An East End Girl

by Maggie Ford

  Chapter Six

  In the eyes of both families, Eddie was assumed to be Cissy’s young man. Any attempt to deny it was treated as a young girl’s natural coyness. The slightest rebuff on her part had Mum and Dad making a thing out of it until, for a quiet life, it was easier to bite her tongue, even though she still managed to wriggle out of talk of engagement rings.

  Weekends were becoming his by right and those lovely West End Saturday evenings out with Daisy earlier in the year were history. As for her Prince Charming, he too was fading into history. She had never seen him again, he was more likely haunting private parties in Belgravia or languishing in the south of France, his appearance in Kensington just one of those slumming expeditions bright young people of means were known to enjoy from time to time. Pity. She’d had such dreams.

  On this lovely March Sunday afternoon Eddie was rowing her on the Serpentine, never happier than when he was on the water showing his prowess with an oar. He rested on the oars now, his lean handsome face grinning across at her.

  ‘Happy?’

  She trailed a hand in the water. ‘Hmm.’

  The response was non-committal but he didn’t seem to notice. His hazel eyes grew serious as he regarded her.

  ‘I’m glad. Cissy.…’ He faltered then went on purposefully, ‘We’ve bin going steady together for a while now and…well, I wondered if it wasn’t time we began thinking a bit more about our future together. And well, now…’

  He took his gaze away from her to let it sweep across the peaceful scene, the sun warm on the Serpentine, rowing boats gliding lazily by. Not a breeze ruffled the water or stirred even the top leaves of the trees. On the banks, families sat with picnics spread or threw bread to the ducks and swans gathering in greedy masses, racing for the best and largest morsels to swash in the water before devouring.

  Eddie turned his gaze back to her as though the scene had brought him the resolve to continue.

  ‘And now seems the right time to say it. Cissy, I want you to be my wife.…Don’t say no,’ he hurried on, as she drew in a deep breath, half shaking her head. Quickly shipping the oars, he slid himself across to her seat to clasp her hand in his.

  ‘Don’t say no, Cissy. I know it’s a big step fer a girl. It’s a big step fer me too. But I love you. I’ve got enough money…well, it ain’t a lot, but if I go careful we can rent a nice little ’ouse, ’ave a nice little ’ome – the two of us. I’d look after yer and see you ’ave anything my money can buy. You could give up work and all. Wouldn’t yer like that? Please say you’ll marry me, Cissy.’

  She could not meet his gaze. ‘Eddie, I – I like you tremendously. I think you’d make a wonderful husband…’

  ‘So you will? You will marry me?’

  ‘I never…’

  ‘Oh, Cissy!’ His arm was around her shoulders, the boat rocking. She managed to turn her head away as his lips sought hers, but he was too over the moon to realise and laid his face close to hers. ‘You’ve made me so proud. So happy.’

  ‘Eddie, listen…’

  ‘Let’s get ’ome and tell yer mum and dad. They won’t ’ardly believe it when we tell ’em. I can’t ’ardly believe it.’

  He was back in his seat, a skilled waterman moving surefooted in the precariously rocking rowing boat. Taking up the oars, he bent his back to it, shooting the craft through the water, and a thought, totally unrelated to Cissy’s confusion of his proposal, came to her. Talk about Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race held last Saturday, the dark blues sinking at Hammersmith Bridge to the rare delight of spectators with light blue rosettes.

  Eddie was in training for the Doggett’s Coat and Badge – four and a half miles rowing from London Bridge to Chelsea. He was hopeful of achieving his coat and badge and Cissy felt a surge of pride seeing the muscles ripple below his short-sleeved shirt with every pull on the oars. Then she thought of the days that would follow on after the wedding excitement had dissipated – she just another housewife, just another mother eventually. Eddie coming home each day to the meal she would prepare, she washing his clothes and tidying the house. She and Eddie growing older together with no more to say to each other, all new ideas exhausted, even the sharing of bed no more than a habit. She almost shuddered. Where was the dream? Oh God, where was the dream?

