Orphan of Angel Street (49 page)

‘And Robert – listen to me now, very carefully.’ She had a special task for Robert to perform, and he was going to have to be very grown up about it.

‘Miss Hoity-toity’s been ’ere again.’

Mabel stood across the table from Mercy who was ravenously eating bread and scrape. She’d just got in from work and was, as ever, nearly dropping from hunger. Rosalie was brewing a cuppa and Alf and Jack’d be in from the pub any minute. Soon as they arrived Mabel’d be sweet as pie to her, Mercy knew.

‘Dorothy, you mean?’

‘Left you this. In an envelope too.’ Mabel held out the note. Obviously the sealed envelope rankled with her as she couldn’t have a nose at it. Mercy examined the back of it to see if she’d tried to steam it open, but there was no sign. She took another mouthful of bread, longing for the comfort of food in her grumbling stomach.

‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

‘In a tick. Give us a chance to eat. Ta, Rosalie.’ She stirred sugar in her tea, feeling Mabel’s eyes still boring into the letter.

Despite Mabel’s grand speeches and her attempts to be kind, the two of them still only just managed to get along. Mercy knew Mabel wanted to show herself in a good light to Alf, her husband-to-be. Maybe she’d even meant it all, wanted to be kind, be liked. The fact was, they still rubbed each other up the wrong way.

She looked at Mabel who was stirring a pot of broth. Elsie’s range, Elsie’s room. The place was still full of ghosts: Elsie, Tom, Frank, Cathleen, Johnny . . . No wonder Jack wanted out and Rosalie’s little face was so sad, so grown up before her time. No wonder Alf wanted a new start.

She stopped eating for a moment as a lump rose in her throat. Why was she worried about letting Margaret Adair down? She did miss her, it was true, and she’d been so kind. But Margaret could soon hire herself another servant. What these people – her people – here had endured was so much greater.

Alf and Jack came in then, both smelling of ale and heavy under the eyes with fatigue.

As Rosalie gave the men their bit of supper, Mercy sloped off upstairs and lit the candle in Rosalie’s room. Dorothy’s writing was a stiff, rather childish copperplate, but her spelling was good:

Mercy –

There’s an urgent matter I need to talk to you about in private. Meet me, Saturday 11 a.m. near the gate in Highgate Park. Don’t let me down.

Yours,

Dorothy Ann Finch

Mercy sighed and tore the letter into tiny pieces. It didn’t say anything much but she wasn’t going to give Mabel the satisfaction of a look at it. Truth to tell she felt irritated with Dorothy. What was she making such a todo about?

I suppose I ought to be grateful to her, she thought, preparing herself for bed. She laid her skirt over the chair, smoothing her hand over the soft, wrinkled cotton. It was cream, sprigged with leaves and yellow flowers. A bit old- fashioned-looking though, that length, she thought. I’ll hem it up a bit . . . She stopped herself short.

What’m I going on about? For a second she almost laughed. What the hell’s fashion going to matter when my belly’s pushing everything out at the front and I can’t get into it anyway?

She looked down at herself in her blouse and bloomers. Was there anything to see yet? She must be, what? Between three and four months gone? She moved her hands round her slim waist, then down over her belly, feeling the warmth of her skin. Wasn’t it just a tiny bit rounder? She kept her hands there for a moment. There was nothing she could do – it was going to grow inside her, bigger and bigger until she had to let it out. She felt very solemn. So this was what it was to be a woman, to find your future lay in the hands of your child.

My mom must have looked at herself like this, she thought. Must have hated me for being in there, come to ruin her life. For a moment she felt a sad sympathy with her, that young, terrified woman, whoever she was. For the first time it occurred to her to wonder where her actual birth had taken place. Had she borne her child in the gutter? Was she alone, penniless, sick? Did she die in the throes of birthing and someone else take the child from her, carry her to safety where she could at least survive? Was anyone else present at her arrival? The old feeling of being lost, abandoned in the world, swept over her. It wasn’t right, any of it. Everyone should have a chance to know where they came from.

What did Dorothy want? she wondered, pushing her thin arms through the sleeves of her nightdress. She felt very weary of it all suddenly, didn’t want Dorothy planning for her, trying to rescue her. Not again. That would only lead to more trouble, more pain. She just wanted to be left alone to struggle with her life in her own way, come what may.

