It had been quite by chance that she and Amelia had found Liza lying in the gutter. They had been choosing silks for their new spring gowns and they, like Julia, had been totally absorbed in the vanities of their own comfortable lives as they made their way from shop to exclusive shop. At first Leonore had thought it was a heap of rags which someone had dumped in the street. Then she had seen the pool of blood spreading darkly on the ground. Holding her lace-trimmed handkerchief to her nose, Leonore went closer to the wretched bundle.
‘Careful, Leonore,’ warned Amelia, ‘I think it’s a beggar. They carry all manner of diseases.’
Leonore ignored her cousin’s cautions and gingerly poked the rags with her parasol, which she held at full arm’s length in her gloved hand. The shapeless lump gave a pathetic moan and moved stiffly. The sudden realisation that she was looking into the dull eyes of a child of barely thirteen years old made Leonore gasp with horror.
‘For God’s sake, Amelia, quick, help me.’
* * *
By promising him a substantial tip, Amelia finally persuaded a hansom driver to accept them as passengers. Their luck continued. He knew of a place where ‘the likes of ’er’, as he referred to the child, were welcomed.
He drove them down dirt-strewn thoroughfares and shadowy back alleys populated by huddled, shabbily dressed figures, doing whatever they could to scrape a living from the streets of London. Being unaccustomed to the smells of sick, unwashed flesh, the cousins found the journey in the closed confines of the cab difficult to bear, having the wretched girl slumped miserably between them. The driver seemed to be taking an extraordinarily long time to reach their destination. Eventually they stopped in a side road off the Covent Garden market.
Amelia threw open the cab door with an undisguised exclamation of relief. But once the cousins saw where the driver had actually brought them, they would gladly have remained in the hansom with their malodorous fellow passenger. They were in a place that was so different from the London they knew, they might have been in another world.
The cabman climbed down from his perch and knocked at a small, badly painted wooden door set in a high, blank wall. Two women came out and, without asking any questions, gently lifted the exhausted child from her seat, half carrying, half walking her through the door into the mysterious building.
‘What do you think we should do now, Leo?’ asked Amelia, keeping her arms close to her sides, as though it would protect her from the surrounding grimness.
Leonore paused for just a moment. ‘In for a penny.’
She shrugged her shoulders, paid the cabman his fare and the promised bonus, and led her protesting cousin inside.
* * *
That afternoon, as they sat in the dingy little office drinking tea from thick, ugly china, the cousins’ lives were changed for ever. They learnt from Charlotte, a helper at the hospital-cum-soup-kitchen, that Liza, the girl they had found, was in no way a unique case. She was just another one of the many young prostitutes driven by need and desperation to the probings of the filthy knitting needles and the hot, emetic gin of the backstreet abortionists.
‘The lucky ones finish up here with us,’ Charlotte said, offering the two astounded women more tea from a large, plain brown pot. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking what happens to the others.’
‘But she’s only a child,’ protested Leonore, unable to take in the enormity of what she was hearing. ‘It isn’t possible.’
‘In your circles, maybe not,’ said Charlotte. ‘But where she comes from she’s probably been looking after herself since she was a lot younger than she is now. And God knows how many brothers and sisters she has to feed.’
‘And you?’ said Amelia, unable to conceal her curiosity. ‘What circles do you come from that you know so much about these girls?’
‘What is a “lady” like me doing in a place like this, do you mean?’
Amelia flushed. ‘I did not mean to be impolite. I apologise.’
‘No, please, don’t be embarrassed,’ said Charlotte.
‘l realise I seem out of place in these surroundings.’ She cast her eyes around the dull, cramped room. ‘It’s been a strange journey.’ She paused, picking nonexistent fluff from her skirt. ‘Like several of my friends I became involved with the suffrage movement. Now I’m sure you’ve both heard all about that.’
‘Of course,’ said Amelia, glancing anxiously at Leonore from under her lashes.
‘Well,’ said Charlotte, smiling and relaxing a little for the first time since they had met her. ‘Don’t believe all you’ve heard, or read, about us. We are not all crazed monsters.’
Unlike Charlotte, Amelia did not feel at all relaxed. She shifted in her seat, thinking up excuses to leave as quickly as possible.
