The first heavy snowfall of that winter obscured the sky all through the last day of November, with flakes as thick as goose feathers and a knife-edged cold. The first blizzard howled it into drifts within a week and from then on the cold was unrelenting. Snow fell with monotonous regularity, by day and by night, smothering all sound and most landmarks, and even though the main thoroughfares were usually trudged to a brown slush by mid-day, the rest of the world was a study in black and white.
Chelsea’s ancient cottages were weighed down by an additional white thatch which dripped blackened straw and grew even blacker icicles. Frozen water hung in white suspension from black pumps. The church rose darkly among the white hummocks of its untidy yard. Black crows spread tessellated wings against a white sky. Only the chimney stacks displayed any colour, their red brick oddly naked, breathing out bold brown smoke into the grey air, the one sign of life and warmth in a cold deadened world.
Soon the streets were mounded with perpetual snow and the cobbles treacherous with impacted ice. Horses slithered and fell and were hauled to their feet by grooms made clumsy by cold and thoughtless cruelty. Beggars froze to death where they sat, their filthy rags as solid as rock, and were hauled ignominiously away in mud-ridged tumbrels to a pauper’s grave. Funerals soon became a daily occurrence as the old, the young and the frail gradually succumbed to the season. And street traders of all kinds watched their custom dwindle, and grew poorer and hungrier by the day.
Supplies of food grew smaller too and more costly as the fields froze. By the end of the year root vegetables had disappeared from the market altogether and no matter how well they were cooked, potatoes remained obstinately hard and grey. Even the Season was affected, which didn’t please Sophie Fuseli at all. The theatres stayed open, but both the great pleasure gardens were closed and the only balls held that winter were private affairs in the great well-heated houses of the ton.
By the middle of December Nan’s profits had been virtually halved. Her regulars still paid to have their papers delivered, cold or no cold, but there were far too few of them, and there were days when street sales were so small as to be scarcely worth the bother. However temptingly she offered her wares, her customers scurried past, heads down against the biting wind, swathed to the nose in shawls and mufflers and with their hats pulled over their ears, ignoring everything except their urgent need to get beside a fire again as quickly as they could.
In fact, if it hadn’t been for the presence of her two winsome children, there were some days when she would have sold no papers at all. But a small child bundled about with shawls and scarves, hatted and hooded, and wrapped in a red cloak with a small chapped nose and rough cheeks to match, was still an attraction. Fortunately.
William was less help than his sister in cold weather, because he would keep running about or blowing on the unmittened ends of his fingers or stamping his feet in the slush and spattering them all with filth. But Annie was a good child, standing patiently and obediently in the trodden snow, and never complaining, no matter how cold she was. And she was often very cold indeed. There were days when her fingers were frozen into stiff little claws and when she got home it took Bessie quite a long time to chaff them into life again, unbending them one at a time, very gradually and painfully. But even then the child didn’t complain. She was far too fond of her mother to do that. And far too worried about the roof.
Bessie had explained to her that Mama worked hard to ‘keep a roof over their heads’ and that she and Billy were to do everything they could to help her. Sometimes she would glance back fearfully at the roof as they left the house in the morning, just in case it had been taken away overnight. But the familiar grey slates were always there, so whatever it was that Mama was doing, she seemed to be doing it right. But it was a serious responsibility, even so.
Her two little brothers fought back all the time, shouting ‘No!’ and ‘Shan’t!’ and running away or rolling about on the floor, and being smacked and shaken for their disobedience, but Annie would never have dared to offer such bad behaviour. Even when she was so cold that she felt sick, or so tired that she would have sat down in the snow, if that had been allowed, she said nothing, but stood stoically at her post, enduring, newspaper in frozen hand, aware of the burden of keeping that roof in place.
So on that miserable December day when she first felt ill, hot and dizzy and with no strength in her arms, she went on enduring. It was the only thing she could do, for she didn’t want to upset Mama when she was working so hard. Besides it might make her cross, and that was something she couldn’t even contemplate, leave alone provoke. For Annie was a gentle creature, like her father, and she shrank from any hint of unpleasantness, curling in upon herself, silently, like a rose folding for the night.
She told Bessie she didn’t feel well, of course, when they were back home and Mama was safely out of earshot, and Bessie put her to bed and got a hot brick to warm her feet which were so cold she couldn’t feel them, which was odd when the rest of her body was burning hot.
