A Mother's Courage (19 page)

'He'll try again, or he'll catch you unawares in
a dark corner. He's not one to give up easily.'

'Well, I'm not going to stand for that sort of
treatment and the sooner he knows it the better.
Now, I want you to keep my little ones safe for a
few minutes.'

'I don't know about that . . .'

'I'm not asking you,' Eloise snapped. 'I'm
telling you, Agnes.' Seeing a stubborn, mulish
look on Agnes's face, Eloise moderated her tone.
'And if you do, I'll clean the kitchen and the
scullery, and I won't say anything about you
drinking yourself stupid on gin.'

'Bitch,' Agnes murmured, slumping down in
her chair. 'I take it for me nerves. You will too
when you've been here as long as I have.'

Eloise ignored this remark and she set Beth
down on the floor. 'Joss, darling, look after Baby
for Mama just for a little while. See she doesn't
eat anything off the floor.' Eloise hurried from
the kitchen and made her way to the parlour
upstairs. Outside the door, she took a deep
breath, holding on to her anger. She was not a
normally fiery person, but she was both
frightened and furious, and ready to take on an
army if necessary. She burst into the room
without knocking.

Ephraim was seated in his usual chair with his
bandaged foot resting on a stool. He glared at
her. 'What d'you want, girl? Where's your
manners?'

Eloise went to stand before him, arms akimbo.
'And where were yours last night, Mr Hubble?
You tried to get into my room.'

His expression changed subtly and he licked
his lips. 'What if I did? It's my house, ain't it?'

'It is, but that doesn't give you the right to take
liberties with me. Did you really think I would
let you in last night? I am a respectable widow,
sir. I agreed to work for you, but even servants
have their rights.'

'I do like a woman with spirit. Come closer,
dearie, and let me look at you.' His parted lips
exposed a row of broken and blackened teeth
and Eloise could smell his foul breath from
several paces away.

'For what? So that you can treat me like a
common whore?' Eloise felt a small surge of
triumph at the look of astonishment on his face.
She angled her head. 'I may not have lived in the
East End all my life, but I've been here long
enough to know what goes on every day in the
streets. Until now I had the protection of my
father and then my husband, but even though
they are both gone I'm quite capable of looking
after myself and my children. I warn you, if you
come near me again, or try to touch me in an
inappropriate manner, I will report you to the
police and to the governor of the House of
Detention, where I believe you used to work. I
expect they thought highly of you there and you
wouldn't want your precious reputation to be
sullied by scandal, now would you?'

Ephraim scowled at her. 'Don't try to blackmail
me, girl. I'm a hardened old screw and I
don't take orders from the likes of you.'

'Maybe not, but I wonder how a prison warder
can afford to live in a big house like this, even if
you have let it go to rack and ruin?' Eloise's
pulses were racing and it was difficult to breathe,
but she was fighting for survival. 'Could it be
that you were not such an honest and upright
citizen when you worked at the prison?'

'I'm a sight more honest than them that I
locked up, and if they paid me for services
rendered that's nobody's business but mine. You
may think you're smart, but you won't get one
over Ephraim Hubble. Cleverer ones than you
have tried and failed, so be warned. Now do
what you're paid for and fetch me my breakfast.
Tell that old hag downstairs that I want bacon
and sausage with a couple of fried eggs. I'm sick
of gruel and dry toast.' Ephraim waved his stick
at her. 'Are you deaf or stupid? Remember who
pays your wages, or you'll end up on the streets
with your two little bastards.'

In the face of this tirade, there was nothing
Eloise could say. Holding on to her last scrap of
self-esteem, she left the room. It would have been
so satisfying to slam the door behind her, but she
did not dare. Ephraim might be a hateful old
man, but the thought of being thrown out with
nowhere to go was frankly too terrifying to contemplate.
At least she had said her piece and he
might think twice before trying to take liberties
with her in the future. She hurried back to the
kitchen and found to her intense relief that Joss
and Beth had come to no real harm, although
they were both extremely dirty from rolling
around on the sandy floor, which had seemingly
kept them amused but had left them looking like
filthy street urchins. Eloise picked up Beth and
prised a piece of rotten apple out of her fingers
before dusting her off. 'Ugh, dirty! You don't
want to eat that, sweetheart.'

