Gypsy (7 page)

‘I’ll make you pay for this,’ Jane shouted back as she lay sprawled on the ground, her grubby petticoats and drawers on display. ‘You won’t get away with it. I want my things.’

‘You can have them,’ Beth said. ‘I’ll throw them out the window to you.’

With that she turned away, went in through the back door, locking it behind her, and ran upstairs. It took only a couple of minutes to scoop up the woman’s coat, hat, purse and a pair of boots from the bedroom, then she threw the kitchen window open and dropped them down into the yard below.

‘Be grateful you’ve even got those,’ she yelled. ‘The rest will be left in the outhouse for you to collect this evening.’

Mr Craven had come out into the alley beyond the backyard and he was looking up curiously at Beth in the window. ‘I’m just chucking her out for slandering my parents,’ she shouted to him. ‘Would you mind helping her on her way?’

She stayed just long enough at the window to see her neighbour escorting Jane out of the back gate, and to hear the woman’s vitriolic stream of abuse.

Somehow Beth managed to give Molly her bottle, even though she was trembling like a leaf from shock. She heard Mrs Craven calling from the yard and went down to let her in.

‘Oh, lovey!’ she exclaimed when she saw how pale and agitated Beth was. ‘We heard the yelling, and that’s why my Alfie went looking to see what was going on.’

The sympathy in her voice made Beth cry, and Mrs Craven embraced her, then took Molly from her arms. ‘I’ll make you a nice cup of tea, and you can tell me all about it.’

‘There isn’t any milk. That’s how it all started,’ Beth began.

‘Then I’ll just go and get some,’ Mrs Craven said. ‘And you’d better change Molly’s napkin while I’m gone. She stinks!’

Half an hour later, Beth had explained everything. The tea and her neighbour’s concern had made her feel better.

‘I knew she was a baggage the first time I clapped eyes on her. Common as muck and hard-faced too,’ Mrs Craven said, bouncing Molly on her knee. ‘As if you haven’t had enough to cope with! But you mustn’t pay any mind to what she said about your mother.’

‘But is that what people are saying?’

Mrs Craven frowned. ‘No one has said it to me. If they had I’d have put them straight. But my Alfie did say there was talk in the Fiddlers.’

The Fiddlers Inn was around the corner in Lord Street. Papa hadn’t been a drinker, but most of their male neighbours drank there, and Thomas Wiley did too.

It hadn’t occurred to Beth before that anyone would suspect Molly wasn’t her father’s child, and she was horrified to learn they did, but she had no intention of admitting the rumours were true, not even to kind-hearted Mrs Craven.

‘Why are people so cruel?’ she asked in bewilderment.

‘Sometimes it’s from jealousy. Your family looked so perfect, your mother was a pretty woman, your father had a good business and two children to be proud of. No one could understand why he took his own life, so they make guesses at the reason.’

‘What will become of us now?’ Beth asked sadly. ‘We needed lodgers to manage. Sam’s going to be so cross with me.’

‘I don’t think so, Beth.’ Mrs Craven reached out and took Beth’s hand across the table. ‘You showed a lot of spirit, he’ll admire that. Now, let me help you pack up the Wileys’ things. My Alfie will keep his ear open for when they come back for them, and help if they start any trouble.’

Chapter Six

‘I wish we could emigrate to America,’ Sam said dejectedly as he ate his supper. ‘This place is full of bad memories. I hate it now.’

It was the day after Beth had thrown out Jane Wiley. Sam hadn’t been angry about it, only demoralized. He had pointed out that there were hundreds of people needing somewhere to live, but it was impossible to know who might rob them or make their lives a misery.

Beth had been badly shaken by the whole thing. When she’d gone to clean out the Wileys’ room, she’d found the chamber pot hadn’t been emptied for days, and there were crusts of stale bread dropped on the floor and filthy underwear strewn all over the place. Even the sheets on the bed were bloodstained and there was a big scratch right across the dressing table which looked as if it had been made by a knife.

Sam had gone downstairs when Thomas arrived to collect their things and Mr Craven had stood out in the alley too in case of trouble. But Thomas had seemed resigned rather than fighting mad. He’d just picked up the bags and left with them.

‘But we’d need money to emigrate,’ Beth said wistfully.

‘We couldn’t go with Molly anyway,’ Sam retorted.

