Bow,
East London
,. January 1888
Hetty stamped her feet in an attempt to bring them back to life. It was five o’clock
on a bitterly cold winter’s morning, and the queue of outworkers stretched from
the gates of the match factory to the end of the street and far beyond.
Women and girls, many of whom were little more than children, waited to collect
the materials that they needed to take home in order to make matchboxes. The sleet-spiked
torrential rain had eased to a fine drizzle, but the gutters were clogged with rotting
straw and overflowing with evil-smelling water contaminated by horse dung. The feeble
glow of the gaslights created monstrous shadows from the huddled shapes of the women
as they crowded together in an effort to keep warm.
Hetty shivered convulsively, cupping her
hands over her mouth and blowing on them in a vain attempt to bring some feeling
back to her frozen fingers. Her teeth were
chattering like a pair of magpies, and she wrapped her sodden woollen shawl a little
tighter around her thin shoulders; but for all the good it did her, she might as
well not have bothered. A quick glance at her younger sister’s pinched features
and miserable expression made Hetty forget her own woes for a moment. She gave Jane’s
hand a squeeze. ‘It shouldn’t be long now before they let us in, love.’
Jane hunched her shoulders and shuffled her
feet; her blue lips moved but her answer was drowned by a fit of coughing from the
woman standing behind her. The harsh, hacking sound echoed down the street, generating
a chain reaction of coughs and sneezes amongst the previously silent queue. Hetty could feel the icy water seeping through
the thin soles of her second-hand, down-at-heel boots, but at least she had footwear.
Others, less fortunate, had to watch their bare feet turning blue and then corpse-white
as they waited for the factory gates to open.
‘Ouch.’ Hetty let out a yelp, spinning round
to see who had tugged at her hair which she wore in a thick plait that reached down
to her waist. ‘Oh! So it’s you, Tom Crewe. I might have known it.’
Grinning mischievously, he dragged off his
cloth cap, revealing a mop of curls, flattened and darkened by sweat but glistening
guinea-gold in the gaslight. ‘Morning, Hetty.’
She scowled at him, but her lips twitched
as she suppressed the desire to giggle. ‘Do that again, and I’ll have you.’
‘Is
that a promise, sweetheart?’ Tom’s teeth gleamed white in a face blackened with
soot.
His
companion, also covered in grime, chuckled and nudged him in the ribs. ‘I’d have
her sister, given half a chance.’
Hetty’s
protective instincts were instantly roused and she turned on him angrily. ‘You don’t
half fancy yourself, Nat. My sister ain’t
interested in the likes of you.’
‘Shut up, Hetty.
I don’t need you to speak for me.’ Jane’s pale cheeks flamed coral pink.
‘And there’s no need to be crude, Nat.’ she added, slanting a coquettish look at
him beneath her long dark eyelashes.
‘You wasn’t so coy the last time we met,’
Nat said softly.
Hetty opened her mouth to remind him that
Jane was only just sixteen, but Tom was still fingering her braid and he brushed
it against his cheek. ‘Your hair’s like black silk, Hetty, and your eyes are the
colour of violets – I could eat you for me dinner.’
‘Give over, Tom.
You’re embarrassing me.’ Hetty forgot about Nat as she tugged her hair free
from Tom’s grasp. ‘Get on home. You stink
of the gasworks and you look like a sweep’s boy.’
‘Don’t
lower yourself to their level,’ Jane whispered. ‘It ain’t seemly.’
Nat doffed his cap and bowed from the waist.
‘Hoity-toity, Miss Jane Huggins.’
‘I
don’t like a public show,’ Jane said primly.
‘You’re a real lady, Janey.’ Nat leaned towards
her with a boss-eyed but charming smile.
‘Will I see you tonight afore I goes on me shift at the gasworks?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
The woman standing directly in front of them
turned her head and scowled at Jane. ‘Fine goings on, I must say.
I’ve a good mind to tell your gran that you’re carrying on with Nathaniel
Smith. I seen you two canoodling beneath the gas lamps.’ She jerked her head in
Nat’s direction, curling her lip in disapproval. ‘His mother was a didicoi and his
dad ended up in the clink. He’ll go the same way, if you ask me.’
