Hope

by Lesley Pearse

  Tears prickled the back of Nell’s eyes, for not one person, not even Matt who had always disliked Albert, had offered her such understanding.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said in a small voice. ‘But it is difficult to tell a man personal things.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, lightly touching her cheek with the palm of his hand. ‘It is a sad state of affairs that both men and women feel the opposite sex is so very different. We are indoctrinated from birth to believe this, we are encouraged to hide our true feelings from one another, and so often pushed into loveless marriages. It is no wonder that we cannot communicate freely.’

  ‘You are a very kind man,’ she blurted out. ‘It will be my pleasure to housekeep for you.’

  ‘I hope we can become friends too,’ he said. ‘We have more in common than you realize, Nell, both of us out on a limb, victims of circumstance. But I see our meeting today as fortuitous, and I hope you share that view.’

  *

  As Nell cut across the fields to home she felt like singing. Not just because she’d got work and a new home, but more because she felt her pain had been acknowledged. Whether that was enough to get her to pull herself together she didn’t know. But she felt optimistic, for if the Captain didn’t believe Hope was dead, maybe she could start to believe it too.

  ‘I’m glad for you,’ Matt said as he bent to kiss his older sister goodbye the next morning. ‘It’s not what I would’ve chosen for you, mind! Him being a bachelor an’ all.’

  Nell managed a wry smile. She knew Matt’s first thoughts were that she wouldn’t be safe alone with any man. But then he didn’t know that in the six years she’d slept in the same bed as Albert, he’d never wanted to lay a finger on her. A gentleman was even less likely to want her.

  ‘Half the people round here think I’ve gone mad, the other half think I’m half-way to hell already,’ she laughed. ‘A bit more scandal won’t bother me. But the Captain will be away a great deal of the time. You can come and check up on me at any time. I like him, he’s a good man. Don’t fret about me.’

  ‘There’s talk about him,’ Matt blurted out. ‘He’s got a way with women.’

  ‘You have a way with women too,’ Nell said indignantly. ‘I’ve seen those Nichol girls giving you the glad eye at church. Some men are just born that way; it doesn’t mean they can’t be trusted. Now let me go, we can’t leave the Captain sitting out there any longer.’

  As Nell climbed up into the gig beside the Captain, Amy came out of the dairy. She was all smiles, hastily shouting out how much she’d miss her. But Nell wasn’t fooled any more than she had been on the previous night when Amy had taken her side against Matt’s disapproval. She just wanted Nell out of her house; she wouldn’t have concerned herself if it was to work in a bordello.

  It was close to midnight when Nell finally undressed and got into bed. The only room upstairs that was dry enough to sleep in was the Captain’s, so until the roof was fixed she had a truckle bed in the small store room adjoining the kitchen. But the men had begun work on the roof that morning, and when they’d finished they were going to repair all the ceilings, so then she’d have a bedroom of her own.

  Nell was exhausted. She had scoured every inch of the kitchen and pantry, the walls and floor, repapered the shelves and cupboards, and unpacked at least a dozen boxes of china, glass and pots and pans. She was a little mystified that a bachelor soldier should have all these household things, but she hadn’t liked to ask him about it.

  Tired and aching as she was, she felt more like her old self, and she’d even been hungry enough to eat some of the mutton stew she’d made for the Captain. He said it was the best meal he’d had in weeks, and laughed when she said they’d have to get part of the garden clear to grow some vegetables. She didn’t think he really believed she knew all about that too.

  Satisfied was how she felt, she decided as she began to drift off to sleep. There were long periods of utter boredom being a lady’s maid, and turning a hovel into a home was far more rewarding.

  Tomorrow she intended to tackle the dining room. He had a very fine table and chairs, and she’d seen some good velvet curtains in a packing case. The Captain had said he’d be going away for two days; by the time he got back she’d have that room fit for dinner guests.

