A Place to Call Home

by Evie Grace

  Minnie let out a sob.

  ‘Or you can walk with me, with your head held high, back to our lodgings where we will take stock.’ The words ‘take stock’ reminded her of Ma – it was something she would have said.

  ‘You would leave me behind? Disown your own sister? After all we’ve been through?’

  ‘It’s your choice.’ Trembling, Rose waited, gazing out across the flat grey expanse of the estuary where a barge’s red sails hove to and started to head up the creek. What was Minnie’s answer going to be? The barge moved closer and it was almost upon them when she felt her sister’s fingers tangling with hers. She didn’t look at her. She merely squeezed her hand tight and started trudging back along the path, following Flo past the warehouses to the wharf where the brick-makers and bargemen stopped their work to stand and stare.

  She led Minnie to where Abel had lit a fire to burn some of the rubbish, took off their aprons and dropped them into the flames. The gaffer shouted and cursed, and came running to pick them up, beating out the smoke that had risen from the leather.

  ‘You’re a pair of ignoramuses,’ he growled. ‘Sod off. I never want to see you again.’

  ‘The feeling is mutual,’ Rose said, her heart thundering in her chest. She turned and walked away with Minnie, as he aimed a volley of unrepeatable epithets after them. When they reached the street, she let her sister have a piece of her mind.

  ‘What did you think you were doing? What would Ma and Pa have thought of you? Didn’t it cross your mind that I’d be worried sick, finding you gone missing?’

  Without Abel to prompt her, Minnie’s fight seemed to have gone out of her.

  ‘Rose, I’m sorry.’ She burst into tears. ‘I don’t mind him – he’s been kind to me. I didn’t necessarily like him in the way he wanted me to, but he said he’d give me a shilling if I … I thought if I closed my eyes …’

  ‘For a shilling? You would value your life that cheaply? You could have been strangled and left for dead!’

  ‘I know how it is. A shilling is better than nothing when Black Monday’s almost upon us.’

  ‘I’m sorry too. I didn’t realise …’ Wracked with guilt, Rose stopped and put her arm around her sister’s back, pulling her close and stroking her hair. She felt the familiar shape of her bones under her shawl, and saw the fresh red bruises on her arms. ‘He didn’t actually force himself upon you?’

  ‘No. All we had was a kiss and a cuddle …’

  ‘That’s a relief then.’ They didn’t have to worry that she was with child, at least, Rose thought, but she decided to check with Flo later, just to be sure. ‘Promise me you’ll never go off with anyone again.’

  Minnie nodded. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We have three days to work that out. We’ll think of something.’

  She blamed herself – she knew how some of the men stared and made comments about them, but generally, they’d been respectful, and she’d felt able to relax in the company of the other women. Having been shocked out of her youthful complacency by Baxter’s treatment by his desperate father, she had thought she’d been perfectly aware of the dangers on the streets and how to handle them, but it turned out she had been wrong. She harked back to life at Willow Place with Ma and Pa and how they had protected them. She didn’t think she would ever feel truly safe again.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  As the Crow Flies

  Back at their lodgings, Rose lay down on the bed, filled with regret and worry, and thinking she would never sleep again but, exhausted by the morning’s events, she eventually dozed off. Later, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘What’s the time?’ she said, stirring.

  ‘About five o’clock. I’ve brought you tea and cold beef,’ Minnie said in the quietest, most contrite of whispers.

  Rose sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes. ‘How did you manage that when you promised not to leave my sight?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s no use apologising.’

  ‘I only slipped out to the market to see what I could pick up cheap.’

  ‘How could you after what happened this morning? You’re as bad as Donald.’ Rose frowned, her mind filled with doubt. What had Minnie been up to? Where had she found the money for food?

  ‘I took a shilling from your purse and a few pence from the little bit I’ve been saving to buy thread to put towards the patchwork. Please don’t be cross with me,’ Minnie said, as though reading Rose’s mind. She sat on the edge of the bed and handed her a cup of hot milky tea. ‘I’m trying to make up for—’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rose interrupted. The cup was crazed with cracks and the contents smelled odd, as if the milk might have been off.

