Peg nodded as the girl approached her cart, looking at the jars of pickles laid out before her.
Picking up a jar of pickled onions, the girl said, ‘Oooh, how much are…?’ Words failed her when she looked up at the girl behind the cart.
Two heads of black hair shook in disbelief as green eyes met green eyes.
‘Bloody hell is right!’ Peg whispered as the girls eyed each other. ‘I don’t believe it!’
Lottie moved closer to listen in as the girls began to speak to each other.
‘Neither do I! Hello, my name is Orpha,’ the younger girl said.
Shaking hands, the older of the two spoke, ‘Peg, nice to meet you… Bloody hell!’ Both girls burst out laughing.
‘It’s like looking into a mirror!’ Orpha said, staring at the other girl.
‘Ain’t it just!’ Peg answered.
Both were unaware of the stares of the other stallholders; the girls’ shock holding them fast.
‘How is it you look so like me?’ Orpha asked.
‘Or how you look like me?’ Peg countered.
Again they laughed together, their green eyes sparkling like the best cut emeralds.
‘I have no idea,’ Orpha said.
‘Me neither. Look…’ said Peg, ‘I’m packing up to go home now… where are you going?’
‘I had planned to go to Wednesbury, but I’m unable to now as I’ve had all my money and clothes stolen!’ Orpha answered woefully.
‘Well in that case, why don’t you come home with me and have some supper? You could stay over and think about what to do tomorrow.’ The likeness between them had startled Peg and she wanted to know more about the girl who had happened on her cart in the market.
‘If you’re sure, that would be wonderful, thank you,’ Orpha replied, the same thoughts running through her own head, as well as gratitude to the girl who had offered her a bed for the night just when she was beginning to despair.
Shouting their goodbyes to the other stallholders, Peg led Orpha out of the market and across the heath to her small cottage. As they walked, they talked excitedly and Orpha told her new friend about being thrown out by her mother and then being taken in by Hetty and Henry Toye. She explained how she had learned to make chocolate and her idea of trying the fudge process and its subsequent success.
Peg told Orpha of her vegetable garden and of her bottling onions and the like in readiness for the lean winter months.
Arriving at the cottage, Peg poked the coals in the grate as soon as they entered the kitchen and flames burst into life, giving out much-needed heat. Warming themselves first, Peg then set about making a cup of tea and pushed the broth bracket over the fire. Their supper would not take long to heat through and as they sat at the table they again marvelled at the similarity between them.
As the girls devoured the lamb stew with home-made bread, they each related their stories again. Orpha said, ‘Hetty mistook me for a prostitute when I leaned against the shop wall. I was exhausted from walking around the town.’
Peg laughed, saying, ‘Hetty’s eyesight must be poor; anyone in their right mind could see you’re a lady.’
Orpha explained, ‘I was grubby at the time from sleeping beneath a tree at the canal side and must have looked an awful sight.’
Peg shared her own tale, ‘Rufina Meriwether found me abandoned on the doorstep all those years ago and she raised me as her own, giving me the name of Peg Meriwether.’ Sadness crept over her face as she told of how she had nursed Rufina through pneumonia but the illness had finally won over and her foster mother had died.
The girls talked long into the evening until Peg said, ‘Orpha, it’s uncanny how alike we are; I mean to say, there can’t be many who have the same features as us. Black hair, green eyes…’
‘There is another that I know of,’ she said.
‘Who? Tell me… who?’ Peg’s excitement began to bubble up.
‘My father,’ Orpha said.
The girls sat together in silence, each trying to piece together the puzzle that surrounded them.
*
The girls had shared the big feather bed out of necessity to keep warm and the following morning Peg decided to stay home from the market. There were questions that needed answers and over breakfast the girls talked in depth about their lives up to the point where they had met in the market.
‘So what we have is…’ Orpha said finally, ‘that my mother threw me out when I was fourteen. Your mother abandoned you as a baby. My father, I know, has no siblings, so is my father your father also? Is my mother, your mother? Or, is your mother someone else?’
