Rose pulled back the red plush curtain that was drawn to keep out the winter draughts and peered round the crowded, smoke-filled public bar.
‘Joey, can I see yer a minute?’ she called to him from the doorway.
‘Excuse me, chaps,’ Joey said, laying his hand of cards face down on the beer-stained table. ‘I’m wanted.’
He was well aware of the whispered ribald remarks made by his card-playing companions as he went over to Rose.
‘Sorry to bother yer, Joe,’ said Rose apologetically.
‘That’s all right, gel, any time. Yer know that.’
‘Put that curtain back. It’s perishin’ in ’ere,’ shouted the barman.
‘Sorry,’ called Rose, stepping into the pub and straightening the heavy material over the door behind her.
‘Ne’mind ’im, Rose. What d’yer want?’
‘I’ve got a favour to ask yer,’ she said, leaning close so that no one could hear.
‘Course,’ he said immediately. ‘Anythin’ for you.’
‘Not ’ere, Joe. Outside, eh?’
Joe pulled back the curtain again and opened the door, gesturing for Rose to go out first.
‘All right, all right,’ he said before anyone had the chance to complain, ‘I’m closing it as quick as I can.’ As he pushed the door shut behind them, the cold hit him. ‘Christ, we can’t stand out ’ere and talk, it’s freezin’. Come over to mine an’ I’ll make yer a cuppa tea.’ He saw Rose hesitate. ‘Don’t worry. I ain’t gonna eat yer up. An’ yer know Mum’s always there.’
Rose smiled, grateful for the chance to talk to such a kind, uncomplicated, undemanding man. ‘Ta, Joe. I’d like that a lot. If yer don’t mind.’
As they walked along Burton Street, the contrast between the cold night air and the warm cosiness of The Star made Joey shiver. He turned up his jacket collar and stuck his hands deep in his pockets.
‘I don’t think this snow’ll ever clear. It’s murder of a momin’ gettin’ the cart ’itched up.’
‘Yer wanna get yerself some gloves,’ said Rose, her breath coming out in white cloudy puffs.
Joey laughed, a gentle, regretful chuckle. ‘Me ol’ Mum’s knittin’ days are over, Rose. Art’ I never got the ’ang of it.’
‘I could make yer some if yer like.’ As Rose turned to look at him, she missed her footing on the frozen cobblestones and slipped against him.
Joey grabbed her, and held her arms till she righted herself. Only a moment, but long enough for them both to be embarrassed by the unfamiliar contact.
‘Ta, Rose, I could do with some to keep me ’ands warm when I’m seein’ to Daddler.’
They walked on in silence. Joey was puzzled. Rose was a good neighbour, one of the best, but she usually kept herself to herself. Always there to help, of course, whenever anyone needed her, but she’d never offered to do anything like that for him before, nothing so personal.
‘I’d like that a lot, Rose,’ he said.
‘It might pay yer back a bit for what I’m gonna ask yer,’ she said.
Joey Fuller lived in the last house in Burton Street, at the opposite end to The Star. He had lived there all his life, since the day he had been born in the little front bedroom. His father, Joseph, had been the foreman of the cooperage yard at the brewery, where most of the neighbours who weren’t dockers earned their living.
One morning, for no reason that anyone had ever discovered, a stack of barrels had crashed forward and fallen on Joseph, crushing his body against the cold flagstoned yard. He had survived the accident to live for five terrible days in agonising pain, until death did for him what the doctor couldn’t by mercifully releasing him from his suffering.
Since that dreadful day Joey had looked after his mother. They had received no money or help from the brewery. It was an accident and that was that. A foreman could easily be replaced. And so Joey had become the breadwinner, the man of the house. He had been thirteen years old.
His mother never recovered from the shock of losing her beloved Joseph, and never left the house again. Lately she had become more and more confused. Sometimes she thought Joey was his father, other times she thought she was a little girl again. Mostly she just sat by the fire, staring into the flames. But Joey coped; he had to. He had never married. Once, however, he’d told Rose that when she had married Bill Fairleigh, that was it, he was not interested in anyone else. He would have to stay a bachelor for ever. She was never sure if he was joking or not.
Joey blew pn his freezing fingers before he turned the key carefully in the lock.
‘Don’t wanna drop the key an’ wake Mum,’ he explained. ‘Yer know ’ow she gets all mixed up.’
Rose followed him through the pitch-dark passage and into the little kitchen out the back. She sat at the table and looked round while Joey made the tea. It was the first time she’d ever been inside there.
