A Loving Family (10 page)

‘Yes, master.' Spike cowered in a corner, his bottom lip trembling.

‘Let's go and see if the old fright is sensible or not.' Ronald grabbed the door handle just as someone outside tried to gain entrance. He peered through the grime-encrusted glass. ‘Go away, Rosa Rivenhall. We're closed.'

‘
LET HER IN,
master,' Spike muttered, cowering in the workshop doorway. ‘We need the wreath for Alderman Puckett's coffin.'

Ronald raised his hand. ‘Another word from you, boy, and I'll send you back to the workhouse. Come along, Miss Barry. We're wasting time here.' He wrenched the outer door open. ‘What have I told you before, Miss Rivenhall? Tradespeople go round to the rear of the building.'

The young woman pushed past him, her skirts billowing as a sudden breeze hurtled down the street whipping dust, straw and scraps of paper into miniature tornadoes. She slammed the door and a flurry of snow-white rose petals fell from the basket she was carrying and fluttered to the floor. ‘Bother,' she said, unhooking a wreath of white paper roses from her arm and laying it carefully on the desk. She dropped to her knees and began scooping the petals into her basket. ‘Drat it. Wretched weather. One moment it's fine and now it's starting to rain. My hard work will be ruined.'

‘Let me help you.' Stella knelt beside her and picked up the petals, taking care not to crush them. ‘The wreath is very lifelike and these are really lovely. Did you make them?'

Rosa sat back on her haunches and her blue eyes sparkled with humour. ‘For my sins, yes.'

‘Your sins will be punished by God,' Ronald said impatiently. ‘We were on our way out. Please get up and allow me to open the door.'

Rosa pulled a face. ‘If you open the door the wind will blow them all over the place again. Be patient for a moment. We're doing our best.'

‘Spike.' Ronald beckoned to the boy. ‘Help them or we'll be here all day.' He leaned his shoulders against the half-glassed door, glaring at Rosa as if he would like to pick her up by the scruff of the neck and eject her from the building, but she seemed oblivious to his displeasure.

Spike went down on his knees and his deformed bones creaked liked those of an old man. Stella gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘We're almost done,' she said, feeling nothing but pity for the skinny child, who looked as though he had never had a square meal in the whole of his eleven or twelve years. ‘But thank you all the same.'

‘Yes,' Rosa said, springing to her feet. ‘Thank you both.' She thrust the full basket at Ronald. ‘Here you are, Mr Clifford. That'll be one shilling, and that includes payment for the wreath.'

‘I'll pay you at the end of the week, as we agreed.' He picked up a petal and examined it. ‘This one is dirty. I can't allow dirty rose petals to be scattered at a baby's funeral. It wouldn't be proper.'

Rosa stood her ground. ‘If your floor had been swept clean it wouldn't have dirtied the paper. I'm not leaving until you pay me what's owed. I'm sure a successful man like you can afford to pay twelve pennies for all my hard work.'

‘Very well. I can see I won't get rid of you unless I pay up.' He took two silver sixpences from his pocket and dropped them into her outstretched hand. ‘But I can always find another flower-maker.'

‘Not as good as me, you won't.' Rosa winked at Stella. ‘My blossoms look more real than any you'll find in one of those big stores up West.'

Stella had taken an instant liking to pretty fair-haired Rosa and she sprang to her defence. ‘I think your rose petals are lovely. They must take a lot of time and skill to make.'

Rosa tucked the money into her bodice. ‘Thank you, Miss . . . what do they call you?'

‘I'm Stella Barry.'

‘How do you do, Stella?' Rosa shook her hand. ‘As you might have guessed, my name is Rosa Rivenhall. I make paper flowers and wreaths for the funeral parlour.'

Ronald thrust the basket at Spike. ‘Take this to the back room, boy. Don't stand there gawping at Miss Rivenhall. Get on with your work.'

‘Don't be so hard on him, Mr Clifford,' Rosa said, blowing a kiss to Spike, who coloured up to the roots of his mouse-brown hair and scuttled crabwise into the workshop. ‘He's a good boy,' she added defiantly.

‘When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it.' Ronald opened the door. ‘Come along, Miss Barry. I haven't got all day.'

‘It was nice meeting you, Stella.' Rosa hurried into the street, matching her pace to Stella's.

