A Mother's Courage

by Dilly Court

  Just looking at them put steel in her spine, and made her even more determined to take matters into her own hands – this was not the time to be faint-hearted. Peering into the cracked mirror over the mantelshelf, she wound her damp hair into a knot and fastened it on top of her head with the few hairpins that came to hand. She did not want to waste time by pinning back the long tendrils that escaped to curl around her temples; she would tidy it up later with the aid of a net and more hairpins, if she could find them at the bottom of her valise. She had packed everything so hastily that clothes, hairbrushes and shoes were all jumbled together. There would be time to sort her things after she returned from a necessary visit to the shops to purchase fresh bread, butter and some jam for the children's breakfast. She picked up the milk jug and once again left the room, locking the door behind her and praying that neither Joss nor Beth awakened before she got back.

  Outside on the green, the business of the day was already beginning. Costermongers were wheeling their barrows into position, the lamplighter was on his way home after completing his round, and farmers were already arriving from the countryside with carts laden with fresh produce to sell in the market. There was a pleasant community atmosphere that cheered Eloise as she hurried to the dairy and then on to the bakery. Laden with fresh food, she made her way to the lane at the back of the house and let herself into the scullery. To her relief there was no sign of Agnes, who was probably sleeping off the excess of gin she had consumed last night. Eloise took some crockery from the dresser, dusted it off and took it up to her room together with her purchases. Joss and Beth were just waking up, and they greeted her with eager, smiling faces.

  When they were fed and dressed, Eloise was preparing to take them down to the kitchen when she heard movements upstairs: the now familiar sound of Ephraim's cane tap-tapping on the bare boards, and the dragging of a heavily bandaged foot. She braced her shoulders, ready to face her new employer and tell him exactly what was what, but she had no intention of doing so in front of her children. She took them down to the kitchen, where she found Agnes riddling the ashes in the range in a desultory fashion. She looked bleary-eyed and still half asleep, or maybe not quite sober, but definitely grumpy. 'Oh, you're up then,' Agnes muttered. 'This is your job, lady.'

  'Never mind that,' Eloise said sternly. 'I want you to keep an eye on my children for five minutes while I go upstairs and speak plainly to Mr Hubble.'

  Agnes dropped the poker and straightened up. A knowing look flitted across her sharp features. 'So he did pay you a visit in the night, did he?'

  'He did, but thanks to you I had locked the door, and he went away.'

  'He'll try again, or he'll catch you unawares in a dark corner. He's not one to give up easily.'

  'Well, I'm not going to stand for that sort of treatment and the sooner he knows it the better. Now, I want you to keep my little ones safe for a few minutes.'

  'I don't know about that . . .'

  'I'm not asking you,' Eloise snapped. 'I'm telling you, Agnes.' Seeing a stubborn, mulish look on Agnes's face, Eloise moderated her tone. 'And if you do, I'll clean the kitchen and the scullery, and I won't say anything about you drinking yourself stupid on gin.'

  'Bitch,' Agnes murmured, slumping down in her chair. 'I take it for me nerves. You will too when you've been here as long as I have.'

  Eloise ignored this remark and she set Beth down on the floor. 'Joss, darling, look after Baby for Mama just for a little while. See she doesn't eat anything off the floor.' Eloise hurried from the kitchen and made her way to the parlour upstairs. Outside the door, she took a deep breath, holding on to her anger. She was not a normally fiery person, but she was both frightened and furious, and ready to take on an army if necessary. She burst into the room without knocking.

  Ephraim was seated in his usual chair with his bandaged foot resting on a stool. He glared at her. 'What d'you want, girl? Where's your manners?'

  Eloise went to stand before him, arms akimbo. 'And where were yours last night, Mr Hubble? You tried to get into my room.'

  His expression changed subtly and he licked his lips. 'What if I did? It's my house, ain't it?'

  'It is, but that doesn't give you the right to take liberties with me. Did you really think I would let you in last night? I am a respectable widow, sir. I agreed to work for you, but even servants have their rights.'

