The Urchin's Song (38 page)

Josie nodded. She had heard of such places, of course, but the thought of Lily being incarcerated in one was unimaginable. Not Lily, with her wicked sense of humour and bright laughing eyes.

‘Those who are not occupying the beds laid round the walls of the rooms - of which the house has three plus a kitchen - are working in the centre of them. I have to tell you that the smell from dirt and bad air in such places as your friend is living in can be unbearable, and there is no through ventilation, the windows and doors always being kept closed. I am quite a robust fellow as you can see, but it’d knock me backwards, I can tell you. Now, Mrs Hogarth, do you still feel you have to go and see Miss Atkinson yourself? There is no need; I can relay anything you wish to say to her and bring her to you if need be.’

Josie had been holding her face and body with tense concentration but now she leaned back in her chair, her face softening as she said, ‘Thank you, Mr Webb, and I know you mean well, but you don’t know Miss Atkinson like I do. She ran away from Nellie because she felt’ - she had been going to say ‘ashamed’, but this might sound like a slight on Lily in some way and so she changed it to - ‘awkward, and if you approached her she might do the same and I can’t risk that. I have to go and see her where she is, and like I said, I’m not unacquainted with tenement dwellings.’

Maybe, but there were tenements and there were tenements, Mr Webb thought grimly, and this one her friend lived in was one of the worst he’d seen for a long time. He remained still for a moment before looking down at his hands which were resting on his knees, and then he raised his head, and said, ‘May I take the liberty of asking if your husband will accompany you, Mrs Hogarth?’

‘No, he will not.’

‘A male acquaintance perhaps? Or a male member of your staff?’

‘We have a housekeeper and two maids, that is all, and I don’t know anyone well enough to ask them to accompany me, Mr Webb. But I shall be quite all right. My friend, the one I told you about who saw Lily, will come with me, and my sister too.’

‘I would feel happier if you let me escort you, Mrs Hogarth.’

Oh, he was a nice man; she had been right about him. There was definitely a touch of Frank about Mr Webb. Mrs Wilde bustled in with the tea tray at that point, so it was after the housekeeper had left again and she had poured Mr Webb a cup of tea and then one for herself, that Josie said, her voice warm, ‘I appreciate your concern, I do really, but I think it would be best if I go with my friend and my sister, Mr Webb. I don’t want to frighten Lily, or overwhelm her.’

Anyone who had existed for any length of time in that hell-hole wouldn’t be frightened by him, Mr Webb thought grimly. He recalled the pale, starved-looking children he had seen, all of them only half-clothed. One boy had been unable to walk, his legs were so bandy with the rickets, and another had had running sores all over his face. And the stench . . . ‘I’d caution you to reconsider, Mrs Hogarth,’ Mr Webb said, his eyes moving round the gracious interior of the room he was sitting in. ‘It’s not an area I’d be happy for my wife to visit, let’s put it like that.’

His wife hadn’t been born in the East End of Sunderland with Bart Burns as a father. Josie’s voice was firm as it came now, saying, ‘We’ll be perfectly all right, I promise you. I can more than look after myself, Mr Webb. I’ll tell Nellie about it tonight and we can go tomorrow morning with my sister. There’s nothing to worry about.’

After Mr Webb had finished his tea and given her the address in the East End, Josie paid him what she owed him along with a handsome bonus which brought forth more remonstrances for her to be careful. It was just as he was taking his leave and Constance had appeared to show him out that Oliver opened the front door.

Josie saw her husband’s eyebrows rise and watched the blue eyes move swiftly from herself to Mr Webb, but she was unprepared for the glacial quality to Oliver’s voice as he said, ‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure?’

‘This is Mr Webb, Oliver; he’s just leaving. Mr Webb; my husband.’ Her own voice was stiff, and now she accompanied Mr Webb across the hall herself, motioning for Constance to leave, and ignored Oliver who had stood to one side as she said, ‘Goodbye, and thank you once again.’

‘A pleasure, Mrs Hogarth.’ Mr Webb’s line of business made him particularly sensitive to atmosphere and he didn’t delay his departure.

Once Josie had shut the door she again brushed past the silent Oliver and walked quickly into the morning room, conscious that he was close behind her and that he had shut the door after them.

‘Well?’ He was the first to speak. ‘Are you going to tell me what that individual was doing in my house?’

