Jubilee (Book 1 of The Poppy Chronicles)

by Claire Rayner

  But, a corner of her mind whispered to the scandalized and aghast part of her, but it is living. It isn’t sitting in the drawing room waiting to die of ugliness. Even if all this turns out to be some dreadful disaster, it will be better than that. Anything would be better than that.

  3

  Down Oxford Street they went, past the rich shop windows piled high with the pickings of the world, through to Holborn and the silent offices and on to the shuttered brooding City, and all the way the boy Ruby chattered about all that he saw, commenting disparagingly on the quality of the shops they passed, comparing them unfavourably with the glories of his precious Whitechapel Road and Shoreditch High Street; but she didn’t listen to him. She sat tucked firmly into the corner of the musty cab with its smell of old leather and horse and dust and tried to convince herself that all this was really happening. That it wasn’t one of her silly daydreams, the images with which she filled her mind and made her dismal life tolerable.

  This was real; no doubt, she told herself, and firmly pinched her own hand between a sharp thumb and forefinger and winced at the pain. This was real – and dangerous; and her spirits sagged again and she wanted to lean forwards and cry to the man in the box, whipping up his bored horse, that there had been a mistake. He was to turn round and take her back to safety. But Ruby chattered on and somehow it would have been more alarming to see him turn on her with those dark eyes full of scorn than to go on. So she sat and held her hands tightly twisted on her lap so that her kid gloves strained under the pressure and tried not to think of all the awful things that were about to happen to her.

  The cab swayed and lurched onwards, leaving the City behind, moving always eastwards, and now the nature of the passing scene changed. The rich heavy buildings of the West End gave way to more ramshackle edifices with peeling paint and battered brickwork, and the people on the streets changed too. In Oxford Street there had been a few well-dressed strollers gazing at the brightly lit shop windows and restaurants, showing in every languid movement their self assurance and their wealth, and in the City there had been hardly a soul to be seen apart from a few fast-walking people leaving their offices late and hurrying home to snug suburban houses in Kilburn and Acton. But here the streets shimmered with activity, and almost against her will Mildred found herself leaning out of her corner to stare out of the grimy window at them.

  Ruby stopped seeming so exotic, suddenly. Everywhere she looked there were people just like him, glossy and darkly curled about the head, large eyed and expressive about the face, and as they passed little knots of men talking and gesticulating and clusters of women in heavily trimmed gowns and pelisses in the most vivid colours the new aniline dyes could create – purples and fuchsias and rich crimsons and shrieking greens and blues – Ruby’s odd clothes faded to insignificance. And she opened her eyes wide and stared and stared as though to collect and store up every image she could find.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Ruby said, smugly, in her ear. ‘It’s a bit of all right, ain’t it? Real life, that’s what all this is – and this is just the start of it. Up there –’ and he pointed vaguely ahead ‘– up there the streets goes on and on, as far as the London ’Ospital an’ beyond, an’ all the way there’s lights and there’s people and there’s life. Real life. Not like up West where yer all dead and buried, only not got round to stinkin’ of it yet –’

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘Yes –’ not really aware she had spoken, and went on staring and, satisfied, Ruby leaned back in his own corner and watched her, well pleased with the effect all that she saw was having on her. He looked proprietorial and content, as though he personally owned the streets and was graciously sharing them with an admirer.

  ‘Left ’ere!’ he bawled suddenly, leaning forward and rapping on the roof of the cab. ‘Left, yer great ninny – I told you – Flower and Dean Street! You goes left into Thrawl Street and then right, you bleedin’ great schmuck! Everyone knows that. That’s it – round ’ere –’

  He was leaning out of the cab window now, waving and shouting, and all Mildred’s fascination with what she had been watching shrivelled and died in a puff of terror and she shrank back into her corner again, clutching her reticule close against her chest and staring wide-eyed out of the cab over Ruby’s shoulder.

