Poor Little Rich Girl (29 page)

Dick stood on the pavement in Shaw Street, staring up at the house where Hester and Lonnie lived. It was a large and imposing building and somehow unwelcoming, as though it divined that its mistress would turn him away from the door at once if she knew his errand. Dick looked up at the windows which must, he supposed, be bedrooms but could see no sign of life. He wondered if it were possible that Hester and the child were downstairs, for both the long windows facing the road were well lit, though the glow of the lights came only dimly through thick red curtains.

Heartened by the thought that, if they were downstairs, either Hester or Lonnie might come to the door to see who was calling, Dick stepped forward and reached for the bell. He pressed it firmly, then snatched his hand away as he heard its shrilling sounding horribly loud in the evening hush. In his pocket, the letter crackled when he moved and he found himself almost hoping that whoever answered the door would refuse him admittance but would
accept the letter and promise to see it delivered. That way, he would not have to beard the dragon Hetherington-Smith in her den. Not that he expected to have to do so, but he had just seen the curtains to the right of the front door twitch, had even glimpsed a long, pale face peering out at him for a moment before the curtains were closed once more. If it had been Miss Hetherington-Smith he had seen, he supposed, dismally, that it was quite possible that she would demand to know his business. If he entered the house, she was within her rights to question him, for Hester and Lonnie were in her charge whilst they lived under her roof.

Dick did not have to wonder for long, however, for the door opened, revealing an elderly, white-haired man, his brows raised in question.

Dick cleared his throat. ‘I wonder if Miss Elliott is available?’ he said hesitantly. ‘She has been very good to my mother, but since my father’s illness we’ve not seen her. Usually they meet in – in the park, but of late …’ Since the man made no move to ask him into the house, Dick began to fumble in his pocket for the letter. ‘If – if she isn’t available, my mother sent a letter … If you would be kind enough to see that she gets it …’

The elderly man cast a quick, furtive glance all around him, then stepped out of the house, pulling the big, heavy front door half closed behind him. ‘Miss doesn’t live here any more,’ he said, in a low, breathy tone. ‘She’s been gone more than a week and no one hasn’t said where, except Miss Hetherington-Smith, who says she’s gone back to India. But if you ask me …’

The old man had been holding the door handle as he spoke and suddenly it was wrenched from his
hand, almost tipping him over backwards. Dick saw a tall, thin woman, with a mean mouth, standing in the hallway. The butler straightened up and turned towards her, saying with what dignity he could muster: ‘I’m very sorry, madam, but I didn’t see fit to ask the young gentleman inside and if I’d stood in the hall with the door open, I’d have chilled the whole house in minutes. Were you wanting something, madam?’

‘Yes, I want to know this young man’s business,’ Miss Hetherington-Smith said, in an aggressive, grating voice. ‘If he’s come sniffing around after that governess, the one who left us in the lurch by going off home back to India, then he can take himself off smartly. And what was that about a letter?’ She held out an imperious hand, ‘I’ll take that, if you please.’

So domineering was her tone and so commanding her attitude that Dick was glad he had not succeeded in removing the envelope from his jacket pocket. Pulling himself together, for he had been considerably startled by the old woman’s jack-in-the-box appearance, Dick looked her straight in the eye, then raised his brows. ‘Of what use would it be to give you the letter if Miss Elliott is no longer living under your protection?’ he asked slowly. ‘And if, as you say, she has returned to India, she will no doubt get in touch with my mother as soon as she is able to do so. Is Miss Lonnie available? I should like to have a word with her.’

‘If you mean Miss Leonora Hetherington-Smith, she is not here either,’ the woman said. ‘She has returned to India with her governess.’ She raised thin, pencilled eyebrows. ‘I am surprised that your mother did not know that, since she must have
noticed their absence in the park. Surely these nannies and nursemaids chatter amongst themselves.’

‘Then I’ll say good evening to you,’ Dick said, turning away from the doorstep. Miss Hetherington-Smith started to speak, her voice rising angrily, but then appeared to realise that he did not intend to bandy words with her and slammed the door in mid-sentence.

