A Mother's Love (5 page)

A woman’s romantic paper would have been better, but having nailed his colours to the mast he could hardly tear them down now without looking a failure, especially to a father who saw his son as a complete fool and a mother who considered his venture totally misguided and was appalled by women who went about preaching female suffrage, whatever that was.

‘All I know,’ she dismissed, always trying to forget she was the daughter of a common ironmonger, ‘is that it makes such persons very masculine and injures the self-respect of decent women.’

Matthew quickened his pace unconsciously as his thoughts turned to his plans for the future. The office he rented to turn out his few hundred copies a month was too close to home and parental influence. He needed new premises, in London. It was this that had brought him to visit David. David had been sceptical: London wasn’t Hampshire.

‘They’ll scalp you as soon as they look at you, fresh up from the country, old man. Though I suppose I might find you something around here: it’s cheaper than the City.’

Deep in thought, Matthew had walked past an estate agent’s board before its message registered. Backtracking a few paces, he scanned the wording:

BEREAVEMENT COMPELS SALE OF A PRINTING BUSINESS AND STOCK. AN AUCTION TO BE HELD AT THE PREMISES OF PORTER’S PRINTERS, HACKNEY ROAD, SHOREDITCH AT 10.30 AM ON 24TH MAY, 1894

Matthew’s mind was calculating. There’d be plenty to draw on in the East End: the poverty, the lowly status of women, their constant fight for survival. The thought brought a surge of excitement.

The twenty-fourth was the next day. Ten-thirty – just time enough to check his bank account. Funds had been a bit slim of late, but if he sent a telegram to his father as to what he had in mind, with a promise to drop the journal’s political bias, he might see that his son was serious about publishing. Some of its flavour could be retained a little more subtly, and his father, he trusted, would be none the wiser.

Coming to a decision, he signalled a cab, a four-wheeled growler, so called because most of the drivers were considered to be miserable growlers themselves, rarely given to smiling. This one, however, was nothing but smiles as he lifted the reins, glad of a fare.

‘Where to, guv’nor?’

Matthew gave David’s address in Queensbridge Road. David wouldn’t object to his spending another night under his roof. An enthusiast for dubious ventures, he wasn’t at all Matthew’s idea of a solicitor. A few years of examining conveyancing contracts would probably buff off the restive edges and excitable corners and mould him into a more acceptable pillar of the legal profession. But for now he might give some advice on acquiring new premises – without charge, Matthew dared to hope.

In the shadowy hallway, where she would be less noticeable, Harriet sat with her eldest sister, both of them in deepest mourning. It was such a relief to be up from her six-week lying-in period, with her mother pottering around bemoaning the inconvenience of her unreasonable refusal to stay with her, Mrs Hardy forever popping in and chattering nonstop, and the baby’s unrelenting demands. Between them she had been stifled. She felt stifled now by her widow’s weeds. Like the Queen, Harriet thought, who had hidden herself under hers for years, and who still dressed in black. Defiantly, she lifted her veil back over her tiny black hat.

‘I thought there’d be more people here than this.’

‘It’s still early.’ Clara’s effort to comfort didn’t help.

The shop door opened to admit the only prospective bidder in ten minutes, together with a noisy rumble of outside traffic and a glimpse of the weather, which wasn’t heartening, the pavement looking as glossy as sugar icing from a heavy downpour. The rain had now abated a bit, and people were emerging from doorways and scurrying by – men with their necks down into collars, cloth caps pulled low; ladies with umbrellas fending off the lingering drizzle, skirts held clear of the wet. Inside the shop, gas jets lit against the dismal morning cast a stark white glow over the faces of the few men gathered there.

Clara pressed Harriet’s hand. ‘Look, someone else coming in.’

‘That makes eleven.’ Nothing was going to lift her despondency. ‘Most of them have only come in out of the rain. More than likely it’s kept away anyone who would have come to buy.’

Clara leaned nearer. She wrinkled her small nose encouragingly. ‘It’ll pick up in a minute.’

Harriet wasn’t so sure. The screen between the printing area and the counter had been removed to accommodate the crowd she had so confidently expected. She eyed those who had wandered in to look at the items for auction with only moderate interest. As soon as the rain ceased, they would wander out again, she felt sure of it.

