Packards

by Patricia Burns

  ‘Mel! How very good to see you. Most unexpected, but a pleasure none the less. I did not realise that you were back in Town.’

  ‘We returned yesterday,’ Amelie explained. ‘Edward –’

  ‘And how was Italy? Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘Oh, yes, it was beautiful. Far more than I ever imagined.’

  ‘And then you went to stay with Hugo’s parents, I hear. Are they well?’

  Amelie found herself obliged to be polite about Hugo’s family, then to ask after Sylvia, whom Edward reported to be feeling a great deal better and busily choosing nursery equipment and decoration.

  ‘If you’ve come to visit Grandfather I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. He’s down at Tatwell,’ Edward told her.

  ‘At Tatwell? During the week?’ Amelie asked, astonished.

  ‘Oh yes. He spends the better part of his time there now. It’s all part of his plan to reconstitute the management of the store. Oh, but of course you won’t have heard of that.’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Amelie said. She had the distinct feeling that she was not going to like what he was about to say.

  She was right. Edward sat back in his chair and assumed a suitably serious expression.

  ‘Grandfather has decided to retire from running the store. There is to be a meeting next week at which he will announce his detailed plans. Nobody knows what they are to be, of course, but –’ Edward gave a slow smile. He did not need to say any more.

  It required all of Amelie’s limited acting ability for her to smile back.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she managed to say, as she saw all her hopes of further responsibility at the store fade away.

  ‘Thank you. Was there anything in particular you wanted to speak to me about?’

  ‘Er – no, no, I just dropped in, you know, to let you know I was back.’

  It was no use confronting Edward over the case of Daisy Phipps, she realised. She had no power to help her. She would talk to Daisy first and hear her side of the story.

  ‘It’s been a pleasure to see you, Mel. Do call on Sylvia, won’t you? I know she’d be delighted.’

  ‘I shall,’ Amelie promised, and made her escape.

  Out in the corridor again she stopped, eyes and fists squeezed tight as she fought back tears of anger and frustration. How could Grandfather do this to her? How could he bow out at this very moment? Once Edward was in control, he would not only stop her from taking on any new role in the store, but she was very sure that he would try to take away what she was already doing. For the life of her, she could not see a way of stopping him.

  A door opened and someone came out. Amelie took a shaky breath and started to walk back the way she had come. She paused at Mr Mason’s door. Daisy Phipps. She experienced a distinct fellow feeling with Daisy Phipps. They had both been outmanoeuvred by Edward. She went into Mr Mason’s outer office and asked his secretary for Daisy’s home address. The young man was away for several minutes, and came back looking apologetic.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Rutherford, but her records don’t seem to be there.’

  ‘We do keep the records of former employees, do we not?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes, Mrs Rutherford. We keep them in case we are applied to for a reference. I looked in both the current and the past files, but they weren’t in either. It’s very odd.’

  ‘Very odd,’ Amelie agreed.

  And very suspicious, too. Now she was determined to find out what had happened. Trent Street seemed to be the best place to try next. The housekeeper might know Daisy’s home address. She walked down the nearest service stairs and out into Carpets on her way to the main staircase, nodding to the floorwalker as she passed him.

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Rutherford, if you please –’

  Amelie stopped. One of the young shopmen had stepped in front of her.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I – beg pardon, Mrs Rutherford ma’am, but I had to speak to you. It’s very important, like. It’s about a friend of mine. Daisy Phipps.’

  ‘Daisy?’ Amelie brought all her attention to bear on him. ‘You know her?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And do you know why she was dismissed?’

  The young man raised his chin a little.

  ‘I know what was said, ma’am, and I don’t believe it. That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.’

  Amelie studied him. He had an open, honest look.

  ‘I don’t believe it either,’ she agreed. ‘Tell me, what’s your name?’

  ‘Miller, ma’am.’

  ‘And what has Daisy told you about it, Miller?’