  'I do like a woman with spirit. Come closer, dearie, and let me look at you.' His parted lips exposed a row of broken and blackened teeth and Eloise could smell his foul breath from several paces away.

  'For what? So that you can treat me like a common whore?' Eloise felt a small surge of triumph at the look of astonishment on his face. She angled her head. 'I may not have lived in the East End all my life, but I've been here long enough to know what goes on every day in the streets. Until now I had the protection of my father and then my husband, but even though they are both gone I'm quite capable of looking after myself and my children. I warn you, if you come near me again, or try to touch me in an inappropriate manner, I will report you to the police and to the governor of the House of Detention, where I believe you used to work. I expect they thought highly of you there and you wouldn't want your precious reputation to be sullied by scandal, now would you?'

  Ephraim scowled at her. 'Don't try to blackmail me, girl. I'm a hardened old screw and I don't take orders from the likes of you.'

  'Maybe not, but I wonder how a prison warder can afford to live in a big house like this, even if you have let it go to rack and ruin?' Eloise's pulses were racing and it was difficult to breathe, but she was fighting for survival. 'Could it be that you were not such an honest and upright citizen when you worked at the prison?'

  'I'm a sight more honest than them that I locked up, and if they paid me for services rendered that's nobody's business but mine. You may think you're smart, but you won't get one over Ephraim Hubble. Cleverer ones than you have tried and failed, so be warned. Now do what you're paid for and fetch me my breakfast. Tell that old hag downstairs that I want bacon and sausage with a couple of fried eggs. I'm sick of gruel and dry toast.' Ephraim waved his stick at her. 'Are you deaf or stupid? Remember who pays your wages, or you'll end up on the streets with your two little bastards.'

  In the face of this tirade, there was nothing Eloise could say. Holding on to her last scrap of self-esteem, she left the room. It would have been so satisfying to slam the door behind her, but she did not dare. Ephraim might be a hateful old man, but the thought of being thrown out with nowhere to go was frankly too terrifying to contemplate. At least she had said her piece and he might think twice before trying to take liberties with her in the future. She hurried back to the kitchen and found to her intense relief that Joss and Beth had come to no real harm, although they were both extremely dirty from rolling around on the sandy floor, which had seemingly kept them amused but had left them looking like filthy street urchins. Eloise picked up Beth and prised a piece of rotten apple out of her fingers before dusting her off. 'Ugh, dirty! You don't want to eat that, sweetheart.'

  'What a fuss over nothing,' Agnes remarked into her mug of tea. 'There's plenty of nippers as would be grateful for a nice bit of apple.'

  'This place is a midden,' Eloise said with a shudder. 'How can you live like this?'

  'Very well until you come along with your airs and graces, missis. If you don't like it, then you get to work and clean it up.'

  'I will, because I can't live like a sewer rat, even if you can. Oh, and by the way, Mr Hubble says he wants bacon, sausage and fried eggs for his breakfast. That's your job, Miss Smith.'

  Agnes slurped her tea, smacking her lips. 'The old devil can wait. He's getting gruel, like it or not, and you can take it up to him. That's your job, Mrs Cribb.'

  A bell on a board above the door jangled suddenly, making Eloise jump. Joss leapt to his feet pointing at it and laughing. 'Ding dong bell, Mama.'

  'He's getting impatient,' Agnes said with a throaty chuckle. 'Best take h
is gruel up or he'll fly into one of his rages.'

  Reluctantly, Eloise filled a bowl with thin gruel from the blackened saucepan on the range. It looked and smelt unappetising and she was barely surprised when Ephraim hurled it at the wall with an exclamation of disgust and fury. The china bowl smashed and the grey glutinous mass trickled slowly down the cracked plaster to settle in a pool on the floor. 'I said I want a proper breakfast, not that disgusting muck.' Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead and he shook his fist at her. 'Do as I say or you can take your brats and leave my house. And don't expect me to pay you for your time, neither.'

  'Miss Smith said it was doctor's orders, sir.'

  'Bugger the doctor and bugger you too, lady. Now get down them stairs and bring me some proper food.'