Hetty spun round to face her. ‘That weren’t
called for, Mrs Briggs. I’ll thank you to mind your own business.’
‘Don’t get into a fight,’ Jane hissed.
‘I’m not one for brawling in the street,
as you well know, but I won’t have my sister’s name dragged through the dirt,’ Hetty
said, casting a withering glance at Mrs Briggs.
‘Don’t take that tone with me, young woman.’
‘I
won’t let you or anyone else go round insulting my family, Eva Briggs.
Your lot ain’t so lily-white if it comes to that. I hear that
Pearl
is in the family way again and still no ring on her finger.’
‘You little bitch!’ Mrs Briggs rolled up
her sleeves and fisted her hands.
‘Hetty ain’t had breakfast yet,’ Jane said
hastily, stepping in between them. ‘She’s always like this before she’s had a cup
of tea.’
Mrs
Briggs smiled triumphantly. ‘Your own sister agrees that you’re a mouthy cow. What
have you got to say to that, Hetty Huggins?’
‘Apologise,’
Jane hissed. ‘We can’t afford to lose money just because of her.’
‘Sorry,
Mrs Briggs,’ Hetty muttered, staring down at her boots. She knew that Jane was right. Any disturbance would invoke the wrath of
the foreman and a hefty fine. Even so, it was common knowledge that Pearl Briggs
was notoriously free with her favours and had three illegitimate offspring to prove
the point.
Hetty could feel Tom standing close by her side ready to leap to her defence and
that was the last thing she wanted. She laid
her hand on his arm. ‘It’s all right, Tom. I spoke out of turn and I’m sorry for
it.’
Mrs Briggs snorted and opened her mouth as
if to retort but the sound of the factory gates grinding on their hinges caused
the queue to surge forward.
‘Will I see you tonight then, Janey?’ Nat
asked urgently.
‘I dunno. I’ll think about it.’
‘Maybe I’ll see you too, Hetty,’ Tom said,
striding along by her side as the crowd moved as one towards the open maw of the
match factory.
‘I wouldn’t count on it if I was you.’ Hetty
fluttered her eyelashes in an attempt to ape Jane’s flirtatious manner but she couldn’t
quite suppress a giggle, which spoiled the whole thing. ‘You’re nothing but trouble.’
Responding with a chuckle, he rammed his
cap back on his head. ‘Meet me outside the gasworks and I’ll prove you wrong.’
‘Meet him outside the gasworks and he’ll
prove you’re right,’ Mrs Briggs called over her shoulder, emphasising her words
with a suggestive wink.
‘Ta,
ever so!’ Hetty retorted, refusing to rise to the bait. ‘I’ll bear that in mind,
Mrs Briggs.’ Swept onwards by the crowd, she turned her head and saw Tom waving
to her. In spite of everything, she felt her spirits lift and she waved back. She could never be cross with him for long.
He was a good friend; her best friend if it came to that. She had known Tom for
most of her nineteen years. He lived with
his widowed mother and youngest sister in
Dye House Lane
, the next street to Autumn Road where the Huggins family dwelt in a single basement
room. They had played together as children and had earned money as mudlarks, grubbing
beneath the filthy waters of the River Lea for pieces of coal, copper or anything
that might sell for a few farthings. Hetty
had always thought of Tom as a big brother, although recently things had begun to
change subtly, but there was no time to dwell on personal feelings now.
‘No need to push,’ she cried as she was shoved from behind, almost losing
her footing on the wet and slippery paving stones.
A fall could prove fatal as the desperate women and girls pushed forward to get
a day’s work for just a few pence pay.
Half an hour later, having stopped off at
the bakery on the way, Hetty and Jane were back in Autumn Road, carrying their bundles
of cardboard, paper and glue and a loaf of bread that was still hot from the baker’s
oven. It was not yet light and a grey mist floated just above the cocoa-coloured
waters of the River Lea. The muddy foreshore
was thick with pollution from the factories and the stench of coal gas, chemicals
and the reek of the tanning works filled the air.