  ‘Nothing, ma’am. She’d gone before I could talk to her. She had to leave Trent Street the morning after she was dismissed. I didn’t know what to think. But then I got a letter from her, and she wants to meet me tomorrow, so perhaps I’ll find out. I just – well, I just saw you and I thought I must speak to you. She always admired you, like. I thought you might be able to help.’

  ‘I do want to help,’ Amelie said warmly. ‘I want to hear her side of the story, for a start. Would you give me her address?’

  ‘Well – er – it’s a bit of a rough area, ma’am. Not the place for a lady to be visiting,’ Miller said.

  ‘I have been to the East End before,’ Amelie told him.

  ‘If you’re sure, ma’am? Then it’s 17 Dock Street, North Millwall. That’s on the Isle of Dogs.’

  ‘Thank you, Miller. You’ve been extremely helpful. I’m very glad you stopped me.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  Amelie made her way downstairs and hailed a cab. One she had silenced the driver’s doubts about her destination, she sat back and thought over all that she had found out that morning. Everything was coming apart in her hands. Her marriage was not the love match she had thought it to be, and now Edward was taking over the store and soon her part there would be reduced to next to nothing. Her hopes and ambitions were crumbling. But at least she could try to save someone else’s, and if it meant giving Edward a poke in the eye into the bargain, then so much the better.

  The cab drove through the shopping streets of the West End and into the city with its imposing office buildings. They passed the Tower and then abruptly entered the docklands, with the high wall of St Katharine’s Dock on the one side and warehouses on the other. The bowler-hatted clerks of the city were replaced by working men, street traders, sailors from every outpost of the Empire, drunks and beggars. Amelie stared out, fascinated, distracted from her troubles for a while by this world so alien to her own.

  The drab streets with their teeming population of poorly dressed people seemed to go on for ever. At midday hordes of children streamed out from the schools, dirty children with pinched faces, straggling hair and ragged clothes, larger ones dragging younger brothers and sisters by the hand. Amelie was struck by the lack of colour. Everything, people, buildings, traffic, seemed to be a shade of grey or brown.

  At length they passed over a bridge from which great ships could be seen tied up at the quaysides and into a street of small, ill-stocked shops and tenement buildings. The driver turned down a side-street, past another prison-like school and pulled up outside a row of tiny terraced houses with front doors letting straight on to the pavement.

  ‘Here you are, ma’am. D’you want me to wait?’ the cabbie asked.

  Amelie looked at the crowd of interested spectators that had immediately gathered round the cab. She was not easily going to find another one in this part of the world.

  ‘Yes, wait.’

  She stepped out to a swelling murmur of comment and speculation and knocked on the door of number seventeen.

  ‘Door’s open, missus. You can go right in,’ somebody told her.

  At the same moment, a small dirty child dodged in front of her.

  ‘What you want at our house?’ she demanded, and without waiting for an answer, pushed open the door and yelled, ‘Mum! There’s a posh lady.’ A smell of frying fat wafted out
.

  To Amelie’s relief, it was not the mother, but Daisy who came hurrying to meet her. Her face registered utter amazement.

  ‘Miss P – Mrs Rutherford! What on – But please to come in.’

  She stepped back to let Amelie into the tiny parlour, then addressed the crowd at the door. ‘What are all you lot staring at? You got nothing better to do?’ before shutting them out. Most of them gathered by the window instead and peered in.

  Amelie found herself in a little room furnished with a battered sofa and four wooden chairs, all occupied by children of various ages munching sausage and mash. They stared at her, their jaws busily working. All of them looked pinched and undernourished, with eyes too big for their faces. None of their boots seemed to be the right size for their feet. They did not smell pleasant.

  ‘We can’t get ‘em all round the table in the kitchen,’ Daisy explained. She shooed them away, invited Amelie to sit down and asked if she would like a cup of tea. Amelie refused.

  ‘Daisy, I was very distressed to hear that you had been dismissed from Packards,’ she said, coming straight to the point.

  ‘So was I, Mrs Rutherford,’ Daisy said, with a mutinous set to her mouth.