‘Are you saying the newspaper stories about your exploits are untrue?’ asked Leonore, more interested than her cousin would have liked.
‘What I am saying,’ said Charlotte, ‘is that the newspapers choose not to tell the whole truth. Rather they offer their own version. The version which suits their own ends. The truth of what things are really like is, thus, so often lost.’
Leonore nodded uncertainly. She was most definitely not convinced by Charlotte, but something about this intriguing young woman’s sincerity made her keen to hear more.
Charlotte was happy to continue. ‘I have brothers, you see…’
‘This is absolutely fascinating,’ said Amelia, ‘but I really think we should be going. The shops will be closing soon, Leo, and we’ve so much to do.’
‘Please, Amelia, let her finish.’
Charlotte looked at Amelia. Amelia replied with a noncommittal but resigned shrug.
‘Thank you,’ said Charlotte graciously. ‘My brothers. You see, one day they will become powerful men. All of them. They are the sorts of men who will run this country. They will have the power and influence to make decisions which will affect us all. They are no cleverer than I. And no wiser. And they certainly have no greater understanding of what goes on in this capital of ours. But they will have the opportunity to run things. To change things. Maybe for the better, but probably for the worse.’ She looked questioningly at Amelia. ‘And what is there for me? Marriage, perhaps, to someone just like them?’
‘Would that be so bad?’ asked Amelia, attending unnecessarily to the fingers of her kid gloves.
‘No, maybe not. But it wouldn’t be enough,’ continued Charlotte passionately. ‘I wanted the vote more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. Not that I’ve ever had to want for anything very much,’ she laughed. ‘In material terms I have never wanted for anything, in fact. Not personally. But I wanted to have the chance to say how things should be. What is right and wrong in this world of ours. So I became involved with the WSPU. The Suffragettes.’
‘Quite,’ said Amelia sharply.
Used to such reactions, Charlotte went on with a thin smile. ‘One day, at a meeting in the East End, in a tiny room behind a shop, I had the great good fortune to meet Sylvia Pankhurst. A truly amazing woman. It was she who changed my views.’
‘Are you saying she is not one of your campaigners?’ asked Leonore, clearly engrossed by what she was learning.
‘It is not that straightforward,’ explained Charlotte.
‘Through Sylvia I became involved in the work here. Sylvia’s campaigns go far wider than battling for the vote.’
Even Amelia became stirred as Charlotte began to tell the stories of the women and girls who came to the centre. Neither cousin interrupted; they sat quite still and listened to Charlotte’s chronicling of the poverty, hardship and cruelties, as she described, all too accurately, the existence endured by the people from the slums.
She told them about the tragically short lives of women worn down by work, childbirth and brutality; of men too weak to earn a crust even if they could find a job; of the criminal path that was, for so many, the only way out. They learnt, that afternoon, about injustice.
They also heard about
the people who, like Charlotte, had dedicated their lives to improving the lot of others – no matter who they were, or how they lived – people who offered no moral judgements, just their help and comfort.
At last, Charlotte put down her cup and saucer on the shabby, overcrowded desk.
‘You must forgive me,’ she said diffidently. ‘I do preach rather when I get the chance.’ Charlotte need not have worried. She had quite won over both the cousins with her moving words.
Since that first day when they had met Charlotte, their lives had been transformed. With their newfound understanding, they gradually peeled away layer after layer of deceit, unveiling to themselves the inequalities which supported their comfortable lives, unmasking the everyday hypocrisies which tricked privileged ladies such as themselves into thinking that all was well with the world.
The once complacent cousins were now committed to their newly discovered cause of righting injustice. On more than one occasion they wondered how they had once been so blind to what was under their very noses, their fervent, if naive, enthusiasm making them impatient for change. Not only did they work as volunteers at the centre, but Leonore determined to improve the conditions in which the hoppers worked at Worlington Hall and Amelia wanted to rescue all the girls from the streets surrounding her London home.
They both did what they could, but soon realised the strength of opposition to even what they considered the most insignificant of proposals. But it was not until they attended a public suffrage meeting and witnessed the hatred and physical violence directed at the Suffragettes that they fully realised the enormity of the situation in which they had become involved. To see women being struck to the ground with truncheons, simply for stating their beliefs, terrified them. It also made them determined to continue with their part in the struggle.
