The Best of Sisters (9 page)

Eliza enjoyed working for Freddie: in fact, she hero-worshipped him. Despite the fact that most of his patent cures were simple placebos, she admired him for being an educated man dedicated to helping the poor and sick. She did not think of what they did as being dishonest. After all, she reasoned, if something made other people feel better, what harm was there in charging them a halfpenny or even a penny for a bottle of medicine or a poke of pills? Above all, Freddie’s medications gave poor people a little hope and that, thought Eliza, was worth more than money in a world where disease carried off young and old alike, rich and poor, but mostly the poor.

Apart from being clever, Freddie was also funny, and when they were making up potions in his room, he would have Eliza in fits of laughter as he regaled her with stories of his adventures and amours. He was, he said, the
youngest son of a country squire, and, with no hope of an inheritance, he had been packed off to London to study medicine at Bart’s. But an unfortunate incident involving a wild party and a young woman with the colourful name of Spitalfields Sal, had led to his expulsion before he had qualified. When questioned, he admitted that a law writer who had fallen on hard times had drawn up the diploma from the University of Paris. It was not really a fake, just a slight bending of the truth. Had it not been for Spitalfields Sal he would in all probability have qualified as doctor of medicine, and would now be bored to death in a country practice with a dull wife and a quiverful of children. Eliza had wanted to know more about his family but Freddie had shrugged his shoulders. Father and mother deceased; one sister married to a local landowner and four brothers who considered him to be the black sheep of the family and wanted nothing to do with him. ‘So you see, Eliza,’ Freddie had said, with his customary charming smile, ‘you and I are both orphans. We have much in common and so we face the harsh world together.’ He had taken her hand and kissed it: at that moment, Eliza had fallen in love. Of course, he could not be compared to Bart who was all things wonderful to her, but he came a close second in her affections.

Although Eliza kept well away from the
chandlery, she saw Davy every evening when their day’s work was done and he came to call at the house in Hemp Yard. She always asked him the same question and he gave her the same answer: there had been no letter from Bart. She clung stubbornly to the belief that he was alive and continued to write letters to him, hoping that one day she would have a forwarding address. Every night, she mentioned him in her prayers.

The summer faded into autumn and Ted decided that Millie, who could neither read nor write, ought to go to school. Dolly was tearful at the thought of being parted from her, but she had to agree that getting an education was important, even for a poor girl. She put on her specs and spent many evenings sewing a school dress and a pinafore. On her first day, Eliza took Millie to the Board School in Communion Street. The schoolyard was filled with children, the girls skipping and playing with hoops; the boys were either scrapping or racing round energetically, whipping tops and shouting.

Millie hung back, clutching Eliza’s hand. ‘I’d rather go with you and Freddie,’ she whispered, biting her lip.

Eliza brushed her cheek with a kiss and gave her a gentle push towards the gate. ‘You’ll be fine. Look, there’s Mary Little, Davy’s sister. She’s the same age as you. Hey, Mary.’ Eliza put two fingers in her mouth and whistled, beckoning to
Mary as she looked around to see who was calling her.

Mary ran up to them, smiling shyly. ‘Hello, Liza.’

‘This is Millie Turner and it’s her first day at school. I want you to look after her, and see that no one bullies her.’

With a gap-toothed grin, Mary held her hand out to Millie. ‘Come with me then, Millie.’

They went off hand in hand and Eliza swallowed a lump in her throat as she watched them disappear into the crowd of whooping, giggling children. With Bart so far away, Millie had become as dear to her as a real sister and Dolly was like a mother to them both. Eliza was still a bit in awe of Ted, who was inclined to be brusque and strict at times, although he was never unkind. Brushing a tear from her eyes, Eliza turned on her heel and hurried off to Anchor Street where she was to help Freddie make up a batch of cough mixture and cold cures, ready for the start of the winter ailments.

