by Dilly Court
She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a giggle, and received several reproachful glances from the mourners who had clustered in the street to chat. She had to curb a sudden and childish desire to stick her tongue out at them and run away. It was an effort to walk sedately beside Ted, but she managed it somehow. He stopped at the corner of the street, turning to Davy. ‘Take her home, there’s a good lad.’
Eliza shook her head. ‘No, ta. I need to know where I stand and I’m going to see Uncle Enoch’s solicitor at Worboys, Worboys and Grimstone in Sun Tavern Fields. It’s only a short walk away.’
Ted looked doubtful. ‘Are you sure, Eliza? It’s been a hard time for you.’
‘Quite sure.’
‘I should go with you, but I’ve got to get back to the sail loft or God knows what them boys will get up to on their own.’
‘If you’ll let him, Dad, Davy can come with me. If I’m to run the chandlery until Bart gets back, then I need to know it’s all legal and proper.’
‘Now, Liza, my dear. You’re just a girl – you can’t hope to run a business on your own.’
‘I’m fourteen next month and I’ve spent half my life in the chandlery. I can do it, I know I can.’
It had taken all Eliza’s powers of persuasion to make the solicitor’s clerk take her seriously. At first he had tried to send her on her way, advising her to come again and bring her father with her next time. Then he had said Mr Grimstone was occupied with a client and could not see anyone. Finally, after Eliza and Davy had sat in the office for over an hour, refusing to leave, the clerk had reluctantly gone into the inner sanctum to speak to the elusive Mr Grimstone. When he had reappeared, he had somewhat grudgingly admitted that his employer would see them now.
‘Well then,’ Mr Grimstone said, sitting back in his chair and eyeing Eliza with a curious stare. ‘So you are Enoch Bragg’s niece.’
Folding her hands in front of her, Eliza nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you are?’ Mr Grimstone turned to Davy.
‘Davy is my friend, sir,’ Eliza said quickly, before Davy had a chance to answer for himself. ‘We’ve just come from my uncle’s funeral and I need to know who owns the chandlery and the house in Bird Street.’
‘Ah, you’re direct, I like that,’ Mr Grimstone said, with a nod of approval. ‘I drew up the legal documents after your father’s untimely demise, when Enoch became your guardian. That was a good few years ago now.’
‘If you please, sir,’ Eliza said, refusing to be deflected from her purpose. ‘I just need to know if Uncle left a will.’
‘She needs to know, mister.’ Davy leaned across the desk, scowling at the solicitor.
‘Sit down, young man, and you too, Miss Eliza. As it happens, your uncle changed his will a week ago leaving everything to the church, but the document remained unsigned and therefore is not legal.’ Mr Grimstone opened a drawer in his desk and rifled through some papers. ‘Ah, I have it.’ He pulled out a scroll of parchment and laid it on the desk in front of him. ‘This is definitely the last will and testament of Enoch James Bragg.’ He lit a cheroot, and with it clamped between his teeth he untied the red tape.
Eliza sat still, hardly daring to breathe, while he scanned through the document with his lips moving silently, and smoke from the small, black cigar spiralling into the air above his head. After what seemed like an age, Mr Grimstone took the cheroot from his mouth and balanced it on the edge of his desk. Eliza couldn’t help noticing burn marks all along the edge of the desk. It was a wonder, she thought, that he hadn’t burnt the place to the ground.
He cleared his throat. ‘If you wish, I’ll make it simple, Miss Eliza.’
She nodded. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘The long and the short of it is, and cutting out the legal jargon, everything now belongs to your brother, Bartholomew Bragg.’
‘I see,’ Eliza said slowly, barely surprised that Uncle Enoch had not thought to include her in his will. He had told her often enough that she was a mere female and not much use for anything except menial tasks and childbearing. She looked Mr Grimstone in the eyes, and found to her surprise that he was smiling at her quite sympathetically. ‘My brother is—’ Eliza stopped short. She could hardly admit to a man of the law that Bart was on the run from the police.
‘Quite so.’ He nodded his head and tapped the side of his nose. ‘Say no more on that subject. I am well acquainted with Mr Bartholomew’s urgent desire to see the world.’