The Fullers’ house was exactly the same as the Fairleighs’, the same, in fact, as every other house in Burton Street, and as many others in that part of Poplar – two up, two down, including the small kitchen which was the centre of most households in Poplar, and a tiny stone-floored scullery in the little back yard.
But Joey’s house differed in one way from Rose’s: though it was clean – yes, very clean; Joey worked hard to earn a living and keep the place nice for his mum – it didn’t have the warm, cosy feel of Number 8. It didn’t have the homely touches that made Rose’s place so welcoming; the little ornaments and pictures that every family seemed to accumulate over the years were missing. That was it, she thought. Rose knew that Joey worked long, lonely hours with his pony and cart, doing the rounds of the markets, delivering and picking up whatever gear he was asked to. It choked her to think of him coming home to such a bare little room.
‘There y’are, Rose,’ he said, sitting opposite her. He handed her a thick china cup. ‘That’ll warm yer up.’
‘Ta, Joe.’ She sipped gingerly at the steaming tea. ‘I reckon I’ve drunk enough of this over the years to float one of my Bill’s ships.’
Joey laughed. ‘Me an’ all. But yer can never ’ave too much of a good thing, eh, Rose?’ He looked at her over the rim of his cup. ‘Like good company. Yer can’t beat ’avin’ friends. ‘Specially if yer worried about somethin’,’ he added.
Rose didn’t say anything, but carried on drinking her tea.
‘Ol’ Cyril was in The Star earlier. Drunk as a tiddler, ’e was. Seems to ’ave forgotten all about his Jack goin’ missin’.’
Rose set her cup down on the table more heavily than she’d meant to. The tea splashed on to the scrubbed pine surface. ‘Aw, I’m a silly cow. Sorry, Joe. Yer got a cloth?’ she asked, jumping to her feet.
‘Don’t worry yerself.’ Joe touched her shoulder, making her sit down. He got a rag and mopped up the spill. ‘Now, Rose,’ he said, ‘this favour yer was talkin’ about; to do with Charlie, is it?’
Rose frowned. She felt confused and guilty; for the last few days she’d hardly thought about Charlie, or Jack Barnes for that matter. Not since she’d made up her mind what she had to do, in fact.
‘No, Joe, not Charlie. Not this time anyway.’ She managed a smile. ‘I ’eard from ’im the other week, funny enough. Reckons ’e’s doin’ all right for ’imself.’ She sipped at her tea. ‘I ’ope so. I worry that ’e’s ’eadin for some sort a trouble, yer know. But then I think, no, not our Charlie. ’E’ll be all right. ’E’s a survivor.’
‘I reckon ’e is, Rose,’ said Joey, laughing as he topped up their cups. ‘’E’s got a lucky streak, that boy of your’n. Strokes ’e used to pull as a nipper an’ ’e always come out on top.’
‘That’s what I try an’ tell meself,’ said Rose. ‘Yer know, barely a couple a pound born ’e was, didn’t think ’e’d make it through the night. Now ’e’s such a great ’ulkin’ lump. No, I should stop worryin’ about ’im. ’E’ll land on ’is feet. Please Gawd.’
‘So, it’s not Charlie.’ Joey waited, letting Rose take her time.
‘Joe, I’ve gotta take Jess down to Kent. She ain’t keen to go, but we’ve got no choice. I know the weather’s bad an’ that, but it can’t be ’elped. It’s gotta be done.’
Joey did not ask her for reasons, he simply asked, ‘When do yer wanna leave?’
Early the next morning, well before dawn, Rose, Jess and Joey Fuller set off for Tilnhurst. The journey was not easy, the cart slithering and sliding through the slushy London streets and the snowbound lanes of Kent, but they arrived at last, late that night.
Joey stopped his pony outside the main entrance to the Hall. The gravel drive had been completely cleared by the outdoors staff. It was as though no snow had fallen on it at all. Rose got down from the cart, stiff with sitting for so long. She climbed the broad stone stairs and rapped on the big wooden doors, her knuckles numb with cold.
Tyler opened the door. At the sight of Rose and the shaggy coster’s pony he took a step back.
T’ve come to see Sir George,’ she said as plainly and bravely as she could manage.
‘Sir George does not give charity to beggars,’ said Tyler down his nose. ‘Try the kitchen door round at the back. Cook may have some scraps.’
‘Tell ’im Rose Fairleigh’s ’ere,’ she said, straightening her aching body. “E’ll see me all right.’