  ‘I always thought you to be such a sensible girl. I found it very difficult to believe that you had been so foolish as to cross Mr Edward.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Rutherford.’

  ‘So I came to find out exactly what happened. I want to hear your side of the story, Daisy.’

  Daisy did not quite meet her eyes. ‘Yes, well – I had a row with him, didn’t I?’

  So it was true. But still Amelie felt there was something more to it.

  ‘You had a row with him?’ she repeated. ‘Over what, precisely?’

  ‘He – he didn’t like something I said, and – and I give him what for,’ Daisy said.

  ‘But, Daisy, surely you knew that was a stupid thing to do? You must have known you would never get away with it.’

  ‘Yes, well – I lost my head, didn’t I?’

  This was not the bright, enthusiastic Miss Phipps she had known. Perhaps she had misjudged her. Another failure.

  ‘But I thought you liked working at Packards,’ Amelie said.

  The transformation was amazing. The dull truculence vanished.

  ‘I did!’ Daisy cried. ‘I loved it there. It was like wonderland, all them lovely things and all the posh customers. And now I’m back in this place again and I suppose I’m stuck here for good now.’

  ‘Then why –’ Amelie began. And then it came it her, what should have been obvious from the start. ‘Daisy, are you hiding something?’

  ‘No, Mrs Rutherford.’

  ‘I think you are. Something to do with Mr Edward.’

  He did pick on certain members of staff, she had seen him do it. If they wanted to keep their jobs, the only thing they could do was to submit to it. So what had he done that had provoked Daisy into rebelling, despite the fact that she knew she would lose the job she loved?

  ‘Did he – ah – make an improper suggestion to you?’

  ‘What?’ It took a moment for Daisy to fathom just what she meant. ‘No – no, he didn’t.’

  It was like talking to a brick wall. She had been just like this when she had questioned her about Isobel Brand’s disappearance.

  ‘How is Miss Brand?’ she asked, on impulse.

  Daisy’s face froze. For a long moment, she looked at her. Then she spoke.

  ‘She’s expecting. And he’s the one what done it. Mr Edward.’

  ‘What?’

  Daisy sighed. ‘You don’t believe me, do you? I knew you wouldn’t. Dunno why I told you. Wish I hadn’t, now.’

  ‘I – I –’ Amelie’s mind was racing. Isobel Brand, the gently brought up girl in fallen circumstances, who did not even want the people in her home town to know she was working in a shop? She was the mistress of her brother? And yet it all fitted neatly into place. Slowly, she said, ‘I think I do believe you, Daisy. But – but why wait till now? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?’

  It could have been a very good weapon to use against Edward, for a start.

  ‘Isobel didn’t want me to. She doesn’t want me to now. She’d have forty fits if she knew. But he’s going to chuck her out anyway, once he finds out she’s breeding, or so she thinks, so what does it matter? Except that she’d hate it. She’s ashamed, you see.’

  ‘Ashamed?’ Amelie was finding it very hard to follow.

  ‘Yes, well, she never wanted to, did she? He made her. She’s terrified of him. Scared to set foot outside the house in case he finds out. She’s like a blooming prisoner.’

  ‘This is terrible.’ Amelie was shocked. ‘I’m so glad you told me. I’ll have it out with Edward straight away.’

  ‘No!’ Daisy shouted. ‘No, you mustn’t do that. Not till I’ve got her out. I’m going round there tomorrow when it’s the maid’s afternoon off and I’m getting her out if I have to carry her, before he goes and does for her. After that, you can do what you like. What does it matter? I got no job to lose and Isobel’ll be on the streets if I can’t find nothing else for her but at least she’ll be out of his way. If you can make things nasty for him, more power to your elbow, but let me get Isobel away first.’

  There was a movement in the doorway through to the back of the house. A large moonfaced girl stood there, her slightly Chinese-looking eyes fixed on Amelie, her tongue protruding from her open mouth.

  ‘Pretty,’ she said.