During the night she began to cough and her chest hurt her ever such a lot and Bessie got up and went bustling off downstairs and presently returned with a cup and gave her little sips of some syrupy stuff, which tasted quite nice but didn’t stop the cough, even though Bessie had promised it would.
In the morning they were both tired out. When Billy came leaping on to the bed to wake her up, she didn’t have the strength to tell him not to. But Bessie hauled him away and dressed him, and grumbled at Johnnie to look sharp, and after an age of loud voices that made her head throb, and kicking feet that jarred her aching arms, they all went away downstairs and left her to sleep again. As her mind began to drift away, she was glad she didn’t have to get up and go to work.
‘Where’s Annie?’ Nan asked, when Bessie ushered the two boys into the dining-room and settled them at the table. She was sitting before the tea caddy.
Bessie steeled herself for the struggle that would have to come. It was the first time in her life that she had ever dared to obstruct the will of an adult, and her heart was beating painfully just at the thought of it. ‘If you please mum,’ she said, timidly, ‘she ain’t very well this morning an’ ’tis uncommon cold.’
‘She can’t stay in bed just because it’s cold,’ Nan said mildly. ‘I don’t always feel well, let me tell you, but I always turn out. We can’t afford to spend our days rolling around in bed. That’s not the way the world is. Go and get her.’
‘No, mum,’ Bessie said, blushing but steadfast. ‘She ain’t well, beggin’ yer pardon.’
The blush alerted Nan. This might be serious. ‘You two boys sit in those chairs and don’t you dare move, not so much as an inch,’ she said. Then she put the lid on the teapot and set off upstairs.
It surprised them both when Bessie, mild obedient Bessie, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, suddenly kicked up her heels and ran in front of her, charging up the stairs like a thing demented, to fling herself against the nursery door, legs astride and both hands clinging to the jambs, wild-eyed and scarlet in the face. ‘No,’ she shouted. ‘Beggin’ yer pardon mum, but you shan’t take ’er out! No indeed you shan’t! My poor lamb’s ill, so she is. You shan’t!’
‘What is the matter with you?’ Nan said, much surprised. ‘Stand aside, pray do, and let us have a little less of this nonsense.’
But Bessie had completely misjudged her mistress’s intentions, and went on defending her young. She burst into tears but she didn’t stand aside. ‘She’s five years old, mum,’ she said. ‘Poor little mite. Five years old, that’s all, an’ she ain’t a-goin’ out in this weather with a fever, that she ain’t, not if it was ever so.’
‘If she’s ill, the sooner I see her the better,’ Nan said, wondering whether she would have to use force to pull Bessie aside.
But Bessie looked as though she’d been stuck to the door, and she was no longer the fragile child Mr Easter had hired when Johnnie was born. That red face had a womanly look to it, despite its present distortion, the short little body had put on weight and most of it was muscle, those outstretched arms were strong. Strong enough to overpower her mistress if it came to fisticuffs. Surely it wouldn’t come to fisticuffs! Good heavens, what was the matter with the girl?
Fortunately, just at that moment, Thiss arrived. He’d finished his first delivery and had come home for breakfast. Bessie’s squeals had him up the stairs in an instant.
Both women were really quite glad to see him. ‘Ah, Thiss,’ Nan said. ‘She won’t let me into the bedroom. Perhaps you can get her to see sense, for I’m sure I can’t.’
‘Annie’s ill,’ Bessie sobbed. ‘She ain’t in a fit state …’
‘Now, don’t be a goose, Bessie,’ he said. ‘Dry yer old eyes, there’s a good gel, an’ we’ll all go in an’ see what’s what, eh?’
And to Nan’s relief, that’s what they did.
Annie was lying on the floor, with the sheets and blankets tumbled around her, tossing her head from side to side, muttering and groaning and completely delirious.
‘Oh, my lovey!’ Nan said, running to her side at once and lifting her damp head into her lap. ‘Oh, what is it, Annie? My poor love!’
But the child was raving. ‘I can’t keep the roof up,’ she groaned. ‘Don’t ’ee tell Mama. Ba! Ba! Where are you? Oh don’t ’ee tell Mama, for pity’s sake.’
