Far From Home: The sisters of Street Child. Berlie Doherty

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      It seemed as if hours were passing while Emily and Lizzie stood in the dark pantry, listening to the to and fro of bustle in the kitchen: food being scraped off plates, pans being washed, the fire being raked. All this time they daren’t move, except to lower themselves away from the dangling ducks and squat down on the cold stone floor. Eventually the door opened a crack, the glow of a candle warmed the darkness, and Rosie’s face appeared.

      “Me and Judd have finished down here,” she whispered. “I’ll put some cold meat out for you, and you must eat it before the mice do. There’s a water closet in the back yard for your necessaries, and a couple of rugs by the fire, so you can curl up there. Out you come.”

      She helped them to stand and they stumbled out, stiff and cold, into the cosy firelight of the kitchen. Rosie rubbed their numb hands to warm them up. Her face was creased with concern. “His lordship’s eaten his supper, and he’s dozing in front of the fire like he always does when the ladies are away. He’ll totter off to bed any time now, so you’re quite safe till morning.”

      “Is his lordship really a lord?” Lizzie asked.

      “Heavens, no!” Rosie laughed. “We’d be in a much bigger house if he was, and there’d be servants all over the place. No, he’s a barrister or something like, and he can be as grumpy as I don’t know what if we get things wrong by mistake.” She led the girls over to the table and pushed the plates of meat and potatoes in front of them.

      “He makes us feel like criminals sometimes because his coffee’s not hot enough or there’s too much salt in his potatoes. He hates it when the mistresses are away and there’s just him and the two Dearies. He can snap at you like a bear with a sore head sometimes.” She sat on the bench next to Lizzie and untied her house boots, letting her toes wriggle deliciously in the air. “Ooh, that’s better. Judd’s right, he’d put us out on the street, all of us, if he thought we was doing something behind his back, feeding waifs and strays.”

      “We’re not waifs and strays!” Lizzie protested.

      “We are now,” Emily reminded her. “Where’s home, now Mr Spink has kicked us out?”

      Rosie undid the ties of her cap and loosened her long, dark hair. She patted Emily’s hand and stood up. “But he ate every bit of that bread you made, Em’ly, and then asked for more! That’s the first time since Annie left off working here. So we’ve high hopes for you. But then you might do me out of a job, and where would I be? You teach me, just like your ma taught you. It’ll take a bit of doing, so I’ll need you here a while!” She bent down to pick up her boots, and quickly kissed the tops of their heads. “Good night, girls. God bless.”

      “I’m too tired to eat anything,” Lizzie said when Rosie had gone, locking the door behind her. “I just want to go to sleep, Emily.”

      “You heard what Rosie said. Eat, before the mice get it. And suppose we get chucked out in the middle of the night? We’ll wish we had food in our bellies then, won’t we?”

      Lizzie swallowed her cold meat dutifully, and Emily did the same. It was good meat, she could tell that, tender and tasty, but every mouthful seemed to clog up her throat and choke her. She cleared the plates away and then curled up next to Lizzie in front of the fire.

      “You won’t stay here without me, Emily?” Lizzie murmured.

      “Course I won’t. I’ll never leave you, Lizzie.” She stared into the pale flicker of the dying flames. “I wonder where Ma and Jim are now?” But Lizzie was already asleep. Images of Ma’s face swooned in and out of the darkness. It was as if, for a moment, she was still there with them, until the room grew into its night-time dark around her. “Please, God, let them both be safe,” Emily whispered. “Please let someone as kind as Rosie take care of them.”

      A grey and drizzly dawn was seeping down through the basement window when Rosie shook the girls awake.

      “I shall have to move you so’s I can get this fire lit,” she said. “Let’s hope that other nice loaf of yours was cooked proper before it went out, cos I forgot all about it in the excitement. That’s my trouble.”

      “It’s all right, Rosie. I saw to it.” Emily yawned and opened the oven door to lift out the new loaf, freshly baked and barely cool. It smelled wonderful.

      “Just how he likes it!” Rosie marvelled. “He’ll be a happy man this morning. He won’t be complaining that he’s breaking a tooth with every bite of my bread.”

      Lizzie sat up and huddled the rug round her shoulders. She stared blankly round the strange kitchen, dazed by memories of yesterday: her mother, bent with pain and weakness; her brother, white-faced with shock and sorrow as he was bundled outside; the slam of the door; the sound of her own fists pummelling. Don’t leave us behind! Don’t go without us! Dimly she heard Rosie chattering away as if today was a day like any other.

      “There’s a pump in the back yard to wash the sleep out of your faces,” she was saying. “And while you’re out there, you can pump up some water for me to boil for his breakfast tea, Em’ly. Lizzie, here’s a bowl of scraps; you can chuck these at the hens in the yard. I’ve got to fetch coal and get this fire going again. Then we can start the day proper.”

      It was cold and damp in the yard, with a few sparks of snow in the air. Emily pumped up water to splash on her face, then nodded to Lizzie. Lizzie dipped her face down and then lifted up her head from the water; gasping with cold, her hair damp and clinging to her cheeks.

      “Now you’ll feel a bit brighter,” Emily said. “And you like hens, so you’ve got a nice job to do next. And I reckon Jim would have liked my job, sprat though he is! He’d pretend he’s got muscles!” She paused, shocked with memory. I don’t know if we’ll ever see him again, she thought.

      As if she had heard her, Lizzie burst out, “Why did Ma take him away with her, and leave us behind?”

      “How could she leave him here? How could she expect Rosie to help all three of us?” Emily snapped. There came the tears again, sharp as needles behind her eyes. She smiled weakly at her sister. “Do your job, just do it. Let Rosie be pleased with us.”

      The kitchen was warm again when they went back in. Rosie was trudging up from the cellar with a bucket of coal in each hand.

      “I’m going up to light the house fires,” she told them. “Luckily, there’s only four to do today, as the mistresses are away.”

      “What shall we do?” Emily asked.

      “You could lay his tray for breakfast,” Rosie said. “He has tea, a boiled egg, bread and butter, and marmalade. I’ve put some aside for us, but we have it when he’s done. When you hear Judd coming down you’ll have to hide for ten minutes, while she has her breakfast. We have to pretend you’re not here, then she can say she knows nothing about you. Silly woman. I think she’ll relax a bit once his lordship leaves for work.”

      Lizzie found the things that were needed for the tray. Emily put the kettle on the hob to boil, and sliced and buttered the bread neatly. When they heard footsteps on the stairs they scrambled into the pantry and waited, breathless, listening to Judd scraping porridge from the pan and slicing herself some bread. They heard Rosie return and Judd giving her orders for the day, and then their door was opened and they stumbled back into the light of the kitchen.

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