Beth felt a pang in her heart, for she knew that what he really meant was that he wouldn’t want her with them. He hadn’t softened towards her as she’d hoped; he never picked her up or played with her. Even when Molly laughed it didn’t make him smile.

‘If it wasn’t for her we could sell everything to raise the fare,’ he said bitterly. ‘As it is, I’ll have to take those two silver photograph frames tomorrow and sell them, just to keep us going.’

Beth went into the bedroom soon afterwards and opened the back of the photograph frames to take out the pictures. One was of her and Sam when they were around nine and ten, taken in a studio just down Church Street. She was wearing a white dress with a little straw bonnet, her hair in ringlets beneath it. Sam was standing beside her chair in a dark jacket and knee-length knickerbockers, looking very serious. Their mother had loved the picture, and Papa had bought the frame specially for it.

The other picture was the one she’d been asked to keep for Molly. Her parents were both smiling, and Beth remembered that seconds after the picture was taken they had all burst into helpless laughter because when the photographer bent down to put his head under the black cloth to take the picture he broke wind.

If only they could have all stayed as happy as they had been that day! Mama looked so pretty in her best dress and Papa distinguished in his striped blazer and boater. It had been very hot, and they’d all taken off their shoes and stockings and had a paddle in the sea together.

Beth could understand Sam’s bitterness. There were times when she too felt like cursing her mother for bringing all this down on them. Why couldn’t she have been satisfied with a good, kind husband who loved her?

The following morning Beth was feeling rather more positive and decided to write out an advertisement for two male lodgers. Later, with Molly in her arms, she took it down to the sweet shop further along Church Street. After handing it in to be displayed, she stopped to read the advertisements already on the board, and noticed one requiring a woman for a few hours a week to do laundry and sewing.

It was in Falkner Square, in one of Liverpool’s best districts. Beth had often walked around its wide streets and leafy squares to deliver shoes and boots for her father.

Thinking such a position would be ideal for her, Beth rushed round to ask Mrs Craven if she would mind Molly while she went there.

‘I’d be glad to, my dear.’ Mrs Craven smiled, holding out her arms for the baby. ‘And if it’s only a few hours a week I’d be glad to mind her then too.’

Beth polished her boots, then put on her best dark blue dress with a lace collar and cuffs and a plain dark blue bonnet that had been Mama’s. It was the first time she’d worn anything other than black since Papa died, and she felt slightly guilty at not wearing mourning, but both her black dresses were looking a little shabby now, and dark blue was hardly frivolous.

Beth’s spirits lifted as she set off for it was a lovely warm day and it felt good to be going out without Molly for once, almost an adventure.

The gardens in the centre of Falkner Square looked pretty, with many flowering shrubs in full bloom. She stopped outside number forty-two, looking speculatively at the steps down to the basement area behind the black iron railings and the marble ones up to the front door beneath the pillared porch.

Beth had been told about life below stairs in big houses by her mother, and so she knew the basement door was the one she should knock on. But it had been made quite clear to her all through her childhood that she wouldn’t ever be a servant to anyone, so she wasn’t inclined to think of herself as one now.

Taking a deep breath, she marched up to the front door and rang the bell. It clanged loudly, echoing through the house, and suddenly she felt dry-mouthed and nervous.

The door was opened by an elderly woman in a grey dress with a white apron and frilly cap.

‘I came in answer to the advertisement for someone to help with sewing and laundry,’ Beth said, a little too loudly. ‘My name is Miss Bolton.’

The woman looked her up and down. ‘Where are you from?’ she asked.

‘Church Street,’ Beth said.

‘You’d better come in,’ the woman said, and frowned as if puzzled. ‘The mistress is out at the moment, but I’ll take your particulars and tell her when she returns.’

The woman led her to the back of the house to a small, simply furnished room. Beth got the idea it was her room, for she’d caught a glimpse of the drawing room as she walked down the hall and that was very grand, with fancy carpets and lovely couches and armchairs.

‘Sit down, please,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Mrs Bruce, Mrs Langworthy’s housekeeper. How old are you?’

‘Sixteen, mam,’ Beth said.

‘And do you have a character?’

Beth had no idea what she meant by that.

‘A letter from your last employer?’ Mrs Bruce said rather tersely.