  Both their families were overjoyed. Cissy suffered being kissed and embraced by both sets and Eddie came round every evening after work to sit with her family, or to take her to his. Plans were made around her ears: ‘Don’t want a too long engagement, luv. A year maybe – to save up. A spring wedding. Next March would be nice. Give us all time to save up. Ain’t it exciting? What’ll you wear? Short dresses are all in this year. And a luvly veil over one of them lace caps brides are wearing. You’ll look just lovely, Eddie’ll be proud of yer.’

  ‘I’ll do the flowers, dear,’ this from Eddie’s aunt.

  ‘We can do a lovely spread between us,’ this from both mothers eager to show their cooking skills.

  Everyone was riding on the crest of a wave and workmates were congratulating her after Daisy, in whom she had confided, had told them the news.

  ‘I need to get out,’ she pleaded to Daisy that following Saturday. For once, neither of them had gone to their Saturday lessons, they were too taken up by the impending engagement.

  Daisy’s mother was out shopping and her father was at work, Cissy sat in her friend’s kitchen, gazing out of the window at the rain falling on the tiny patch of grass they called a back garden.

  ‘I feel stifled by all this.’

  ‘Isn’t Eddie coming round tonight?’ Daisy asked, but Cissy was desperate.

  ‘Let him. He’ll find me not in. I’m still entitled to a bit of freedom, surely.’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘Let’s go dancing. Perhaps we could go to that one in Kensington.’

  ‘Not that one again. I don’t know what you see in that one.’

  ‘I like it. It’s small and cosy.’

  ‘Hmm!’ snorted Daisy, sipping the sherbert drink her mother made. ‘There’s dozens of other places we could go. Let’s just go up West – take our dance shoes – see how we feel when we get there.’

  Insistence would make it look glaringly obvious that something in Kensington other than just a ballroom was drawing her. She shrugged, putting Langley what’s-his-name to one side. After four months even the name was fading.

  ‘All right,’ she conceded. After all, what she really needed was to get away from the constant Eddie for a while, to savour one last evening of freedom.

  Ethel’s eyes were full of tears. ‘We’ve got to do something, Bobby. I’ve missed my next you-know-what as well. I’m definitely pregnant. I just know I am.’

  ‘How can you tell? Apart from your whatsits?’ he asked morosely.

  A feeling of being trapped was beginning to weigh on him. He was unsure if he’d ever really loved Ethel, except for what she’d stirred in him. Then again, perhaps he did love her in a way. But marriage was a big step; asked a lot of someone who wasn’t sure. And yet they had to do something, and quick – if she was right – before she began showing.

  It was a strange situation. He felt at once sick yet gripped by the realisation that he might be a father. And yet, the baby Ethel was carrying, if she was carrying, was his. A piece of himself. For a moment a tremendous surge of pride assailed him. If it was a boy, he could teach him to box and play football. When he grew up he’d be a lighterman, carrying on the river tradition of the family to the fourth generation. If it was a girl, he could protect her against all adversity. She’d be beautiful, that was for sure, like Ethel. His heart began to swell with thoughts of boys setting their caps at her, flocking around her. For that alone it was worth getting married.

  ‘I can tell,’ Ethel was saying waspishly, her tone fearful as if worried he was trying to wriggle out of it. ‘Women know these things. But we’ve got to make it soon before people begin suspecting.’

  ‘They’ll suspe
ct as soon as we name a quick day,’ he hedged.

  ‘They can suspect all they want then – long as we’re married.’

  That was true.

  Bobby had the sensation of being swept along before a huge dark wave, threatened to be engulfed by it as Ethel began making her plans. Now assured of his support, she steeled herself to tell her parents.

  ‘I’ll face them on me own,’ she said bravely, when he offered to go with her. He looked at her with new admiration – the most courageous girl he had ever known. And face them she did. Quite successfully.

  Apparently relieved to have her off their hands, especially, he found out later, as her older sister by three years had been compelled into marriage in the same way two years previously. Family tradition with their daughters it seemed, he thought sceptically, his admiration of Ethel’s courage dimming after having trembled on her behalf for nothing.

  It was now his turn to face his parents, he had a premonition that it was not going to be as much a piece of cake as with Ethel’s family. He was right. Dad’s views on the matter were far from congenial. He rose from the breakfast table with a roar, startling the life out of the others around the table.