She knocked on the door, expecting that Beattie would open it, but no one came and she knocked a second time. The door opened but it was Carlo Donatiello who brushed past her without a second glance. She managed to slip inside before it closed and she went straight to Freddie’s room. She knocked but there was no answer and, assuming that he must have
overslept, she tried the handle. The door was unlocked and she and walked in, ready to tease Freddie for being a lazybones. The curtains were drawn but the pale morning sunlight filtered through the moth holes; it was the noise from the bed that made Eliza peer into the dim corner. Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a gasp of shock and dismay as she saw two figures writhing about on the narrow bed. Completely naked, with her brassy blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders and full breasts, Beattie was astride Freddie, moving rhythmically up and down as though she were riding a pony. Horrified but also fascinated, Eliza saw Freddie’s hands move up Beattie’s glistening body to cup her breasts; his back was arched and his eyes closed and, to Eliza’s horror, he too was naked. She had heard the chambermaids at Mrs Tubbs’s house describe the act of love, but she had never before witnessed anything like this. If she had not known better she would have thought they were both in agony, judging by the grunts and moans that issued from their lips. Freddie was groaning, moving faster and faster and squeezing Beattie’s plump breasts until they resembled a couple of pounds of chitterlings. Beattie’s bare buttocks bumped and slapped on his thighs and her knuckles showed white as she clutched the bedrail. With her head thrown back, Beattie’s throaty gurgling rose to a crescendo and, almost
without knowing she was doing it, Eliza screamed with her.

Beattie collapsed onto Freddie’s chest and they turned their heads to stare at her with startled, unfocused eyes. Then, as if stung by a wasp, Beattie let out a screech and leapt off Freddie with one bound, taking the bed sheet with her and wrapping it round her naked, sweating body.

‘Little bitch,’ Beattie screamed. ‘Bleeding peeping Tom.’

Covering his naked lower half with his pillow, Freddie sat up in bed, his face and torso slicked with beads of sweat. He managed a feeble grin. ‘Hello, Eliza. You’re early.’

Swaying dizzily on her feet, Eliza clamped her hand over her mouth. She was going to be sick, her heart felt as though it had swollen up and was going to burst; she couldn’t breathe.

‘Get out,’ Beattie cried, advancing on Eliza with her hand raised. ‘Get out before I fetch you a clout round the lughole.’

Eliza needed no second bidding; somehow her feet seemed to work independently of her brain. They carried her out of the room, out of the house and along the street, regardless of anything or anyone in her way. She had no clear idea where she was going and she ran, sobbing and gulping air into her lungs. How could Freddie do that with Beattie? How could he make love to a
brassy, foul-mouthed trollop? How could he be so – dirty? In her head, Eliza could hear echoes of the sermons that she had been forced to endure three times a day on Sundays. It was Sodom and Gomorrah all over again. Freddie, her idol, had tumbled from his pedestal and Eliza felt nothing but horror, disgust and contempt. She had thought he was so perfect and now she found that he was just a man – a weak and stupid man who had allowed himself to be led astray by a tart.

Without realising it, Eliza had run towards Execution Dock. She fell to her knees on the quay wall, leaning over the edge and staring into the hypnotic swirl of the chocolate-coloured water. The stench of raw sewage hit her in the stomach and she vomited. Clutching her belly and sobbing, Eliza rocked herself backwards and forwards. All around her there was the hustle and bustle of the docks, people going about their business and taking no notice of a young girl even though she was in an obvious state of distress.

‘Ah, there you are, Eliza.’

Freddie’s matter-of-fact voice behind her made Eliza turn her head slowly to peer up at him through a mist of tears.

‘Go away. Leave me alone.’

Gently, Freddie lifted her to her feet. ‘There are some things that you just don’t understand, my dear.’

‘Go away. I hate you.’ Flailing her fists against his chest, Eliza broke down in a fresh bout of sobbing. ‘You’re a wicked, wicked man. I never want to see you again.’

‘You’re right, I’m just a man, and I make mistakes – lots of them. But right now we need to have a chat about grown-up things, Eliza.’