‘I’m ’ere, pet. Your Ba’s ’ere.’ Bessie said. ‘Don’t ’ee never think your Ba would ever leave yer. My poor lamb.’
‘Best get ’er back ter bed,’ Thiss said, and he lifted the child gently from Nan’s lap and laid her back on the mattress.
‘There’s no roof!’ Annie said wildly, grabbing at his jacket. ‘No roof!’
‘Thiss ’as got yer,’ Bessie tried to explain. But the child groaned and couldn’t understand.
‘Leave ’er be,’ Thiss ordered. ‘She don’t know who we are, neither one of us. Which ain’t ter be wondered at, seein’ the fever she got.’
But she knew who she wanted, fever or no fever. ‘Ba!’ she called. ‘Ba! Ba!’ And Bessie held her hand and smoothed the damp hair from her forehead while Thiss tucked the covers smoothly round her.
And Nan Easter, Nan the business-woman, Nan the empire-builder, Nan the mother, was superfluous. There was nothing she could do but stand to one side, her insides churning with fear, and wait until the fit subsided and the child was calm again. Then, of course, she took action.
‘Run you to Mr Whiteman,’ she said to Thiss. ‘And you,’ turning to Bessie, ‘tell Mrs Dibkins to give the boys their breakfast and keep them downstairs no matter what. ’Tis a fever and they might go a-catchin’ it. Then bring towels and a bowl of warm water and we’ll sponge her down.’ Then as they didn’t spring to obey her orders immediately, and she was tense with anxiety, ‘Hasten you up, do!’
Mr Whiteman was a modest physician with a gentle manner, which was why Nan had chosen him, even in the heat and worry of the moment.
He came to attend his little patient immediately, standing before her, grave and old-fashioned in his fustian breeches and his green cloth coat, saying nothing. His wig was unpowdered, a fact which Nan noted with approval, for it revealed that he put his patient before his appearance. But he took a long time to make any diagnosis, which annoyed her, especially as he did so many things that didn’t seem at all necessary to her, and did them so slowly. First he had Bessie lift the child’s nightgown so that he could examine her back and chest and all four limbs, peering at them closely and saying nothing. Then he lifted her eyelids and looked at her unconscious eyes, and opened her mouth and fished out her tongue and looked down her throat, saying nothing. And finally he put his head right down onto her chest and appeared to be listening to that too.
‘She has been ill for several days, I imagine?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ Bessie said. ‘She ’as, poor little mite. Two days to my certain knowledge.’
‘Did she go out of doors during that time?’
‘Yes,’ Nan had to admit, and her heart lurched with anxiety and guilt. How was it that I didn’t see she was ill?
‘That would account for it, of course,’ the doctor said and sighed heavily.
The sigh alarmed Nan and increased her guilt. ‘Well,’ she said sharply. ‘What is it?’
‘Your daughter has a congestion of the lungs,’ he said sadly. ‘That is the cause of her present fever. She is very gravely ill.’
Nan’s heart contracted with such fear that it altered the sound of her voice. ‘What is to be done?’ she said, hoarsely.
‘Very little, I fear,’ he said truthfully. ‘We could try bleeding. Or blistering, should you wish it. But I should tell you I have never known either practice to be efficacious in such cases. In fact it has to be admitted, there have been times when in my considered opinion such treatments have done more harm than good.’
‘Then what will you do?’
‘There is nothing any of us can do Mrs Easter,’ he sighed, ‘not for an illness of this kind. Nothing at all. I only wish there were. The fever must run its course, I fear. Keep a boiling kettle on the hob to moisten the air. That may ease her breathing, although it will not cure her, for there is no cure.’
‘But she will recover?’ It was only a question. There couldn’t be any doubt about that, surely? It would be too cruel.
‘The fever will run its course,’ he repeated. ‘It will get worse, I fear, but in a few days it will reach a crisis, and then one of two things will occur. Either she will turn the corner and get better. Or she will die.’ And seeing the anguish on Nan’s face, ‘That is the truth of the matter, Mrs Easter. I cannot gloss it.’
Bessie was weeping, muffling her sobs with her apron. ‘Hush up!’ her mistress told her, furious with fear. ‘I got enough to worry about without you.’
‘I will call again tomorrow,’ Mr Whiteman said sadly. ‘I do truly wish I could have given you other and better news.’
‘Aye,’ Nan said. ‘So do I!’
