The Best of Sisters

by Dilly Court

  ‘Well, look at you,’ Ada cried, clapping her hands. ‘You look like a real princess.’

  ‘What?’ Dolly craned her neck from her seat in the middle of the hall where Pete had set her down. ‘She can’t be a princess. I’m the queen and I don’t know her.’

  Tommy tapped her on the shoulder. ‘She can be in our game, your majesty.’

  ‘It ain’t no game, son. I’m queen and I wants a drop of that punch. And a slice of seed cake too.’

  Ada hurried over to the table where a cut-glass punchbowl steamed, sending out a spicy fragrance. ‘Don’t pay no heed to her, ducks. You look good enough to eat.’

  ‘Cake,’ Dolly shouted. ‘A big piece.’

  Millie giggled nervously, covering her hand with her mouth. Eliza could see Davy standing next to Pete and Mary, who had come from Islington on her one half day a month. They were all staring at Millie open-mouthed. Eliza willed Davy to come forward, and, as if in answer to her summons, he broke away from his family. The look of surprise and admiration on his face as he approached the foot of the stairs was reward for all her labours. He put his hands around Millie’s trim waist, lifting her off her feet and holding her for a moment before setting her gently on the ground.

  ‘Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes and that’s a fact, Millie.’

  Eliza clasped her hands together, biting back tears of happiness. Then Davy patted Millie on the head and looked up, holding his hand out to her. ‘But you got a way to go before you outshine your big sister.’

  Millie’s mouth drooped at the corners and teardrops sparkled on her eyelashes. Eliza was tempted to give Davy a good shaking, but somehow she managed to restrain herself. She ran down the remaining stairs and seized him by the arm, standing on tiptoe so that she could whisper in his ear. ‘You’ve hurt her feelings, you big booby. Say something nice to Millie or I’ll never speak to you again.’

  ‘What did I do?’ Davy stared at her, his eyes widening in surprise. ‘I told her she looked nice.’

  ‘Nice! She looks beautiful and it was all for you.’

  ‘She’s a kid.’

  ‘No, Davy. She’s a grown woman and she loves you.’

  If she had hit him with a flagpole, Davy couldn’t have looked more stunned. He swallowed hard, glancing over his shoulder at Millie. ‘But – I don’t understand – surely she knows how I feel about you, Liza?’

  Eliza followed his glance and her heart swelled with love as she saw that Freddie had noticed Millie’s distress, and he was making her laugh as he ladled punch into a small glass cup. Almost as if he sensed that Eliza was staring at him, Freddie looked up and their eyes met. He smiled and there was both tenderness and understanding in that long glance. Suddenly, it was as though they were the only two people in the room. Everyone else had vanished, time had stopped and there was silence except for the beating of her heart. At the end of a pathway of light, there was Freddie. Eliza could hardly breathe. Then Davy nudged her and the moment was lost.

  ‘She looks all right to me, Liza. I think you’ve got it all wrong.’

  Eliza turned to him with a sigh. ‘It’s you who’s got it wrong. I love you like a brother, Davy. We’re friends and always will be, I hope. But I can’t promise you more.’

  ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ Davy scowled at Freddie. ‘It was always him.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’ve been a fool.’

  ‘No, don’t say that. You’re a wonderful person and we’ve been through so much together.’ Eliza tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. ‘Let’s be friends again, Davy. Forget about me and give Millie a chance. She’s a sweet girl and she loves you so.’

  ‘You’ve broke me heart, Liza.’

  She squeezed his arm, smiling. ‘Come on now, Davy Little. Don’t tell me you lived like a monk when you was ashore in foreign parts. I’ll bet you broke a few hearts yourself.’

  Davy shrugged but the corners of his mouth twitched and an irrepressible twinkle danced in his eyes. ‘Not really. I may have flirted a bit, but nothing more.’

  She gave him a gentle push. ‘A big, handsome bloke like you would set any female heart aflutter. Go now and use your charm on Millie. But I warn you, Davy, if you toy with her affections you’ll have me to deal with. And I can be a devil when I’m cross.’

