They agreed on the basics, with Jamie’s priority to bring in wood and coal so that Lily could light the range. She’d also told him that he should fetch bread and meat so that they could eat. ‘We can’t work on empty stomachs,’ she said. ‘And if we’re to clean this hovel out we’ll need sustenance.’ He’d complained, but she ignored his mutterings and added that he should also bring some red meat for Alice’s eyes.
After he’d gone she went back into Alice’s room where she found Lizzie and Cherie sitting on the end of her bed, both looking very miserable.
‘Cherie says she wants to go back to Hope House,’ Lizzie said plaintively. ‘She’s scared of being beaten up like Alice.’
‘Then you should go,’ Lily said firmly.
‘But I can’t go without Lizzie.’ Cherie’s lips trembled. ‘I’m scared of being on my own.’
‘How come you’re working on ’streets?’ Lily asked. ‘You’re onny a bairn.’
Cherie bit on her lips. ‘Da died some time ago, and then my ma died, so landlord turned me out of ’house cos I couldn’t pay ’rent. I couldn’t get a job o’ work and then I met Lizzie.’
‘When was this?’
‘Onny a couple o’ weeks back.’ Lizzie answered for Cherie. ‘She was wandering about near ’pier. I thought she was going to chuck herself over.’
‘I might have done,’ Cherie whispered. ‘But then Lizzie gave me some of her supper.’
Lizzie nodded. ‘I’d made a bit o’ money that night and I’d bought a meat pie.’ She shrugged nonchalantly. ‘So I shared it.’
Lily gazed at Cherie. She had an air of innocence about her. Like Daisy, she thought. ‘So then you went to work on ’streets together?’
Cherie glanced at Lizzie. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t. Not yet. Lizzie did it for me. I daren’t, you see.’ Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘So Lizzie has been keeping us both on what she’s earned.’
‘That’s why we went to Hope House,’ Lizzie told her. ‘I thought they’d get Cherie some other kind o’ work, but they wanted me to stop as well and I didn’t want to.’ She shrugged again. ‘I was going to slip out when nobody was looking, onny Cherie caught me leaving and said she wouldn’t stop on her own.’
‘And have you been working for Jamie as well?’
‘On and off,’ Lizzie said. ‘When it suited me; I came back here cos I thought Cherie would be safer than out on ’streets.’
Lily nodded thoughtfully. So Cherie is still innocent and Lizzie has been protecting her. How easy it is to jump to wrong conclusions about people.
‘Well, young ladies,’ she said softly, ‘I have a plan. If you’re willing we can work together, stand together and mek a better life for each and every one of us.’ She told them briefly of her discussion with Jamie. ‘I already know what Alice wants; she wants her own little house and a husband to look after her.’
Lizzie snorted derisively. ‘Fat chance o’ that.’
‘So what do you want, Lizzie?’ Lily asked.
‘Well, not a man for a start!’ Lizzie laughed shortly. ‘I’ve had enough o’ them to last me a lifetime. They think they’re using me, but they’re not: I’m using them. They want summat I’ve got so they’ve got to pay for it. But what I’d really like,’ her mouth pouted and she gazed dreamily about her, ‘is a shop that sells nice clothes: gowns ’n’ cloaks ’n’ that. Not a second-hand tat shop like Rena’s I don’t mean, but one that sells new clothes for folks wi’ money. I’d be ’best-dressed woman in town then, cos I know about fashion,’ she said defiantly, ‘even if I don’t have ’money for it.’
She would be too, Lily considered, for there was a certain air about the way she wore her worn shawl and swished her torn skirt. She was still wearing her own clothes, whereas Cherie wore the grey dress given to her in the charity house.
‘And what about you, Cherie?’ Lily asked. ‘What’d please you?’
Cherie looked down at her hands and twisted them together. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I felt safe when I was at home with my ma and da, even though we had nowt much. When they died I thought my brother would ask me to live with them, but his wife said she’d enough mouths to feed as it was and that I had to fend for myself or go to ’workhouse.’
Lily shuddered. Having seen the place she could understand Cherie’s preferring a life out on the streets.
‘So what I’d really like,’ Cherie continued, ‘is a place where I’d feel safe again. It’s not that I don’t want to work,’ she added hastily. ‘I worked in ’flour mills and cotton mills until I was dismissed and then I couldn’t find another job o’ work. But I’d want a place to come back to.’
‘Why were you dismissed?’