  But her last thought of the evening was of Hope. Nell pictured her running across the meadow to Lord’s Wood, as she’d so often seen her do on her afternoon off. Her bonnet would bounce back on to her neck, and her shiny dark hair would break free from its pins. Nell would tut as she watched from an upstairs window, and make a mental note to remind her young sister that only hoydens ran, not young ladies. Yet it had always given her pleasure to see the child’s delight in her freedom; she was as graceful as a deer and as beautiful as her surroundings.

  ‘If you are alive, my sweet, write to me,’ she murmured.

  Chapter Twelve

  1849

  Hope could see Betsy coming towards her along the crowded quayside, but even at a distance of some 300 yards it was clear something was badly wrong with her. She was staggering, bent over as if in pain, for once not stopping here and there as she usually did for a bit of light-hearted banter with sailors and dock workers.

  It was late in the afternoon in midsummer and so hot you could probably fry an egg on the quay. During the bitterly cold winter Hope had longed for the heat of summer, but as the temperature had soared in the past weeks, with no rain to wash away the human and animal effluent, the smells had become so evil that it was hard to breathe.

  By day Hope could escape up the hill to Clifton where it was clean and sweet-smelling and a breeze blew. People there had drains which took away their waste, they had water piped into their kitchens, and many of their gardens were beautiful. Lately she’d been very tempted to sleep out on the Downs rather than face another steamy night in Lamb Lane. But Betsy and Gussie would have seen that as a kind of defection.

  It was while selling kindling during her first winter in Bristol that she managed to beg some work in Clifton. The housekeeper at number 5 Royal York Crescent paid her to scrub the front-door steps and polish the brass. It wasn’t until the next winter that the woman eventually trusted her enough to let her come inside occasionally to scrub floors and help with the laundry, but now eighteen months later Hope helped out there twice a week on a regular basis, for which she was paid three shillings.

  Hope had to bite her tongue as she was always watched like a hawk for fear she was going to steal something. The other servants looked down their noses at her, and if she was given anything to eat while she was there, it was only ever scraps. But she had stuck it out, for she needed the three shillings to buy flowers from the market and make them into little posies which she sold on the streets for the rest of the week.

  The terrible hardships she endured during her first winter in Bristol were just a distant memory now. Nothing, she felt, could ever be as bad as that again. How she had managed to go out each icy morning at daybreak, walk miles on blistered feet with an empty stomach, her fingers cracking open with the frost, she didn’t know. There had been days when every bone in her body screamed agonizingly for rest; the humiliation of people slamming their doors in her face, the torture of hunger and cold, all for just a few pennies a day, made her wish for death.

  After that, cleaning and laundry work twice a week seemed like paradise, even if the other servants did treat her like vermin because her dress was ragged and her boots had holes in them.

  But today at number 5, Mrs Toms the housekeeper had offered to take her on as maid of all work, living in, for which she would pay her five shillings a week, with a uniform and some new boots.

  Hope knew she ought to feel overjoyed; after all, it was the kind of respectable job she’d wanted for so long. It would be bliss to sleep between sheets, never to wake as a rat ran over her, or suffer hunger pains again.

  But Hope wasn’t joyful, she was torn. For by accepting the advantages of going into service, she knew she
would also have to accept the restrictions that came with it, along with her reservations about the Edwards household.

  Mr Edwards was a fat, pompous little alderman, and it was said he had made his money by taking bribes to get people contracts from the Corporation. His wife was a nervy wraith who liked to ape real gentry. That aside, they were in Hope’s eyes a fairly odious couple who also had no idea of how a household should be run. They relied totally on Mrs Toms, and she was a vicious bully who covered up her own ignorance by blaming the other servants when anything went wrong.

  Up until today Hope had watched and listened to what went on at number 5 with some amusement, remembering dignified Baines who ran Briargate like clockwork, yet kept the respect and affection of all his staff. She knew he would throw up his hands in horror at her contemplating taking up a position in a household which was managed in such an inept fashion.

