The Cockney Girl

by The Cockney Girl (retail) (epub)

  ‘Now I’m telling you, I do not want you hanging around none of them cockney girls, do you hear me?’, or something similar, was to be heard in bedrooms throughout the village. In fact, more than a few of the wives of Tilnhurst spent a good part of the night keeping their husbands awake with their advice on how to behave when confronted with the immorality of the city temptresses. The women had learnt their lessons well from the gossips in the churchyard that morning. And what with the vicar’s sermon and the tales passed on from Edwin’s brother Cedric, the women of Tilnhurst had no intention of being shown up by their wayward menfolk.

  The advice being given in the billiard room of Worlington Hall, however, was of quite a different nature.

  ‘So, Robert,’ Sir George said as he straightened up from the baize-covered table. He steadied himself with his cue and tried, with great difficulty, to focus on the face of his elder son. ‘Take this as a bit of fatherly advice from your old man. From one who knows best, do you see?’ Sir George swayed alarmingly as he wagged his finger instructively at his son. ‘You just leave the maids alone for a while, understand?’ He puffed out his cheeks and belched loudly, as bile rose in his throat and a rush of gas filled his mouth. Several more loud belches punctuated his words as he continued. ‘Have fun. Yes. And why not? Good for a young fellow, a bit of fun. But not with the staff, boy. Not with the bloody staff. If you want a bit of totty, get yourself a cockney girl to fool around with.’

  ‘What’s all this sudden interest in the welfare of the servants?’ Robert asked. He surveyed his drunken father with impersonal disgust. Then he took a sip from his glass and leant back against the white marble mantelshelf. ‘Did the Reverend Batsford make you see the light this morning or something, Father? Remind you of your duty to those in your employ, did he?’

  ‘Don’t you take that impudent tone with me, Robert.’ Sir George’s body wavered as much as his voice as he struggled to remain upright.

  ‘Well, you do have to admit all this is rather a change of attitude on your part, Father. You usually couldn’t care less who we mess around with in the house, but you’ve always warned us to keep well away from the cockney girls.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Sir George, his eyes swivelling in and out of focus.

  Robert nodded. ‘Yes you did. You always reckoned they were dirty. Carry all sorts of vile diseases, you said. Now this year you’re practically ordering me to marry one.’

  ‘Are you being deliberately stupid, boy? Marriage has nothing to do with this.’

  Paul Worlington found himself having to interrupt the argument between his drunken father and his brother. Up until now it had merely bored him, but suddenly it had become rather interesting. ‘Nothing to do with marriage?’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘I wonder what Julia would have to say about that.’

  ‘Shut up, Paul,’ his brother dismissed him. ‘I want to know what Father’s up to.’

  ‘Yes. What are you up to?’ Paul was really beginning to enjoy himself.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this damned questioning.’ Sir George hissed the words through his teeth. ‘Your mother’s spoilt the pair of you. You’re like bloody women the way you carry on. Nagging and whining all the time. Why don’t you pull yourselves together. Act like men. And keep away from Garnett’s daughter.’

  ‘Good God. I’ve got it,’ grinned Paul, jubilantly thumping the arms of his chair. He stood up, walked over to the table and confronted his father face to face. ‘That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You don’t want Robert upsetting Garnett. Mustn’t offend the head gardener, eh? I mean, we don’t want to ruin the flowerbeds or the yew hedges, now do we? We have to have our priorities.’

  Delighted to have solved the mystery of his father’s sudden concern with the menials, Paul slapped his hand on the edge of the billiard table, knocking Sir George’s glass of port on to the floor. The three Worlington men ignored the shattered glass and its contents as it ran quickly over the highly polished wood. A fourth man, who had been standing silently in the corner, moved forward and bent to clear up the sticky mess and the splinters of Waterford crystal.

  Robert unfolded his arms, pushed himself away from the mantelpiece and took up position ready to play his shot. But he stopped midway through lining up the ball. He looked thoughtful, as though trying to recall some distant or insignificant event.

  ‘Which one is Garnett’s daughter anyway?’ he said.

  Chapter 5

  The Cockney Girl

  ‘’E’s all right with ’is two-bob deposit an’ ’is bloody electric. Pity ’e ain’t put up the rate ’e pays us.’ Florrie was in full flow, chatting nineteen to the dozen, not caring who, if anyone, was listening to her. She had conveniently forgotten her previous defence of her employer’s rights. ‘I wouldn’t mind a few more coppers a bushel, I can tell yer. Now a rise, that’s somethin’ as would be worth listenin’ to. Not like this rubbish. ’Ark at ’im goin’ on and on and on.’