‘Cos I’d got to fifteen and they tek on younger bairns for less money.’ She hesitated. ‘But I was allus falling asleep,’ she said. ‘I was that tired all ’time and they said I was a danger to myself. I might have fallen into ’machinery, you see.’ She yawned. ‘I’m tired now,’ she confessed. ‘I could just crawl into that bed wi’ Alice.’
Alice shifted up in the bed. ‘Come on then. I’ve slept wi’ more than two in a bed afore now.’
In a minute, Cherie had slipped off her boots and slid in beside Alice. Lily looked at Lizzie. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘It looks as if it’s just you and me to set about this place. What do you think? Are you going to stop here or tek a chance out on ’streets?’
Lizzie grinned. ‘I’m going to stop.’ She took off her shawl and rolled up her sleeves. ‘Let’s get started. We’ll chuck out all ’rubbish, and then when Jamie comes back wi’ fuel we’ll get ’fire going and then them two,’ she nodded towards the bed, ‘can get themselves up to help us scrub out.’ She looked at Lily. ‘We’ve told you what we want, Lily. But you haven’t said what you want.’
Lily heaved a sigh. It seemed as if all she cared for had gone for ever. Her beloved Johnny was the only man she had ever wanted. Billy Fowler had been meant to fill that gap in her life, but marrying him had been a terrible mistake. Ted and Daisy were the ones she had to think about now. Daisy was safe for the moment, but could Lily bring her here, to a house of ill repute? And as for Ted, will he ever find me? For surely he’ll come looking when he discovers that Billy sold me.
‘I have a son and a daughter,’ she replied. ‘They’re the ones that I care about. I must work to give them a home.’
Lizzie looked aghast. ‘You can’t bring them here! It wouldn’t be right!’
Lily laughed. ‘Got some morals, have you, Lizzie?’
‘Aye,’ Lizzie said, looking offended. ‘I have!’
Whilst Lily raked out the old ash from the kitchen range and then scrubbed it clean of ancient cooking grease, Lizzie found a sweeping brush and a pair of steps and swept the ceiling and walls free of cobwebs. ‘Phew,’ she exclaimed, wiping her face with a dirty hand. ‘We’ll need a bath when we’ve finished in here.’
‘And we shall have one,’ Lily said. Her face and hands were covered in soot and coal dust. ‘As soon as this fire is going we’ll set ’pan on top and fill that tin bath upstairs wi’ hot water.’
Lizzie leaned on the brush and contemplated. ‘I’ve really enjoyed myself,’ she said. ‘I never thought that having a clean sweep would make me feel so satisfied.’
‘Aye.’ Lily dusted herself down. ‘It does. When I had my own little cottage – it was onny one room, mind – I kept it clean as a new pin. I felt right proud of it, and when ’agent came to collect ’rent he allus used to say it was a pleasure to come into it.’
‘How did you manage to pay ’rent?’ Lizzie asked. ‘If your husband was away?’
‘Parish helped me, and I worked. Did washing in farmhouses, and I worked in ’local hostelry. I nivver stuck fast because after my ma died I used to worry about leaving ’bairns on their own. I’d put Daisy to bed, but Ted was a young varmint; he’d pretend to be asleep but I allus knew that as soon as I was out of ’door he’d be out of bed and off outside to play.’ She shrugged. ‘But what could I do? I had to work. Anyway, my neighbour had a garden where he grew vegetables and I persuaded him to let Ted have a small patch of earth to grow things.’ She smiled as she reminisced. ‘So that’s what he did, and often when I came home later Ted would be flat out on ’rug in front of ’fire, still with his muddy boots on and his face and hands dirty, just worn out with ’exertion of working outside.’
‘So where is he now?’ Lizzie asked.
Lily put her hand to her face and squeezed her eyes tight. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know.’
Jamie came back a little later with a sack of coal, kindling and a barrowload of wood. ‘I’ve asked ’coalman to call regular,’ he said. ‘But go sparingly with ’coal – it’s costing me a fortune.’
Lily looked at him. ‘We’ve got to do this properly,’ she told him. ‘Otherwise you’ll have a bawdy house just like ’rest of ’em down ’street. If you want gents to come here they won’t want to be sitting in shabby surroundings.’
He bit on a piece of loose skin on his finger and said nothing for a second. Then he nodded. ‘All right. You get it looking tidy. Then tell me what you have in mind.’