  Yet it wasn’t just the difficulties she might encounter at number 5 that daunted her; she felt it was disloyal to leave Gussie and Betsy. But for their generosity, protection and the survival skills they’d taught her she would not have survived a month in Lewins Mead. Their room in Lamb Lane might be squalid and rat-ridden, but within it she’d felt safe. The meek little Hope Renton who’d slunk away from the gatehouse on Albert’s orders had become strong and resourceful. She wasn’t even sure she had the ability to be anyone’s servant again.

  She had lost her respect for the gentry when she saw Sir William in bed with Albert, and since living in Bristol she’d seen and heard about too many other ‘gentlemen’ who liked boys, or very young girls, to think Sir William was exceptional. As for their ladies, she despised them even more for their hypocrisy. They flocked to their churches in silks and satins and prayed for the poor and the sick, but they never lifted a finger to help those less fortunate than themselves. Hundreds of destitute men, women and children from famine-ridden Ireland disembarked from ships each week in Bristol, but there was no sympathy for their plight. These poor souls could barely stand, they were so emaciated from starvation, yet the gentry brayed that they should be driven out of the city. As it was, most of them were forced to live like animals in the festering, derelict houses down by the river Frome, and with no food or medical help they were dying like flies.

  Hope had heard Mr Edwards remark that if he had his way he would order the military to set fire to these unsanitary places, and that he hoped the people within them would perish too. Could she really work for such a man?

  It was Friday today, and on Monday morning she was due back at the Crescent with her decision. Unfortunately she was pretty certain that if she turned down Mrs Toms’s offer, the woman was spiteful enough to refuse to give her any further work at all.

  But on seeing Betsy so obviously unwell, Hope put aside her own problems and rushed to help her friend. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked as she caught hold of her arm.

  ‘I feel bad,’ Betsy groaned. ‘Me belly aches, I’ve been sick, I never felt this way before, I feel like I’m gonna die.’

  Betsy was the toughest person Hope had ever known, she didn’t ever complain when she was hurt or sick, so that in itself was enough to make Hope worried. Betsy hadn’t been herself last night; she was pale and listless and hadn’t wanted anything to eat. She’d insisted it was just the heat. But heat alone wouldn’t give someone pain or make them sick, so it had to be something far more serious.

  In the last few days there had been talk that there was fever among the Irish, and that if they weren’t moved on it would spread throughout the city. Hope had dismissed this as scaremongering, but what if it was true?

  She didn’t intend to alarm Betsy with such a suggestion, so she put her arm round her to support her. ‘I’ll get you home,’ she said. ‘I expect you’ve eaten something bad. But I’ll take care of you.’

  ‘I need a drink of water,’ Betsy moaned as they went up the stairs. She was really frightening Hope now for her movements were slow and laboured and she was shivering even though it was so hot.

  ‘I’ll make you some cinnamon tea,’ Hope said. She had never liked the taste of Bristol water, so she never drank it other than in tea. Putting a stick of cinnamon in boiling water had been her mother’s remedy for sickness or bellyache, for she had claimed that giving a sick person cold water upset them even more.

  As they went into the room they found Gussie was already there. But he was lying down, and one glance at his white face and heavy eyes was enough for Hope to know he was suffering from the same complaint as Betsy.

  ‘I’ve been sick,’ he said, his voice little more than a whisper. He attempted to sit up but clearly didn’t have the strength for it.

  A cold chill ran down Hope’s spine, for while it was possible that her two friends had shared some food that was bad, their symptoms reminded her of those her parents had with the typhus. Reverend Gosling had told her it was a disease which flourished in dirty, overcrowded conditions and she had always been mindful it could easily strike in Lewins Mead.

  It crossed her mind that she should flee at once, but when she looked round and saw Betsy slumped down on the floor, her expression one of agony as she clutched at her stomach, she felt ashamed of such a thought.

  She got them both to lie down and covered them with blankets, then lit the fire and put the kettle on it. There was enough water in the pitcher to wash their faces and hands, but she would have to get more from the pump.

