A week later Lily walked into town to visit Rena. She was wearing the grey gown and thought how uplifting it was to be well dressed. I feel as if I can hold my head up with the best of them. I don’t look poverty-stricken or down at heel and of no account. One or two gentlemen had lifted their hats to her to bid her good morning, and she wasn’t sure if it was because she looked elegant, or because they recognized her from a night-time activity. The house had been busy most evenings. Jamie seemed to have a constant supply of customers; either that or the word was getting round that it was a very discreet establishment with some very respectable gentlemen using the services there.
‘I need a pair of everyday shoes, Rena,’ she told the older woman. ‘These old boots are worn out. And I’d like a new bonnet for when I come into town.’
‘Quite right,’ Rena agreed. ‘I wondered when you’d get round to buying one.’
‘I’ve not had any spare money,’ Lily said. ‘The money Jamie pays me is for essentials, like food.’
Jamie was not very generous with his wages. ‘It’s me who brings ’customers in,’ he’d said when she complained. ‘And I pay ’rent; five bob a week it costs me.’
‘And I’m the one who teks ’risk,’ she retaliated. ‘If ’house was raided it’d be me who’d tek ’blame.’
She knew that for a fact because Leo had told her. ‘You must be very careful,’ he had said. ‘Jamie can claim that he has no knowledge of what you and the girls are doing in his house. He’s only the landlord – the sub-landlord, at any rate. I know he doesn’t own it. You would be the one to be prosecuted.’
‘But …’ She had been confused. ‘He brings ’customers here. He even brought—’ She’d stopped. Benevolent and big-hearted as Leo was to them all – and true to his word he had had a piano delivered – the expression on his face had warned her that he would deny all knowledge of her or the house.
‘I was given a big tip ’other night,’ she told Rena. ‘So I decided that after I’d paid you what I owe, I’d buy myself a new hat or bonnet. I’ve never had one. I allus – always made my own bonnets out of old frocks.’ She was trying to improve her manners and speech, having become very conscious of how countrified she was. ‘But I’ve never owned a hat. Never had ’call for one.’
‘Every woman should have at least one hat in her lifetime.’ Rena smiled. ‘I have twelve of my own, and even then sometimes I’ll use another from my stock. Let’s have a look and see what suits you.’
They spent a pleasant half-hour trying on shoes and hats and bonnets and eventually Lily chose a pair of plain black leather shoes, barely worn, and a straw bonnet lined with grey silk. Rena also insisted that she have a pair of silk gloves and a beaded purse.
‘There,’ she said, putting her head on one side. ‘You could be taken for a prosperous tradesman’s wife quite easily.’
‘A tradesman’s wife!’ Lily said. ‘Gracious! Really? How about an apothecary’s wife?’ She laughed. ‘Mrs Walker is nowhere near as elegant as me!’
‘Mrs Walker?’ Rena looked startled. ‘You know her, do you?’
‘My daughter Daisy works for her and Mr Walker was very kind to me when I first came to Hull. He took me into his care when I was in labour. Mrs Walker wasn’t so keen to have me there, nor to have Daisy at first, but now, oddly enough, she’s taken to her and wants her as a lady’s maid.’
‘Does she indeed,’ Rena muttered. ‘Ideas above her station!’
Rather a strange thing to say, Lily pondered as she walked back to Leadenhall Square in her new attire. I would have thought that Mrs Walker as an apothecary’s wife had a good status in life and would need a personal maid; though now I think about it, she doesn’t have the manners or the voice of a lady, whereas Mr Walker is obviously a gentleman, and their son will be the same.
It was a very warm day and she was conscious of the many strong smells of the town. A stench of fish offal and glue, of open drains and sewers, an odour beyond imagining from the charnel house, and a reek of rotting meat, decaying vegetables and overflowing privies. She put her hand over her nose as she hurried back and saw that many other women had their handkerchiefs to their faces.
‘Oh, what a stink out there!’ she gasped as she went indoors. ‘Summat should be done about it. It can’t be healthy. There’s no wonder there’s disease everywhere.’
Lizzie looked up. She was sitting on the parlour sofa with her feet up. ‘Hadn’t noticed,’ she said.
‘We’re used to it,’ Alice said. ‘But sometimes it makes me cough.’
Lily had noticed that Alice coughed, especially at night.