She could no longer keep up the pretence of being disinterested. ‘So what happens now? What happens to the chandlery and to me?’
‘Well now, if there are no other male relatives who could run the business until Mr Bragg returns, then I see no reason why you, as next of kin, should not be in locum tenens.’
‘I don’t quite understand, sir.’
‘It means, in common parlance, Miss Eliza …’ Mr Grimstone picked up his cheroot and finding that it had gone out he struck a vesta and puffed at it until the end of the cigar glowed red. He exhaled with a contented sigh, sending smoke rings up to the ceiling. ‘It means, my dear, that at a very tender age, you’ve been left holding the baby.’
Chapter Nine
Immediately after her meeting with the solicitor, Eliza went to the sail loft to find Ted. As she suspected, he had returned to work rather than go home. She knew that he still loved Dolly, but in a moment of extreme stress, he had admitted that the person who now inhabited the body of his dear wife was almost a stranger to him. Dolly’s increasing dependence on her medication, her frequent lapses of memory and her obsession with illness were causing him much distress. The saddest part was that no one seemed able to help. Ted had called in the doctor, but he had shaken his head, prescribed laudanum and charged a large fee for his advice. Eliza did what she could, but she had seen Ted age visibly; his business had suffered and money worries only added to his burden. She said little to Davy on the walk back to Old Gravel Lane. In her mind she was rehearsing what she would say to persuade Ted to let her manage the store.
At first he was doubtful about her ability to run the chandlery, but she pointed out that he would be there to help and advise her. She was perfectly capable of ordering stock and serving customers, and she would hire a man to do the heavy work. After all, she had practically grown up in the chandlery and she was well versed in the day-today running of the business. In the end, after a great deal of persuasion, Ted agreed that she should have a chance to prove herself. Eliza set to work there and then, fired by the will to succeed. She was doing this for all of them, but it was mainly for Bart. When he came home he would find a thriving business and he would be proud of her.
The shop had been closed until after the funeral, both out of necessity and as a mark of respect, but now Eliza wanted to reopen as soon as possible. First and foremost there was the matter of obtaining credit from the suppliers. She would not be able to trade unless they agreed to extend the arrangements they had made with Enoch. Without a reliable guarantor, she knew she would have difficulty in gaining their trust, but Ted was well respected in and around the London docks. With a great deal of trepidation she asked him and, to her surprise, Ted agreed to accompany her when she paid courtesy calls on the wholesalers.
Four days after her meeting with Mr Grimstone, Eliza reopened the chandlery. The odd thing was that no one seemed to notice any difference. It was almost as if Enoch was still around: she kept looking over her shoulder, half expecting to see him hunched over his ledgers. She served in the shop all day, staying on late each evening to take stock and to go through the accounts. She would have been quite content to work alone, but Davy insisted on staying with her, helping where he could and walking her home after dark. At the end of her first week of trading, Eliza had balanced the books and made out orders for their usual suppliers. For the first time, she was grateful to Uncle Enoch for having forced her to learn every aspect of the business. On Saturday evening, she closed the ledger with a satisfied sigh and went to fet
ch her shawl from the back room. She found Davy fast asleep, squatting against a row of shelves with his head in his arms. He woke up with a start as she took her bonnet and shawl off a wooden peg.
‘Is it that time already?’
‘You don’t have to do this every evening, Davy. I’m very grateful, but I can take care of meself.’
He scrambled to his feet. ‘Ted don’t like you walking home in the dark and I don’t mind doing it.’
‘At least it’s a bit earlier tonight. Let’s go.’
Outside the summer evening was fading into dusk and flocks of starlings filled the air with their noisy chatter as they came in to roost on the tall buildings.
‘It’s not quite dark,’ Eliza said, glancing up at the sky. ‘I’ll be all right on me own. You could go straight home if you wanted to.’
‘That’s just it – I don’t want to. The old man will be dead drunk as usual and the nippers will be grizzling because they’re hungry. Mum will be trying to make things right and the blooming cellar stinks like a midden. The later I gets home the better.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It ain’t your problem, Liza. It’s his fault that we live like sewer rats. But one day I’ll make it up to Mum. When I’m a qualified sailmaker I’ll have me own business and get the family out of that place.’
