You have no doubt noticed that your monthly allowance has not yet been arranged. Leave your correspondence at the new location in three days’ time or you will not receive this month’s instalment.
The new collection place – she cannot think where the new collection place is because it is so often changed. All the day’s demands and still more to do. Composing a tedious – and irrelevant – letter about a baby’s feverous sweat is a ridiculous distraction.
The priest is visiting today. Excruciating. When he is gone she must perfect the christening luncheon plans. The sisters Fitzgerald have agreed to attend as the honoured godparents and Clovis means to win them over entirely.
Then there is the long evening ahead. Finn and Jonesy are underfoot, clearing more space in the cellar for receiving the riches of another night’s haul. Curse the Mocketts. Simmering in her thoughts in particular is Nora Mockett, who of late takes up too much of her time, who must one day pay for the trouble she has caused. The thought that she will find a way to bring about the woman’s reckoning quickens her blood.
Clovis sniffs and turns around the room.
‘Damnation! What is that horrible odour?’ she screams, her patience at an end. ‘Willa!’
‘Mistress?’ Willa runs in from the kitchen.
‘It smells like the water of Iceland in here.’
‘That would be my Lucifers.’
‘Your WHAT?’
Willa proudly presents the sulphur friction matches.
‘Much quicker than the flint and the tinderbox, mistress.’
‘Get rid of them.’
‘But mistress, they are free, a gift from Mrs Mockett.’
‘Mrs Mockett! Throw them away.’
Willa pauses, worries her fingers and then bravely adds, ‘They give me time to do more work, mistress.’
Clovis casts her a sideways glance.
‘Then do something about that smell. Now out of my sight.’
Later, after food and drink have been taken, the house falls silent with sleep. The baby complies this evening and does not stir for hours. Finn’s private knocker-upper taps on their bedroom window at midnight. He has his orders – not until the street is empty does he raise his pole to tap the lightest, quickest taps.
The boards creak as Willa’s feet swing from the bed and touch the floor. She is the first downstairs to boil water, followed by Jonesy who replenishes the fires. Both go about their preparations for the work that will keep the roof over their heads, the food at table, and such luxuries as lie scattered about.
When Finn and Jonesy leave through the rear door of the house to rendezvous with the other men, Clovis sits by the parlour window surrounded by a stack of journals and manuals. While her husband goes about plundering tangible goods, she turns to perfecting the art and science of mental theft. Tonight she chooses from a selection of mesmeric manuals, one of which devotes a great deal of focus on the process of ‘demesmerizing’. She mimics reverse hand passes, mirroring the drawings in the journal. Practising with her handkerchief, she waves it slowly in front of an imaginary subject and then quickens her movements to short, staccato passes. She is pleased with her accuracy in this display of manipulation and force.
On these nights when Willa awaits the safe return of Master and Jonesy, she tackles her sewing basket. When the mending is light she does crewelwork on cushions for Mistress’s bed. It is her favourite thing to do. Her hands are so engaged that her fingers have no need for stones or shells. The design itself is her charm, the wool her token.
She has changed her opinion about Jonesy. He surprised her with a rabbit’s foot. Its soothing soft fur delighted her. His attention brought a surprising blush to her cheeks. She had taken down the heavy curtain in their room to add to the laundry, and replaced it temporarily with a thin piece of muslin. That night, when he came upstairs to bed, she secretly stole glances at him.
He is thin, but with her needlewoman’s eye she determines that he is well formed. His skin is smooth and his long hair shines against the candlelight. She has misjudged his face. He closes his eyes while he re-plaits his hair; she notes his thick, lustrous lashes. The sharp angles of his face are so unlike the swollen Limehouse faces, the sailors whose eyes are puffed with drink, and whose noses are jagged and broken.
She wonders at the stirring she felt at the sight of the flaxen-haired sailor and how it seems to have transferred. For she feels it now, between her legs, and it is moistening her quim. She wants to touch herself while her gaze is fixed on him, but she dares not. He is so close that she can see his ribs rise with each breath and she matches it with hers. He looks up at her. She is caught! He smiles. Burning with embarrassment she turns over on her side, her back to him.
Now, as the hour reaches long past midnight she contemplates that night, a thought the size of her needle’s point stabs her. When he smiled at her, his demeanour seemed to be missing a component that she did not even know she desired. He was being polite. That is all.
There is a rattle of the rear door and the grunting voices of the men of the house. A shock of damp air whistles into the kitchen fire.
‘We’ve lost two men tonight, lay your work down and help us.’
Master is in a foul mood.
Still Willa sits.
‘Move it!’
‘But sir, I am not to touch the goods. I mean to say, I am not involved …’
‘Not involved?’ Clovis stands at the kitchen door. ‘You little hypocrite. You are involved with your food, are you not? You are involved with a warm fire, and just last month you were involved with a new pair of boots, if I recall. Get right off your high horse. Get to work.’
An assembly line is formed. Hands and backs move goods from the rear of the house to the cellar. With more