'What a fuss over nothing,' Agnes remarked
into her mug of tea. 'There's plenty of nippers as
would be grateful for a nice bit of apple.'

'This place is a midden,' Eloise said with a
shudder. 'How can you live like this?'

'Very well until you come along with your airs
and graces, missis. If you don't like it, then you
get to work and clean it up.'

'I will, because I can't live like a sewer rat, even
if you can. Oh, and by the way, Mr Hubble says
he wants bacon, sausage and fried eggs for his
breakfast. That's your job, Miss Smith.'

Agnes slurped her tea, smacking her lips. 'The
old devil can wait. He's getting gruel, like it or
not, and you can take it up to him. That's your
job, Mrs Cribb.'

A bell on a board above the door jangled
suddenly, making Eloise jump. Joss leapt to his
feet pointing at it and laughing. 'Ding dong bell,
Mama.'

'He's getting impatient,' Agnes said with a
throaty chuckle. 'Best take his gruel up or he'll
fly into one of his rages.'

Reluctantly, Eloise filled a bowl with thin gruel
from the blackened saucepan on the range. It
looked and smelt unappetising and she was
barely surprised when Ephraim hurled it at the
wall with an exclamation of disgust and fury.
The china bowl smashed and the grey glutinous
mass trickled slowly down the cracked plaster to
settle in a pool on the floor. 'I said I want a proper
breakfast, not that disgusting muck.' Beads of
perspiration stood out on his forehead and he
shook his fist at her. 'Do as I say or you can take
your brats and leave my house. And don't expect
me to pay you for your time, neither.'

'Miss Smith said it was doctor's orders, sir.'

'Bugger the doctor and bugger you too, lady.
Now get down them stairs and bring me some
proper food.'

At the end of a long day Eloise crawled into her
bed stiff and sore from doing the sort of housework
that was normally done by a skivvy. She
had scrubbed floors, washed shelves in the
larder and thrown out all the rotten food, and,
worst of all, she had had to clean the festering
privy in the back yard. Her hands were red and
raw, her back ached miserably, and she had been
too exhausted even to eat the bread and cheese
she had bought for their supper. She had used
her last scrap of energy to lock and barricade her
bedroom door before she lay down on her bed. If
Ephraim paid her a nocturnal visit, she was
unaware of it as she fell at once into a deep sleep.

It would have taken an army of servants to get
the house into good order, but Eloise did her
best, and although she had thought she could not
stand more than one day of being harried by
Agnes and bullied by Ephraim, she managed
somehow to survive for a whole week. It was on
the seventh day in the early afternoon, when she
was holystoning the front step, that the sound of
a familiar voice made her stop and look up. She
scrambled to her feet with a cry of pleasure.
'Annie. How nice to see you.'

Annie bounded up to her but she was not
smiling. 'Missis, thank the Lord I found you. I'm
afeared I got bad news for you.'

Eloise took Annie indoors and led the way to her
own room where Beth and Joss were having their
afternoon nap. Annie tiptoed in after her and her
worried frown dissolved into a smile at the sight
of the sleeping infants. 'Bless their little hearts.'

Eloise motioned her to take a seat on the one
and only chair. 'Sit down, Annie, you look fit to
drop. What's happened to upset you so much?'

'I had to come straight away to find you, Ellie.'
Annie collapsed onto the chair. 'There's been a
strange-looking cove come round asking questions
about you. Shifty-looking he was – I didn't
like the cut of his jib one bit and that's the truth.'

