Mermaids Singing (39 page)

Trembling, Kitty drew herself up to her full height. ‘This house is in the hands of the letting agent, Sir. We have two more weeks of the lease to run. You can’t turn us out.’

Humphrey scowled at her and, for a moment, Kitty thought he was going to hit her, but he vented his spleen by kicking the door.

‘That may be so, but everything in this house belongs to me. It was bought with my money.’

‘And we’ve been repaying you month by month.’

‘Bella still owes me,’ Humphrey said, through clenched teeth. He pushed his face close to Kitty’s. ‘I’ll be sending a carter to collect every stick of furniture in this house. I want everything that that little bitch bought with my money, from the chandeliers to the carpets. D’you hear me?’

‘The whole street can hear you shouting, Mr Chester.’ Betty hobbled towards them, puffing and panting with the exertion of taking the stairs too quickly on rheumaticky knees. ‘What’s going on, Kitty?’

‘It’s all right,’ Kitty said hastily. ‘Mr Chester is just leaving.’

‘Yes, I’m going,’ snarled Humphrey. ‘But you can expect a visit from the bailiffs.’

Pushing past Kitty, Betty shook her fist in Humphrey’s face. ‘Don’t you speak to Kitty like that, or I’ll fetch my son and he’ll sort you out.’

Humphrey’s mouth twisted in rage. ‘And you, Madam, you tell that oaf to keep out of my way. I haven’t forgotten our last meeting and if he tries to stop me reclaiming my property, I’ll have the law on him.’ Storming off down the steps, Humphrey climbed into his motor car, shouting instructions to the chauffeur.

Betty clutched at Kitty’s arm. ‘He can’t do this to us, can he?’

‘I don’t know. But he’s rich and we’re poor. I expect the law is on his side all right.’

Betty began to cry. ‘What shall we do? What’ll happen to us now, Kitty?’

‘Don’t worry, Betty dear.’ Kitty wrapped her arms around Betty in a comforting hug. ‘We’ll talk about it when I come back.’

Sniffing, Betty wiped her eyes on her apron. ‘Surely you’re not going to the sale now? I don’t see how spending money on material is going to help get us out of this mess.’

‘I’m not going to the sale. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.’

‘Where are you going? Don’t leave me all alone in the house. What do I do if the bailiffs come while you’re out?’

Pausing on the threshold, Kitty forced a confident smile. ‘They won’t, and I’ll not be long. Don’t answer the door to anyone while I’m out, not even if Lord Kitchener himself comes knocking.’

‘Mr Feeney will see you now, Miss.’

Kitty jumped up from the hard wooden chair in the outer office, hurrying past the clerk as he held the door for her. Mr Feeney sat behind his cluttered desk, polishing the lenses of his spectacles on a blue silk handkerchief. He peered at Kitty with pale, myopic eyes that only came into focus when he restored his specs to the bridge of his bulbous nose. ‘Miss Cox?’

‘That’s me, Sir,’ Kitty said, standing with her hands clasped in front of her. ‘Captain Edward, I mean Sir Edward said you’d sort this business out for me.’

Mr Feeney glanced down at the letter. ‘Ah yes! The property in Tanner’s Passage.’ Picking up a scroll of parchment, he untied the red tape and laid the document out in front of him, smoothing it flat with his hand that was white and smooth as a lady’s.

He’s never done a stroke of hard work in his life, Kitty thought inconsequentially as she moved from one foot to the other, clasping and unclasping her hands, waiting while he read slowly, his lips silently forming the words. After what felt like hours instead of merely minutes, he looked up.

‘And you represent the said Mrs Elizabeth Scully?’

‘I do, Sir.’

‘You realise, young lady, that Feeney, Feeney and Rumbelow merely act as ciphers for their clients?’

‘I might, Sir. If I understood what you meant.’

‘It means that we, the firm, undertake to carry out our client’s instructions, within the law, of course.’

Kitty shrugged her shoulders. Perhaps he would come to the point sooner rather than later.

‘Carrying out the instructions from the late Sir Desmond Mableton, Baronet, we, the firm, withdrew the lease on number seven Tanner’s Passage.’

‘Withdrew? Do you mean that the lease had not run out?’

Keeping his head bent over the document, Mr Feeney rolled it up, concentrating all his attention on retying the tape. ‘I see from the deeds that the lease was, in actual fact, for ninety-nine years. It seems there was a slight misunderstanding …’

‘Misunderstanding!’ Kitty leaned across the desk, snatching the scroll from his hand. ‘Sir Desmond had us thrown out on the street for nothing other than sheer badness. How could you stand by and let that happen?’