  The street they were in was a narrow one, flanked by even narrower houses with blank-eyed windows, roughly curtained, behind which shadows seemed to move to and fro, barely seen in the light thrown by the row of meagre gas lamps which straggled along the length of the small thoroughfare. The pavements were almost as full as those of the main road; not with gesticulating men and glittering women but chiefly with children and Mildred’s eyes widened as she looked at them as they came in a great pack running alongside the cab, which had slowed to a walk. Thin, tousled, often filthy, some of them seemed to be wearing only one skimpy garment, and some were barefoot. But there were others, sleek and well fed and bright-eyed who made her mouth curl as she looked at them. She thought of the children at home, of small Harold, still, at four years old, with the round soft belly of the infant, and of Samuel and Thomas and Wilfred, gangling their way through the years from six to twelve, and tried to see them as contemporaries of this collection and quite failed. They, with their long pale faces and lank pale hair and dull pale eyes, were as like those capering creatures as cats were like goldfish; they could have belonged to a different species of creation altogether.

  The cab stopped and juddered as the horse reared back, alarmed by the way several of the children leapt for its bridle and the man in the cab roared and swore and the children roared and swore back and laughed shrilly, clearly enjoying themselves hugely, and Ruby jumped down, and leaving Mildred to fend for herself as best she could, went tearing into the scrum of children, his fists flailing.

  ‘On your way!’ he bawled. ‘Sling yer bleedin’ ’ooks, the lot of yer – ’ere, Mo – you come ’ere. This ’ere lady –’ and now he looked over his shoulder to check that Mildred had left the cab. ‘This ’ere lady’ll give yer sixpence to watch that no one bothers this ’ere cabbie, right? You won’t get a bleedin’ farthin’ if the cabbie tells me there’s been any trouble. You understand? Now, the rest of you, ’op it –’ and he looked up at the cabbie on his box and shouted, ‘Right Guv. ’E’ll see you’re all right. Tougher’n he looks –’ and Mildred looked at the diminutive creature who now stood at the horse’s head, importantly holding its bridle, and could have wept, for he was so small and so dirty and so unkempt of hair that all that could be seen of his face was the glint of his eyes. But he seemed to be in command of the whole situation, for the rest of the children fell back to a respectful distance and stood and stared at him and his charge, and he glared ferociously back at them as the cabbie sat on his box and uneasily stuffed a small clay pipe with shag tobacco.

  ‘Come on,’ Ruby said and went hopping away to the side of the street and down towards the corner; and she looked over her shoulder at the cluster of watching little hooligans and then at his retreating back and for want of anything else she could better do hurried after him.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she panted, for he was going at a fast rate, and he peered back at her and laughed.

  ‘Told yer – Lizah’s place –’

  ‘Who is she? You still haven’t told me. And what are my brothers doing here? And –’

  ‘Questions, questions, all you bleedin’ women’s the same,’ Ruby said, in a high good humour. ‘Wait and find out, and save your breath for the stairs –’ and he turned sharply and went plunging on into the darkest doorway Mildred had ever seen. ‘Come on!’ he shouted again, and his voice came echoing back to her as she stood hesitating on the doorstep. ‘Come on!’ And she heard his footsteps go clattering away over bare boards and disappear.

  Behind her the grey street was menacing in its quietness, for the children had stopped shouting and were just standing and staring after her, and the horse was standing still, its head bent and making none of the wh
innying and stamping noises that would have comforted her. And suddenly alarmed, she went plunging into the dark house after Ruby.

  Once inside she had to stand still for a while until her eyes became accustomed to the dimness, and then she could see a narrow corridor stretching ahead of her, and a flight of stairs going upwards on her left. But he hadn’t gone upstairs, of that she was sure, for the sound of his footsteps had disappeared downwards, and she moved forwards gingerly and called, ‘Ruby?’ in a rather thin voice and then more loudly, ‘Ruby!’ and this time he answered.

  ‘Dahn the cellar steps!’ His voice came up to her thinly from below. ‘Along to the end o’ the passage, on yer left – go careful; third step down’s a bit busted-like.’

