Tilly True Read online

  About the Book

  Dismissed from her position as housemaid under a cloud of misunderstanding, Tilly True is forced to return home. But Tilly is determined to make something of her life and, rather than admit the truth to her poverty-stricken family, she sets out once more in search of employment.

  Her journey takes her to the London law courts, a grim parsonage in one of the most notorious parts of the East End and a house of ill-repute. But when she falls for the dangerous charms of Barnaby Palgrave, Tilly soon finds that her troubles have only just begun . . .

  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 and a large, yellow Labrador called Archie. She is the author of twelve novels. She also writes under the name of Lily Baxter.

  Also by Dilly Court

  Mermaids Singing

  The Dollmaker’s Daughters

  The Best of Sisters

  The Cockney Sparrow

  A Mother’s Courage

  The Constant Heart

  A Mother’s Promise

  The Cockney Angel

  A Mother’s Wish

  The Ragged Heiress

  A Mother’s Secret

  TILLY TRUE

  Dilly Court

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781446472699

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published in the United Kingdom by Arrow Books in 2007

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Dilly Court 2006

  Dilly Court has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2006 by Century

  Arrow Books

  The Random House Group Limited

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA

  Random House Australia (Pty) Limited

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  New South Wales 2061, Australia

  Random House New Zealand Limited

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  Random House (Pty) Limited

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  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780099499633

  For my family:

  Kati, Millie and Talia.

  Richard, Alison and Douglas.

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Dilly Court

  Title

  Copyright

  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 One

  A pattern of lozenges and stars hurtled towards Tilly’s eyes as the red, blue and white tiled floor of the Blesseds’ entrance hall came up to hit her. With a sickening thud that knocked the wind from her lungs, she fell to the ground beneath a hail of blows. Shielding her face against the savage beating from the riding crop, Tilly rolled across the floor and scrambled to her feet.

  ‘You stole my garnet brooch, you wicked little trollop. Admit it.’ Martha Blessed’s pinpoint eyes disappeared into the folds of her florid cheeks, and her prune-wrinkled lips formed a tight circle. ‘Sly little bitch.’ Swishing the crop, she advanced on Tilly, her tightly corseted flesh vibrating with each thundering step.

  Rivulets of blood trickling down her face brought Tilly back to her senses. Springing forward, she grabbed the offending weapon, wrenching it from her employer’s hand. ‘I never stole from you.’ Breaking the crop across her knee, she flung it to the ground. ‘And I ain’t standing for being whipped for something what I never done.’

  ‘Morris, Morris, come here quick!’ Martha’s refined accent slipped into broad cockney, and the lustres on the wall sconces shivered and tinkled as her voice rose to a glass-shattering pitch. ‘Morris, run and fetch a constable! I’ll have you put away, Tilly True. A few years in Brixton will sort you out, lady.’

  Morris poked her head round the door that led down to the basement kitchen, her needle-sharp features pinched and sour. ‘What’s up, missis?’

  Spinning round, Martha scowled at her cook-general. ‘Never mind what’s up, and I’ve told you a million times it’s madam not missis. We’re in Islington now, Morris, not bleeding Plaistow.’

  ‘What’s she done this time then, madam?’ Not budging an inch, Morris stood, arms akimbo, staring curiously at Tilly.

  ‘I ain’t done nothing, you sour-faced old sow.’ Tilly backed towards the front door, dragging back the heavy chenille portiere. ‘And I ain’t staying here another minute.’

  ‘She took my garnet brooch what Mr Blessed bought me to celebrate the opening of the emporium. He paid all of ten and six for it down Spitalfields Market. And she’s broke my riding crop.’ Martha clutched her bosom that defied gravity, jutting over the top of her stays in an impressive ledge. ‘I’m having palpitations. Fetch the sal volatile.’

  ‘Well, which is it?’ demanded Morris, still not budging. ‘Call the constable or smelling salts? And anyway, that crop weren’t no use. You ain’t got a horse nor even a pony, nor never had one, nor likely to if you asks me.’

  Wrenching the door open, Tilly shivered as a sleet-spiked gust of wind slapped her in the face. She wasn’t going to spend another second in this hateful place but she was going to have the last word. ‘You’re a jumped-up old haybag. It weren’t so long ago that your old man was peddling taters from his barrow.’

  ‘Don’t let her get away, Morris.’ Martha staggered crabwise across the hall. ‘My poor heart, it’s racing nineteen to the dozen. Fetch a doctor.’

  Morris threw up her hands. ‘Make your mind up, missis. First it was a copper, then the smelling salts and now it’s the doctor. What’s it to be?’

  Throwing herself down on a hall chair that creaked and groaned beneath her weight, Martha pointed a shaking finger at Tilly. ‘You wait until I tell Mr Blessed what you’ve done.’

  ‘You want to watch your
old man – he’s got more hands than an octopus.’ Poised for flight, Tilly tossed her head. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t touch your rotten garnets. They’re probably just glass – not worth more than tuppence.’

  With a roar that made the glass shades on the gaslights tinkle, Martha launched her body off the chair, lunging at the open door, but Tilly was too quick; she jumped the remaining three stone steps and hit the pavement running.

  Barbary Terrace marched along the north bank of the Regent’s Canal flanked by a regiment of red-brick, four-storey houses. The upwardly mobile Blesseds had moved here when Mr Blessed swapped his fruit and vegetable barrow in Plaistow for a second-hand furniture emporium in Wharf Road, Islington. Tilly had been pleased enough to get a job as housemaid, until she realised that Martha Blessed was a snobbish, self-indulgent tyrant and her husband, outwardly meek and mild-mannered, had an eye for a pretty young face as well as wandering hands. To her cost, Tilly had soon discovered that Stanley Blessed’s long subjugated carnal desires made it impossible for him to pass her in the narrow corridors of the house without fondling or groping some part of her anatomy.

