A Glimpse at Happiness (5 page)
Next, Lottie bounced off the piano stool, hopped across the floor and collided with Bobby. ‘I turned the pages, Grandmama.’
Mrs Munroe regarded Lottie for a long moment and the little girl shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
‘So I noticed, Charlotte. Now, I’m sure your governess will be coming to take you upstairs.’
‘No, the children stay down until bedtime and then Mam takes them up,’ Josie put in. ‘I help her, of course, and it’s great fun isn’t it, Mam?’
‘It certainly is,’ Ellen agreed.
‘How quaint,’ Mrs Munroe said coolly, ‘but one must always beware of spoiling children. I was most diligent in that regard myself, was I not, Robert?’
Josie had always thought that her stepfather’s Scottish childhood sounded bleak. Since meeting Mrs Munroe, she understood why.
‘No one could ever accuse you of spoiling your children, Mama, but Sir Robert told me that the Royal family themselves favour a more informal family life,’ said Robert.
Mrs Munroe’s substantial eyebrows rose up. ‘Sir Robert? You mean Sir Robert Peel?’
‘I met him last week in the House of Commons to discuss the defeat of Graham’s Factory Act. The care of children in general came up.’
Mrs Munroe looked suitably impressed. Josie knew that as part of his work on the Government Health Improvement Board her stepfather met members of the Cabinet regularly but it was a rare day when he mentioned it.
‘Now children, play nicely until supper time,’ Ellen told them. ‘And no, Lottie, you and George can not go out and play in the garden. It’s too late and - will you look at the sky? - before the clock strikes the hour the rain will be falling.’
Mrs Munroe’s expression chilled as Ellen’s Irish lilt, always more pronounced when she was agitated or worried, crept into her speech.
The children did as they were bid. Lottie delved into a large pine chest in the corner of the room and handed Joe his wooden soldiers. George pulled out a stagecoach with a brightly painted horse pivoting between the shafts and trotted it across the rug in front of the fire.
‘Do they have toys in the parlour in America, too?’ Mrs Munroe asked, as George started making clip-clop sounds.
‘Certainly,’ Robert replied. ‘They spend all day with Miss Byrd, their governess, so when I am home Ellen and I like to enjoy our children together.’
‘Well, they
are
utterly delightful, and so clever. You have done well, Ellen. Five children in twelve years and three of them boys.’
are
utterly delightful, and so clever. You have done well, Ellen. Five children in twelve years and three of them boys.’
‘We were blessed with seven but . . .’ Ellen said quietly.
‘You must expect to lose an infant or two,’ Mrs Munroe replied briskly. ‘One must not question God’s will.’
‘That does not lessen the grief,’ Robert replied. His mother made as if to speak but he continued. ‘But now we are to be blessed again.’
Jack, who had been sitting contentedly, playing with his rattle on the rug between his parents’ feet, started to fret.
Josie jumped up immediately. ‘Let me, Mam,’ she said, scooping the infant off the floor and placing him on her lap.
Mrs Munroe turned to Josie. ‘And what do you intend to do now you have returned to London, Josie?
‘I am going to visit the British Museum and, of course, I can’t wait to visit the Tower of London and see the Queen’s jewels. Mrs Martin, who lives two doors down, told us how she visited the Tower of London when she was a young girl. The animals have gone to the Zoological Gardens now but Pa said he will try to get us a visitors’ pass.’
Mrs Munroe’s expressive eyebrows travelled upwards. ‘I am disappointed that you do not have plans to spend some of your time in charitable works.’ She placed her hand theatrically on her bosom. ‘Our Lord himself went amongst the poor and sick. Can we, Josie, do less?’
Josie smiled sweetly. ‘I have renewed my acquaintance with Miss Cooper, whose father runs a mission in Wellclose Square. She has a number of young ladies who visit the poor and I plan to join them.’ She omitted to add that she and Sophie also planned a trip to Regent Street.
The lines around Mrs Munroe’s lips slackened a fraction and she inclined her head at Ellen. ‘I have always said that the most effective way of protecting a young woman’s reputation is for her to have acquaintances with a serious turn of mind. I have insisted on such with my own daughters and I am glad to hear you do the same, my dear Ellen.’
Lottie left her toys and came over to where the adults were sitting. ‘Grandmama,’ she said standing in front of Mrs Munroe with her hands behind her back. ‘If you are staying with us for eight weeks that is fifty-six days.’
Mrs Munroe smiled. ‘That’s very clever, Charlotte, but a young lady shouldn’t do multiplication too often as it can upset the female humours.’
Fifty-six days!
thought Josie,
I’m sure I’ll be crossing them off in my journal
.
thought Josie,
I’m sure I’ll be crossing them off in my journal
.
Chapter Three
‘Honestly, Sam,’ Josie said to the young man beside her. ‘You will only be gone for a few moments and I will be perfectly safe here until you return.’
Sam, the young lad who helped around the house, didn’t seem convinced. ‘I don’t know, Miss Josie. This is a very rough area,’ he said, looking anxiously along the cobbled street. ‘And your father insisted that I stay close by you at all times.’
Josie gave him the warm smile that always made him blush. Sam was only a few years older than Bobby and Josie wouldn’t normally have taken advantage of his crush on her. However, after walking the two miles to Miss Cooper’s house, her new shoes had raised painful blisters at almost every point they touched.
