‘Shame we haven’t got any.’ He took another large mouthful.
After a moment she gave him a coy smile. ‘Hope we didn’t keep you awake last night!’
‘I’m used to it.’
‘What?’ She stared at him. ‘Used to it? You mean he . . .’
‘You weren’t the first woman in his life, Dolly. Be sensible.’ He washed his bread and dripping down with a mouthful of tea. ‘And just lately you two were up to it most lunchtimes if I remember rightly. Bed springs going nineteen to the dozen!’
Dolly said, ‘You shouldn’t have been listening!’
‘You made enough noise!’ He helped himself to another spoonful of sugar and stirred the tea vigorously.
Dolly said, ‘Or porridge. Got any porridge oats?’
‘No.’
She gave an exaggerated sigh and poured herself a cup of tea.
‘So, what’s it like being married, Mrs Wickham?’
She shrugged. ‘Don’t know, really. I mean, nothing’s very different. I’ve fallen out with me ma, but that’s Don’s fault for not letting her come to the wedding.’ She gave him a long look. ‘You didn’t turn up either.’
‘My guts were playing up something chronic.’
Dolly pursed her lips, disapproving of the way the conversation was going. ‘How is it that Don works so hard and is away so often and you’re always hanging about here doing nothing?’
He gave the question earnest consideration. ‘I help him out from time to time.’
‘You?’ She tossed her head at the very idea. ‘When do you help him out? You’re not a salesman.’
‘He has certain jobs that need a partner. Certain important jobs. Then it’s me. Me and him.’
‘Pull the other leg. It’s got bells on!’
‘OK then. Me, I’ve got a private income,’ he said, grinning. ‘Family money. My grandfather left me money.’
Dolly’s eyes widened. ‘He left you money? Just you? What about Don?’
For a moment he hesitated. ‘He lived with us, but he never liked Don even though he was better looking when he was a kid. Grandpa was a cantankerous old sod, but I was his favourite. I was named after him, and he liked that. Sidney Archibald Wickham. That was his name. Proper old moneybags, he was.’
‘Well, I think that was really mean. Two brothers, and he only left money for one.’ She broke a piece of crust from the loaf and nibbled it absent-mindedly. ‘I don’t think I’d have liked a man like that. Having favourites. Poor Don.’
‘Don was a bit of a brat, that’s why. Always dodging off school or getting the cane. Always answering back. I’d like a pound for every time he got a clout round the ear from someone. Used to throw clods of earth at the old man’s cat just to annoy him. He had this mangy old tabby – it must have been a hundred in cat years – but the old man adored it. Lord knows why!’
‘So are you rich?’
‘From time to time!’ He laughed. ‘Maybe you picked the wrong brother!’
‘I feel rich. Look!’ She held out her left hand and waggled her fingers. ‘My ma says it’s glass, but what does she know about anything? I think it’s—’
To her surprise Sidney grabbed at her hand and eyed the ring through narrowed eyes. ‘When did he give you this? When
exactly
did he give you this?’
‘It’s my wedding ring. Don forgot to buy a gold band so he gave me this instead.’ With an effort she snatched her hand from his grasp. ‘At least he worked for it. It wasn’t just handed to him on a plate by his grandfather!’
Sidney was staring at her as if he had seen a ghost. ‘When did he give you that ring?’ he repeated.
‘I told you. Saturday.’ She could almost see his brain working – thoughts whirling round in his head.
He leaned forward suddenly. ‘Want to know if it’s real? I mean, he might have palmed you off with glass, like your ma said. I know a chap who could tell you the truth. He’s an expert, this chap. But you’d have to let me take it to him.’
‘I’d better not.’
‘He won’t know.’
‘I’m not supposed to take it off. Not ever.’ She was weakening. How wonderful to have it approved by an expert! She would tell her mother. That would put her nose out of joint and serve her right.
‘So what do you say?’ he asked.
She hesitated. ‘I don’t know. He might find out. I’ll think about it. How’s that?’
‘Not much to think about, is there? Either he lied to you or he didn’t.’ He leaned closer. ‘Either he’s taken you for a fool or he hasn’t!’ He pushed back his chair. ‘Well, I’m off. Don’t forget to do the washing up!’
Dolly blinked, outraged for a moment, but then she rallied. ‘And where are you off to in such a hurry if you don’t work?’