She found herself looking at the items for sale through their eyes, imagining how unimpressive they must seem. The largest item was the dilapidated platen press Will had used for years. Even the new one he had bought only five months ago wasn’t drawing the interest she had thought it would. She watched reams of paper being inspected, type moulds, printing blocks, composing frames, inking rollers, guttering – all those things she couldn’t have put a name to until the auctioneer, Mr Jones, had told her – being fingered; took dismal note of the speculative downturned lips.

‘We’ll soon shift this lot,’ Mr Jones had said, full of cheerful confidence, but she had lost faith in anything he said. Even the latest arrival, a tall, thin young man in a damp ulster, remained hovering by the door as if ready to slip out again. She would be lucky to make anything from this auction – might as well have kept the business.

Will had left about three hundred pounds in cash. Clara and Annie’s eyes had gleamed, but she was going to have to live on that, and the rate money was going out … The christening had set her back a tidy penny. The funeral had cost even more: an oak coffin – five pounds; hearse, black horses, black plumes, black harness – eight pounds all of fifteen shillings; pallbearers’ fees – fifteen shillings; not to mention the carriages for the mourners, and the undertaker to settle up. In all, she’d spent over twenty pounds to bury a man who had used her so badly that she had grown to hate him.

The meagre attendance this morning after the numbers who had seen him off seemed like a retribution, God’s punishment for her part in sending Will to his grave. Harriet gave a visible shiver, then smiled hastily as Clara cast her an enquiring glance.

‘The auctioneer’s looking impatient,’ Clara whispered.

‘It’s all a bit of a farce anyway,’ Harriet whispered back.

Everything had been a farce. The christening, thanking God for her deliverance more than for the baby’s; her smile so false that her face ached. Holding the baby as a fond mother until, professing weakness, she had given it to her mother to hold. Clara, Annie and Annie’s husband as godparents cooing at it all through the ceremony. Aunt Sarah remarking, ‘She’s the image of Will. She’ll be a beauty.’ Her father’s two sisters, bosoms shuddering over the tragedy of it all as they planted moist kisses on her frigid cheeks. Her father himself being bluff and hearty.

She had been glad when, christening over, she’d dropped the baby back into its crib. Sarah Mary Porter – to her the baby was still an it. The passing of time had dulled her initial loathing, leaving her now with no feeling at all. She wouldn’t neglect the child, but there was no motherly love for it in her, and that was how it was.

She didn’t relish living above the business on her own with it, but what else was there to do? Braced to decline another invitation to live with her parents, she still felt deeply hurt that they’d not pressed again.

In defiance she had even considered keeping the business going, but as a woman she was handicapped. Those unaware of her circumstance would ask for the proprietor, and then be disconcerted to find that they were already talking to the proprietor, this woman with the small, wan face, dressed in her mourning crepe. An older woman with arms like hams and coarse features beneath a man’s cloth cap would have fared well, but not her. And so she had finally agreed to the auction, and to dispensing with Bert Higgins’s services, since the shop would probably be used for something other than printing.

‘What’s wanted is a grocer’s,’ said Mrs Hardy. ‘Ain’t none till you get nearly to Cambridge Road. Tobacconists, drapers and things, but no grocers.’ She was hoping that she would not have to traipse so far to put in her weekly order for groceries.

Mrs Hardy slipped in now with a cup of tea for Harriet and Clara. ‘Need something to cheer you up, sad day like this,’ she whispered to Harriet and went quickly back to the kitchen, where she was cooking a small meal for the poor unfortunate to eat later.

‘Don’t worry, Harriet.’ Clara’s blue-grey eyes peered thoughtfully over the rim of her teacup at the poor attendance. ‘Once things get going …’

Harriet gave her a small tremulous smile. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

Clara was small and pretty, plumper than Harriet and their sister Annie. She blamed this fact on her age – twenty-six – and on having had two children, for all Annie also had two children. Clara took after their father, but without his height; she had been plump even as a child. Had she been taller, she would have been a fine figure of a woman.

‘That young man over by the door.’ She pointed with her cup. ‘At least he looks interested.’