Number one Autumn Road leaned precariously towards the river, as if the old building
with its soot-blackened bricks was about to throw itself into the creek out of sheer
desperation. Half the windows were boarded
up and the rest were cracked or broken, with bits of rag and newspaper stuffed in
the holes to keep out the bitter easterly wind that rampaged across the
Essex
marshes. Jane hurried down the area steps to the damp basement room they called
home. Inside was barely warmer than outside,
and the only light came from a single stub of a candle guttering in the middle of
the table where their two younger brothers were perched on wooden stools.
‘You’ve
been ages,’ Sammy complained. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘Me too,’ Eddie said, banging his empty bowl
with a wooden spoon. ‘Where’s our breakfast, Hetty?’
Hetty dumped her parcel of work on the table.
‘Give us a minute, greedy boy.’ She smiled at his downcast face and ruffled his
hair. ‘I stopped at the bakery and bought a loaf, it’s in with the cardboard and
glue.’
‘I wants porridge.’ Eddie’s blue eyes filled
with tears and his bottom lip trembled. ‘I’m cold, Hetty.
I want something hot to eat.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to make do this morning,
Ed,’ Hetty said, rummaging in the parcel for the loaf.
Her heart was wrung with pity at the sight of her two small brothers’ pinched
faces and stick-like limbs, but she must not let them see how much it distressed
her. She had to keep up the appearance of
being calm and in control, even if she was as cold and hungry as they were.
Sammy jumped off his stool, making a grab
for the bundle, but Hetty slapped his wrist; not too hard, just enough to make the
seven-year-old think twice before he tore into the brown paper package. ‘Hands off,
you. I thought I told you to get the fire
going while we was out.’
‘The kindling’s damp. It wouldn’t light. I tried, Hetty.
I really tried.’
‘He did,’ Eddie said, giggling. ‘And when
it went out he swore. Shall I tell you what
he said?’
Sammy lunged at his younger brother, grabbing
him round the throat. ‘Shut up, big mouth.’
Jane took off her shawl and hung it over
the back of the only chair in the room. She
rolled up her damp sleeves. ‘I’ll get the fire going.
You feed the little beasts, Hetty.’
‘I’m not sure that Sammy deserves any breakfast,’
Hetty said, winking at him. ‘I should wash his mouth out with soap by rights.’
‘Yes,’ Jane said with feeling. ‘That’s what
Ma would have done.’
‘I
wish she was here now.’ Sammy threw himself down on his seat and laid his head on
his arms. His thin shoulders heaved.
Eddie climbed up on his stool and began to
snivel. ‘M-me t-too.’ Strings of mucus dribbled from his nose.
‘Now look what you’ve done, Jane.
You should have known better than to mention Ma.’ Hetty wiped Eddie’s nose
on the corner of her apron, and she gave Sammy a sympathetic hug.
‘Ma’s in heaven now, boys. Up with
the angels, and in a far better place than Autumn Road.’
Sammy wiped his eyes on his sleeve, suddenly
curious. ‘D’you think they mended her face – the angels?’
Hetty opened the drawer in the kitchen table
and took out the bread knife, nodding emphatically. ‘Of course they did.
That would have been the first thing the angels did when Ma entered the pearly
gates. I’ll bet St Peter took one look at
her and said “Hello, my dear. Don’t worry;
we’ll fix you up good and proper now that you’re in heaven.
Just go over to the Angel Gabriel and he’ll put your face back just as it
was afore you got the phossy jaw in that damn match factory”.’
Jane sat back on her haunches as flames licked
round the kindling and twists of newspaper.
She gave Hetty a withering look. ‘How can you tell him off for swearing when you’ve
just done the same thing?’
Hetty pulled a face which made Sammy and
Eddie giggle. ‘Oops! Sorry.’
Sammy rested his chin on his cupped hands,
staring hard at her. ‘Does that mean you won’t go to heaven, Hetty?’
She cut the crust off the loaf and scraped
it with margarine. ‘Here, shove this in your gob and don’t ask awkward questions.’