Eloise felt as if the air had been sucked out of
her lungs and she clutched her hand to her
throat. 'Are you certain, Annie? Are you sure he
was looking for me?'

Annie nodded emphatically. 'I had me ear
glued to the keyhole and I heard every word. He
said he was a private investigator and had been
hired by a lady in Yorkshire to trace her grandson
who had been took away from his rightful
home. He said the boy was to be made a ward of
court and then the police would be searching for
him. He said it would be better for the young
woman who took him to give the little lad up, or
she would go to jail, and I think he meant you,
Ellie.'

Eloise's breath hitched in her throat. 'A ward of
court! I can't believe that she would do something
so wicked, or that the law would take a
child away from his own mother.'

'Well, true or not, he took old Queenie in right
enough. She couldn't wait to tell him that you'd
been staying with us and she had to send you
packing. She said you wasn't the sort of person
she wanted in her respectable lodging house.'
Annie stopped for breath and gazed round the
room with a disapproving pout. 'This ain't much
of a place you've come to neither. You deserve
better than this.'

'Never mind that now, Annie. This is only
temporary until I find something better.' Eloise
reached for the jug that she had filled with water
from the pump that morning. Pouring some into
a glass, she handed it to Annie. 'Take a sip and
calm yourself. Tell me what else Mrs King said to
the man?'

'Nothing much. She didn't know where you'd
gone and I wouldn't have told her for the world.

Wild horses wouldn't drag it from me. They
could put me on the rack in the Tower of London
and I . . .'

Eloise laid her hand on Annie's sleeve. 'I know
you wouldn't, Annie. I trust you implicitly.'

'Do you?' Annie gulped some more water and
she grinned. 'I dunno what that means, but it
sounds good to me.'

'It means that I know you wouldn't peach on
us. The woman in Yorkshire is my mother-in-law
and she wants to take Joss away from me, but I
won't have it. He's my son and he belongs with
me.'

'I should say he does. No one should have to
grow up without their real ma to care for them.
Ain't I the best example of that? I daresay she
had her reasons, but my ma left me on the steps
of the Foundling Hospital like I was a bit of
rubbish.'

'I expect it broke her heart to abandon you like
that, but perhaps she thought she was doing her
best for you.'

'If that was her best, I shouldn't like to have
suffered her worst, but she'll be sorry one day
and I know she'll come back for me.' With a
heavy sigh, Annie put the glass down. She stood
up, adjusting her mobcap which had tilted
slightly over one eye. 'Anyway, none of that
matters now and I got to get back, or the old cow
will tan my hide. I was only supposed to go to
the chemist's shop and buy a penn'orth of
laudanum for her headache. Serve her right if her
blooming head falls off.'

'Yes, you must make haste. I wouldn't want
you to get into trouble on my account, and I do
appreciate your coming here to warn me, Annie.'

'Just look out for a short, skinny cove who
looks like he could do with a good wash. He had
enough dirt under his fingernails to grow taters.'

In spite of everything, Eloise had to suppress a
smile. The picture that Annie conjured up was
not an attractive one. 'I'll be on the lookout for
such a person.'

'I made sure he didn't follow me. I kept looking
over me shoulder and dodging into doorways if I
thought I saw someone acting odd like.'

Eloise patted her on the shoulder. 'You've
done very well, Annie. I can't thank you
enough.'

'I thought as how I might come again on
Sunday, that's my afternoon off. Maybe we
could go for a walk or something. I mean, you
don't want to spend too much time in this place.
It gives me the shivers.' Annie glanced round the
room, shuddering dramatically.

'That would be nice, and the children would
love to see you, Annie.' Eloise opened the door
and peeped outside to make sure no one was
about, and then she beckoned to Annie. 'When
you come on Sunday, go round to the back of the
house. I'll be waiting for you in the kitchen. I
think it will be safer if you're not seen coming in
by the front entrance.'

