A Place Called Home Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Dilly Court

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Born out of wedlock when her mother was only fourteen, Lucy Pocket has spent all her life in the care of her disreputable but charming grandmother, Eva. They dodge from one poor lodging house to another, always in debt and resorting to theft in order to exist.

  Until her wealthy paternal grandfather buys her from Eva, determined to bring Lucy up to be a lady. When her grandfather dies, his despicable nephew cheats Lucy out of her inheritance, except for a run-down lodging house in Whitechapel, where she is forced to look after his three illegitimate children.

  Jilted by her would-be fiancé, Lucy is determined to make a life for herself and the children, and to search for her long lost grandmother, creating the family she has always longed for.

  About the Author

  Dilly Court grew up in north-east London and began her career in television, writing scripts for commercials. She is married with two grown-up children and four grandchildren, and now lives in Dorset on the beautiful Jurassic Coast with her husband. She is the bestselling author of twenty novels.

  Also by Dilly Court

  Mermaids Singing

  Born into poverty and living under the roof of her violent and abusive brother-in-law, young Kitty Cox dreams of working in a women’s dress shop in the West End.

  The Dollmaker’s Daughters

  For Ruby and Rosetta Capretti, life in the slums of the East End holds little promise. Despite their humble background, Rosetta is determined to work under the bright lights of the music hall and Ruby longs to train as a nurse.

  Tilly True

  Dismissed from her position as housemaid under a cloud of misunderstanding, Tilly True is forced to return home.

  The Best of Sisters

  Twelve-year-old Eliza Bragg has known little in life but the cold, comfortless banks of the Thames, her only comfort the love and protection of her older brother, Bart.

  The Cockney Sparrow

  Gifted with a beautiful soprano voice, young Clemency Skinner is forced to work as a pickpocket in order to support her crippled brother, Jack.

  A Mother’s Courage

  When Eloise Cribb receives the news that her husband’s ship has been lost at sea she wonders how she and her children are ever going to manage.

  The Constant Heart

  Despite living by the side of the Thames, eighteen-year-old Rosina May has wanted for little in life. Until her father’s feud with a fellow bargeman threatens to destroy everything.

  A Mother’s Promise

  When Hetty Huggins made a promise to her dying mother that she would look after her younger sister and brothers, little did she know how difficult this would be.

  The Cockney Angel

  Eighteen-year-old Irene Angel lives with her parents in a tiny room above the shop where her mother ekes out a living selling pickles and sauces, whilst her father gambles away what little money they do manage to earn.

  A Mother’s Wish

  Since the untimely death of her husband, young mother Effie Grey has been forced to live on a narrowboat owned by her tyrannical father-in-law Jacob.

  The Ragged Heiress

  On a bitter winter’s day, an unnamed girl lies dangerously ill in hospital. When two coarse, rough-speaking individuals come to claim her, she can remember nothing.

  A Mother’s Secret

  When seventeen-year-old Belinda Phillips discovers that she is pregnant, she has no option other than to accept an arranged marriage, and give up her child forever.

  Cinderella Sister

  With their father dead and their mother a stranger to them, Lily Larkin must stay at home and keep house whilst her brothers and sisters go out to work.

  A Mother’s Trust

  When her feckless mother falls dangerously ill, Phoebe Giamatti is forced to turn to the man she holds responsible for all her family’s troubles.

  The Lady’s Maid

  Despite the differences in their circumstances, Kate and Josie have been friends since childhood. But their past binds them together in ways they must never know.

  The Best of Daughters

  Daisy Lennox is drawn to the suffragette movement, but when her father faces ruin they are forced to move to the country and Daisy’s first duty is to her family.

  The Workhouse Girl

  Young Sarah Scrase’s life changes forever when she and her widowed mother are forced to enter the notorious St Giles and St George’s Workhouse.

  A Loving Family

  Eleven-year-old Stella Barry is forced into service when her family find themselves living hand-to-mouth.

  The Beggar Maid

  Must Charity Crosse give up her dream of running a bookshop and be forced to return to begging on the streets?

  A Place Called Home

  Dilly Court

  For my youngest grandson, Peter, who loves dinosaurs, and for the newest member of the family in New Zealand, Ashton Charles

  Chapter One

  Aldgate, London, 1861

  THE STRANGE GENTLEMAN was there again, sitting in a brougham drawn by a sleek black gelding. The coachman sat as still as a dummy in a shop window, with his caped greatcoat pulled up to his chin and a striped woollen muffler covering the lower part of his face. He stared straight ahead, neither looking to left nor right.

