The Best of Sisters (18 page)

‘Is it that time already?’

‘You don’t have to do this every evening, Davy. I’m very grateful, but I can take care of meself.’

He scrambled to his feet. ‘Ted don’t like you walking home in the dark and I don’t mind doing it.’

‘At least it’s a bit earlier tonight. Let’s go.’

Outside the summer evening was fading into dusk and flocks of starlings filled the air with their noisy chatter as they came in to roost on the tall buildings.

‘It’s not quite dark,’ Eliza said, glancing up at the sky. ‘I’ll be all right on me own. You could go straight home if you wanted to.’

‘That’s just it – I don’t want to. The old man will be dead drunk as usual and the nippers will be grizzling because they’re hungry. Mum will be trying to make things right and the blooming cellar stinks like a midden. The later I gets home the better.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It ain’t your problem, Liza. It’s his fault that we live like sewer rats. But one day I’ll make it up to Mum. When I’m a qualified sailmaker I’ll have me own business and get the family out of that place.’

‘I know how you feel,’ Eliza said, quickening her pace to keep up with his long strides. ‘I worry about Dolly and Millie. I’ve hardly seen them all week. They’ll be thinking I’ve deserted them.’

‘You desert them? Never!’ Davy broke into a jogging run. ‘Come on, Liza. I’ll beat you to Hemp Yard.’

Try as she might, Eliza couldn’t quite keep up with him. Davy reached the house first and Eliza caught up with him, panting and holding her side. ‘That weren’t fair. I’ve got a stitch.’

Davy tweaked the ribbons of her bonnet. ‘You was beat fair and square, admit it.’

She held up her hands. ‘I do. But you don’t have to wear petticoats and a long skirt.

‘I should think not. I’d look pretty damn silly.’

‘You’re a clown,’ Eliza said, giggling. She opened the door and stepped inside.

Millie had been sitting at the table with her head bent over a schoolbook, but she jumped to her feet when she saw Eliza. ‘Wake up, Mum. Liza’s come home.’

Waking with a start, Dolly peered at Eliza. ‘Is that you, dear?’

‘Yes. I’m home early for once.’

‘We’ve hardly seen you for days,’ Millie said, rushing up to Eliza and wrapping her arms around her waist. ‘I’ve missed you – we’ve both missed you.’

Eliza gave her a hug. ‘I had to sort things out at the shop.’

‘I’ve been really poorly,’ Dolly complained, huddling beneath her shawl. ‘You and Ted are always too busy for a poor invalid.’

‘I’m sorry, Mum. I’ll do better now, I promise.’

Davy had been hovering in the doorway; he gave an embarrassed cough. ‘Er, I’d best be getting home.’

‘Thanks for all your help.’ Eliza shot him a grateful smile.

He shrugged his shoulders, blushing. ‘It weren’t nothing. Anyway, I got to go. Goodbye, Mrs Peck.’ He hurried off, the hobnails on his boots clattering over the cobbles.

‘Little Millie has done her best,’ Dolly said,
wiping her eyes on the corner of her apron. ‘But she ain’t much of a one for cooking and she don’t know how to make my medicine.’

‘I tried, Liza.’ Millie’s bottom lip wobbled ominously. ‘I done me best but I couldn’t remember exactly what you put into the mixture and it turned out all wrong.’

‘Never mind, I’m here now.’ Taking off her bonnet, Eliza held it for a moment before setting it down on the table. It had once been such a heavenly shade of blue, that is until the rain ruined it, but as custom dictated, she had attempted to dye it black and the result was a rather streaky shade of grey-green. Uncle Enoch would have said that her pride in it had been sinful vanity, and its ruin was her just punishment. She stifled a sigh, and picked up the kettle that was warming on the hob over a few bits of smouldering driftwood. ‘I’ll soon make up your medicine, Mum. Just as Freddie showed me.’

‘The dear doctor,’ Dolly said, sniffing. ‘I can’t believe the judge was so cruel and unfair as to have him transported to Australia, not when he done so much good for the poor and sick.’

The mention of Freddie’s name brought tears to Eliza’s eyes and she hurried into the scullery so that neither Millie nor Dolly would see that she was upset. When she opened the food cupboard all she found there was a small bag of
sugar, a poke of tea and a dried-up piece of sassafras root. The laudanum bottle had been full when she had last looked but it was now empty. She bit her lip as feelings of guilt assailed her. She had left too much for young Millie to do on her own. Looking after Dolly was a job in itself and she shouldn’t have expected a mere child to cope with the shopping and cooking. Eliza took the piece of sassafras and began grating it into a bowl. When Ted got home from his business in the docks, she would ask him for some money to buy supper.

