The Girl From Penny Lane (41 page)

‘Rubbidge, we’re just agin de Regal cinema!’

‘We come down Ranelagh Place minutes ago, dincher reckernise Lewis’s? I reckon this must be Lime Street.’

‘Nah, we’d ’a’ smelt de trains . . . we’re well past de station; we’ll be on St John’s Lane be now.’

‘Well, we ain’t at the terminus yet,’ the conductor said with a brave attempt at humour. ‘Reckon we’ll all know if we gets there!’

Various furious comments told him, in no uncertain terms, that if they found themselves at any terminus he could just take them all back where they belonged, so the conductor got off and consulted the driver as to their exact whereabouts. He then climbed back aboard again and gave them his driver’s opinion.

‘E can’t see no more’n you can,’ he said. ‘Next crossroads, e’ll stop an’ I’ll nip down, see if I can spot a road-name.’

So it was in this slow and unsatisfactory fashion that Lilac made the cross-city journey, eventually getting down at Exchange Station, hoping that it really was that station and not Lime Street, with her fellow passengers grumbling mightily as they were borne off into the increasing gloom.

Lilac, coat collar turned up, hands dug deep into her pockets, the moisture already beading her hair and her breath wetting the edge of her collar, checked that it really was Exchange Station, got her bearings and looked for the subway which would bring her out in St Paul’s Square, within easy walking distance of the hospital.

The subway was horrid; usually it would have been crowded with people making their way from the station to the small streets which were crammed between the station itself and the docks, but tonight it was almost deserted. Lilac, still with her chin buried in her coat collar, passed a woman with a grizzling child, a tall man with a brightly striped muffler wound round his face, and a seaman with a kit-bag over one shoulder and a bulging paper carrier in his hand. The fog hadn’t actually penetrated the subway but the walls ran with water and the smell and general aspect of the place was vaguely sinister. It struck Lilac for the first time that the subway could easily have been a sewer; all it lacked was rats.

However, she emerged into the fog again, crossed the road and began to walk up what she devoutly hoped was East Street. She knew it was when it crossed the railway lines; just here the lines massed, all of them meeting before plunging into the station, and she was able to walk alongside them, one hand on the bricks, until the road ended in a blank wall.

‘Old Leeds Street,’ Lilac reminded herself beneath her breath, turning left as she did so. She only had to follow the buildings now and she would be in Back Leeds Street which led directly into Leeds Street – not a lot of imagination had been used when naming streets in this area, she thought with an inward smile – which led, in its turn, to King Edward Street, where the hospital was situated.

The fog, if anything, was thicker down here, nearer the docks. But she found the hospital by keeping her wits about her and clinging to the wall, and was glad to enter the foyer, looking round affectionately at the familiar place, for it was here that her Aunt Ada had been cured of the flu, when Lilac had first met Stuart.

The woman behind the desk might have been the very one who had smiled so sweetly at them then, but this one, on being told of Lilac’s errand, looked grave.

‘I’d best call Sister,’ she said. ‘If you’d not mind waiting, Miss?’ She indicated a hard chair set against the wall. ‘I won’t be more than five minutes.’

She was as good as her word and presently returned with a ward sister rustling along behind her. ‘Sister West, this is Miss Larkin, a friend of Kitty Drinkwater, who’s in the Isolation Hospital. She’s come to see Mrs Drinkwater and Betty, on behalf of the other girl.’

The ward sister did not smile, but she gave Lilac a direct and friendly look and held out her hand.

‘How do you do, Miss Larkin? I’m afraid I’ve bad news for you. Mrs Drinkwater died earlier in the afternoon. Betty is sleeping; she’s very weak. Would you like to come up to the ward?’

Lilac hesitated.

‘I’ve never met . . .’ she began, but Sister West shook her head.

‘It’s all right, the mother’s body is already in the hospital mortuary. But the child . . . perhaps if you could tell her Kitty’s well . . . the only time she speaks is to her sister, trying to explain how she came to let her mother leave the house, as though a bit of a thing like her could have prevented . . . but there . . . if you would follow me?’

Lilac followed. There seemed little else she could do.

The children’s ward was a long one, and most of the beds were unoccupied at this time of the afternoon.

