Field of Dust

by Angela Jean Young

  Some boisterous fools put an end to the fun by firing Roman candles at people and setting fire to the arch, but Daniel told me this was just the soldiers painting the town red. One soldier did exactly that: he painted a horse that colour and rode it about the town!

  Oh, how my heart ached when, all too quickly, the eastern regiments were boarding trains for home. The Queen’s Own are based in Toronto, and that is where Daniel has returned to. I open each of his letters with excitement hoping for a proposal, which I am positive will come once he is settled.

  How things have changed for us,

  With all my love,

  Lottie x

  Flossie’s joy on receiving word from her sister was tempered by the thought of her expecting such a proposal long before her fifteenth birthday. How different Lottie’s new life seemed compared to her own. She sounded so confident, so self-assured and yet so vulnerable.

  A creaking of the floorboards above Flossie’s head jolted her back to reality. Cook was stirring and would be expecting her first cup of tea. As the housemaid, this was Florence Gant’s second task of the day. The first had been to clean and relight the range to ensure there was hot water for the household. Folding her precious letter, she slipped it into her apron pocket. There wasn’t time to ponder her sister’s situation any further. It would have to wait until later.

  After leaving Ipswich, Flossie had travelled to London to enter service in the household of a wealthy stockbroker and his family, secured on the basis of her excellent references from Dr Barnardo’s. Situated on a wide thoroughfare in Portland Place, close to Regent’s Park, the impressive mansion was home to five members of the Galbraith family and a staff of fifteen. According to the chambermaid, there were twenty-two rooms upstairs, not that Flossie had much chance of seeing them given her lowly rank below stairs. She had found it hard to make friends as the other maids were all older than she was. The parlourmaid, with whom she shared a room, was twenty-four. Also, with hardly any time off, there had been few opportunities to explore, so she’d been saving the best part of her six shillings a week pay to finance her long-awaited return to Northfleet.

  When the day came, almost a year later, Flossie stepped out of the carriage at the new Rosherville Halt station, gripping the same old carpet bag that held everything she possessed. She felt excited, if not a little apprehensive, whilst climbing the impressive staircase rising from the island platform. It was likely that this was not the only change she was about to encounter. Sheltering from the hot sun under the canopied footbridge, she rested a while as the train disappeared into the cutting where she’d played as a child. The sails of Boorman’s flour mill caught her eye as they glinted in the sun. At least that’s still here, she thought.

  ‘You’ll be heading for the gardens then, lass?’ a man’s voice said from behind her.

  Flossie turned to see a porter picking up her bag. ‘Oh, thank you. No, not today, things to attend to first.’

  ‘Quite a success already, this new railway. Only been open since May.’ He continued to talk as they made their way through the gleaming ticket office to the carriage park outside. ‘This Whit Sunday was a bumper day for the gardens. Fourteen thousand, by all accounts, went through the turnstiles. Loads of them came by train, despite the steamers trying to undercut our prices.’

  Smiling at the porter’s enthusiasm for his new railway, she handed him a coin from her purse and set off on foot along the well-trodden walk towards ‘home’, with no idea what she would find. Having been gone for nearly five years, she was only too aware that Sam might no longer be living in The Creek. Many times she’d picked up a pen and started to write to him, but each time something had stopped her. After all, it wouldn’t have been impossible for him to have found her if he’d had a mind to. He must surely have thought Mary had gone back to Henry, taking both girls with her? So now she should be prepared for the possibility that he didn’t care enough and could be lost forever.

  Turning into Lawn Road, the sound of children laughing took her by surprise. It was the end of the day for the five hundred pupils at the new Northfleet Board School, and parents were gathered outside the infants’ gate. Something else new, she thought as she picked her way through the crowds.

  Stepping on and off the kerb to avoid prams and running children, she could have so easily missed him were it not for a dog barking as it chased after a ball. She watched as the excited mongrel returned his prize to a young boy with grubby knees and socks round his ankles. Thrusting the gnarled ball into his pocket, the child ran back to his waiting father. It was Joe Ollerenshaw. Despite being older, there was no doubt that it was indeed their previous lodger. Gathering his clan, he set off down the road with a baby over his shoulder, dragging a toddler behind him.

