Alley Urchin (4 page)

In a minute the two of them were locked in combat, the one pounding his bunched fist time and time again into the other’s stomach, and the other with his fingertips digging into his opponent’s fleshy eyeballs with every intention of gouging but his very eyes. The third fellow, having miraculously recovered, was hopping up and down, screaming encouragement, first to one, then the other. Nelly did the same.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Emma lost no time in grabbing hold of Nelly who, by the degree of resistance she put up, would much have preferred to stay and watch the fight than run away with what she considered to be the cause of it. ‘Ye slapped him good, Emma!’ she cried, jubilantly lashing the air with her fists. ‘Fetched him a right bleedin’ clap aside o’ the ear, y’did.’ She was beside herself with excitement, and though Emma made every effort to remain above it all, she could only sustain her indignation as far as the old cemetery, when she paused, breathless, against some unfortunate soul’s headstone. ‘Oh, Nelly, Nelly!’ she said, the smile already creeping into her eyes and lifting the comers of her mouth. ‘I’m supposed to be the sensible one, who keeps you on the straight and narrow.’ The smile broke into a small laugh.

‘And you
do
,’ Nelly assured her, pausing to catch her breath from the fast and furious pace with which Emma had propelled her from the fracas on the beach. ‘It’s just a bloody shame that being kept on the “straight and narrer” don’t allow fer a bit o’ fun! Just now and then . . . I might like ter throw caution ter the wind and join forces wi’ the devil.’ When Emma rightfully reminded her that in encouraging a grog-sodden lout like Foster Thomas she was doing just that, Nelly retorted, ‘Handsome devil, though, eh?’ And in her twinkling brown eyes was a deep thinking expression which Emma had not seen before.

Nelly’s remark both astonished and disturbed Emma very deeply. But she made no comment, other than to say it must be coming up to curfew time and they should be on their way.

No sooner had Emma made the observation than the curfew bell rang out, warning all bonded persons that they must be off the street. Emma hoped she and Nelly would not be challenged by an officer because, while she herself was able to show her ticket-of-leave, Nelly was already under suspicion, and being caught out even one minute after curfew could well cost her dear. As the two of them hurried towards Thomas’s store, Emma led the way round the back streets, fearful that at any minute an officer would come upon them. Every now and then there would ring out the challenge, ‘Bond or free?’ as others, less artful, were stopped in the busier streets adjacent. Only when Emma had manoeuvred Nelly on to the porch of the store did she breathe a sigh of relief.

‘You really do play fast and loose with the law, don’t you?’ came the thin, tired voice from a wicker chair in the far corner where the trellis was much higher. Mrs Thomas was very rarely persuaded to come and sit out of an evening, but, when she did, it was on three conditions: it had to be past curfew ‘when the criminals amongst us are safely out of the way’; it had to be almost twilight so she could sit in the shadows; and, her high-backed wicker chair had to be positioned securely in that particular corner where the trellis was highest, so the shadows would be that much deeper. Now, when her voice piped out on the sultry evening air, Emma gave a start . . . her heart still beating fast from the fear that she and Nelly would be stopped after curfew.

‘Oh, Mrs Thomas!’ she gasped, putting her hand to her heart. ‘You gave me a fright.’

‘And you gave
me
a right turn an’ all!’ joined in Nelly, whose face had gone an odd shade of parchment.

‘Well now, I am sorry,’ laughed Mrs Thomas, and Emma likened the sound of her laughter to the soft tinkling of the water in the Leeds and Liverpool Canal back home; that gentle, delightful sound that was made with the smooth passage of a laden barge as it gently churned up the water beneath. But then,
everything
was ‘gentle’ about poor Mrs Thomas. She was a tiny pathetic creature now, sitting in that high-backed chair like a duchess of old, or a china doll who was much too frail and exquisite to play with. Emma thought that Violet Thomas must have been a very beautiful lady when she was young, for she had finely sculptured bones and long delicate fingers. Her hair, though snow-white now, was still rich and thick with deep attractive natural curls, which even the scraped-back and severe hairstyle could not disguise. Her eyes were large and soft, as blue in colour as the sky, but they were filled with sorrow, always heavy with pain, and something akin to tragedy perhaps, a kind of deep inner suffering almost as though, even when the finely etched wrinkles on the face were lifted in a smile, the eyes remained haunted.

‘Are you all right out here on your own?’ questioned Emma, not liking the idea of leaving her seated here alone. ‘Where’s Mr Thomas?’ she added with concern, at the same time coming closer to assure herself that the thin little figure was encased in a blanket, for there wasn’t enough fat on Mrs Thomas’s bones to keep her warm . . . sunshine or not. She needn’t have worried though because, as always, Mr Thomas or Rita Hughes had taken good care of the lady’s needs. There was a rug carefully draped about her legs, and a soft shawl wrapped about her small shoulders.