‘You're very kind.' Stella eyed her curiously, wondering what a well-dressed young lady was doing in a run-down area like Artillery Street. Rosa Rivenhall looked and sounded as though she was used to better things, and yet here she was, selling paper flowers to someone like Ronald Clifford.

‘Come along,' Ronald said impatiently as he set off in the direction of the workhouse at the far end of the road. ‘Chop-chop. Don't dawdle.'

Rosa fell into step beside Stella as he strode ahead of them. ‘What business have you with old snake-eyes?' She clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘He's not related to you, is he?'

‘Only by marriage,' Stella said, wincing as she felt one of the blisters on her heel burst as she tried to keep up with Ronald's long strides. ‘His stepmother is my mother's great-aunt. I'm not sure how that relates to me, but I'm going to see her now.'

‘You look a bit lost, if you don't mind me saying so. You're not from round here, are you?'

‘It's a long story.'

‘And I love a good tale.' Rosa smiled and her cheeks dimpled. ‘I live in Fleur-de-Lis Street, not too far from here. Number six. Do come and call on me. We get so few visitors these days.'

‘Hurry up, Miss Barry. As I said before, I haven't got all day.' Ronald had stopped outside a butcher's shop. The dead bodies of rabbits, hares and wood pigeons dangled from vicious-looking hooks, swaying in the wind so that they seemed to perform a macabre dance of death. Even after living in the country and learning how to skin, pluck and prepare game for the table, Stella could not quite repress a shudder of revulsion. Ronald swatted off a cloud of flies and beckoned to her. ‘I'll take you up to see her but then I must get back to business.' He glared at Rosa. ‘And you have another order to fulfil, which I want by the end of the day or I'll dock your wages. It's lilies this time, remember.' He opened a door at the side of the shop and disappeared into the dark passageway.

Rosa held out her mittened hand. ‘It was so nice to make your acquaintance, Stella. I may call you that, mayn't I?'

‘Of course.' Stella shook her hand. ‘I'm not sure if I will be able to take you up on your invitation to call, Rosa. I'm only here for a short while and then I will have to move on.'

Rosa's smile faded. ‘How disappointing.' She brightened instantly. ‘But you still might just manage to come for a cup of tea and a slice of cake. I'll be at home all afternoon working on the lilies, and it would be so diverting to have someone close to my own age to talk to. I love Kit dearly, but he's very little to say for himself these days.'

‘Your husband?'

‘Good heavens, no,' Rosa said with a gurgle of laughter. ‘Christopher Rivenhall is my brother.' She turned and walked back the way they had just come. ‘Fleur-de-Lis Street,' she called over her shoulder. ‘Number six. It's not far at all.'

Ronald put his head round the door. ‘Are you coming or not?'

She followed him into the narrow corridor, wrinkling her nose at the smell of dried blood and rancid fat that seemed to permeate the whole building. Ahead of them was a flight of stairs, uncarpeted, with the treads worn in the centre from the passage of many pairs of feet for a century or more. Ronald took them two at a time, his long legs working like tailor's shears until he reached the second landing. He opened a door at the far end and went in. Stella followed him, hesitating on the threshold as her eyes grew accustomed to the sunlight pouring in through a tall window. The air was stale and the odour of Maud's elderly, unwashed body was almost more than she could bear, but Ronald did not seem to notice.

He strode over to the chair by the fireplace where his stepmother sat, wrapped in a crocheted shawl, a white mobcap pulled down over her eyes. A pair of steel-rimmed spectacles perched on the tip of her nose, moving up and down with each stertorous breath. The toes of her boots peeped out beneath her linsey-woolsey skirts and a fragment of torn lace from her petticoat moved rhythmically with the rise and fall of her bosom. Gentle snores emanated from her open mouth, keeping almost perfect time with the purring of a large tabby cat curled up on her lap. It lifted its head and glared suspiciously at Ronald.

‘Wake up, Maud,' Ronald bellowed. ‘You've got a visitor.' He leaned over and tapped her on the shoulder, disturbing the animal, which leapt to the floor with an angry miaow. Ronald aimed a kick at it, narrowly missing, and the cat arched its back, spitting and hissing.

Maud opened her eyes with a start. ‘Oh, it's you, Ronald. You've frightened poor Timmy.'

Ronald curled his lip. ‘I'll do more than frighten the little brute if it scratches me again. He'll end up on the butcher's slab if he's not careful.'

