Ma slid her knife from her skirt pocket. She held it in her palm for a second to feel the smoothness of the ivory handle. It had been her Harry’s and his father’s before that, and it would no doubt pass to her son Harry in time. It was well crafted, balanced and razor-sharp. She ran her thumb up to the pin at the top of the handle and pressed it. The blade sprung out.
Suddenly, Tommy stumbled and looked for a moment, as if he might fall to the floor. Charlie dragged him upright and, holding him tight by the arm, said, ‘Look who we found skulking in the Ten Bells.’
Ma looked Tommy up and down. ‘The Ten Bells? What took you so far from home then?’
Sweat glistened on Tommy’s narrow forehead.
‘Me ma’s talking to you,’ Charlie growled, ‘and I ’ope for your sake you’ve got an answer.’
Ma waved her knife in the air and it gleamed in the light. ‘Now, Charlie, Tommy didn’t mean no ’arm.’ She began paring the skin from the apple.
‘Nah, nah, I didn’t mean no ’arm at all, Mrs T,’ Tommy replied, his body losing some of its tension. ‘I just fancied a stroll and found myself up Shoreditch way.’
Harry snorted. ‘Long bloody stroll! Your old lady hasn’t seen you for a week.’
‘And neither ’ave we,’ Ma added, slicing into the apple and popping a wedge in her mouth. ‘Bring ’im ’ere.’
Snapper, who’d settled under the table to gnaw at his haunches, heard the change of tone and sprang to his feet. Tommy yelled and lurched away but Harry and Charlie thrust him towards Ma and held his hands down on the table.
Tommy’s eye fixed on the blade in Ma’s hand as it twinkled in the light. She paused, savouring his terrified expression then, with a twist of her fingers, she gripped the knife and slammed the blade through Tommy’s outstretched hand.
An ear-piercing yell tore through the bar. Snapper barked and danced around their feet. Some of the patrons looked up but most, knowing where their best interests lay, continued to stare into their glasses.
Still clutching the ivory handle, Ma leant forward. ‘And how is your old lady and those four lovely kids of yours?’ she asked in a conversational tone.
A rivulet of blood was rolling off Tommy’s hand, staining the tabletop beneath.
Charlie shook him. ‘Me ma asked you a question.’
‘She . . . she’s f . . . fine, Mrs Tugman.’
‘And the children?’
Tommy was all but on his knees now in an effort to minimise the pull on his injured hand. ‘Grand. They’re grand.’
Ma’s free hand shot out, grabbed the tattered scarf around Tommy’s neck and hauled him towards her. He lost his footing and would have fallen but for his hand nailed to the table.
‘If you want ’em to stay that way, Tommy Lee, when my boys give you something to take upriver, you fecking take it.’ Ma wriggled the blade. ‘Understand?’
He nodded and, as Ma yanked the knife out of his hand, he collapsed. Snapper barked a couple of times at the crumpled heap then waddled off.
Ma’s hand went to her chest.
‘Has ’e upset you, Ma?’ Harry asked, glaring at the man on the floor.
‘Just catching my breath,’ she replied.
Harry circled around Tommy, who was now coming to and scrambling to his feet.
‘You upset me ma,’ he shouted, and booted Tommy in the stomach.
Tommy fell sideways, holding his bleeding hand, and vomited into the beer-soaked sawdust. Charlie went to boot him, too.
‘That’s enough!’ Ma barked. ‘Throw him outside. And you’ - she jabbed her index finger at the girl behind the bar - ‘get a bucket and clear up this mess.’
Harry and Charlie heaved Tommy up once again, dragged him to the door and threw him out to the street.
Ma wiped the blade of her knife on her skirt and resumed eating her apple, but felt a sudden sharp sting under her arm. Letting the knife fall to her lap, she slid her right hand between the buttons of her grubby blouse, over to her left armpit, where she caught her minute tormenter between her thumb and forefinger. She extracted it and idly studied the flea as it struggled. ‘You can hide from Ma and give ’er a nip when she ain’t looking,’ she told the insect as she cracked it between her black-rimmed nails, ‘but she’ll get yer in the end.’
Chapter One
Stepney Green, 1844
With her hand on the polished banister, Josephine O’Casey, known as Josie ever since she could remember, lifted her skirts and made her way down the uncarpeted stairs from the main part of the house, to the kitchen. The heat from the room burst over her as she opened the door. Tucking a stray lock of her auburn hair back behind her ears, she stepped down to the flagstone floor.
The kitchen of number twenty-four Stepney Green was half below street level. The range, with its two ovens, roasting spit and six hotplates, dominated the space. Daisy, the maid, lit it at five in the morning and it supplied the household not only with food but, thanks to the copper incorporated into its design, a constant stream of hot water.
Standing with her back to Josie was Mrs Woodall, the Munroe family’s cook. Her wide hips shook as she furiously stirred the contents of one of the large saucepans.
On a normal day Mrs Woodall accommodated the erratic working hours of Josie’s stepfather, Dr Robert Munroe, as well as the vagaries of the tradesmen and the children’s fads and fancies; however, today was not a normal day, and the usually unruffled cook looked as if she was about to boil over, just like one of her pots.
‘Oh, Miss Josie, it’s you. I thought it was your mother again,’ Mrs Woodall said, some of the worry leaving her face.
Josie smiled. To her knowledge her mother, Ellen, had already been down to the kitchen three times in the last two hours and by the look on Cook’s face she was expected again.
‘You’d think the Queen of Sheba was coming, the amount of dishes I’ve got to prepare,’ Mrs Woodall continued.