  She picked her way forwards, still finding it more alarming to consider going back than onwards, feeling with her hand along the damp and peeling wall and then, as the wall seemed to disappear caught her breath in gratitude as a light appeared ahead of her.

  ‘Cor, don’t you creep around!’ Ruby called disgustedly, ‘Down here – come on then, we ain’t got all night. Mind that third step, for Gawd’s sake –’

  The staircase, now she could see, wasn’t so bad and she picked her way down it, wrinkling her nose a little. The air smelled cold and damp and rich with cats, but there were other smells too, heavy and musky and not altogether unpleasant even though they were unfamiliar, and again the fear that had started to rise in her belly subsided to a low mutter.

  Ruby was at the foot of the staircase with an oil lamp held in one hand and he took her elbow as she reached the stone flagged floor and propelled her forwards.

  ‘Come on, ducks,’ he said. ‘You’re doing all right – bit dark here, so watch it –’ and blindly she followed him until at last he pushed open a door and she stood blinking in the great rush of light and warmth that came at her, and also a great increase in the heavy smells she had been so aware of on the staircase.

  She knew what it was now, and had to open her mouth to breathe, finding it too powerful to let into her nose. Male sweat, great waves of it, the sort of smell she had sometimes been aware of when she passed her father on the stairs, or which Freddy left wafting behind him as he carried the great scuttles of coal up the stairs in the winter. A horrid smell, one she hated. And yet –

  And yet here it didn’t seem so unpleasant. She stood hovering in the doorway as Ruby went swaggering in and tentatively closed her mouth and went on breathing and somehow it wasn’t so bad after all. There was a sort of excitement in it, an immediacy, something that made her blood seem to ring a little in her ears, and she blinked and to her own amazement stepped forwards of her own volition, needing no Ruby to urge her. And stood in the middle of the room in which she found herself, staring round in amazement.

  A big room with a stone floor and in the centre of it a sort of raised dais, with ropes slung round it. Against the walls hooks with towels on them and balls and spring-laden equipment that looked totally foreign yet far from alarming, and skipping ropes and punchballs – and she blinked again and knew where she was. A gymnasium; she had seen pictures of just such equipment in Gamage’s catalogue, and could remember the boxing displays at the City of London School through which she had been forced to sit when Basil and Claude had been pupils there. Basil had always enjoyed pugilism, she remembered now, even though he had shown precious little skill at it; and she almost smiled as she remembered his lugubrious look when he had been helped out of the ring after one such display at the school, his cheek bruising rapidly from a well-placed blow by his opponent.

  She lifted her eyes and looked further, and saw people. A man in a pair of old trousers and a voluminous shirt was in close colloquy with a man who stood close to him with a dressing gown over his bare shoulders and his arms dangling, each ending in a heavily gloved fist, and two or three others were standing nearby, obviously listening. There was another man on the far side of the big room, lying on his back and kicking a large ball in the air from foot to foot, and she stared, puzzled. It seemed very childish behaviour for a man of that size, which was considerable. On the other side of him, there were three other men, each working with one of the chest expanders that hung against the wall, and she averted her eyes hurriedly as she realized that one of them was wearing no more than a very skimpy pair of drawers, even shorter than those of her brothers’ underwear, which she knew so well since she had all the mending of them.

  The man seemed to become aware of her presence at the same moment she did of his and sat down hurriedly, reaching for a towel, and she turned away just as a door she had not before noticed, tucked as it was into the far corner of the room, flew open and Ruby stuck out his head.

  ‘In ’ere,’ he called peremptorily and at once she picked up her skirts in both her gloved hands and hurried round the central boxing ring and into the room.

  And stood at the threshold staring at the sight of her two brothers, sitting side by side on a bench and looking quite extraordinarily miserable.

  ‘Basil!’ she cried. And then shook her head in bewilderment. ‘Basil, what on earth is going on?’