Mr Feeney’s neck seemed to disappear into his high starched collar as he blinked up at Kitty. ‘I can assure you that nothing improper has taken place, Miss Cox. Sir Desmond owned the land and –’

Kitty waved the parchment at him. ‘But the lease had over seventy years to run. The house belongs to Mrs Scully right and proper, as it has all the time. I’d be ashamed of myself if I was you, Sir.’

Mr Feeney jumped to his feet, making as if to snatch back the document. ‘Don’t take that tone with me, Miss.’

‘I’m keeping this to show Mrs Scully and Sir Edward.’ Kitty tucked the scroll beneath her arm. ‘Hand over the keys, Mr Feeney.’

Number seven Tanner’s Passage felt cold and damp. The air was stale and musty and a thick film of dust covered the surfaces with a grey bloom. Absently, Kitty wrote her name in the dust on the kitchen table, while Betty darted around the room, opening cupboards and exclaiming in delight on finding everything precisely as she had left it. Jem turned on the cold water tap and grimaced as a stream of brown, rusty water spluttered into the clay sink.

‘This water’s got legs,’ he said, grinning.

‘Let it run,’ cried Betty. ‘Let it run a bit. I’ll soon have everything shipshape and Bristol fashion and just as it used to be.’ She opened the larder door, snorting with disgust. ‘Mice! I can smell mice. We’ll have to get a trap, Jem. Or, better still, we’ll get ourselves a cat. I’ve always wanted a little cat, but I couldn’t have one with our Polly so weak and fragile and needing so much attention, bless her little heart.’ Betty’s lips quivered and unshed tears sparkled on her pale lashes.

‘Bless her,’ Jem said, hooking his arm around Betty’s shoulders and giving her a sympathetic hug, but Kitty could see that his eyes had misted and reddened; his lips trembled but he forced them into a smile. ‘God rest her brave little soul.’

‘Amen to that,’ Betty said, patting his hand. ‘It’s good to be home at last.’

The afternoon sun slanted through the small windowpanes, frosted with dirt, and Kitty suppressed a sigh. Betty was so obviously overjoyed to be back in her old home and Jem would be leaving in a few days, going back to his ship for his last voyage.

Try as she might, Kitty simply couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for returning to the East End. She had attempted to keep her true feelings from Jem and Betty, but leaving Sackville Street had seemed like the end of a beautiful dream. She had had to stand by while the house was stripped of its elegant furniture and fittings down to the last china ornament. Humphrey Chester had made sure that everything of any value, however small, was snatched under the eagle-eyed supervision of the bailiffs. She had managed to save one treadle sewing machine, two dressmaker’s dummies, cutting shears, material and spools of thread, by claiming them as tools of their trade, but that was all. Kitty knew that she could and would begin again, but the heady days of being a modiste in the West End were over – for the time being, anyway. Returning to Tanner’s Passage was coming home to Betty; to Kitty it was returning to the nightmare of her past. She could not even confide in Jem, for fear that he might refuse to do this last trip with Captain Madison. This was a purely personal battle and she knew she had to fight it alone.

Betty rolled up her sleeves with a businesslike air. ‘Right then! I’m going to get the fire going in the range and we’ll have our first cup of tea at home. Jem, you go and see if there’s any coke in the cellar, while I clean out the ashes.’

Jem picked up the hod and shovel and went off whistling.

Betty reached for her purse. ‘Here’s some money, Kitty. Why don’t you go to the corner shop and get us a poke of tea and some milk?’ Dropping some coins in Kitty’s outstretched hand, Betty gave her a shrewd look. ‘I know this ain’t what you wanted, ducks. Just give it time.’

In the days that followed, Kitty was kept so busy that she had little time to fret or feel sorry for herself. Betty’s abundant good spirits carried them all through the sheer hard work of restoring the damp, neglected house into a place where they could comfortably live. Jem helped when he could, shifting the heavy furniture and then putting it back in place after Betty had scrubbed the floors, bleaching the wood to the colour of bone. Curtains were taken down and boiled in the copper out of doors in the back yard, and the faded squares of carpet were hung on the washing line and given a beating that sent showers of grit and dust onto the cobblestones.

Every morning, Jem went off to join Captain Madison in the search for a suitable craft with which to start their business, but so far without success, although they had combed the boatyards and jetties from Chelsea Reach to Limehouse. When their searches brought them close to home, Jem brought Captain Madison to the house and he became a regular visitor. Having known him since the early days of her marriage to Herbert, Betty welcomed a chance to talk about old times. Sophia Weston sometimes accompanied Captain Jasper on these visits, having struck up an instant rapport with Betty; as widows of seafarers, they had much in common and spent many pleasant afternoons drinking tea and chatting. Despite a heavy heart, Kitty was glad to see Betty happy again in her old home and she tried her utmost to make the best of things.

