by Lizzie Lane
For a moment she stood looking up at the outside of the house that she was finally leaving.
‘So she’s gone.’ Emily was the only girl not occupied with a man.
Winnie felt her fear re-emerge. She would have preferred that nobody had seen Magda leave.
‘Having her live with you then?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘Isn’t it? Bradley Fitts has got a soft spot for our Magda. You know that, don’t you?’
It wasn’t like Winnie to lose her temper, but she could see where this comment was heading.
‘It’s over, Emily. The girl’s father has come home from the sea. She’s off to live with him. Tell Fitts that and make sure he bloody well believes it!’
Emily held her head to one side. ‘What’s it worth?’
‘I thought you were her friend.’
‘I’d like to escape this game too, Winnie. But you know as well as I do that once you’re in it, it’s a devil of a job to escape. Best not to enter the game in the first place.’
Winnie pursed her lips whilst eyeing Emily as though seeing her for the first time. The eyes that looked back at her were as hard as her own had once been, but she hadn’t always been like that. She’d been kindly once – even to Magda – but there it was, whoring had hardened her. Money was everything.
Resigned to what she had to do, a crisp five pound note found its way out of her purse and into Emily’s hand.
‘Her father’s come home. Just you remember to say that.’
Emily’s smile wasn’t exactly sincere. ‘Of course I will, Winnie. Of course I will.’
The next morning Winnie took a taxi to a bay-windowed building close to Chelsea Bridge. The brass plaque set into the wall outside said ‘Cottemore and Brown, Solicitors’.
To set her plan in place, she needed the assistance of those in high places and she’d certainly made the acquaintance of plenty.
Her dear friend, Henry Cottemore, had advised her to buy the pretty little cottage that she was moving into.
‘These sweet little places where coachmen used to live will become very fashionable in future. Horses belong to the past. Cars are the future,’ he’d told her.
Winnie had heeded his advice and bought one for cash, the one thing she was never short of.
Winnie prided herself on knowing some very influential people. A twinkle came to her deep-set eyes when she thought of the men who paid for the services offered by her establishment. City aldermen, judges, merchants and bankers wearing bowler hats and swinging a rolled-up umbrella. They all had their vices and over the years some of these men had also become friends and useful business advisers.
Henry Cottemore was one of these. In his middle years, married to a wife who preferred life in the country to that of the city, he became a regular patron at Winnie’s establishment where he found the companionship and physical satisfaction he so badly missed.
‘Jennifer prefers pets,’ he’d said to Winnie back then. ‘She has three dogs in the house and gundogs out back and she looks after them very well. I only receive the little love she has left, sparse as it is.’
His days of taking comfort in the arms of one of her girls were now only a fleeting fancy, but more often than not he merely entertained the fond memories of how things used to be.
Over the years, out of mutual respect and a shared past, he gave her advice about her investments and knew more of what she was worth than anyone else could possibly know. Winnie was very well off and quite frankly he admired her.
Presuming she wished to make some alteration to her portfolio of stocks, shares and property, he bid her take a seat and asked what he could do for her.
His office smelled of beeswax and was graced with the steady ticking of a wall clock.
Henry rubbed at his hands. ‘Rheumatism,’ he said. ‘Quite frankly, Winifred my dear, I never expected to ever get this old. I thought I would be twenty-one forever.’
‘But we were young once,’ said Winnie with a smile.
‘If only we could turn the clock back,’ murmured Henry. Winnie didn’t respond. Henry was speaking from the experience of a privileged youth. In her case she’d been turfed out to work, an under-maid in a house in Bloomsbury.
The work had been hard, the hours long and the wage almost non-existent. She’d hated that place, the only joy one half day per week off and one full day a month.
On those precious days she’d walked Regent’s Park and if she had tuppence in her pocket, she’d get the tram up to the West End and stare in windows where rich folks shopped.
Sometimes, just sometimes when she’d had more than a shilling in her pocket, she’d gone to the music hall with Ruby the scullery maid. That was where she’d met Reuben Fitts, the man she’d fallen head over heels for and who had quickly blighted her life.
‘Now,’ said Henry. ‘What is it you want to see me about?’
‘You’ve met my adopted daughter, Magda?’
Henry Cottemore contemplated this woman who was much younger than himself and had once been beautiful. Life had not been kind – certainly not in her early years, but something had happened that had ignited a new light in her dark blue eyes. He wondered what it was.
She began telling him about adopting a daughter and how she felt it was like a memorial to the baby daughter who had died.
‘I have plans for her.’
Henry raised a querulous eyebrow.
Winnie saw his questioning look and shook her head.
‘No. She will not be going the way of the working girls. I want to give her the opportunity to be something better. That’s why I moved here so that we’d be separate from all that. No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I have other plans for Magda, but I need your advice. I want her to be educated. She did very well at school and has been working in the square on a market stall, but she’s too good for that. She’s bright, really bright. I want her to do more than work in a factory, a shop or even an office slamming her fingers on one of those new-fangled typewriting machines. She’s been accepted for an interview at the medical school at Queen Mary’s Hospital. She wants to be a doctor.’
