Dreams That Veil

by Dominic Luke

  The boy had a head start. He was running and dodging. She could see his dirty heels, hear his rattling breath. Soon – and to her surprise – she found she was gaining on him. He seemed out of puff already. He was almost within reach.

  Just as she stretched out a hand to grab him he suddenly veered aside and vanished into one of the arched entrances that led to the courts beyond. Eliza followed automatically. Before she realized, she was in a dank, slimy tunnel.

  She came to an abrupt halt. The way ahead was blocked. A group of people – boys, she realized – were huddled together in the tunnel, heads down as if engaged in a secret conspiracy. Small and thin as he was, the urchin boy was able to wriggle between them and disappear.

  Eliza opened her mouth to say Excuse me, please.

  The words died in her throat. A hideous, inhuman shriek echoed along the tunnel. She clapped her hands to her ears, cowering against the slimy wall.

  The sound trailed away to a miserable miaowing. Whether the boys had shifted position or whether her eyes had grown used to the dimness Eliza could not say but she was now able to see what was holding the boys’ attention. They had a kitten, a scrap of a thing with matted fur and spindly legs. They had obviously been tormenting it. It writhed and twisted in their hands, its mouth open showing little white teeth, its eyes—

  But there were no eyes. There were no eyes. There were just empty sockets dribbling blood.

  As Eliza watched, frozen in horror, one of the boys took hold of the kitten’s tail in his fist. The other boys drew away. The shape of the kitten for a split second was silhouetted against the bright entrance to the court beyond. Eliza could see its tiny head, could see its mouth moving in a pitiful but now silent miaowing. And then, with a huge swing of his arm, the boy dashed the kitten against the wall. There was a sickening thump as the kitten’s body hit the bricks. Eliza heard clearly the crunch of its shattering skull.

  Her legs buckled. Everything went dark. Clawing at the greasy bricks trying to stay on her feet, Eliza bent over, retching and retching. There was burning taste of bile in her mouth.

  She became aware as if through a dense fog of shadowy figures closing in around her. The boys, having finished with the kitten, were now turning their attention to her. She was completely at their mercy.

  Her last ounce of strength drained away as she wondered what was going to happen to her, what tortures and disfigurements. She slipped and slid down the wall, her fingers scrabbling helplessly. It was like falling into a bottomless pit. There was no escape.

  ‘Here! What’s going on? What are you doing to her? Leave her alone, you little tykes! Go on, clear off out of it!’

  It was a voice out of nowhere, booming and echoing along the tunnel. The knot of boys wavered, broke apart; they fled. In a heap on the floor, Eliza was dimly aware of a pair of shiny black boots looming over her.

  ‘Miss Eliza? Are you all right, Miss Eliza? Can you hear me? If they’ve done anything—’

  ‘Stan, oh Stan!’ She clutched at him desperately, her last tenuous connection with the world. If she let go she’d be lost, she’d fall into the bottomless pit beyond all rescue.

  But he was solid and real and immeasurably strong. He was helping her up, he put his arm round her; she was safe.

  ‘Stan . . . Stan . . . the kitten. . . .’

  If he could just save the kitten too; if he could only save the kitten. . . .

  She looked up at him, saw him glance over her shoulder, saw his expression change, his mouth fall open, his eyes grow wide.

  She buried her face in his chest. She didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know.

  He gathered her up, half-carried her out into the street. It seemed like a miracle, to be in the daylight again. Tears were streaming down her face. She was crying with relief; she was crying because of the kitten; she was crying, crying, crying.

  Smith put both his arms round her. ‘It’s all right, miss. I’ve got you. I’ve got you now.’

  There was a smell of old leather and cigar smoke. There was a sound of brisk hoofs and a harness jangling. The noise of the city was muffled and muted.

  Eliza opened her eyes. She was curled in the corner of a cab. It was rocking and swaying, rattling along brightly lit streets that passed in a blur on the other side of the misted window. Dorothea next to her looked tired and grey as if coated with soot. Young Stan opposite was hunched over his knees, looked thin and drowsy. No one spoke. But that didn’t matter, for they were on their way back to Essex Square: at long last they were heading back to Essex Square.

  She’d not been asleep long. Before that – well, her mind was a complete jumble. She struggled to put things in order.