She didn’t take the chair she had been sitting in a few minutes earlier but remained standing, turning to face him slowly. ‘Mr Webb called to say that he had discovered where Lily is living. I employed him to find her.’

‘You did
what
?’

‘I told you I was going to make enquiries, Oliver.’

He glared at her, his voice loud as he said, ‘And you gave him leave to call here at the house? Are you mad, woman?’

And now she answered him in like voice: ‘No, I’m not mad, and if you remember I’ve been ill for two days and unable to go to the theatre so he was unable to see me there as I’d asked.’

‘I don’t believe this!’

‘I don’t understand why. It’s perfectly straightforward. I asked Mr Webb to find Lily and that is what he has done.’

His voice came rapidly but low now. ‘Don’t take that tone with me. What would have happened if you had had a morning caller? Mrs Pierpont-Fitzhugh for example, or Lady Walston - what then?’

‘I would have excused myself and spoken to him privately in another room. He would have understood.’

‘
He
would have understood?
He
would have?’ Oliver ground his teeth, the sound loud in the room. ‘Don’t you understand how hard I’ve worked to make sure you are accepted?’ he spat out, one arm outstretched and his pointing finger stabbing at the air. ‘And it hasn’t been easy, especially--’ He stopped abruptly, aware he had been about to say too much and that Stella’s name would be like a red rag to a bull. ‘Especially when there are some who would like to exclude you,’ he finished tightly. ‘And you would have allowed yourself to be seen with a man like that! Not only seen, but encouraging him into the house.’

‘Mr Webb is a good, honest, kind gentleman.’ She couldn’t believe he was reacting so violently to the other man’s presence in the house, and yet, she asked herself in the next moment, why had she asked Mr Webb to contact her at the theatre if she hadn’t suspected Oliver would behave in just this very way? ‘And as to me being accepted by your friends, Oliver, they can please themselves. I am not ashamed of who I am or where I have come from, and if your friends - or you - are, then that is your loss.’

Her voice quivered on the last words, and immediately he was at her side, his countenance undergoing a lightning change as he gripped her hands, saying, ‘Oh my dear, my dear, my love. Of course I did not mean that. How could I? You know how much I love you; how proud I am of you. It’s just that I want everyone to feel the same way I do, that’s all, and people are devilish quick to talk.’

People. He always excused himself by talking about these ‘people’, but she had never had it confirmed so clearly that he was one of them. Why hadn’t she seen it before, when they were engaged? But it was different when you actually lived with someone. During their courtship he had been as much her agent as her beau, and in that capacity he dealt with people from all different levels of the social strata. And he was not an unkind man, not really, but proud. And yet this was more than pride, Josie corrected herself in the next moment. It was pretentiousness, a self-satisfied hauteur or, as Vera would term it, uppishness.

Withdrawing her hands from his she turned her back on him and walked over to the large full-length window, staring up into the rainswept grey sky before she said, still without looking at him, ‘I am going to see Lily, Oliver. Mr Webb has told me she is in a dreadful state and something needs to be done. She is living in a tailor’s house in the East End and the conditions are appalling.’

He hadn’t followed her, and now his voice came quietly saying, ‘That would be unwise, Josie. It is commendable you are concerned about her, of course, but once you start something like this it can become a burden.’

‘I’m sorry but I don’t see it that way.’

She turned to face him then and she saw the muscles in his cheekbones tighten, but his voice was still low when he said, ‘I see. In that case may I ask exactly what you intend to do with her?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose it depends on Lily to a certain extent.’

There was a long pause before Oliver turned and walked to the door, and his hand was resting on the shining brass doorknob when he said, ‘I hope you do not live to regret this act of charity, Josie, because it has been my experience that very often such people bite the hand which feeds them. Nevertheless, you are my wife and for your sake I will support you in anything you wish to do, short of having the woman here. Do you understand me on this? I will not have her in this house.’

And with that he opened the door and stepped into the hall, closing the door quietly behind him.

‘This is it; we’re here. Number 13, Hanging Row.’

It was ten o’clock the following morning, and the hired carriage holding Josie, Gertie and Nellie had just pulled up outside a dingy terraced house in a squalid street, one of many such which made up the overcrowded slums of London’s East End.