‘You must’ve had bad smells where you lived, Lily,’ Cherie said. ‘Didn’t you?’
Lily shook her head. ‘Not like these,’ she said. ‘Nowt at all like these. But you forget, I lived near ’sea. That was a smell worth sniffing.’
‘Tell us, then.’ Cherie moved Lizzie’s feet and sat beside her. ‘Tell us what it was like where you used to live.’
‘I’ll just tek my hat off. Has anybody noticed?’ she asked, turning her head this way and that to show off her bonnet.
‘I did,’ Alice said. ‘It’s lovely. Have you been to Rena’s?’
‘Yes.’ Lily unfastened the ribbons at her throat. ‘And look – gloves, bag’ – she lifted her foot and twirled it – ‘and shoes.’
‘Have you come into a fortune?’ Lizzie grinned. ‘Or have you been stealing our customers when we weren’t looking?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ she said. ‘Though I’ve been asked, so you’d all better watch out.’ When Lily was asked a ‘favour’ by the customers, she simply sweetly and politely refused. How very charming they seem, she would think as she smilingly declined, yet she knew they were concerned only with their own gratification.
‘I’d give a fortune for a cuppa tea. Ask Mrs Flitt, will you, Cherie, and then I’ll tell you about ’sweet scents of home.’
Lily slipped off her new shoes; they were pinching her toes just a little and she thought that whoever they had belonged to previously hadn’t worn them much for there was barely a scratch on them. Her old boots she had handed over to Mrs Flitt who had opened the door to her and who had almost grovelled with delight; her own footwear had cardboard soles which she replaced every few days.
‘Tell us then, Lily,’ Cherie pleaded, when she came back from the kitchen with a tray of tea. ‘What was it like where you lived? Did you have shops? And were you very poor?’ Cherie was almost childlike in her eagerness to know.
‘Everybody I knew was poor.’ Lily sipped her tea appreciatively. This was a luxury; there had been times when she couldn’t afford to buy tea, and when she did she used it sparingly. ‘But in ’country, folks shared what they had when they could, especially if they thought you were on your uppers. Most folks grew their own food, potatoes, beans, cabbages and suchlike, and there was a butcher’s van came once a week for them as could afford to buy meat. But sometimes I’d be given a rabbit or a boiling chicken and they’d last for a couple o’ days. But you asked about ’smells of ’countryside, and,’ she drew in a breath, ‘I miss them a lot. I’ve not smelt a sprig of hawthorn or apple blossom – and they’ll be in full flower now – since I came to Hull. There are no gardens round here, or at least none that I’ve seen.
‘The village I lived in when I was a bairn and where my ma and da lived all their lives was about a mile from ’sea. We used to walk there regular, and when I was courting Johnny we walked there every Sunday until we wed. After he joined the army I still used to go with my bairns. Our village wasn’t very big, not compared with this town, and we knew most folks. They’d lived there all their lives, you see. Farming folk, they were mainly; labouring men.’
‘But the smells,’ Cherie interrupted. ‘What about them?’
Lily smiled. ‘In ’spring, the smell of blossom was so heady that you felt you could get drunk on it. I’ve telled you about ’hawthorn; ’trees and hedges would be covered in white blossom, and sometimes it was pink – Flowers of May, it was called. Then ’hedge rose and elder would be in flower about ’same time and ’smell from ’em used to nearly knock me over! Did you know that you can mek champagne with elderflower?’ Without waiting for an answer, she went on, ‘My ma used to mek it and then elderberry wine in ’autumn when ’berries came out. By, that was potent!’
‘Would you like to go back?’ Alice asked. She was sitting curled up in a chair, looking rather fragile, Lily thought.
‘I’ve nobody to go back to,’ she answered. ‘When Johnny didn’t come home I married again and went to live in Seathorne. I thought I was going to summat better than I had, but it was just a hovel right on ’edge of ’cliff. The village is disappearing into ’sea.’ She wondered uneasily about Billy. Was he really dead? She sighed. There was no point in enquiring. He hadn’t wanted her – that much was obvious. She was better off without him.
She looked round at all the faces watching and listening to her. ‘But ’smell of sea was lovely,’ she added brightly. ‘Sharp and salty, and sort of pungent. You felt refreshed when you took a breath. That was one of ’best smells ever.’
The door bell rang and they all looked up. ‘Who’s this?’ Lizzie frowned. ‘At this time o’ day!’