  ‘We can’t go on with Miss Eliza in this state,’ Smith had said in Stepnall Street. Eliza had been faint and dizzy and sick to her stomach. Dorothea had just joined them from the Swan. ‘We can’t go on,’ Smith had said – or Young Stan as Eliza had started to think of him, copying Dorothea and claiming him as their own (he was called Young Stan to distinguish him from his father, the motor man Mr Stanley Smith).

  ‘But we must – we must—’ Dorothea had appealed to them with her eyes.

  From somewhere, Eliza had found the strength to carry on. She’d been desperate not to let Dorothea down. But it all seemed like a nightmare now as she sat in the hansom cab remembering: except it was worse than a nightmare because it had all been real.

  They had trudged down one street after another. ‘Papa worked here once, for this tailor . . . That is the board school I went to, they may know something . . . I seem to recognize that pawnbroker’s. . . .’ Always the same question: ‘I’m looking for Mr Ryan, Mr Frank Ryan, have you seen him?’ And always the same reply: ‘No, don’t know him, never heard of him.’

  Daylight had seeped away. A smoky dusk had fallen. Men had come swarming along the streets, heading home.

  ‘The docks,’ Dorothea had said, seeing them: ‘sometimes Papa got casual work at the docks.’

  Eliza remembered seeing crates piled up and mountains of sacks. The river had been wide and flat in the gloaming with a forest of sails and funnels and masts. There had been much hooting and tooting and a deep, throbbing horn. Smoke billowed, steam rose in clouds. The sky had been streaked with red and purple as the light faded.

  At last Young Stan had said, ‘We’ve done all we can, Miss Dorothea.’

  ‘But we can’t give up – we mustn’t!’

  ‘Tomorrow. We’ll come back tomorrow.’

  That was when they’d hailed the cab, an old-fashioned cab, rather battered, driven by a battered cabman, pulled by a horse with blinkers.

  Young Stan had helped Dorothea and Eliza inside. ‘Essex Square, please, mate.’

  ‘Right y’are, guv’nor.’

  Essex Square. No words had ever sounded so blessed.

  Eliza closed her eyes once more. She was rocked back to sleep by the movement of the cab.

  ‘Tea, Miss Eliza.’

  Stan was shaking her gently. She stirred, yawned, sat up on the settee. He handed her a cup, no saucer.

  ‘The cure-all, my ma calls it.’

  The tea was hot, sweet, tasted wonderful. ‘And there’s a fire, too!’

  ‘I found some coals. And Miss Dorothea is making dinner.’

  The room looked different, cosier, with the dust sheets gone and flames leaping in the grate. The electric lights gave out a friendly glow. The curtains were drawn, shutting out the world.

  She watched Stan shovel more coal on the fire and prod it with the poker. Where did he find his energy? She felt rinsed out, drained, empty.

  But what a nice man he was, Young Stan: rough-and-ready but with what Daisy would call ‘a heart of gold’. Eliza felt remorse for ever thinking him coarse and crude, for secretly calling him a beanpole and mocking his spots and crooked teeth. When had she learned to be so cruel? What did crooked teeth matter when you had a heart of gold?

  She lay back on the sofa thinking of a picnic last summer –
only last summer. She had gone with Dorothea and Roderick. Young Stan had driven them and lugged the hamper across the fields. Eliza remembered the heat and the sunshine, the butterflies and the elder blossom. She had pretended to be the Queen of all the Flowers – it made her blush to think of it – and Stan had happily played along. He had knelt in supplication. ‘Your Majesty,’ he had said.

  She had liked him so much that day. What had happened since to make her indifferent? Why must she be so fickle?

  Fickle: a word Roderick often used of her. But Stan wasn’t fickle, thank goodness. Without him today—

  But she didn’t want to think about that. She shuddered, thrusting all the memories of today to one side.

  ‘Stan?’

  ‘Yes, miss?’

  ‘Won’t you be in awful trouble for driving us to London? Won’t Mama be cross?’

  ‘I expect so, miss. And if she goes and tells my old man there’ll be ructions for sure.’ He sounded remarkably cheerful at the prospect. Nothing seemed to dishearten him. ‘I don’t mind, miss: not when it’s for Miss Dorothea’s sake. I’ve a lot of time for Miss Dorothea. I was homesick like you wouldn’t believe when I first came to Clifton. Miss Dorothea was the only one who really spoke to me in the beginning. She helped me settle in. But that’s in the past now. I’ll be leaving Clifton soon.’