‘Please . . . go to your beds.’ The long, fine fingers waved into the air in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Mr Thomas will be here presently, and I would rather you didn’t fuss.’ Her voice was sharper now, and the words came in short, tired little bursts. Emma sensed that, as always appeared to be the way, she and Nelly were not wanted by Mrs Thomas. That invisible barrier, which she so cleverly created, had been drawn up between them. They were being sent on their way and, not for the first time, Emma suspected that it was because they were convicts. Although Violet Thomas had never made or intimated the slightest complaint of such a nature regarding the two assignees who worked about the house and shop and who resided in the room behind the stables, her strong condemnation of ‘the criminal element thrust among us’ was well known. Emma therefore went out of her way not to antagonise her employer’s wife, and she implored Nelly to do the same.

Emma would have liked to have been on closer terms with Mrs Thomas, because she knew her to be a lady, and she also felt something of the other woman’s deep desire to go home to England ‘to live out my days under a cloudy sky and to sup afternoon tea in a more genteel atmosphere’. Many times she had been heard pleading her cause to her husband and, as many times, Mr Thomas had been heard to promise, ‘Soon, Violet, soon . . . When we’ve made our fortunes, for I’m sure you don’t wish to starve under a cloudy sky, do you now, eh?’ His wife never gave an answer, nor did she make any response within his hearing. Instead, they seemed to converse less, to drift further apart, and to execute a strange verbal dance whereby each might broach a subject close to their hearts; he of his store and business, she of England and her desire to return. Then the other would nod, smile and make meaningless noises, after which a great painful silence would envelop them, as they each retreated into their own precious dreams. Emma thought it sad that they could not find it in their hearts to share the
same
dream. However, she sympathised with Mrs Thomas’s obsession to return to England, because Emma herself had been possessed of that same obsession ever since being so cruelly and unjustly taken from her old homeland. Yet she had never once allowed this obsession to become so deeply rooted that it ravaged her entirely, as was the case with Mrs Thomas. Emma had deliberately thrown herself into her work, always striving towards that ultimate freedom which she knew must one day be hers. In so occupying her mind and thoughts, she had deliberately suppressed her heart’s desire, always aware that it was futile to dwell on it too deeply in the early years. Now though, with seven years of her sentence behind her, the realisation of once more being in charge of her own destiny was in sight.

Day and night, Emma’s thoughts had begun to dwell on her freedom. Her heart would tremble at the prospect and her spirit was charged with such great anticipation and excitement that there were times when she could hardly contain herself. At these times, and often in the dark small hours when she was unable to sleep, she would get up from her bed to pace back and forth across the room like a caged creature. After a while, when the desperate emotions retreated and other, more tender, emotions flooded her heart, she would go to the window and gaze out across the moonlit sky. Then tears would flow unheeded down her face. Thoughts of home would storm her senses, pulling her first this way, then that, until she could hardly bear it. ‘Oh, dear God,’ she would murmur, ‘will it ever come right for me again?’ She longed for Marlow’s arms about her, but even if in three years’ time by some fortune or miracle there was the money and freedom to return to England, how would she find him? And, if she
did
find him, would he still love her? After all, she had deliberately spurned him in favour of another man even though, unbeknown to Marlow, it was for his own protection. Then there was the fact that she was a convict, charged and marked with a terrible crime. Oh, and what of the child she had borne him, and which was lost to them both? How could any man forgive her? The torture never ended for Emma. But she prayed that it would one day, otherwise there was no reason to go on.

‘Emma!’ The voice cut sharply across Emma’s turbulent thoughts. ‘Mrs Thomas has a mind to sit out a while longer. You and Nelly get off to bed.’ Mr Thomas had returned from inside and he was quickly aware that his wife was becoming agitated by the presence of the two young women. ‘Off you go,’ he urged as Emma bade his wife a good night. ‘Go on . . . go on. I’ll see to her when she’s ready to go back upstairs.’

‘Miserable old bugger, that Mrs Thomas,’ remarked Nelly, pulling off her clothes and getting quickly into her own narrow wooden bed. ‘Anybody’d think we’d got the bleedin’ plague . . . the way she starts panicking every time we get within arm’s length of her!’ She was greatly peeved and Emma’s reply that ‘we must make allowances for her’ made no difference to Nelly’s mood. ‘Well,
I
ain’t mekkin’ no allowances for the old sod,’ she retorted, blowing out the candle which was on the cupboard by her bed. ‘It were
her
sort as pushed me into crime when I were a kid. Look down on yer, they do. Won’t give yer no work, in case yer cut their throats at the first opportunity!’ Then her mood quickly changed, she told Emma to ‘sleep tight . . . mind the bed-bugs don’t bite’, and was soon fast asleep, the gentle rhythm of her soft snoring seeming a comfortable and homely sound to Emma as she lay in her own bed.

