A Loving Family (11 page)

Stella gave her a brief hug. ‘Don't upset yourself, Auntie. I'm going out to get some milk and something for you to eat. I think your cat is trying to tell me that he's hungry too.'

Maud brightened visibly. ‘He is partial to a fish head or two, my dear. Sprats are Timmy's favourite but he's not fussy.'

At the mention of his name, Timmy leapt onto Maud's lap and made himself comfortable.

‘I'll be as quick as I can.' Stella left them to comfort each other. She had seen a fishmonger's shop on the corner and there was a dairy a little further down the street. She made her purchases and it was only when she was on her way back to Maud's dingy accommodation that she realised she had not asked the pertinent question. But as she climbed the two flights of stairs she knew that she had a difficult task on her hands. Maud's grasp on reality seemed fragile and her memories were confused. She was unlikely to glean any useful information on this visit, but perhaps given time and with patient questioning Maud might remember something that would help her find her mother, Freddie and Belinda.

She entered the fuggy room and found Maud dozing off with Timmy in his usual place on her lap. The cat looked up and blinked in apparent recognition but when Maud opened her eyes she gave a start. ‘Who are you? You're not Sukey. Where is my maid?'

It took Stella several minutes to calm Maud's fears, but a fresh pot of tea laced with both milk and sugar seemed to revive the old lady to the point where she was almost rational. She ate a slice of the meat pie that Stella had purchased from a vendor who had been touting his wares in the next street, and Timmy fell on a raw sprat, gnawing it and making appreciative growling noises in his throat. Stella cut a slice of bread from the loaf she had bought in the bakery and spread it generously with butter. Her stomach rumbled and her mouth watered, but she could not bring herself to eat anything. She wrapped up the remainder of the pie and placed it in the cupboard, hiding it from the resident vermin beneath a soup plate. At least Maud would have some supper that night and she could finish the rest of the bread and butter for breakfast.

Stella perched on a stool, watching Maud finish off the last crumb with a sigh of satisfaction. Spots of colour had appeared on her ashen cheeks and a smile wreathed her thin lips. ‘That was delicious, my dear.' She adjusted her spectacles, peering closely at Stella. ‘But you're not Sukey, are you?'

‘No, Aunt Maud. I'm Stella.'

‘But Stella is only a child. I remember you now, Jacinta. You're teasing me, I know. You are Jacinta, aren't you?'

There seemed to be little to gain by upsetting her again and Stella nodded. ‘Yes, Aunt Maud. I'm Jacinta.'

‘You must go home to your family, my dear. Those delightful children will be wondering where you are, and they'll want their tea. You must bring them to see me soon, dear.' Maud leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. ‘Perhaps tomorrow, but I'm a bit sleepy now. I think I'll take a nap.'

Stella rose from her seat and leaned over to drop a kiss on Maud's forehead. ‘I'll come tomorrow. That's a promise.' She glanced at the cat as it gnawed the fish bones, crunching them between pointed white teeth. ‘Look after her, Timmy.'

Outside in the street the March winds were buffeting the people going about their business, grabbing at their coat-tails and plucking hats from heads. A battered bowler bounced along the cobblestones with an irate man chasing after it. From his patched elbows and frayed cuffs, and the shiny places on his green-tinged suit, Stella guessed that he was a clerk from one of the small businesses that surrounded the railway station and the goods depot. He was certainly not in the mood to pass the time of day as he raced past her shouting at the hat to stop as if it possessed ears. She hesitated, wondering where to go next. It was late afternoon and she had nowhere to sleep for the night. She had not had a moment to think about her own situation since she arrived in London. She had vaguely supposed she would find a cheap lodging house and look for accommodation next day, but she had nursed a forlorn hope that someone in her family might invite her to stay. Such hopes had been dashed when she set eyes upon Ronald Clifford. She would rather sleep in the gutter than be beholden to a man like him. What sort of person would allow the stepmother who had raised him from an infant to dwindle into old age and burn out like a guttering candle? It was a question without an answer.