Annie chuckled mischievously. 'Like in a
game.'

'Exactly,' Eloise said, kissing her on the cheek.
'Just like a game.' She was smiling as she let
Annie out of the house, but inwardly her
stomach was curdling with fear. If Hilda really
had hired a detective to look for them it would
only be a matter of time before they were discovered.
When Ephraim paid her at the end of
the first quarter, as he had promised, she would
start looking for another position in a different
part of London. Although, if what Annie had
said was correct, the sooner she left Clerkenwell
Green the better. If she could persuade him to
give her an advance on her wages she could
advertise for another position. Waving to the
fast disappearing figure of Annie who was
racing pell-mell across the green, Eloise went
down on her knees to finish holystoning the
doorstep while her mind grappled with the
problem of finding them a safer place to live. If
she wanted to get that money she would have to
be nice to the old man, which was not going to
be easy. So far she had evaded his grasping
hands when she gave him his food or plumped
up his cushions, but she had seen the naked lust
in his eyes when he looked at her. The mere
thought of physical contact brought the bitter
taste of bile to her lips, but suffering a little
temporary embarrassment and humiliation was
nothing compared to losing her precious son to
the Cribbs.

They had been at the house in Clerkenwell Green
for three weeks. It was Joss's third birthday and
it was also Agnes's day off. She had left early that
morning to visit her sister in Wapping, and was
not expected back until evening. The thought of
having the kitchen all to herself was so pleasant
that Eloise had raised no objection to being left
on her own to prepare Ephraim's supper. She
would have a day of relative peace and quiet
with her children and maybe give them a special
birthday tea. She had no present to give Joss, but
she would make up for that when she received
her wages from Ephraim. Over the past few days
a plan had been forming in her mind, and she
decided to make him the sort of meal for which
he craved, but that the doctor had forbidden. So
what if it brought on an attack of gout? That
would be Ephraim's problem and not hers, but
she needed to put him in a good mood so that she
could ask for an advance on her wages.

Later that morning, armed with some of the
housekeeping money which Agnes kept in a
pewter tankard on the mantelshelf, Eloise took
the children to the shops. She stopped first at the
butcher's where she purchased a large piece of
rump steak, two fat kidneys and a thick slice of
gammon. She went on to her bakery where she
bought a loaf of bread and some iced buns.
Seeing Joss's eager expression, she broke one of
the buns in half and shared it between him and
Beth. Joss, of course, ate most of the cake, but
Beth's little hand shot out for more as she
relished the sweet taste of the pink icing. Eloise
smiled at their eager enjoyment of such a simple
pleasure. 'When Mama has a good position in a
nice house, you shall have cake every day, my
darlings,' she said, wiping Joss's face on her
apron. 'It won't be long, I promise you that.'

Later, having given Joss and Beth their tea and
played games with them until they were
exhausted, Eloise put them to bed, and then she
began preparing supper for Ephraim. She had
often watched Janet in the kitchen at the
vicarage, but had rarely been allowed to do
anything more than to stir a pudding or lick cake
mixture off the wooden spoon. When she
married Ronnie it was another matter, and she
had struggled at first, making dreadful mistakes
and ruining many meals before she became a
competent cook. Now, she put all that experience
into practice as she prepared to impress her
employer and cajole him into a good mood.

'About bloody time,' Ephraim snapped as she
entered his room carrying a tray of food. 'What
hour d'you call this to bring a man his supper?'

'I'm sorry, sir,' Eloise said mildly. 'It's Agnes's
day off and I had to manage on my own.' She put
the tray down on a table at the side of his chair
and stood back, waiting for his reaction.

Ephraim's nostrils quivered. He sniffed the air
like an animal scenting its prey and a dribble of
saliva ran down his chin. 'My God, woman. This
looks like a proper man's meal.' He grabbed his
knife and fork and cut off a chunk of steak,
shoving it greedily into his mouth and slapping
his lips as he chewed. 'Now this is what I call
proper food. You done well, sweetheart. Come
here and give me a kiss.'