Harriet followed her direction, and studied the young man more carefully. Tallish and quite thin, he had a refined, rather gentle face, angular enough to prevent him being what one might call handsome. He had removed his bowler to reveal wavy hair, sandy-coloured under the gas light, and his luxurious moustache was also fair. He had also divested himself of his damp ulster, but his high-buttoned jacket in a buff check gave him an appearance of overall warmth on this miserable day. He did indeed seem interested, except that anyone serious would be inspecting the items for sale instead of staring over towards where she sat. It was very rude of him, Harriet thought, looking quickly away. The fact that she was in mourning and the wording of the auction announcement must surely have told him of her situation.

Two more people had arrived, The rain had finally ceased and the sky had brightened a little, so their arrival was heartening. That no one was leaving was even more heartening.

The auctioneer consulted his pocket watch, and tilted a significant eye towards Harriet. She took a deep breath, then inclined her head. He acknowledged her gesture with a sharp rap of the gavel on the table behind which he stood.

‘Gent’men, your ’tention please.’

After a short preamble he began: ‘Set of oak stools – excellent condition. Shall we start at four shillings?’

Start! It was no start at all. ‘Come, now, gent’men, suitable for office or domestic use. A present for the wife? What am I bid?’

‘Free bob!’ came a reluctant response from the body of the crowd.

‘Three shillings. Do I hear four?’

‘Four.’ There were no more takers. The gavel came down smartly. Harriet glanced towards the thin young man. He had not bid at all.

Two more men came in, a purposeful look to them as though they had been hurrying. Delayed by the rain perhaps. Harriet’s eyes turned again to the man near the door. She started as his glance flicked towards her as if by some unspoken signal, then brought her gaze sharply back to Mr Jones and tried to concentrate on the proceedings. It was going more briskly now, but nothing was going for what she had hoped. She said as much to Clara.

‘There’s your printing presses yet,’ Clara hissed. Harriet looked sideways at her. Had there been a faint sting in the remark?

‘Money always goes to money.’ Annie wanted so much to buy that beige blouse she’d seen in Regent Street but Robert had said it was too expensive. ‘Not content with the three hundred pounds Will left, she’s selling his business too. She must be looking at – at least five hundred. My Robert earns forty-six bob a week and has to work hard for that in his job at the bank. And we’ve two kids.’

Lucky Robert, Clara recalled thinking sourly. An office clerk, her Fred got several shillings less. Admittedly it kept them and their own two comfortably in their nice house in Ruth Road by the park, around the corner from Annie. But three hundred pounds, in one lump, made even her mouth water. She remembered thinking that what she couldn’t do with three hundred pounds wasn’t worth talking about.

The same thought had occurred to Annie, to judge by the way she was speaking. ‘Providential accident, Will’s – for Harriet.’

Clara thought it best at the time not to query that rather unkind remark. After all, to lose your husband and have a baby all at the same time was a terrible blow for any woman to bear. But some of Annie’s poison had rubbed off and she couldn’t help the envious tinge to what she had intended to be a consoling remark about the printing presses.

‘And now, gent’men,’ announced the auctioneer. ‘A platen printing press. Top of the range – “Arab” Crown Folio – bought brand-new by the late Mr Porter just weeks before his unfortunate demise. Who’ll start the bidding at fifty pounds?’

‘Forty!’ This from one of the two newest arrivals.

Mr Jones looked affronted. ‘Come now, a quality machine, brand-new in perfect working order. Let’s be charitable to the widow!’

‘Fifty-five!’ Harriet’s eyes turned in the direction of the staccato offer. It came from the young man by the door. Her heart flowed out towards him on wings of gratitude.

There was a small hiatus as those around drank in the bid. Then, unwilling to be outdone, the first man called out again.

‘Fifty-six.’

‘Sixty!’ The young man had become very alert and upright.

‘Sixty … two!’ There was uncertainty in the tone.

‘Eighty!’

Harriet was staggered. A low hiss of astonishment swept through the room.

Mr Jones’s voice rang out, pitched high with exaltation at such an exorbitant – one might say silly – bid. ‘Eighty pounds I’m bid.’

The bidder obviously had no idea what he was about. There were no more bids. Mr Jones didn’t expect any, but he was well pleased, given that he had previously calculated that the commission he’d get out of the auction would hardly justify the work involved.