Tyler raised a disbelieving eyebrow but went to inform his master anyway. Sir George had been known to agree to all sorts of things when he was less than sober.
Rose stood in the doorway, looking into the brightly lit hallway. The electrically powered chandelier threw its glittering lights on to the black and white chequered marble floor. She looked back to the drive and saw Jess huddled on the back of the cart, a snow-dampened blanket draped around her hunched shoulders. Rose knew that Jess would rather be anywhere but Worlington Hall, but she would have to learn that the likes of them had few choices in life. Joey was tending to Daddler. He’d thrown an old sack across her back and was feeding her oats from a hessian nosebag. The pony’s munching and snorting were the only sounds in the still, frosty air.
‘Who?’ bellowed Sir George.
‘Rose Fairleigh, sir,’ said the butler for the third time. His attempts at remaining discreet were being increasingly hampered by his employer’s drunken failure to comprehend even the simplest of statements.
‘Is there a problem, Tyler?’ asked Leonore, walking into the billiards room. Even though she had been insitting room working on a tapestry, she had heard her husband shouting at the butler. ‘Is there some way in which I can be of help?’
Tyler decided to throw caution to the winds, and anyway, he reasoned that Sir George’s present state would prevent him from recalling any indiscretion on his butler’s part. And he wanted to get this over with and get to bed.
‘There is a…’ He hesitated, unsure of which description to employ. ‘A person, m’lady. At the front door. A Rose Fairleigh.’
The effect of those few words made Tyler entirely unsure as to whether he had said the wrong or right thing after all. On hearing the name, Lady Worlington had gone quite pale and fled from the room out into the hallway.
‘Mrs Fairleigh?’ she said. She knew it was her immediately, as soon as she saw the poorly dressed woman standing at her door. Her worst fears were confirmed. Paul had not invented the letter he had shown her after all. He had been telling the truth for once. More trouble, and Robert was right in the middle of it, yet again.
‘Yeh,’ said Rose. ‘That’s me.’
‘You come here for the hop picking, don’t you?’
‘Yeh. An’ now I’ve come to speak to Sir George.’
Leonore held out her hand in welcome. ‘Won’t you come in. Please. You must be very cold out there.’
Rose remained on the steps, firmly outside the door. ‘I don’t wanna leave me daughter. An’ me friend who brought us ’ere. They’re cold an’ all.’
‘Your daughter.’ Leonore swallowed hard, struggling to retain some semblance of composure. ‘And your friend, of course. They must both come in.’
She opened the door wider and stepped out. Welcoming light flooded from behind her out on to the porticoed entrance.
‘Won’t you both come in?’
Rose stood in the corner of the large, high-ceilinged room. Logs blazed in the biggest fireplace she had ever seen. Joey stood protectively behind her. Jess lingered in the doorway. She felt she would die from the humiliation. Then she reconsidered: no, she wouldn’t be lucky enough for that to happen.
As the warmth worked on their bodies they tingled and itched. Their rough woollen clothing felt harsh against their skin.
Leonore Worlington entered. ‘I’ve spoken to my husband. He will be joining us shortly.’ She sat down in a winged armchair by the fireside. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
‘We’re all right as we are. Thank you very much.’ Rose answered for all three of them.
The passing of each awkward moment was marked by the tick-tocking of the tall ormolu clock on the ornate mantelshelf. Eyes were trained on anything but each other. When the door finally opened, they all looked round in relief.
‘Five pounds and that’s my only offer.’
Even Leonore, used to her husband’s boorish behaviour, was astounded by his callousness. ‘Five pounds, George? You are talking about your future grandchild as though it were a calf at the market.’
Joey shuffled his feet uncomfortably, still keeping up the pretence that he had no idea as to the purpose of the visit. ‘I’m going outside to see to me ’orse,’ he said and left the room.
‘’Ow can she raise a kid on that?’ Rose demanded. ‘She’ll need more than that just to clothe ’erself an’ keep ’erself warm while she’s expectin’.’
It wasn’t like Rose to speak out like that, but she was fighting for her Jessie, for her daughter’s survival.
Sir George merely sneered in reply.
Rose looked desperately at Leonore, appealing to her as a mother. ‘Honest. I ain’t being greedy. Where we live, see, it’s really ’ard. Our Charlie ain’t around any more to ’elp us out with a few bob. An’ me other boys, they eat like men but bring in kids’ wages, what with all the problems with work back ’ome. Another mouth would mean…’
‘Ten pounds, if you’ll shut up talking, woman. If not, it goes back to five.’
