The Dollmaker's Daughters

For Ruby and Rosetta Capretti life in the slums of the East End holds little promise. Although very similar in looks they dream of very different futures. Coquettish, flamboyant Rosetta is desperate to leave the claustrophobic confines of the sewing sweatshop to follow in her wayward aunt’s footsteps and work under the bright lights of the music hall. Ruby, quieter and more modest, has always longed to train as a nurse, a pipe-dream for a girl from her humble background.

And then, by the side of their father’s grave, they meet handsome Jonas Crowe, but little do they know how much one man will affect both their lives forever …

Dilly Court grew up in North East London and began her career in commercial television, writing scripts for commercials. She is married with two grown-up children and three grandchildren, and now lives in Dorset on the beautiful Jurassic Coast with her husband and a large, yellow Labrador called Archie. She is also the author of
Mermaids Singing
.

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Cover

About the Book

About the Author

Also by Dilly Court

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

The wax effigy of the Christ Child flew past Ruby, narrowly missing her head, hitting the brick wall of the railway arch and landing on the concrete floor of the workshop with a squishing thud. Rescuing it from the dust, Ruby cradled the tiny figure in her arms as if it were a flesh and blood baby. Choking back tears, she wiped away the dirt and grit. Just moments ago the angelic face had been a work of art and devotion lovingly created by her father, Aldo Capretti, the best dollmaker in the East End, if not the whole of London. At least that was Ruby’s opinion, and she guessed that there must be hundreds of little rich girls, proud owners of a Capretti doll, who would agree with her. Poppa didn’t usually make religious icons, but this order had been an exception, a favour for Father Brennan, the fierce Catholic priest who had frightened the life out of her as a child. Even though she was almost twenty, he still had the power to put the fear of God into her. Ruby shuddered at the thought of Father Brennan’s reaction when he was told that the crib at St Augustine’s Catholic Church would
be empty at Christmas, just days away.

Aldo, who was normally so kind and gentle, let out an angry roar followed by a stream of invective: a strange mixture of Italian and English swear words that were even more shocking to Ruby than the distorted wax face of the baby Jesus. Dancing up and down on the spot, Aldo shook his fist at her, his face purple with rage, knotted veins standing out in his throat like coiled ropes. ‘You bleedin’ stupid, clumsy little bitch.’

‘Poppa, no. It weren’t my fault.’ Ruby clutched baby Jesus to her bosom. She had spent so many painstaking hours pricking each individual hair into the tiny scalp that to see such devastation was heartbreaking. What was even worse, the hair was real; she had plucked each raven-black, shimmering strand from her own head.

‘Don’t talk back to me. You got no respect for your poppa, that’s your trouble.’

A shadow fell across the entrance to the arches. ‘Hey, what’s all the shouting about, old man? I bet they can hear you clear down to Wapping.’

Ruby spun round, bristling with indignation at the intrusion. ‘Mind your own business, Billy Noakes.’

‘Get out, you no good chancer!’ Aldo made a move towards Billy, fisting his hands.

‘Calm down, guv,’ Billy said, grinning. ‘If you don’t want me to take them dollies to the
wholesalers, it’s no skin off my nose.’

‘No, wait,’ Ruby called out as he turned to go. ‘Poppa didn’t mean it. He ain’t hisself today.’ She laid baby Jesus gently on the railway sleeper that served as a workbench and, scurrying to the dark recess at the back of the arch, Ruby hefted a tea chest packed with finished dolls, complete with frilled dresses made by her mother and tiny straw hats fashioned by her grandmother. She staggered beneath the weight and Billy leapt forward, taking it from her hands.

‘Steady on, girl. You should let the bad-tempered old bugger over there do the heavy work.’

Aldo lunged at him but Billy held him off with the tea chest. ‘Just joking, Poppa. Can’t you Eyeties take a joke?’

Aldo opened his mouth as if to say something, staggered backwards and would have crumpled to the ground if Ruby had not rushed forward to support him. She turned on Billy in a fury. ‘Ain’t you got no more sense than to tease a sick man?’

His cocky grin replaced by a frown, Billy nodded. ‘You’re right. He don’t look too clever at that. Let me get this chest on me cart and I’ll give you a hand to get him home.’

‘Ta, but you done enough harm upsetting him like that. I can manage.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Billy said, with a casual shrug of his shoulders.

Struggling beneath her father’s weight, Ruby regretted being so hasty as she watched Billy carrying the tea chest out to his cart, where a sorry-looking, sway-backed nag waited, placidly munching the contents of its nosebag despite the sleety rain falling from a pewter sky. Ruby hooked Aldo’s arm around her shoulders in an attempt to get him onto his stool, but he seemed to have lost control of his legs and they both skittered crabwise across the concrete floor. Swallowing her pride, she called out to Billy and he came striding back into the workshop.