‘Mrs Flitt can go,’ Lily said. ‘It can’t be a customer.’
Mrs Flitt was allowed to answer the door during the day. She looked much more respectable than before in her newly fashioned skirt, made from Lily’s old one, and she always wore a clean apron.
‘Somebody for you, Miss Lily.’ She put her head round the parlour door and sniffed disapprovingly. ‘A woman.’
Lily raised her eyebrows. ‘Wanting work?’
‘Shouldn’t think so,’ Mrs Flitt grunted. ‘She’s waiting in ’hall.’
Lily slipped her shoes back on. ‘It’s all right. I’ll see her in my room,’ she said, as the girls stood up to leave the parlour and go into the kitchen.
A pretty middle-aged woman in a hooped cream day dress worn with a short cape and a flowered bonnet stood in the hall looking round her and up the stairs. ‘Good afternoon,’ she greeted Lily. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I wondered if Jamie was here.’
Mrs Flitt could have told you that, Lily thought. Why didn’t you ask her? ‘He isn’t,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t live here.’
‘No, I know he doesn’t. He lives in our old house in Middle Court.’
Lily waited. She didn’t know where Middle Court was, but who was this?
‘I’m Jamie’s mother,’ the woman said. ‘Nell.’ She left it at that, not giving out her married name. ‘I wanted a word with him.’
‘Why didn’t you go to his house?’ Lily asked. ‘That’s where you’d find him.’ She must know he runs a brothel. Why else would she be here in this notorious square?
‘I can’t go back there,’ Nell said. ‘My husband forbids it; it’s such a run-down area. Neither does he know I’ve come here. He doesn’t approve of Jamie, and he doesn’t like me to see him. He thinks he’s a bad lot. Which he is,’ she added. She gazed at Lily and said softly, ‘But he’s still my son.’
‘Come through.’ Lily led her into her room. The afternoon sun was shining through the windows, brightening up the room. It looked nice, she thought with satisfaction. Very neat and cheerful, with a vase of flowers on a small table.
‘This is lovely,’ Nell said. ‘I often used to wonder what this house was like inside.’
‘You never came in, then?’ Lily asked astutely.
‘Oh no!’ She gave a little shrug and smiled and Lily thought how much Jamie was like her; both had fair hair and blue eyes, but his mother had softer features, and, Lily guessed, was more vulnerable than he was. ‘You’ll have heard I was in this line of business, I expect?’
Lily nodded, but said nothing. Who was she to judge?
‘Jamie used to look after me,’ Nell said softly. ‘That’s ’hardest thing to live down; a son being pander for his mother. Every woman who knows me despises us both for it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Lily said. ‘I understand how they feel. I wouldn’t want my son to know I’m working here and I don’t even—’
Nell looked at her curiously. ‘Don’t even …?’
Lily cleared her throat. ‘I don’t – well, I just look after ’girls and tek money for Jamie. Nothing else.’
‘How very odd.’ Nell gave a girlish laugh. ‘Nobody’d believe that, of course.’
‘I don’t suppose they would,’ Lily replied sharply. ‘But it happens to be true.’
‘I made some good men friends over the years,’ Nell said. ‘They don’t acknowledge me now, of course. But I don’t mind – I’ve got a husband who cares for me.’
‘Then you’re fortunate,’ Lily said. ‘Does he know about your past?’
‘Oh, yes! He was a customer.’ Nell folded her hands together. ‘I didn’t come just to see Jamie,’ she said softly. ‘Though I would’ve liked to. I came to see you. I’ve heard about you – and I wanted to warn you.’
‘Warn me? About what? Who?’
‘Jamie,’ she said. ‘You’re probably making money for him now, but if he thinks you’re getting ’upper hand, he’ll get rid of you and bring in somebody else in your place. I know he would,’ she added, ‘because he tried it with me, with somebody younger. He’s allus been full o’ big ideas has Jamie.’
‘Well, thank you for telling me,’ Lily said. ‘I appreciate that. But there’s nothing I can do about it, and in any case I don’t intend to stay here for ever. I hate this kind of work; it’s degrading and disgusting and I’m onny here because I’d nowhere else to go. Jamie found me when I was at my lowest ebb and threw me a lifeline.’
‘Be careful, then,’ Nell advised, ‘that ’lifeline doesn’t drag you under.’