  He jumped to his feet at once and came towards her, both hands held out. ‘Oh, Mildred, thank God you’re here! I thought you’d never arrive – it’s been hours since we sent him, absolutely hours.’ And he shot Ruby a glance of pure venom. ‘I dare say he stopped to gossip with heaven knows who on the way and –’

  ‘Well, there’s gratitude!’ Ruby cried shrilly. ‘Didn’t I break my bleedin’ neck to get there? An’ didn’t I ’ave to waste a week’n’an’alf getting this one to come with me? Didn’t I ’ave to push and shout at the cabbie, eh? An’ you says that! You tell ’im, Miss Amberly, miserable sod what ’e is. You tell ’im! Straight I came to you, didn’t I? Straight on account o’ that’s what I am. Straight by nature an’ every inclination. So you mind your manners and be grateful –’

  ‘Be quiet,’ Mildred said, suddenly irritable and finding some strength in that. ‘Basil, what is this all about? I get some sort of ridiculous message like something out of one of your cloak and dagger stories and –’

  ‘Did you bring the money?’ Basil said and moved closer to her and she looked up at his face and frowned. His eyes were dark, for the pupils were dilated with fear, and his upper lip and forehead were wet with sweat, in spite of the coolness of the cellar room. She looked over his shoulder to Claude, the younger of them, and he too was sitting staring at her with a beseeching expression on his face and obviously just as alarmed as his brother.

  ‘What money, Basil? I don’t know what you are talking about. Is this some sort of silly practical joke? A game of some kind? You must explain yourself!’

  He didn’t answer but pulled at the small leather purse she was still holding tightly and tugged it from her fingers and began to fumble with the clasp but at once she seized it back and thrust it into the bodice of her jacket.

  ‘Don’t you dare, Basil Amberly! Don’t you dare! I’ve little enough that I may own, but what there is is indeed mine. Now either tell me at once what all this nonsense is, or better still come with me and we’ll go home and you can tell me on the way. I have a cab waiting and we shall return to Leinster Terrace at once. Now come along.’

  ‘Not this side o’ the new century,’ Ruby said at once and moved to lean against the door and she looked over at him and then around at the room, all her original fears leaping up to tighten her throat and dry her mouth. Was she to be abducted, beaten, robbed? But her brothers were there and surely they would protect her? And she looked at Claude sitting on the narrow bench, on which a few towels were lying, with a pile of old and rather malodorous clothes on each side of him, and then at Basil’s pale sweating face and knew she would find little defence from them. Yet they had brought her here – and she turned and glared at Ruby and said loudly, ‘Well, young man? You have a lively enough tongue in your head. You tell me what is happening here and why my brothers are here and why you are preventing their departure, and –
’

  ‘Oh, I don’t meddle in no family affairs,’ Ruby said with a somewhat sanctimonious air. ‘It’s up to him to tell yer –’ And he looked at Basil with such scorn that she reddened with embarrassment on his behalf.

  ‘If someone doesn’t tell me soon I shall just go upstairs on my own and go straight home again and leave you to manage as best you can. Though you’ll have to tell me sooner or later if I’m to keep you out of trouble with Papa, which I imagine is part of whatever it is. So the sooner the better. Now stop being so stupid and tell me what it was you brought me here for and why you are being kept here so.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to do it, Mildred,’ Basil said wretchedly and gazed at her with so lugubrious an expression it seemed he was about to weep. ‘It was just for a little fun, you know, a wager or two, no more. I didn’t know they were laying such odds and changing them as they did, and when he told me what we owed I was so set about – well, I didn’t know how it could be. But he said we can’t go home till we’ve paid and I knew we couldn’t sit here all night and that if Papa – if he got home before us he’d tell Freddy to lock up and then what would we do? Oh, please, Mildred, do give them their wretched money and let us get out of here! We won’t ever come again and –’

  ‘I didn’t want to come in the first place.’ Claude’s voice came high and thin from the bench. ‘I told him I didn’t care for boxing, so sweaty and – well, so horrid. I much prefer to play whist like any decent chap would, but he insisted and if I hadn’t had a bet I’d have looked a sorry baby, wouldn’t I? I wasn’t to know either how they were changing the odds and –’