Queen of Sheba! No, someone much more important: Mrs Munroe, her stepfather’s elderly mother.
‘Can I do anything to help?’ asked Josie, skirting around the stained chopping block which still had the odd chicken feather stuck to its surface. She, too, had escaped from the turmoil upstairs.
Apart from her trips to see Cook, Ellen had visited the guest room twice to check that the bed linen was properly aired, and her temper was shortening by the minute.
‘Thank you, Miss Josie, but I’ve taken the plates up and now I just have to wait for the meat to cook and the fruit to arrive.’
There was a crash from the floor above. Josie and Mrs Woodall looked up.
‘Your poor mother,’ tutted Mrs Woodall, and, turned her attention to the pile of cabbage sitting ready to prepare. ‘She shouldn’t be running about in her condition.’
Josie agreed and, pushing her way past the basket of potatoes on the floor, went over to the roasting hook to rewind the clockwork that had begun to slow.
Mrs Woodall gave her a grateful smile. ‘I could do with Daisy down here to help,’ she said, attacking the wrinkled leaves of the Savoy cabbage with her vegetable knife. ‘I don’t know why nurse needs help with the children.’
Josie repositioned the dripping tray under the roasting side of beef turning in front of the fire. ‘George and Joe have been up since dawn,’ she said. ‘Their racket woke Jack, who grizzled for an hour, and then the girls got out of bed. Poor Nurse has to help Miss Bobby and Lottie into their best clothes and take the rags out of their hair, and at the same time try to soothe Jack, who’s teething. She needs Daisy to make sure they are all ready on time.’
Mrs Woodall looked unconvinced. Josie noticed the jam tarts on the cooling tray by the open window.
‘I can see your eyes, Miss Josie,’ Mrs Woodall said, a small smile lightening her face. ‘I suppose I had better let you make sure they’re all right before I send them up with the afternoon tea.’
Josie grinned, then went over and scooped up a tart. She blew on it for a second and then popped it in her mouth, licking her fingers.
Mrs Woodall’s gaze ran over Josie and her eyes grew soft. ‘With your sweet tooth, I’m surprised you stay so slim. It must be all that dashing about you do.’
Large windows let light into the kitchen but, since the kitchen was below street level they remained firmly shut to keep out the dirt that would blow down from above. To keep the temperature of the room down, Mrs Woodall worked with the back door ajar.
‘And where
is
the grocery boy?’ she asked herself now, glaring around the room as if the pots and pans might know.
‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon. Mr Grey is very reliable,’ Josie assured her.
‘He is, but that boy of his, Jaco, is a bit flash for my taste. I caught him chatting with Daisy outside the back door last week,’ Mrs Woodall replied. ‘How am I supposed to make Dish of Orange without oranges, I ask you?’
At that, there was a double-tone whistle and the young man in question stepped through the back door.
‘Morning, Mrs W,’ he said, swinging his basket up onto the work surface beside the deep sink.
Mrs Woodall pointed at Jaco with her knife. ‘I’ve been expecting you for hours and I’ll have something to say to your master when I see him.’
‘Now then, hold your horses there, it ain’t my fault I’m late.’ Jaco repositioned his cap at a preferred jaunty angle. ‘The missus’ brother been away at sea for nigh on two years and he come back last night. They’re all a bit foggy, you might say, this morning after the celebration.’
‘Where has he been?’ Josie asked, thankful to talk about something other than Mrs Munroe’s imminent arrival.
‘According to him, everywhere - India, China and other savage lands,’ Jaco replied, squaring up the bottom of his colourful waistcoat. ‘Brought back all sorts of things, he did. Some strange cups with no handles from Japan, a bolt of silk from Bombay and some carved masks that scared the nippers.’
‘It’s a pity he didn’t bring some oranges with a bit of juice in them,’ commented Mrs Woodall, squeezing one of the fruits with a work-worn hand.
Jaco turned to Josie. ‘As I said, all around the world and sailed back on the
Jupiter
on the evening tide.’
Josie’s mind whirled.
The Jupiter!
Why did that name ring bells in her head?
‘Anyhow, Mrs W, Mr Grey says to tell you he’ll be by in the morning for the rest of the week’s order,’ Jaco said. He winked at Mrs Woodall. ‘Oh, and tell Daisy I was asking after her,’ he said, dashing up the steps two at a time.
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ Mrs Woodall called after him.
Turning back to the table, she seized a large potato and jabbed her knife into it. ‘The cheek of him,’ she muttered, scraping off the skin in short strokes.
The kitchen door opened and Bobby, Josie’s twelve-year-old-sister, appeared around it. Nurse had worked a miracle on Bobby’s straight hair and her young face was now framed with reddish-blond ringlets.
‘Mother’s asking for you,’ Bobby said.
Giving Mrs Woodall a brief smile, Josie followed Bobby up the stairs.
Shoving the niggling issue of the
Jupiter
aside, she reached the ground floor of the house and stepped back onto the hall carpet, the smell of lavender and beeswax tickling her nose. The door to the parlour, the main family room to her right, was open wide and Josie glanced in.
The sofa and chairs sat at right angles to each other with their cushions plumped and the whatnots standing ready to receive books and drinks as required. Josie’s embroidery hoop lay across her needlework box on the table by the window. Ma had wanted to tidy it away but Josie had argued that it would show Mrs Munroe that they spent their leisure time in industrious pursuits.
Mounting the stairs to the first floor, her eye caught the print of the steamship her stepfather had bought shares in. A smile lifted the corners of her mouth. That’s it! The
Jupiter
.