‘I can’t eat crust, Hetty,’ Sammy said with
fresh tears spilling from his eyes. He pointed
to the gap where he had lost his top two baby teeth.
‘I can.’ Eddie snatched it from his hand,
and took a bite as if to prove his point.
Hetty hacked off another slice and gave it
to Sammy. ‘Don’t be a cry baby. Eat this
and then we’ve got work to do.’ She modified her words with a smile.
‘There’s a good boy.’
Jane had succeeded in getting the fire to
light and she put the kettle on the hook over the feeble flame. ‘I could murder
a cup of tea.’ She rose to her feet, and peering in the shard of broken mirror on
the mantelshelf, she patted her luxuriant chestnut locks in place. ‘Just look at
my hair – it’s gone all frizzy with the damp.’
‘Here’s a slice of bread and scrape for you,
you vain hussy,’ Hetty said, chuckling. ‘You’re very pretty Jane. But since it’s
only me and the boys will see you for the next twelve hours, it don’t matter what
you look like.’
Jane snatched the bread and bit into it hungrily.
‘You’re just as bad,’ she said, swallowing a mouthful and licking her lips. ‘I wasn’t
the one who almost started a fight because someone messed up her hair.’
‘That was different.
Anyway, you’ve no need to worry about your looks.
You’ve got the face of an angel, didn’t Ma always say so?’
Jane’s sulky lips curved into a smile. ‘I
might be what they call pretty, but Ma always said you’d be a handsome woman when
you was grown up. I’d kill for a straight
nose like yours, and not one that turns up at the tip like mine.
I’ve always wanted blue eyes like you and Sammy; instead of brown ones, like
puddles of muddy rainwater.’
‘Never mind all that.
We’ve got work to do, and you don’t have time to go primping in the mirror
every five minutes.’
‘It’s
called keeping up appearances,’ Jane retorted, smiling serenely. ‘Ma would have
approved. She always liked to look nice,
no matter what she was doing or who she was seeing.’
‘She was beautiful inside and out.
Nothing could take that away from her.’ Hetty slumped down on a stool at
the table. ‘Eddie don’t gobble your food, you’ll make yourself sick.’ She raised
the slice of bread to her lips but her appetite left her as she remembered Ma’s
last days with the dreadful disease that had eaten half her face away.
Phossy jaw was an occupational hazard amongst the girls and women who worked
with the white or yellow phosphorus used in the manufacture of matches.
On her deathbed, Ma had made Hetty and Jane promise that they would work
from home, partly so that they could keep an eye on their younger brothers, but
mainly so that they would steer clear of the hazards of working in the factory itself. Girls as young as fifteen often went completely
bald from carrying heavy boxes on their heads.
There were accidents with machinery and a high risk of burns from the matches themselves. The matchgirls’ wages were scandalously low
and outworkers were paid even less, but working from home had enabled Hetty to keep
the family together. She had vowed to look after the little ones as though they
were her own and she had kept that promise. Her eyes filled with tears as she thought
of her mother, who had worked so hard to raise her seven children after their father
had been killed in an accident at the gasworks.
Betty, Ida and Fred had all succumbed to childhood diseases, diphtheria, measles
and whooping cough, which had broken Ma’s heart, but had made her even more protective
of her surviving children.
Hetty nibbled at her slice of bread as she
watched Eddie swallow the last crumb of his food, and, despite his missing teeth,
Sammy was not far behind. They were eyeing
the remaining half of the loaf like a pair of hungry wolf cubs, but that was for
their dinner, and must not be touched until at least midday.
Hetty tore what was left of her slice in half and gave it to them.
‘Eat slowly and it will fill you up more.’
She turned to Jane who was standing so close to the fire that her skirt was steaming.
‘Has the kettle boiled yet?’
Jane shook her head. ‘Not quite.
We’re in desperate need of some more kindling and coal.
We need matches and candles and goodness knows how we’re going to find the
rent on Saturday.’
Hetty glanced anxiously at Sammy as she heard
his sharp intake of breath. ‘Don’t worry, Sammy.
