A Mother's Love (2 page)

Emma Hardy had eight children – all living, all married, except for the youngest. She had a good husband, enough money coming in from the shop over which they lived. Nothing in life to regret. But for the grace of Gawd … she thought, then shivered superstitiously. Even thinking about it might direct some of this poor thing’s plight on to her.

‘Yes, a nice cup of tea,’ she repeated, collected the cold pot and used cups and hurried off downstairs with them. Amazing how much tea’s needed when trouble’s around, she thought as she put the still warm kettle back on the kitchen range. In no time at all she was back upstairs bearing a tray with clean cups and saucers and the refilled teapot.

Harriet hadn’t moved. Emma had to put the cup between the girl’s cold hands before Harriet looked up, startled. Sitting in the chair vacated by Mrs Wilson, Emma studied her as she sipped her own tea. The cheek bore a faint yellow bruise, an earlier wallop from that pig of a husband. Such a fresh young cheek. A sigh filled Emma’s skinny chest. Fifty-five years of East End smoke having sallowed and wrinkled her own skin like a kipper, she regarded the younger face with envy.

The girl still looked numbed and white, but beneath the pallor the healthy glow of growing up in the cleaner air around Victoria Park still showed. Quite well off. The father employed several men in a small furniture factory in Old Ford Road, she’d been told. It was beyond Emma Hardy’s comprehension what it must be like living by the park, which was every bit as long as Hyde Park and nearly as wide. People went there for picnics. She’d taken her own kids in her time. All that greenery away from the soot and the grime – it was as near to being in the country as you could get without having to take a train. Hackney Road was a bit of a comedown for Harriet Porter after growing up by the park, lucky girl. Not lucky now, though. Emma frowned.

‘Drink yer tea, luv.’

Such a pretty young thing. Porter hadn’t appreciated what he’d had. He’d been well off enough with his printing business, but he had no breeding.
She
had breeding. You could see it in those fine cheekbones, the well-spaced eyes, the composed lips – well, usually. Nice-spoken, too: vowels flattened like most East Enders, none of your plum in the mouth accent, but she didn’t drop her aitches and t’s, nor did her people. That in itself put her a cut above others.

A crying shame to see that shy smile vanish in the short time she had been married to Porter. Incredible how a man so charming outside his home could be a beast inside it. It wasn’t just the drink – he’d had a nasty streak somewhere in him. Well, she was free of him now, poor soul. But left on her own with a baby on the way, it was a crying shame, that was what it was.

She saw the fingers tighten convulsively around the cup. The lips quivered. Harriet bent her head hastily. A lock of auburn hair had come loose from the thick bun on top of her head. It fell forward, hiding her face. As the shoulders heaved, Emma came to sit on the hard arm of the chair, drawing the girl to her.

The woman’s bones digging into her young cheek, Harriet buried her face in that narrow shoulder and wept as she couldn’t have done on her mother’s shoulder. A neighbour, an outsider, Mrs Hardy heard only the sound of distress, but Harriet’s mother would have sensed little grief in that thin, high weeping. While grief racks the body to its very depths, tearing the bereaved to shreds, fear carries a different sound. She had aided Will’s death and, dead as he was, he’d reap retribution. How, she didn’t know, but she felt instinctively that he would, and it was fear, not grief, that brought the tears.

Holding her, Mrs Hardy began to talk. Talking, she maintained, was always good for grief.

‘There there, luv. I know ’e ’ad his faults. I’ve ’eard you two going it. And what man don’t raise ’is fists now and again? Their answer to everythink if you ask me. My Bert now, ’e tried it once. Blacked me eye for me. But I put ’im right, I did. When ’e got into bed, into the bedroom I went. With a broom. I gave ’im such a walloping with the hard end, I did. Up against the wall, ’e was, ’e couldn’t get out of bed. Bashed ’im black and blue I did. I said, “You touch me again and I’ll make you so scared to go to sleep you’ll mess yer blinking nightshirt.” Couldn’t do it now, of course. Too old for that. But ’e never did touch me again, not from that day on. A good ’usband ter me.’

What was she thinking of? What the girl needed was something nice said about her husband, not her rattling on about hers.