  ‘Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?’

  ‘Of course I can.’ She sipped at the tea, watching Minnie arrange slices of cold beef on two bread rolls, one each. She was starving.

  As she ate, she thought of Arthur, wondering where he was and how they could ever begin to find him. He would help them. He’d helped them before. She thought of Mr Wild and her missed opportunity to work for him, and then of Donald, but that only roused her to anger again, because if he hadn’t stolen Mrs Greenleaf’s pies, Minnie wouldn’t have dreamt of selling herself to anyone, let alone a cur like Abel.

  ‘We have to find work,’ she said.

  ‘Where? What can we do? Look at us in our rags. Who will take us on looking like this?’ Minnie paused, her eyes downcast. ‘I wish we were back at Willow Place when all we had to do was get up in the morning and go to school with Ma. I didn’t like the lessons – I felt stupid because I had to sit with the littl’uns, but’ – she brightened as though she was back to her normal self – ‘I loved skipping and playing hoops and British Bulldog at break-times.’

  ‘Perhaps we could consider selling the patchwork. That would bring in a little cash to tide us over. We’d have to change the inscription, or trim it off.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Minnie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘It belongs rightfully to Arthur and Tabby.’

  ‘We could make another one. I know it wouldn’t be the same, but—’

  ‘We can’t afford to buy any more scraps.’ Leaving her food untouched, Minnie went to the window and looked out, her fingers gripping the edge of the sill. ‘We’re trapped.’

  They were indeed caught, caged by poverty, Rose thought, as a lassitude spread through her limbs.

  Minnie took a turn to sleep on the bed. Every so often, she shivered and shouted out. Rose touched her forehead – the heat of Minnie’s body seemed to ooze from the pores of her skin. Was she suffering from a chill, or succumbing to the vapours that rose from the creek? Was it something Abel had done to her? Or was it – she pulled the top of her blouse aside – to do with the cat? There were scratches, red raw, raised and angry across her chest and collarbone.

  Rose ran down to see if Flo was back from the brickfield, hoping she would have some idea of what was wrong with Minnie. To her relief, she was in her room with her boys.

  ‘What is it?’ Flo said, running upstairs with her to the attic.

  ‘It’s my sister – she’s ill and I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘So she is.’ Flo knelt at the bedside. ‘Minnie, dear, can you hear me? It’s me, Flo.’

  ‘I can hear you. There’s no need to shout in my ear like that,’ Minnie muttered.

  ‘That’s a good girl. Tell me where you feel poorly.’

  ‘My throat,’ Minnie said with a small gasp.

  ‘Lie still then. Rose, she needs beer – a good dark stout, followed by some beef broth and an inhalation of Friar’s Balsam. Don’t worry.’ Flo fumbled in her pocket for her purse and pulled out a few coins, forcing them into Rose’s hands. ‘You can pay me back later.’

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you. I don’t know when I’ll be able to find the money.’

  ‘It’s all right. I have a little put by, so it can wait. I trust you to do the right thing by me.’ She
smiled. ‘Go on. Fetch what you need. I’ll sit with her until you get back.’

  Rose walked swiftly into town and bought according to her friend’s instructions. When she returned, she poured a little stout for Minnie to drink.

  ‘Ugh, that’s horrid,’ she said. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘You have to have some – it’ll give you some of your strength back,’ Flo said sternly. ‘You’ll soon get used to the taste.’ To prove it, she took a big swig from the bottle, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before handing the bottle to Rose. ‘You look as though you could do with some of it too. It’s a very fine porter. Now, what about this broth?’

  ‘I have a portion of cold beef tea,’ Rose said, but her sister refused to take it, rolling over and closing her eyes. Flo sipped at it instead, while they watched over Minnie.

  ‘Flo,’ Rose whispered when she thought her sister was asleep, ‘I wonder if you can tell me something. Actually, I’m ashamed at having to ask, but with my mother dead, I’ve no idea …’

  ‘Go on, spit it out.’

  ‘It’s about the birds and the bees, and what happened to Minnie today.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ She cocked one eyebrow and tucked a greasy lock of hair behind her ear. ‘Dear, innocent Rose, who’s never been kissed.’