‘I had to leave the hosiery shop where I worked in a hurry,’ Beth said, and breathlessly explained that her recently widowed mother had died in childbirth. ‘I couldn’t go back to my position at the shop as I had to stay home and take care of my little sister.’

Beth was peeling potatoes for the evening meal, with Molly, propped up against some cushions in a wooden box beside the sink, gnawing on a crust of bread, when Mr Filbert, the man who ran the shoe shop downstairs, called up to her. ‘Miss Bolton, a young lad has just brought a letter for you!’ ‘I’ll be right down,’ she called back, rinsing her hands and drying them on her apron. She felt certain the letter could only be to turn her down, but at least Mrs Langworthy or her housekeeper had been polite enough to write.

‘Not bad news, I hope?’ Mr Filbert asked as Beth stood in the doorway through to his shop gasping at the contents of the letter she’d just opened.

‘No,’ Beth said, looking up at him with a broad smile. ‘Quite the opposite.’

She could hardly wait for Sam to come home to tell him the good news. Mrs Langworthy wanted her to start in the morning. She suggested that Beth work two five-hour days, as she thought this would make it easier for her to arrange for someone to take care of the baby. And she was going to pay her ten whole shillings! Beth had only got seven shillings and sixpence for working all week at the hosiery shop.

‘Our luck has finally changed, Sam,’ she yelled exuberantly the minute her brother came in. His face broke into a wide smile and he hugged her.

‘Mrs Bruce must have fallen for your charm,’ he insisted when she told him how she thought she’d talked too much. ‘I just hope Mrs Craven doesn’t get fed up with minding Molly.’

‘She said she’d be glad to have her,’ Beth said. ‘She isn’t any trouble anyway, and I’ll give her a shilling a day.’

All Beth knew of how gentry lived was from what her mother had told her of her experiences in service, but she was fairly certain right from the first day at the Langworthys’ that it was a most unusual household.

She arrived at eight as arranged, and Mrs Bruce offered her a cup of tea and some toast in the basement kitchen. ‘You can’t work on an empty stomach,’ she said, ‘and I’m fairly certain you rushed here without a bite. Now, we’ll wait until Mr Edward, that’s the young Mr Langworthy, has left for the office and I’ll take you up to meet the mistress.’

Twenty minutes later, Beth was in the dining room on the ground floor where Mrs Langworthy was having her breakfast. It was at the back of the house overlooking a yard, next to the housekeeper’s sitting room where Mrs Bruce had taken her the previous day.

Beth was surprised by Mrs Langworthy. She had expected someone middle-aged and grey-headed, not a relatively young woman with flaming red hair, sparkling green eyes and such a warm smile.

‘Welcome, Beth,’ she said, getting up from the table and offering her hand. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here to meet you yesterday, but Mrs Bruce told me all about you and your circumstances. I am so sorry to hear of your recent loss, and I do hope your little sister won’t mind me sharing you with her.’

Beth was so staggered at that unexpected warm greeting that for once she was tongue-tied. She shook her new mistress’s hand and looked at Mrs Bruce for guidance.

‘Molly is with a neighbour who she is well used to,’ Mrs Bruce explained.

‘Then I’m sure she’ll be quite happy,’ Mrs Langworthy said. ‘I’ll let Mrs Bruce show you around and tell you what’s needed today. I have to see to my father-in-law now, but I shall see you later in the morning.’

A small, slender, dark-haired Irishwoman in her twenties was making the bed in Mrs Langworthy’s bedroom, which overlooked the square. Mrs Bruce introduced her as Kathleen and explained once they left the room that Kathleen lived in and had a room up on the top floor. ‘She is a general maid — she does all the cleaning and lights the fires. We have a cook who comes in daily, you’ll meet her later, and then there’s myself. Just a small staff, but the Langworthys don’t entertain much, and of course Mrs Langworthy takes care of old Mr Langworthy.’ Mrs Bruce indicated the other room at the front of the house and explained that was his room.

‘This is Mr Edward’s room,’ she said, opening a door at the back. It was starkly masculine, with a vast, highly polished mahogany wardrobe, its own washbasin with brass taps and a large bed, already made and covered with a heavy dark blue quilt. ‘The bathroom,’ she said, opening the next door. ‘One of the beauties of this house was that it was built with modern facilities.’

Beth had never seen an indoor water closet before, only pictures of them in magazines, and couldn’t resist saying so.