Jane and me will sort it out. If we can make
three gross of matchboxes today, we’ll have a fish and chip supper.’
Sammy beamed at her. ‘Really, Hetty? Is that a promise?’
‘Cross me heart and hope to die.’ Hetty made
the sign of the cross on her chest. ‘Before we start work, you two take the bucket
to the pump and get us some water.’
‘Aw, do I have to?’ Sammy groaned.
‘Yes, you do.
Or there won’t be any fish supper for you my lad.’
‘Come on then, Eddie.’ Sammy slid off his
stool. ‘You get the bucket.
I’ll open the door.’
Hetty watched them through the cracked windowpanes
as they ran up the area steps. She could hear their childish laughter and yet again
she was amazed by their resilience. The last
few months had been truly terrible with their mother’s dreadful suffering and subsequent
agonising death. Money had been so tight
that they had come close to being evicted from their one-room home.
If she had not pleaded with the landlord, they would all have been out on
the street or, worse still, in the workhouse.
Hetty shuddered at the mere thought. Things
were a little better now, although not much. They had borrowed money from Cyrus
Clench, the tallyman, in order to pay for Ma’s simple funeral and it would take
months, if not years, to pay it all off.
Jane popped the last morsel of bread into
her mouth. ‘Put what’s left of the loaf out of sight, Hetty.
I’m still so hungry that I could eat the lot.’
‘The kettle’s boiling.
You make a brew and I’ll wrap the bread to keep it fresh. If we all work
hard we should be able to earn sixpence three farthings today.’
Jane spooned tea into a chipped brown china
teapot. ‘This is the last of it, and these leaves have been used so many times I
could read newspaper print through each one.
They won’t do another brew and that’s for certain.’
‘One
day I’ll buy me tea by the pound,’ Hetty said, closing her eyes to shut out the
cracked windowpanes, the fungus growing out of the brickwork and the worm-eaten
beams above her head. ‘I’ll never use the leaves more than twice and if I wants
two slices of bread for me breakfast, then two slices I shall have.’
‘And jam every day,’ Jane added wistfully.
‘And cake on Sundays. I can’t remember the
last time we had cake.’
‘I had jelly once, at Gran’s house,’ Hetty
mused. ‘Strawberry jelly. I never tasted
nothing like it before or since.’
‘Well
Granny Huggins don’t want nothing to do with us since Pa died, she made that plain,
and she never even come to see Ma when she knew she was dying, so I’d rather you
didn’t talk about her.’ Jane shook out her damp skirts. ‘Anyway, there’s no point
going on about strawberry jelly and such, just the thought of it is making me feel
faint from lack of nourishment. We’d best
get started or we’ll not earn a penny today, and the tallyman will be round tomorrow
for his money. Don’t forget that.’
‘I ain’t likely to forget him, the dirty
old man.’ Hetty shuddered; she had come to dread Clench’s regular Friday morning
visit to collect the next instalment on the loan.
He never failed to make suggestive remarks and he had a nasty way of licking his
lips as he stared at her breasts. She sighed
and wrapped the loaf in the brown paper bag and placed it on the top shelf of the
crudely fashioned dresser. Her pa had made
that piece of furniture with his own hands soon after he and Ma were married, or
so Ma had told them. A real labour of love,
she had called it. It didn’t matter that
the shelves weren’t quite straight and things slid to the end, or that the doors
didn’t fit exactly and often swung open on their rusty hinges.
Ma always said it was the damp in the basement that had caused these things
to happen; it wasn’t a reflection on her Samuel’s craftsmanship, because he was
a perfectionist.
Hetty brushed the crumbs from the table and
began setting out the makings of the matchboxes, just as Sammy and Eddie came clattering
down the steps to the front door carrying the bucket between them and no doubt spilling
most of it on the ground. She cast a warning
look at Jane. ‘Don’t say nothing in front of the nippers.’
‘As if I would.
I ain’t daft, Hetty.’
‘No, far from it, but you forget sometimes
that little pitchers have big ears.’
Before Jane had time to reply, Sammy and
Eddie burst through the door, slopping water on the flagstones.
