Hardly wide enough to drive a brewer’s dray through, the pavements sunken and broken, little more than a foot wide, the street was curved so that from the far end the main road wasn’t visible at all and, at this time of night, dim with a single gas lamp to pierce its entire length. The two girls he had just left had probably known no other home. And now they were alone. Two girls, one still a child, the other barely a woman, to be flung out into the world, virtually orphaned, their mother dead, their father gone God knew where, probably with little or no concern for their fate. How would they manage? He recalled the feeling that had gone through him as he’d said, ‘If I can be of any help…’
Quickly he put the feeling behind him and, turning, hurried away.
The woman was there inside five minutes, just as Doctor Lowe had promised. Ellie had been sitting beside her sister on the old sofa, clutching her hand. Both sat in silence, Ellie staring into the low flame flickering in the grate beneath the kettle she had placed on a trivet over the coals.
She started violently at the dull rat-tat on the front door. Letting go of Dora’s hand, she hurried to answer it. The woman in a black, shabby coat over a black blouse and skirt held a stained carpetbag. She was quite elderly and had the look of someone who had laid out an army of dead in her time.
‘’Ello, love. I’m the person what the doctor sent to come ’ere. Orright if I come in?’
Without a word, Ellie opened the door wider and the woman stepped inside.
‘Me name’s Daniels. If you’ll just show me where yer mother’s lying…’
Ellie found her voice. ‘Upstairs in the front bedroom.’
‘Fine,’ the woman said and gave her a cheery, gap-toothed smile. ‘No need for you ter come up. I can deal with things. Just give me a basin with some ’ot water. I’ll let yer know when I’m done.’
Leaving the woman to her task, Ellie rejoined her sister, who hadn’t moved an inch. Taking Dora’s hand again, she listened to the movements and faint creaking of the floorboards above her.
After what seemed ages the woman came down and Ellie heard her go into the scullery to empty the basin.
‘I’ve done up there,’ she said cheerily as she peeped into the room, bringing Ellie to her feet. ‘I’ll be on me way now. I expect you’ll sort out yer funeral arrangements tomorrer. Doctor Lowe said you two was all on yer own, so if yer want any ’elp, he said ter just let ’im know. Orright then, love?’
She was hovering, looking a little hesitant, and Ellie realized she was waiting for some payment for her trouble. Ellie’s mind flew to the few precious shillings left in the house, all the more precious with Mum never again to bring any in. She pushed aside the catch of grief in her throat for her mother in order to think practically. Was there enough money to pay this woman?
‘How much do I give yer?’ she asked.
Mrs Daniels glanced around at the threadbare rug in front of the low fire, worn furniture, stained and faded wallpaper. ‘A shilling’ll do, love. From some I do ask more, but in your case, you two being on yer own, a shilling if yer can spare it. I wouldn’t ask, but I do ’ave ter live. Yer do understand?’
Ellie lifted her chin in a gesture of dignity. ‘Yes, of course.’
Going to the old sideboard she bent down and withdrew a flat tin from underneath it. It held part of next week’s rent, but fishing out the coin she handed it over.
She saw the fingers close about it and knew the feeling. Every penny mattered in this neighbourhood and now she was shorter of the rent by a shilling. She should have swallowed her stupid sensitivity and let Mrs Sharp next door see to her mother instead. A couple of pennies for a glass of beer for her help would have done. Now, instead of indulging herself in her grief for her mother, she’d have to face reality and set to bringing in the rent making the hatboxes on her own.
Dora would have to help. She’d teach her, as Mum had taught her. But even between them they’d never do the number Mum had. Of course there’d be no men to look after. Charlie hadn’t paid his way either, like his dad, lurching from one casual job to another, in his case betting away what he earned. All this, of course, was if Mum’s employer thought fit to keep her on now her mum was gone. It could even be that he would dispense with her services with hardly a stab of guilt in his heart for her plight.
It was a thought, pushing away the grief in her. With no money for the rent she could be evicted. In fact she would be evicted. Landlords had no hearts either. Then where would she go?
Another month before she was sixteen, Dora not fourteen until the summer. They’d be classed as orphaned or abandoned children, homeless, to be taken by the authorities into one of the dozens of orphanages around East London or into that place in Bethnal Green Road that called itself the Home of Industry. Cheap labour more like. Boys taught a trade, it was said – blacksmithing and such; but more to become labourers, meantime working their little guts out for their keep. Girls went into the laundry, surrounded by steam, watched over by some soulless charge woman. They’d end up as kitchen skivvies in some better-class homes or in some sweatshop, sewing gowns for the wealthy for a few pence.
In her bitter frame of mind