‘Whoa… no more! My brain is addled at the thought of it all!’ Peg said as she shook her head. ‘I ain’t got a clue, Orpha, but something tells me we should find out. Something here…’ Peg laid a hand over her heart as she went on, ‘tells me you and I are related somewhere along the line.’ She felt the excitement grow in her at the prospect.
Orpha nodded, saying, ‘I believe you’re right. Look at us, how can we not be related? I think we could be sisters, or half-sisters at the very least!’
Peg continued with, ‘Thing is, how do we find out?’
Orpha nodded her agreement. ‘I did think to go home, Peg, to find my father, but I can’t. I just cannot face my mother. She threatened to kill me if she ever saw me again! Besides, I have no money now.’
It was Peg’s turn to nod before she said, ‘Well, why don’t you stay here with me? You would be very welcome, and it would be company for me.’
‘That would be wonderful!’ Orpha gasped. She was excited to have found Peg who may just be her sister, and also grateful for the girl being so hospitable and generous when it was clear she led a modest life.
‘Well, I get ever so lonely here on my own. Sometimes I talk to myself just to hear the sound of somebody yacking!’ Peg confessed.
‘I know how it feels to be lonely, Peg,’ Orpha said sadly.
‘You know, we could go together to see your dad, and when everything is sorted out I could come back here,’ Peg ventured.
‘No! I wouldn’t dream of dragging you into our family mess. I can’t imagine what my mother would do if we turned up on the doorstep. I mean, look at us – we’re almost like twins! She’d go stark staring mad! I can’t risk the possibility of her hurting you as well as me, Peg.’
‘Right then, that’s settled. You’ll stay here with me.’ Peg smiled at having made the decision.
‘If you’re sure it’s no imposition… and I could make some chocolate and you could try and sell it on your cart!’
The girls then chatted excitedly about how they could start the making of chocolate to be sold alongside Peg’s fruit and vegetables.
*
Peg added her savings to Orpha’s few pennies and they set off for the market to buy the ingredients for the first batch of chocolate. On their return to the cottage, Orpha took over the kitchen and Peg worked in the garden, settling the soil for the oncoming winter. By evening, the first of the chocolate was cooling and setting on the cold slab in the tiny scullery. Orpha had already cleaned her utensils and had started to ready their supper when Peg came into the room. The rich aroma of chocolate filled her nose as she sat at the table.
‘If that tastes anything like it smells,’ Peg said, ‘we could have a nice little business going in no time!’
‘You can try a bit and let me know what you think,’ Orpha said with a smile. Her words evoked thoughts of the Toyes and her face warmed with guilt at not returning to them, but then she knew Hetty would have encouraged her to go her own way and lead her own life. Certainly she felt at home here with Peg slipping into the relationship like a hand into a glove.
Peg popped a tiny square of chocolate into her mouth and closed her eyes. It seemed forever before she spoke. ‘That was the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life! I’ve never had chocolate before!’
Satisfied, Orpha cut the chocolate slab into tiny squares and making a paper cone she d
ropped a few pieces inside before folding the cone over at the top. With all the chocolate now in small paper cones, Orpha set them on the cold slab to keep cool overnight.
‘If,’ she said, ‘this goes well and we sell it all, we will have to get more supplies. The money from the sales should cover that, and if we buy our sugar and flour in bulk, we should get it at a reduced rate.’
Peg was all for the idea and was excited at the prospect of selling the confection from her handcart the following day.
*
They were amazed at just how quickly the cones of chocolate sold at the market. The queue of women wanting to buy were disappointed when it was all gone. With the jars of pickles gone too, Orpha said they should get their supplies on the way home, saving them another journey later in the day. Dragging the cart behind them, Orpha and Peg chatted happily about how well their sweets had sold.
‘Whoever would have thought it,’ Peg said, ‘us meeting in the market in the first place, then before you know it, we’re working together!’
‘I know, of all the places in the country I could have gone and I came to Wolverhampton. Then, out of the hundreds of people here, I meet you,’ Orpha said, still hardly believing it herself.
‘Divine intervention,’ Peg said.