‘Best leave the old feller to me, Ruby.’ Taking Aldo by the arm, Billy hefted him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. ‘I’ll drop you both back home. I got to go past Tobacco Court; it’s on me way.’

Ruby hesitated, covering her head with her shawl and shivering as the icy spikes of sleet pierced the thin cloth. She didn’t want to take any favours from Billy Noakes, who had a bad reputation with women and whose business dealings were on the grey side of shady, but on the other hand, there was no way she could get Poppa home on her own. She watched silently as Billy set her father down on the driver’s seat, covering him with a tattered piece of sacking that smelt strongly of the stables.

‘You coming or staying?’ Billy leapt up beside Aldo and picked up the reins. ‘I ain’t got all day.’

A bitter east wind, straight off the Essex marshes, caught Ruby like an icy slap in the face, making up her mind for her. ‘Just a sec,’ she said, slamming the wooden gate and turning the key in the lock. Normally she wouldn’t have been seen dead riding on Billy’s cart, and Mum would have forty fits if she found out, but today was the exception and she clambered up beside her father just as Billy urged the horse into a shambling walk.

Cable Street was packed with the everyday chaotic mix of horse-drawn drays, carts and wagons loaded with cargo for the docks at Wapping and Shadwell. The air was punctuated with puffs of steam from the engines that rumbled along the railway tracks into Fenchurch Street station. Clouds of sweat from the flesh of overworked horses mingled with smoke from clay pipes clenched between the drivers’ teeth in rictus grins. The smell of hot cinders, horse dung and chemicals from the manufactories added to the harsh stench of raw sewage floating in the coffee-coloured waters of the Thames. Huddled in her shawl, Ruby’s teeth chattered so that she couldn’t speak even if she had had anything to say to Billy. She clutched Aldo’s hand as he slumped against her, his breathing ragged and his face beaded with sweat even though his fingers felt cold as a dead chicken’s claw.

As the cart entered Spivey Street, the sleet
turned into hailstones, frosting the rotting vegetable matter and excrement that littered the cobblestones, creating a fleeting illusion of beauty until it melted into a stinking morass. Barefoot and blue with cold, street urchins huddled in doorways begging, or lingered in the shadows ready to dip the pocket of an unwary passer-by. Billy urged his old nag to go a bit faster holding his whip poised, ready for trouble, as they passed the dark slits between the buildings, little slices of hell, where prostitutes, pimps and hustlers hung out in a permanent twilight underworld. As they neared Tobacco Court, Ruby saw Billy’s grip on the whip handle relax and she heaved a sigh of relief. She had been born and bred here and was streetwise, but only a fool would let their guard down in the slum area of Spivey Street. Despite the soot-blackened brickwork, the peeling paint and a general air of dilapidation, Tobacco Court was a respectable cul-de-sac lined with two-up, two-down working men’s cottages. The residents were mostly artisans and manual workers, who just managed to keep their families above the breadline unless overtaken by the disaster of unemployment or chronic sickness. Ruby, who knew and was known by every family living in the Court, was thankful that the bitter weather had kept the neighbours indoors. The street was empty of the usual cluster of women standing in
doorways passing the time of day, and the rough and tumble of the Court kids who were too young to work or attend the school in Kinder Street. Ruby was thankful that no one would see her or Billy as they half lifted, half dragged Poppa from the cart outside number sixteen.

‘Ta,’ she said, with her hand on the latch. ‘I can manage now.’

Billy pushed the door open with the toe of his boot. ‘Don’t be daft.’ Ignoring Ruby’s protests, he carried Aldo into the living room and set him down on a bentwood chair. Granny Mole, who had been dozing by the fireside, opened her eyes and Sarah Capretti leapt to her feet, pale with alarm.

‘Aldo!’ Sarah threw her arms around him, giving him a shake as his head lolled against her shoulder. ‘Aldo, can you hear me?’

‘Poppa had one of his funny turns,’ Ruby said hurriedly, knowing that Mum had a very poor opinion of Billy. ‘And Billy give us a lift home on his cart.’

Sarah turned her head to glare at Billy. ‘A gentleman takes his cap off in the presence of ladies and, anyway, you’re not welcome here, Billy Noakes.’

‘Ta, Billy,’ Ruby said, embarrassed by her mother’s rudeness. ‘You was good to help out.’

‘I only done what anyone else would have done,’ Billy said, tugging his cap off his head. ‘He
don’t look too clever to me, though.’

‘He looks half dead to me,’ Granny Mole said, huffing on her specs and polishing them on a corner of her skirt. ‘But he’s been acting odd for weeks. Gone a bit barmy he has. That’s what comes of marrying an Eyetie. I always told you it would end in grief, Sal.’