  At the end of a long day Eloise crawled into her bed stiff and sore from doing the sort of housework that was normally done by a skivvy. She had scrubbed floors, washed shelves in the larder and thrown out all the rotten food, and, worst of all, she had had to clean the festering privy in the back yard. Her hands were red and raw, her back ached miserably, and she had been too exhausted even to eat the bread and cheese she had bought for their supper. She had used her last scrap of energy to lock and barricade her bedroom door before she lay down on her bed. If Ephraim paid her a nocturnal visit, she was unaware of it as she fell at once into a deep sleep.

  It would have taken an army of servants to get the house into good order, but Eloise did her best, and although she had thought she could not stand more than one day of being harried by Agnes and bullied by Ephraim, she managed somehow to survive for a whole week. It was on the seventh day in the early afternoon, when she was holystoning the front step, that the sound of a familiar voice made her stop and look up. She scrambled to her feet with a cry of pleasure. 'Annie. How nice to see you.'

  Annie bounded up to her but she was not smiling. 'Missis, thank the Lord I found you. I'm afeared I got bad news for you.'

  Chapter Ten

  Eloise took Annie indoors and led the way to her own room where Beth and Joss were having their afternoon nap. Annie tiptoed in after her and her worried frown dissolved into a smile at the sight of the sleeping infants. 'Bless their little hearts.'

  Eloise motioned her to take a seat on the one and only chair. 'Sit down, Annie, you look fit to drop. What's happened to upset you so much?'

  'I had to come straight away to find you, Ellie.' Annie collapsed onto the chair. 'There's been a strange-looking cove come round asking questions about you. Shifty-looking he was – I didn't like the cut of his jib one bit and that's the truth.'

  Eloise felt as if the air had been sucked out of her lungs and she clutched her hand to her throat. 'Are you certain, Annie? Are you sure he was looking for me?'

  Annie nodded emphatically. 'I had me ear glued to the keyhole and I heard every word. He said he was a private investigator and had been hired by a lady in Yorkshire to trace her grandson who had been took away from his rightful home. He said the boy was to be made a ward of court and then the police would be searching for him. He said it would be better for the young woman who took him to give the little lad up, or she would go to jail, and I think he meant you, Ellie.'

  Eloise's breath hitched in her throat. 'A ward of court! I can't believe that she would do something so wicked, or that the law would take a child away from his own mother.'

  'Well, true or not, he took old Queenie in right enough. She couldn't wait to tell him that you'd been staying with us and she had to send you packing. She said you wasn't the sort of person she wanted in her respectable lodging house.' Annie stopped for breath and gazed round the room with a disapproving pout. 'This ain't much of a place you've come to neither. You deserve better than this.'

  'Never mind that now, Annie. This is only temporary until I find something better.' Eloise reached for the jug that she had filled with water from the pump that morning. Pouring some into a glass, she handed it to Annie. 'Take a sip and calm yourself. Tell me what else Mrs King said to the man?'

  'Nothing much. She didn't know where you'd gone and I wouldn't have told her for the world.

  Wild horses wouldn't drag it from me. They could put me on the rack in the Tower of London and I . . .'

  Eloise laid her hand on Annie's sleeve. 'I know you wouldn't, Annie. I trust you implicitly.'

  'Do you?' Annie gulped some more water and she grinned. 'I dunno what that means, but it sounds good to me.'

  'It means that I know you wouldn't peach on us. The woman in Yorkshire is my mother-in-law and she wants to take Joss away from me, but I won't have it. He's my son and he belongs with me.'

  'I should say he does. No one should have to grow up without their real ma to care for them. Ain't I the best example of that? I daresay she had her reasons, but my ma left me on the steps of the Foundling Hospital like I was a bit of rubbish.'

  'I expect it broke her heart to abandon you like that, but perhaps she thought she was doing her best for you.'

