The Quality Street Girls, page 9
Diana’s heart lifted a little as she thought about the chocolate and oranges, and Gracie, and the look she’d see on Gracie’s little face when she produced them. She would make a mess of her frock, and then Ma would be annoyed, and Diana wouldn’t care.
‘You look happy! Penny for them?’ the greengrocer woke Diana from her reverie. She smiled at him as she handed over her money in silence and left.
The walk up Gibbet Hill was steep, but Diana didn’t want to waste a single farthing on trams or buses. Everything she had she needed to save for Gracie. The closer she got to home the more her aristocratic nonchalance fell away. By the time she reached the door the tough Diana was transformed into Didi; the caring sister and sometime idol of a six-year-old girl called Gracie Cartwright.
‘Didi!’ Diana was barely through the door when the little girl launched herself into her arms. The oranges fell to the floor and Diana didn’t care. She caught Gracie in a bear hug and planted kisses all over her blonde, curly head. ‘Didi, I’ve got a ribbon! I’ve got a ribbon to put on our Christmas tree! Look, it’s red! And when I was at school Miss Waites said that I had the nicest hair and that she could tell I brushed it a lot, and I told her that you always brushed it for me, and she said that she always brushes her hair a hundred times before bed, and I told her that I think you brush mine two hundred times, and she said she thinks I’m very lucky to have a sister who takes such care of me, and I said that you’re my best friend, and—’ Gracie prattled on happily; oblivious to the row that was going on in the kitchen at the back of the cramped terraced house.
Diana could hear her stepmother and Tommo shouting at each other. He was back, then. Ethel Cartwright was miserable when her son wasn’t around, but Diana knew that she was much better off without him.
‘But, Tommo, how am I meant to explain all this away if the police come looking? They were here again. They said you’d—’
‘I don’t care what you say, just come up with something. Use your brain if you’ve got one. If you love me, you’ll do this.’
‘But I don’t know what to say to them—’
‘I don’t think you love me. In all honesty, I don’t think you do. Mothers who love their sons will do anything to—’
‘Of course I love you! Of course, I love you!’
‘Excuse me!’ Diana was standing in the kitchen doorway with Gracie by her side holding her hand. Gracie was so used to rows like this that she was less frightened by them now, but she still leant close to her Didi. ‘I’ve come to get a knife and a plate. What have you come for?’
Tommo ignored the question. ‘Oranges is it? Don’t mind if I do.’ He reached for the string bag that Diana had carried them home in, but she slapped his hand away angrily.
‘They’re not for you. They’re for me’ sister. The doctor says she needs oranges.’
‘She’s my sister as well, remember?’ And Tommo winked at Diana. It was a challenge and a threat. He knew a secret about the little girl, and he knew exactly how much Diana and his mother didn’t want anyone to know it.
‘Then you’ll care about her getting strong, won’t you?’ Diana was openly hostile, but she’d learnt that she had to stand her ground if she wanted to survive in the Cartwright household. Ethel would never throw her out, despite her tenuous claim on the older woman’s parentage; Ethel’s weakness was her love for her children, and all the children she had informally adopted over the years. It was this love that Diana didn’t want to see exploited by Tommo yet again. ‘What’s in the boxes, Tommo? I hope it’s not anything that will make Gracie poorly. You wouldn’t want her to be poorly, would you?’ She said it pointedly.
‘It’s nothing for you to worry your pretty little head abou—’
‘But still, maybe I should ask Doctor Walker when he’s here to check them, to make sure that there’s nothing in them that would harm her lungs. The smell of pine from those crates is ever so strong, and it might make her cough. Maybe I should get him to check?’
‘You’re calling out Doctor Walker? The free clinic at St. Luke’s not good enough for the likes of us?’ Tommo scoffed, ‘You haven’t got the money to call out the doctor unless you get it from me, and I don’t have the money to call out the doctor unless these boxes bide here for the night. So it looks like—’
‘I have got the money. Where do you think the oranges came from—’
‘Who gave it to yer? Some man? Finally using your looks for something worthwhile? Stewart won’t like that when I tell him—’
‘I earned it! I made my piece rates today if you must know, and I made my piece rates yesterday, and I’m having the doctor out tonight! She hasn’t seen him for months, which means she hasn’t had her medicine for months. She’s got worse, and she’s got thinner. I’ve got the money, so I’m sending for the doctor.’