‘But your Will was good in other ways,’ she hastened. ‘You didn’t want for anything. Nice clothes on yer back and ’e never let you go ’ungry. Liked ’is drink, of course, but not like some as drink every penny of it away. No, ’e was a decent enough bloke that way, even if ’e was a bit quick with his ’ands. But you loved ’im fer all that, I know, and ter lose ’im … ’E certainly didn’t deserve an accident like that – a big fine strong man like ’im, in ’is prime. A wicked shame, that’s what it is.’

Wicked shame? Mrs Hardy’s reedy voice going on – what did she know of wicked shame? Harriet wanted to laugh amid her tears, except that it would have become hysterical. What she’d done would go with her to her grave; she was condemned to life imprisonment with no hope of release. The thought beat inside her head in silent rebellion: ‘You don’t know, you silly old fool. I killed him. He drove me to it, that’s how decent William Porter was. I’m glad he’s dead.’

Her throat hurt from crying, and her nose was blocked up. Pushing Mrs Hardy away, she fished a hanky from her cuff and blew into it, then with a drier spot dabbed her eyes. The action stabilised her and she felt a little better. She gazed mutely ahead, her mind wandering along a path of its own.

She’d first met Will when he’d come to their home with some circulars her father had ordered. She’d been bowled over by Will’s stature and handsome looks, and a little in awe of him, for at twenty-eight he was much older than her. He’d spoken of having no time to think of marrying since inheriting his father’s business, and she had thought that commendable. She’d been flattered when he’d asked to see her again, and sorry for him when she learned that his mother was also dead.

When he finally went to her father and asked for her hand, she was already in love and the quick temper that occasionally darkened his wonderful blue eyes only made her love deeper. A man shouldn’t be timid or irresolute if he was to be the protector of his future wife and children. But as their wedding day drew nearer that temper was very often directed at her. Vague doubts began creeping in that Will wasn’t quite as admirable as he had first made himself out to be.

Everyone dismissed her doubts as pre-wedding nerves. Family and friends had been invited, a carriage and pair hired to convey her to St John’s Church in Cambridge Road, her beribboned wedding dress of cream satin completed, the reception arranged – how could she bow out on the basis of some vague premonition? It was silly, even she had to admit. Despite his hot temper, Will was a good catch. As Mrs Hardy said, every man had his faults. If only she had known then just how deep Will’s faults went.

Then again, had it been her fault? Had her inability to cope with her marriage provoked him? Unused to rows or violence in her own family, her instinct had been to cringe before those rages of his. Had the cringing made him angrier, more violent than he might have been? Had she stood up for herself, like Mrs Hardy, might things have been different? But then what about the intimate side of marriage? The shock of that? She knew little of men but she was sure they couldn’t all be so endowed with the insatiable sexual drive Will had possessed. Every night, drunk or sober, often during the day too, he expected her to be the receptacle of his overriding lust, even well into her pregnancy, and woe betide her if she complained or tried to resist. That day she had resisted, with horrifying consequences.

Tears clouded Harriet’s vision. She had never told her parents what he was really like. It would have upset them dreadfully. She would explain a cut lip or bruised cheek as accidents, or would keep away from her parents until her injuries had healed. For eight months she had suffered alone. Now he was dead and there was no one she could tell what had happened to ease the burden that swamped her.

All she had gone through, all she had still to go through – the agony of having Will’s baby, the child she could only hate because it was his, conceived in fear and pain – engulfed her like a wall of water breaking over her head.

Mrs Hardy, totally misconstruing the renewed spasm of weeping, broke off talking to pat the heaving shoulders.

‘There, there, luv. You have a good cry. Do you good. And look, yer tea’s gone all cold. I’ll pour out some more and put in lots of sugar for yer. It ’elps soothe away all that shock and grief you must be feeling. To tell the truth, I could do with another cup meself.’ She lifted the cosy and felt the smooth brown surface beneath. ‘Yes, pot’s still nice and ’ot.’

She took the cup from Harriet and refilled both, ladling three spoons of sugar into each. Then, sitting herself down, she continued her homily, convinced that what that poor girl needed was a bit of comfort and advice.

To Harriet, sitting benumbed, Mrs Hardy’s voice sounded strangely distant, and the words blurred until they became a continuous, meaningless stream.

The funeral was set for eleven in the morning at the City of London Cemetery. Harriet was dreading it.