Her stomach rumbled and she felt sick with hunger and suddenly quite dizzy. She remembered Rosa's invitation to take tea with her and she uttered a sigh of relief. Rosa would help her, of that she was certain. She had no reason for this, other than the fact that she had taken an instant liking to the flower-maker and she sensed that it was mutual. Stopping the first respectable-looking person she came across, she asked the way to Fleur-de-Lis Street.

The woman shook her head. ‘You don't want to go there, love. It's a rough area filled with doss houses, pubs and a couple of knocking-shops. Steer clear of that place, my duck. It's not for the likes of you.'

STELLA HESITATED OUTSIDE
the door of number six Fleur-de-Lis Street. As the stranger had warned her, it was not the most salubrious of areas. Slatternly women hung round in doorways, touting for business, and there seemed to be plenty of men eager to sample their wares. Workmen, bank clerks, traders and even respectable-looking businessmen staggered out of the pubs and disappeared into doorways, lured by the show of a shapely ankle or a beckoning finger. Stella could only guess that many of the so-called fallen women had come upon hard times and been forced into prostitution as the only way they could earn their precarious living. The raucous laughter and voices raised in song emanating from the pubs contrasted savagely with cries of children and screams from inside the tenement buildings. This was life such as she had never seen, even in Limehouse. The wharves and dockyards of the city had their own dangers and evils, but this place was dark and sombre and seemingly without hope. She hammered on the iron knocker and waited, praying that no one would accost her. She could not help wondering if a similar fate had befallen her mother all those years ago, and she felt her heart contract with pain.

Just as she was beginning to think no one was at home the door opened and Rosa stood there, beaming at her. ‘Oh, Stella. How lovely to see you again. Do come in.' She grabbed her by the hand and dragged her over the threshold, closing the door forcefully, as if by doing so she kept the grim world outside at bay. ‘I'm so pleased you came. Let me take your cloak and bonnet.'

Rendered speechless by this unexpectedly enthusiastic welcome, Stella took off her outer garments and handed them to Rosa, who tossed them onto a rickety hallstand, which swayed dangerously and then by some small miracle righted itself. ‘Come through to the kitchen. I'm afraid it's the only warm room in the house. We don't light the fire in the parlour until evening. Coal is so expensive, and we have limited means.'

Stella glanced round the hallway. The staircase rose steeply in front of her, its steep uncarpeted treads ending in a sharp bend and total darkness. As she followed Rosa down the narrow corridor she could not help noticing that the wallpaper was torn and the paintwork was peeling. What must once have been a smart town house, built for the burgeoning middle classes at the end of the previous century, was now little more than a battered shell. The pervasive smell of damp and dry rot was suffocating, and mingled unpleasantly with the odour of cheap tallow candles and paraffin.

Rosa seemed oblivious to all this and she danced ahead, pausing to close a door in passing. ‘We won't disturb Kit. He's poring over some wretched legal books, although much good it seems to do him.' She hurried on and stopped at the end of the passage, throwing open a door with the air of a conjuror opening a magic box. ‘Here we are. This is where I spend most of my waking hours. I was about to make myself a pot of tea.' She hurried across the flagstone floor and lifted the kettle from the hob. ‘Make yourself comfortable and we'll have a lovely long chat.'

Stella looked round for somewhere to sit but the kitchen table was covered in paper flowers, some of which had spilled onto the chairs and others had ended up in bright pools on the flagstone floor. She cleared a space for herself, taking care not to ruin Rosa's handiwork. The lilies, she observed, were particularly lifelike. She picked one up by its wire stem to examine it in greater detail.

‘They are rather good, aren't they?' Rosa said, spooning tea leaves into the pot. ‘But you should see the flowers I create in silk. Now they are really lovely, but making the paper ones pays better. There are more funerals in this part of London than there are weddings or christenings.' She finished making the tea and placed the pot on the table.

‘These lilies are wonderful,' Stella said, twirling one round in her fingertips. ‘They do look real.'

‘Mr Clifford prefers paper flowers to fresh ones. It saves him from spending an exorbitant amount of money on hothouse blooms. My roses and lilies get dusty but they don't die.' Rosa bustled about taking cups and saucers from the dresser, and with a final flourish she produced a cake glistening with sugar crystals, which she placed on the table in front of Stella. ‘I'll pour the tea if you would like to do the honours.' She handed her a knife. ‘Be generous. I'm starving.'

