The Quietness (19 page)

‘Well, she was an awkward one, all right,’ said Mrs Ellis as the carriage pulled away. ‘Glad to see the back of her.’ She shivered. ‘Come on. Let’s get back inside. It’s chilly out here.’

Queenie watched the carriage as it clattered to the end of the street, turned the corner and disappeared out of sight. She was filled with sadness as she stood there in the sudden empty silence. What had Ellen said? Bedford Square. The house with the horse-head door knocker. A long ago memory stirred inside her, but she could not quite grasp it.

Queenie followed Mrs Ellis back inside the house. ‘Well, that’s that,’ Mrs Ellis was saying. ‘A small nightcap now, I think. You can bring one up to me, Queenie. And a nice slice of fruitcake on the side.’

She went straight up to her room leaving Queenie to carry on down to the kitchen. That was it? thought Queenie. Another lady gone, another baby left here and all Mrs Ellis wanted was a slice of fruitcake. Did she not care? Did she and Mrs Waters not care at all? An image of the tin box under the bed flashed into her mind again and her skin began to prickle. She tried to push the picture away. There was an explanation for what she had seen. There had to be. A good reason that was not her business to know. She tried to think of other things: put the kettle on, pour a brandy, see where Mrs Waters had got to. They were good people, she kept telling herself. They were doing a good thing. Where would Miss Swift have gone if there weren’t places like this to go to? Not even the workhouse would take in fallen women. And what of the poor babies? None of them stood a chance out there on the streets. Queenie knew what that felt like. No. The sisters did their best by everyone. Of course they did. And, Queenie decided,
she
was going to do her best for Miss Swift and her child.

The next morning began as always; Queenie rose early, got dressed and dragged her mattress back to the scullery. She stoked the fire, put the kettle on to boil and laid out two breakfast trays, one for Mrs Waters and one for Mrs Ellis. Then she checked on the babies. Miss Swift’s little one was lying in a crate on her own. She was sound asleep; her lips pursed in a tiny pink kiss. Now and again they moved in a soft sucking motion. Queenie bent to kiss her head. ‘Your mam’ll be missing you something rotten,’ she said. ‘But not for long. She’ll be back to get you soon, you lucky ducky.’

Queenie delivered breakfast to the two sisters, then came back to the kitchen to fix the babies’ bottles. It was strange not having Miss Swift in the house. She missed her company and the thought of Miss Swift’s empty bedroom filled her with a yearning for her friend. She hoped Miss Swift had made good with her father and would be back for her baby soon.

Queenie made up a jug of milk and lime and busied herself sweeping while she waited for one of the sisters to come and add some drops of
the Quietness
to the mixture. A small wail broke through the sound of Queenie’s sweeping. She crossed the room and saw that Miss Swift’s baby was awake and wriggling. Her wails grew louder so Queenie quickly picked the baby up and rocked her gently to hush her. The sisters couldn’t abide being disturbed by the noise of whinging babies. She must be hungry, Queenie thought. She hadn’t yet had enough feeds for
the Quietness
to work. A small bottle won’t harm. A quick one before the sisters came downstairs.

With the baby nestled in one arm, Queenie warmed some plain milk in a pan and carefully poured some in a bottle. Miss Swift’s baby guzzled the milk down hungrily. Queenie held her close as she drank and listened out for the sound of footsteps. The baby’s sucking grew less frantic and her eyelids began to droop back into sleep.

Queenie quickly tucked her back in the crate and willed her to stay quiet. As she ran her eyes over the other babies, she wondered which one would be next to go. How much longer before another disappeared in the night? She prayed Miss Swift would hurry and come back soon.

When the carriage eventually stopped, it was Mary who opened the door to me. Her soft plain face, blotched by thread veins, and her kind grey eyes, were at that moment, the most beautiful of sights. We stared at each other, neither of us able to say a word. She held out her hand to me and I clung to her as she led me through the night-time drizzle into the house. Our silence continued as we walked into the hushed candlelit hallway and up the stairs to my bedroom. The house was warm and smelt sickly sweet; the over-powering scent of fresh flowers and furniture wax seemed almost to suffocate me.