Dick walked slowly back along Shaw Street, his heart sore. Whatever had happened to send Hester flying back to India, he was sure it had something to do with the mean-spirited and despotic woman he had just left. Indeed, now that he began to think about it, he wondered if Miss Hetherington-Smith had been speaking the truth. To be sure, the butler had told him Hester no longer lived in Shaw Street, but thinking back carefully, he remembered the butler’s very words:
She’s been gone more than a week and no one hasn’t said where, except Miss Hetherington-Smith, who says she’s gone back to India. But if you ask me
…

Dick’s steps slowed even more. To his way of thinking, the butler had no more belief in his mistress’s words than did Dick. Certainly, Hester was no longer living in the house, but it seemed doubtful that she had gone back to India. Dick knew all too well what a complicated business it was to book a passage on one of the great liners leaving the port, particularly if you did not have much money, and though Hester had seemed comfortably off compared with the Baileys, he did not think she would have been able to raise such a large sum at short notice. He was just wondering if Hester had borrowed the money from Miss Hetherington-Smith when he heard the clack-clack of shoes on the pavement
behind him and someone seized his arm. For a wild, joyous moment, he thought that it was Hester, then realised it was a little servant girl in a thin print dress with a plaid shawl wrapped around her shoulders. He stopped in his tracks and looked down at her enquiringly. ‘Hello! Where have you sprung from?’

‘Mr Fletcher – he’s the butler at the Hetherington-Smith place – axed me to catch you up and explain a thing or two,’ the girl said breathlessly. ‘I’m Mollie Hardwick what works in the house.’

‘I’m Dick Bailey. I don’t suppose Miss Hester talked about me much, but I’m anxious about her. We’d arranged to meet again on the Thursday after New Year but that were the day my father were took bad in hospital and in all the fuss and fright I never got to the meeting place. So I’m desperate to gerrin touch with her and explain, like.’

‘We guessed at something of that sort, ’cos Miss Hester seemed so happy all of a sudden. She were me pal – straight up, she was. Why, she stopped the old crow from giving me the sack, and then got sacked herself. I were that fond of Lonnie, too. Mr Fletcher says as how madam telled you that Lonnie had gone back to India wi’ Miss Hester, but I knows it ain’t true. I dunno about Miss Hester – she were sacked on New Year’s Eve – but I do know that young Lonnie is still somewhere in Liverpool. You see, I’m friendly wi’ Mr Allsop, the chauffeur, and he telled me Miss Lonnie had gone to some convent school or other, out Smithdown Road way.’

‘Thank you, Mollie,’ Dick said fervently. ‘D’you think young Lonnie will know where Miss Hester has gone? Well, I’m sure she will, because those two girls were like sisters. Hester would tell Lonnie as
soon as she had an address, though if she really has gone to India …’

‘We talked it over in the kitchens and we don’t see as how she could have gone to India,’ Mollie interpolated. ‘The old baggage paid her up to date, that’s true, but she didn’t give her a penny extra. A passage to India costs, and besides, you have to know sailing times and where to go to book your cabin and so on. No, she might go as soon as she’s earned the money for her fare, but we don’t reckon she’s gone yet.’

‘Has she got a job then?’ Dick said eagerly. ‘D’you know where she’s working? I’m over at Cammell Laird’s so I won’t get much opportunity for scouring the city in search of her, but if I knew where she was working …’

‘Madam telled her not to come near nor by the house or she’d set the scuffers on her, tell ’em she thieved money afore she left,’ Mollie said sadly. ‘That old baggage deserves to be thrown into a scorpion pit, as Miss Lonnie would say. Though I dare say,’ she added reflectively, ‘that Miss H’s tongue’s a good deal sharper than a scorpion’s tail. She’d probably kill ’em all off before they could get so much as one sting into her skinny old body.’

Dick laughed ruefully. ‘Look, Mollie, I’m going to give you a letter which I’d like you to deliver to Miss Hester if you ever come across her. The truth is, my whole family’s moving away from the city over to Birkenhead. My dad’s very ill and has to go into a sanatorium, so we’re upping sticks and taking a place across the water, to be nearer him. That means that if Miss Hester tries to find us in Elmore Street, she’ll not do so.’

‘Tell you what, the old crow don’t open my letters
– not yet she don’t, at any rate. You knows my name and address, so when you’re settled in Birkenhead, mebbe you could drop me a line, telling me your new address? I know the old crow telled Miss Hester she weren’t ever to visit in Shaw Street but it’s my belief she’ll get in touch with us as soon as she can safely do so. We’re her only link wi’ Miss Lonnie, after all.’