Henry looked down at his shoes feeling very privileged to share Winnie’s plans. If he’d still been a wild, young stud, he would be curious to see this wonderful girl who had so impressed his old friend. If she was that beautiful, in the past he might have whisked her away and set her up in a nice apartment in Chelsea. But he wasn’t young. He was older and wiser and Winnie, bless her heart, trusted his judgement. He was also in no doubt that Magda was very special to her – female doctors were still few and far between and securing a place for this girl would be a challenge.
‘Does Magda know of your plans?’
‘We’ve discussed the matter, though I don’t think she truly believes me just yet. I suppose I should get her father’s consent if I was going to adopt her legally, but nobody’s seen him for years.’
‘Does she have any other family?’
‘Sisters. A brother. Her aunt who lives across the way from me. Hard as a brick she is. Kept the girl short of food and just about everything else. Puts her neglect down to the father. Reckons the bounder’s failed to send a sou for her for years. My guess is that the Connemara mare as we call the Irish bitch spent it all on herself.’
‘So what is it you require me to do?’
‘You have medical contacts at Queen Mary’s – them that are physicians?’
One finger thoughtfully stroked his lips as he nodded.
‘She has an interview there. I want to make sure it goes well. That they overlook her … background. I want them to give her a chance. I know it can be done – if you know the right people.’
Henry threw back his head and laughed.
‘Winnie, you demand too much.’
‘Is it too much? Isn’t it true you know just about everyone of importance in London?’
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that …’
‘Can it be don
e?’
He met the spark of hope in Winnie’s eyes. Her face glowed with intent and also affection.
‘I’m going to tell her tonight that everything is in place for her to learn about being a doctor, that she’ll pass the interview with flying colours. I want you to make sure she does. Can I tell her that?’
Henry hesitated. Yes, he did indeed know the right people capable of circumventing the normal qualifications needed for a medical student. But Winnie, for all her sordid past, was not a fool. Indeed he regarded her as having an exceptionally bright mind. If she thought Magda was worthy of becoming a doctor, then who was he to argue? He had to take it at face value.
‘How old is she?’
‘She’s eighteen.’
‘That’s very young.’
‘She’s very mature.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. I’ll tell my contacts that she’s twenty and has undertaken a foundation course.’
Winnie nodded. ‘I would appreciate that.’
Henry Cottemore removed his glasses and smiled at her over the big desk with its elegant ink well, and leather-bound blotting pad; legal files were piled at each end like Palladian pillars.
‘I take it our friend Reuben Fitts has no interest in the girl.’
Winnie shook her head a little too abruptly. ‘No. He does not.’
Chapter Twenty-two
The Twins 1932
‘It’s dusty under here. I’m going to sneeze,’ whispered Anna Marie Brodie, her hand clamped over her nose.
‘Don’t you dare!’ her sister hissed back.
‘I can’t help it.’
‘Try and concentrate on our future. We’ve done enough work on the farm. I would never have left school if I’d thought that all I would do was pluck and draw chickens, and salt bacon for the next two years.’
‘I’m scared,’ said Anna Marie, wishing she hadn’t been talked into this hare-brained scheme in the first place. She had been quite content to work on the farm. Venetia, however, was headstrong, wild and persuasive.
‘I’m going to sneeze again,’ she murmured.
Venetia clamped her hand over her sister’s mouth, but the sneeze came out anyway – just as somebody entered the cabin.
First they saw a pair of polished black shoes.
‘Out from there, whoever you are,’ shouted an angry male voice.
They crawled out to find themselves looking up at the enormous belly of Chief Steward Kevin McCall. Once they were standing, they found themselves looking over the big belly to the red beard that hid the lower half of his face.
It was his job to accompany Mrs Brennan, the housekeeper, to check cabins and state rooms for cleanliness before passengers for the ‘Northern Star’ arrived for the trans-Atlantic voyage.
He’d eaten too much liver and onions at lunchtime and could still taste the onions. As a consequence the wind in his stomach was causing him pain, and in consequence of that he wanted to let wind – from either end. As a man of some status on board, he couldn’t possibly do that in front of Mrs Brennan. He’d hoped to get the inspection finished in record time. Finding two stowaways served to make his stomach lurch and his temper short.
‘Mrs Brennan. Will you please send for the police?’
Mrs Brennan obeyed immediately, out of the door so fast it was as though there were a mutilated corpse in the cabin rather than two young girls robbed of their dream.
Small piggy eyes formed the focus point of a glowering expression.
‘Turn out your pockets!’
His voice was like thunder.
Anna Marie obeyed immediately, but not so Venetia. Her dream was in tatters.
‘We got nothing in our pockets,’ she said defiantly.
The piggy eyes almost vanished above ballooning cheeks as he fought to hold back his wind.
Seeing that the contents of their pockets came to no more than a handkerchief in one and a few pennies in the other, he turned his attention to their suitcases.
‘What’s in the case?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Open it.’
Venetia frowned. ‘Are you the sort of man who likes to see young women’s underwear?’
