Authors: Dilly Court
‘She’s scalded her wrist.’
‘Put butter on it.’ Gussie reached for the dish, frowning when she saw that it was empty. ‘Who ate the last of the butter?’
‘Never mind that now.’ Judy had been supervising Dolly, who was stirring a saucepan of porridge seemingly oblivious to the disharmony amongst her fellow lodgers, but the sight of Rose in distress galvanised Judy into action. She rushed forward to cover the scalded wrist with a clean cloth. ‘Sit down, girl. You’ve gone white as a sheet. Dolly, make sure the porridge doesn’t burn and stop snivelling. Rose will be all right.’ She glanced at Phoebe who was hovering anxiously at her side. ‘Make yourself useful and fetch a mop.’
‘I never meant to hurt her,’ Herbert mumbled, putting a safe distance between himself and Judy.
She turned on him with her lips pulled back in a snarl. ‘Jackson, you’re a disgrace. I’ve warned you before about your boozing and the evils of strong drink. Now you’ve hurt your daughter and I hope you’re ashamed of yourself.’
Herbert cringed visibly. ‘I’m sorry, Rose, love. I dunno what came over me.’
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. ‘Yes you do, Poppa. You’re always like this when you’ve had a bellyful of gin.’ She glanced at Phoebe, shaking
her
head. ‘I tried to talk your ma out of going with him, but she wouldn’t listen.’
Phoebe put the mop aside and patted her on the shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault, and to be fair to your pa it’s not entirely his either. My ma is easily led, but I’m begging you, Mr Jackson. Please don’t take her to the pub again.’
‘Bloody women,’ Herbert muttered, heading for the doorway. ‘Always grumbling about something. I feel poorly but I don’t get any sympathy. I’m going for a lie down.’ He stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
‘You mustn’t take any notice of Poppa,’ Rose said, wincing as Judy applied a generous amount of baking soda to the afflicted limb.
‘Fetch my medicine chest from the front parlour.’ Judy addressed Gussie who was watching the procedure with interest. ‘I have some bandages ready made for just such an event.’
Gussie opened her mouth as if to argue and then appeared to think better of it. With a mumbled response, she hurried from the room.
‘You should have been a nurse, Judy,’ Phoebe said sincerely. ‘I wouldn’t have known what to do.’
‘Pity you’ve left your crystal ball at the theatre, isn’t it?’ Judy spoke severely but her thin lips curved into a pleased smile. ‘I do have a talent for curing ills, but I can’t do anything for Annie or for that father of yours, Rose. Their ailments are inflicted by themselves and they should be ashamed for allowing the demon drink to rule their sad lives.’
Phoebe shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. What Judy said was harsh but true and there was no denying it. She moved to the dresser and picked up a cup and saucer. ‘I’ll take some tea up for Ma, and I’ll have a few words to say to her.’
‘Let me take it,’ Dolly said, abandoning the saucepan, but receiving a stern look from Judy she resumed stirring the porridge. ‘Poor Annie’s sick,’ she murmured. ‘Poor Annie.’
‘I’ll speak to Poppa when he’s himself again,’ Rose said slowly. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t want any harm to come to Annie or her baby. He’ll be very ashamed when he realises what he’s done.’
‘Never mind Annie. She can look after herself.’ Judy went to relieve Dolly of her task. ‘Go and get yourself a bowl, child. You’ve earned your breakfast.’
Gussie reappeared carrying a small beechwood box which she placed on the table in front of Rose. ‘I thought better of your pa. He’s a different person when he’s been on the booze.’
Judy pushed her aside. ‘Never mind that now, Augusta. Isn’t it time you left for work? You’ll be in trouble with that snooty woman who owns the hat shop if you’re late again. Fred left on his rounds a good half-hour ago.’
Gussie glanced at the clock on the wall with a gasp of dismay, and grabbing her bonnet and shawl from the peg behind the door she raced out of the room as if the devil were on her heels.
‘It never fails to amaze me how that woman keeps her job,’ Judy said, shaking her head as she opened
the
medicine chest. Selecting a roll of gauze bandage and a piece of lint she placed the dressing on Rose’s arm. ‘Hold still, girl. I can’t work if you wriggle about.’
Phoebe took the opportunity to fill a teacup and escape from the room, leaving Madame Galina and Dolly to watch Judy bandaging the afflicted limb as if it were the most interesting thing they had ever seen.