  ‘I’m worried because Minnie said nothing passed between her and the gaffer, but could she … is there any way she could be with child?’

  Flo chuckled. ‘Well, let’s see. If she were telling the truth, then no, it’s impossible, but if she were lying, then yes.’

  ‘I don’t think she’d lie,’ Rose said, uncertain.

  ‘I might if I were her. There are lots of reasons why, the main one being that she doesn’t want to upset you. What the eye doesn’t see, the heart don’t grieve over, and all that.’

  ‘I suppose so, but I don’t like to think that she can’t tell me.’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry. If ’e did have his way with her’ – Rose winced at Flo’s frank way of putting it – ‘then nobody but ’im and the girl will know.’

  ‘Unless she is with child. What then?’

  ‘You cross that bridge if you come to it. It isn’t inevitable, and there are things that can be done. There are wise women in the villages around here who can help.’

  Rose thought of Mrs Greenleaf at Overshill and shook her head, praying that it wouldn’t come to that. Moving across to the bed, she touched her sister’s brow – the fever had subsided, at least for now. Poor Minnie was too simple a soul to lie – she was being silly, not believing her story.

  ‘I should get some sleep while you can,’ Flo said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Rose said, grateful for her presence.

  ‘Don’t think anything of it. You’d have done the same for me if it had been one of my boys who’d got ’imself into trouble.’

  It crossed Rose’s mind to ask Flo if she could help her with the rent, but she decided against it. It wasn’t fair when she had little enough already. It seemed that by Monday, the Union would be their only hope.

  When Flo had gone, she slipped under the sheet alongside her sister and closed her eyes.

  She woke twice in the night to attend to Minnie, who drank a little water and used the pot rather than dragging herself downstairs and out to the privy. After that, Rose fell back into bed and sank into a deep sleep, only to be woken in the morning as dawn broke by Flo shouting through the keyhole.

  ‘There’s a gentleman and ’is servant asking for you! They’re waiting downstairs. Old Poddy won’t let them in.’

  ‘I don’t know any gentlemen,’ Rose said, getting up. With a glance back at Minnie, who stirred and raised her head from the pillow, she opened the door.

  ‘They have two fine white horses, and another one with them.’ Flo rushed in and pulled down the blanket that Rose had hung across the window. ‘Look at them – they’re a sight for sore eyes.’

  They were indeed, Rose thought, staring at the two steeds that could have come straight out of a fairy tale, and another brown one which looked a little sunken in the back.

  ‘The gentleman is a handsome fellow. You never told us you were so well connected.’

  ‘We aren’t.’ Rose’s heart beat a little faster.

  ‘It’s Arthur,’ she heard Minnie say from behind her. Had Arthur come to find them at last?

  ‘He has never sat on a horse in his life. What did you say to him, Flo?’

  ‘I told him – in return for a tidy sum, I will admit – that you are indeed lodging here. He wishes to speak with you. What are you waiting for, Rose? This could be your salvation.’

  She glanced at Minnie, who could hardly contain herself.

  ‘We are saved,’ she kept saying.

  ‘We don’t know that for certain. If it’s Arthur, then yes, but if it’s anyone else …’

  ‘Who else can it be?’

  ‘He says his name is Freddie,’ Flo said.

  ‘No!’ Rose couldn’t believe it. How could she bear to have him see her like this, brought so low on the brickfields of Faversham, her hands rough and her clothes stained and stinking? Why would Mr Wild come for them?

  ‘I told you he was fond of you,’ Minnie said.

  ‘There must be more to it than that,’ Rose said as a fight broke out on the stairs.

  ‘Unhand me, man, or I won’t be responsible for my actions!’

  ‘Mr Wild!’ Rose exclaimed as he appeared in the doorway. ‘Please, we aren’t respectable.’

  ‘I’ll avert my eyes, I promise,’ he said. ‘Grab your clothes, pack your belongings and come with me. Now! That scoundrel, the Irishman and a couple of his men, are outside wanting their money. Do as I say and we can be away.’