‘The London dock offices are just there,’ she said pointing down Wapping High Street to where the tall warehouses surrounding the docks blocked out the late afternoon sunlight. ‘There is always a hansom cab or two waiting there for business. It’s no more than a two-minute walk.’
Sam eyed a couple of dark-skinned Lascars, slouching against the wall in their loose-fitting tunics, with clay pipes hanging from the sides of their mouths.
‘Dr Munroe wouldn’t like it if—’
‘Sam! I think you forget that I was raised in these streets and I will be perfectly safe for the five minutes or so it takes you to fetch a hansom,’ Josie said firmly.
He gave her a dubious look but then turned and sped off, dodging the wagons passing in both directions.
As Josie looked down the bustling thoroughfare that followed the bend of the Thames from St Katherine’s Dock through to New Crane Stairs, childhood memories flooded back into her mind. As a child she had thought the main road busy when she’d passed along it on her way to school but she couldn’t remember seeing the volume of traffic that now rolled by. Matching cart-horses, wearing blinkers and nosebags, hauled laden drays from the wharves towards the city and a driver, his cart piled high with hay just unloaded from a barge from Essex or beyond, called out a warning and Josie stepped back against the wall. She bumped into an old woman with a shovel in one hand and a bucket in the other - the ‘pure’ collector, harvesting the dog shit to sell in the Southwark tanneries - who gave her a grumbling look, but shuffled off to search for newly laid whorls to harvest.
Josie, using her rolled umbrella for support, picked up one foot and then the other in an attempt to alleviate the pain in her heels and toes, then glanced towards where she had seen Sam going on his way.
Where is he?
she thought, moving along to the end of the wall.
Where is he?
she thought, moving along to the end of the wall.
The corners of her mouth turned up in a little smile as she spotted a group of children throwing stones into squares scored in the dirt, then bobbing and hopping up and back in turn. How many times had she done the same? She couldn’t remember being as ragged as the barefooted children on the other side of the road, but she must have been just as grimy; even now, the hem of her skirt was covered in dirt after walking only two miles. And the smell! She had completely forgotten the cloying stench at low tide that made you breathe through your mouth, and she hadn’t remembered the two-ups, two-downs in the narrow side streets being quite so dilapidated. And although, as Josie knew, there were now street cleaners with carts and stiff brushes, the roads were still filled with all manner of filth.
The rattle of iron wheels over cobbles jarred her from her reminiscence. She stepped back to let the carriage pass, but it stopped in front of her, and a gloved hand lowered the carriage window. A man in a black silk hat looked out, ran his index finger along his moustache and smiled at Josie.
‘Looking for a little company, my dear?’ He looked her up and down appraisingly.
‘I
beg
your pardon?’ Josie said, glaring at him, not quite believing what she’d heard.
beg
your pardon?’ Josie said, glaring at him, not quite believing what she’d heard.
The man gave a low chuckle. ‘You look like a sparky little minx,’ he said, ‘and I can be very generous. Ask any of the other girls.’ His eyes drifted past her to where two gaudily dressed women, with rouged lips and cheeks, loitered against the buildings.
Alarm shot through Josie. Where on earth was Sam? It was only five minutes to the dock offices and he must have been gone a full ten by now. Ignoring the man, she turned sharply away and, unseeingly, studied the bobbing top sails of the river barges until the carriage moved on. Josie let out her breath, but then heard another carriage approaching. Gathering her wits, she started off towards the police office a few hundred yards away. At least she would be safe there until Sam found his way back.
‘Oi! Miss Hoity-Toity,’ called one of the whores. ‘Sling your hook.’
Josie glanced across at the two young women in their low cut gowns and painted faces.
The other girl stuck two fingers up at Josie. ‘You, go find your own pitch.’
Driven by humiliation, and anxiety about Sam, Josie ignored the harsh pain of her blisters and headed towards the police station, hearing the girls sniggering behind her.
As she passed the Prospect of Whitby and New Crane Dock someone shouted from above. ‘Watch yer!’ Josie looked up and saw a massive wrought-iron crane fixed to the side of the warehouse, its hook dangling from the rope looping around in mid air, and at that moment two empty wagons rolled out from Red Lion Street and blocked her path completely.
Josie tried to squeeze between the wooden side of the cart and the wall but the man steadying the sacks raised his hand. ‘Sorry, ducks, you can’t go that way.’
‘But I need to get to the police station,’ Josie protested, increasingly conscious that in her ruby silk gown and tailored jacket she made a strange spectacle beside the other women in their knitted shawls.
She must have taken leave of her senses to send Sam off like that. If she’d been thinking half straight she would have recognised the utter foolishness of wandering alone on the waterfront. She had to get to the station and fast, before anything else happened.
‘If you goes down there,’ he pointed along Wapping Wall, ‘there’s a cut through to Coleman Street and that’ll take you to the High Street.’
Damping down her annoyance and holding her skirt high to avoid the muck, Josie stepped off the pavement, over the slime congealing in the gutter, and in to the dark alleyway.
Ma Tugman pushed open the front door of the Boatman and stepped out into Coleman Street. Squinting into the bright, late afternoon sunlight, she glanced down the narrow bare earth walkway. Down the centre of the alley a sludgy stream of waste trickled slowly towards the river. It had rained heavily earlier in the day but, even so, the faintly acidic smell of human waste wafted through.
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