He put a finger to his lips. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag it out of me!’ he told her. He reached for a jacket from the hooks behind the door, punched his arms into the sleeves, wiped the remains of his breakfast from his mouth with the back of his hand and was gone, slamming the door behind him.
Dolly sat there for a long time, struggling with her feelings. On the one hand she was now a married woman and ought to feel happy, but on the other hand her husband had disappeared. She felt neglected and wanted to run home for a cup of tea and one of her mother’s rock cakes, but that was out of the question. Her mother would gloat. As for doing the washing up! She stared round her. That would be skivvying, wouldn’t it?
She wondered what her sister Mavis would think of missing the wedding. No doubt she would also be annoyed. Jealous, too. Dolly smiled. Then her smile faded. Ma would tell Mavis that there were no marriage lines.
Maybe she should go back to Clarence Street to the Rose and Garter, ask them where the reverend lived and then collect the marriage lines.
She was still undecided when the postman arrived and handed her a couple of letters. One was for a Mr John Daye.
She ran after the postman, waving the envelope. ‘You’ve given me the wrong letter,’ she told him breathlessly. ‘No one of that name lives at number sixteen. I know because I live there now I’m married!’ She waited for his congratulations. ‘Saturday,’ she elaborated. ‘Don’t you recognize me? I used to live opposite.’ She pointed helpfully.
He handed it back. ‘It says number sixteen, Mansoor Street. That’s where I deliver it. There must be an office on the top floor. See?’ He ran a finger under the address. ‘PSD. Third Floor.’
‘But it must be a mistake,’ she insisted. ‘There’s only the ground floor and the first floor where the bedrooms are – unless the third floor means the attic. Anyway, what does PSD stand for?’
‘Don’t rightly know and don’t care. Not my job, miss, to know everything. I just deliver the letters.’
‘It’s not “Miss”, it’s “
Mrs
”. I told you. I’m married. Mrs Donald Wickham.’ She smiled, suddenly cheerful again. ‘We were wed Saturday. A private ceremony!’
‘Well, that’s as may be, but that letter stays where I delivered it. Most likely it’s one of those special drop-off places where a firm doesn’t have shop or an office but has an address so people can write to them.’ He thrust the envelope into her hand again and walked quickly away before she could delay him further.
Dolly went back into the house, slightly crushed by his lack of interest in her marriage, and propped the letter behind the clock on the narrow mantelpiece. The other letter was addressed to Sidney and looked like a bill of some kind. Her mother dreaded bills, but presumably Sidney wouldn’t worry because he had family money and was rich.
‘PSD?’ she muttered. ‘Private Shop? No–o . . . Personal Service Delivery! Something like that. Anyway, what
is
in the attic?’ Dust usually, she thought. A ‘drop-off place’? She had a lot to learn. Moving towards the sink she put the plug in and added cold water and what was left in the kettle. She found a cloth and rubbed some soap into the water and frothed it up. She began to wash up because there was nothing else to do. She had put the violets on her bedroom window for Don to admire, and she would press them in a day or two. She would buy a scrap book and write things in it like the day the baby was born . . . or what happened when they went to Ramsgate for the day. Don had promised her the latter by way of a honeymoon, but not just yet because he was so busy at work.
She sighed. In her old life she would have been at work behind the counter in the bakery on the corner, chatting cheerfully to the familiar customers. Mrs Braggs coming in for her two sausage rolls for their lunch; Miss Warren from the end house buying a stale bun to toast for her tea; young Jimmy Stokes with a penny pocket money for an apricot jam tart. Dolly knew them all and served them with genuine pleasure.
Except on Saturdays, of course, when she and Mavis would have wandered round the market, eating toffee apples, or maybe buying a new ribbon for a hat, chatting with friends and exchanging their news. But now they were married Don had said he was a ‘man of means’ and she could give up work, what with the baby coming and everything, and he didn’t want her out with her girlfriends all the time, ‘tittle-tattling’ about her private life.
For a moment she felt lonely, mourning the passing of that part of her life. She was almost tempted to go in search of her friends, but reluctantly reminded herself how eager she had been for change. Her friends would envy her the fact that she now had a husband and would soon have a baby to care for. No, she decided. She must forgo the delights of the market and would wait in dutifully because her husband might come back sooner than later.