‘And what about the next time? Eh? Who pays for your fancy doctor with his fancy medicines the next time? You know you need me; you might not like it, but the only way any real money is coming into this house is if I bring it. So, if you want there to be money for a posh doctor next time, and the time after that, I suggest you keep your mouth shut and let me leave my belongings in my own home.’
‘One night.’ It was an order, not a question. ‘You’ve got one night, Tommo.’ Diana looked around the dirty galley kitchen that her stepmother never cleaned; the peeling plasterwork on the walls where the damp seeped in; the black marks on the door frame where her stepmother leant her enormous hands every time she shuffled through from the parlour; the tell-tale signs of mice along the skirting board. Diana wondered if she and Gracie would ever get away. No wonder Gracie still hadn’t got her strength back after the whooping cough; how could they ever hope to escape this? How would she ever afford a real home, with a fire in the grate, and a Christmas tree?
Chapter Six
‘She’s not a real Captain.’ Lieutenant Armitage was appealing to Sergeant Metcalfe in the Halifax police station. He wasn’t dressed in his Salvation Army uniform because this was a private meeting between him, his son, and his son’s old school friend who just so happened to be the local policeman.
‘Are any of you real Captains? I thought that was the poin—’
‘No! I mean she’s not a real Salvation Army Captain. There must be some law that says she can’t impersonate or summat’. Isn’t there a crime of misrepresenting yourself?’ Lieutenant Armitage didn’t like having to take the matter to the police, but his son had persuaded him that talking quietly to Stan Metcalfe about their options was not the same thing at all.
Sergeant Metcalfe considered for a moment. ‘You’re thinking of the crime of masquerading as a policeman or a Chelsea Pensioner. There’s nothing about giving a false rank in a religious organisation.’
‘But she’s doing harm; she’s genuinely doing harm!’
‘What kind of harm, exactly?’
‘Well she’s got this band of gatherers, you see, and they follow her—’
‘Begging your pardon Mr Armitage, but isn’t that what you’ve got? You do a lot of good in Halifax, and in my line of work I’ve got more cause to know about it than most; but don’t you have a band of gatherers following you?’
‘They don’t follow me, they follo—’
‘Dad, let me.’ Lieutenant Armitage’s son had come with him because although he loved his father, he suspected that the man wouldn’t be able to explain himself in layman’s terms to the policeman and would get overexcited and upset; it gave him no pleasure to see that this was exactly what was happening. ‘Stan, it’s like this, Gwendoline Vance she used to be proper Salvation Army, but … well, she started gettin’ over-zealous and me dad tried to tell her … and if you ask me, she makes it more about following her than about real Salvation Army work. She thinks there’s been enough soup and soap, and now it’s time for Salvation; but she’s got a funny way of showin’ it, it looks like berating to me.’
‘So what you tellin’ me?’
‘Gwendoline Vance brings her little group to meetings on a Sunday, but they’re nothing but trouble. She’s trying to take over the Halifax Salvation Army and run it herself. Me’ dad wants to go quietly about his business and help people, but she turns up everywhere, shoutin’ and nonsense. Christmas is coming and me’ dad’s been gettin’ the band ready to play in town to raise money for toys for children what won’t have none otherwise. But Gwendoline Vance is sayin’ she’ll be there every step of the way, shoutin’ out her preachin’ over the top of them because the Lord’s told her to. There’s got to be summat’ you can do to stop her, Stan. Look at me’ Dad, have you ever seen him like this?’
‘Well, there’s breachin’ the peace. I might be able to get her on that.’
‘But then she’ll have to breach it for you to do anything. We don’t want her to even start. No one wants her doin’ this; she spoils it for everyone. The Salvation Army has been playin’ in Halifax at Christmas since before any of us were born. Let’s not make this the first year they can’t.’