Millie came hurrying into the scullery. ‘Dolly says she’s going to fall off her chair in a swoon if she don’t get her medicine right now.’

‘It’s nearly ready,’ Eliza called, hastily adding sugar and hot water to the grated root.

‘It smells horrible,’ Millie said, wrinkling her nose. ‘I’m glad I don’t have to take that stuff.’

‘Then it’s lucky that you’re not sick, isn’t it?’ Eliza said, smiling.

Millie rubbed her belly. ‘I’m awful hungry, Liza. We ate the last of the bread and dripping at dinnertime. There weren’t no money left in the tin so I couldn’t go to the market.’

‘I’ll go out to the shop when Dad gets home. We’ll have pie and mash, pease pudding too.’ Eliza strained the mixture into a medicine bottle. ‘And I’ll get a pennyworth of laudanum for Mum. I’ll look after you better from now on,
love. Things are going to change round here, you’ll see.’

On Monday morning, Eliza went in person to take the orders to the suppliers. She was determined to establish good working relationships and most of them had known her since she was a child. They treated her with respect and a good deal of sympathy but she knew in her heart that their confidence in her was mainly due to Ted’s backing. If that was so, then she did not care: she might be just a girl, working in a man’s world – but she would prove her worth, or die in the attempt. It was well into the afternoon when she returned to the chandlery, where she had left Davy in charge. He was serving a ship’s quartermaster with a barrel of pitch and a pair of sea boots. The man paid for his goods, hefted the barrel on his shoulder as if it weighed little more than a pennyweight, and left the shop. As the doorbell jangled, Ted appeared at the top of the ladder.

‘If that’s Eliza back, you come up here, Davy. I only give you leave to mind the shop while she was out, so don’t take advantage.’

‘Coming, guvner,’ Davy said, shinning up the ladder with the agility of a monkey.

Eliza went behind the counter and settled down on Enoch’s old stool to study the books. It did not take her long to realise that, although
Uncle Enoch had been ruthless in collecting most of the outstanding debts, there were mysterious instances where he had allowed almost unlimited credit to certain people. Tickling her nose with the feathery end of her quill pen, Eliza made a note of the names and addresses. Gradually, a picture began to emerge: some of these names she recognised as being the businessmen who had attended Enoch’s funeral, and almost all these men were considered to be pillars of the church. It would seem, she thought, staring at the copperplate entries in the ledger, that Uncle Enoch had bought the good opinion of his peers. No wonder they had flocked to the church to pay their last respects to such a generous benefactor. ‘We’ll see about that,’ Eliza said out loud as she underlined the total sum of the unpaid debts. ‘They won’t find me so eager to buy their good opinion.’

‘Who are you talking to, Liza?’

Startled, Eliza looked down from her high perch and saw Millie standing by the counter. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

‘You was too busy talking to yourself,’ Millie said, giggling. ‘I come on me way home from school. I thought I could give you a hand.’

‘And so you shall. I’m sure the shelves could do with a bit of dusting.’ Eliza slid off the stool and, as she rounded the counter, she stopped, staring down at Millie’s bare feet. ‘Where are your boots?’

‘I dunno.’

Eliza took her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. ‘Of course you know. Tell me. I promise not to be cross.’

‘I give them to Mary.’ Millie’s violet-blue eyes filled with tears. ‘Don’t be angry, Liza. I done it to stop the big boys teasing her. They said as how she’d got nits in her hair and called her a fleabag. They said her dad spent his money on booze and couldn’t afford to buy her a pair of boots.’

‘Don’t cry,’ Eliza said, giving her a hug. ‘I know you meant it kindly, but now you haven’t got any boots. Won’t the big boys tease you?’

‘I don’t care if they do. I was used to worse than that in the workhouse.’

‘You poor little soul.’ Eliza stroked Millie’s hair back from her forehead. ‘I can only imagine what you must have gone through in that place. But you shouldn’t have given your boots to Mary. What will Ted say?’

‘It’s summer and I don’t need nothing on me feet.’

Unable to argue with the logic of this, Eliza dropped a kiss on top of Millie’s head. ‘Never mind the boots for now. Find a duster and we’ll sort something out later.’