‘Right!’ Hetty said briskly. ‘The sooner
we get down to it, the sooner we can have that fish supper.’
They worked all day, squinting in the poor light at the tiny matchboxes that they
worked on so painstakingly, each one handcrafted to exact specifications.
Hetty couldn’t help noticing that Sammy held the work very close to his eyes
and he often complained of headaches. She
feared that the close work was making him nearsighted, but there was no way they
could afford to have his eyes tested by a specialist, and, even if they did, there
was no money for the purchase of spectacles.
Perhaps it was just a growing thing. She
had heard women talking in the queues outside the factory and they mentioned mysterious
things like ‘growing pains’ and strange afflictions that might or might not disappear
with the onset of puberty. So many infants
died before they reached their first birthday that tiny coffins were as commonplace
in
East London
as chocolate boxes were up West.
They stopped for a dinner break at midday. Even though she scraped the margarine on the
bread, there was only enough for two slices and Hetty gave those to Sammy and Eddie. She and Jane ate theirs dry, washing it down
with cold tea. The fire had long since gone
out and they had run out of coal and kindling.
It was dark by mid afternoon and the rain had turned to snow.
Huge white flakes fell like feathers from a burst pillow, floating past the
window and dissolving almost immediately on the wet ground.
Sammy and Eddie were hugely excited and ran to the window to squash their
noses against the grimy panes, begging to be allowed outside to play.
‘No, I’m sorry, but you ain’t going out there
to get soaked to the skin and catch your deaths of cold,’ Hetty said severely, even
though she longed to let her brothers snatch back a little of their childhood. She could see them growing old before their
time, but they had to fulfil their quota or there would be no payout at the factory
this evening.
‘Aw, go on, Hetty,’ Sammy pleaded. ‘Just
a bit of a play in the snow afore it melts into slush, please.’
Jane cast Hetty a meaningful look, shaking
her head. ‘Don’t let them.’
‘No, you must sit down and finish your work,’
Hetty said firmly. ‘Maybe later, when we’ve finished the boxes, you can come to
the factory with me to deliver them. If the
snow is still around then you can have a play in it.’
Reluctantly,
Sammy left the window and went slowly back to his place at the table. ‘Don’t forget
you promised us a fish supper, Hetty.’
She smiled. ‘Don’t worry, love.
I won’t forget.’
At seven o’clock that evening Hetty and Jane were back in the queue outside the
factory, but this time they had Sammy and Eddie with them and they were delivering
the finished matchboxes. They had to wait
for them to be checked and counted, and then they were given a chitty to take to
the pay office, where they had to queue yet again to collect their hard-earned sixpence
three farthings. The snow was falling heavily
when they finally left the factory gates.
It swirled around them in a dizzy dance, blotting out the harsh outlines of the
buildings and softening the unremitting greyness of the pavements.
Sammy and Eddie made snowballs, throwing them at each other and laughing
gleefully. Hetty and Jane stopped for a moment,
chuckling at their antics.
‘I’m off then,’ Jane said, brushing the snowflakes
from her face.
‘Where are you going?’ Hetty stared at her
in disbelief. ‘What about the fish supper?’
‘You know I promised to meet Nat outside
the gasworks. You can keep me a bit of supper,
although, if I’m lucky, he might take me to the pub for a pie and a glass of port
and lemon.’
‘I didn’t think you would go,’ Hetty said,
hunching her shoulders. ‘I thought you said …’
‘Never mind what I said.
I’m going and that’s that.’ Jane started to walk away but Hetty caught her
by the sleeve.
‘Hold on, Jane.
What would Ma say if she knew you was going off to meet a fellow all on your
own?’
‘It don’t matter, because she ain’t here.’
Jane shook off Hetty’s restraining hand. ‘We got to look out for ourselves now,
Hetty. I have a good time with Nat, and he’s
been sweet on me for ages. As far as I can
see, the only way you and I have of getting out of this miserable way of life is
to find ourselves a husband.’
‘You’re only just sixteen, Jane. That’s far
too young to think about getting hitched.’
‘Ma was sixteen when she married
Pa.