But however much she might struggle against it, she was caged by the truth and couldn’t escape from it, as the time passed slowly, day after delirious day, and Annie got worse and worse. She was ashamed by the careless way she’d treated her uncomplaining daughter, and was privately aware that it was far too much like the way she’d treated the child’s father. Now she realized how very much her little girl meant to her, and knew how good and helpful and undemanding she’d been, and suspected with a palpable sinking of the heart that the child must have been afraid of her, because she’d been ill for several days and hadn’t dared to tell her. ‘You should have seen all this before,’ she told her reflection angrily and every night. ‘But not you. Oh no! You got to wait till they’re dead or dying!’ And she was anguished at the thought.
On Sunday, when the priest spoke to his Chelsea congregation about the evil of selfishness and the value of man’s immortal soul, she listened for once, and took his words to heart. From then on, she said earnest prayers every morning and every night, promising God that if only the child could be spared she would do everything in her power to be unselfish, she would think of others, she would treat all her children with the most loving kindness. They would never work in the streets again, there would be more fun and pleasure in all their lives, anything, anything. But the moment of crisis had yet to be faced, and the nearer it got the more she dreaded it.
Bessie kept a constant vigil in the nursery and did her best not to cry when her mistress was in the room. And Thiss looked after the business. And the boys slept in Nan’s room, confused and depressed by the air of gloom and anxiety that surrounded them. And Annie struggled for breath and burned with fever.
On Christmas Eve she was so very much worse, that Nan sent for Mr Whiteman again, even though he’d visited them in the morning, and she knew there was nothing he could do. Now every breath rattled in and out of Annie’s constricted throat, and she writhed for air, choking and coughing until phlegm bubbled from her lips.
‘It is the crisis,’ Mr Whiteman said. But he was confirming what they already knew.
He and Nan and Bessie sat with their struggling patient all through the night, replenishing the kettle, relighting the candles, watching and praying but not daring to look beyond the moment. And towards dawn when a grey light began to filter through the darkness, and Annie had been sleeping rather less noisily for about an hour, she suddenly woke up and looked at them with intelligence. ‘I’s very thirsty Ba,’ she said. ‘Could I have a little water, pray?’
The cup was in her hand almost before she’d finished speaking, and she drank greedily, and asked for more.
‘Is it …? Has she …?’ Nan whispered. Tears were coursing down her cheeks and when she looked at Mr Whiteman she could see that his eyes were moist too.
‘Yes, Mrs Easter,’ he said. ‘The crisis is passed. Praise be to God!’
After he’d gone, she and Bessie fetched bowls and towels and gave their poor little patient a gentle wash. She was pitifully thin, and she still coughed, but she was undeniably cooler and her breathing had eased. ‘Soon ’ave you better now, eh my precious?’ Bessie said. But Nan was so anguished she couldn’t say anything.
Later that morning, when the child was asleep again, and Bessie had gone to get the boys up for breakfast, she remembered her prayers, and said genuine thanks to God for His infinite mercy. I will keep my word, she prayed, I vow it. Children are to be cared for, not used. I will never make such a mistake again. I couldn’t have borne it if she’d died. I will keep my word.
The cold continued and street sales remained obstinately low, and early in the new year three more walks came onto the market because their owners could no longer afford to run them. All three were going cheap so Nan bought them at once, but this time true to her vow, she hired newsmen to run them. Then she and Thiss drew up a route map ready to tout for deliveries. Their new wealthy customers were delighted to have such a service offered. ‘In weather so exceptionally inclement,’ one titled lady said, ‘’tis a comfort to read of the misfortunes of others. We will take The Times and the Morning Post. ’Tis as well to keep abreast of affairs.’
To everybody’s relief, Annie made a steady recovery, getting better as the weather got worse. By the time she was pronounced well enough to leave her bed and creep shakily downstairs to sit by the fire in the dining-room, the Serpentine was frozen solid, right the way across, and four of the seven streams in the Chelsea waterworks were too choked by ice to provide water for the populace.
‘There is no end to this dratted winter,’ Nan said, when Mrs Dibkins came hobbling into the dining-room one morning with half a kettleful of water and the news that the pump was dry.