When she set out there was a light, mizzling rain, but the clouds had an insubstantial look to them and the sun was already trying to break through their swirling veil. Mercy had put her coat on but immediately felt too hot. She peered at the sky, unbuttoning the coat.

Just stop blasted raining, she thought. Then I can take it off.

There were plenty of people out Saturday shopping, going to get stuff out of pawn for Sunday, kids playing out along the pavements. She walked along Stanley Street, crossed Catherine Street, where a young man on a rough, wooden crutch was making his way along with terrible slowness, gripping a paper under his spare arm which ended at the elbow in a stump. He shuffled along on his one leg, unshaven face turned towards the ground. Mercy had seldom seen a face look more desolate. She wondered where Johnny was. Whether he’d found somewhere he could be at peace.

Before she reached the park the drizzle stopped and it grew even warmer. Mercy took her coat off, leaving her navy-blue cardigan over the white blouse and floral skirt.

The entrance to the park was opposite a row of big, posh houses on the Moseley Road. Mercy stepped inside, looking across the sloping grass. She wasn’t sure of the time.

‘Mercy.’

She jumped, hearing Dorothy’s voice, and, as she turned, heard St Joseph’s clock in the distance begin striking eleven.

Dorothy had a boy with her, a solid, rosy-cheeked lad dressed in good quality short trousers, a jacket and shiny black shoes. He was staring at her with a pointed curiosity which verged on insolence.

Mercy looked from one to the other of them. Dorothy appeared to be in a right state. She reached out to touch the boy’s shoulder and Mercy saw her hand was trembling. She was breathing fast and for a moment seemed unable to speak.

‘Who’s this?’ Mercy asked. ‘One of your mistress’s, is ’e?’ Dorothy couldn’t have anything much to say to her if she’d brought a child along as well.

The boy opened his mouth to speak when Dorothy put her fingers urgently to her lips and shushed him.

‘Yes, this is Robert.’ She spoke very quickly as if afraid for the words to linger in her mouth. ‘And we’ve got summat to show you, haven’t we, Robert? Mercy, I think you’d better come and sit down, dear.’

Mercy felt her heart thump harder. She was bewildered, and Dorothy’s tone made her feel very nervous. Her hands began sweating and she had to wipe them on her skirt.

They went to a bench beside a flower bed of mixed pansies and sweet william. Dorothy sat the boy between the two of them. She took a deep breath and held it for a second.

‘Now,’ she said finally, on a rush of exhaled air, ‘Robert is going to show you . . . Go on, Robert.’

Obviously aware of the solemnity of the occasion, Robert pulled a soft handful of something creamy-white from his pocket. Mercy frowned. As he opened it out it began to look familiar. She thought her heart was going to hammer its way out through her ribs. She gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth.

The boy opened out the handkerchief and laid it across his knees. Embroidered in one corner in a blue thread, with exquisite neatness, was the name
ROBERT
. He unfolded the second and in almost the same cornflower blue she read
EDWARD
. There was a third square of linen, older, more yellowed, just like hers, embroidered, just like hers, in a faded mauve:
THOMAS
. She stared and stared. She couldn’t make sense of anything. Here were the very same linen squares, the same stitching as on the only small possession she had had since birth. The one tiny clue to her identity. And here this stranger, this young boy . . .

With her hand still pressed to her lips she looked uncomprehendingly at Dorothy. Dorothy’s eyes stared back at her, full of mingled fear and tenderness.

‘If you’d been a boy,’ her voice trembled, ‘you’d have been called Thomas. She had it all ready for you, long before . . .’

A winded, choking sound escaped from Mercy. She dragged her hand from her face and pressed it over her heart as if to contain the violence of its beating. Her whole body began to shake.

‘What d’you mean, Dorothy? What in heaven’s name are you telling me?’

The boy looked up at her. ‘Mother says, and Dorothy says that you’re my sister. Well, half-sister at any rate.’

Mercy felt her head had been filled with smoke, thicker than that billowing from any factory chimney. She couldn’t see through it who the boy was, make sense of what he was saying, or why Dorothy was here with him. She felt dizzy and hot. The fog grew darker and darker, until only a few lights were flashing somewhere at the side of her vision, confusing her further, until the darkness began to fold in round her.

