addressed her reflection in the giltframed mirror over the mantelpiece. Mercy thought how tall he was. She could see where Stevie got his looks, the shape of the face, brown eyes. He stood there with his legs apart, swaying backwards and forwards a little, one hand stroking his moustache. Mercy did not know how to speak to him. She saw Margaret Adair smile at her across the room, trying to be reassuring, but only managing instead to look more anxious.

  ‘Any trouble,’ Mr Adair went on, ‘anything missing from the house—’

  ‘James!’ his wife protested miserably.

  ‘Any upset in the household routine for which I consider you responsible, and you will have to go before the month is up.’ He turned round again and looked at her sternly. ‘Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Mercy looked at the rich swirls of crimson, fawn, green, on the rug under her feet. He didn’t want her here, that was as plain as anything. At that moment she felt like running back home to Elsie.

  ‘I’ll be direct with you.’ Mr Adair spoke as if he were addressing a clutch of businessmen. ‘I should not have employed you myself. My wife acted rather hastily. I should have looked for someone more mature to be a decent and respectable support to her.’

  Mercy felt very deflated and cold inside. Perhaps after all her defiant words to Mabel, she didn’t have a future in this house.

  Seeing her dismayed expression, Margaret Adair spoke gently to her.

  ‘Mercy – perhaps this is not a good moment to discuss too many things. Come down to me tomorrow morning and we shall talk about your duties properly.’ She looked apprehensively at her husband. ‘You’ve finished with Mercy, haven’t you, dear?’

  He nodded curtly.

  ‘You can go and ask Mrs Parslow for a plate of food, and then if I were you I should have an early night.’

  Mercy slunk out of the room. After she’d eaten some cold beef and potato, she slowly made her way upstairs. She didn’t know what else to do but shut herself in her room. It felt too early to go to sleep.

  The attic stairs were next to Stevie’s nursery. Pausing by the door, Mercy heard the sound of splashing water. It must be his bathtime. She pressed her ear to the door, suddenly full of longing. He was such a nice babby. It would have been fun to go in and play with him if he hadn’t had such a off-putting keeper! She smiled, hearing Stevie gurgling behind the door. Oh well, perhaps she’d get a chance to play with him when he was down with Mrs Adair.

  As she moved her head away from the door, a high shriek came from the room, a sound so sudden and tormented it could only have been of pain. It was followed by a few seconds’ silence, in which she heard the nanny’s voice say, sweetly, ‘There, oh dear, there we are,’ before Stevie gathered his breath and began to scream and scream.

  The sounds followed Mercy up to the attic. She sat on her bed. His crying went on for a long time. Eventually it went quiet.

  Mercy didn’t know what to do. It was growing dark and cold. She lit the candle and put it on the chair by the bed. Then she undressed. She got in under the soft, worn covers, reached for her Cheerful Homes by Dr J. W. Kirton and began slowly to read,

  ‘It is the most natural thing,’ the book began, ‘for young people to indulge in the hope that some fine day they will fall in love with someone, and someone will do the same thing in return.’

  She turned the book over, lying with it on her stomach, looking up at the candlelight shadows on the white, bugless ceiling. She thought of Tom, of Elsie and the others waving her goodbye that afternoon. This house felt so big and quiet and strange, and it was obvious Mr Adair didn’t want her there. Full of sadness and uncertainty, she wanted to run back to all the familiar things of Angel Street. She closed the book and turned over, hugging her pillow. She cried quietly to herself.

  The next morning she found Margaret Adair giving Stevie his morning feed in the cheerful back sitting room.

  ‘Do come and sit by me, Mercy,’ Margaret said, smiling.

  Mercy went and sat tentatively at the other end of the couch. She hadn’t been sure what to wear, and had put her black skirt on again. She was also warm inside from eating the nicest breakfast she could ever remember having. It had been slops, it was true, but with all milk and crunchy grains of sugar on top. With her stomach comfortingly full she was ready to take on anything.

  ‘Sit back, dear,’ Margaret encouraged her. ‘I so want you to feel this is your home. I do have such a feeling we’re going to get on. I’m so sorry for James talking to you in that harsh way last night. I’m afraid he does get into a panic when anything the least bit different happens and then he can get rather stiff and starchy . . .’

  Mercy watched her carefully, not having any idea that her big eyes and intent stare were making her employer feel quite nervous.

  ‘I really do want you here, Mercy.’ To Mercy’s astonishment the woman reached across and took her hand for a moment. Hers felt warm and soft.

  ‘I suppose Mr Adair was expecting someone a bit more . . . well, posh?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Margaret sighed. ‘Older certainly. He thinks such a lot of our nanny, Audrey Radcliffe. I think she reminds him of the nanny he had as a boy.’