I had forgotten how very quiet it was. We stayed silent until Mary had shut my bedroom door behind us. Even then we didn’t speak. We held each other tight and sobbed as though our hearts would break. Mary kept pulling away to touch my hair, my cheeks and my arms; as though she did not know which part of me to try and mend first. Eventually she took a deep breath and wiped her eyes on the hem of her apron.

‘Right then, miss!’ she said, attempting to smile at me. ‘Let’s get you sorted out. Don’t suppose you’d say no to a nice warm bath now, would you?’

I just nodded at her and kissed her cheek. I still could not bring myself to speak yet. There was too much to say and I was too exhausted to say it.

Mary had laid a bath sheet on the floor in front of the fire. My hip bath was placed upon it and I could see wisps of steam curling up from the surface of the water inside. A jug of cold water was next to the bath, a new cake of soap, a sponge and a pile of small linen towels.

Mary undressed me carefully. I saw her wince at the sight of my stomach. It was soft and spongy with long red lines etched deeply into the skin, as though I had been clawed by some wild beast. She removed the blood-stained cloths from around my lower parts as if it was a duty she performed for me every day.

I lowered myself into the bath water and felt the warmth seep into every part of me. It rolled slowly up my legs and wound itself gently around my stomach and breasts, soothing away the soreness and aches. Mary let me soak awhile before she lathered the sponge and began to wash me. I closed my eyes and let my body fall loose. I let her lift my arms to wash and I fell forward to let her soap my back. When I was clean all over, Mary helped me to climb out of the bath and she briskly wiped me dry. She had laid a nightgown out for me on the bed. It smelt so clean and felt fresh and crisp as it fell on my skin.

When I was tucked into bed, Mary came to sit beside me. She held my hand and she waited. Eventually I looked at her and said, ‘I had a little girl, Mary. A beautiful little girl.’

She squeezed my hand as I told her all about my baby. How she smelt like the sweetest of warm buns, the startling black of her hair and how wonderful those precious hours I had spent with her had been. Once I began to talk I could not stop. I told her about the dreary room I had spent the last few months of my confinement in. I told her of the sisters – Mrs Waters and Mrs Ellis – of how they repulsed me and made my skin crawl. And I told her all about my new-found friend, Queenie.

Mary kept quiet all through my outpourings. When I finished speaking, she looked at me solemnly and said, ‘You have been through the greatest ordeal, miss. I can’t imagine what it was like for you. But it is over now. You are safe and you are home. You must put it all behind you.’

‘Put it behind me? Mary, I can never do that! I am a mother now. How can I ever forget my child?’ As I said these words, I thought of my real mother, Dolly. How easy had it been for her to leave me? Had she felt like I did now?

‘You must try to forget, miss. For your own sanity,’ said Mary. ‘Be happy your baby was born healthy and be glad that she’ll be found a new home.’

‘No Mary, no! You have not understood me!’ My voice sounded shrill with indignation. ‘I cannot return to life as it was before. I
had
no life before. I have found what has always been missing for me, Mary. I have found love. For my daughter. And I cannot let that go. Somehow I will have her with me. I swear to you, Mary, we will be together.’

Mary sighed, then smiled at me broadly. ‘You don’t know how much I was hoping you’d say that, miss!’

It was four days before Father called me to his study; a forlorn and grey morning. I had been keeping mostly to my bed, and apart from one time when I ventured to the library and suffered the sideway glances of the housemaids, I had seen no one but Mary. Now it was time to face Father.

Mary finished fastening my pink silk. My stomach had flattened a great deal and I could fit into my old gowns once again, but it brought me no pleasure.

‘There,’ said Mary, smoothing my skirts and standing back to admire her handiwork. ‘You are ready, miss.’

I did not feel ready. My stomach had been churning all morning and I had not been able to take even a mouthful of breakfast. I kept remembering Father’s face the night he sent me away. How he had looked at me with scorn and disappointment swimming in his eyes. He had made me feel like a piece of unwelcome dirt that had been brought into the house on the sole of his shoe.

A new feeling was growing inside me. It had started as a tiny hot seed planted deep in my heart. Now it was growing bigger all the time. I was filling with a rage that was rooted firmly in my heart. How dare Father treat me as he had! How dare he take me from my real mother and how dare he take my child away from me!

I strode to the door of his study at the appointed time of ten o’clock and knocked loudly three times.