‘Skivvying!’ she whispered, but she was a married woman after all, and suppose her mother relented and decided to pop across and see how she was getting on? The kitchen looked a mess. Glancing round she saw that the floor was littered with crumbs and what looked like sawdust. Later on she would sweep up, she decided. Don would be pleasantly surprised when he came back.
Not a mile away Leonard Phipps was writing to his mother in far away Bedfordshire. He sat in his rented room over the bar in the Merry Monarch and pencilled the words into a large notebook supplied by the Metropolitan Police and intended to receive information on crimes. He didn’t think they would miss one or two pages.
. . . So you see, I shall be very comfortable in my new room with the Dayes and well fed in the evening (sixpence per hot dinner) and will sleep well on the bed, which has a good horsehair mattress.
Mrs Daye has promised a scuttle full of coal when the weather is cold and has sent for the sweep as she has found a few feathers in the grate and thinks a bird has nested in the chimney . . .
Leonard sharpened his pencil and continued.
Her husband, who is away on business a lot, seems a decent sort and made no bones about me having the room
.
Old Mr Meecham is very vague and several times called me Robert, but that is no problem, and little Adam seems a nice child and well behaved.
Work is going well – we hear plenty of gossip about the rest of London including that recent robbery by jewel thieves in London during which a man was knocked down. It seems he is not expected to survive so we may soon all be involved in a hunt for a killer! That would be useful experience.
So far, dearest mother, I have not stumbled into any ‘dens of vice’, nor have I been corrupted in any way!
I shall move in to my new room on Monday and will write to you again next week. Don’t worry about me. All is well. Yours truly, Lennie.
He tore the sheet from the notebook and folded it, then slipped it into an envelope and carefully addressed it. His widowed mother, country born and bred, had dreaded his move to London, but he had insisted that the move was his only chance of early promotion.
Already, he had seen more action on the beat in one day than he had in the village in a week. Gleefully, he counted them on the fingers of one hand – a street fight outside a pub in the morning, an accident involving a horse and cart and a motor car which resulted in broken headlamps, large-scale thefts of fruit from the Billingsgate market reported in the afternoon and a burglary from a church collection box discovered just before evensong.
At home in Bedfordshire he had spent most of his time on his bicycle, chasing groups of speeding cyclists. He grinned at the memories. He’d seen enough ‘scorchers’ to last him a lifetime and had put up with quite enough back answers from them.
Although he was now on foot he found his beat an exciting place, but he would always dilute it for his mother’s benefit. Murderous gangs would become rowdy groups, a raid on a local shop would become young thieves and a stolen horse would become a runaway animal. Nor would he mention the bullying Sergeant O’Malley, or the uniform which did not fit as well as it might so the back of the collar rubbed his neck. His mother had been born to worry, and he wanted to spare her the anxiety of thoughts of her precious son floundering in the well-reported wickedness of London streets. Life was never perfect, he told himself, and for the moment he was well satisfied with his lot.
That night, as the church clock struck midnight, John lay wide awake, his arm round his sleeping wife. Lydia was snoring faintly in a feminine way which always touched his heart. The moonlight revealed her hair, dishevelled on the pillow, and he knew that her often anxious face, now softened by sleep, would look much younger. Only a few years older than Dolly, he thought, with a deep feeling of guilt. Poor Dolly would be sleeping alone, the first of many such nights. He sighed. She would have to get used to it. At least he had given her the appearance of respectability she had craved.
Lydia stirred in her sleep and turned over and away from him without waking. He tucked himself round her sleeping form and wished that he had managed his life better. Women were such a trial – so tempting, so very needful. Knowing that a man loved them was never enough, somehow. At least he and Lydia were legally married – apart from the false name he had used. He had done that much for her, and he tried to take comfort from the thought.
At the time he had wanted a family, believing that was the way to put down roots; believing that he wanted to change his lifestyle; believing that with the right support he could become a better person. What a fool he had been, and how hopelessly naive to imagine that he and Sidney could rise above their beginnings. Not that they were without resources, but money wasn’t everything, and Lydia’s father had immediately known him for what he was. ‘A jumped up Jack’ was the phrase he had once used in an attempt to dissuade Lydia from marrying him. Although George Meecham had no idea of the extent of his son-in-law’s wrongdoings, he had recognized him for what he wasn’t. John Daye was not a decent man, and he was not the sort of man a father would approve of for a son-in-law.