  ‘Oh Stan, must you?’

  ‘I’ve had my go at chauffeuring. I’ve learned how to handle a motor car. Next I’ll find out how to build one. I’m for the factory back home in Coventry. It’s our Jeff’s turn to skivvy. He’ll have to learn to mind his Ps and Qs for a change!’

  ‘I shall miss you so much, Stan!’

  He smiled, showing his crooked teeth: the nicest crooked teeth in all the world. ‘It’s decent of you to say so, miss. I shall miss you, too, and Miss Dorothea and everyone, all my mates. I’ve enjoyed my time at Clifton, seeing how the other half live and getting to know the countryside. I’ve made some good mates, too: Bill Turner for one. We’ve had some right old times down the Barley Mow, me and Bill.’

  Eliza wrinkled her nose. Billy Turner was Daisy’s brother. He worked in the stables at home. A rather dour young man, she was always overawed by him if she happened to meet him.

  Young Stan laughed at her expression. ‘He’s all right, is Bill. A man of few words but a fine fellow underneath. But I must go, miss, and give a helping hand with dinner. We can’t leave it all to Miss Dorothea.’

  Eliza sat up. ‘What can I do to be useful?’

  ‘You just rest, miss, and finish your tea.’

  ‘But I want to help. Please let me help.’

  ‘I suppose you could lay the table by-and-by, if you feel up to it.’

  She did feel up to it. She felt quite restored. Talking with Stan had helped, and the tea, and the memories of last summer when she’d been so happy. But when Stan had left the room and she was cradling her cup on the settee, she seemed to feel a cold draught coming under the door. The flames in the grate danced and flickered. Her eyes strayed to the window, the closed curtains. Outside it was dark. Outside was London. Outside—

  She jumped up. Outside didn’t matter. She didn’t want to think about outside. She had a part to play here indoors, the table to lay. She would do it right away.

  The sausages were charred, the gravy clotted, the puréed potatoes lumpy.

  ‘Cook’s puréed potatoes are so smooth and creamy,’ sighed Dorothea. ‘I’ve no idea how she does it.’

  But Stan insisted that the puréed potatoes (which he called mash) were delicious and the meal every bit as good as his ma’s cooking. Eliza thought Dorothea a marvel, able to conjure it all up from nothing. Where did you even begin? Where did sausages come from? And gravy: what exactly was gravy?

  Back upstairs in the drawing room after dinner, they were snug with the fire glowing and sleepy after the long day and the journey overnight. It was all but impossible to believe that they’d still been at Clifton this time yesterday.

  ‘I set out once before to find Papa,’ said Dorothea, staring at the fire as if she could see through it into the distant past. ‘Twelve years ago, it was. I was only a child. I didn’t know what I was doing. I planned to go by train but I hadn’t a farthing to my name.’ She sighed, looked down at her hands folded in her lap. ‘I should never have given up so easily. If only I’d known about those letters.’

  ‘It was Mama’s fault! She should have told you!’

  ‘It was Uncle Albert who burnt them.’

  ‘Daddy was . . . Daddy. . . .’ Eliza faltered and fell silent. It seemed improper to talk about Daddy in anything but hushed and reverent tones. But why had he burnt the letters?

  ‘Did you really live in those places we saw today, miss?’ asked Young Stan.

  Eliza shuddered. She didn’t want to talk about today, she didn’t want even to think about it. She wished she could turn the conversation to other matters but her mind was a blank. She came up in goose pimples, feeling that a nameless horror was creeping up on her, getting closer and closer.

  ‘Stepnall Street was my home,’ said Dorothea: ‘or one of my homes. There were others. But all I really remember is Stepnall Street. I’d forgotten, though, until today, what it is really like.’

  ‘We lived in some rough places when I was a kid,’ said Stan, ‘but we were never as poor as that. And now we live in the lap of luxury. My old ma has a cook and two maids, if you can believe it.’

  Eliza seized on this subject to keep the nameless horror at bay. ‘Roddy says that your ma doesn’t exist. Nobody ever sees her so she must be a figment.’

  Stan laughed. ‘She’s a bit shy, my old ma. She likes to keep herself to herself. But she’d never have raised all us kids if she was a figment. There’s five of us. Emily’s the eldest. Our Michael’s just a nipper.’