  It was desperately hot in the room, and it would be hotter still once the fire got going. She stood by the open window for a moment trying to gather her thoughts and remember all the remedies her mother and Nell had always used for sickness.

  ‘I’ve got to go and get water and some things from the shop,’ she told her friends. ‘Stay where you are, I won’t be long.’

  Ten minutes later she staggered back up the stairs, weighed down by two pitchers of water and a flask of vinegar, which her mother had always used to wash things in when there was sickness in the cottage. She had the cinnamon, more candles too, and some mustard to make hot poultices.

  Since the winter, when their lodgers left for good, Hope had introduced many items into their room which she considered essential for housekeeping. Some had been bought second-hand, others Gussie had acquired for her, but they now had a broom, a large saucepan, a frying pan, bowls for the stews she made on the fire, some cutlery, and another large bowl for washing up dishes. Recently, Hope had also stuffed the sacks with hay to make mattresses, and she always made sure they had soap too, and plenty of rags for cleaning purposes.

  But as she walked back into the room and found Betsy on her hands and knees retching over the slop pail, she knew that trying to nurse two sick people with such sparse equipment was going to be very difficult.

  Daylight faded soon after Hope had spread the hot mustard plaster on her friends’ bellies. She was pleased to see that it did seem to ease their cramping pains, just as the cinnamon tea had calmed the vomiting. They were still shivering, but she had covered them with everything she could find to help them sweat it out and now they were sleeping.

  But she could not sleep herself. The room was like an oven, and there was so much noise coming in through the open window. It was never quiet here, but since the hot weather began the noise had grown even worse, more babies crying, more drunks, more fights, and children running up and down the alleys until well after midnight.

  Since settling down here, Hope made a conscious effort never to think about the past, but as she stood at the open window wearing only her chemise, dripping with sweat and desperate for air, the stink of human waste assaulting her nostrils, she couldn’t help but remember hot summer nights when she was a child. The whole family would sit outside and watch the sun go down, and the breeze would be fresh and pure, scented with honeysuckle.

  Even when she’d lived at the gatehouse, she and Nell had often sat on the backdoor step looking up at the stars. She recalled that she had often wished then that she lived in a big town, longing for
the excitement of crowds, shops and markets. That wish seemed so foolish now she knew how harsh and unpleasant town life could be. She would give anything to be encircled by Nell’s plump arm again, listening to nothing but the hoot of owls and the rustling of leaves.

  Nell had surely hardened her heart to her now. Matt’s children would be the recipients of all the love and devotion she had once showered on her youngest sister.

  Hope lapsed into a pretty daydream of imagining going back there, just to look at Nell. She could see herself hiding behind a tree in Lord’s Wood on a Sunday morning, waiting for Nell to pass through on her way to church. She’d be wearing that pretty blue bonnet trimmed with white artificial daisies that Lady Harvey had given her. Just one glimpse of her would be enough.

  Perhaps she’d see Rufus too, for he’d be home for the school holidays now. Maybe he would go down to the pond because he was remembering the good times they once shared? She could jump out and startle him. She would have to pledge him to secrecy of course. But maybe with his help they could think of a way to let Nell know she was safe?

  A shouted oath from a drunken man in the alley below acted as a timely reminder of the reality of her situation. Even if it were possible to go back there without Albert getting to hear she’d been, she couldn’t bear the thought of anyone she knew seeing her like this. She was the same as all the residents of the rookery now, dirty, thin and ragged – even Rufus would turn away in disgust. And anyway, she couldn’t explain to him how it all came about, not without telling him his parents’ part in it too.

  ‘I hate you, Albert Scott,’ she muttered to herself. ‘One of these days I’ll get even with you.’

  As the first light of dawn crept into the room, Betsy was sick again and her bowels erupted uncontrollably. She cried pitifully from the pain in her belly, the cramps in her limbs and the embarrassment of fouling her bed, and although Hope tried to reassure her that she would start to feel better once all the poisons in her body had been expelled, it was all too reminiscent of her parents’ deaths for her really to believe what she said.