‘There are three plates.' Stella shot her a curious glance. ‘Is your brother joining us?'

‘I'll take his to the study. He might decide to be sociable if I tell him we have a guest or he might not, depending on his mood.' Rosa left the room with a cup in one hand and a plate of cake in the other.

Stella sipped her tea, eyeing the food greedily. Her mouth was watering as the sweet vanilla- and caraway-scented fragrance tempted her to gobble her portion and replace it with another, but good manners prevailed and she sat with her hands folded in her lap until Rosa returned. ‘You shouldn't have waited for me,' Rosa said, throwing herself down on one of the chairs regardless of the paper petals she crushed. ‘Do start.'

Stella bit into the sweet confection and it melted in her mouth. ‘This is delicious. Did you make it?'

Rosa almost choked on a mouthful of tea. ‘Good heavens, no. I can barely boil an egg. I can make a pot of tea and toast a muffin, although I often burn them because I don't concentrate on what I'm doing. We'd starve if we had to rely on my culinary talents. I buy pies and baked potatoes from street vendors, or we go to a chophouse if we're in funds, although that isn't very often these days.'

Stella had already finished her cake but did not like to ask for more. She sipped her tea. ‘If you don't mind me saying so, you don't seem the sort of person who would live in a place like this.'

Rosa proceeded to cut her cake into tiny bite-sized pieces, arranging them in a pattern with the tip of her knife. ‘I'll tell you my story if you promise to tell me yours.'

‘I will.' Stella smiled. ‘You go first.'

‘Well, as you so rightly said, this isn't the sort of place we might have chosen to reside. Kit and I grew up in relative luxury. Heron Park is a lovely old house set amongst grounds designed by none other than Capability Brown. We had everything that children could possibly want, but things began to change after Mama died three years ago and Uncle Gervase came to live with us. He's Papa's younger brother and not a nice man.'

‘That must have been very hard for you.'

‘It wasn't easy, but he didn't bother us too much while Papa was alive. It was when our father died that Uncle Gervase showed his true colours. He turned us out of the house. We were left virtually penniless and homeless as, for some reason best known to himself, Papa left everything to his brother.'

‘But you have this house. Was it part of your father's estate?'

‘No, it belonged to our mother's brother. Uncle Silas left it to Kit when he died last year. But for him we would have been living on the streets.'

‘I'm truly sorry for you. I know how it feels to lose everything,' Stella said with a sigh. ‘But what I don't understand is how a nice young lady like you would have anything to do with a despicable person like Mr Clifford. I've only known him for a short while but I've seen the way he's treated his stepmother and it's cruel.'

‘We'd only been in this house for a day or two when he came knocking on the door. He said that he had been Uncle Silas's friend, and that he had been keeping an eye on the property since the old man died. He was just checking that we had the right to be here.'

‘And you had, of course.'

‘Yes, but that wasn't the real reason as we soon discovered. Uncle Silas was a wine merchant by trade. Mr Clifford said that he'd been promised a case of sherry wine but when Kit took him down to the cellar they found nothing there but empty bottles.'

‘It all sounds a bit odd.'

‘I didn't think much of it at the time, but Mr Clifford seemed very put out. What was even more odd was the fact that he seemed to be well acquainted with Uncle Gervase, although I never remember meeting him at Heron Park.'

‘Could he perhaps have organised your father's funeral?'

‘That's what it must have been, although he didn't explain his connection with Uncle Silas. Anyway, he returned next day when Kit was out. He said that he'd seen the paper flowers I was making to brighten up the house and he'd had an idea which might benefit us both. That's how it all started.'

‘Well, you have a great talent. The flowers are lovely.'

Rosa pushed the plate towards her. ‘Do have another slice of cake. Making paper flowers is all very well but you can't eat them. I wish I'd learned how to cook.'

‘It's not so difficult.' Stella glanced at the rusty range that seemed to plead for a thorough clean and a coat of blacklead. ‘I started work as a scullery maid when I was very young and I ended up as assistant cook in a big country house.'