  ‘No, you could never be anything bad, sweetheart.’ He bent his head and kissed Eliza on the mouth, smiling into her eyes. ‘I ain’t one to take no for an answer, Liza. But, for your sake, I’ll be sociable.’ He strolled across the floor towards Millie and her face lit with an artless smile of delight when she saw him.

  Eliza stifled a sigh. She knew that he remained unconvinced: Davy was not one to give in easily. She turned her head to look for Freddie, but the ready smile died on her lips as she saw the hostile expression in his eyes. Her heart sank as she realised that he had seen Davy kiss her and had misinterpreted the passionless salute. Why, she thought miserably, was everything so complicated?

  The offices of Bloggs and Burden were situated in a narrow court off the Ratcliff Highway. Not a very salubrious area and one that Eliza would never have ventured into alone, even in broad daylight. Although it was ten o’clock in the morning, there were bodies laid out insensible on the cobblestones, dead drunk from the excesses of the previous night: some of them with congealed blood from knife wounds and others with indigo bruises on their heads, caused by blows from bare knuckles or even cudgels. All of them were most likely robbed clean by thieves and the feral children whose mothers touted for business from shadowy doorways. The stench of privies was mixed with fumes of jigger gin, grog and sangaree, tobacco smoke and the curious smells emanating from opium dens. Eliza clutched Freddie’s arm, glancing nervously round as figures more reminiscent of scarecrows than men and women lurched out of shuttered buildings, covering their faces with their hands as if the daylight hurt their eyes.

  ‘This is a terrible place, Freddie,’ Eliza said, looking round nervously. ‘Couldn’t you have found a solicitor nearer to the Inns of Court?’

  Freddie patted her hand. ‘We’re almost there, poppet. You’ll understand why we’ve had to come here when you meet Phineas Bloggs.’

  He led the way to a tall, narrow building at the far end of the court. A wild-eyed cat was gnawing on the bones of a dead crow and it snarled at them as they walked past, as if daring them to steal its prey. Eliza shuddered, but worse was to come as they entered the building and she covered her mouth with her hand as the stench of unwashed bodies, urine and rodent droppings made her want to retch. They negotiated the gloomy passage to a room at the very end and Freddie knocked on the door. He went in without waiting for a reply.

  In a room so dark that it seemed more like midnight than mid-morning, Eliza peered into the gloom and, in the guttering light of a single candle, she could just make out a table piled high with books and scrolls of paper tied with red tape. Ledgers, dirty cups with flies feasting off the curdled remnants of sour milk, stubs of candles melted into amorphous shapes and a half-eaten meat pie sprouting a small garden of green mould cluttered the top of what appeared to be a kneehole desk. Behind it, squatting on his haunches on a chair, she could just make out a quiff of grey hair sprouting from a balding pate sticking up from behind a copy of The Times. A spiral of pipe smoke seemed to be the only thing in the room that moved.

  Freddie cleared his throat. ‘Good morning, Phineas.’

  The newspaper was tossed unceremoniously onto the floor and Phineas squinted at them through a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his nose. ‘Is it? I hadn’t noticed.’ Leaping up vertically like an excited hobgoblin, Phineas landed on the floor beside them. He held out an ink-stained hand to Eliza. ‘You must be the young person of whom we spoke.’

  ‘I’m Eliza Bragg, sir.’

  ‘Of course you are. Take a seat, do.’ Phineas pulled up a chair, evicting a large tabby cat with a sweep of his hand. The cat spat at him and arched its back, walking off with an offended f
lick of its tail. ‘Go and catch some rats, you lazy specimen.’ Taking a large and rather grubby handkerchief from his pocket, Phineas flicked the seat of the chair. Dust flew up in all directions and he sneezed into the folds of the hanky. ‘Do sit down, miss.’

  Eliza sat down, stifling a cry of dismay as a small army of fleas fell off the padded arms of the chair onto her hands. Brushing them off, she glanced up at Freddie who had perched on the edge of the desk.

  ‘Don’t mind them, miss,’ Phineas said, jumping onto his chair behind the desk and assuming a squatting position. ‘They’re just cat fleas. Don’t live on humans, you know.’

  ‘Phineas, can we get down to business?’ Freddie brushed a speck of dust, or it could have been a stray flea, from the knee of his checked trousers. ‘I’ve brought Eliza here so that you can explain the situation to her.’