  Daisy jumped up. ‘Ivy! Get back in the kitchen. Mum! Keep Ivy out of my way.’

  A haggard woman appeared, wispy grey hair escaping from her scragged-back bun. She shot a searching look at Amelie, then grabbed the girl and dragged her away. The thought went briefly through Amelie’s mind that maybe Hugo was right, and the poor should not be allowed to breed uncontrolled. Not if their children had to grow up in conditions like this. And it occurred to her that however heartbreaking her own situation was, Daisy and Isobel were far worse off. She was going to do something to help them if it was the last thing she did.

  ‘All right, I’ll see to Edward later. But let me assist you now,’ she said, pulling out her purse and selecting a five-pound note. ‘You take this and get lodgings for yourself and Isobel.’

  A shutter came down on Daisy’s face.

  ‘I don’t want no charity,’ she said.

  Amelie cursed herself. Now she had offended her.

  ‘It’s not charity, it’s recompense for what my brother’s done to you. If you like, you can call it a loan. Then when you’re settled, I want you to let me know where you are, and I’ll see you get a good reference so that you can apply for another job.’

  Daisy fairly glowed with delight.

  ‘Oh Mrs Rutherford, would you? That’d be wonderful!’

  So small a thing, and it made such a difference to Daisy’s life. Amelie felt ashamed. She gave Daisy her card, wished her luck, and went back to the waiting cab. At least she had done something useful today.

  40

  THE KEY TURNED in the lock. Isobel gasped, fear clutching at her, paralysing her with its icy fingers. Below, she heard Edward’s voice, the maid’s heavy step. He was asking if there had been any visitors, she was assuring him that there had not.

  ‘Very well. Remember that nobody is to be allowed in. You may go out now.’

  ‘Out, sir? But my hours are from seven –’

  ‘Today they are from this minute.’

  ‘Until the usual time, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Now go.’

  ‘Certainly, sir. Thank you, sir. Most generous of you.’

  More footsteps, the street door opening and closing. Isobel sat huddled on the couch in the dressing room, shaking uncontrollably. She knew that if she could just walk next door to the hated bedroom, could lie on the satin sheets and smile and look welcoming, she might deflect something of the horrors that were approaching. But she could not. She was incapable of moving.

  He was coming
up the stairs. Isobel retreated tighter into a defensive ball. He reached the landing. A few seconds’ grace as he looked into the bedroom and found that she was not there, and then he was by the couch, towering over her. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  ‘So here you. What are you doing skulking in here? You’re supposed to be ready for me.’

  Isobel said nothing. Whatever she did was going to be wrong.

  His hand fastened on her arm, making her wince. The bruises from last week were still tender.

  ‘Get up.’

  She was hauled to her feet. Her legs shook.

  ‘Look at me.’

  Unable to disobey, she raised her eyes to find a new expression on his face. Impatience.

  He gave her a shake. ‘For God’s sake. You’re useless. What sort of welcome is this? You’re like a limp rag.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Isobel whispered. She tried to stand up straighter. It was difficult when every instinct told her to protect herself from the blows he might rain on her.

  But he did not hit her. He gave her another shake and let go of her.

  ‘Tidy yourself up. You look like something that’s been blown in off the street. I want you without a hair out of place. Then put this on. I shall be waiting for you in the other room.’

  He thrust a briefcase into her arms and walked out.

  Isobel collapsed onto the couch. For fully half a minute she sat looking at the door, grateful just to have been let off. Then she looked at the briefcase. Slowly, with trembling fingers, she opened it and looked inside. It contained a folded white garment. With grave misgivings, Isobel drew it out.

  It was a nightgown of the finest quality lawn, trimmed with embroidered flowers and torchon lace. But it was not brandnew, in fact it was not even newly laundered. It was creased as if it had been slept in the previous night. As she held it up by the shoulders, a faint scent came off it, of a flower perfume, and of a woman’s body. Isobel’s arms dropped. She stared at the thing as it lay crumpled in her lap while it dawned on her that here was a new horror. It belonged to his wife.