‘Do you believe in the Fates, Peg?’ Orpha asked. Seeing her new friend screw up her mouth, she went on, ‘This was meant to be, it was our destiny.’
‘You reckon?’ Peg asked.
‘I do indeed,’ Orpha answered.
Over supper, Orpha said, ‘I’m going to make some fudge later, then we can see how well that will sell too.’
Peg drooled as she helped Orpha make a slab of chocolate then begin making the fudge. Before long the cold slab was piled high with cooling confectionary. As they sat at the table with a cup of tea and making the small paper cones which would hold the chocolate and fudge the following day, their conversation once again turned to their lineage.
With the cones made, their tea drunk and still no answers to their questions, the two girls climbed the stairs to bed, tired but happy.
Orpha lay next to her friend in the big bed, snuggled under the eiderdown all warm and cosy. Listening to Peg’s gentle breathing, her thoughts turned to her good fortune. How was it each time she found herself at her lowest with nowhere to turn, Lady Luck stepped in to save the day? She certainly felt she had a guardian angel watching over her.
Chapter 13
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ Ezzie Lucas said to his mother, Edna, as they sat eating their evening meal in the belly of the narrowboat they called home.
‘So tell me, then I’ll tell you if I believe you,’ Edna replied.
‘Well,’ Ezzie began, ‘you remember that young girl, Orpha, the one we gave a lift to in the summer?’ Edna nodded. ‘Right, well, I saw a lad in the Golden Cross Inn in the marketplace who looked just like her!’
Edna lifted her tin cup to her lips, sipped her tea then said, ‘And your point is?’
‘Mother, he had the same black hair and green eyes! He looked like he was searching for someone!’
Edna studied her son for a moment before saying, ‘You still got that wench on your mind then?’
Ezzie flushed to the roots of his hair as he nodded. ‘It’s hard not to,’ he replied.
‘Ar, she was a beauty,’ Edna cast her mind back to the girl who had been through so much in her young life. ‘I wonder where she is now.’
‘Maybe the lad was looking for her,’ Ezzie put in. ‘Maybe they are related.’
Edna smiled gently at the memory of the refined young lady they had taken to Birmingham aboard ‘The Sunshine’. ‘It’s most unlikely, son; she said she was an only child. Besides, he wouldn’t be looking for her in a place like the Golden Cross, now would he?’
Ezzie conceded Orpha would not have been in a public house – it was a men-only environment. ‘Well I was stunned at the likeness, mother, I can tell you. So what do you make of it?’
‘I don’t make nothing of it, lad. It was just a coincidence, I’m sure.’ Edna tried to quieten her son’s agitation and changed the subject abruptly. ‘So did you find us a backload?’
‘No, not as yet, but I’ll try again tomorrow. There’s bound to be someone who wants something transporting.’
‘Fair enough,’ Edna said as she began to clear the supper things away. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Ezzie brooding; he was clearly taken with the young girl named Orpha. One brief meeting had ensured her son would not forget the pretty girl with the sparkling green eyes. Her boy was infatuated if she wasn’t mistaken. With a heavy sigh Edna moved along the boat to her bed, leaving Ezzie to his thoughts. As she climbed into her bunk, Edna thought about what Ezzie had told her about the boy who looked so much like young Orpha. Although she had tried to take Ezzie’s mind off the subject, she began to think there must be a connection there somewhere. Mulling it over as she lay in the darkness, Edna could not fathom what that connection might be.
As he sat by the light of the oil lamp, Ezzie saw Orpha again in his mind’s eye. He remembered how her tears had welled up as she told them of her journey and his heart ached. He recalled how she had fiercely fought off her attacker on the heath the day he had rescued her, and he smiled into the coming darkness. There was nothing about her he had forgotten, and as he ran his hands through his hair, he wished with all his might that he would see her again someday soon.
Taking the oil lamp, Ezzie moved to the other end of the boat and his own bed. As every night since he’d met her on the heath, Ezzie fell asleep with Orpha on his mind.
*
The bitter wind bit sharply at his nose as Ezzie trudged up Portway Lane from the Monway Branch of the Birmingham Canal. Looking up at the sky, he shivered; there would be snow before the day was out. Ezzie knew he had to find a backload soon, no work meant no pay – no pay, no food.
