The Best of Sisters (8 page)

‘How do I know it’s all above board?’ Ted’s raised voice echoed around the sail loft as he stood glaring at Freddie.

‘I can assure you that I am an honest man dedicated to helping those less fortunate than myself.’

‘You can’t soap me, mister. I know all about you crocussers. Quacks and charlatans, the lot of you.’

Eliza opened her mouth to protest and then thought better of it; this was not going at all to plan. She glanced anxiously at Freddie, but he was looking unperturbed.

‘Mr Peck, I understand your feelings, sir. And I agree that there are many unscrupulous men in my profession but I am not one of them.’

Ted frowned, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know about that. From what you’ve just told me about Mrs Tubbs, who I thought was a good, respectable woman, I’ll have to think hard before I trust Eliza to someone else.’

‘I can assure you—’ began Freddie but was cut short by Ted holding up his hand.

‘I need time to think it over.’

The boys had stopped working and were listening to this exchange, open-mouthed.

Davy scrambled to his feet and came to stand by Eliza. ‘What’s going on, Liza?’

‘Get back to work, all of you.’ Ted turned on the apprentices with a fierce frown. ‘And you, Davy Little. This is none of your business.’

‘I’ll call round this evening,’ Davy whispered out of the corner of his mouth. He scuttled back to his place, sitting on the floor beside Dippy Dan, who as usual was chortling and mumbling to himself as he coated lengths of yarn with beeswax.

‘Of course you must talk it over with your good lady,’ Freddie said equably. ‘And, if I may, I will call upon you this evening to hear your decision. Good day to you, Mr Peck.’ As he walked past her, Freddie bent down with his lips close to Eliza’s ear. ‘Don’t worry, my dear, Freddie Prince always gets his own way in the end.’

‘We’d best be going too then,’ Eliza said,
eyeing Ted nervously, unsure whether he was cross with her or merely put out by the strange turn of events.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently. ‘Get on home then, Liza. We’ll sort this out later.’

With Millie following her like a shadow, Eliza shinned down the ladder into the shop below. She hesitated when she saw that Uncle Enoch was standing with his back to the door, arms folded across his chest, barring Freddie’s exit.

‘Let me pass, my good fellow. I have business to do.’

‘And how does it concern my niece?’

‘Your niece?’ Eyebrows raised, Freddie turned to Eliza. ‘Is this true?’

Eliza nodded. ‘It’s true, but he threw me out on the street. Ted and Dolly took me into their home.’

‘That’s a lie!’ Enoch’s brows knotted over the top of his nose and his nostrils flared. ‘This child is a daughter of Satan and she lies. She ran away from me when I chastised her for being untruthful. I’ll say it again, mister, what is your business with my niece?’

‘He’s lying,’ Eliza cried. ‘Don’t believe him, Dr Prince.’

‘A doctor!’ Enoch’s lip curled. ‘A crocusser more like.’

‘I could show you my diploma from the University of Paris, but I don’t feel the need to
prove myself to you, sir.’ Freddie held his hand out to Eliza. ‘I’ve heard enough and I know who I believe. Come, Eliza and Millie, we’re finished here.’

Flinging his arms out across the door, Enoch glared at Freddie. ‘Take this child from me and I’ll have you charged with kidnapping. Eliza is my dead brother’s daughter and I am her legal guardian.’

‘How much?’ Freddie demanded, putting his hand in his pocket. ‘How much do you want for her, you old villain?’

‘You insult me, insinuating that I would sell my own flesh and blood.’ Enoch’s eyes gleamed with greed. ‘But I will take a nominal sum to compensate me for all the expenses involved in her upbringing and education. Four pounds.’

‘That seems a rather large nominal sum.’

‘Two pound ten.’

‘Two guineas and that’s my last offer.’

‘Done!’ Enoch held out his hand.

Freddie produced two golden sovereigns and two shilling pieces, dropping them into Enoch’s outstretched hand. ‘Now move aside, sir. Our business is concluded.’

Enoch sidled past Freddie, casting a scornful glance at Eliza. ‘Good riddance.’

Dizzy with relief and barely able to believe that she was really and truly free of Uncle Enoch, Eliza tossed her head. ‘Same to you, you old
skinflint.’ Holding tightly to Millie’s hand, she followed Freddie out into the street. ‘Did you really buy me?’

‘I bought your freedom, Eliza. Now you go on home to Dolly, and I’ll find myself some new lodgings.’

‘You will come round tonight, like you said?’

‘I will indeed. Freddie Prince always keeps his word.’ With a cheery wink and a smile, Freddie strolled off carrying his cases and whistling.

