by Hannah Parry
“No.” His eyes blazed as he looked at her. “But if you harm one hair on her head, I will kill you.”
Isabella nodded. “I know.”
It took one hour to spoon all of the mixture into Lily ensuring it all went down her throat and not down the bedcovers. Ruby continued to bathe her with the mint-scented water and William kept the pots warming on the fire. Wrapping her back up into her blankets, they laid her gently back against the pillowed wall.
“How long before we will know if she’s to get better… or not?” asked Zachariah, darting a low glance over to Isabella, devoid, for the first time, of anger.
“Soon I hope.”
Lily started to cough with a tight rasp, not the loose rattle for which Isabella had hoped. She pulled back the blanket and took a quick look at Lily’s chest, fear making its presence known again. Lily’s little chest, and now stomach, was pulling in with the effort of her breathing. Isabella’s heart sank.
“What is it?” asked Zachariah who she’d felt watching her every expression.
“I need to make a rub for her chest. I need to loosen what’s inside her. It’s drowning her. Though I can rid her of fever, it means nothing unless she can bring up what’s in her chest. The infection will just return.”
“What do you need?” Zachariah was on his feet, but Isabella was silent.
“Come on, what do you need? Speak to me!”
“I need Olive Oil, Oil of Cloves and, and…”
“What!”
“Oil of Amber.”
Zachariah’s face fell.
“How much?”
“Four tablespoons.”
Zachariah put his head in his hands.
“Well, that’s that then. We can’t afford it.” Isabella nodded. Oil of Amber was equal in price to gold. She took a deep breath, unsure and afraid. Every part of her wished she weren’t in this situation, wished she’d never met Midge, wished, of all the children who could have become ill, it hadn’t been Lily. Beneath her feet she felt a cliff crumble, but she reached deep into her father’s bag and brought out Mrs Trotter’s emerald earrings. They sparkled in the firelight as she held them out to Zachariah.
“We can afford it… just make sure you give me the change.”
For the first time ever Zachariah smiled at her, a genuine smile which reached his eyes. For a moment the worry was erased.
“What else have you got in there I ought to know about?” He nodded toward the bag.
“Not a single thing,” she smiled back at him, tiredly.
She’d just given away part of her ticket home not even sure it would help, but she knew what Abhaya would have done in her position.
Zachariah was back within the hour.
Isabella ran her hands gently over Lily’s back as Lily lay on her front over Isabella’s lap and gradually brought up mouthful after mouthful of thick green phlegm from her infected lungs. Isabella lay her back down on her bed for a rest. Was it her imagination or was Lily’s colour just a little better? The sky was drifting from black to snowy grey and the bells of St Paul’s were tolling for Matins. All around the den were sleeping children. She pulled the blankets around Lily and then sat silent for a moment. Zachariah moved next to her and smoothed Lily’s hair from her forehead.
Lily opened her eyes.
“Zachariah?”
Zachariah leaned down with a tender look on his face.
“Lily-Loo. There you are. You’ve been a-wanderin’.”
“I’m thirsty.”
Zachariah lifted some water to her dry white lips and then laid her back down. She went straight back to sleep.
He looked at Isabella.
“Thank you.”
The evening after Lily’s illness, Isabella and Midge had done a couple of hours down at Smithfield, leaving a pale, but sulky, Lily in her brother and Ruby’s tender care. Isabella had been glad to escape the sickroom for a few hours and she and Midge had strolled down to London Bridge to see the new gas lanterns which had been lit all along it. It was a cloudy night again, but not so cold as before and she and Midge lingered on London Bridge looking in the windows of the jewellery shops and gazing at the eerie yellow glow the lamps made in the foggy air. Isabella found a gap between the houses and leant out. Beneath her lay the docks filled with masted ships too tall to get under the bridge. Her breath smoked in front of her as she sought out the Wentworth, but it was too misty and she couldn’t read any of the ships’ names.
“Wotcha looking at?” Midge joined her at the wooden rail.
“Nothing really,” she replied, not wanting to appear weak, when really she was breathless with homesickness.
“I’d love to go on one of them boats, when I’m older. I can join the navy when I’m twelve.” Isabella smiled and Midge continued. “What was it like on your ship? Was it exciting?”
Isabella raised her eyebrows.
“Not exactly,” thinking of the tedium of Mrs Trotter’s company. “But I saw some amazing things like Dolphins off the coast of Africa and flying fish and even pirates!”
Midge’s eyes were on stalks.
“Pirates? You wasn’t robbed though?”
Isabella shook her head.
“No, nothing so exciting. They were in a ship far far away from us, but I heard the crew talking about it and I went to look. I could see the ship, but I couldn’t see their flag.”
“I expect it was a skull and crossbones,” Midge thought for a moment. “Maybe I’ll be a pirate instead. Then when you teach me your trick I’ll be able to make them gamble all their doubloons and I’ll buy me own ship and I’ll sail the seven seas and I’ll be rich.” But Isabella wasn’t listening. Midge talked so much she’d found she could only realistically absorb only half of what he said, the rest of the time she just smiled and nodded.
