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

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СКАЧАТЬ and stepped down with a sigh of weary relief. The door swung shut behind her, knocking her so hard that she dropped the tray, sending it and everything on it clattering down the stone steps. Every piece of crockery was broken.

      

      Emily enjoyed her visit to the butcher’s with Rosie. The early drizzle had lifted; the day was blue and sharp. Already the street sellers were singing out their wares: “Fresh watercress!” “Nutmeg graters!” “Pies, all ’ot!” “Muffins and coffee!” Street boys held out their hands: “Spend a penny on a poor boy! No Ma, no Pa! No nuffin’!” Rosie hurried past them all, intent on reaching her favourite butcher’s shop before the best cuts of meat had gone. As they drew near the shops, the streets became muddier, churned up by the wheels of carriages and donkey carts. Little sweepers ran in front of the wealthier looking shoppers to clear a path for them through the muck. They didn’t bother with Rosie and Emily; they knew they wouldn’t be getting any coins from them. Now Emily could see that the gutters were running red with blood. A woman walked past them, bent almost double with a whole sheep slung across her shoulders, heading for the row of butchers’ shops. Carcasses of meat hung from the rafters of the shop awnings. The owners, all dressed in butcher’s blue, stood outside, shouting out to people to come and buy from “Me, the best butcher in the whole of London town!”

      Rosie led the way to the last shop in the row, where the walls were covered in shiny white and blue tiles. Inside, a whistling boy swept the floor clean of blood drips and slopped pieces of fat and bone. Hungry dogs scavenged under the trestles that had been pulled out in front of the shop, and were kicked away by the butcher’s hefty boot.

      The butcher knew Rosie well, and joked and bartered with her as she talked Emily through the best cuts to buy. He parcelled her purchases up with paper and put them into her basket. “It’s people like you who make me a poor man!” he grumbled, as she handed over the coins. “Don’t let anyone know I’m selling you meat at this price!”

      She turned away, pink-faced and smiling. “He knows I was in the trade myself once,” she said to Emily. “Selling whelks and stuff for my granddad. He was so pleased when he heard I’d got a job for his lordship that he gave me a bag of stewing meat for nothing! We’ll just get some nice fresh veg now, and we’ll have just about done. Back to our baking, Em’ly!”

      They hurried on to another stall and chose the vegetables to go with his lordship’s dinner. Emily looked longingly at a nearby pedlar’s tray of dangling coloured ribbons. I wish I could buy a lovely red one for Lizzie, she thought. One day, when I get some wages, I’ll buy her one. She lifted a strand between her fingers, loving its silkiness and its intense colour of summer poppies.

      “Don’t daydream, Em’ly,” Rosie said. “There’s never time for that. Judd will be waiting for me to hand back her purse so she can count out her change. I have to account for every farthing spent, so don’t go mooning over bits of ribbon.”

      “It wasn’t for me,” Emily said. “For Lizzie. Or Ma.” Her voice trembled. She ached when she thought about Ma, all her prettiness gone, thin as a helpless bird that had forgotten how to fly. Be safe, Ma!

      As soon as they arrived back at the Big House and hung up their cloaks behind the door, Judd flounced downstairs with the Lazy Cat to inspect the meat. She nodded to show she was satisfied, then tipped out the contents of the purse and counted the coins. “You got a bargain,” she muttered. “You shop better than you cook, I’ll say that for you. Now, before you start the meal, I want logs chopping and more coal fetching to the upstairs fires. The chimney’s drawing fast today. We don’t need a kitchen girl, Rosie Trilling, we need a fine strong boy. I keep telling Mr Whittle that, but he doesn’t want to be told how to spend his money.”

      Emily’s hopes fell. “I can chop wood,” she offered, but Judd just snorted. “You’re little more than a twig yourself. Rosie’s the strong one. She can chop, you can carry, and I want it done now. What happened to the other child?”

      And it was at that very moment that Lizzie had dropped the breakfast tray down the stairs. The clatter of china splintering from step to step made all three of them jump like rabbits. Judd pulled open the kitchen door to find a heap of broken china, gobs of butter and cutlery on the bottom step and a heap of crying child on the top one. The Lazy Cat stood behind her, smirking with delight.

      “Rosie Trilling, you will pay for the breakages out of your wages,” Judd said, very quietly. “And make no mistake about it, these Jarvis girls will have to go.”

      She lifted her black skirt clear of the mess of broken breakfast remains and swept on up the stairs, followed by her grinning niece. They stepped over Lizzie without even looking at her.

      “Come on down,” Emily called up to her sister. “I’ll sweep up the bits. Come on down, Lizzie.”

      Lizzie crept down the stairs, hiccupping. She wouldn’t look at Rosie. She wouldn’t look at Emily, who was still flushed and bright from her visit to the butcher’s. She had let them both down. She had let Ma down. She ran past them both and opened the kitchen door into the fluster of the hen yard. The back gate was open ready for a delivery of milk. She ran up the steps and into the road and, blind with tears, straight across the path of the milk cart. The horse reared up in fright, and the woman driving the cart was nearly tipped sideways onto the muddy street.

      “Stupid girl! Stupid child!” the woman shouted. “You nearly killed Lame Betsy! And my horse! You nearly lost me all my milk!”

      Lizzie ran on till she came to a row of black railings and clung to it, exhausted and frightened. Behind her, she heard a bird singing in a cage. She remembered now pausing in that very place with Emily and Ma and Jim on their way to the Big House. Was that only yesterday? Ma had told them she was taking them to the only friend she had in the world, to ask for help. She had asked them to be good and they had promised her they would. And what had Lizzie done? She had broken china that Rosie would have to pay for, and she had nearly killed the milk woman.

      She sank down and curled herself up with her arms round her knees, not knowing what on earth to do next. Maybe she should find her way to the workhouse, and ask to be taken in. Everybody said it was a terrible place, and that there was no hope left for anyone who went there. But what if Ma had been taken there with Jim? She might find them there, be able to stay with them. Surely that would make it bearable, if they were there. And if she wasn’t at the Big House being a nuisance, Judd might take pity on Emily and let her stay on and help Rosie, and everybody would be happy. How would she get there, and was there more than one? She had no idea. If she stayed here long enough, someone might scoop her up and take her to the workhouse anyway. Or if they didn’t, she could beg. She watched a filthy, ragged boy approach a woman, hold out his hand to her, then touch his mouth to show her he was starving. The woman walked past him as if she couldn’t see him.

      I still haven’t had my breakfast yet, Lizzie thought. But I’m not starving, not like him. Not yet. What must it be like to be like him, to have nobody to look after you, no mother or father, nobody? Nowhere to live? And the streets are full of starving children, that’s what people say. Like vermin, they are. Rats.

      She sank her head into her arms. She could hear the whinnying of passing horses, the clop and clap of their hooves. London was busy around her, everyone was going somewhere, but she had nowhere to go. Then she heard a woman’s voice, shouting, “Girl! Girl! You!” She looked up, and there was Lame Betsy the milk woman limping across the road, waving her arms to force the carriages СКАЧАТЬ