On the last day before Jem and the Captain were due to return to the
Mairangi
, they were all sitting in the kitchen at Tanner’s Passage, with the exception of Sophia, who suffered from headaches brought on by the summer heat and had remained at home. Betty and Jasper Madison sat on opposite sides of the range, where the kettle bubbled and hissed out steam and the big brown teapot sat on a trivet, beneath its knitted cosy. Jem and Kitty sat at the kitchen table in companionable silence, drinking tea and eating slices of a cake that Sophia had sent from Chelsea, while they listened to the older couple reminiscing. Seeing Betty with someone near enough to her own age, a friend from years ago, Kitty realised for the first time how much Betty must miss her late husband. While talking over past times with Captain Madison, Kitty could see traces of her youth in Betty’s animated countenance before widowhood and poverty had etched their harsh lines on her face. It was good to hear Betty laugh at Captain Madison’s wry humour, and Kitty was beginning to understand why Jem was so devoted to this unassuming, and rather reserved, man who had never taken a wife of his own and who had spent virtually all of his adult life married to the sea.

‘So you had no luck again today then, Jasper?’ Betty reached for the teapot. ‘More tea?’

Jasper raised his hand, shaking his head. ‘Thank you, no. I really must be getting along. Sophia will have supper ready in spite of the fact that I told her to rest.’

Jem jumped to his feet. ‘But we’re not giving up on the boat, are we, Sir? Even though we sail tomorrow.’

‘No, indeed!’ Captain Madison rose stiffly, flexing one knee and then the other. ‘My joints aren’t what they used to be. I’ll be glad to swallow the anchor, and that’s the truth. I’ve left instructions with my agent, Jem, and if he finds anything suitable while we’re away, he can act for me. I’ve told him we want a craft big enough to navigate the river as far as Southend. That’s where the future lies. Taking Londoners for a day out that they’ll never forget.’

‘My Herbert would be so proud of you both,’ Betty said, rummaging in her pinafore pocket for her hankie. ‘So proud.’

‘Herbert was a fine man.’ Jasper made a harrumphing noise deep in his throat. ‘I’ll see you on board ship tomorrow, Jem.’

‘I’ll be there, Sir.’

Jasper turned to Kitty, holding out his hand, a smile crinkling the corner of his eyes. ‘Goodbye, Kitty. I’ll bring him back safe and sound, don’t you worry.’

‘We’ll walk you to the cabstand, Cap’n,’ Jem said. ‘Coming, Kitty?’

Jem and Kitty walked back slowly, arm in arm, along the wharf. A cool, easterly breeze brought a bit of relief from the sizzling July heat, but the city smells hung in a miasma over the slinking, brown water.

‘I don’t want to go,’ Jem said. ‘I’ll miss you every moment of every day, Kitty.’

‘I’ll miss you too, Jem.’ Kitty squeezed his arm. ‘It’s not for long. You’ll be back before you know it.’

Jem stopped, slipping his arms around her waist. ‘Everything I do is for you – you know that, don’t you?’

Kitty angled her head, avoiding the intensity of his gaze. ‘Of course I do, silly.’

‘I love you, Kitty. More than you’ll ever know.’

‘I know that too.’ Kitty smiled up at him and wriggled free. ‘Come on, we’d best get home to Betty. She’s going to miss you too.’

‘You just can’t say it, can you?’ Jem stuck his hands in his pockets, falling in step beside Kitty as she turned towards Tanner’s Passage. ‘Why won’t you say it, Kitty?’

‘It’s just words. You know I care for you.’

‘Then prove it.’ Catching hold of Kitty’s hand, Jem stopped, pulling her round to face him.

‘Prove it?’

‘Say you’ll marry me, Kitty. Give me your promise and I’ll live on it until you’re good and ready.’

Looking into his eyes, Kitty longed to say yes, but a mist blurred her vision and a feeling of panic constricted her throat. ‘I – I can’t, not yet. It’s too soon.’

‘Too soon?’ Jem’s voice deepened with anger. ‘We’ve known each other all our lives. I want to spend the rest of mine with you.’

Shaking her head, Kitty couldn’t meet his fierce gaze. ‘I’m not saying no. I just need time to get used to the idea. Getting wed changes people for the worst and I don’t want to spoil things.’