  ‘Poor him then.’ Mercy clapped a hand over her mouth in horror, eyes stretched wide. What was she saying! ‘Ooh, I’m sorry – I shouldn’t’ve said that.’

  But Margaret Adair had hold of her again, was squeezing her wrist, face full of concern. ‘Is that what you think? D’you think she’s wrong, and unkind?’

  Mercy felt out of her depth here. What a strange household. Why on earth should this woman be consulting her?

  ‘I’ve only seen ’er the once,’ Mercy said. ‘I don’t know whether she is or not – I’m sure she’s very good . . .’

  The white hand was still grasping her wrist. Margaret Adair’s eyes were pleading.

  ‘I just . . .’

  ‘Yes – what? Please speak frankly, Mercy. I think I shall go completely mad if I can’t find someone to speak honestly with.’

  Mercy kept looking into her eyes. ‘When I was in the home, the orphanage, that is, there were women working there who shouldn’t’ve been within a mile of children. I suppose she just reminds me . . . there’s summat about her – but that’s just me . . .’

  ‘Oh Mercy, thank you.’ Margaret Adair gave her wrist another squeeze and then released her. She seemed triumphant, and carried on speaking in a rush. ‘You have no idea what it means to me hearing you say that. She’s so harsh and rigid and Stevie’s so obviously unhappy with her. But James can’t see it. Anything that goes wrong, if Stevie cries or the routine gets upset, he blames me. Routine is his god. Everything Audrey Radcliffe does is right. She knows. That’s his way of looking at it. Babies have to be taken in hand and trained. I’m only allowed to feed him when she says, however much he cries. She barely allows me to play with him. You’ll see, she’ll be down any moment. Some days I feel as if I’ll just explode and shout and scream, I feel so helpless and frustrated.’

  Her tears started to fall as she finished speaking. She held up a handkerchief to her mouth. Feeling the quivering of his mother’s body, Stevie came off the breast and poked his head curiously from under the shawl.

  ‘Oh, and he’s such a darling!’ Margaret lifted him upright and he kicked his sturdy legs. ‘And your nanny isn’t such a perfect archangel either, is she, letting you bang your head again. Look – show Mercy.’

  The place above his eye where Mercy had noticed the scar before was raw and inflamed, the skin pink around the wound. Mercy thought about the noises she’d heard.

  ‘When he was having a bath?’

  ‘Yes. She said he caught his head. On the corner of the table.’

  Mercy frowned. ‘Couldn’t you get another nanny? I mean, not that it’s any of my business.’

  ‘Oh, but I want it to be your business.’ Margeret’s voice was pleading. ‘You must think me a very strange person, but when you came here, even
by little things you said, I knew you had courage. Far more than I have. That you’d question things. I need someone to tell me I’m not wrong and foolish. I need you to be on my side, Mercy. Please don’t be afraid. Say what you think to me . . .’

  Mercy’s bewilderment increased. Why was this woman not in charge of her own household? Surely that was how it was supposed to be when you had money? It all seemed very strange to her. She did know though, that she liked her and that she didn’t like the look of Nanny Radcliffe at all.

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best,’ was all she could say.

  When Stevie had finished his feed his mother sat him up and he beamed milkily at them both.

  ‘He’s beautiful,’ Mercy said, drawing closer. She held out a finger to him and he clamped it in his strong fist. Mercy shook her finger and he let out a gurgling laugh.

  ‘’Ello there Stevie – you’re a fine fella, aren’t you? I must say, Mrs Adair, he’s one of the bonniest babbies I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘D’you want to hold him for a moment?’

  ‘Ooh yes!’

  Mercy took Stevie on to her lap, holding him upright.

  ‘He’d almost sit by hisself – look how strong his back is!’ She jiggled him up and down, playing horsey and making clicking sounds with her tongue and Stevie chortled, his beaming face only marred by the harsh red wound above his eye.

  They were so busy playing with him, they didn’t hear the footsteps outside. The door opened and Radcliffe stood in the doorway. Stevie, his back to her, carried on chuckling. Mercy, still with Stevie’s hands in her own, saw Margaret Adair’s face tense up, the smile dying from it.

  ‘Time for a nap now,’ Radcliffe commanded. She stared hard at Mercy.

  Mercy stared back. I know you, she thought, her flesh creeping. I know your sort.

  ‘I’m sorry – I should introduce you both,’ Margaret said. ‘This is Mercy who is to act as my companion.’ Mercy thought she’d better stand up.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said, forcing a smile.

  Audrey Radcliffe smiled, showing small, uneven teeth. ‘I’m glad to see you’re getting to know Steven.’