  ‘Sssh, Florrie, yer the one ’oo’s going on,’ said Rose, running out of patience with her noisy neighbour. ‘I wanna listen to the bailiff even if you don’t.’

  ‘What’s the matter with yer, Rose? We’ve ’eard ’im read out them rotten rules on the first mornin’ of ’opping every year since we’ve been comin’ ’ere. An’ it still ain’t got no more interestin’.’

  ‘Well, Florrie, I wanna ’ear them again. Now if yer don’t mind…’

  ‘Suit yerself.’

  The bailiff finished reading his list of regulations and restrictions, then folded up the yellowing sheets of paper and put them away safely in the leather countryman’s pouch he wore at his waist. ‘So,’ he said, ‘let’s be sorting out these bins.’

  The women walked over and selected the particular bins they favoured. The big hessian bags supported on wooden frames, into which the women threw the hops after they had plucked them from the prickle-covered bines, were actually all the same, but it was customary to select a particular bin, the one that took your fancy. So they chose their bins, and when they had cleared the hops from one set, ‘their’ bins would be moved with them to the next area to be harvested.

  ‘Everyone settled?’ called the bailiff.

  ‘Yes thanks, Mr Audley,’ was mumbled up and down the rows.

  ‘Right then.’ He raised a battered horn-like instrument to his lips and blew a rasping two-tone note. ‘Let picking begin.’

  The women loved to pick the first hops of the morning. Still wet from the dew, the bines were less tough on their tender fingers, which had become unused to the work during their year away from the countryside. With a great swoosh, their hands would run down the stems and the hops would fall into the bins.

  The bins were soon swelling with their loads of plump hop cones and the air filled with the bittersweet smell of the plants; a smell so different from the stench of London, a smell so much part of being in Kent. The word was passed along the rows:

  ‘’Ere he comes, gels. Look lively, the measurer’s on ’is way.’

  And the song went up:

  Our luwerly ’ops,

  Our luwerly ’ops.

  When the measurer ’e comes round,

  Pick ’em up, pick ’em up off the ground.

  When ’e starts ’is measurin’

  ’E don’t know when to stop.

  Aye aye get in the bin An’ take the Weedin’ lot!

  Children didn’t need to be told twice; they got down and scrambled around under the bins to collect any loose hops, which they added to their mothers’ precious loads to make up the bulk for the measuring.

  A miserable, hollow-cheeked farm worker and Mr Audley the bailiff were making their way along the rows between the hop poles up which the plants were growing. The two men walked along beside a horse-drawn wagon piled high with huge sacks – the pokes – in which they were collecting the harvested hops. They stopped by Rose and Jess.

  ‘Only one bin this year, Mrs Fairleigh?’

  ‘Yeh, Mr Audley. Me young
est stayed at ’ome this year, got ’imself settled in a decent job, so we’ve only got one bin. ’E used to work the other one with ’is sister ’ere.’

  ‘Well, let’s see how you two have done between you.’

  The bailiff stood back for the farm worker to dip into the brimming hessian bin with his bushel basket. He poured the measured hops into the now half-full poke.

  ‘Well, Mrs Fairleigh,’ said the bailiff pleasantly. ‘From the look of this lot you could easily manage another bin. What do you think? Do you want another one?’

  ‘If ’e carries on measurin’ as fair as that, I do. But’s no good if ’e starts pushin’ ’em down ’ard in the basket an’ makes me lose ’alf me tally. We’ll never get nowhere then.’

  The farm worker glared at Rose. ‘You saying I’m a dishonest measurer, missus?’

  ‘No. No, I’m not,’ Rose said evenly. ‘I just speak as I find, that’s all. Everyone knows that. An’ they know yer ain’t always that fair. ‘Specially when Mr Audley ain’t around.’

  ‘Bloody foreigners,’ he hissed under his breath.

  ‘’Ark at him,’ exploded Elsie. ‘We’ve only been down ’ere a day an’ ’e’s started.’ She voiced the indignity all the women felt when dealing with the ferretfaced measurer.

  Rose half wished she hadn’t opened her mouth; she only wanted a fair measure, not a row.