Upstairs in the attic room Phoebe found her mother lying in bed with her hand covering her eyes.
‘Is that you, Phoebe? I have such a headache. I’m feeling quite unwell this morning.’
‘I’m not surprised, Ma, and quite honestly it serves you right.’ Phoebe placed the cup and saucer on the wash stand. ‘Whatever possessed you to go out drinking?’
‘Don’t scold me. I was bored and lonely. I miss London and I miss Ned. I want to go home, Phoebe. I want to tell him I love him and I’m going to have his child. Please take me back to Saffron Hill. I’ll die if I have to remain here any longer. I’ll die.’
It had taken all Phoebe’s powers of persuasion to prevent her mother from leaving the house and heading for the railway station, despite the fact that she had very little money in her purse and nothing on which to live when she reached her destination. Annie had managed to convince herself that Ned Paxman would welcome her with open arms, and that there would be wedding bells before the spring. Phoebe remained sceptical but she listened patiently and eventually managed to persuade Annie that a long journey undertaken in the harsh winter weather would endanger her
health
and the child’s. It would be better to wait until she had regained her former vitality, not to mention her figure, before attempting a reunion with Ned. In the end it was vanity that won the day, and a single glance at her bloated and pallid face in the mirror was enough to make Annie realise that her daughter was talking sense. Reluctantly, she agreed to stay indoors and rest.
Herbert, when he recovered from his hangover, was apparently a changed man. He promised Rose that he would eschew drink forever, and he went so far as to provide a large goose for Christmas dinner together with a plum pudding and a large bag of chestnuts. Following his example and not to be outdone, Fred arrived home on Christmas Eve with a basket filled with oranges, lemons and apples. From a poacher’s pocket in his overcoat he produced a bottle of brandy and one of claret, which he explained were to make brandy butter and a warming punch on Christmas morning. Even Judy allowed herself to unbend a little, and to Phoebe’s astonishment Madame Galina and Gussie seemed to have declared a truce for the festive season, or for the next twenty-four hours at least. They were positively effusive in their compliments to each other and radiated good will to everyone else. Dolly was as excited as a five-year-old and quite overcome with emotion when on Christmas morning Judy presented her with an embroidered handkerchief. Madame Galina gave her a string of blue glass beads, and Rose added a small bottle of eau de Cologne to Dolly’s growing collection of presents. Phoebe had bought a picture book in a secondhand shop in town, which she told Dolly was from her
and
Annie. It was painfully obvious that Dolly had never received a Christmas present in her life, and she sat with her gifts cradled in her lap, rocking to and fro and cooing over them.
Annie had raised herself from her bed and Phoebe was delighted to see her mother taking an interest in the proceedings at breakfast. She was even more impressed when Annie volunteered to peel the potatoes while Judy prepared the bird for the oven. Madame Galina, Gussie, Rose and Fred went off to church, leaving Herbert to make a jug of punch, adding slices of fruit and a bottle of lemonade, which they sampled on their return, while Judy, Dolly and Phoebe served the food.
The festive meal was eaten in the rather austere splendour of Judy’s dining room, where a large mahogany table was surrounded by ornately carved and rather fearsome-looking chairs. The wallpaper was heavily patterned with flowers and hung with sombre prints of highland cattle and stags at bay. A black marble clock shaped like a Roman temple sat on the mantelshelf flanked by two grinning pot dogs and sepia-tinted daguerreotypes of a grim-faced man with mutton-chop whiskers and a woman with a mouth like a steel trap and piercing eyes. Phoebe could only assume that they must be Judy’s parents. The sight of them oppressed her at first but she realised quickly that this room was Judy’s pride and joy, and that it was an honour for her lodgers to be allowed to enter its hallowed portals.
A fire had been lit in the grate although the chimney smoked a little, causing tiny flakes of soot to shower
down
on the white tablecloth like black snow. These were brushed off immediately by Gussie and the resulting smudges had to be concealed beneath swags of ivy torn from the back wall of the house. The best china was brought out for the occasion and Judy stood at the head of the table to carve the magnificent bird. Apple sauce was served with the goose and roast potatoes with lashings of gravy, and the inevitable boiled cabbage, but even this tasted delicious to Phoebe. It was, she thought, the first decent meal she had had since Nonna left for Italy.