‘I said, do you think it appropriate to wear ivory rather than white silk with my complexion.’ Julia’s insistent, almost petulant voice pulled Leonore back to the present.
‘I am sorry, Julia, I’m afraid I didn’t hear you properly. What did you say, my dear?’
Leonore looked from Julia to the soot-streaked train window, and watched the rows of grubby houses pass by. She could imagine the deprived lives of their, ruled by the noise, stench and dirt of the railway. She looked back at Julia and saw she was still talking, her pert, rouged little mouth forming each word into a sulky pout. Leonore closed her eyes – a moment longer than a blink. She sighed. She must keep calm. Amelia would be waiting for them at the station. Then she had the whole week to look forward to. Amelia would help Leonore sort out a position for Milly, and they would share all the latest news about the centre and their work.
Leonore could put up with Julia’s nonsense for a bit longer.
* * *
Rose leaned forward over the bin, bent almost double with the racking cough which convulsed her whole body.
‘Mum. Yer all right?’ Jess put her arm round her mother’s shoulders, trying to still the spasms that were shaking her.
Rose got her breath back at last. ‘I’m fine, darlin’. Fine. Yer go back an’ ’elp Mabel for a bit.’
‘Yer sure I can’t do nothin’, Mum?’
Jess was worried. It was usual to have a cough for a few days, as the filth and muck from the London smogs cleared out of the hoppers’ lungs, but they had been down there for over a week now, and Rose was still coughing. If anything, she sounded worse. It wasn’t right.
‘Honestly, Jess. Go on. It’s a real pleasure seein’ Mabel an’ the kids perkin’ up. Yer go over an’ ’elp ’er a bit more.’
‘If yer really sure, Mum.’
In an effort to convince Jess she could cope just, Rose stood herself upright and began picking like it was the first day of hopping. She knew that coughs like hers, caused by living in the foul and filthy atmosphere of the East End, got harder to shift as the years went by. And she was no spring chicken any more, even if she didn’t like admitting it. Like plenty of other women from her neighbourhood, she’d just have to put up with it. It was no use feeling sorry for herself, there was plenty worse off. Mabel Lawrence for one.
Rose spoke gruffly to her daughter. ‘I’ve told yer enough times, ’aven’t I, Jess? Go an’ ’elp ’er.’
Reluctant as she was to leave her mother to pick alone, Jess had to agree that it was true what Rose said about Mabel and her children. The four of them were blooming. The combination of clean country air and the diet of fresh eggs and milk, which Winnie’s twin brothers seemed to keep ‘finding’ for the Lawrences, had worked a kind of magic on the family. Even the baby had a bit of colour in its thin, pinched little face.
When the nurse had come round on the second day of picking to inspect them all, Mabel had been terrified that she would be singled out and sent home. No farmer wanted to risk a sick hopper causing an epidemic amongst his pickers and ruining his harvest. Any sign of infection usually meant instant dismissal and being sent back to London without even having the chance to earn the fare home.
Mabel had been lucky. The nurse who had checked her was an elderly woman who knew the difference between the sickness that came from disease and the sickness that was the result of sheer poverty. She had decided to take the risk of giving the Lawrence family the benefit of the doubt, and so Mabel was passed fit for work.
It was Rose who had caused the nurse most concern. While she was queuing outside the little bell tent on the Common, waiting to be examined, it had been agony for her trying to control the coughing the best she could. When her turn came at last she sat down opposite the nurse on a rough wooden stool by a makeshift trestle table.
‘Don’t want to worry you, my dear,’ said the nurse, her big hands folded in her wide lap, ‘but has there been any illness in the family recently?’
‘What sort of illness?’ Rose whispered, anxious that Jess, who was next in line outside the flimsy canvas wall, should not hear.
‘Nothing in particular.’ The nurse looked into Rose’s troubled face for what seemed an eternity. ‘It’s a nasty cough you’ve got there, that’s all. Bit of a bad chest. Had it long?’
‘Ain’t as nasty as what some of ’em gets,’ said Rose defensively. ‘I’ll get over it in time. I always do.’
‘We’re none of us getting any younger, Mrs Fairleigh,’ said the nurse, with the best of intentions. ‘You should try and get some rest, you know.’