  Jess spoke quickly. ‘I think I could manage a bin of me own, don’t you, Mum? I’ll work ’ard. An’ the money would come in ’andy, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘It’s up to your mother,’ the bailiff said, smiling at Jess. Mr Audley appreciated Jess’s efforts to halt the unpleasantness between Elsie and the surly measurer. Antagonised workers meant a slow harvest, which meant Sir George wouldn’t be pleased and would be sure to take it out on him.

  ‘We’ll give it a go tomorrow, Mr Audley,’ said Rose, proud of Jess’s grown-up behaviour but keen to show she wasn’t to be taken for a ride. ‘After I’ve ’ad a chance to keep me eye on ’im an’ ’is bushel basket for the rest of the day.’

  ‘That’s settled then.’ The bailiff unhooked a notched stick from a metal hoop that he wore hanging from his belt. ‘Here’s your tally, Mrs Fairleigh. Five bushels, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Rose agreed. ‘Mind yer,’ she added, staring at the sour-faced measurer, ‘yer could give us a proper ’opping book, yer know. We don’t ’ave to ’ave tally sticks. Me daughter can read, see. An’ do ’er sums. Yer could keep a written total for us if yer liked.’

  ‘Well, she’s one up on Theo here,’ laughed the bailiff. ‘No good asking him for a written tally, he can hardly make his mark.’

  The measurer never answered, but he would have plenty to say when he went back to his cottage. He would make sure he told his wife every detail of what had happened; how Gerald Audley had made him look a fool in front of these low women. The bailiff siding with the foreigners against him – it wasn’t right, it wasn’t the natural order of things. The Reverend Batsford had called them ‘heathen city filth’ and that’s what they were; vermin. What did Audley think he was doing taking the part of the foreigners against a homedweller, and being so friendly with them? What was in it for him? The measurer’s wife would be very interested in all this, especially as Mrs Audley, the bailiff’s wife, thought herself a cut above the labourers’ families. She wouldn’t be so fancy in church next Sunday if she could see her husband smiling and laughing with these harlots. Let her show off with her fancy ways then.

  The first measuring of the day was also the signal for the women and children to stop picking and take a break. Faggot fires, miniature versions of those outside their huts, were started near the bins, and kettle props stuck in beside them. As the water was boiling, loaves were cut and jam or dripping spread on to the thick doorsteps of bread. The hoppers sat warming themselves in the morning sun, eating their bread and drinking their tea.

  ‘Mum,’ Winnie shouted, ‘look at them twins’ ’ands.’

  Florrie looked at her sons, who were already on to their third bits of bread. ‘Sidney, Albert, what yer been up to, yer pair of tripe’ounds? Yer ’ands are lousy. Where’ve yer both been?’ Her voice rose ominously. ‘Answer yer mother.’

  ‘Nothin’, Mum. Honest.’ Sidney’s innocent reply was spoiled when he added, ‘Anyway, look at ’er hands. All covered in brown they are. Yuck!’

  ‘’Er ’ands are brown ’cos she’s been ’elpin’ yer mum with the ’ops,’ said Lil, butting into the Baxter family’s row. ‘Not like you, yer lazy little devils. Yer look like yer’ve been in the pigsty. An’ yer smell like it an’ all.’

  Albert jumped to his feet and thumbed his nose at his sister’s friend, shouting, ‘That’s ’cos we ’ave been playin’ in the pigsty, if yer must know. An’ just like you they was, Lil. Big an’ fat an’ ugly.’

  With that, Albert and his twin dropped on to all fours and started bouncing around, grunting and snorting like pigs.

  ‘Yeh, just like yer they was, Lil,’ echoed Sidney, ‘big an’ fat an’ ugly.’

  ‘Come on, girls.’ Lil grabbed Jess’s arm and Winnie followed as they chased the screaming twins through the hop gardens towards the orchards.

  ‘Dunno where them kids get their energy from,’ said Elsie, spluttering crumbs of bread and jam over everyone as she tore off another great mouthful with her cracked brown teeth. ‘We’ve only been pickin’ a few hours an’ I’m bloody exhausted already.’

  ‘Yer always exhausted, Elsie,’ said Florrie. ‘I’ve never seen no one always so ready for either a bit of kip or a bellyful of grub.’

  Elsie ignored her and stretched out flat on her back on the sun-warmed earth, eating all the while.