  At length it was time to go to bed. ‘We have a long day ahead of us,’ said Dorothea. ‘You go up, Eliza. I’ll finish tidying the kitchen then I’ll come and tuck you in.’

  Eliza climbed the stairs with a heavy heart. She was not sure she could stand another day like today. And that was not all. In the upheaval of the quest, the German boy and his letter had been all but forgotten – but not for good. He was still there, waiting. Had Dorothea been on the point of telling Mama she had accepted his proposal when the burnt letters had intruded? Did Dorothea really want to marry a German? Did she love him? What was love?

  There were footsteps on the stairs behind her. ‘Not in bed yet, miss?’

  ‘Stan. . . ?’

  ‘What is it, miss?’

  ‘What is love like? Have you ever loved anyone?’

  ‘A girl, you mean? One or two have caught my eye, you might say, but I’ve never had a proper sweetheart. Then again, I’m only nineteen. There’s plenty of time for all that.’

  They had reached the landing. Stan opened the door to her room.

  ‘Here you go, miss. Your bed’s all ready, Miss Dorothea’s seen to it. What’s wrong? Don’t you want to go to bed?’

  ‘I. . . .’ She couldn’t explain. She couldn’t tell him that when the door was shut she’d be all on her own with no defence against the nameless horror. She couldn’t tell him about her dread of tomorrow.

  ‘There’s no need to worry, miss. I’ll be right here in the next room and Miss Dorothea’s just along the corridor. If you’ve a . . . a bad dream or anything you’ve only to call out. Don’t go mithering yourself about tomorrow, either. I’m sure Miss Dorothea won’t mind if you stay here instead of coming with us. She’s got me to help her, after all.’

  Eliza felt a rush of gratitude. He seemed to understand without the need for words.

  She smiled, imagining what Mama would say if she knew that Stan was making free with the best bedrooms; Roderick too (His name’s Smith, not Stan, he’s a servant). But what did Roderick know!

  She paused before she closed the door. ‘Stan. . . .’

  ‘Yes, miss?’

  ‘Night-night, Stan.’


  ‘Sweet dreams, Miss Eliza.’

  Chapter Four

  Eliza sat in the servants’ hall, her head resting on the well-scrubbed deal table. She was alone but quite safe. She had explored every inch of 28 Essex Square over the last two days. Not a mouse, not a cockroach, not even a spider was to be found: only a dead bluebottle lying on its back on the windowsill of one of the guest bedrooms.

  Having the run of the place while Dorothea and Stan were out continuing the quest, Eliza had thought it would be fun to play at servants. There was no one to stop her trespassing in the servants’ domain: the basement, the attics, the back stairs. But when in one of the attic bedrooms she had unrolled a mattress and lain down – pretending to be Daisy – all enthusiasm for her game had slowly evaporated. The mattress was rather thin. She had been able to feel the bed springs. The sloping ceiling had seemed to press down on her so she felt squashed and trapped.

  Daisy had not been with them at Essex Square before Easter. She had been left at home. It was just as well: she would not have liked sleeping in the attic, Eliza was sure. Daisy would have grumbled. Daisy always grumbled. She was that kind of girl. ‘Daisy Turner should count her blessings,’ the housemaid Sally Kirkham often said. ‘She gets to go home every evening and see her family. I see my family only once a year on my week off.’ But Eliza, whilst lying on the attic bed, had begun to wonder if Daisy might have cause to grumble. She had to get up at five o’clock every morning, she had to trek all the way from the village whatever the weather and in the dark in winter. At Clifton she had a list of duties as long as her arm and was run off her feet all day. She was called Turner and not Daisy (except by Dorothea) and was at everyone’s beck and call. Worst of all, she had the housekeeper Mrs Bourne breathing down her neck. Roderick called the housekeeper the Dreadnought: she really was as terrifying as a battleship. Eliza kept out of her way as much as possible.

  Getting up off the attic bed, Eliza had gone to the little window, looking out at all the sloping roofs and rows of chimneys. There were so many houses – so many different attics where other Daisys must sleep on equally thin mattresses. The truth was, Eliza realized as she leant out of the window high above the Square, that there were far more Daisys in the world than there were Elizas. But that was not all. There were people even worse off than Daisy: the sort of people who lived in the cramped squalor of Stepnall Street.