  Flossie, seemingly unrecognised, studied the group closely as minutes later, Joe stopped to chastise his scruffy son for kicking up cement dust into the toddler’s face. The resulting hullaballoo forced some passers-by to cover their ears until Joe bundled his trio of children into an open front door, which slammed shut behind them. He obviously isn’t Sam’s lodger any more, Flossie thought, and he hasn’t wasted any time in bringing children into the world.

  As the hordes dispelled and the street emptied, the familiar grinding and pounding of Bevan’s cement works caught Flossie unawares and brought a lump to her throat. Skipping along the alley into The Creek, she was comforted to see that all the houses looked just the same – damp, grey dust clogging the gutters and grime piling high on windowsills. Even the old lamp was still hanging outside The Huggens Arms, albeit without its glass. Clinker balls – no doubt the culprits – were lying all around.

  There were net curtains in the windows of number 32, something that Mary would have considered a waste of money. Apart from that, her old home looked much the same. Taking a deep breath, she banged the rusty door knocker and nervously stood back.

  ‘Well, I’ll be blowed, if it isn’t Flossie Grant,’ a young girl exclaimed on witnessing the visitor standing before her. ‘Ma, come see, it’s Flossie Grant come back to us!’

  ‘Didn’t expect to ever see you in The Crick again,’ Bessie Turner said, peering from behind her eager daughter Maisy. ‘Looking quite the young lady too, in all your finery.’

  It wasn’t long before Flossie was receiving a doorstep account of what had gone on since the time of her departure. The shock rooted her to the spot.

  ‘He’s got a new family now. Got married straight after you left. Right confused, we were, believing he was already married to Mary. Thought he’d get arrested till we finds out you’d all been living ’ere in sin.’

  Flossie sighed at the thought of her family saga being a source of local gossip and her return starting it all up again.

  ‘That’s why we’re ’ere in your old place,’ Maisy continued in her shrill voice, oblivious to the damage already done. ‘It’s bigger, so we grabbed the chance to take it on, then Ma’s family came over from Dublin. Dare say Kate Bailey can tell you more. She’s not changed.’

  It was such a relief to find everything next door exactly the same. Kate enveloped a tearful Flossie in her welcoming arms and held her tight. In fact, they both cried and laughed in equal measures for several hours.

  ‘Bless you, my darling girl, if only you’d knocked here first. I could have saved you from Bessie Turner’s venomous tongue.’

  ‘She only said what everyone now knows,’ Flossie sobbed, well aware that there were more folk she would have to face up to soon.

  ‘I’m so glad you came back, Floss. We all worried about what had happened to you. I’d hate you to think I knew what your mother was up to. I swear I had no inkling. You do believe me, don’t you? I was broken-hearted when I found your house empty.’

  Flossie could feel nothing but affection for this kind woman who was prepared to take her in on the spot, shield her from prying eyes and listen patiently to her recou
nting what had happened in Ipswich. But Kate knew it wasn’t yet the right time to tell what she knew of Sam. Best let the girl make her own mind up; there was a lot to take in.

  Flossie stood on the jetty, waiting for her best friend. Jessie had been given the afternoon off to go to the official opening of the Gordon Recreation Gardens and the two girls had a lot of catching up to do. Old Annie Devonshire was sitting on a rusty bollard peering across at the comings and goings in the recently completed Tilbury Dock opposite. In her hand was a new fern-decorated spectacle case that Flossie had given her.

  ‘I like sitting ’ere in the afternoons,’ the old lady said, pointing at one of the big vessels. ‘There’s so many different ships nowadays, carrying the likes of jute from India. There’ll be Madeira wine on that West African Line. Look, can you see it? Got two dry docks over there now.’

  Flossie trained her eyes on the new dock, which already looked congested.