‘Yes, and I’ll leave a forwarding address with the new tenants of our house in Elmore Street,’ Dick said, much struck by the good sense of this idea. He seized Mollie’s hand and wrung it, then patted her shoulder and turned her in the direction of Number 127 once more. ‘Off with you, before you turn into an icicle,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Many thanks, Mollie Hardwick; you’re a wonderful girl.’

It was Monday morning and Hester was hurrying along to the shop, for on a Monday Miss Deakin expected her junior assistant to arrive an hour early. The rest of the week, the two of them and an older girl, Betsy Fleming, worked from nine o’clock until six, except for Fridays and Saturdays, when they were liable to be on the go from the moment the shop opened until ten or eleven o’clock at night, when it closed, and this meant that cleaning down was usually left until after the weekend. The lighting in the shop was not good enough to reveal to tired eyes all the fingermarks on the polished wooden counter, or the scuff marks and boot dirt all over the polished wood-block floor.

So every Monday morning – and there had been three of them – Hester arrived whilst it was still dark, switched on the lights and began the lengthy task of cleaning down. Since this included both the inside and the outside of the large windows it took her until ten o’clock at least, and she worked alone since Miss Deakin did not deign to enter the premises until the church clock had chimed ten. On reflection, she decided she probably preferred it to the manageress’s acerbic presence.

On this particular Monday, Hester was feeling rather down. On Saturday it had rained from dawn to dusk and few customers had entered the premises, so she had asked Miss Deakin, humbly, if she might
go at eight, as she needed to contact a friend who worked on Heyworth Street. Miss Deakin had cut a shilling off her wages, but she had actually dismissed her at seven o’clock, saying crossly that she supposed she and Betsy could manage since there were so few people about.

Hester had gone first to Elmore Street and had been totally dismayed to find the little house occupied by strangers. A sulky, slatternly girl of fourteen or fifteen had answered the door, but when Hester had enquired for the Baileys had not been helpful. ‘They’ve flitted,’ she had said briefly. ‘Gone over the water – I dunno where.’ And with that she had closed the door – almost slammed it in fact – in Hester’s face.

Hester had knocked again, to ask whether Mr Bailey was still in hospital or whether something bad had happened to the family, but despite both knocking and calling the door had not been opened again and presently Hester gave up and returned miserably to Heyworth Street, knowing that Mr Madison, like most shopkeepers, worked late on a Saturday night.

She had had a little more luck here since Mr Madison told her, regretfully, that his excellent young helper had moved across the water to Birkenhead. ‘I dare say you knew that the lad’s dad were took bad,’ he informed her, whilst busily cleaning out cages and spreading fresh sawdust. ‘It seems one of them there doctors up at the hospital said as how Mr Bailey would stand a better chance of regaining his health if he moved away from the city. Clean air and fresh country food would do him a power o’ good, the doctor said. But the old feller wouldn’t go ’cos he said he’d sooner die with his family around him
than live miles away where he couldn’t see them every day. So o’ course the Baileys upped sticks and moved across the water and the old feller went into the sanatorium like what the doctor wanted.’

‘You don’t know which sanatorium?’ Hester asked hopefully. ‘I – I don’t want to lose touch with Ben and the rest of his family; they’ve been good friends to me. The trouble is, I’m not living in Shaw Street any more. Lonnie’s going to school, I believe, so she doesn’t need a governess and that means that if the Baileys try to contact me there, they will be out of luck.’

Mr Madison looked up from his cage-cleaning and raised a gingery eyebrow. ‘Ben said as how the old woman didn’t have no time for her niece – or for you either, for that matter – so I suppose you didn’t leave of your own accord, like?’ he said shrewdly. ‘And you’ll be wanting to gerrin touch with the Bailey family ’cos you know they can’t gerrin touch with you, now you’ve left Shaw Street, is that right?’

‘That’s it, Mr Madison,’ Hester said gratefully. ‘So if you see young Ben could you tell him I’m working on the Scotland Road, in a shop called Paris Modes, owned by a Miss Deakin. I’m there till six most evenings, but on Friday and Saturday we shut when the customers stop coming, which can be very late.’