‘Unless they’re confined to bed they’re having tea,’ Sister explained in a low voice. ‘Betty’s in a side-ward. This one.’

She opened the door and went in; hesitantly, Lilac followed.

The child lay, so small and flat that she scarcely rippled the covers, neatly in the middle of the narrow white bed. Her skin was a strange, bluish-purple colour, her breathing ragged and stertorous. She was so thin, Lilac saw, that her bones seemed in danger of breaking through the skin and the hand lying on top of the covers was little better than a claw.

But Sister was bending over the bed.

‘Betty, dear, a lady has come to see you – a lady who has been to see Kitty, too. Kitty knows all about your fall, she doesn’t blame you in the least . . . but I’ll let Miss Larkin have a word.’

She moved aside, then pulled a chair up to the bed. Lilac sat obediently down on it, and leaned nearer to the small, still figure. She glanced up at Sister, who nodded encouragingly.

‘She can almost certainly hear,’ she murmured. ‘Do what you can, my dear.’

Lilac took the small, cold hand in hers and chafed it between her palms.

‘Betty? Kitty’s so sorry you’re ill and says please get well, just as she’s getting well, so you can be together again,’ she murmured. ‘She quite understands about the fall . . .’

The pale lips moved, the head stirred just a little on the pillow.

‘It . . . were . . . the Drop, our Kit,’ the child breathed. ‘She were so strong an’ ’eavy, there weren’t nothin’ I could do.’

‘No, you did wharrever you could,’ Lilac said at once. ‘You did real good, our Bet, I couldn’t ’ave done berrer meself.’

She didn’t know what made her say it nor why she spoke with the thick accent she had used as a child, but Betty heaved a sigh which Lilac was almost sure was satisfaction. ‘Oh, Kit, I loves you,’ she said, her voice so faint that Lilac had to lean even closer to hear the words. ‘But I does ache!’

The child took another deep breath, as though to say something more, then expelled the breath gently.

She did not breathe again.

When Lilac left the hospital an hour later she was in a very low state of mind. That poor little kid could never have made a full recovery, would always have been ailing, and her circumstances were such that she would have had to enter an institution. But even so . . .

A life snuffed out because of a selfish, drunken mother and an uncaring father, Lilac mourned as she stepped out once again into the thickness of the fog. If you’re a foundling, like me, at least you aren’t burdened by those who ought to support you but instead seem to do their best to undermine you and bring you low. Even if I’d not had Nellie’s support I’d have been a good deal better off than the Drinkwater kids.

Art had been burdened by an uncaring father and a downright nasty mother, Lilac remembered, stepping out into the road once more, but he’d turned out lovely, had Art. Caring, strong and honest. As different from the other O’Briens as chalk from cheese. But despite her resolve to turn the loss of Art into something which would strengthen her and make her into a better person, it was still too new, too raw, to be anything but painful to think of him.

It would not always be thus, though. Nellie had assured her of this, said that one day Lilac would be able to remember Art with love and affection and enjoy the memories, as one would enjoy remembering a childhood long gone, or one’s wedding day or first dance.

‘Time really does heal,’ Nellie had said in her soft voice, giving Lilac a strong and steady glance. ‘It’ll heal your hurt too, queen, I promise you, though it’ll seem impossible for a good few months yet.’

And Lilac, remembering Nell’s first love and the child she had borne, knew that the older girl spoke from experience and admired her more than ever, remembering her bravery at the time and her unfailing cheerfulness.

Presently, she realised she must have turned in the wrong direction when leaving the hospital, or perhaps she had unthinkingly left by a different entrance, for all of a sudden there was a change in the steady thickness of the fog, a feeling of space before her, and a sound she knew but could not immediately recognise, a soft slapping, chuckling, a gurgling . . . Lilac stopped short and stared around her, considerably dismayed. It was water, that was what she could hear, so somewhere not too far away, unless she was much mistaken, was the edge of the dock! Darkness had fallen some time ago; she realised she had not so much as glanced at a clock during her time in the Northern Hospital, but now, when she looked up, she could not even see a glow above her. The fog was completely blanketing the street lamps, always presuming there were lit lamps near her, of course.