There was no sleep in Emma just yet, only a strange sense of quiet. Sometimes, she wished she could be more like Nelly, because nothing worried her for very long. She had no driving ambitions, no real grudges to bear, and no one person in her heart who could tear it apart. Here Emma checked herself. How did she know whether Nelly secretly loved anybody in particular? What about the way she enjoyed Foster Thomas’s attentions today, and what of the remark she made about him being ‘a handsome devil’? The very possibility that Nelly might be quietly attracted to that man filled Emma with dread. Indeed, it was too horrible to contemplate, for Emma truly believed that such a man as Foster Thomas would take the greatest delight in destroying someone as devoted and vulnerable as Nelly. Emma prayed that, if Nelly really did feel a certain attraction towards him, she would never let it be known to him, or he would likely take her to the depths and
leave
her there.

With this disturbing thought in mind and with the intention of warning Nelly the very next morning, Emma leaned over in her bed to blow out her candle. She closed her eyes and forced her mind to more pleasant dreams. Of a sudden Emma realised how tiredness had crept up on her. She was ready for sleep.

‘Emma, wake up . . .
please
wake up!’

‘What is it, Nelly?’ Emma was not yet fully awake, but pushing back the coarse grey blanket from her face, she lifted her head and screwed up her heavy eyes to look on Nelly’s frightened face. ‘Have you had a nightmare?’ she asked, not being sufficiently awake to be certain it wasn’t she who was suffering the nightmare.

‘No, no!’ Nelly continued to poke and shake Emma until at last Emma was sitting up against the pillow, her eyes almost blinded by the light from Nelly’s candle, which was presently thrust only an inch or so from her face. ‘There’s some’at going on over the store . . . noises there were!’ She was obviously in a fearful state.

‘Noises?’ Quickly now, Emma got up from her bed and began dressing. ‘What
sort
of noises?’ she asked, suddenly wide awake.

‘Funny noises . . . like scraping and thumping . . . and’ – here Nelly hesitated, looking at Emma through the candlelight with big frightened eyes – ‘I could’a sworn I heard somebody scream.’

Emma paused as she pulled on her boots, and glancing up towards Nelly, she said in a serious voice, ‘You stay here. I’ll take a look.’

‘You bloody
won’t
, y’know!’ came Nelly’s indignant retort. ‘Not without me, you won’t.
I
ain’t staying here on me own!’

‘All right then. But put out the candle. There’s no sense in broadcasting what we’re up to, is there? Besides . . . if you’ve been imagining these “noises” and such, and we’re caught creeping about in the dark, we’ll look a right pair of idiots and no mistake.’ A quick glance told her that Nelly was barefooted and wore only her dress over her nightgown.

‘I
ain’t
imagining it, Emma. I heard strange voices . . . I just
know
there’s some’at funny going on!’

‘All right, Nelly. We’ll take a look, if it’ll put your mind at rest. But mind you keep quiet. Promise? Or I will leave you here!’ Emma was under no illusions that, given just cause, Nelly could make herself heard from one end of Australia to the other. On securing Nelly’s firm assurance that she would creep behind ‘as quiet as a church-mouse’, Emma patted her gratefully on the shoulder. ‘Good girl,’ she told her, taking the brass candlestick from Nelly’s trembling hand, and after blowing out the light, she placed it down on the bedside cupboard. They didn’t need a light to show them the way, for they had trodden it often enough. In any case, there wasn’t much in this room to fall over, there being only one cumbersome wooden wardrobe, a tall chest of drawers, two narrow wooden beds, each with a little side-cupboard, and a small oblong rag-peg rug between the beds. Emma had thought it a grim little room when she had first seen it, with its one tiny window overlooking the dirt yard between the stables and the store. The Thomases lived in the four large rooms above the store, and the windows of the big bedroom looked down over the stables. Many a time, Emma had noticed Mrs Thomas seated by her bedroom window, gazing out at the skyline with a look in her eyes that was almost desperate, and her heart bled for the poor creature. She had often thought that if
she
were in Mrs Thomas’s position, nothing on earth would prevent her from going home! But then she was reminded of two things. Firstly, Mrs Thomas was in very poor health, and secondly, perhaps even more important, it was obvious that despite their deep differences on the matter of which country was now home, she loved her husband and would never contemplate leaving without him. It really was a sorry state of affairs, and one which seemed irreconcilable.