Millie tugged at Eliza’s hand. ‘What about me, Liza? You won’t let them send me back to the workhouse, will you?’

‘Of course not,’ Eliza replied staunchly. ‘We’ll go and talk to Dolly; she’ll make Ted see sense.’

They arrived home to find Dolly had come downstairs and was sitting in her usual seat by the range. ‘That medicine is truly wonderful,’ she said happily. ‘Your Dr Prince is a miracle worker.’ Reaching for her spectacles, Dolly set them on the bridge of her nose, peering at Millie who was loitering in the doorway. ‘Come in, dear. There’s nothing to be scared of in my house.’

‘Can she stay, Mum?’ Eliza pleaded. ‘I’ll look after her and Dr Prince has offered us both a job helping him to peddle his cures, only …’

‘Only what, ducks?’

‘Dad wouldn’t give him a direct answer. Said
he has to come back after supper and he’ll think about it.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ Dolly said, getting slowly to her feet. ‘Fetch me my bonnet and shawl, Eliza. We’re going to market and I’m going to buy some material to make dresses for both of you. My own little girls.’

Eliza stared at her in amazement. ‘But you never go out.’

‘That was before I had my blood purifying medicine. I’m a new woman, Eliza. A new woman and a mother.’

When Ted returned home that evening, Eliza and Millie were seated on the floor surrounded by scraps of cotton print and calico. Eliza had mastered backstitch and, with her tongue held between her teeth, was concentrating on sewing a straight seam, but Millie was having difficulty with simple tacking and was sucking her finger where she had pricked it on her needle.

‘Hello, what’s going on here?’ Taking off his peaked cap, Ted shot a questioning look at Dolly.

Dolly smiled up at him as she plied her needle. ‘I’ve been out to market, Ted. Me and the girls went together, and we bought some material to make them clothes suitable for their new employment.’

‘But Dolly, you haven’t been out of the house for years unless I was there to go with you, let
alone go to market.’ Ted’s eyes rounded in surprise and he sat down on his chair beside the range. ‘And you ain’t touched a pair of scissors since you had to give up sewing because of your eyes.’

‘Well, it’s a miracle and that’s for certain. And, Ted Peck, I owe it all to that Dr Prince. He give me this tonic for my blood and it’s worked a treat. I feel well for the first time in years, and it’s all thanks to him.’

Ted stared at her in disbelief. ‘And you’re wearing your spectacles!’

‘Just for the close work, my dear. You know very well that I don’t need them the rest of the time.’

‘I forgot for a moment.’

‘And you must allow these girls to work for the good doctor. Think of the people he can help, just like me.’

‘But the child, Dolly.’ Lowering his voice, Ted jerked his head in Millie’s direction. ‘Think of the responsibility. We can’t take on another mouth to feed.’

Eliza had kept her head bent over her sewing, but she looked up now, casting an appealing look at Dolly. ‘Please, let Millie stay. I’ll help look after her and Dr Freddie said she can earn some money as the ailing child.’

‘Then that’s settled.’ Dolly fastened off her piece of sewing and snipped the thread, pointing
her scissors at Ted. ‘It’s up to you, Mr Peck, you being the head of the household, but for myself, I say yes.’

Freddie had rented a room in a house in Anchor Street, just around the corner from Hemp Yard. It was not much of a place, as Eliza discovered when she went round to his lodgings for her first lesson in her new trade. The house was a modest two-up and two-down, very similar to Ted and Dolly’s dwelling, but in a much less salubrious neighbourhood. In Hemp Yard, the terraced houses were tenanted by workingmen and their families, but the dwellings in Anchor Street were crammed from attic to cellar with unfortunates who had nowhere else to go. The buildings were unsanitary and run-down to the point of dereliction. Whereas the inhabitants of Hemp Yard considered themselves to be respectable, hard-working people, and took a pride in keeping their street clean, tidy and relatively vermin-free, the denizens of Anchor Street seemed to be content to live in squalor. Feral children roamed the street day and night, begging or stealing off unwary passers-by. Horse dung and dog excrement carpeted the road and clogged the drains. Rotting vegetable matter filled the gutters; the air was thick with flies and their squirming grubs thrived on the corpses of dead cats and rats.