‘Come!’ he said. At the sound of his voice I felt the anger inside me begin to shrivel and I concentrated hard on the memory of my daughter’s face. I walked into the room and saw him sitting behind his desk, his face blurred behind a veil of cigar smoke.

‘Ah! Good,’ he said. ‘We have been expecting you.’

We? I looked around and saw a figure standing in the gloom beside Father’s unlit fireplace.

‘Meet Edgar Rumble. A valued student of mine. He is proving himself most dextrous in the art of anatomical dissection.’ Father gestured towards the figure, who stepped towards me with his hand held out. I could think only of the word
dissection
as I looked at the long thin fingers that were stretching towards me. I duly put my hand out and the stranger’s hand felt like a cut of cold wet meat as it closed around mine.

‘Most delighted to meet you, Miss Ellen.’ His voice was soft. It slithered over me and my insides recoiled. I could not put an age to him, but already he wore the look of an old man, with thick moist lips and pale grey eyes that bulged from their sockets.

‘Mr Rumble,’ I said. I nodded my head in greeting and quickly took my hand away to wipe it secretly on my skirt.

‘You are very fortunate,’ said Father slowly. I looked at him. He had clasped his hands in front of his face and he was looking at me with an unblinking stare. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Mr Rumble has agreed to take you off my hands. You are to be married next month.’

It was Christmas Eve and Queenie had been to Wilkins Dairy to fetch a jug of fresh milk. She was in no hurry to get back to Wild Street now that Miss Swift had gone. She scraped her boots along the ground, not caring an inch that the shiny new leather got scuffed on the toes. There didn’t seem to be much point to anything any more. Not without Miss Swift. She was missing her badly.

She was missing Mam, Da and the little ones too. She’d give anything to be going home to spend Christmas Day with them now. She still had the gifts she’d bought. She wouldn’t care now what they thought of her turning up out of the blue after all this time. She wouldn’t care if they’d missed her or not. She wouldn’t be so proud now. Da would probably tease her about her posh togs anyway, ‘Why, look at the little lady swanning in all la-di-da like,’ she could hear him saying.

Chrismas Day would be nothing fancy, she knew. Perhaps a scrag-end of meat and some extra taters, but Da would make it seem like a meal fit for the Queen and would be smacking his lips and rubbing his belly. Queenie smiled to herself at the thought. Then something caught in her throat and she found herself rubbing away sudden hot tears.

She trudged along the last stretch of road leading back to Wild Street. Number 4 no longer looked so grand to her. The dirty grey walls frowned down on her and gave her the same sort of shivers that walking past Horsemonger Lane Gaol used to. Don’t be daft, she told herself as she went inside. She listed inside her head all the chores she still had to do: rake the ashes, clean the grates, sweep the floors, bring in the coal and sort the laundry. That should take her mind off things for a time.

Mrs Ellis was in the kitchen and looked round sharply as Queenie came in the door. ‘Ah, there you are,’ she said loudly. ‘We were wondering where you’d got to. Weren’t we, Mrs Waters?’ There was no sign of Mrs Waters in the kitchen. Queenie was beginning to wonder if Mrs Ellis had taken leave of her senses, when suddenly Mrs Waters appeared in the scullery doorway.

‘Yes, Mrs Ellis. Indeed we were wondering. You were gone a long time, Queenie.’

Queenie was about to answer, when her attention was caught by the sight of a brown paper package tucked under Mrs Waters’ arm. Her heart leapt and she couldn’t help taking in a sharp breath as she stared. There was silence for a moment. Then Mrs Waters said, ‘Whatever’s the matter with you, girl? Have you never seen a parcel before? It’s a Christmas gift for my niece. Now, what took you so long at the dairy?’

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ said Queenie, shifting her eyes away from the parcel. ‘There was a big queue, ma’am. What with it being Christmas and all.’

‘Humph,’ said Mrs Waters. ‘Well, now you’re back, you’d better get moving. I want this place sparkling for tomorrow.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Queenie, and she put the jug of milk she was still holding down on the kitchen table.

As soon as Mrs Waters had left the room, Queenie rushed over to the babies’ sofa. She had got into the habit of counting them every day, and she knew straight away that one was missing. Her eyes flitted over each face and relief made her knees melt when she saw Miss Swift’s baby still lying there with her eyes shut tight.