Standing still, with the fog beading her coat and hair with moisture, she realised that she could have turned a couple of times without realising it, and that the dock need not be directly in front of her but to the right, the left, or even behind. It was a horrid feeling, for the place seemed to be deserted and though Lilac could swim she did not much fancy her chances in the chill of the fog, especially when muffled in her coat and boots.

But she could not stand here for ever, waiting for something to happen. She felt forward with her foot, found firm ground, stepped, felt forward again, stepped . . .

It would have taken a long time and she still might have ended up in the water, but she was saved by a commotion ahead, a little to her right. She could hear voices, a bumping sound, cheerful shouts: the dock was no longer deserted, she could even see a figure, dimly outlined, not more than a few feet from her.

Lilac started forward, beginning to smile.

‘Oh, excuse me . . . I’m lost, I came out of the hospital and must have turned in the wrong direction . . . could you possibly guide me back to the road? I would be so obliged to you!’

They were sailors, still in uniform – deckhands, probably. Half-a-dozen of them. A couple of them looked at her incuriously, then shook their heads – could they be foreign, perhaps? But they were not, as they soon proved.

‘Hello, chuck – lost, are ye? Right, folly us!’

One man took her right arm, another her left. They turned resolutely right, walking as though they could see through the fog, though Lilac, dragged bemusedly between them, could still see nothing.

A third man, slightly behind them, spoke in a thick country accent, his voice slurring a little.

‘Thee’s got a right shapely boom on thee, lass; Ah wouldn’t mind an ’andful o’ that!’

Best ignore it, Lilac was thinking, when the man gripping her right arm spoke sharply.

‘Gerrout, Tarn, finders keepers; Alf an’ me ’as fust go.’

Lilac tried to tug herself free of the men, without success, so she began to struggle.

’Ay up, gairl, we’ll pay ye all fair an’ square,’ the man on her left said. ‘We’re jest ashore, see – got plenty o’ gelt. Ow much d’you charge? I reckon it’ll be five bob each, eh? Got a room?’

‘No I have not,’ Lilac said furiously. ‘I told you I was lost in the fog and lost I was! I’m not street-walking, I’m a respectable woman!’

‘You’re a nice gairl – ain’t they all?’ the man on her right said consolingly. ‘But the money’s good – why, you’ll tek ’ome fifteen shillin’ jest from the t’ree of us; can’t be bad, eh?’

‘You’ll wake up in gaol after I’ve been to the police . . .’ Lilac began, then felt her captors veer abruptly to the right. A narrow alley loomed, she could just see the walls on either side. Oh God save me, she thought as they dragged her, kicking vigorously and telling them at the top of her voice that they were making a mistake which they would suffer for, they don’t believe me, they’re going to . . . to . . .

Desperation lent Lilac strength. She tore herself out of the grasp of the two men, swerved to avoid the third, and was away, running heedlessly now, no longer fearing that she might plunge into the dock, no longer fearing anything but pursuit and what the men whose voices, shouting to her, were growing fainter with every step she took, might do.

She was beginning to believe she had escaped, that she really was free of them, when she heard footsteps. A man’s tread, she was sure of it. She stopped short, staring blindly around her. She saw ahead of her a tall building with golden light spilling out of a doorway . . . she ran full out, her breath sobbing in her throat, a hand pressed to a stitch in her side, and just as she got close to that golden light, just as she began to feel herself safe, she cannoned into someone.

‘Whoa, lass, whoa! You’re in a hurry . . . what’s up, gel?’

A face loomed above her own. An intelligent face, the mouth curved into a slight, enquiring smile, the brows rising.

‘Oh, oh, some men . . . they’re chasing me, they think . . . they think . . .’ Lilac stuttered. ‘Don’t let them get me!’

‘You poor gel . . . come on, come into the ’otel, you’ll be safe enough in there.’

The man pushed her gently in through the open doorway and Lilac, still trembling and with her legs beginning to feel as though they belonged to someone else, nearly fainted with shock and relief.

It was the Delamere! In her mad panic-stricken flight she had actually run to her destination!

She turned to the man standing beside her, a hand still on her arm.