  'If that was her best, I shouldn't like to have suffered her worst, but she'll be sorry one day and I know she'll come back for me.' With a heavy sigh, Annie put the glass down. She stood up, adjusting her mobcap which had tilted slightly over one eye. 'Anyway, none of that matters now and I got to get back, or the old cow will tan my hide. I was only supposed to go to the chemist's shop and buy a penn'orth of laudanum for her headache. Serve her right if her blooming head falls off.'

  'Yes, you must make haste. I wouldn't want you to get into trouble on my account, and I do appreciate your coming here to warn me, Annie.'

  'Just look out for a short, skinny cove who looks like he could do with a good wash. He had enough dirt under his fingernails to grow taters.'

  In spite of everything, Eloise had to suppress a smile. The picture that Annie conjured up was not an attractive one. 'I'll be on the lookout for such a person.'

  'I made sure he didn't follow me. I kept looking over me shoulder and dodging into doorways if I thought I saw someone acting odd like.'

  Eloise patted her on the shoulder. 'You've done very well, Annie. I can't thank you enough.'

  'I thought as how I might come again on Sunday, that's my afternoon off. Maybe we could go for a walk or something. I mean, you don't want to spend too much time in this place. It gives me the shivers.' Annie glanced round the room, shuddering dramatically.

  'That would be nice, and the children would love to see you, Annie.' Eloise opened the door and peeped outside to make sure no one was about, and then she beckoned to Annie. 'When you come on Sunday, go round to the back of the house. I'll be waiting for you in the kitchen. I think it will be safer if you're not seen coming in by the front entrance.'

  Annie chuckled mischievously. 'Like in a game.'

  'Exactly,' Eloise said, kissing her on the cheek. 'Just like a game.' She was smiling as she let Annie out of the house, but inwardly her stomach was curdling with fear. If Hilda really had hired a detective to look for them it would only be a matter of time before they were discovered. When Ephraim paid her at the end of the first quarter, as he had promised, she would start looking for another position in a different part of London. Although, if what Annie had said was correct, the sooner she left Clerkenwell Green the better. If she could persuade him to give her an advance on her wages she could advertise for another position. Waving to the fast disappearing figure of Annie who was racing pell-mell across the green, Eloise went down on her knees to finish holystoning the doorstep while her mind grappled with the problem of finding them a safer place to live. If she wanted to get that money she would have to be nice to the old man, which was not going to be easy. So far she had evaded his grasping hands when she gave him his food or plumped up his cushions, but she had seen the naked lust in his eyes when he looked at her. The mere thought of physical contact brought the bitter taste of bile to her lips, but suffering a little temporary embarrassment and humiliation was nothing compared to losing her precious son to the Cribbs.

 
They had been at the house in Clerkenwell Green for three weeks. It was Joss's third birthday and it was also Agnes's day off. She had left early that morning to visit her sister in Wapping, and was not expected back until evening. The thought of having the kitchen all to herself was so pleasant that Eloise had raised no objection to being left on her own to prepare Ephraim's supper. She would have a day of relative peace and quiet with her children and maybe give them a special birthday tea. She had no present to give Joss, but she would make up for that when she received her wages from Ephraim. Over the past few days a plan had been forming in her mind, and she decided to make him the sort of meal for which he craved, but that the doctor had forbidden. So what if it brought on an attack of gout? That would be Ephraim's problem and not hers, but she needed to put him in a good mood so that she could ask for an advance on her wages.

  Later that morning, armed with some of the housekeeping money which Agnes kept in a pewter tankard on the mantelshelf, Eloise took the children to the shops. She stopped first at the butcher's where she purchased a large piece of rump steak, two fat kidneys and a thick slice of gammon. She went on to her bakery where she bought a loaf of bread and some iced buns. Seeing Joss's eager expression, she broke one of the buns in half and shared it between him and Beth. Joss, of course, ate most of the cake, but Beth's little hand shot out for more as she relished the sweet taste of the pink icing. Eloise smiled at their eager enjoyment of such a simple pleasure. 'When Mama has a good position in a nice house, you shall have cake every day, my darlings,' she said, wiping Joss's face on her apron. 'It won't be long, I promise you that.'