‘What a coincidence to see your friend at the Observatory,’ Miss Barnes remarked.
‘He’s not my friend,’ Essie replied. ‘He’s the foreman on the site where my brother works. They’re demolishing buildings over Cheapside way.’
‘Well, he seemed happy enough to see you today,’ the teacher teased as she gave Essie a nudge with her shoulder.
As the ferry dipped with the tide, and the dome of the Observatory glinted in the late sun, Essie tipped her head back and enjoyed the last rays. For the first time, she felt excited about what the next week might hold.
Chapter 16
Essie spent the following weeks moving between the factory and home with a lightness she’d never felt before. Mr Lawrence had made good on his word and delivered the boys some money at the Golden Fleece.
Unfortunately, Freddie hadn’t been able to stop Danny from shouting the bar three rounds before he escaped with his share. He came home and sheepishly presented Essie with the remainder. She had gone straight to Mr Morton and paid the outstanding amount for the girls’ school, before visiting the fishmonger and Mr Jones at the general store to settle their debts. She had just enough left over for food for the next few months, if she was careful and hid the money from Ma.
Freddie told Essie he’d been asked to do another job with Danny and the lads outside London, and he had not been home since Friday last. Father McGuire delighted in telling her that he’d heard a handful of navvies had gone to Gravesend for a lark. Essie tried to ignore the flush she could feel spreading to her cheeks. She knew the priest lumped Freddie in with other ne’er-do-well navvies in their neighbourhood and assumed he was a drunkard like their ma. Essie couldn’t deny Freddie enjoyed the odd knock-off with the lads, but he always handed over most of his salary every week to Essie to run the household. If there was a little extra missing sometimes, it was carelessness. Or a wishful punt. There was not a mean bone in Freddie’s skinny body.
The priest had made a point of speaking with Essie after his weekly home visit with her ma. Over the top of his glasses, Father McGuire snapped, ‘I wondered where those funds might have come from. I did hear, Miss Murphy, that all your family’s debts at the school have been paid.’ His eyes had lingered a little too long at her breasts as he spoke, as if to imply that the source of their windfall might perhaps lie there. ‘My confession box is always open in the afternoons …’
Essie was furious, but of course she couldn’t tell him where the money had actually come from. She endured Father McGuire’s hints in silence; she had nothing to confess to him—though she promised herself this would be the week she confessed to Ma that she’d been stepping out with Edward—as he now insisted she call him.
For the last few weeks she had not been working an extra shift in the factory, as she’d claimed. Instead, she and Edward visited the moving pictures, where they saw The French Spy and she permitted Edward to hold her hand. They spent afternoons lounging on striped deckchairs in Hyde Park eating ice creams or warm muffins that broke apart and spilled runny fruit into her lap.
Occasionally, Edward would tip his hat at an acquaintance in the street, or usher her past an elegant couple in furs he’d exchanged greetings with outside a teahouse. These were the kind of women in French heels that marched at the Monument—perhaps she and Gertie could join them. It was just a matter of time before Edward introduced her to his circle, his family, but every time she thought to ask, the words stuck in her throat.
They roamed the Victoria & Albert Museum, and took tea and scones in the darkest corner of the grand hall filled with chandeliers. Essie wished she could smuggle some treats home for the girls in her handkerchief. Once, they’d visited the Natural History Museum and Edward had walked her past giant roughs of sapphires, emeralds and diamonds, peering closely at each one without saying a word. She thought of the football of dirt, studded with jewels, that Danny had held above his head. So many had made their way to Stony Jack. Had others also held on to a keepsake of this magic?
She wondered who was missing their treasure. The piles of gemstones, buttons, neckpieces and rings on Mr Lawrence’s desk had been so immense that it was improbable to think no-one would come looking …
Just as quickly as the thought arrived, she pushed it away. Her family were thieves. Any one of them could go to gaol if Mr Lawrence turned them in! Her stomach churned at the thought, but in her heart she felt Mr Lawrence was a kind soul. Still, she remembered the notice from London’s town clerk in the newspaper wrapped around her kippers weeks ago.
When Essie returned home from her Saturday jaunts roaming the curved tree-lined streets and glossy front doors on the way to the Serpentine with Edward, she always made sure to slip a small bag of aniseed drops to the twins when Ma wasn’t looking. Saturday last, she’d told Edward that Gertie had a fondness for reading and as they passed a bookseller along Piccadilly Circus, he’d bought an illustrated copy of The Secret Garden.
‘It’s my sister’s favourite book,’ he told Essie.
‘You shouldn’t. It’s too—’
‘You said Gertie was quite the artist; I thought she’d like it,’ he said simply as he pressed it into Essie’s basket.
When Ma had eyed her suspiciously as Essie presented the book wrapped up in brown paper and twine, Essie had lied, saying it was a gift from Mrs Ruben.
‘For me?’ Gertie’s face puckered with confusion as she turned the stiff new pages. ‘A new book,’ she said dreamily. ‘Can you imagine a garden filled with overgrown vines and a wall so high that you could hide from the world? And from Ma!’ she added in an undertone as she traced her fingers over watercolour leaves. ‘She’d never find me. Too hard for a drunk to—’
‘Gertie,’ snapped Essie. ‘Enough!’
‘Why do you always stick up for her? How can you stand it?’ Gertie looked at their mother, whose papery hands were shaking as she tried to unscrew the lid of her bottle.
‘Never heard of a Jew that liked giving presents,’ muttered Ma as she took a swig from the bottle and sank into the threadbare armchair.
Essie let her mother’s hurtful comments pass. If it wasn’t the Jews it was the Italians. The Poles. Whoever had failed to extend the credit and hand over a bottle of liquor that week. She didn’t discriminate with her bitterness and there was nothing to be gained by labouring the point when her mother could barely stand upright and would not remember a word she’d said in the morning.
Mrs Yarwood was happy enough to look after the girls on a Saturday. In fact she insisted on it, though just last week her eyes had narrowed a little as she quipped: ‘There’s a rosy flush about you of late, Miss Essie. It’s lovely to see you smiling.’ She took a breath before her voice dropped and she whispered, ‘You deserve an occasional afternoon off, but be careful, lass.’ She patted Essie’s hand and said nothing about Essie wearing her Sunday best to work on a Saturday.
The trio of younger sisters enjoyed their Saturdays with Mrs Yarwood, walking to the Borough Markets to buy soft loaves of bread and hard cheese. Sometimes they’d picnic on the bank of the Thames; other days they’d spend all afternoon in the cheery yellow kitchen preparing fancy meals from a second-hand cookbook Mrs Yarwood had picked up at a local fair—slow-cooked beef cheeks in red wine and buttery mashed potatoes, pork chops in apple cider with strawberry clafoutis. Essie would arrive to collect her sisters and be forced to stay for a two-course feast they’d cooked, aprons tied around their waists and flour smeared across their cheeks and little noses.