Had it really been only six weeks since she’d arrived? Her arrival at this very dock seemed faded and hazy in her memory. She must have changed a great deal since she’d been here.
“Let’s walk down there,” she headed off down to where the cobbled road led down from the bridge to the riverside. Noise came from every direction for this part of London never slept. Its rhythms were the tides and winds, and its clocks were the moon’s quarters which changed every day. A large and noisy party passed them. Isabella’s nose caught the familiar smells of tamarind and cumin and heard an exasperated voice speak in Hindi.
“Just tell her she will have to wait! We will be on board soon. Hai Mai, which god is it I have so displeased that he sends me these women to deal with?” The owner of the voice was round, fiftyish and in possession of a fine set of grey moustaches. His turban and cummerbund were deep pink and he had the air of a wealthy trader. He rode a fine black horse and in an open carriage behind him rode an assortment of women and children chattering like parakeets, beautiful in their plumage.
Isabella felt as if someone had pulled her in from the cold and, without thinking, she attached herself to the running board of the carriage, Midge hitching a lift unseen at the back.
“Gerrof there!” Snapped the driver, cracking his whip at Isabella, but she spoke hastily to the women.
“Good day, honourable Sahibas. From which ship is it you sail to our homeland? Or is it not my beloved India to which you return?” One of the women, the oldest and most senior, wife held up her hand for the carriage to stop.
“What is this? A child of Belait who speaks our tongue as her own? I would never have expected to see such a thing. What are you doing here child?” She opened the carriage door and Isabella salaamed as deeply as she could from where she was standing.
“I find myself here as my father, a British soldier, is dead and I was sent here to learn a profession until I am of age.”
“But you do not look like the child of a regiment. You look like an urchin, a vagabond. It is only because your accent shows you are well born that I have stopped this carriage for you. How is it you come to be thus?” By this time the merchant had ridden his horse back to th
e side of the carriage.
“It is a long story, Madam, which I feel you do not have the time to hear, and I will not delay you.”
The woman nodded.
“So be it. We sail on the Indus tonight.”
“Is she a fast ship?”
The merchant looked at her.
“She is and she is the last to sail until Spring, but what of it?”
“I hope to return home one day.”
The merchant gave a gentle smile and spoke in English.
“With respect, Miss, you do not look as if you are in any position to be able to return to your homeland. How will you afford it?”
Isabella’s face went pink.
“I am saving and…”
“We work the markets, Isabella does tricks.”
The merchant’s face clouded.
“So you take hard earned money from honest people?” Isabella’s face flamed further. This had been a very bad idea and she cursed her desperation to hear voices from home.
“We have to live, Sir.”
The merchant banged his crop against his boot and nodded at his driver who got out a coin.
“I would stay in this country if I were you. You look like nothing more than a street child, and India doesn’t need any more of those.” He leant down and held a coin out to Isabella, but she had jumped down onto the road and, ignoring his outstretched hand, she salaamed stiffly to the women.
“I am sorry to have delayed you. I had thought to engage you in a conversation of home, but I see I was mistaken.” Then she gestured to Midge who fell into place behind her.
“That was a guinea he was trying to give you.”
“He can keep it,” she spat.
Midge nodded.
“I’m sorry they didn’t want to chat. I liked listening to you talk Indian.”
Isabella sighed.
“It’s not your fault.” She walked over to the window of a shop and looked at their reflection in the glass.
“I mean, look at us.” They were both filthy and their clothes, layer upon layer, were full of holes. Grime sat under their nails and around their hairline. They were very thin, and Midge had a large cold-sore on one side of his mouth. Isabella’s hair was the only thing about herself she recognized. The tanned skin she’d had all her life from the sun had completely gone; she was more English now, she supposed, than Indian.
“I bet we smell,” she said wrinkling her nose.
Midge looked confused.
“But we went down the bathhouse two weeks ago.”
Isabella rubbed at a smudge on her cheek with a damp forefinger.
“I used to bathe every day,” she said, trying not to think of the orange scented soap and the cool slow-moving river behind the camp.
Midge looked horrified.
“‘Ere, I don’t think that’s healthy. Maybe I won’t go and live in India after all.”
She laughed, her anger and disappointment forgotten. She pulled her scarf around her more closely and came away from the window. It was getting late, the night watchman calling out eleven o’clock. The fog closed in around them and footsteps came towards them, bouncing off shiny damp walls and cobbles. Zachariah emerged out of the darkness, hands in pockets, whistling.
“Come on you two, Ruby’s starting to twitch.”
Isabella was amazed. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
“But you’ve never done that before.”
Zachariah shrugged. “Never wanted to before.”
For once Isabella had nothing to say.
Midge took Zachariah’s hand.
“We met some Indians, but they weren’t very nice to us on account of we aren’t very clean. Leastways that’s what Isabella thinks.”
Zachariah laughed, his face transformed. “Why were you talking to them then, Midgelet?”
Midge gestured with his head. “She was homesick, I think she wanted to talk Indian like she did with ’er family.”
Zachariah nodded, his face peaceful as he walked with Midge along the wall to the warehouse. A gull called in the distance, the sound travelling over the lapping water of the incoming tide.