Striding out in an effort to keep warm, Ezzie made his way into Wednesbury town, his mind no longer on the weather. He wondered again about the boy he had seen in the Golden Cross Inn. His mother had said the boy’s likeness to Orpha was purely coincidental, but Ezzie was not so sure. What were the odds of such a thing? No, he felt there was far more to it than that, but for the moment his priority was finding work. Ezzie stepped up his pace as snowflakes began to fall.
As he walked down Trouse Lane, he heard his name being called, and turning in the direction of the shout, Ezzie saw the pawnbroker. ‘Ezzie lad, you looking for a load?’
Ezzie nodded as he entered the pawnbroker’s shop. ‘Come in out of the cold. I have a load of stuff…’ the man spread his arms around the shop, ‘…I need taking to Birmingham, if you’ve a mind to transport it for me.’
Ezzie nodded and they shook hands, sealing the deal. Being paid the agreed sum to transport the cargo, Ezzie thanked the man.
‘I ain’t going to sell this lot here and folk can’t afford to retrieve the things they’ve pawned, so I’m sending it to my shop in Birmingham. It might sell better there.’
The pawnbroker assured the boatman a wagonload would be at ‘The Sunshine’ by the afternoon. It would not be a heavy load; boxes of costume jewellery, pots and pans, junk furniture… all had been pawned by those desperately in need of money to survive.
Giving his thanks again, Ezzie moved on in the hope of another cargo that needed to reach Birmingham; his boat needed filling to make it worth his while and he needed the money the journey would bring.
Ezzie marched across the town, cursing the snow which had begun to fall earlier than usual whilst he was in the pawn shop and now fell thick and fast, coating everything in a cold, white layer. Reaching Walsall Street, he ducked into Etchell’s factory, where a small load was known to be had on occasion. Ezzie was lucky, a cargo of nuts and bolts needed to be sent to Birmingham and striking another deal Ezzie pocketed the money and set off back to the boat moored up off Portway Lane.
With his head down against the snow, his hands in
his pockets, Ezzie trudged down Portway Road heading into Portway Lane. He was frozen to the bone and was thinking about the warm stove on the boat as he passed the Portway Inn.
His head shoved down into the muffler around his neck, Ezzie didn’t notice the young man who stepped out of the inn door just as he passed by. Had Ezzie looked up at that moment he would have seen the boy with the green eyes.
Chapter 14
Seeing the snow begin to fall, Orpha had insisted on going to the market with Peg. The weather was in for the day and she intended to help pull the cart trying to be as useful as she could. Besides, she wanted to spend as much time with Peg as possible; they got on like a house on fire. Both wrapped up warm against the biting wind they set out. Orpha had borrowed some of Peg’s old clothing and although slightly too large, it was clean and warm. With a woollen shawl wrapped around her shoulders, crossed over at the chest, it was tied at the back. Another shawl lay over her head, wound beneath her chin and was secured at the back of her neck. A thick long skirt covered her side button boots beneath which men’s woollen socks covered her already cold toes. She wore hand-knitted woollen mittens, yet again courtesy of Peg.
The girls dragged the cart laden with bottles and jars of pickles and jams; the cones of chocolate covered by a blanket so the snow would not ruin the paper.
Peg muttered as they trudged on, ‘I hate the bloody snow!’
Orpha giggled, saying, ‘But, Peg, look at the beauty of it, Mother Nature is a wonderful thing!’
Peg muttered again, ‘Well, Mother Nature can take her white beauty and stick it up her arse!’
Orpha fell about laughing at Peg’s words as they dragged the cart next to Lottie Spence’s stall.
‘Hiya girls,’ Lottie said as they stood by the cart. ‘Christ it’s so bloody cold today. I ain’t standing here long, I can tell you!’
‘Bloody snow!’ Peg mumbled again as Orpha stepped out from behind the cart. ‘Where you off to?’
The Lost Sisters: A gritty saga about friendships, family and finding a place to call home Page 10