In spite of the drizzling rain there were several ragged children, all without shoes and all filthy, sitting huddled against a house wall, and a group of slatternly-looking women having a fierce disagreement about something or other. As the three girls looked out of the carriage window one of the women grabbed another by the hair and began beating her about the face and upper body, two more joining in the fray in the moment before a big, burly man appeared from an open doorway and hauled the women, who were now kicking and screaming, into the house.

‘Cat fight.’ Nellie sounded very knowledgeable but she had gone a little pale.

Josie and Gertie exchanged a glance. They had grown up with similar occurrences and this area bore a marked resemblance to Sunderland’s East End. Gin shops, brothels, dirt and disease - it appeared poverty worked in the same degrading way everywhere.

‘Right, ladies. Ten minutes, you said?’ The driver had got down from his seat behind the two horses and opened the carriage door, his stolid face betraying nothing of the curiosity he felt about his passengers. Well-to-do women, as these obviously were, didn’t usually visit Hanging Row.

Josie took a deep breath and descended from the carriage with the help of the proffered hand. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome, ma’am.’

Nellie and Gertie were less quick to alight, their faces betraying their trepidation, and once they were standing on the greasy, muck-strewn cobbles, Josie said quietly, ‘You two don’t have to come in with me, you know. You can wait in the carriage if you like. I shall be out with Lily in two ticks, all being well.’

‘I wouldn’t bank on it.’ Nellie cast a glance about her, wary-eyed. ‘And we’re coming in with you, gal.’

‘Come on then.’ The driver had climbed up into his seat, his back impartial, but as Josie called up, ‘If we’re not out in ten minutes, would you knock on the door?’ he turned his head and said quietly, ‘Oh yes, m’dear, don’t you worry about that. And mind you tell ’em in there you’ve got someone waiting outside. All right?’

Josie smiled her thanks and nodded, and then, with the other two clinging hold of her skirt like a pair of bairns, she crossed the pavement and lifted the iron knocker on the flaking door, rapping hard three times. It was opened almost immediately and a plump, pasty-faced girl of ten or eleven stood in the doorway, her sallow skin heavily afflicted with pimples. Her gaze widened at the sight of them, and before Josie had a chance to speak the girl yelled over her shoulder, ‘Mum? It’s not Mr Bennett’s lad for the suits; it’s three ladies.’

A woman’s voice came clearly from within saying, ‘Three ladies? What are you on about, Rachel?’ and then the owner of the voice was in the doorway peering at them.

‘Mrs Howard?’ Josie spoke quietly but firmly although her tone was not unfriendly.

‘Who wants to know?’

‘Are you Mrs Howard?’ Josie repeated more crisply.

The woman nodded, her long face guarded.

‘My name is Mrs Hogarth. I understand you were kind enough to offer assistance to a friend of mine, Miss Atkinson? Lily Atkinson?’

Without seeming to move a muscle of her face Mrs Howard said, ‘I took her in, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Yes, that is what I mean and it was very good of you, Mrs Howard. May I see Miss Atkinson, please?’

The woman glanced downwards for a moment, fingering her thick woollen skirt before she lifted her head and said, ‘She’s gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘That’s what I said, didn’t I? She’s gone.’

Josie stared into the woman’s brown eyes and knew Lily’s benefactor was lying. ‘I don’t think so, Mrs Howard. I have it on good authority that Lily is here. We wish her no harm but it is imperative I speak with her right now. If there is a problem I am happy to wait until it is convenient, but I do insist on seeing her. If you are worried about our credibility you are quite at leave to call a constable, we have nothing to hide.’

The brown gaze moved to the waiting carriage and the impassive figure of the driver sitting behind the horse and then back to Josie. ‘No need for that,’ Mrs Howard said sourly. ‘Come in if you want, it’s just that I know Lily don’t want to see no one.’

More like Mrs Howard didn’t want to lose an unpaid worker in her sweatshop, Josie thought angrily. When she had told Nellie where Lily was, the other girl had been aghast. Apparently the area was well known for its sweatshops which took in Jewish immigrants fleeing from Europe, families that had lost their homes and only had the workhouse to look forward to, and other such unfortunates. Working all hours in the conditions Mr Webb had mentioned and then only for the dubious shelter of a roof over their heads and a starvation diet meant that most of the inhabitants of such places were ill and weak and without hope.