The Best of Sisters (13 page)

Someone was shaking her by the shoulder and calling her name. Eliza opened her eyes. ‘Oh, Davy, it’s you.’

‘It’s me all right and a good thing I come looking for you,’ Davy said, taking off his ragged jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders. ‘Another hour and they’d have been digging a hole to plant you in, Liza. What was you thinking of? It’s freezing cold and you’re soaked to the skin.’

‘They’ve arrested Freddie,’ she said, choking on a sob. ‘T-took him away like a common criminal and all because he punched Uncle Enoch.’

Davy grinned. ‘I know, I saw it. We all saw it and we cheered. That were one of the best punches I’ve ever seen. Broke his nose it did.’

‘It was Uncle Enoch’s fault. He said horrible things and Freddie bashed him.’

‘I know. And I’d have had done the same.’

She shivered, wrapping his jacket closer around her shoulders. ‘How did you find me? And why aren’t you at work?’

‘Ted sent me out on an errand when he come back to the sail loft. I was worried sick about you. I thought the cops might have got you too, and so I went to your house, but you wasn’t there. I was just on me way back to work when I seen you huddled on the tombstone. Fair give me a turn you did, I thought you was frozen stiff.’

‘I can’t feel me feet. Help me up, Davy.’

He put his arm around her waist and helped her to her feet. ‘Lean on me, Liza. Take one step at a time.’

Very slowly, Davy guided Eliza’s steps until the feeling began to return to her limbs. ‘I’m all right now,’ she said, biting her lip as her lower limbs burned and tingled. ‘I can walk on me own.’

‘I’ll take you home.’

‘No! Not yet. I can’t tell them what’s happened.’

‘You’re frozen to the marrow, girl. At least let me take you to me mum, she’ll look after you until you feel a bit better.’

‘I d-don’t want to be no b-bother,’ Eliza said, through chattering teeth.

‘Don’t talk soft. You know me mum’s always pleased to see you. Come on, Liza, or you’ll get me into trouble with old Peck for being late back.’

Too cold and wet to put up an argument, Eliza
allowed Davy to link his arm in hers and they made their way to the cellar room in Farmer Street where the Little family lived. Ada was sitting on an upturned orange crate with the youngest child, Sammy, suckling at her breast. Toddlers Eddie and Artie were on the floor at her feet attacking a bowl of bread sops and growling at each other like hungry puppies.

Ada looked up with a tired smile. ‘What are you two doing home at this time of day?’

‘I brought Liza here to get dry, Mum. She’s had a bit of a to-do as you might say. Anyway, I got to get back to work or I’ll be in trouble. I’ll see you later.’ With a cheery wink in Eliza’s direction, Davy left the room, closing the door behind him.

‘Well, ducks, you’d best take them wet things off,’ Ada said, shifting the baby from one breast to the other. ‘It’s lucky we got a bit of a fire today. Go and get warm, while I finish feeding Sammy. Then I’ll make us a nice cup of tea and you can tell me all about it.’

Huddling closer to the fire where two lumps of coal were feebly hissing out a modicum of heat, Eliza took off her wet shawl and spread it across the hearth. ‘Things must be looking up then, Mrs Little.’ She hesitated, realising that it was a bit rude to make a reference to Arthur Little’s habitual condition of being too drunk to go to work. ‘I mean, is Davy’s dad well enough to …?’
Eliza stopped, biting her lip. She was just making matters worse.

Ada shook her head, sighing. ‘No, ducks. My Alf is a martyr to his bad back. The only thing what helps him is a few beers down the pub. I can’t begrudge him that, now can I?’

Eliza shook her head, wishing she had never raised the subject. But Ada did not seem at all put out.

‘My Davy went down the docks last night and he found a pile of coal what must have fallen off a collier while they was unloading. He keeps an eye on the wharves to see when a coal boat comes in. He’s a good boy, is Davy.’ As if in agreement, baby Sammy unlatched his mouth from his mother’s nipple, made a satisfied mewing sound, hiccuped and spewed milk from his mouth. Ada covered her bare breast and hitched him over her shoulder, rubbing his back until he let out a loud burp. ‘That’s better out than in. You hold him for me, ducks. I’ll make a brew. It’ll help warm you up and keep you from going down with a chill.’ Ada rose to her feet, handing the baby to Eliza.