Will had been brought home the day before, and she’d had a dreadful night. This morning she totally lacked direction. Everything needing to be done had been done. The woman who took in her washing on Wednesdays had sent her son round for it on Monday instead, mindful of the tragic situation. Her mother had tidied round the day before, while her father had dealt with all the funeral arrangements. Mrs Hardy was organising ham and tongue sandwiches – refreshments for the mourners on their return from the cemetery.

Until the mourners arrived then, there was nothing for Harriet to do but to sit and wait, Saturday’s events churning over and over in her head until she was sure she’d go mad. Upstairs Will’s body lay in its coffin on trestles in the silent chilly parlour, the fire unlit for obvious reasons. The thought of it there – stiff in Sunday best for relatives and friends to pay their respects – terrified Harriet.

Some had already visited the day before – ‘Looks like he’s asleep, don’t he?’ The remarks had been meant to console, and she had nodded, letting them think she would spend her last night with him, at his side as a grieving widow. But nothing would have induced her to go near him. Rigid in the bed she’d shared with him in life, she’d had fearful nightmares, dreaming that he got up and stood over her, his blue eyes staring down at her. She’d woken up to her own cry, bathed in sweat, terrified to go back to sleep. On the Saturday she had slept like a log, drugged by the laudanum. But this last night, it was as if her mind had suddenly been revived. And what of the following night and all the nights to come? Would he always come back to haunt her?

She was up by five, glad of the dawn chorus of rumbling traffic as London prepared itself for a new day. Putting on a black blouse and skirt let out to accommodate her bulge, she twisted her hair up in a bun, then washed at the sink. By the time she had made some tea and was sitting with it at the kitchen table, the clock on the mantelshelf still only registered a quarter to six. Hours before anyone arrived. Hours on her own. She had to find something to occupy herself with.

Six o’clock found her filling saucepans from the water tap then emptying them into the seldom used copper in the stone scullery, an unaccustomed task with her laundry normally sent out. She knew enough to add soda and parings from a bar of yellow soap. Having got the fire alight, after a fashion, she pushed in the shirts Will would never wear again, a few towels and some bed linen that was still clean. It would probably be an hour and a half before they began bubbling beneath the wooden lid, but that would be an hour and a half more gone by. Well before then she was restive again.

Plunging a copper stick into the suds, she hooked up a sheet and began feeding it through the mangle. Waterlogged, the weight tugged on her stomach muscles. Steam rose in clouds, condensing on the cream painted brick walls as she threw her weight against the wrought iron wheel of the mangle, its wet handle slipping in her grasp.

A heavy sensation deep in her stomach made her pause. Leaving the sheet half strangled between the wooden rollers, she made her way to the closet at the end of the yard. For several minutes she sat but the sensation faded, leaving only vague discomfort.

Back in the scullery, she contemplated the mangle. She shouldn’t be straining herself with the baby due in three weeks. Not that the baby mattered. If it was stillborn, there would be nothing of Will to haunt her, would there? But she didn’t want to harm herself.

‘I need another cup of tea.’ Spoken aloud, the words accentuated the silence in the house, reminding Harriet of the corpse upstairs. She shuddered and went into the kitchen, hands on her back to ease the odd feeling that still lingered.

‘Mornin’, Mrs Porter. You there?’ A gravelly voice from the door of the passage leading to the yard made her jump violently.

She collected herself and called, ‘In here,’ thanking God for another presence in this silent house. The round face of Will’s journeyman, Bert Higgins, appeared at the kitchen door, the rest of him hidden but for one hand worrying his chin in a gesture of uncertainty.

‘I thought I’d just toddle round, pay me respects to Mr Porter, if that’s orright?’

‘Yes, of course.’ She was feeling human again. She filled the kettle, put it on the range. ‘I’m sorry about all this, Mr Higgins. You losing three days’ pay this week.’

‘Oh, that’s all right, Mrs Porter. I ain’t got no grumble. After what you said on Monday, puttin’ me full time instead of the part time Mr Porter allowed when he was ali … was me employer.’

‘I need extra help now.’ She tried to sound grief-stricken.

‘It’s bin a real godsend …’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Oh, not your poor ’usband goin’, Mrs Porter. I mean the extra money …’