  ‘Precisely so,’ Phineas agreed, searching through the pile of documents before him and tossing scrolls, deeds and wills into different corners of the room. ‘I have it here somewhere.’

  ‘Phineas has a unique filing system,’ Freddie said, winking at Eliza.

  ‘And I can lay my hand on any document at any time. Ah, here it is.’ Phineas selected a sheaf of papers. ‘I’ve been in correspondence with Messrs Worboys, Worboys and Grimstone, solicitors to Mr Aaron Miller, with regard to the property on the corner of Old Gravel Lane and Green Bank. Formerly owned by E. Bragg, Ship Chandler.’

  ‘Yes,’ Eliza said, nodding. ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Not according to law, miss.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ A convulsive shiver ran down Eliza’s spine: Ada would have said that someone had just walked over her grave. She looked up at Freddie for confirmation. He nodded, and her heart sank.

  Phineas peered at her over the top of his spectacles. ‘If I may be so bold as to ask a lady her age? No, put it another way. You have not yet reached your majority, have you, miss?’

  ‘I’ll be twenty-one in August.’

  ‘And therefore any agreements that you made with Mr Miller are not recognised by the law. You were a minor at the time, miss. And a young lady to boot. Put in simple terms, the law does not consider that you are capable of making such decisions or of entering a legal contract without the consent of your guardian.’

  Eliza moved to the edge of her seat. ‘Yes, but my guardian was dead and my brother also. I inherited the chandlery.’

  ‘The law would say you didn’t, miss. The law would say that not only was you too young, but being of the female gender, you could not inherit the business.’

  ‘It can’t be true. There was no one else.’

  Freddie reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t get upset, Liza, my love. Let Phineas have his say.’

  Once again, Phineas vaulted off his chair and began to pace the floor, stepping over piles of documents as if he were in an obstacle race. ‘I am in the possession of facts that would never have come to light but for a slight disagreement with Messrs Worboys, Worboys and Grimstone.’ He paused to pick up his pipe and light it with the stub of a candle, sending a shower of molten wax down the front of his lapel.

  Freddie leaned closer to Eliza, speaking in a low voice. ‘Phineas used to be a clerk with Miller’s solicitors.’

  ‘And a good servant I was to them too, until the unfortunate incident of the missing funds. But that’s another story.’ Phineas sucked on his pipe, puffing smoke out of the corners of his mouth. ‘Suffice it to say that we parted company, and not on the best of terms. I set up on my own in this rather unfortunate place and Freddie was one of my first clients, although not one of my best successes. Even though I did my utmost, I couldn’t save him from the penal colony in Australia.’

  ‘We know all that, Phin,’ Freddie said, chuckling. ‘Get on with it.’

  ‘All right, I’m getting to the important part. Miss Bragg, I was with the said law firm for a long time. I was there when Mr Aaron Miller went to court to claim paternity of the boy child of a young woman who had come from a good family but had married beneath her.’

  The story sounded so painfully familiar that Eliza felt her spine tingle with apprehension. She could hardly breathe and she could barely find the words to ask the fatal question. ‘Who – who was she?’

  ‘The young lady, formerly Miss Lucy Henderson, daughter of the late Harold Henderson, corn merchant and warehouse owner, was married to a waterman, Tom Bragg.’

  The room began to spin around Eliza in concentric circles. She could have fallen off the chair if Freddie had not caught her in his arms. ‘It can’t be true. Freddie tell me that he’s making it all up.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  ‘I’m afraid there’s little doubt about it, my love,’ Freddie said gently. ‘The paternity suit failed because your mother swore on the Bible that Aaron was not Bart’s father, but Phineas had taken a statement from your mother’s personal maidservant. She was her confidante and party to the whole, sad affair.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Eliza said slowly. The idea of her mother as a hot-blooded young woman with carnal desires was so at odds with her vision of an ethereal angelic being that it was shocking beyond belief. ‘But if the maid knew who the father was, why didn’t she say so in court?’