She watched in silence as Ada scooped up some of the used tea leaves that had been left to dry on a piece of newspaper close to the fire and tipped them into a cracked china teapot with half its handle missing. Using her skirt as a potholder, she lifted a soot-blackened kettle from
the trivet and poured boiling water onto the leaves. While she waited for the tea to brew, Ada took two tin mugs from a shelf and wiped them on her apron. ‘Sorry, love, we ain’t got no sugar or milk. I give the last of it to the little ’uns,’ she said, filling a mug and handing it to Eliza. She bent down to separate the boys who were squabbling over who was going to lick out the bowl. ‘Behave yourselves. We got company.’

Mercifully, Ada did not seem at all curious as to the reason for Eliza’s bedraggled state and, although the fire did little to dry her wet clothes, the weak tea warmed her stomach. She sat on an upturned beer crate, sipping her tea and listening to Ada, who seemed delighted to talk about her family. She was so proud of Davy and his prowess as Ted’s apprentice. Then there was Janet, his younger sister, who had been taken on as a scullery maid in a big house in Golders Green and was doing quite nicely, thank you. Pete was just twelve, and he had got a job in the brewery sticking labels on bottles, although to be truthful the pay was very poor. Nine-year-old Ruth was also working, and had found employment in a sweatshop in Leman Street where she picked up fluff, cotton and pins for a few pence a day.

As she nursed the sleeping baby and listened to Ada recounting her children’s exploits with such love and pride, Eliza looked round the
gloomy cellar, wondering how she managed to keep so cheerful and positive in these dank, vermin-infested surroundings. It was not pity that she felt, but deep admiration for Ada’s courage in the face of such abject poverty. She thought about her comfortable, although by no means luxurious, home with Dolly and Ted, and suddenly all her problems seemed as nothing when compared with Ada’s daily struggle for existence. One day, Eliza thought, when she was grown-up and had made her way in the world, she would do something to help Davy’s family.

‘And Mary’s really clever,’ Ada said, continuing the one-sided conversation. ‘Mary can read and write and she’s not yet eight.’ She took the baby from Eliza and held him close to her sagging bosom. ‘Maybe one day she’ll be a schoolteacher and we’ll be ever so proud of her. My nippers will amount to something in this world, just you see if they don’t.’

Eliza stayed with Ada until Millie and Mary returned from school. By that time she had calmed down enough to face going home, and even managed to keep up the pretence that all was well. During a sleepless night, with Millie curled up at her side, snoring softly, Eliza thought hard about what Bart would advise in this situation. In the cold, early hours of the
morning, she decided that he would tell her not to give in and to take positive action.

Next morning, she went out as usual, as if going to work. It took her the best part of the morning to walk to the City Police Office in Old Jewry Street. At first the sergeant at the desk refused to give her any information. Eliza allowed her bottom lip to tremble and just thinking of Freddie in a prison cell brought tears to her eyes. Eventually, after telling a downright lie, and saying that Freddie was her brother, she discovered that his case was being heard next day at the court in East Arbour Street, Stepney. In spite of her pleas to be allowed to see him, the sergeant was adamant in his refusal, and there was nothing Eliza could do except start out on the long walk home.

Next day, leaving at the usual time with her faded, water-stained bonnet on her head, minus the feather that had suffered irreparable damage, she set out for Stepney. She took a seat in the public gallery and waited nervously for Freddie’s case to be heard. When he walked into the dock, looking tired and strained but holding his head high, she had to bite her lip to prevent herself from calling out to him. Perhaps he would be bound over to keep the peace, she thought, clasping her hands tightly in her lap. At first, after the charge of public disorder was read out, she thought that the proceedings
would be over quickly, but to her dismay the clerk of the court summoned Uncle Enoch to the witness stand. She listened in horror as Enoch Bragg denounced Freddie as a charlatan and a mountebank who sold fake medicines to an unsuspecting public. Then, as if that was not bad enough, he accused Freddie of abducting an innocent young girl, his orphaned nice, Eliza Bragg. That blackguard, he said, had stolen a mere child away from her legal guardian and now he was using her for his own sinful purposes. He was guilty of corrupting morals and despoiling innocence, and he had assaulted her legal guardian into the bargain. ‘He is a sinner,’ Enoch roared, pointing his finger at Freddie. ‘A vile rogue who uses women for his own pleasure and then abandons them.’

Stuffing her hand into her mouth, Eliza stifled a scream.

‘And you need not take my word for it. For here, in this very courtroom, is a young woman seduced and then abandoned by this libertine.’ Waving his arm, Enoch turned to point at Beattie Larkin, who rose from her seat, clutching her swollen belly.