  ‘You bloody what?’

  ‘Me and Ethel plan to get married.’

  ‘That docker’s daughter? I ain’t ’aving you wed no docker’s daughter. That’s flat. You can think again about that!’

  Bobby gritted his teeth. ‘We’ve got to, Dad.’

  ‘There’s no got to about it.’

  ‘She’s pregnant. I’m going to have to do the right thing by her.’

  A moment of silence followed, his father’s face growing ruddier by the second. As he took a deep breath, Bobby knew he was for it.

  ‘You – bloody fool! If you ’ad ter get a bit of fluff into trouble, you could’ve looked about for better than that. I know ’er sort. Get ’erself up the spout and she gets ’erself someone with a good steady job and she don’t ’ave ter work no more. And you…You silly arse. Fell for it, didn’t yer? Didn’t yer?’

  ‘It’s not like that, Dad.’

  His mother was pleading for calm. ‘Please…Let’s talk about this properly.’ But his father wasn’t listening.

  ‘Don’t tell me. I didn’t come down with yesterday’s rain. You not ’ardly out of ’aving your bum wiped by yer mum, and there’s you making a father of yerself. Really made a rod for your own back, ain’t yer? You silly, soppy, ravin’ bloody lunatic.’

  Bobby sat very still, his gaze riveted on his plate. What could he say? Yet what could he do? Everyone would know he was the father.

  His father was pacing the kitchen while the others sat very still, not eating. ‘You ain’t marrying ’er, yer know. Over my dead body.’

  Mum got up and began clearing away half-finished plates in a spate of nervous energy, bringing a cry of protest from Harry that he still had some more to eat, but a look from her silenced him.

  ‘He’s got to marry her,’ she said simply. ‘I wouldn’t be able to hold me head up among me neighbours if he didn’t, them knowing.’

  ‘That all that’s worrying you?’ Charlie turned on her.

  ‘Everyone knows they’ve been goin’ out together, even if you don’t, Charlie. She don’t go out with no one else. And I’ve got to face me neighbours. You’re at work every day. I ’ave to live ’ere.’

  Resolutely she scraped the enforced leftovers into a wire tray. The dishes clashed as she piled them into the sink.

  ‘What’s done’s done. Bobby’ll ’ave to make the best of a bad job.’

  Her husband was defeated by her will, though he blustered on.

  ‘Then all I say is – ’e’d better not ever come moanin’ back ’ere about wishin’ he’d never done it. I wash me ’ands of the ’ole thing. As far as I’m concerned ’e’s made ’is bed, so let ’im lie on it. The silly idiot!’

  That morning he and Bobby made their way to work, separately.

  Cissy’s wedding arrangements were forgotten in the flurry to get Bobby and Ethel wed. Ethel’s mum insisted on a white wedding despite the girl’s condition, the dress made purposely loose.

  ‘Lucky for her,’ Cissy said of Ethel, ‘with a slim figure like that she won’t show too much of a bulge.’

  ‘She’s only three months gone,’ Mrs Cottle smirked. ‘They can count on their ’ands as much as they like later. Once the kid’s a year old, gossip’ll die down. By then there might even be another on the way. Most people have short memories.’

  Even so, the wedding was a quiet affair, celebrations half-hearted. The family, already wise to the unprecedented haste, attended briefly to hand the couple a gift and their good wishes, eat a sandwich, a bit of the hurriedly made cake and drink their health before leaving early.

  There was no honeymoon. Money was needed for down payment on a rented flat so they at least had a roof over their heads. Cissy went with Ethel to inspect it just before the wedding. It was small and smelled faintly of damp, but Ethel insisted they would make it cosy.

  ‘I’d die if that happened to me,’ Cissy said to Daisy on their way to work on the Monday after the wedding. ‘I don’t let Eddie anywhere near me, in case it did.’

  ‘Don’t you ever feel you want him to?’ Daisy asked, mystified. ‘Not even when you know you mustn’t?’