  Lucy Pocket shot a sideways glance at the man in the carriage, and was met with an unblinking stare. He had been in the same spot yesterday, and the day before. His eyes were a piercing blue, set wide apart beneath satanic-looking black brows, and he was clean-shaven, but his hair was long, reaching his shoulders in curls that gleamed like silver. She looked away quickly. There was a coat of arms in the lozenge on the carriage door, but heraldry was as unfamiliar to her as the languages spoken by foreign sailors from the ships that arrived daily at St Katharine docks. The man was obviously a toff, but the business which brought him to such a rough area as Nightingale Lane was anyone’s guess. The romantic name of the road belied the fact that it was, and always had been, an area where the police worked in pairs, and ordinary people walked in fear.

  Lucy quickened her pace, concealing the bundle she carried beneath her ragged shawl as she headed towards Cat’s Hole buildings, where she and her grandmother had been living for the past six months. They never stayed anywhere for long: they had to keep moving, but they had so far managed to steer clear of the law and the gangs who demanded protection money.

  She sidled along the high brick wall which separated St Katharine docks from the London dock, glancing over her shoulder to make sure she was not being followed, but the carriage had gone, vanishing into thin air, or so it seemed. She tightened her grip on the bundle she concealed beneath her shawl and hurried on until she reached Burr Street and Cat’s Hole,
an aptly named building pinched between a tobacco warehouse and the King George pub. She was jostled by a large woman wearing a cloth cap, with a clay pipe firmly gripped between her teeth. ‘Look where you’re going, you stupid little cow.’ The woman, who reeked of jigger gin, thrust open the pub door and a gust of warm air laden with tobacco smoke and the smell of unwashed bodies, stale beer and pickled onions slapped Lucy in the face. The noxious odours in the street were little better; the stench of the mud on the riverbank and night soil waiting for collection almost completely overpowered the rich aroma of molasses, tobacco and roasting coffee beans exuded in belches of steam from the manufactories and warehouses. Lucy sidestepped a soot-encrusted chimney sweep whose head was bent beneath the weight of his brush-filled sack as he cannoned along the road. She let herself into the building and closed the door.

  The passageway was narrow, damp and dark. A shaft of light from a window at the top of the stairs helped her find her way to the first floor, and the back room where she laid her head at night. Ten feet square and bare of anything other than an iron bedstead, a deal table and two wooden chairs, it could not even with a stretch of imagination be called a home. Lucy tossed her bundle onto the table and looked round, playing the game: in her mind’s eye she saw a comfortable living room furnished with chintz-covered armchairs, an inviting sofa and a rosewood table, on which stood a silver vase filled with red carnations. The clove scent of them filled her nostrils, momentarily blotting out the stink of the outside privy, which was used by all the occupants of Cat’s Hole. There were pictures on the walls in her dream home. Sometimes she allowed herself the luxury of examining them individually, and they changed from day to day. On rare occasions, when she was dipping pockets in Trafalgar Square, she allowed herself time to visit the National Gallery and wander through its many halls, gazing at the great masters’ works. She crossed the floor, her imaginary new boots barely sinking into the thick pile of the Chinese carpet, and her silk petticoats swishing beneath her merino gown. She drew back the wine-red velvet curtains, but the material seemed to dissolve at the touch of her fingers and the dream faded into reality; she was left holding a scrap of moth-eaten cotton. She looked down at her shabby boots, which were a size too small. The uppers had come away from the soles exposing her bare toes, and the heels were worn down to almost nothing. She lifted her skirt to reveal a red flannel petticoat that hung limp and mud-stained, ending well above her ankles, and she sighed.

  ‘What’s up, Lucy?’

  Eva Pocket breezed into the room carrying a wicker basket which she placed on the table. She eyed her granddaughter with her head on one side. ‘You was playing the game again, wasn’t you?’

  Lucy nodded, and her bottom lip trembled. ‘Sorry, Granny. I know it’s silly, but I can’t help it.’

  ‘Come here, my duck.’ Eva held her arms outstretched and Lucy walked into her warm embrace. Cuddled up against Granny’s generous bosom she felt like a child again, although at the age of ten, very nearly eleven, she considered herself to be a young woman. She had worked the streets since she was six and could sell matches or bootlaces with the best of them. She had toiled in a laundry and she had scrubbed floors, washed dishes and done all manner of jobs. She had even set herself up as a shoeshine, working outside Bishopsgate station, but she had been seen off by a group of boys who were plying the same trade. She was a grown-up now and able to take care of herself, but Granny’s hugs were always welcome.

  Eva released her, giving her a searching look. Nothing missed Granny’s sharp eyes. ‘Come on, love. Out with it.’

  Lucy took off her shawl and laid it over the back of a chair. ‘He was there again, Granny. That strange man was watching me, I’m sure of it.’

  Eva discarded her faded blue bonnet and tossed her head so that her mass of curls floated about her pointed face like a cloud of spun gold. At forty-two she was still a handsome woman; not exactly beautiful, but her large, almond-shaped eyes brimmed with intelligence and their unusual shade of blue-green seemed to change with her mood. People said that Lucy looked just like her grandmother, but she could not see it herself. Eva turned away, unbuttoning her mantle. ‘I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, poppet. Maybe he’s looking for someone, but it’s not likely to be you or me. What would a gent want with a pair of guttersnipes like us?’ Her merry laugh made the room seem bright and sunny and she spun round to tweak Lucy’s curls, so like her own.