Maud clutched her hands to her breast. ‘Don't say things like that. His feelings are easily hurt.'

‘She's demented,' Ronald said in a low voice. ‘I don't think you'll get much sense out of her today.'

‘Who is that?' Maud pointed a shaking finger at Stella. ‘Is it Jacinta? Come closer, my dear, so that I can see you better.'

Stella shot an angry glance at Ronald. ‘She seems perfectly lucid to me.'

He headed for the doorway. ‘Try talking to her for more than two minutes and she'll be off in the land of the elves and fairies. I'm going.' He left the room, allowing the door to swing shut of its own accord. The slam of wood against wood made Maud jump up from her seat.

‘Who was that? Has someone come in? My eyes aren't what they were, Jacinta.'

Stella hurried to her side. ‘Ronald just left, Aunt Maud. I'm Stella, Jacinta's daughter.'

‘Stella?' Maud sank back on her seat. ‘No, my dear. You can't be Stella. She's a little girl. You're Jacinta, I know you are.' She looked round the room, peering at the table with its yellowed and stained linen cloth. ‘Is it teatime yet? Where's the maid? If she's flirting with the butcher's boy again I'll have to dismiss her. You can't get reliable staff these days.'

‘Would you like a cup of tea, Aunt Maud?' Stella picked up the soot-blackened kettle from the trivet in front of the fire and found that it had boiled dry. ‘Where can I get water?'

‘From the pump in the yard of course, Jacinta. Have you forgotten already? You made me a cup of tea only this morning. Sukey wasn't here then. That girl is never here. I don't know what things are coming to.'

‘I'll be back in a minute.' It was a relief to escape from the stuffy room. Stella hurried downstairs to the yard and filled the kettle at the pump. She tried to ignore the flies that buzzed around a bin filled with fat waiting to be rendered into lard or tallow, but the smell of it was rank and the cobblestones were matted with dried blood. She hurried back into the building and climbed the stairs to Maud's dingy room. The rays of sunshine that somehow managed to penetrate the grimy windowpanes revealed damp stains on the wallpaper and moth holes in the curtains. On closer inspection she saw that one of the chairs at the table had a broken leg and the cupboard door hung by a single hinge. She made a pot of tea and poured some of it into the only cup she could find, which was cracked and stained. ‘There's no milk, Aunt Maud.'

‘No, dear. I sent the girl for some but she hasn't returned yet. I'll take it as it is with a lump of sugar.'

Stella looked in the cupboard and found nothing but mouse droppings and a couple of cockroaches. ‘There isn't anything here, Aunt. Who does your shopping for you?'

Maud gave her a pitying look. ‘I told you, dear. The girl does everything for me, when she's here. I must tell her off when she puts in an appearance. I don't think I've had breakfast yet.'

Stella placed the cup and saucer in Maud's gnarled hand. The clock on the mantelshelf had stopped at half past six, and whether that had been morning or evening it was impossible to tell. Judging by the height of the sun in the sky it was mid-afternoon, and Maud seemed not to have eaten since the previous evening, if then. Stella picked up her reticule. She would have to be careful with her meagre funds, but she could not allow Maud to starve, and she was quite certain that the errant maid was a figment of the old lady's imagination. ‘I haven't had anything to eat all day, Aunt Maud. I'm just going to the shops to buy some provisions but I'll be back very soon.'

‘I would appreciate a drop of milk, Jacinta. And perhaps a slice of bread and butter. The girl should be back soon.'

‘I'll see if I can find her. Don't worry. I won't be long.'

‘You always were a kind girl, Jacinta. I could never understand why that oaf my sister married wouldn't have anything to do with you.'

‘I think you're referring to my grandmother, Aunt Maud. She was Sanchia Romero, the Spanish lady. My mother was as English as I am.'

‘Am I getting confused again, Jacinta? Ronald is always telling me that I'll end up in Colney Hatch.'

Stella laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘No one is going to send you to a lunatic asylum, Aunt Maud. You just need someone to look after you.'

‘You will stay, won't you, Jacinta?' Maud peered at her cat as it rubbed itself against Stella's skirts, purring loudly. ‘Timmy likes you, and he is a good judge of character. He hates Ronald, and I don't blame him. I treated that little boy as if he were my own child, and this is how he repays me.' Tears welled in her eyes and trickled down her lined cheeks.