‘This is me rest, coming down ’opping.’
‘I hear that from the hop pickers every year,’ said the nurse amiably, shaking her head in wonder. ‘But I must admit, it doesn’t seem much like a holiday to me.’
Rose found herself smiling at the kindly woman. ‘You ain’t never ’ad to live in Burton Street,’ she said.
The nurse smiled back and patted Rose on the arm.
‘I suppose not. Anyway, you’ll do, my dear.’
The nurse wrote something on a card, put it away in a cardboard folder and then handed Rose a dark green, tightly corked bottle. ‘Pop that in your apron pocket,’ she said, ‘and see you take a spoon of it a couple of times a day.’
Rose nodded her relieved thanks and went back to work in the hop gardens.
Jess was given a clean bill of health immediately. From the top of her shiny auburn hair to the tips of her firm, agile feet, Jessie glowed with youth and vitality. The nurse had seen so many like her pass through the farm; yet within a few years she hardly recognised as the same girls the coughing, careworn mothers of two or three pallid, undernourished offspring. Life might have been hard sometimes in the Kent countryside, she thought to herself, but it must seem like paradise on earth to these women used to the hardships and squalor of the East End.
* * *
‘Pull no more bines,’ the call that signalled the end of the day’s picking echoed through the fields, as the early evening mist began to reach into the hop gardens from the river bank.
“Bout bleed’n’ time an’ all,’ grumbled Elsie, miserably pulling the remaining cones from wha
t she was pleased to know was her last bine of the day. ‘I thought the bailiff ’ad forgotten us down ’ere. The bloody damp’s soaked right through me boots. Look at ’em.’
‘It’s been a long ol’ day,’ agreed Rose, yawning.
‘I’ll go an’ ’elp Mum finish off ’er last few ’ops, Mabel, if yer don’t mind.’
‘Course I don’t, go on. Yer’ve finished my lot anyway. Ta, Jess.’
Jess went over to her mother and started stripping the untouched bines piled by her bin. ‘Yer’ve not picked many today. Mum.’
‘Bit tired, that’s all, Jess. I’ll be glad to get back to the ’ut an’ that’s the truth. Be a good girl for me an’ sort out our bit of laundry an’ tea an’ that tonight. I’m gonna ’ave a little rest. Get me ’ead down for a while.’
‘Get yerself back now, Mum. I’ll sort everythin’ out.’ Jess paused. ‘Mum?’
‘Can’t it wait, love? I’m ever so tired.’
‘It’s nothin’ really. I just wondered if I could go and see them puppies later on. That’s all.’
‘I dunno, Jess. Goin’ up there to the ’All…’
‘But, Mum…’
‘Look, don’t bother me now, Jess, all right?’ Rose rubbed her rough, hop-stained hands over her face, knocking her turban sideways. ‘I ain’t up to it.’
‘Mum. Go on.’
‘Shut up, Jess, an’ leave me alone, can’t yer?’ Rose sighed wearily. ‘An’ don’t look at me like that, I can’t think. I’m goin’ back to the ’ut.’
‘Sorry, Mum.’ Jess continued picking the hops into the bin, shocked to hear Rose sound so angry with her, and disturbed to see her usually strong mother looking so weak and dishevelled. ‘I’ll wait for the last measure then I’ll be right back.’
Rose was exhausted. Just bending to pick up her basket needed an almost impossible effort. She held on to the side of the bin to get her breath. She felt so old lately. It never usually took her so long to get over the change of air from the filthy London smogs. Her chest really did feel sore. A bad chest. She thought of her mother. Rose had lain in her bed listening to her old mum’s coughing and wheezing. Her father had called out the doctor, even though her mother had insisted they couldn’t afford it. ‘A bad chest,’ the doctor had said. Just like the nurse had said to her. ‘She needs fresh air and some decent food,’ he’d said. When her father had told the doctor they were going hopping soon, the doctor had sounded pleased. ‘Finest thing for her,’ she’d heard him say. But hopping hadn’t come around soon enough that year. Rose’s mother had died on a warm August afternoon. It hadn’t seemed right, with the sun shining and everything. Tears filled Rose’s eyes as she took shallow, rasping gulps of air.
The Cockney Girl Page 11