Darkness began to fall and the shops of the city turned off their lights. Front doors were locked and the West End lost its glow of life. Only the gentlemen’s carriages passed, transporting their wealthy occupants to their clubs. And so Ettie was forced to seek shelter in the park, where at least, she was able to rest her weary legs.
There on a bench, she huddled up, staring into the unknown shadows which reminded her uncomfortably of Old Jim. She thought of Michael and wondered where he was. And how sad a sight she would make if he set eyes on her now. Perhaps he wouldn’t even recognize her!
She slept just a few hours, dreaming of Michael who, wearing a handsome new suit and top hat, walked past her, his well-to-do lady friend on his arm.
The next day, as the sun rose over the city, she hauled her aching bones from the bench and began her tour of the city once more. This time she visited the hospitals and hotels. She was prepared to do any menial work; scrubbing, cleaning, or washing the sick and disabled. But the answer was always the same when they saw her crumpled coat, dishevelled hair and dust-covered boots.
‘No vacancies!’ they exclaimed. Another door closed in her face.
‘We don’t employ vagrants,’ they cried.
‘Go away. The West End doesn’t need your type.’
Where once the insults hurt, Ettie grew to expect them. She sensed even before the people spoke to her, she was to be rejected.
The only kindness she found was when she joined a queue for distressed women who stood at a small hut by the river. Here free tea was dispensed to the thirsty and a crust of bread to the starving – followed by a severe lecture on their morals. Ettie didn’t listen to what was being said. She was grateful for the refreshment, for without it, she might have faded away.
That evening, she walked by the river to the mud flats where she saw beggars settling against the mossy wharves and under the bridges. These spaces were damp and smelly, but not as frightening as the parks.
One such niche provided her with brief rest. For early in the morning the tide rushed in and chased her away. The third and fourth nights, she huddled under the railway arches and scavenged from bins, just as she saw the others doing.
As Ettie gazed up to the moon one night, shivering and exhausted, she knew this state of affairs could not continue. She had never felt so hungry in all her life. Her feet were covered in blisters. Her clothes were torn and foul-smelling. On the eighth night a rabble of stray dogs chased her from a café’s bins, snapping at her heels and growling so menacingly, she almost fainted with fright.
Somehow, she escaped the vicious pack and eventually found a doorstep to rest on. As the cold bit into her body with teeth as sharp as the wild dogs’, she thought of Terence and that safe, warm room above the butcher’s shop. Had he found her letter?
Perhaps she should return to Soho? This city held no prospects. If she was not to starve or freeze to death, what alternative was there?
But in her depths of misery, Ettie knew it would be unkind to impose on such a good man’s nature. She had taken the decision to leave Silver Street and she must stick by it.
Her stomach churned emptily. The cold wind howled into the doorway like a whirlwind. As dawn broke, she trudged on, leaving the city and all her hopes of employment behind her. The sights she had marvelled at before, she now dismissed for they offered no solace to her fatigued body and despondent mind.
Even the chiming of Big Ben at the tallest height of the Houses of Parliament did not cause her head to turn. The Tower of London and the sight of the busy professional classes that sped from Blackfriars to the shores of the south, no longer held any excitement. The city had rejected her and Ettie trudged on, towards her old home.
By evening she saw the low flying gulls of Docklands and the ships that sailed proudly along the estuary. Tall-masted and majestic as kings and princes, they anchored midstream, awaiting their turns to dock. The salt and tarry air that she remembered so well, was even more potent as a round and confident moon cast ribbons of silver across the river.
Ettie followed its gentle curve beneath the stars, entering the narrow streets of smoke-stained terraces that fringed the horseshoe of land surrounded on three sides by water. The Isle of Dogs, the beating heart of London’s East End
It was not to the burned-down convent she had returned but to the place that Michael had always feared. And which she now feared, too, but was too desperate to ignore.
Chapter 47
Ettie stumbled through the high gates of the Municipal Workhouse and knocked on the wooden door. A heavy lock was drawn inside; a key rattled in its hole.
A face half-hidden by a frilled white cap, peered out.
‘Will you take me in?’ Ettie pleaded. ‘I’ve nowhere else to go.’
‘What time of night do you call this?’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve walked a long way.’
‘Where from?’ returned the curious voice.
‘I lived in Silver Street, Soho.’
This had a strange effect as slowly, the door opened. ‘Soho, you say?’
‘I’ve tried in the city for work. But there is none.’
‘Looking like that, I’m not surprised.’ The woman, dressed in a sombre brown uniform let the door swing open. ‘You’d better come in. You’re lucky. The Master is still