’
‘That was different. Pa had good prospects
at the match factory until he fell sick with lung fever.
If you married Nat you’d have to get by on a labourer’s wage. You could do
so much better, love.’ Hetty blinked away
a snowflake as it landed on her eyelashes, but the chill was in her stomach as she
thought of the risk that Jane was prepared to take.
‘You need to live in the real world, Hetty. There ain’t no knight in shining armour going
to ride his white charger down Autumn Road to sweep you off your feet, nor me neither. We got to settle for what we can get, and
if I can persuade Nathaniel Smith to marry me, then I’ll be more than satisfied.’
‘But – but he’s cross-eyed, Jane.
Sometimes when he’s looking at you, both his eyes meet in the middle.’
Jane tossed her head. ‘Well at least that
stops his gaze wandering off and eyeing up other girls.
I never said he was handsome, and maybe he ain’t clever, but he’s got a steady
job and he’s a hard worker. If I can get
him to the altar he’ll look after the lot of us, you and the boys included. Anyway,
you’re wrong, Hetty. I do love him in me own way.
I really do.’
Hetty stared at her young brothers gambolling
in the snow. She would have to rub Eddie’s
chest with goose grease tonight before she put him to bed, or by morning he would
be running a temperature. She turned back to answer Jane but was just in time to
see her disappear into a swirling mass of snow.
She sighed. Well, it was Jane’s life when
all was said and done, but if Nat proved to be a bad choice she would have a lifetime
of regret stretching out in front of her. ‘Come on, boys.
Stop that now and let’s get to the shop to buy the things we need.’
Sammy dropped his snowball onto the pavement.
‘And our fish supper.’
‘That too,’ Hetty said, smiling. A snowball,
thrown by Eddie with deadly accuracy, hit her squarely in the face.
‘Why, you little …’ half angry, half laughing, she wiped the melting ice
from her eyes. ‘Right, you little monster.
You’ve asked for it.’ She bent down and scooped up a handful of snow. Forming it
into a ball, she tossed it at Eddie who screamed and ran away.
Sammy responded by pelting Hetty with snowballs, and Eddie joined in shouting
gleefully. Hetty forgot all about being grown-up
and sensible as she fought back, laughing and shrieking as loud as or even louder
than her brothers.
‘Hey! Two on to one - that’s not fair.’ Tom
came striding towards them out of the darkness.
He scooped up handfuls of snow and made a huge snowball.
‘You wouldn’t …’ Sammy murmured, backing
away.
‘Oh, wouldn’t I?’ Tom lobbed it at them,
but the snowball hit a lamppost, fragmented and fell harmlessly to the ground.
Hetty pitched a snowball at Tom, catching
him squarely on the back of his head and tipping his cap over his eyes. ‘Got you,
Tom. That one’s for me brothers.’
He spun round and caught her by the shoulders,
giving her a gentle shake. ‘Here, I was on your side.’
A snowball hit him on the head and another
clipped his ear, knocking his cap to the ground.
‘You see what happens when you take on the
Huggins family,’ Hetty said, laughing.
He bent down to retrieve his cap.
‘Fainites!’ he said, holding up his right hand and crossing his fingers.
‘I’ll go quietly.’
Sammy and Eddie pounced on him, grabbing
his hands. ‘We got him for you, Hetty. What
shall us do with him now?’
Hetty angled her head. ‘I think he should
carry the bag of coal for us, for a start, and the kindling.’
‘You’re a hard woman, Hetty, but I know when
I’m beaten. I’ll pay my penance, gladly.
But on one condition.’
‘And what’s that, Tom?’
‘That you let me buy you a fish supper at
Greasy Joe’s.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
Sammy tugged at Tom’s hand. ‘And some wallies,
please, Tom.’
‘I think I can run to a wally or two.’
Eddie pulled Tom’s other hand. ‘How about
a pickled egg?’
‘Maybe, but only if you’re a good boy and
do everything your sister says.’
Sammy and Eddie whooped for joy and bounded
on ahead as Tom linked Hetty’s hand through the crook of his elbow and started off
in the direction of the grocer’s shop.