‘None of yer is gonna put a price on me baby’s ’ead. None of yers.’
Sir George laughed at the audacity of the pathetic attempt at dignity coming from the shabby girl standing by the door.
‘Go on, ’ave yer laugh. I don’t care. But yer can keep yer money. I don’t want it. I don’t want nothin’ off yer, not for meself. All I want’s a name for me baby. I don’t want it to be no bastard.’
Leonore bowed her head, hiding her shame as her husband’s laughter echoed around the room. ‘Want to have a little Worlington, do you?’
‘Yeh, I do. An’ I will an’ all. Yer son said ’e’d marry me. Said ’e loved me. Now I know ’e don’t, but I don’t care about ’im no more. I just want me baby to ’ave a name.’
‘You will regret taking that tone with me,’ said Sir George stonily. ‘We’ll have to see what the court has to say about all this.’ He looked her up and down, his expression one of contempt. ‘Yes, I really think you will live to regret tonight, young woman. Five pounds is more than you’ll ever get out of me now.’
Leonore stood up and faced her husband, her hands formed into tight, angry fists by her side. ‘You are being unspeakably cruel, George.’
‘Don’t yer worry about us, lady,’ said Rose. ‘We know we’re in the right. We’ll go to court if that’s what ’e wants. ’E won’t get away with treatin’ us like that. The court’ll see to that.’
‘I’ll see you in court then,’ said Sir George, making his way to the door. ‘At, shall we say, eleven tomorrow morning.’
‘Where do we go?’ said Rose, feeling stronger and more hopeful than she had in weeks.
‘The local court is conducted here, actually,’ he replied from the doorway. ‘Here, in the Hall. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll bid you goodnight, ladies.’ With a deep, mocking bow, Sir George left the three women alone.
Fear slithered its way down Rose’s spine, making her shudder. ‘Someone’s walked over me grave,’ she muttered.
Leonore pretended not to hear. What could she say? She must try to act normally, keep control of herself. She rang for the butler.
‘Tyler, organise some food for Mrs and Miss Fairleigh and for their companion. And somewhere for them to sleep.’ She reached out a hand to touch Jess, but withdrew it, still not knowing what she could say.
‘Goodnight,’ she said noncommittally. ‘Please excuse me, but I must speak to my husband before he retires for the night.’
After their supper of broth and stale bread which the cook had blatantly scooped from the leavings in the pigswill bin, Tyler escorted the three Londoners from the kitchen to the bam. Like the cook, the butler did not bother to hide his distaste at being in close proximity to such people, to foreigners.
‘Better than the ’oppers’ ’uts,’ whispered Rose as they lay in the warm darkness of the hayloft. ‘An’ this ’ay’s more comfy than the straw they usually gives us an’ all. Lovely an’ warm an’ cosy.’
‘More’n yer can say for that butler,’ said Joe.
‘They don’t like us East Enders down ’ere,’ said Rose. ‘“Foreigners” they calls us ’oppers, don’t they, Jess?’
Jess’s only reply was a trembling sob which tore at her mother’s heart.
Anxious to sound calm for her daughter, Rose spoke into the darkness. ‘These country bumpkins could learn a lot from us cockneys, I reckon. Didn’t ’ave to ask Elsie twice. Straight away she said she’d look after yer mum, didn’t she, Joe? Mind yer, they ain’t treatin’ us too bad tonight. What more could we ask, eh?’
The pretence became too much for her. Rose rolled over, wrapped her arms round Jess’s tense, shuddering body and cried with her.
Joey rolled himself one thin cigarette after another, smoking them to keep himself awake, until he was sure Rose and Jess had finally dropped off to sleep.
He didn’t know whether they would want him to do anything for them, but he wanted to be there and ready if they did.
The next morning, the maid who had been charged by Lady Leonore to take a cooked breakfast to the Londoners in the guest cottage was redirected by Tyler to take a jug of thin gruel and some stale bread to the foreigners in the barn.
At a quarter to eleven, Jess and her mother were shown into the court. It had been set up in the long, vaulted-ceilinged room which ran the full length of the Hall. They were instructed to stand by a low, plain wooden bench, which was set at right angles to the large, highly polished table which dominated the room. The table itself was dominated by a thronelike seat, placed in the middle of a row of eight less formidable chairs. A man, not unlike Sir George, occupied the main place at the table. The other places were occupied by the Reverend Henry Batsford and seven men of similar social standing and authority in the Tilnhurst community. Sir George himself sat in a plump brocade armchair in front of, and slightly to the side of the table. Lady Worlington sat in a smaller armchair behind him.