‘It’s true, m’lud. He got me in the family way and then he scarpered.’ Raising her hanky to her face, Beattie glanced up and spotted Eliza. Her eyes narrowed and she let out a howl of rage.
‘And there she is. That’s the trollop that he left me for.’

‘No!’ Jumping to her feet, Eliza leaned over the railing. ‘It’s a pack of lies. None of it’s true. You got to believe me, milord. It’s all lies.’

Rain and more rain: cold downpours that drenched the land, turning the Arrow River into a roaring torrent and its steep banks into mud slides. Clouds of black sandflies tormented Bart’s flesh with stinging bites that itched relentlessly for days and almost drove him mad at night. The low ground that was neither river nor scrub was covered, knee-deep, with thick, primeval mud and it would have been easy to imagine prehistoric beasts roaming the bush. That’s what Eliza would have said, Bart thought, grinning to himself. She was keen on book learning, bless her little heart! He’d never had much time for that sort of thing himself, but he could picture her now, reading to him from the one and only book in her possession. With a lump in his throat, he remembered evenings in the sail loft when he had come home from work wet, dirty and tired. Eliza would have his meal ready for him, and after supper, while he enjoyed a pipe of baccy, she would read to him. For the most part he hadn’t paid much attention, but one story had stuck in his mind and it came back to him now.
With her small face alight with enthusiasm, Eliza had told him about a humble woman from Dorset, a certain Mary Anning, who had discovered the bones of great monsters, millions of years old. Personally, he’d never been able to understand why anyone could get excited over a pile of old fossils, but Eliza had been interested in that sort of thing. She was a clever girl, that little sister of his. He wasn’t much of a praying man, but dear God, he thought, casting his eyes heavenwards: look after my Eliza. Keep her safe and well until I can go home.

Bart sighed, emptied rainwater from the brim of his oiled-canvas hat and then rammed it back on his head. Nothing could keep a fellow dry in this deluge, but at least the wide brim kept the water from his eyes. Even when the rain ceased, he would still be wet, soaked by the spray from the rushing waters of the Arrow as he panned the gravel for those tiny gold specks of dust, or hopefully a large nugget that would make his fortune. His limbs ached with cold and fatigue but Bart kept working with single-minded determination. Life here in the Otago goldfields was even harsher than he could have imagined, but he had one purpose and one purpose only: to make enough money to return home and give Eliza the life that she deserved. Only a few weeks ago, a man had waded into the river to rescue his dog which was in danger of being swept away
and, in doing so, had stumbled across a gold nugget the size of a house brick. In an instant he was a rich man, and his life had been changed for ever.

Bart had heard these stories on the infrequent evenings when he had sat in the bar of the Provincial Hotel, listening to the seasoned prospectors telling of huge finds in the Shotover and Kawarau rivers: two hundred pounds of gold had been found in a matter of months. Just a bit of luck, that was all he needed to make it big and then he would return to London, a gentleman of fortune. Slapping at the sandflies with his hat, Bart heaved one foot out of the mud at a time, stamping his boots on the slime-covered rocks and watching with grim satisfaction as the cloying mass flaked into the waters, disintegrating and dispersing in the torrent. Trudging to firmer ground, he stopped and cocked his head, listening for sounds of Tate who had been panning the river a bit further downstream. They had made their claim upriver, at a safe distance from the other prospectors who were ready to come at a man with a shovel, a knife or a rock if he dared to trespass on their workings.

‘Tate.’ Bart paused, waiting for a reply. When there was none, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted again. ‘Tate, where are you?’

Still no answer: he cursed beneath his breath. Tate was a good mate, but he was bone idle
when it came to the backbreaking work of panning for gold. At the beginning, they had agreed to share the cost of the bare necessities, such as food and kerosene, but Bart had to be quick to get the money off Tate before he headed for the gaming tables. Drink was not Tate’s besetting sin, but gambling was a fever in his blood and, once he had begun a card game, there was nothing that would get him from the table until the bitter end. Sometimes he won, but more often he lost. When he won, he bought drinks for everyone and lavished presents on his woman of the moment; when he lost, he returned to camp full of contrition, flat broke, but ready to start all over again. On these occasions, and there had been many during the four months they had been in Fox Camp, Bart had to curb his violent temper. Berating Tate verbally or flattening him with a punch might have made Bart feel better in the short term, but he was well aware that working together they had more chance of surviving and striking it rich than if trying to exist alone. Winter was already on its way and he had paid attention when the older miners spoke of terrible storms, ice, snow and the torrential waters of the Arrow that, in full spate, had claimed hundreds of lives.