The Campbell Road Girls. Kay Brellend

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СКАЧАТЬ o’clock on Friday, Bloomsbury.’ Lucy brushed crumbs from her lips with her fingertips. ‘A Mrs Venner is the housekeeper and a Mrs Boyd is me senior. I’ll be seeing them both in Mrs Venner’s office. It’s a posh establishment, by the sound of things; belongs to a Lord and Lady Mortimer in Bedford Square.’ She raised her eyebrows, displaying pride at the prospect of working for the aristocracy. ‘Don’t suppose I’ll get to see much of them. The housekeeper and the lady’s maid’ll be me guvnors.’

      Tilly nodded sagely. ‘You turn up all nice and tidy with manners to match then, my gel, and the job’ll be yours.’

      Lucy grinned and delved into a pocket. She pulled out an envelope. ‘Should be mine, no trouble; if not, I’ll have Mrs Lovat’s hide.’ She playfully waved the envelope under her mother’s nose. ‘The housekeeper at me last job’s done me a lovely reference, don’t you know ...’

      Winnie Finch thrust her son’s coat at him. ‘Get that on and get yourself off or you’ll be late for school, Tom.’

      The boy grimaced as he gingerly stuck an arm in a sleeve. ‘Can I stay home today, Mum?’

      ‘No, you can’t. I’ve got me job to do, you know that.’ Winifred avoided Tom’s pleading eyes.

      ‘Can I stop home with Jenny?’

      ‘No, you can’t; she’s off out to find herself work.’ Winnie knew her son was still suffering from getting a belt off his father earlier in the week. Not that Eddie had intended to discipline Tom when he pounded up the stairs that night, face contorted in rage. Tom was his favourite and he rarely laid a finger on him.

      Jennifer, the brazen little cow, had been his target because she’d defied him and poked her nose in while Eddie had been doing a deal with Bill Black. Winnie knew her husband hated any of them to see or hear what was going on when his associates called round. If Eddie could, he’d arrange it so Bill always turned up at an appointed time, rather than whenever he felt like dropping by with a box of stuff or, as he had this time, a pocketful of gemstone rings.

      Winnie was aware too that the fact one of his daughters was turning into a little tart before she’d been out of school six months was less worrying to Eddie than knowing Jennifer had seen the jewellery. Jenny’s jaw had sagged open in the way Winnie imagined her own had done when she’d spotted those sparklers on the table. What she desperately wanted to know – and had tried hard to discover – was whether the lovely stuff was still in the house. Since that evening, Winnie had been through the kitchen with a fine-tooth comb and turned up nothing at all. She’d even accidentally dislodged a cupboard from the wall in her search and had made a very inexpert job of screwing it back in place. If the gems were in the house, and Winnie could find them, or Eddie’s stash of banknotes, she’d take herself and Tom off as fast as she could. The twins were old enough now to sort themselves out, in Winnie’s opinion.

      Katherine was a good, hardworking girl – she’d been doing her little job serving in the kiosk at the local flicks the evening Bill Black turned up – and Winnie would feel a twinge at leaving her behind. But Katherine had a good brain on her and Winnie was confident she would eventually get a nice full-time position in a factory. Katherine talked constantly of training to be a nurse and Winnie reckoned she had the right attitude to see it through. As for Jenny, Winnie feared if she didn’t change her ways, she’d be hanging around on street corners touting for business from the likes of Bill Black. But, brazen as she’d been that night, Jenny hadn’t deserved the beating Eddie had given her. Her daughter’s legs were still black and blue, despite the fact that the blankets she’d dived under had given her some protection from her father’s fury. If Katherine had been home she’d also have got a taste of Eddie’s brutality because she always stood up to him if he set about her sister.

      Jennifer’s howls had brought her brother running in from his bedroom and, though just six years old, Tom had jumped on his father’s back to try to protect her, and got a bash for his trouble.

      Winnie helped Tom on with his coat, uncomfortably aware her impatience to get him out of the house was making him wince. It had been her job to stop Eddie’s rampage that night, not her son’s. Jennifer had deserved chastisement. Besides, whenever her husband was in one of those moods, Winnie always paid later ... in bed, and on that particular evening she hadn’t seen why she should have to put up with the bastard setting about her twice.

      ‘There’s an advertisement for an assistant in the Dobson’s shop window,’ Winnie barked at Jennifer, who was descending the stairs, hunched into her dressing gown for warmth against the draught coming through the open front door.

      ‘I’m going down the labour exchange with me friend later this morning ...’

      ‘Yer friend can go on her own. You go along to the sweet shop straight away and apply for the job.’

      ‘I don’t want to work in a poxy sweet shop. I’m gonna get a job in Oxford Street, in Selfridges ... or somewhere like that.’

      ‘You won’t be getting no jobs in the West End, miss,’ Winnie hissed at Jennifer. ‘You can give over with your fancy ideas and act a bit more like yer sister. Katherine’s had a job since the day after she finished her schooling. Time you got off yer backside. Now get yourself dressed and get along to Dobson’s and don’t come back without a job or it’ll be the worse for you.’

       Chapter Four

      ‘Like it here, do you?’

      ‘Like having me here, do you?’ Lucy returned, equally sarcastic. She knew who’d spoken without taking a look so she finished leisurely positioning Lady Mortimer’s combs on the dressing table before turning to confront the woman behind her.

      Lucy had just about had her fill of Audrey Stubbs spying on her. Since she’d started work at Mortimer House at the beginning of the week, whether she’d been brushing clothes or refilling scent bottles and cosmetic pots, the housemaid had seemed to materialise at the corner of her eye. Audrey could have been hovering on the threshold of her ladyship’s bedroom for some time before Lucy realised she was again being stalked.

      ‘Don’t make a blind bit of difference to me if you’re here or there,’ Audrey answered airily, lazily polishing the brass door knob with her pinafore.

      ‘Could’ve sworn it did,’ Lucy retorted. ‘’Cos ever since I started on Monday you’ve been on me back about something.’ She glanced past Audrey to check nobody was nearby to overhear. ‘What’s got your goat?’ Lucy demanded sharply. ‘I taken a job you was after?’ She’d stabbed a guess at the reason for Audrey’s animosity and seemed to have turned up trumps. The maid’s lips tightened and the malice in her eyes was concealed behind her eyelashes.

      ‘Let’s face it, if you’d been up to the work you’d’ve got it ’cos you was here first,’ Lucy pointed out with vague amusement. ‘Must be a reason why you was overlooked.’ She went back to the dressing table and picked up a delicate comb. She leisurely turned it this way and that. ‘P’raps Mrs Boyd ain’t any keener on you than I am.’

      ‘Think yer clever, don’t you? Coming here ’n’ swanking around, ’cos you managed to land a plum job. I’ve seen you eyeing up the men, don’t think I ain’t.’ Audrey had approached stealthily to jab twice at Lucy’s arm to gain her attention.

      ‘What?’ Lucy glanced СКАЧАТЬ