Millie trotted off to find a piece of rag and Eliza went back to writing a list of addresses from the ledger. She glanced up as the door opened and a broad-shouldered, bearded man with a shock of
black curly hair came storming into the shop. His bushy eyebrows were drawn together over the bridge of his nose in a frown and he was holding Millie’s boots in his hand. Eliza’s heart sank. It was Arthur Little, and, by the looks of him, he was ready for a fight.

‘I gets home and finds my Mary parading round in these here boots.’ Arthur leaned over the counter, shoving his face close to Eliza’s. ‘I don’t ask for charity and I’ll thank you not to interfere in my business, young woman.’

She recoiled, choked by a waft of stale beer on his breath. ‘Don’t you shout at me, Mr Little. It was an act of kindness from Millie, not charity.’

‘Call it what you like, it’s all the same thing and I won’t have it.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Eliza hissed, as two prospective customers walked into the store.

‘I don’t take orders from a chit of a girl.’

His raised voice attracted curious looks from the two men, one in first mate’s uniform, the other obviously a seaman. Arthur shook his fist at them. ‘Mind your own business, mates.’

They shrugged and strolled off behind one of the stands.

Arthur flung the boots on the floor. ‘I can look after me own family.’

‘What’s all the fuss about?’ Ted stuck his head through the open hatch. ‘What’s going on, Liza?’

‘It’s between me and her.’ Arthur jerked his thumb at Eliza. ‘Interfering little mare.’

‘Oh, Gawd! It’s me dad, out for trouble,’ Davy said, peering over Ted’s shoulder.

‘Keep out of this, boy.’ Ted pushed him aside and slid down the ladder. He faced up to Arthur. ‘Don’t you take that tone with me, mister.’

‘I said all I got to say.’ Turning on his heel, Arthur staggered unsteadily out of the chandlery.

Ted turned to Eliza. ‘What’s up with him?’

‘It was nothing, just a misunderstanding.’

‘Look, ducks. I don’t mean to be unkind, but there’s always going to be men what will try to bully a young girl on her own. I got me own work to do. If you can’t cope alone then we’ll have to get a man in to manage the store.’

Eliza knew that he had her best interests at heart, but even if there was some truth in what he said, she was not going to give in so easily. ‘I can manage, Dad. I promise you I can and I’ll sort it out meself.’

When the shop was closed for the night and Millie had gone home with Ted, Eliza made the excuse of wanting to walk by the river with Davy, saying she needed some air and time to think.

‘What’s it all about then?’ Davy asked, as Eliza turned the mortice key in the lock. ‘Why do you
want to walk along the river? It’s hot as hell and the stench is really bad tonight.’

‘I don’t want to walk by the river; it was just an excuse to keep Dad and Millie happy. I’m going to Anchor Street to call on Basher Harris. You needn’t come with me if you don’t want to. I can go alone.’

‘Not in that quarter and at this time of night you don’t,’ Davy said, taking her by the hand. ‘I dunno what you want with this fellah, but you ain’t going on your own and that’s that.’

She smiled and gave his fingers a squeeze. She wasn’t going to admit it, but she was quite glad to have Davy’s company. Anchor Street and the surrounding area was no place for a young girl to be out alone at night. Eliza had been aware for some time now that she was attracting unwanted attention from men as they passed her in the street. They made suggestive remarks, openly propositioning her and offering money for her services, and she felt much safer with Davy at her side. At fifteen, he was as tall as most full-grown men: lifting heavy spars and rolls of canvas had broadened his shoulders and developed his arm muscles. He might have inherited his father’s gypsy-like appearance but his good looks were unmarred by the ravages of drink and ill temper. As they walked, she gave him a sideways glance and she realised, with a jolt of surprise, that Davy was fast approaching
manhood. As if sensing that she was looking at him, he turned his head and grinned. Suddenly he was a boy again and Eliza chuckled with relief.

Even this late in the evening, Anchor Street was seething with people: sailors of all nationalities looking for lodgings or a woman of easy virtue; malnourished, ragged children playing in the gutter while their mothers entertained their clients; a knife-grinder just finishing off his day’s work; stevedores and watermen either returning home from work or setting out on the night shift. The air was thick with tobacco smoke, the stench of drains, unwashed bodies and cheap grog. Eliza clutched Davy’s hand a little tighter as they approached Beattie Larkin’s house. Bart would have been furious if he had known what she was about to do and Freddie would never have allowed her to venture into Anchor Street at night, not even if he were to accompany her. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on Beattie’s door.