  Cissy gave a wistful sigh. ‘Sometimes…’

  She let her voice die away, knowing it wasn’t for Eddie’s touch that she sighed, but someone far more romantic, with far more to offer in life; someone who would set her blood on fire with delight and send her senses reeling. Eddie was able to do that, but Eddie was Eddie, solid and dependable. A man a girl could rely on, his two feet planted firmly on the ground, his heart never given to seeking adventure or taking a risk; as a husband he would always be loyal for the very reason that he did not seek risks. But oh, how she yearned for romance, for a little bit of adventure, for the blood to be set alight.

  The dance floor was filled with couples indulging in the one-step. The high ceiling echoed back the strident efforts of a small dance band to be heard. From the chairs set in rows three deep along the walls where girls not dancing sat in hopeful groups, giggles emanated, girlish eyes wistfully prowling the room. While from the crowd at the refreshment bar, masculine laughter rose in intermittent waves amid the buzz of voices as the boys measured up likely partners for an evening.

  This was Hammersmith, large, impersonal, accommodating several hundred pleasure seekers. Not Cissy’s idea of cosiness, but Eddie liked it here. They had danced every dance together, except for the excuse-mes, which they sat out.

  She watched a knot of people come surging in, about a dozen well-dressed young things, their shrill, cultured voices reaching her even as they entered. Belgravia slumming it. A giggle. Throwing their expensive, high-spirited weight around, being gorgeously silly in their joy of life, they were never blamed by the management of any establishment for what disruption they might cause for the reason that they always threw lots of good money around as well as weight.

  Eddie had gone to get her a lemonade, the bar was crowded now with the excuse-me coming to an end and everyone needing a short breather.

  Cissy watched the bright young people move on into the hall. Envy consumed her. Oh, to be one of them. Never having to work. Having the freedom to enjoy every pleasure life had to offer.

  She studied them, the girls were in dresses far too expensive for this place. They had it all; real pearls, real gold, dangly real diamond earrings, ostrich feather fans, Paris shoes. The men had proper evening wear; double-breasted waistcoats, bow ties, tails. They were elegant, debonair and oozing wealth, each seemed to stand above the herd even though several were not excessively tall – two of them quite puny.

  Cissy’s scrutiny halted at one young man. He was dark-haired and much taller than the others. Her heart gave a leap so that it was suddenly hard to breathe. Kensington. The man who’d asked her for a dance – Langley whatisname, Makepeace. It was, surely it
was.

  Hardly aware of what she was doing, moving purely on an impulse, she was on her feet, making towards the group. Only as she reached it, did she realise the foolishness of her quest. What on earth did she think she was doing? What on earth did she imagine she was going to say?

  Coming to a halt before them, gaping like an idiot and having lost sight of her original goal, she found her entire length being surveyed by one haughty young thing wafting expensive perfume, whose wide blue eyes edged with kohl had widened even more in silent enquiry.

  Cissy wilted, began backing away, to be stopped by someone behind her.

  ‘Whoops!’ the man’s voice was light and faintly mocking as hands fell upon each of her shoulders. Turning to stare up into the eyes of Langley Makepeace, her reaction was as instant as it was ridiculous.

  ‘Oh…fancy meeting you!’

  He looked blankly at her. ‘Do we know each other?’

  ‘Er…’ Oh, God, this was awful. She stood staring dumbly at him.

  But in the grey eyes, stunning grey eyes ringed by a darker grey, recognition stirred. ‘By golly, yes. Didn’t I dance with you…now where was that?’

  ‘Kensington,’ she burst out, encouraged yet still stunned.

  ‘Kensington.’

  ‘South Kensington really.’ Thank God for elocution lessons. She was as good as any of these rich little flappers. ‘It was a smallish ballroom, just off Brompton Road. Last November.’

  He smiled down at her. ‘Yes, I recall now. I’ve a memory for faces. Not names. Faces. I couldn’t forget your face. I remember thinking at the time – she’s a peach. And then you disappeared.’

  ‘Like Cinderella.’ Silly thing to say. Why had she said it?

  He laughed. ‘My very words! Though I didn’t find a glass slipper. Perhaps you will leave it behind tonight.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ She made a small effort to release herself from the grip still on her shoulders, but he held her. Behind her came a burst of giggles. They were laughing at her. He was laughing at her. Oh, God, she was making such a fool of herself. All she wanted to do now was to escape and huddle quietly on her own into her embarrassment.