Although she was used to the rough areas
around the docks, Eliza had never had cause to venture into this particular slum. The buzzing of bluebottles in the summer heat provided a constant humming background to the whining of beggars, the shrieks of the street urchins and the cacophony of voices shouting in many different languages. The people who hurried past without giving her so much as a casual glance were a colourful mix of all nationalities and occupations: dock workers, sailors, prostitutes, bootblacks and match sellers. A chimney sweep emerged from one house followed by his stunted apprentice boys: skinny little fellows with soot engrained into their flesh and their stick-like extremities burnt and scarred. It seemed to Eliza that the dregs of London’s poor lived in this street; many of them would end their days at the bottom of the river, driven by drink, opium and relentless poverty. If Dr Prince had not offered to teach her an honest trade and one that would benefit the poor and underprivileged, she might have turned tail and run home. But she was determined to work hard, if only to repay Ted and Dolly for their unstinting kindness. Stepping over a body that lay slumped in a doorway, Eliza continued up the street, searching for number seventeen.

The first time was the worst, and gradually she grew accustomed to the sights, sounds and disgusting smells that were part of life in Anchor
Street. Eliza went to Freddie’s lodgings early each morning to begin a day of work and study. The main tenant was the widow of a seaman, who had been left to raise four children with no income but that which she could make from subletting rooms. Beattie Larkin was old, at least twenty-five, Eliza thought, and she had disliked her on sight. Beattie lived in the back room with her four little boys, aged from five down to the six-month-old baby, and it seemed to Eliza that she was always hanging round Freddie, fluttering her sandy eyelashes and making sheep’s-eyes at him. He was unfailingly charming in response to these clumsy attempts to seduce him, but Eliza did not believe that he could be interested in such a slatternly trollop of a woman. He was, she thought, too much of a gent to hurt Beattie’s feelings, if she had any. For two pins she would tell her to lay off pestering a professional gentleman and go and practise her charms on Basher Harris, the stevedore who lived in the upstairs back bedroom with his aged mother, who was very deaf.

In the front bedroom there was a whole family of Italians who made ice cream, calling it hokey-pokey and selling it for a halfpenny a lump. The Donatiellos were numerous, noisy and excitable and there seemed to be dozens of them all living in one room, laughing, quarrelling, singing and gabbling away in Italian. There was the momma
and poppa, nonna and six children: how they all fitted into one small room Eliza could not begin to imagine, but they did, and all seemed none the worse for it. The two eldest sons, Carlo and Guido, were big, dark and handsome young men; Eliza thought that Beattie would do better with one of them than casting her eye in Freddie’s direction. At least if she hooked one of the Italians, she would have plenty of pasta and ice cream with which to feed her scrawny little nippers.

In the beginning, Freddie instructed Eliza in how to make up some of the potions that he sold from his suitcase. First there was the blood purifier that had worked such wonders for Dolly, and this was made by steeping dried sassafras leaves in water, then sweetening the strained liquid with burnt sugar and pear juice. There was salve, concocted from goose grease and turpentine and fragranced with lavender oil, which could be used for treating anything from chapped hands to burns. There were cough drops made from boiled sugar, honey and lemon juice, and pills recommended for anything from gout to dropsy that were simply pellets of chalk coated with sugar. Flowers of sulphur were packed into small boxes and sold with cardboard tubes so that the yellow powder could be blown into the open mouth of those afflicted with sore throats. There was quinine for fevers and laudanum to soothe pain.

Eliza was well aware that some of the medicines were sheer hocus-pocus and that it was Freddie’s convincing patter that sold them, but she had witnessed Dolly’s miraculous cure brought about by taking the blood purifier. She could not be certain whether this was as magical at it had seemed, or whether it had worked simply because Dolly had believed that it would.

When they started out on the streets Eliza was nervous and unsure of herself, simply handing out the bottles, phials and pillboxes, but as her confidence grew, she became bolder and was ready to supplement Freddie’s sales patter with confirmatory remarks as to the efficacy of his nostrums. They usually worked alone, leaving Millie in the care of Dolly, who had really taken to the child and took pleasure in her company. Dolly’s cure, if it were such, had led to her taking in a few orders for sewing as well as renewing her interest in all things domestic. Freddie only brought Millie in as the ailing child, to be miraculously cured by a single sip of his patent medicine, the Cure-All, when they worked the markets. He would set up his suitcase on a wooden stand with Eliza at his side and Millie mingling with the crowd. Then, if things were not selling well, he would pick Millie out of the audience, seemingly at random, and bring her to the front. Her cheeks, which had filled out a little and become rosy with good food and Dolly’s
loving care, had been whitened with flour and her eyes underlined with smudges of soot. Freddie had procured small crutches from one of his shady contacts and Millie would lean on these until given a dose of the mixture by Eliza, when she would throw away the crutches with an exultant cry and do a little dance. This always went down very well, but they had to be careful not to repeat it too often in case someone had seen the act on a previous occasion.