‘It needs a lick of paint,’ she said. ‘Then I want things changing round. I’ll have that room that Alice is in, then I’m handy for ’front door and seeing who’s coming in and going out. That middle room can be a sort of parlour where folks – men,’ she said reluctantly, ‘can sit and have a drink or even a bite of supper.’
‘Supper!’ he exploded. ‘You want to give ’em supper! I’ll tell you they’ll want to be off home as soon as they can afore their wives miss ’em.’
‘Not all of them,’ she said patiently. ‘And I thought we could give them a drink or supper before they …’ She pointed upstairs. ‘Before they …’
‘Tek girls upstairs,’ Lizzie said pointedly. ‘It’s no use beating about ’bush, Lily. That’s what they’ll be coming for, supper or not!’
‘Yes, I know,’ Lily admitted. ‘But I thought mebbe we could make it more sort of high class.’
Jamie stared at her. Then he blinked. ‘There are places like that,’ he said. ‘But I hadn’t thought – but then …’ He pondered. ‘Why not? I’d need to spend more money, though. To mek it suitable.’
‘And you’ll need more girls,’ Lizzie said practically. ‘It can’t be done with just me and Alice.’
‘And Cherie,’ Jamie said.
‘Not Cherie,’ Lizzie and Lily said together.
‘She’s not experienced,’ Lizzie said.
‘I’ve got other plans for her,’ Lily added.
Somebody hammered on the front door. Jamie looked alarmed. ‘Sounds like ’constable,’ he whispered. ‘Go and placate him, Lily. Tell him it’s a rooming house.’
She raised her eyebrows at him and went down the hall to the door, opening it with a half-smile on her face, prepared to be amiable. But it wasn’t the constable but a young fair-haired woman in a grey dress.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘What ’you doing here?’
‘Everybody asks me that,’ Lily sighed. ‘It’s Betty, isn’t it? You’d better come in.’
Lizzie and Betty eyed each other. ‘Didn’t think you’d stick it out,’ Lizzie mocked.
‘Lasted longer than you, anyway,’ Betty retaliated.
‘I didn’t intend stopping,’ Lizzie snapped. ‘I onny went cos of Cherie.’
‘What’s going on, then?’ Betty asked. ‘Why are you here, Lily? I thought you said you weren’t in this line of work.’
‘I wasn’t,’ Lily said. ‘I’m not. There’s been a change o’ plan. Perhaps you’d like to hear about it?’
‘Mebbe,’ Betty said in a non-committal way, and Lily thought that her tone of voice wasn’t as harsh as Lizzie’s. It was as if she had conquered her lowly accent and tried to improve herself.
Lily outlined the plans for the house and the customers they wanted to attract. ‘Businessmen,’ she said. ‘Tradesmen too, but not any riff-raff who might use violence.’ She told her about Alice being beaten and Betty shuddered.
‘It’s what I’m scared of more than owt – anything,’ she said. ‘Even more than catching disease.’ She looked at Jamie. ‘We’ve had our arguments, I know,’ she said, ‘and you’ve taken advantage of us, but I’d like to stop and give it a try.’
‘You can,’ Jamie said. ‘But that’s on condition that you and Lizzie don’t fight.’
‘I’ll not fight,’ Betty countered. ‘It’s degrading!’
‘Ha, listen to milady,’ Lizzie said. ‘Who do you think you are?’
‘That’s enough!’ Lily spoke as if they were children. ‘I’ll not have any bickering. We’ve got to work together. If either of you’ve got a complaint you come to me and I’ll try to sort it out.’
Jamie grinned. ‘Good! I’ll leave you to it, Lily. Last thing I want is two she-cats scrapping.’
‘And that’s enough of that sort of talk,’ Lily said sharply. ‘We’ll have some respect, Jamie, if you please.’
He pulled a face. ‘Sorry,’ he said, giving a mock bow. ‘I’ll try to remember.’
‘Before you go,’ Lily said, ‘I’ll give you a list of what we need. Cushions and antimacassars and suchlike to cover up ’shabby furniture. Then when we’re ready you can tek Lizzie with you and you can get us all some new clothes.’
‘New clothes!’ he gasped. ‘I’m not made o’ brass.’
‘Not new,’ she explained. ‘Second-hand! Lizzie will know what to get, won’t you, Lizzie?’
The girl’s face brightened. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Course I will.’
‘As for you, Betty,’ Lily said, ‘I’ve got something else in mind for you.’