‘We can always boil snow, Mrs Easter-dear,’ Mrs Dibkins said, chins a-quiver as she set the kettle on the hob. ‘That’s what we done last time. More than ten years ago, that were. Ho, what a time we had. They was skatin’ on that ol’ Serpentine then. Like a fair it was. Mr Dibkins’ll tell you. They had roast chestnuts for sale, an’ everyone on skates a-dancin’. Ho, my lor!’
‘What’s ’katin’?’ Johnnie wanted to know. Now that he was two-and-a-half, and didn’t roar quite so much, he’d been allowed out of his high chair and was sitting up to the table, but he was still so small that only his head and shoulders were visible above the cloth. ‘What’s ’katin’, Ba?’
‘’Tis a way a’ walkin’ on ice,’ Bessie said. ‘A skate’s like a sort a’ wedge made a’ bone. You ties it to yer shoes an’ off you goes, a-whizzin’ along. Quick as a bird.’
‘Ho, what sport!’ Mrs Dibkins said, watching the kettle spitting on the hob, so that she could lift it for Mrs Easter the minute it boiled. ‘Quick as a bird! Oh my lor!’
Billy was thrilled by the idea. ‘Could we go ’kating, Mama?’ he asked, his eyes round with eagerness. Now that he was nearly four he was ready for any challenge.
Nan lowered her newspaper and looked at him sharply. ‘No, you could not,’ she said. ‘The very idea! Do you all want congestion of the lungs? Is one not bad enough? We shall need some more bread, Mrs Dibkins.’
The boys thought her most unfair, but they didn’t say so, of course. Not then. Not straight to her face. Young as they were they knew that you didn’t argue with Mama. She was a deal too sharp for that. The most you could dare was a ‘look’ thrown venomously in her direction when she was busy reading the paper. You said what you thought later, to Thiss and Ba.
‘It ain’t fair, Thiss,’ Billy said. ‘We could go ’katin’. We wouldn’t catch the digestion, would us, Ba?’
‘I couldn’t say, my lamb,’ Bessie temporized. She was much too much in awe of Nan to contradict her, even when she was well out of earshot.
‘We could go a-Sunday,’ Billy persisted.
‘She wouldn’t let me,’ Annie said sadly, ‘not when I been ill, she wouldn’t.’
‘Well not you per’aps,’ Billy said cheerfully, ‘but she could let us. It ain’t fair, Thiss.’
‘Tell yer what,’ Thiss offered, ‘you leave it ter me. Be’ave yerselves like good kids, an’ I’ll see what I can do.’ There were ways round Mrs Easter’s irascibility and the longer he lived in her household, the more of them he discovered. ‘’Er barks a sight worse’n ’er bite. I’ll see what I can do.’
What he did was to drive her back to Chelsea by a different route the next morning after their first delivery in Marylebone. As she was quick to notice.
‘I simply cannot imagine why you should want to drive through St James’ Park, Thiss,’ she said, looking across the snow-covered lawns to where small bundled shapes were already sliding and tumbling on the ice that had once been the Serpentine. ‘You should be ashamed to be so artful, you rogue. That you should.’
‘’Tis a good healthy sport for young’uns,’ he said, grinning back at her over his shoulder.
‘Warm as toast. On the move,’ he urged. ‘If you’ll allow, mum, I’ll prove it to yer.’
‘Go on then. Prove it. If you can.’
So Pepperpot was reined in, and a gliding child enticed from the pond with the promise that he could ‘earn hisself a farthin’ if he done as he was told’ and Nan was prevailed upon to lean down from the trap and feel how warm the urchin’s hands were even inside extremely ragged mittens.
‘’E ain’t wrapped up all that well neither,’ Thiss said, standing beside the child and looking up at her hopefully. ‘Warm as toast, ain’tcher?’
‘Yes, mum,’ the child said, ‘D’yer want ter feel me face an’ all?’
Nan declined the offer, his face being even dirtier than his grime-dark hands. But Thiss had made his point.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘You may hire skates for all of us and a sledge for Annie. Now let us ride home, or ’tis my lungs will be affected.’
‘And you, mum?’ Thiss asked, as he climbed aboard and clicked Pepperpot into motion.
‘Me?’
‘Shall I hire some skates for you an’ all?’
‘’Course,’ she said.