‘You spoil them,’ she said with mock severity.
‘But thanks anyway.’
Hetty knew that she ought to have refused his generous offer, but the thought
of saving a few pennies was too tempting.
She would be able to give Clench a little extra when he called next day.
The sooner they paid him off the better.
She smiled up at Tom. Although he was only just twenty-one, two years her senior,
he had been labouring at the gasworks for more than seven years, and if she was
being honest, she had to admit that he had matured into quite a good-looking young
man. Any girl would be proud to be seen out
with such a fellow.
The interior of Greasy Joe’s café was filled
with steam and the slightly rancid odour of hot fat mixed with the wet sheep smell
of damp woollen clothes drying out in the fuggy heat.
The other customers, all working men who had just come off shift in the gasworks
or the carbolic acid factory on the banks of the River Lea, sat smoking hand-rolled
cigarettes and drinking tea. Hetty prepared
to queue at the counter, but Tom directed them to a bench, insisting that it was
his treat and he had no intention of standing outside in the snow eating his supper
from yesterday’s newspaper. Sammy and Eddie
took their places at one of the wooden tables, staring around wide-eyed.
Hetty hid a smile as she watched them sitting primly on the form, unusually
silent, as they absorbed their unfamiliar surroundings.
She could not remember the last time she had sat down to eat in a café. Greasy Joe’s might not be grand like the chop
houses and restaurants up West that she had read about in old copies of magazines,
but at least it was warm and cosy in here, and tonight for once they would go to
bed with full bellies.
Tom threaded his way between the tables holding
an enamel plate in his hand. He set it down in front of Sammy and Eddie.
‘Here, boys. Get your choppers round
them for a start. The fish suppers won’t
be long.’
Sammy grabbed the largest wally and bit into
the sweet pickled cucumber with an expression of bliss on his face. Eddie snatched
another and crammed it into his mouth.
‘Steady on,’ Hetty said sternly. ‘You’ll
get bellyache if you gobble your food.’
‘Let them be.
They’re enjoying themselves,’ Tom said, taking a seat beside Hetty. ‘This
is most pleasant. We should do it more often.’
Hetty eyed him suspiciously. ‘What d’you
mean by that, Tom? I ain’t a charity case,
you know. I was going to buy us a fish supper
tonight even if you hadn’t offered. I can
pay me way.’
‘Don’t get all huffy with me, girl.
No offence intended. I just meant
it was nice to have your company, and maybe we could step out together, proper like.’
Sammy paused with a wally halfway to his
lips, scowling. ‘Are you spooning with me sister, Tom?’
‘Of course not, silly,’ Hetty said hastily.
‘Look, our supper’s ready.’ She half rose, intending to go to the counter to collect
the food, but Tom pressed her back onto her seat.
‘No, you sit there like a lady.
I’ll get the grub.’
Hetty watched him with a feeling of unease
as he returned to the counter. She was fond
of Tom, but she had no intention of getting tied up with a bloke, not yet anyway. She had ambition and it didn’t involve getting
hitched at nineteen and being saddled with a baby every year.
She wanted something better out of life than the back-breaking daily grind
suffered by her poor dead mother. She hadn’t
worked out how she would achieve her ambition, but there must be something she could
do that would earn good money. The solution
to all their problems would come to her one day, of that she was certain.
When Sammy and Eddie were so intent on stuffing
fish and chips that the roof could have blown off without their noticing it, she
turned to Tom, speaking in a low voice. ‘I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,
just because I let you buy us supper.’
His smile faded into a puzzled frown. ‘I
ain’t sure I get your meaning, Hetty.’
She laid her hand on his arm. ‘Oh, Tom. We’re good friends and always have been.
I want it to stay that way.’
‘And I do too, ducks.
But that don’t mean to say we can’t be better than friends.’
‘That’s just it.
I don’t need any complications in my life.
I got a family to raise and a living to earn.’ She laid her finger on his lips as
he opened his mouth to speak. ‘No, hear me out.
I got plans, Tom. Plans for a better future,
and they don’t include romance – at least not yet.’
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