‘I know how you feel,’ Eliza said, quickening her pace to keep up with his long strides. ‘I worry about Dolly and Millie. I’ve hardly seen them all week. They’ll be thinking I’ve deserted them.’
‘You desert them? Never!’ Davy broke into a jogging run. ‘Come on, Liza. I’ll beat you to Hemp Yard.’
Try as she might, Eliza couldn’t quite keep up with him. Davy reached the house first and Eliza caught up with him, panting and holding her side. ‘That weren’t fair. I’ve got a stitch.’
Davy tweaked the ribbons of her bonnet. ‘You was beat fair and square, admit it.’
She held up her hands. ‘I do. But you don’t have to wear petticoats and a long skirt.
‘I should think not. I’d look pretty damn silly.’
‘You’re a clown,’ Eliza said, giggling. She opened the door and stepped inside.
Millie had been sitting at the table with her head bent over a schoolbook, but she jumped to her feet when she saw Eliza. ‘Wake up, Mum. Liza’s come home.’
Waking with a start, Dolly peered at Eliza. ‘Is that you, dear?’
‘Yes. I’m home early for once.’
‘We’ve hardly seen you for days,’ Millie said, rushing up to Eliza and wrapping her arms around her waist. ‘I’ve missed you – we’ve both missed you.’
Eliza gave her a hug. ‘I had to sort things out at the shop.’
‘I’ve been really poorly,’ Dolly complained, huddling beneath her shawl. ‘You and Ted are always too busy for a poor invalid.’
‘I’m sorry, Mum. I’ll do better now, I promise.’
Davy had been hovering in the doorway; he gave an embarrassed cough. ‘Er, I’d best be getting home.’
‘Thanks for all your help.’ Eliza shot him a grateful smile.
He shrugged his shoulders, blushing. ‘It weren’t nothing. Anyway, I got to go. Goodbye, Mrs Peck.’ He hurried off, the hobnails on his boots clattering over the cobbles.
‘Little Millie has done her best,’ Dolly said, wiping her eyes on the corner of her apron. ‘But she ain’t much of a one for cooking and she don’t know how to make my medicine.’
‘I tried, Liza.’ Millie’s bottom lip wobbled ominously. ‘I done me best but I couldn’t remember exactly what you put into the mixture and it turned out all wrong.’
‘Never mind, I’m here now.’ Taking off her bonnet, Eliza held it for a moment before setting it down on the table. It had once been such a heavenly shade of blue, that is until the rain ruined it, but as custom dictated, she had attempted to dye it black and the result was a rather streaky shade of grey-green. Uncle Enoch would have said that her pride in it had been sinful vanity, and its ruin was her just punishment. She stifled a sigh, and picked up the kettle that was warming on the hob over a few bits of smouldering driftwood. ‘I’ll soon make up your medicine, Mum. Just as Freddie showed me.’
‘The dear doctor,’ Dolly said, sniffing. ‘I can’t believe the judge was so cruel and unfair as to have him transported to Australia, not when he done so much good for the poor and sick.’
The mention of Freddie’s name brought tears to Eliza’s eyes and she hurried into the scullery so that neither Millie nor Dolly would see that she was upset. When she opened the food cupboard all she found there was a small bag of sugar, a poke of tea and a dried-up piece of sassafras root. The laudanum bottle had been full when she had last looked but it was now empty. She bit her lip as feelings of guilt assailed her. She had left too much for young Millie to do on her own. Looking after Dolly was a job in itself and she shouldn’t have expected a mere child to cope with the shopping and cooking. Eliza took the piece of sassafras and began grating it into a bowl. When Ted got home from his business in the docks, she would ask him for some money to buy supper.
Millie came hurrying into the scullery. ‘Dolly says she’s going to fall off her chair in a swoon if she don’t get her medicine right now.’
‘It’s nearly ready,’ Eliza called, hastily adding sugar and hot water to the grated root.
‘It smells horrible,’ Millie said, wrinkling her nose. ‘I’m glad I don’t have to take that stuff.’
‘Then it’s lucky that you’re not sick, isn’t it?’ Eliza said, smiling.