‘A police officer can make an arrest if they suspect that the peace is going to be breached, but I’d have to have grounds. I can’t just go around nickin’ women who shout at yer’ Dad.’
‘This isn’t just any woman, Stan. You have to meet her. She’s wicked.’
‘Mr Armitage.’ Sergeant Metcalfe could do without this, but in all his years of policing, he knew that no one had worked harder in Halifax to feed and clothe the poor than the Salvation Army, and the Armitages were the glue that held it together. He softened and changed tack. ‘Lieutenant Armitage; I can’t go round and arrest the woman straight off the bat, but if you give me a time and a place when you think she will be breachin’ the peace I will go round and take a look; I will take a very close look; I will watch her like a hawk. And if I see an offence being committed, whether the indictable or merely common law, if I see her so much as breach the peace, I will act in the public good.’
Young Armitage bristled. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean? We need you to—’
‘Shush lad,’ Lieutenant Armitage had brightened as he saw both hope and mischief. ‘He means that Miss Vance has met her match!’
It was the Sunday of Advent, and the good people of Halifax were gathering in the enormous courtyard of the Piece Hall to watch their Christmas tree go up. The Piece Hall had no roof; it was designed in the 18th Century to look like a fine Italian Renaissance piazza, with galleries of tiny shops all around the sides. On a day like this one, when the winter sun was warm and strong, and the walls seemed to have a glow of pride, it had a draw for the inhabitants of Halifax that was hard to resist.
Gwendoline Vance had not wanted to miss this opportunity to preach to the masses, and so she and a group of her followers were congregating by the west door. Their logic being that at least half the people would have to pass them to leave when the lights were lit on the tree. Although the paving along the inside of the west door was flat, the entrance way that the rogue Salvation Army officers clustered in was at the bottom of a steep hill, and they themselves were standing in a hollow where the cobbles had been knocked out, and that had filled with dust that the wind blew in. Gwendoline liked the idea of this because she planned later to quote the bible to her followers telling them to ‘kick the dust from their feet’ as they left.
‘Corporal Smith, how many people do you think are here?’
The Salvation Army man stepped up onto a cream stone ledge by the doorway and surveyed the crowd of people: there were men and women of all ages, some happily squeezing together to fit into the courtyard, other luckier ones watching from the galleries above that formed part of the Piece Hall. He could see children in their best clothes standing proudly beside their parents in the glow of the winter sun, and he could see the lone cornet player in his Salvation Army uniform waiting beside the tree. ‘I’d estimate about five-thousand souls, Captain.’
Frances Roth waited eagerly beside her mentor, Gwendoline Vance. She wore the dark, maroon-trimmed, Victorian-style bonnet of the Salvation Army Uniform, pulled tightly down over un-styled black hair. She was several years younger than Gwendoline Vance, but she could have been ten years older; pettiness had aged her. Her hooked nose and beady eyes gave her the look of a plotting crow, watching for a chance to do mischief. ‘Shall we start now, Captain?’
‘Not yet, sister.’ Gwendoline Vance had a flair for timing. She was waiting for her moment. ‘I have a prophetic gifting, and the Lord is telling me to wait on his call. It’s a terrible, fearful privilege to know that you’re doing the Lord’s work, but know that today we truly are.’
Sergeant Metcalfe was watching from a gallery in the north west corner of the Piece Hall. He was in plain clothes a thin, grey wool scarf around his neck against the cold, and tucked inside his high-necked waistcoat. These were the clothes he wore when he wanted to be ready to jump into action, if he needed to give chase. His waistcoat, jacket and trousers did not match, and the earthy-coloured fabric wasn’t expensive, he was only a Sergeant after all, but they were practical, and they helped him blend in with all the factory workers who wore similar garb. His cloth cap was pulled down almost over his eyes, but his eyes were on Gwendoline Vance.