As she sat there, her hands gripped tightly in her lap, it hardly seemed possible to Leonore that this room had been the scene of so many happy gatherings in the past; a place where guests had laughed and chatted with the Worlingtons before going in to dinner. Robert, her handsome, dashing son, had often been the centre of attention at such evenings. But there was no sign of him today.
Nor was there any sign of Joey, but for very different reasons. He had been denied entry to the proceedings and, much to the butler’s annoyance, had insisted on waiting with his pony and cart on the gravel outside the front entrance to the Hall.
The man at the centre of the table, the magistrate, was Arthur Fanshawe, the owner of the neighbouring estate. As the longcase clock in the corner of the room struck eleven, Fanshawe opened the session. He conducted the proceedings at such a fast pace and with such long and complicated words that Rose quickly became totally bewildered.
But Jess was unaffected by his performance. She was not listening to him. He had nothing to say that could be of any interest to her. All she could think of was her child growing in her belly. It had been Robert’s child, but not now. Now it was her child. Only hers. If he didn’t want it, then she would look after it herself. She didn’t hear the Reverend Henry Batsford’s speech either, in which he expounded on the immorality of the London labouring classes. Nor did she attend to Sir George’s invective on the subject of moral degeneracy in girls who made the trapping of decent men their life’s work. He even expanded on his theme by explaining to all present that the girl’s mother had tried to get money out of him – a price for the bastard.
‘That is why the trollop got herself in this state in the first place,’ he boomed, looking portentously round the room, ‘and by God alone knows what poor fellow. Maybe someone in this very village.’
Rose tried to protest that it was Sir George himself who had first mentioned money, that Jess had refused it, and that he knew full well who the father was. But she was silenced.
Leonore never opened her mouth. She remained silent throughout. She did not tell those present that the girl had only wanted her child to be recognised by its father, her own son, Robert Worlington. She never said a word, even though she also wanted the child, her grandchild, to be made legitimate, even though she had seen for herself the vile reality of women living alone with their children in the back-streets of the East End. Yes, she knew all about that. But she also knew what her husband was capable of. She kept silent as it was the best way she could think of to protect Jessie Fairleigh. She would go to her after the farce of the court hearing was over and they had sent her back to London, to starve for all they cared. And she would find a way to help her. Leonore knew that she would, she must, do all she could to make up for the behaviour of the man she was now ashamed to call her son. She was so preoccupied racking her brains for a scheme to help Jessie and her unborn child that she was scarcely aware that Arthur Fanshawe was drawing the proceedings to a close.
‘On the basis of the proof of her moral degeneracy,’ he droned, ‘Jessie, er…’ he checked his notes for her name ‘Jessie Fairleigh is committed to the county asylum for lunatics until such time as she can prove her sanity.’
Rose screamed her denial of what she was hearing. Shocked, Leonore buried her face in her hands. Jess stood impassively by the hard wooden bench.
‘Perhaps after the birth of her bastard she will come to her senses,’ suggested the Reverend Henry Batsford.
It was not quite a quarter past eleven. The whole proceedings had taken just twelve minutes.
The butler was instructed by his master to see that Rose left the grounds of Worlington Hall immediately. Tyler dragged her cursing and shouting from the room and dumped her brutally on the stone steps where she had stood so expectantly the night before.
‘You should have listened to me,’ Tyler said sarcastically, looking down at her. ‘I told you. Sir George doesn’t give charity to beggars.’
Joey dropped Daddler’s reins and rushed to help Rose to her feet. ‘Rose?’
‘They’ve put her away, Joe,’ Rose wailed disbelievingly. ‘They’ve put my Jessie in the bin.’
Joey did not say anything. He lifted Rose on to the cart and covered her legs with a rug. Then he started up the stone steps, two at a time. He had not quite reached the top when Theo the measurer came up behind him and stuck the muzzle of a double-barrelled shotgun in his back.
‘Master says as how he wants you to leave. Now.’
Joe still did not speak, but turned round and slammed the full force of his fist into the man’s face, sending him somersaulting down the steps. He stepped over the unconscious measurer and climbed rigidly on to the cart and shook the reins, signalling Daddler to walk on.
They were almost at the turn in the drive, the point where the Hall disappeared from the view of departing guests, when Leonore shouted to them from the porch.
‘She’ll be all right. I promise you,’ she called after them. ‘I really promise. I promise there will be justice.’
Whether they heard her or not she didn’t know, but they didn’t look back.