It was a great success. For the children it was a sudden and extraordinary adventure, and the sight of their mother gliding across the ice so elegantly was a revelation, for Nan was gratified to discover that she could still skate quite passably even though the last time she’d done such a thing had been back in the Yarmouth days when she was working as a lady’s maid to Mrs Howkins. What a long time ago it seemed. And now here she was, the owner of six newswalks that between them covered nearly half the vast city of London. ‘A. Easter, Newsagent.’ She skated happily, turning out her toes to right and left in a steady satisfactory rhythm, avoiding the bodies hurtling towards her, keeping a careful eye on her convalescent daughter, in control of her feet and her life.
For Bessie and Thiss the fact that they were allowed out to play, in that tingling air, with no chores, for an entire afternoon, was a freedom they’d never known before. They spent the first half hour hauling the boys along between them, while Annie sat huddled in her rugs in the sledge and watched. And they were all astounded at how quickly the two children learned the entirely new art of sliding along on pieces of bone. Bessie declared that young Johnnie was soon skating better than he walked, which was true enough, for his walk was still something of a stagger. And Billy loved every minute of it, whether he was standing up, or gliding along, or rolling about on the ice, fat as a puppy in his padded clothes.
On that first afternoon Annie was content to sit warmly wrapped in her sledge and watch, but on the following day she ventured out onto the ice, and found to her great delight that skating was easier than it looked, and that the motion of it brought warmth to her cheeks and made her feel really well again. By the third day, all three children were really quite proficient, and could glide along with the best, following their mother or holding her hands and singing as they sped.
All of which delighted Thiss, for now he could skate at speed with Bessie, and that gave him the chance he’d been scheming for ever since the ice first froze, to put his arm round her nice, tempting waist and hold her cuddled up close to his side. Breath streamed from their open mouths and was parted by the speed of their movement to flow behind them on either side of their faces, like foam parted by the bows of a ship; their skates hissed; her cloak flicked and billowed like a sail; and he fancied he could feel the curve of her breast even through the layers of thick clothing she’d piled on against the cold. What sport!
And of course it wasn’t very long before she slipped and fell and then they were able to roll over and over on the ice, thigh to thigh, giggling and squealing and very much aware of one another. And after that one or the other of them contrived to fall over every few minutes or so, and it took longer and longer to disentangle their limbs, and they needed more and more time to lie on top of one another and recover their breath. Or lose it.
And watching them Nan felt a pang of jealousy, for they were such an obvious pair and so happy in each other’s company. The whole world goes two by two, she thought, and wondered whether she ought to take a lover, just for the sake of company.
On Sunday the itinerant street-sellers converged upon the park with hot potatoes and roast chestnuts and set up their stalls alongside the Serpentine to tempt the skaters and the hungry congregations that had come to take the chill air after Sunday service. The pond was crowded with skaters and tumblers so they did a good trade, particularly to Billy and Johnnie.
‘My heart alive, this ol’ skating do give ’ee appetite,’ Nan said, tossing a chestnut from hand to hand to cool it. ‘Just so soon as spring comes around and trade picks up again, I shall hire me a good cook, so I shall.’ Old Mrs Dibkin’s cooking was getting worse and worse.
But that day Mrs Dibkins produced an excellent dish of stewed mutton and followed it with apple dumplings and sugar syrup, so they were all well fed and well pleased.
‘I hope the ice goes on an’ on an’ on,’ Billy said. ‘I like ’katin’, Mama.’
‘On an’ on an’ on an’ on,’ Johnnie echoed, trailing the syrup from his plate to his mouth in a long, sticky thread.
‘Shall we go skatin’ again tomorrow?’ Annie asked.
‘Like enough,’ Nan said. ‘’Tis a healthy sport in all conscience. Eat properly, Johnnie.’
But the thaw came much quicker than any of them could have imagined. On Friday afternoon the Serpentine was frozen as hard as it had ever been and the sky was white with cold. Overnight the wind changed direction and there was a steady warming drizzle. By eight o’clock the next morning, the dawn sky was pale blue and the ice visibly cracking. Soon regular customers were blinking onto the streets again like bears after a long hibernation. ‘Spring is on its way at last,’ they said, and were happy to buy a paper, ‘to see how the world wags after such a winter. What news of the war, eh?’
‘I shall rent another shop,’ Nan told her family, when profits had been high for the third week in succession.
But Annie looked worried. ‘Will it be another roof Mama?’ she asked.