For a brief moment, when Bart opened his eyes, he could not remember where he was. He had been dreaming of home; London in winter, with fingers of fog creeping through the skylight of the sail loft and Eliza’s rhythmic breathing, soft as a whisper, coming from the straw palliasse by his side. It was Christmas morning, and in his dream he had been about to wake Eliza and give her the cowrie-shell necklace that he had purchased from a sailor in Wellington. Blinking against the bright morning light and swatting off the cloud of sandflies that had invaded his rough shelter, Bart realised that the necklace was still clutched in his hand: he was in New Zealand’s South Island, and Eliza was half a world away. He sat up and stretched his cramped muscles before tucking the necklace safely away in his pack. He scratched his chin where a beard had grown during his four-month voyage from London to Wellington, and licked his dry lips. Thoughts of Eliza, left to the not very tender mercies of Uncle Enoch, had brought tears to his eyes and he dashed them away, cursing his own weakness. But, for all his
efforts to harden his heart, her oval face, with its sweet but serious expression, blotted all other thoughts from his mind. The stiffness in his muscles, the creeping damp that was eating into the marrow of his bones and the hunger growling away in his belly, all counted for nothing as he pictured his little sister, so young and innocent, unprotected and alone in the unforgiving tumult of London’s dockland. During the whole of his long journey Bart had been haunted by fears that Enoch would break his word; that he would not find a kind and respectable family to look after Liza and that he would continue to treat her with callous indifference, or worse, and there was nothing that Bart could do about it.

A spasm of cramp caused him to stretch out his legs, rubbing his tortured calf muscles. The trek through incredible country that ranged from rolling plains, untamed bush, jagged mountains and deep gorges through which rivers tumbled their way to the coast had been a severe test of his courage and stamina. With a reflex action, he slapped at a sandfly that had just stung his wrist. He couldn’t tell if the spot of dark red blood was his own, or had belonged to the squashed insect. He flexed his hands, staring down at his short, square-tipped fingers with nails bitten to the quick and sunburnt skin, cracked and bleeding from the hard work he had endured during the sea voyage from England.

Closing his eyes against the glare of the rising sun, Bart clenched his teeth. The feelings of guilt that had racked his soul since he had sailed away from London had grown worse with the passing of time. If he could have turned back the clock he would gladly have done so: he would have walked away from the cove who had cheated him. But he knew in his heart that it was his own quick temper that had brought him here. He had come this far, working his passage and suffering almost intolerable hardship and privation on board the brigantine
London
, the overcrowded immigrant ship carrying eight hundred passengers bound for New Zealand.

The wooden vessel had stunk with the odour of unwashed bodies, vomit and excrement, and was permanently damp both above and below decks. Summer storms in the Bay of Biscay had caused the ship to heel on its beam-ends. Bart had muttered the prayers that he had learned in church, this time with genuine feeling, begging God to look after Eliza when he met his watery end. There had been a temporary lull until they reached the Cape of Good Hope, where they encountered huge seas and howling gales. The brigantine had battled its way valiantly against unrelenting tempests. There was neither rest nor sleep for the crew as they struggled to keep the vessel on course in mountainous seas. With the ship’s timbers creaking and groaning in protest,
it had plunged into troughs so deep that Bart had seen green water rising higher than the topmast. Then, when it seemed that the ship would be smashed like matchwood in the ferocious conditions, the sturdy vessel had miraculously, or so it had seemed to him, fought its way to the crest of the wave, taking on water, breaking spars and slicing canvas, but still afloat.

During this terrifying time there had been neither respite nor hot food and all hands were permanently on deck or down below pumping the bilges. The ship had carried two sailmakers, but one of them had been injured during a particularly bad storm, when, thrown against the bulkhead, he had broken his arm. With one of the mainsails badly ripped, Bart had offered his services; he had not lived in the sail loft for five years without learning a bit about the process of making and repairing sails. The captain had been only too pleased to allow him to relinquish his duties on deck in order to help the sailmaker. With the mainsail mended, they were able to limp into Capetown where the ship took on fresh water and supplies.

On the last leg of the voyage, the ship had been becalmed in the doldrums and encountered cyclones in the Indian Ocean: a vast expanse of water that seemed to stretch into infinity. At night there was inky blackness all around them, punctuated with sparkling diamonds of stars
and, on a clear night, a silvery pathway that led across the water to the moon. Bart was not a scholar, but now he wished that he had the mastery of words so that he could write to Eliza and recount the amazing things that he had seen: the schools of dolphins playing in the bow waves and the whales, huge leviathans that rose from the sea sending plumes of water from their breathing holes before plunging into the aquamarine depths, with the majestic flip of their enormous tailfins. But as he had had no writing materials, he had stored up all these things in his memory, intent on putting them down on paper when they made landfall.