  Phineas shrugged his shoulders. ‘Your grandfather, Harry Henderson, was a rich man. He threatened the girl and made her retract her statement. He hated Aaron Miller and wouldn’t admit that he had led your poor mother into disgrace, if you’ll forgive me for being blunt, miss. Your mother had ruined her chances of marrying into her own class and so old Harry forced her to wed Tom Bragg, a mere waterman, but respectable.’

  ‘How cruel!’ Eliza wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘How could he do that to his own daughter?’

  ‘Some say as how he never got over it,’ Phineas continued, puffing smoke up into the greasy nicotine-stained ceiling. ‘Some say as how your grandfather died of a broken heart. Some say as how it was Aaron Miller that arranged for the accident that killed your pa.’

  ‘That’s enough, Phineas,’ Freddie said sharply. ‘That latter is just hearsay and would be inadmissible in court, you know that. It’s just gossip.’

  Phineas tapped his pipe out on the heel of his shoe. ‘I know what I know.’

  ‘But, wait a moment.’ Eliza held up her hand as a thought struck her. ‘If Aaron wanted to acknowledge Bart, why didn’t he contact him when our father died?’

  ‘He had married and had a son and heir. I don’t think his wife would have been too happy if Mr Miller had suddenly produced a rival claimant to the family fortune.’

  ‘And your uncle would have had something to say to that too, don’t forget.’ Freddie reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘Isn’t that right, Phin?’

  ‘Absolutely correct. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that Miss Eliza ain’t entitled to inherit the chandlery, and her verbal contract with Aaron Miller counts for nothing because she was under age.’

  Eliza rose to her feet. She felt strangely calm now and almost detached. ‘I may not be entitled to anything, but Tommy is. Uncle Enoch would have left the chandlery to Bart, and Tommy is my brother’s legitimate son. If what you say is true, Bart was Brandon’s half-brother, and if Aaron acknowledged his paternity, then Bart might have had a claim to at least a part of the Miller empire. That would make Tommy an heir too. Isn’t that funny?’ Eliza started to laugh and found that she could not stop.

  ‘What?’ Daisy screeched, her voice rising to a glass-breaking pitch. ‘Do you mean to tell me that my Bart was related to that wealthy Miller bloke?’

  Eliza shot a reproachful glance in Freddie’s direction. She had not wanted to tell anyone yet, let alone Daisy. But, when they arrived home, Daisy had been standing in the entrance hall talking to Davy and Millie; or perhaps talking at them, as they had seemed to Eliza to be unusually silent. Daisy had stopped mid-sentence, turning to glare at Freddie and demanding to know where they had been. Freddie, with his usual good humour
, had told her. And then the questions had started. Davy had adopted a proprietorial air, placing his arm around Eliza’s shoulders, and demanding to know what gave Freddie the right to act as her guardian. Davy had been so insistent on learning the truth that Freddie had been forced to tell them everything. As the whole sad story came to light there had been a stunned silence, and then everyone had started speaking at once. Eliza was furious with Davy for challenging Freddie and for acting as though he owned her. She resented his interference in her affairs and she told him so in no uncertain terms. Millie shouted at Davy for upsetting Eliza, and Daisy blamed Freddie for everything from the English weather to the recent fall of soot down the chimney in the drawing room that had ruined her new Chinese rug. Freddie looked on, shaking his head.

  ‘Shut up, all of you.’ Daisy’s strident voice echoed round the hall, bouncing off the crumbling cornices. She stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at each of them in turn. ‘What a pack of boobies you are. Can’t you see that this is good news for my Tommy? Never mind about your old shop, Liza. From what you’ve told me, the Millers are worth a fortune and my Tommy would be entitled to a part of it. I’m going to see old man Miller and have it out with him.’

  ‘But, Daisy,’ Eliza said, making an effort to sound calm and reasonable, ‘you haven’t any proof. Aaron would laugh at you.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense.’ Daisy tossed her head. ‘You ain’t seen me in action yet, my girl. But you will, and before the day is out. Don’t take your cloak off, Eliza. I’m going to see Mr Miller right now, and you’re coming with me.’

  ‘Oh, no I’m not.’

  ‘Yes,’ Daisy said vehemently, ‘you are. You may have lost your business, but I’m going to make sure my Tommy gets his rights.’