  ‘Fifty six acres of water, so they say. I sat here and watched the Glenfruin be the first to steam in.’ Fumbling in her bag, Annie pulled out a tarnished silver medal. ‘Only had it a couple of months and it’s already gone black with the damp. It’s what I got on the day all the officials came. Here, you read it.’

  Flossie could just make out the inscription on the back: In commemoration of the opening of the Tilbury Deep Water Docks by Harry H. Dobree, Esq., Chairman of the company April 17th 1886.

  ‘I’m sorry I missed it all,’ Flossie sighed, handing the medal back. At that moment, she caught sight of Jessie making her way gingerly towards them up the slipway, taking care to avoid the seaweed and tar.

  ‘Can’t afford to get my boots in a mess,’ she laughed, hugging her old pal. ‘Sorry I’m late, took ages for the boat to come across. Didn’t you see me waving?’

  Flossie had to admit she hadn’t.

  ‘Well, blow me down,’ Jessie teased. ‘Thought you’d be keener to see me than that!’

  ‘I am, silly,’ Flossie giggled, holding on to her tightly. ‘You don’t know just how pleased I am to see you.’ The girls started gabbling away, the years apart melting away.

  ‘So, a new job for you, Jessie. What’s it like working over there?’ Annie enquired when she was able to get a word in.

  ‘Oh, it’s a very fine hotel, Annie. We mainly get first-class passengers on overnight stays. Makes it especially hard work for me though, it’s my job to change the sheets.’

  The stately, red-brick Tilbury Hotel was impossible to miss. Standing at the entrance to the dock on what had once been deserted marshland, it had been built to accommodate passengers travelling to and from America, South Africa, India and Australia.

  ‘I’ve ’eard it’s got electric light throughout,’ Annie said in a mock-posh accent. ‘Bit of an eyesore, if you ask me. Another of them things what’s happened since you’ve been gone, Flossie. I still haven’t gotten over the shock of our General being murdered by those savages in Khartoum, and now there’s the Darnley boy marrying beneath him. Poor Lady Darnley. Right upset the applecart that has.’

  Flossie turned to Jessie with a bemused expression.

  ‘Now off you go. Don’t waste any more time staying with me. My old legs won’t carry me to Gravesend any more. You come back and tell me what they say about General Gordon. I’ll say a little prayer for him on me own.’

  Giving Annie a peck on either cheek, the girls set off along the shore. The sun was hot and the river shimmering. They walked arm in arm, catching up on the past. As Flossie began to tell her story, tears welled in her friend’s eyes and they had to stop, the pair collapsing on a bench.

  ‘So you haven’t seen Sam yet?’ Jessie eventually managed to ask. ‘Should I say Sam? Or are you still going to call him “Father”?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve gone over it in my head so many times. From the very first day in Dr Barnardo’s I prayed that he would come and find me and Lottie and even now – now that he must have heard that I am back in The Crick – I am hoping that he will make the first move.’

  ‘You know he has another family now, don’t you?’ Jessie said quietly.

  Flossie raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes. Bessie Turner was quick to impart that news. I just need to know if he still thinks of us – his first family. I’ve seen what my mother is truly like and I’ve heard her version of events. I’ll withhold judgement until I’ve heard Sam’s story and then decide if I am able to call him my father.’

  ‘You’ve become a strong woman, Florence Grant.’ Jessie smiled.

  Flossie smiled too, knowing that the only certainty in all this was that Grant was definitely not her name. She didn’t bother to correct her friend, though.

  ‘Come on, let’s get going or we’ll miss the event. On the way you can tell me all the Darnley gossip.’

  Jess looked momentarily confused.

  ‘Lady Darnley’s son marrying beneath him, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, that… Your life is far more dramatic.’

  Their smiles turned to laughter as they gathered up their bonnets and purses and dragged themselves to their feet. In that moment, Flossie felt like she had never been away, so familiar their relationship seemed. Yet she knew that Annie was right. It wasn’t the same. Change was everywhere.