After the last crumb of plum pudding and brandy butter had been scraped off the plates, eaten and digested, Herbert’s punch was drunk in a succession of toasts to each and every one in the room. Then Fred suggested that they might play parlour games, but Judy rose from the table saying that it would be more to the point if he helped with the washing up. Shamed into subservience, he began clearing the table and Herbert leapt to his feet declaring that he was not a man to sit back and be waited on when there was work to be done. Rose had a fit of the giggles when she saw her father with Judy’s calico apron straining at its strings as he tied it around his large belly and rolled up his sleeves in preparation to wash the pots and pans. In the end everyone lent a hand, and when the kitchen was restored to its former pristine state they retired to Judy’s front parlour where a fire burned brightly and candles had been lit. This was another honour rarely bestowed upon the lodgers, as Rose said in an aside to Phoebe, and Judy unbent enough
to
allow Fred to conduct parlour games of charades, forfeits and similes. They roasted the chestnuts on a coal shovel and ended the evening with cocoa, although Phoebe rather suspected that Herbert and Fred laced theirs with the remainder of the brandy.
Altogether it was a happy occasion, and Phoebe was delighted to see her mother smiling and looking like her old self again, but she could see a shadow hanging over them. She could not shake off the nagging worry as to how the baby would be received by the family when they returned from Italy. She could imagine their horrified reaction when they discovered who had fathered Annie’s bastard child, and this was not Phoebe’s only problem. She was painfully aware that she would have to give Gino his answer when they were reunited in the spring. She realised with a pang of regret that she had barely given him a thought since the day they parted. Surely that was not a good basis for marriage. She wished she could confide in someone but the only person to whom she could talk was Rose, and she had her own problems.
It had come to Phoebe’s notice on several occasions that Rose was not immune to the charms of a certain illusionist and conjuror. She blushed whenever his name was mentioned, and Phoebe had seen the way she looked at him when she thought she was unobserved. Her heart went out to her friend, but she thought she could do better than a man who was patently in love with himself. Caspar Collins was arrogant and full of his own self-importance. Phoebe did not like him at all, and she was not looking forward to his return in the
middle
of January when the pantomime season ended. Her poor opinion of him was not helped when he appeared a day earlier than expected and announced quite casually that Hyacinth had left him to marry a man who owned a glue factory in Bow. He was, Caspar said, old enough to be her father, and it went without saying that the gentleman in question was well-to-do. Rose giggled almost hysterically when she heard this but was stricken with an attack of hiccups which rendered her speechless. She retreated hastily to the sanctity of her small office, leaving Phoebe to deal with a puzzled Caspar. ‘What is funny about Hyacinth leaving me in the lurch?’ he demanded, eyeing Phoebe suspiciously.
She controlled her own desire to giggle, clutching her hands tightly behind her back and digging her fingernails into her palms. She had not laughed so much since Christmas Day when Fred was attempting to mime Spring-heeled Jack and tripped over a footstool falling onto Madame Galina’s lap. She took a deep breath. ‘I think it was the mention of the glue factory, Mr Collins.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘The fellow smelt of boiling bones, which was quite disgusting, but then Hyacinth was and is a little gold-digger. I hope she’s happy with her mansion in Bow and her elderly husband, but the wretched girl has left me without an assistant and I’m top of the bill next week.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Phoebe murmured, backing away towards the fortune-telling booth where her costume was stored in readiness for the matinee performance. ‘I’m sure you’ll find someone suitable.’
‘That’s easier said than done.’ Caspar fixed her with his hypnotic gaze. ‘You are doing well, I hear. You have second sight, perhaps?’
‘No, certainly not.’ Phoebe was horrified at the thought. ‘It’s all patter. I learned it from my mother.’
‘Maybe,’ he said doubtfully. ‘But I sense an aura about you, Phoebe. I did from the very first time we met and I offered to take you as my assistant.’
‘Hyacinth was working for you then. It wasn’t a very nice thing to do.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I knew she would be off at the first opportunity, but the offer still holds. You have unfathomed depths. I think we could work well together.’
‘I’m very flattered, sir.’ Phoebe lifted the flap ready to slip into the booth. Her heart was pounding uncomfortably and she would have liked to put as much distance between them as possible, but she had work to do. ‘Excuse me. I must get changed now.’