Mr Madison had whistled under his breath. ‘Some of these dress shop women treat their staff like slave labour,’ he had observed. ‘I’ll bet she takes money off you at the slightest excuse. But never mind, gal, you’re bound to get something better soon; you’d add class to any establishment, that’s what I say.’

So now, Hester wielded her cloth, soaked in vinegar and water, on the inside of one of the large
windows and told herself that she really must make time to call back at the employment bureau and see whether anything better had turned up. The trouble was, Miss Deakin worked her so hard and kept her so late that all she wanted to do when she did reach her shared room was to fall into bed and sleep till morning. In fact, when she was free, on her afternoon off, she usually went straight to Paddy’s market to sell some item of clothing which she felt she could do without, in order to give her a little extra money for food.

The girls with whom she shared her room were, unfortunately, a constantly changing group since the moment one of them got a decent job she moved to more salubrious and spacious accommodation. The attic room at Number 10 Stansfield Court was the only room in any of the Maskell houses to contain four beds and was generally seen as a refuge for the desperate. As soon as a girl could afford better, she would take a room-share in one of the other houses and settle down there until she either married or could afford even better accommodation.

Hester, still stunned by her staggering change of circumstances, did not really attempt to become friendly with the girls in her room. For one thing they all seemed to know one another already, and when Hester arrived home she was far too tired after her long and exhausting day to go down to the shared kitchen, where she could have cooked herself a proper meal. Instead, she toasted bread and heated beans over the small paraffin stove in their room, ate without much enthusiasm, and then got straight into bed. When the other girls came up, chattering and laughing, she simply shrank further
under the covers and longed for the lamp to be turned off so that she might sleep.

Another reason for a slight coolness between Hester and the other girls was an incident which had happened during the first week in her new abode. Beneath her bed were the suitcases which contained all her possessions. In one was the light and summery clothing she had brought with her from India, together with such items as soap, toothpaste, her face flannel and a large – and expensive – sponge. The second held her winter clothes, and it was these that Hester was gradually having to sell to the cheery Irish woman in Paddy’s market. She told herself she might have managed had she been more domesticated; as it was, she usually treated herself to a proper cooked meal every other day, in one of the many dining rooms and cafés which abounded on the Scotland Road.

That first week it had not occurred to her to check the items in the suitcase, so when she decided she must sell her best navy-blue wool skirt and the matching bolero jacket with its shiny pearl buttons, she had been amazed and furious to find that the garments had disappeared. Urgent enquiries had brought bold stares and some unsympathetic sniggers from all the girls except Bridget O’Hara, who waited until the two of them were alone before saying, in her thick Irish brogue, that she knew which one of the girls had prigged the clothing.

‘Without a doubt ’twas that Annabel, the girl wit’ the spots and greasy hair, who left to take a live-in job in Southport,’ she told Hester. ‘The other girls all know it were her, so they do, but they don’t want no trouble and they ain’t above snitching odds and ends themselves, if they t’ink no one will notice. Don’t your cases lock?’

‘Yes, they do,’ Hester had said grimly. ‘It didn’t occur to me to lock them, to tell you the truth, but in future I’ll make sure they’re locked all the time, even when I’m at home.’

Bridget nodded. She was a small, plump girl of sixteen with bristly black hair, round dark eyes and a fresh complexion which made Hester assume her to be a country girl, though it later transpired that Bridget was a product of the city of Dublin, over the water in Ireland. Though Hester did not know her very well she thought her the pleasantest of her room mates. Bridget worked as a cleaner in a gent’s outfitters in the mornings and she also cleaned in a fruiterer’s shop in the afternoons. Her combined wages probably came to no more than Hester’s, yet she managed what money she had a good deal better than the older girl. When Hester remarked on it, Bridget said that she came from a poor family and had always had to scrape a living and to make every penny do the work of two. ‘My mammy and daddy didn’t want me to leave home and come over the water, but sure and Liverpool has plenty of jobs if you’re prepared to work hard. In Dublin, though, there’s ten girls queuing up for every post and the money’s real poor,’ she explained. ‘You think the wage you get is pretty small, but I send three shillin’ home to me mammy every week and still manage to survive, so I do. But you’re used to something better, Hester, so you don’t know the tricks of makin’ money go round.’