‘Mercy? Mercy! ’Ere, get your head between your knees and you’ll feel better.’

Dorothy’s hands were pressing on her shoulders. The darkness cleared and she could hear blood pounding in her ears until the pressure of it was too much, her belly felt cramped and she had to sit up. She was sick and groggy.

‘Stay here with ’er,’ Dorothy instructed Robert, patting Mercy’s shoulder. ‘I’ll go and ask up there for a drink of water.’

Mercy closed her eyes. This was all too much. She wanted to sleep, not hear any more. Go back to how things were. But she could never go back, she knew. Her life was tumbling round her and she was powerless to stop it.

‘Are you all right?’ Robert asked courteously.

She opened her eyes. ‘I’m OK now. Thank you.’ She examined his face as she might have done a mirror, looking for traces of herself, but she found nothing. Robert sensed this, had seen the same look in his mother’s eyes.

‘She says I’m the image of my father.’

Mercy noted that he didn’t say ‘Daddy’. Nothing that sounded affectionate.

‘What’s your mother’s name?’ she asked faintly.

He had to think for a second. ‘Grace Elizabeth Weston.’

‘Grace Weston.’ Hearing her name, Mercy did recognize it, faintly. Dorothy had named her before. She turned the name round in her churning mind. Grace. Grace. What did this Grace have to do with her? Of course she had considered that her mother, a real flesh and blood person, might exist somewhere. But in her heart she had never believed it fully. No! Not a living, breathing person, who did ordinary, everyday things like anyone else.

Dorothy came back with a jam jar full of water and handed it to Mercy. ‘They said we don’t need to take it back. Big of ’em, eh?’ Her dark eyes were full of anxiety. Mercy drank, then sat gripping the glass jar, head bowed.

‘Tell me, Dorothy.’ Her hands, legs, every part of her was still quivering.

Dorothy sank down on the bench.

‘When your mother had you she wasn’t wed. She comes from a respectable family. Religious, God-fearing sort of people. Her father was a lay preacher – Methodist – very strict man, he was. Any road, when she was forced to tell him he as good as washed his hands of her. Said she was to come home when she’d got rid of it, one way or other. He didn’t want to know nothing about it. He’d’ve packed her off there and then if her mother hadn’t persuaded him to let her stop at home ’til nearer the time it was due. They kept her in like, so no one’d know. Hid her.’ Dorothy told the story in a flat voice as if she could hardly bear it.

‘I was her maid then. We’re of an age, see. When the time came near she went out and didn’t come back. None of us knew where ’til after. It was her way of punishing herself, I think. Otherwise I might’ve gone with her.

‘She went off, somewhere no one’d know her and soon after she had . . . you. She knew if she kept you she’d have no roof over her head. Her mother, Mrs Bringley, had given her a bit of money to help her get by. There wasn’t a lot else she could do. Mr Bringley was a stern man, had her right under his thumb. Grace would’ve been on the streets else, or in the workhouse. No home, soon no money, no way of earning a crust – nowt.

‘She’d seen the Hanley Home. You were born somewhere around there. It was the only thing she could think of – you’d be taken care of. They might’ve sent you to Canada – they started that soon after you was taken in there.’

‘Amy . . .’ Mercy said faintly.

‘Yes, like Amy. She thought it was the only way the both of you could survive. After two or three months she sent me over there asking for work. When a job came up they gave it to me as I wouldn’t leave ’em alone. So there was always someone there, someone watching over you . . .’

The smoke cleared out of Mercy’s mind as suddenly as if a tornado had swept through it. Her fists clenched tight.

‘You mean . . . you’re saying . . . all this time, ever since before I can even remember anything, I’ve had a mother? And you’ve always known who she was and where she was?’ She gasped, memories flooding through her. ‘And you brought me clothes – from her? And those jobs you got me – all her, and you?’

Dorothy nodded, her expression full of pain.

Mercy stood up as if propelled by an electric shock. Rage seemed to crackle through her, making her limbs turn rigid, her jaws stiff. She turned on Dorothy, eyes ablaze with outrage and fury.

‘All this time, the pair of you kept it from me, my own beginnings, my family! All these years I’ve felt like . . . like nothing – thrown in the gutter because no one wanted me, and all the time . . .’ She could barely speak, reeling under the violence of her hurt and anger.