She had to curb the desire to slap his grinning
face or to turn and run. Eloise stood where she
was, folding her hands primly in front of her.
'I'm glad it meets with your approval, Mr
Hubble.'

'More than that,' Ephraim muttered with his
mouth full of fried gammon. 'I haven't eaten like
this since me old woman turned up her toes.
Poor old soul, she were a fine cook but she had
no spirit.'

'I'm sorry for your loss, sir.'

'No you ain't.' Ephraim shoved a whole
kidney in his mouth. 'You couldn't care bloody
less about me and my wives.'

'Wives?'

'Three at the last count, though I've a mind to
take another quite soon.' Ephraim took a swig of
porter from the glass on his tray and he gave
her a saucy wink. 'How about it, my little
strawberry? D'you want to make an old man's
last years the happiest in his life?'

Eloise tried to smile. 'That's a good joke, sir.
Very amusing.'

'Joking, was I?' Ephraim wiped his lips on his
greasy sleeve and his expression hardened. 'I old to go through all that courtship nonsense. I
want someone to warm me bed and cook me
food like this. You won't get a better offer, so
how about it?'

Stunned, shocked and totally nauseated, Eloise
shook her head as she backed towards the
doorway. 'I'll fetch your pudding, sir.'

'Playing hard to get. I like a bit of a game,'
Ephraim called after her as she fled from the
room.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Eloise put out cakes,
bread and cheese with trembling hands.
Ephraim was a hateful old man. How could he
suggest such a thing? The mere thought of
intimacy between them made her rush to the
stone sink in the scullery and retch, but her
stomach was empty and she only brought up
bile, which left a disgusting taste in her mouth.
She hurried out into the yard and washed her
face in cool water from the pump. It took her a
few minutes to compose herself, but Eloise knew
that she must keep on with the charade for a little
while longer or else she would never be able to
escape from this awful house. Any moment now
Agnes would return and she would be beside
herself with rage when she discovered that
money was missing from her hoard. Eloise knew
that Agnes often dipped into the housekeeping
money in order to keep herself supplied with gin
and snuff, and she would not take kindly to the
fact that her employer had been treated to such a
slap-up meal, even though it had been purchased
with his own money.

Reluctantly, Eloise returned to the upstairs
parlour with the tray of food.

'So you've come back then? I thought you'd
run off to fetch your friend the vicar so that he
could marry us tonight.' Ephraim leered at her as
he reached out to grab a cake from the tray. 'Iced
buns. You really do know the way to a fellow's
heart, my duck.'

Eloise put the tray down and took a deep
breath. 'I'm very honoured, Mr Hubble. But I
need time to consider your proposal.'

'It weren't no proposal, dearie. It were an
order. You will marry me or you can get out of
my house and take your brats with you.'

Her knees were trembling and she felt faint,
but Eloise was not going to be browbeaten. She
stood her ground. 'You can't do that, Mr Hubble.
I've given you no cause to sack me.'

He licked his lips. 'I don't need a reason. I'm
your employer and I can do as I please in my
own home.' His eyes narrowed to slits. 'At least I
mean to make an honest woman of you, you silly
creature. You won't do better.'

'I'm sure I won't, and I do appreciate it, but as
I said, I need time to think. You've taken me by
surprise.'

'Come and sit on my knee. We'll talk about it
some more.'

'I – I don't think that would be proper, sir. I
mean . . .'

Ephraim pitched the tray onto the floor, slapping
his hand on his knees. 'I said sit on my knee.
I won't bite. Well, I might nibble you a bit, but I
won't eat you.'

'I – think I hear one of the children crying. Or
was that Agnes calling out? I'd best go and see.'
Eloise ran from the room and did not stop until
she reached the kitchen, where she skidded to a
halt as she came face to face with Agnes.