  ‘Didn’t Lord and Lady Darnley’s son have something to do with cricket?’ Flossie asked as they stopped for a penny lick by the pier. ‘I remember us walking out to Cobham Hall at Eastertime to help them pick their daffodils. We got a penny a bunch. We used to peer at the Darnley’s Elizabethan pile, with its fountains, and imagine what it would be like to live there.’

  ‘Yes… and we found the Swiss chalet Charles Dickens gave them, where he did much of his writing! Anyway, to get to the point, the son in question is the Honourable Ivo Bligh. He took over as captain of England’s cricket team after we lost to the Australians four years ago. There was such a fuss about Englishmen losing on home soil that The Sporting Times published a mock obituary to English cricket, saying it had died, been cremated and its ashes transported to Australia.’

  ‘But what’s all that got to do with him getting married?’ Flossie said, trying hard to grasp the connection.

  ‘Hold your horses; I’m coming on to that bit. You see, at a friendly local match in Melbourne, a certain Florence Morphy handed him a tiny urn with the ashes of a burnt bail in it, symbolising the ashes of English cricket.’

  ‘What, in jest?’

  ‘Yes, in a playful way. He took a fancy to her, and she rather liked the look of this tall, dashing Englishman. He won the cricket as well as her heart, but when he returned to England with the ashes in his luggage and Florence, a mere music teacher, on his arm, hoping to obtain his parents’ approval to marry her, they refused. So he went back to Australia and married her anyway. They’ve just come back here to Cobham Hall, and have a son now. It’s said the ashes sit on his desk beside him.’

  ‘How romantic,’ Flossie said wistfully. ‘I wonder if we’ll see them all this afternoon?’ She found the idea of an upstairs/downstairs romance rather appealing.

  As the girls entered the gates, the newly laid out recreation grounds were filled to capacity with people attired in their Saturday best awaiting the arrival of the dignitaries. The perimeter trees provided much-needed shade for the Gravesend Town Band, which performed a mixture of rousing patriotic and military tunes. Each piece ended with a crash of huge brass cymbals, to which the audience applauded enthusiastically.

  Eventually Lady Harriet Bligh, Countess of Darnley, was invited onto the temporary bandstand where she composed herself before beginning a moving tribute to General Charles Gordon, who had died so tragically the previous year at the siege of Khartoum.

  ‘It was inevitable that Charles Gordon would join the Army,’ she told the assembled audience. The son of a Royal Artillery officer, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, and after brave s
ervice in the Crimean War, was ordered to China where his extraordinary achievements during the Second Opium War earned him the nickname “Chinese Gordon”. On promotion to the rank of lieutenant colonel, he took command of our Thames forts with the mission to reconstruct and update their defences, and it was during his six happy years here in Gravesend that he began the active charity work for which he has become so loved and respected. His fame as a Christian evangelist parallels that of his military exploits.’

  Loud clapping greeted this evocation. Flossie took a moment to study the dignitaries sitting in the front row. Spotting Ivo Bligh with his wife, she nudged Jessie.

  ‘He’s certainly dashing,’ she whispered with a giggle. ‘If all it takes to catch a lord is to give him a box of ashes, there’s hope for me yet…’

  Jessie stifled a laugh as Lady Darnley continued her speech. Flossie found her mind wandering as she tried to listen to the account of General Gordon’s selfless work with the poor and destitute of Northfleet.

  ‘He worked amongst the riverside boys and strove to improve the slave-like conditions of those working in the lime, chalk and cement works. General Charles Gordon was a saintly man…’

  Images of her own childhood flashed before Flossie. Both her and Lottie sitting on Sam’s knees, feeling the warmth of his arms around them. He had been a loving, caring father, so how had it all gone so wrong? What was this secret that seemed to be hanging over him?

  ‘Thus, to commemorate the loss of Gravesend’s greatest benefactor, the town has created this permanent memorial in his honour. I therefore take great pleasure in declaring the grounds officially open.’