“Well, we’re her family now, aren’t we?” Midge looked up and nodded at Zachariah, and Isabella wondered at how sometimes the moments of greatest sadness could be intertwined with those of the greatest happiness.
Chapter 5:
Promotion
Little by little, Isabella shed her former self. Her accent disappeared and her face hardened as she became accustomed to the rough and tumble of living on the streets. There were hard times, when they would go to bed with stomachs so empty, it was difficult to sleep, but the good times made these bearable. Such was Zachariah’s and her own skill at thieving, these times were rare. Sometimes she felt a prick of conscience when she thought of Abhaya and how she would have felt about Isabella’s new profession, but she made herself feel better by telling herself Abhaya would have wanted her to survive. She found she still couldn’t think of her father, it was painful enough thinking of Abhaya.
So she gave herself little time to think, and if she weren’t working outside, she’d help Ruby inside by minding the little ones or sweeping, or cleaning or even doing the dreaded laundry at the washhouse though, it has to be said, this wasn’t often. She never lost sight of her prize though, with a ferocious focus of will she hadn’t known she possessed. Sometimes she woke at night from dreams where she’d been speaking Hindi, and each time hurt just as much as the last. Although it was a great relief to be part of this group who had, no doubt, saved her life – this wasn’t home and it never would be.
“I wish you wasn’t so set on leaving,” grumbled Midge. They were standing on the sweeping steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields Church in Trafalgar Square and Isabella was adjusting her money belt, which she wore under her clothes next to her skin. She’d long ago exchanged her huge pile of coins for notes and their bulk was comforting. She ignored him.
“Where are we meeting Zachariah?”
“Hyde Park. He’s taken Lily to go and see Buckingham Palace. They’ve finished it now – very grand. Then he wants to show us some house he thinks worth knocking off. We can cut through St James’s Park and ’ave a look.” They strolled toward the Mall.
“Gaw, this Christmas thing’s really catching on. Must be as we’re in the posh part of town. It’d be worth doing one of these houses. You wouldn’t have to work for a year!” He laughed, a happy carefree sound.
“So long as you weren’t caught…” Isabella muttered under her breath.
Here in Mayfair, the snow was swept in neat piles on either side of the steps up to the front doors. It was dusk, but some houses had not yet shut their curtains, and she could see candles flickering on decorated trees. Ribbons of red and green were tied on wreaths of holly, which sat on front doors, their knobs and knockers buffed to a shine. Some houses had tiny flowering orange trees on the tables in the window, bearing real fruit. A delicious smell reached her nose, earthen and nutty.
“Chestnuts!” exclaimed Midge, dragging her across the wide causeway along which smart carriages whisked back and forth. “Come on moneybags. Lend us a penny.” The chestnuts roasted over a brazier of glowing coals and she and Midge stood basking in its warmth whilst shovelling the still-hot nuts into their mouths from greasy paper bags.
“This might actually be my favourite food of unghhh wooof.” Midge’s mouth was so full Isabella missed the last couple of words. Strolling back over to the park, Isabella could see Zachariah in the distance. A warmly-wrapped Lily sat on his shoulders.
“What is their story Midge?”
Midge, lulled by the warmth in his stomach, said idly, “No one knows really, but there’s a rumour his mum was hanged.”
Isabella was horrified, but she forced her voice to keep even.
“That’s terrible.”
“Yeah, ’specially as the word was she was innocent.”
“Innocent of what?”
“She was working as a maid, but she was beautiful and one of the toffs wanted more than just his bed made… if you catch my drift?” Isabella nodded. “Well, that toff was Lily’s dad, and when Zach’s mum couldn’t work no more, he threw her out. After she’d had the baby she took it back to the big house, trying to get ’im to give her money for food and clothes, but they threw her into the street and had her arrested for slander.”
“What’s that?”
Midge spat out a shell.
“Telling lies. Normally you wouldn’t get hanged for that, but they say the toff paid off the judge, who then sent her to the gallows. Zachariah was seven and Lil’ was one.”
“That’s so sad. What happened to them after that?”
“They were left on the street. Zachariah had to learn fast.” Isabella nodded. “He’s been paying back toffs ever since – he hates them.”
“I don’t blame him. Shh now, here they come.”
Lily’s cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright, any sign of her brush with death long gone.
“Isabella! We’ve seen soldiers, all in red coats with shiny boots.” Zach swung her down.
“Yeah we did. Very posh around here, I reckon there’s rich pickings to be had if we had half a mind.”
Isabella wasn’t sure.
“Plenty of Peelers around as well,” as one walked slowly past them.
“Move on you lot, get on back to your neck of the woods.”
“We’re just looking at the new palace, sir. Nothing wrong with that is there?” Zachariah’s eyes were wide.
The Peeler narrowed his eyes.
“Well you’d better get on and look at it, as I’ll be moving you on once it’s dark.” Isabella felt Zachariah start to burn with anger.
“We’re just off Sir,” she said pulling on Zachariah’s sleeve in the direction of the palace. Tall horse chestnuts lined the sandy gallop ahead, and Buckingham Palace, glittered at them from its far end.
“Come on, it’s not worth it. Let’s go.”