  Flo stuffed their possessions into Pa’s old suitcase while Rose dressed, then found Minnie’s clothes for her. She paused, noticing the bruise on Freddie’s face for the first time. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I got thumped – my fault. Come on. Come back to Overshill with me.’

  ‘We can’t. It’s extraordinarily kind of you to come and find us, but we are strangers to you.’

  ‘Hardly,’ he smiled. ‘You gave me your word that you’d take up your place as my housekeeper when I returned from my travels. Lo and behold, by the time I got back, you’d vanished.’

  ‘You must have heard what my brother did by now,’ she said quietly. ‘There are other, more suitably qualified candidates for the position.’

  ‘I don’t care about your brother, Rose. It’s a good thing I turned up here when I did. You aren’t safe and you’re almost dead on your feet.’ He moved close to her. ‘I will brook no argument.’

  ‘Where will we live?’

  ‘You will stay with me, of course.’

  ‘I have no wish to be beholden to you.’

  ‘You have accepted help before,’ he said softly.

  She flushed. How did he know?

  ‘The money you assumed was from your brother …’

  Light dawned. ‘It was you? You didn’t care to enlighten me when I went on about how wonderful Arthur was.’

  ‘I have more than enough to spare – it was a mere drop in the ocean.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have accepted it if I’d known it was from you,’ she said. ‘It is the principle of it.’

  ‘I think you are too deep in the mire to worry about principles,’ he retorted.

  ‘Oh, I shall worry about Arthur now.’

  ‘When we’ve got you and Minnie back safely, we’ll look for him. I have contacts in London.’

  She turned to fasten the ribbon on Minnie’s bonnet, but her sister stumbled and fell into her arms. Freddie dived forward and took her weight.

  ‘She is ill?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rose admitted.

  ‘All the more reason not to hang around here any longer. She needs a doctor. Let me carry her down the stairs.’

  ‘Rose, you bring the suitcase and I’ll bring the rest,’ Flo said, and they struggled down the wooden steps to
the bottom of the stairs, where old Poddy was waiting.

  ‘Good riddance, I reckon,’ he said. ‘I can’t be doing with this aggravation.’

  Outside, Abel and his men were in an altercation with two others, while Freddie’s servant – Rose wasn’t sure who he was as she didn’t recognise him – held on to the horses.

  ‘You will ride back,’ Freddie said.

  ‘We don’t know how,’ Rose said.

  ‘You can learn. It is the fashion for a lady to ride side-saddle, but today you will ride astride with me.’ Freddie’s manservant strapped their luggage to the brown horse before vaulting into the saddle of one of the white horses. Freddie lifted Minnie up behind him.

  ‘Put your arms around Jack’s waist and hang on,’ he said firmly. He mounted his horse and held out his hand. Reluctantly, Rose took it, shocked by the strength in his fingers as he pulled her up, helping her to spring, in spite of the weight of her skirts, into the saddle behind him.

  ‘Let me at them – those whores owe me!’ Abel shouted from where he was being restrained by two men on the other side of the street.

  ‘Ignore him,’ Freddie muttered. ‘Hold on tight, Rose.’

  Closing her eyes, she reached for his waist and grabbed on to his jacket.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she heard Flo call after them, as Freddie spurred his horse forward, the sudden lurch throwing her against his back. She thrust her arms around his waist and held on for dear life as they headed through the streets with Abel bellowing all kinds of threats and epithets after them.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Wild,’ Rose tried to say, but her breath wouldn’t come fast enough for her to form the words.

  ‘What a load of ruffians!’ Freddie exclaimed as he slowed his horse to a steady trot.

  Holding her arms around his warm body and breathing in his scent, Rose turned to check on Minnie who was almost asleep, resting her head against the servant’s shoulder. Every so often the third horse would put its ears back and kick out as though it resented its burden.

  ‘Do you think those men will follow us?’ Rose asked.

  ‘They’ve got better things to do than chase us back to Overshill,’ Freddie said. ‘We must push on, though – Minnie needs to see a doctor as soon as possible. Are you all right there? You’re almost squeezing the life out of me.’