‘The trouble is, I don’t have the time to shop carefully, and I was never taught to cook,’ Hester said. ‘At least you’re able to take a good look at the shops in the interval between finishing at the outfitter’s and starting at the fruiterer’s. Miss
Deakin keeps me at it until pretty well all the shops are closed.’

‘You should go to the markets,’ Bridget told her. ‘There’s stalls along Great Homer Street what stay open even later than your shop. They’re cheap enough if you’re careful and go from stall to stall before you buy.’

Hester had truly intended to take Bridget’s advice, but so far she had continued to heat up snack meals on the paraffin stove in their room and, alas, to eat out several times a week. Recently, however, she had spoken to Betsy, the other shop assistant, about her inability to manage on the money Miss Deakin paid, and Betsy had been very helpful. Older than Hester and still living at home with her mother and several younger brothers and sisters, she advised Hester, as Bridget had, to cook her own meals.

‘But I don’t know the first thing about cooking, apart from stuff like scrambled egg and heating up beans,’ Hester had wailed. ‘And the other girls dislike me as it is, they’d despise me even more if they saw I had no idea how to make pastry, or roast a chop or whatever you do to meat. Only I’m sick and tired of beans and eggs, and the food in the dining rooms is so delicious … But selling my things can’t go on for ever … what would you do if you were me?’

Betsy laughed. ‘If I were as pretty as you I’d find meself a nice rich husband,’ she said, then shook her head as Hester’s face fell. ‘No, I’m only kiddin’, queen. It ain’t as easy as all that. But look, Hes, why don’t you go to evening classes? They don’t start until half past seven so you could go after work. Come to that, you’re ever so much cleverer than I am, but I bet Deakin doesn’t pay you what she pays me! She knows you’re green – and pretty
desperate, what’s more. So why rely on an old skinflint like her? Why not take evening classes in shorthand and typing, or book-keeping? You’d be able to get a decent job then, and earn a good deal more money, I promise you. Tell you what, now that Denis – have I mentioned Denis? – has started taking an interest in me, I’ve thought about going to cookery classes meself. And I wouldn’t mind havin’ a go at a typewriter, either. Suppose we go together?’

Hester had jumped at the chance, but as it happened, it had been easier said than done. Evening classes, they were told severely, started each September. It was not yet February. However, if they cared to apply to join in a few weeks, when there would have been a ‘settling down’ in the classes which would result in some spare places …

Hester gathered this meant that people joined the classes with an enthusiasm which tended to flag as winter drew on, so she and Betsy agreed to apply again in a few weeks. In the meantime she continued reluctantly selling her winter clothing, eating as sparingly as possible, and of course remaining in the attic bedroom at Number 10.

The shop door opening abruptly put an end to Hester’s musing and she straightened up to glance across at the woman who had entered. It was Miss Deakin, looking round her as she did each morning, all too clearly hoping to find fault. ‘Good morning, Miss Deakin,’ Hester said politely. ‘I’m just finishing off the windows …’

‘You’ve not done the outside of the windows yet, I see,’ Miss Deakin interrupted rudely, ‘and the curtains across the changing rooms are supposed to be drawn
back
; if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times. And there’s a smear on the
looking-glass in the first cubicle – I noticed it as soon as I stepped into the shop.’

‘You’ve always told me to clean the shop first and then the windows and to leave the changing cubicles until last,’ Hester said demurely. She knew it would infuriate Miss Deakin to have her criticism parried, but she was damned if she was going to let the other woman get away with it. ‘I’ll fetch a chair and start on the outside of the windows now you’re here, Miss Deakin. I wouldn’t like to be outside, cleaning the windows, if a customer came in and there was no one to attend to her.’

Miss Deakin sniffed but made no reply and presently Hester carried a chair on to the pavement, climbed up on it and began the tedious task. When she stopped work at six o’clock, she planned to go along to Paddy’s market and sell a rather nice serge jacket to the Irish woman; then she meant to buy the ingredients for a proper meal and beard the girls in the kitchen. She might even confess that she meant to take cookery lessons and possibly one of them might offer to show her how to cook some of the food she had bought. You never knew; she had thought Betsy stand-offish and look how wrong she had been there. Hester was quite intelligent enough to realise that her meals in the dining rooms and cafés on the Scotland Road were the main cause of her financial embarrassment.