Millie rubbed her belly. ‘I’m awful hungry, Liza. We ate the last of the bread and dripping at dinnertime. There weren’t no money left in the tin so I couldn’t go to the market.’
‘I’ll go out to the shop when Dad gets home. We’ll have pie and mash, pease pudding too.’ Eliza strained the mixture into a medicine bottle. ‘And I’ll get a pennyworth of laudanum for Mum. I’ll look after you better from now on, love. Things are going to change round here, you’ll see.’
On Monday morning, Eliza went in person to take the orders to the suppliers. She was determined to establish good working relationships and most of them had known her since she was a child. They treated her with respect and a good deal of sympathy but she knew in her heart that their confidence in her was mainly due to Ted’s backing. If that was so, then she did not care: she might be just a girl, working in a man’s world – but she would prove her worth, or die in the attempt. It was well into the afternoon when she returned to the chandlery, where she had left Davy in charge. He was serving a ship’s quartermaster with a barrel of pitch and a pair of sea boots. The man paid for his goods, hefted the barrel on his shoulder as if it weighed little more than a pennyweight, and left the shop. As the doorbell jangled, Ted appeared at the top of the ladder.
‘If that’s Eliza back, you come up here, Davy. I only give you leave to mind the shop while she was out, so don’t take advantage.’
‘Coming, guvner,’ Davy said, shinning up the ladder with the agility of a monkey.
Eliza went behind the counter and settled down on Enoch’s old stool to study the books. It did not take her long to realise that, although Uncle Enoch had been ruthless in collecting most of the outstanding debts, there were mysterious instances where he had allowed almost unlimited credit to certain people. Tickling her nose with the feathery end of her quill pen, Eliza made a note of the names and addresses. Gradually, a picture began to emerge: some of these names she recognised as being the businessmen who had attended Enoch’s funeral, and almost all these men were considered to be pillars of the church. It would seem, she thought, staring at the copperplate entries in the ledger, that Uncle Enoch had bought the good opinion of his peers. No wonder they had flocked to the church to pay their last respects to such a generous benefactor. ‘We’ll see about that,’ Eliza said out loud as she underlined the total sum of the unpaid debts. ‘They won’t find me so eager to buy their good opinion.’
‘Who a
re you talking to, Liza?’
Startled, Eliza looked down from her high perch and saw Millie standing by the counter. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘You was too busy talking to yourself,’ Millie said, giggling. ‘I come on me way home from school. I thought I could give you a hand.’
‘And so you shall. I’m sure the shelves could do with a bit of dusting.’ Eliza slid off the stool and, as she rounded the counter, she stopped, staring down at Millie’s bare feet. ‘Where are your boots?’
‘I dunno.’
Eliza took her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. ‘Of course you know. Tell me. I promise not to be cross.’
‘I give them to Mary.’ Millie’s violet-blue eyes filled with tears. ‘Don’t be angry, Liza. I done it to stop the big boys teasing her. They said as how she’d got nits in her hair and called her a fleabag. They said her dad spent his money on booze and couldn’t afford to buy her a pair of boots.’
‘Don’t cry,’ Eliza said, giving her a hug. ‘I know you meant it kindly, but now you haven’t got any boots. Won’t the big boys tease you?’
‘I don’t care if they do. I was used to worse than that in the workhouse.’
‘You poor little soul.’ Eliza stroked Millie’s hair back from her forehead. ‘I can only imagine what you must have gone through in that place. But you shouldn’t have given your boots to Mary. What will Ted say?’
‘It’s summer and I don’t need nothing on me feet.’
Unable to argue with the logic of this, Eliza dropped a kiss on top of Millie’s head. ‘Never mind the boots for now. Find a duster and we’ll sort something out later.’
Millie trotted off to find a piece of rag and Eliza went back to writing a list of addresses from the ledger. She glanced up as the door opened and a broad-shouldered, bearded man with a shock of black curly hair came storming into the shop. His bushy eyebrows were drawn together over the bridge of his nose in a frown and he was holding Millie’s boots in his hand. Eliza’s heart sank. It was Arthur Little, and, by the looks of him, he was ready for a fight.