‘Another roof?’
‘On the shop, Mama. For you to keep on.’
‘Why bless the child, what’s she talking about?’ Nan said, looking at Bessie for elucidation.
‘You know, Ba,’ Annie appealed. ‘What you said.’
By now Nan was remembering all those frantic ravings when the child had been delirious. They’d been about a roof too. ‘Tell me what Ba said,’ she urged, taking the child onto her knee.
‘I’m to be a good girl an’ help Mama,’ Annie remembered, ‘’cause Mama works so hard to keep the roof on over our heads.’ And she was startled when the adults began to laugh. But Mama was cuddling her so it was all right.
‘’Tis a way of talking,’ Mama explained. ‘A way of talking. That means I work hard to earn enough money for your food and this pretty gown you’re wearing and new brooms for Mr Dibkins and hay for Pepperpot and such like. Did you think the roof would fall off, is that what ’twas?’
Tearful nodding.
‘There’s no fear of that, lovey,’ Nan said, suddenly tugged with pity. How children suffer, she thought, and all so unnecessarily. That’s a worry could have been stopped before it had a chance to begin, if only I’d known of it. And she hastened to reassure. ‘I never known a stronger roof, nor a better house. And a new shop will bring us prettier clothes and even better food. So don’t you go a-worrying your head about un.’
So the second shop was rented and while she was in the City Nan went to an agency and hired four new servants, a plain cook, a pastry cook, and two scullery maids. ‘They start work on Monday,’ she told the rest of her household when she returned well pleased with her morning’s work. ‘The cooks live out, the maids live in. They can have the back attic. More hands, less work eh?’ Then she went off to the drapers to order pink cotton for the scullery maids.
But if she expected her servants to be pleased with their new assistants she was very much mistaken. Mrs Dibkins was devastated. ‘Ho my lor!’ she said, when Nan had left. ‘What she want to go an’ do a thing like that for? I cooks well enough, Horrie. Ho, we shall never get on, you mark my words. Ho! Ho my lor!’
‘Don’t take on so, Mother,’ Mr Dibkins said, patting her shoulder with clumsy affection. ‘Don’t let’s cross our bridges, eh?’
‘Ho, she’s a tartar,’ Mrs Dibkins wept, chins wobbling. ‘To hire new servants. We shall be on the streets come nightfall Monday, you mark my words.’
And at that Bessie caught Mrs Dibkin’s panic and wept until her nose was pinched like a beak and her cheeks were blotchy as measles. ‘What she have ter go an’ do a thing like that for?’ she wailed to Thiss. ‘We was all right as we was. Oh, why does everything have ter change? Why can’t we all stay the same?’
The sight of that pinched nose roused a tender pity in young Thiss that he couldn’t distinguish from love. ‘Don’t cry, goosie,’ he said, taking his God-sent opportunity to cuddle her openly. ‘Things’ve got ter change. That’s the way a’ the world. T’ain’t all bad.’
‘Oh Thiss, I’m sorry ter cry.’
‘You cry as long as yer like,’ he said, grinning at her, ‘jest so long as you understands what’s what. ’Cause the more you cries the more I shall ’ave ter kiss yer.’
‘Will yer?’ she said, thrilled by the idea.
‘Won’t I jest?’ he said, suiting the action to the word.
For the rest of that week the atmosphere in Cheyne Row was taut as stretched wire as Mrs Dibkins went about her duties tight-lipped with disapproval and distress, and Nan felt guilty to have upset her so much and did her best to pretend to all of them that she hadn’t noticed anything was wrong. It was galling to her to think she’d made such a bad mistake with the servants, particularly when she was treating her children so much better. Not for the first time she wished she could have been more like Mr Easter, who’d always known exactly the right way to treat everybody.
But when Monday arrived the cooks turned out to be quite amiable people after all. Mrs Jorris, the plain cook, told Mrs Dibkins her kitchen was a joy to work in. ‘’Tain’t everyone can keep a place so lovely, Mrs Dibkins. I hopes you’ll lend a hand now an’ then when there’s a rush on. I can see we shall get on like a house a-fire.’
And the food they cooked between them was mouth-watering. And nobody got the sack. And Annie, having had her private fear finally and comfortably dispersed, was quite well again. And Bessie got kissed every day, night and morning. So perhaps it was all for the best, after all.