Sergeant Metcalfe had already guessed her plan; the official branch of the Halifax Salvation Army had sent a soloist to play ‘Once In Royal David’s City’ for the crowd. As the last bar hung in the air, they would pull the switch to light up the tree with vibrantly coloured electrical lights, and everyone would cheer. It was always a moving moment, and people looked forward to it. Stan Metcalfe suspected that Gwendoline was waiting for the crowd to fall silent and then seize her chance to start shouting and preaching. He’d positioned himself so that he could vault over the balcony balustrade and land at her feet if she tried it, and then usher her and her followers away quietly, under threat of arrest if necessary, to prevent an extended breach of the King’s peace. At the far end of the Piece Hall was his wife and children, and Sergeant Metcalfe wasn’t going to let Captain Vance and her crowd spoil this for them, or any of the other children who had been looking forward to this as much as they looked forward to a Christmas toffee or a nativity play.
As he watched he could just see the legs of a half-way knackered old horse walk up a few yards behind Gwendoline Vance and her crew, and a girl slide off it onto the ground. He recognised the horse, and he recognised the girl.
Reenie Calder was on her day off, and she was desperate to see the lighting of the Piece Hall Christmas tree with her new friends. She had less time these days to help around the house and the farm, so she had had to get up early and work flat-out to finish in time to get over to Halifax. She had wanted to give Ruffian the day off too, but she could only meet Mary and Bess at the appointed hour if she took him and got him to pick up some speed on the way.
Horse and rider arrived by the west door just in the nick of time. The courtyard was already packed, and there was no time to find somewhere to tie up Ruffian and then squeeze in to the courtyard. Reenie would just have to make do with the view through the west doorway. She slid off her horse and stood by his side on the cobbled incline, looking down at the people whose faces were washed with sunshine as they waited for the show to begin.
Reenie heard it before she saw it; that unmistakeable sound of water hitting stone. There was no stopping it once it had started, so Reenie scurried quickly round to Ruffian’s nose, hoping he’d miss her shoes. Ruffian was tired from a long ride and didn’t care where he was relieving himself. The hot stream raced down through the cobbles and then collected behind a channel of twigs and leaves, which formed a momentary dam, allowing even more liquid to collect and build up, before breaking its banks and flowing like a great tidal wave towards the east door. Reenie knew that horses could hold a lot of water, but this, embarrassingly, was something of a record for Ruffian; and he was still going. Reenie didn’t know what to do, she looked around for a bucket or something that might do as a bucket, but she saw nothing. She tried to call out and warn the uniformed people who were waiting in the doorway below, but they weren’t listening. One of them, a tall, square-faced ring-leader in her early forties, who was dressed as a Salvation Army Captain, had taken in a deep breath and then bellowed out to the crowd, ‘Repent!’ She didn’t get any further with her call to Salvation because at that moment more than a gallon of hot horse pee hit her shoes and ankles and settled in the light hollow that she was standing in.
Gwendoline Vance leapt up with a scream, and her followers, who were also hit, looked up to see where all this was coming from. It was at that moment that Frances Roth locked eyes with Reenie Calder, owner of the offending horse.
‘I’m ever so sorry!’ Reenie was genuinely sorry; she wasn’t the type to ruin a person’s shoes for any reason. ‘I couldn’t stop him. He’s quite old.’
The rogue evangelists scrambled out of the puddle of pee and up away from the east door. The cornetist began his solo, and Sergeant Metcalfe enjoyed it all the more for seeing natural justice done without him needing to lift a finger. He had recognised the girl with the horse from that trespassing incident a few weeks back, and he suspected, based on what he’d heard about her, that this was Reenie Calder after all.
‘Would you look at the state of that!’ Tommo hooted with laughter as he pointed out the followers of Gwendoline Vance jumping out of the way, further down the plaza at the entrance to the Piece Hall. ‘That’s not …? Is it …? It is! It’s a horse − they’ve just been caught in a steaming puddle of horse p—’
‘Shush, would you please!’ Diana put her hands over Gracie’s ears where the child stood happily swirling her red ribbon around her tiny pink fingers and looking up over the heads of the crowd to catch a glimpse of the very top of the Christmas tree. ‘I know what you were about to say, and I don’t want Gracie hearing it. You’re spoiling it for everyone.’