  ‘It’s ’cos they’re young,’ said Mabel Lawrence wistfully. ‘That’s why they’re so lively.’

  Rose handed Mabel some of the cold toast she had brought with her from the hut. She had seen the young widow feeding her pale, listless children, and having nothing left for herself. It was something Rose herself had done often enough in the past.

  ‘Try a bit of this toast and dripping, Mabel,’ she said, nodding her encouragement. ‘All jelly bottoms it is. Lovely. Put ’airs on yer chest, that will.’

  ‘Ta, Rose.’ Mabel bit ravenously into the bread. ‘I could do with somethin’ an’ all. Just watchin’ them young ‘uns runnin’ around makes me feel whacked out.’

  ‘Yer ain’t exactly a granny yerself,’ said Florrie spitefully.

  ‘I might as well be,’ sighed Mabel. ‘I feel like one.’

  ‘That’s ’aving three babies an’ no old man to bring ’ome a few bob for yer. We know it ain’t easy, Mabel.’ Rose looked at the prematurely aged woman, not with pity but with concern as Mabel’s youngest, a skinny, sickly baby, sucked at Mabel’s flattened, almost milkless breast. ‘Tell yer what, ’ow about if my Jessie ’elps yer, once they’ve finished their gallopin’ about? Yer’ll get plenty picked then. She’s got enough energy for ten, that one.’

  ‘Would she, Rose? That’d be smashin’. I could really do with a bit extra.’

  ‘I thought she was going to ’ave a bin of ’er own, Rose,’ said Florrie, relishing the opportunity to add her two penn’orth. ‘That’s what yer said to the bailiff, I ’eard yer. Yer said, “Mr Audley, Jess is gonna…’”

  ‘No, Florrie. I didn’t, as it ’appens. Yer must ’ave been earwiggin’ for a change an’ ’eard all wrong.’

  Rose didn’t want bad feelings with her neighbours but sometimes Florrie Baxter could really stick her nose in where it wasn’t wanted. Quite deliberately, Rose turned her back on Florrie and handed Mabel a thick china cup of steaming tea.

  ‘Jess’ll be glad to ’elp yer, Mabel,’ she said. ‘An’ I’ll be glad to get ’er out of me ’air for a bit.’

  Rose’s last comment was a lie and all the women knew it, but they didn’t say anything. Except Florrie Baxter, of course. Florrie couldn’t resist rubbing it in; she had to say something.

  ‘An’ I alwa
ys thought yer precious Jessie was the apple of yer eye,’ she said huffily. ‘Still, I suppose it’s very generous of yer to do yer duty to Mabel.’

  ‘What I do is out of friendship, not duty,’ Rose said without bothering to turn to face Florrie. She poured herself a cup of tea, and topped up Mabel’s to the brim. ‘An’ I’m proud to number Mabel amongst me friends, an’ I ’ope she feels the same.’

  Elsie grinned with pleasure at Florrie’s discomfort and treated herself to another pipeful of her favourite evil-smelling tobacco, which she packed down hard with the end of her filthy thumb.

  ‘Yer a nosy tart, Florrie,’ she said happily.

  Jess and Winnie finally caught up with the twins beyond the hop gardens, where the cherry orchards began. The girls held the unfortunate pair firmly by the wrists until Lilly came puffing up behind them.

  ‘So, I look like a pig, do I?’ Lil asked. She stood in front of the boys, hands on hips, feet apart. ‘Did yer know that pigs bite? ’Specially little boys.’

  The brothers struggled but were held fast by Jess and Winnie.

  ‘Yer leave us alone,’ wailed Albert, ‘or our mum’ll get yer. Then yer’ll be sorry.’

  ‘Don’t bank on it, Albert,’ said his sister menacingly, ‘Mum said we was to give yer an extra four-penny one round the ear ’ole. Just for ’er.’ Winnie raised her hand in threat.

  ‘I bet she didn’t,’ Albert wailed. ‘We’re ’er favourites we are, me an’ Sid. She ’ates you, Winnie. She told me.’

  Albert’s sauciness was a mistake. The three girls started the torture. They tickled the boys until they yelled for mercy and then tickled them some more. Their squeals sounded far more like piglets than their earlier efforts at impersonation had done.

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’

  At the sound of the authoritative male voice, the three girls and their prisoners stopped brawling immediately and turned to see who was speaking.