‘Open it!’
Venetia shook her head. ‘No,’ she declared hotly. ‘You’re not a policeman. You’ve no right looking in my case. Anyways, we wanted passage to America. We want a job. We can clean the cabins, look after the guests. Can clean them better than the cleaners you’ve got now. They’ve left fluff under the bed. That’s why Anna Marie sneezed.’
Kevin McCall growled and sucked on his beard. It felt as though his guts were about to explode.
‘I’ve no time for this,’ he snapped.
They were locked in a crew cabin to await the arrival of the police.
Venetia sat on her suitcase, her arms entwined around her knees.
Anna Marie was pacing up and down, her blue eyes looking extra large in her paler than pale face.
‘They’ll put us in prison.’
‘Don’t be stupid. All we did was hide in a cabin.’
‘That man thought we took something. We might never go home again.’
‘We took nothing, you silly goose,’ Venetia smiled as a wicked thought occurred to her. ‘Mind you, depending whether they still send thieves overseas, we could say that we did. Perhaps we’ll get to America that way.’
The crew cabin they’d been locked in, though built for six, was far smaller than the least of the passenger cabins. Two police constables arrived and filled the room.
Venetia stood up and gave them as fierce a look as they gave her.
Anna Marie crumpled onto the lower bunk of a two-bunk arrangement, her knuckles white with tension.
‘So we’ll be asking you a few questions,’ said one of the policemen.
First they were asked their names. Venetia saw no harm in telling them this, so didn’t throw her sister any of her more threatening looks.
After that, they went through the same questions as Mr McCall who stood out in the corridor behind them.
What were they doing there?
Had they taken anything?
Did they know it was a criminal offence to board a boat without first buying a ticket?
Venetia explained in no uncertain terms that they wanted to get to America and were willing to work their passage. They were not thieves and had not taken anything not belonging to them.
‘Right.’ Both of the policemen turned and began talking with Mr McCall where he stood out in the corridor.
The most senior of the policemen, in age if not in rank, suggested to Mr McCall that, seeing as nothing had been taken, the girls be released.
‘Unless you happen to want more willing hands for the crossing to New York and want to take them on?’
‘Certainly not! I will not give these girls a job on principle. They stole aboard without permission. Besides, I doubt they’re old enough. Cabin stewardesses must be at least eighteen years of age, though we prefer them older. It makes for less trouble. Young girls are trouble!’
‘The cabin was unoccupied you say.’
‘It was.’
‘And nothing was missing?’
‘Not as far as I can tell, but I know their type. I demand you arrest them.’
‘For what?’
‘Trespass.’
The senior policeman, a man with a reddish face and greying hair, eyed the two girls over his shoulder.
‘Hardly worth bothering. Mr McCall, this is not the first case of its type we’ve been called out to, and it won’t be the last. It’s a regular occurrence. The others were let off with a warning. I think the same warning applies here.’
‘I suppose it will make no difference if I insist?’
‘None whatsoever,’ said the first policeman.
‘Then that’s settled, Mr McCall,’ said the second. ‘We’ll take them with us and make sure they get home safely. Wherever home happens to be.’
The police station had been buil
t to resemble a castle, though it had never been such. It was a mere fifty years old, built of grey stone with small windows, which only served to add to its look of invulnerability.
‘So,’ said the sergeant who had brought them in and given them cups of tea, ‘where exactly are you from?’
Anna Marie opened her mouth to answer, but closed it again when Venetia kicked her ankle.
‘Here,’ said Venetia resolutely. ‘From right here.’
She fixed her eyes on a silver button on his tunic hoping the lie would be believed.
However, the sergeant was a local man and knew a country accent when he heard one.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said softly. ‘Now just so’s we get this right and you don’t fall into further trouble, tell me the truth of where you’re from and things will go well for you. I might even get you a couple of ginger biscuits to go with that tea. You must be starving.’
‘Dunavon!’ Anna Marie’s eyes were full of tears and neither she nor Venetia had had anything to eat since the night before.
Venetia glared at her sister. ‘I told you to say nothing.’
The police sergeant sighed and shook his head. ‘What you did was a pretty desperate thing, but you must have had good reason to do it. How about you tell me what that reason was?’
Tears were spilling silently from Anna Marie’s eyes and between dabbing at them, she was twisting her handkerchief like she would strangle a rabbit.
‘Our mother died, our family was split up and we’ve left school, but my sister here didn’t want to work on the farm. She doesn’t like the smell of chickens; she thought it would be a good idea to go to America and seek our fortunes. It was her that persuaded me to go with her.’
‘Traitor,’ Venetia hissed.
Anna Marie hissed back. ‘It’s true. You’re the one who wanted to leave.’
Sergeant Beverley controlled the urge to smile. He’d been telling the truth about them not being the first girls wanting to stowaway to America. They were young and foolhardy, but he had to admire their pluck.
‘I would have gone meself when I was younger. Yes, indeed I would. But my mother was widowed and loved me. You can’t just leave those that love you, now can you?’