  ‘Maybe he’s looking for Ma,’ Lucy murmured.

  ‘Well he won’t find that one here, now will he? Christelle is goodness knows where, singing her heart out and hoping to become the next star of the Paris Opera.’

  ‘Is she very beautiful, Granny? I can’t remember what she looks like.’

  ‘You were only two when she took off with her fancy man, darling. She is a beauty, there’s no two ways about it, and she has a lovely voice, but she has no sense when it comes to blokes. She never did, or you wouldn’t have come into the world when she was only fourteen.’

  ‘I won’t let that happen to me,’ Lucy said firmly. ‘I’m going to make something of myself.’

  ‘Of course you will, love.’ Eva smiled and sat down at the table. ‘I walked miles today and my dogs are barking. Anyway, that’s my problem. How did you do?’

  Lucy unwrapped her bundle. ‘A few silk hankies and a wallet, but there’s no money in it, Granny – just a few letters and some visiting cards.’

  Eva examined it carefully. ‘Peccary leather. This must have been expensive. Where did you get it?’

  ‘A gent came out of a shop in Burlington Arcade and it fell out of his pocket.’

  ‘Fell out?’ Eva raised a delicate winged eyebrow.

  ‘It did, honest. I wouldn’t have the nerve to take it. Dipping for silk hankies is one thing, but lifting wallets is beyond me.’

  ‘You could have given it back to him,’ Eva said, frowning. ‘He might have offered you a reward.’

  ‘And he might have accused me of taking money from it, even though it was empty.’

  Eva stared at the hankies with a practised eye. ‘There’s a couple of bob to be had for those, although old Pinch is getting meaner by the day, and more particular in what he’s prepared to take.’ She opened the wallet and took out a deckle-edged visiting card. ‘I don’t believe it. This belongs to Linus Daubenay, Esquire.’

  ‘Do you know him, Granny?’

  ‘He used to be one of the mashers who hung around the stage door when your ma was in the chorus. She was only thirteen, but she looked older, especially with all that greasepaint on her face.’

  ‘Was he my father?’ Lucy clasped her hand to her chest in an attempt to still her racing heart.

  ‘My Christelle wouldn’t have anything to do with a man like that. She was flighty but she wasn’t daft.’

  ‘One day I’ll find my dad, and then I’ll know who I really am.’

  ‘Sweetheart, you know who you are.’ Eva reached out to clasp Lucy’s hand. ‘You’re the best girl in the world.’

  ‘But you won’t talk about him. You must have known him, Granny.’

  Eva frowned. ‘He was a toff, that’s all I’ll say. He walked out one day, leaving my girl all alone in Peckham Rye, and you only a few weeks old.’

  ‘Why did he go away? What happened to him?’

  ‘He was killed in a duel, that’s all I know. But he broke my girl’s heart and set her on the path to ruin. I just wish I could have given you a better start in life.’

  ‘You’ve given me everything, and I love you.’ Lucy slipped her arm around her grandmother’s shoulders.

  Eva patted her hand. ‘And I love you, sweetheart. But let’s be practical: we need money and I had a bad day. I knocked on so many doors looking for any sort of work that my knuckles are raw.’ She scanned Lucy’s face, shaking her head. ‘It’s time we thought of a better way to earn our bread, and one that’s on the right side of the law for a change.’

  ‘You’re tired and hungry, Granny.’ Lucy bundled
up the hankies. ‘I’ll take these to old Pinch, and I won’t allow him to fob me off with a few pence.’

  Eva turned her attention to the wallet, taking out folded slips of paper and opening them. Her expression brightened. ‘You said there wasn’t any money, but these are like cash in the bank.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What are they?’

  ‘These are IOUs made out to Daubenay, and he’s owed close to three hundred pounds.’ She held up the slips of paper with a triumphant smile. ‘Returning these to their rightful owner should entitle you to a generous reward.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘I do indeed.’

  ‘I’ll go now, and I won’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘It’ll be dark in an hour and I don’t want you wandering the streets on your own. Take the wipes to old Pinch and get what you can and then we can eat. Tomorrow morning we’ll go to Half Moon Street together.’

  Next morning, Eva donned her widow’s weeds complete with a heavily veiled bonnet. The fact that she was not a widow and had never been married did not deter her from wearing the outfit in order to gain sympathy from prospective employers, or from the unsuspecting public when circumstances forced her to beg for a few pennies in order to eat. Lucy had nothing to wear other than the frock she had on and it was quite unsuitable for the changeable April weather. The shawl she wrapped around her shoulders was lacy with moth holes, but her grandmother convinced her that this was all to the good.