  Reaching the bridge that crossed the canal where St Peter’s Street ended and Wharf Road began, Tilly stopped to catch her breath; it was only then that she felt the cold striking through her flesh and gnawing at the marrow of her bones. The sleety rain had soaked her cotton blouse within seconds and her long skirts clung damply to her bare legs. In her heightened state of emotion and anger, Tilly had not felt the pain from the welts and bruises on her back until this moment. Her teeth were chattering and she was shaking all over from delayed reaction and shock. Leaning over the parapet, she took deep breaths, but the wintry January air was contaminated with chemicals spewing from the manufactories, coal tar, smoke, and flour dust from the mills alongside the canal. Barely moving, the tobacco-brown water was streaked blue with indigo dye and crusted with wood chips from timber piled high on the wharves, waiting to be transported by horse and cart to the mills and cabinetmakers’ workshops.

  The polyglot crowds scurrying past her did not seem to notice her, even though her blouse was bloodstained and torn and she was coatless on a bitter winter day. Tilly’s ears were filled with the din of horses’ hooves, the rumble of cartwheels, the clanking of great cranes loading and unloading barges, and the babble of voices speaking in many different languages. Gathering her wits, she knew she must make a move or else end up frozen to the stonework: yet another cadaver to be flung into a pauper’s grave in the nearest necropolis. Sudden death on the mean streets of London’s East End was an everyday occurrence, whether from murder, misadventure or sheer poverty. Feral children scavenged alongside feral cats and dogs, vying for scraps with tramps and drunks. Shop doorways offered a minimum amount of shelter to the crawlers: destitute people, mostly women, who were old, sick or merely unwanted, and were so weak that they were unable to walk, subsisting on handouts and dying unmourned.

  Tilly had no illusions about life: survival meant using your brains or your fists. She was in trouble and would be in even worse straits if old Ma Blessed had called the constable and the coppers were out looking for a thieving servant girl. The irony was that she had not stolen the wretched brooch; it wasn’t worth stealing anyway. Tilly was pretty certain that the bloodcoloured gems were red glass and that old man Blessed had once again cheated on his wife.

  The sleet had hardened into hailstones and Tilly knew that she must keep moving, or freeze to death. There was only one place that she could go now and that was home to Ma in Red Dragon Passage, Whitechapel. She might not be best pleased to hear that Tilly had lost her job, but Ma would be on her side and she would make it right with Pops when he staggered in late at night, exhausted from working long hours as a lighterman on the river. Home, home, the mantra repeated again and again in her brain; she must get home, even though it was a fair step to Whitechapel. Tilly broke into a jogging run, her numbed feet skidding on the tiny pearls of sleet that turned the pavements into a slippery skating rink, but as the crowds grew denser she was forced to slow down. Picking her way through piles of rotting vegetable matter tossed from costermongers’ barrows, stepping over the messes left by mange-ridden mongrel curs and weaving in and out of people intent on going about their own business, Tilly kept going until she reached City Road. By this time, her clothes were steaming and the feeling had come back to her feet. The only trouble was that her chilblains were burning like fire and the weals on her back had begun to itch and sting.

  City Road was a maelstrom of horse-drawn vehicles, handcarts and barrows; a pedestrian could have crossed the street, leaping from cart to cab to omnibus without their feet ever touching the ground. A short way along, Tilly found her way barred by a crowd that had gathered around two carts that had collided and, with their wheels locked, were blocking the carriageway.

  The driver of the cart heading in the direction of Pentonville was standing in the footwell hurling abuse at the other carter. ‘Are you blind as well as bleeding stupid, Bert Tuffin? That old nag of yours is only fit for the glue factory. Stupid old bugger, call yourself a carter?’

  ‘Shut your trap or you’ll be next.’ Tuffin leapt off the driver’s seat, grabbing the horse’s bridle. Cursing and swearing, he raised the whip, bringing it down on the terrified animal’s back. ‘I’ll teach you manners, you brute.’ But his vicious action only made things worse and the horse reared in the shafts, rolling its eyes in terror and lashing out with its hooves. This seemed to infuriate Tuffin even more and he brought the whip down hard across the animal’s flank. Enjoying themselves as if they were at a dogfight or bear-baiting, the crowd started whistling, catcalling and shouting useless advice.

  Infuriated by the cruelty to the poor horse and with the pain of a similar beating still uppermost in her mind, Tilly elbowed her way to the front and, leaping forward, made a grab for the whip. Tuffin rounded on her, his nostrils flaring and his mouth opened in an angry roar. A film of red mist came down over Tilly’s eyes and she saw Martha Blessed about to bring the crop down on her own thin shoulders.

  ‘You’re a bloody bully,’ Tilly shouted, tugging at the whip. ‘Can’t you see you’re making it worse?’

  ‘Get out of me way, you stupid little tart.’

  For a moment they tussled for possession of the whip, but Tilly was much the smaller and lighter and she was losing. Using her last ounce of strength to tug on the whip and kicking Tuffin hard on the shins, she gave him a shove, catching him off balance, sending him sprawling onto a pile of horse dung that the road sweeper had just deposited in the gutter. The crowd hooted and howled with laughter, clapping and roaring their approval. Taking the reins, Tilly stroked the horse’s soft muzzle, whispering comforting words in its ear, but Tuffin clambered to his feet and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck.

  She could see his fist raised above her head, but she held on to the terrified horse. ‘Hit me then, you bastard,’ she cried, closing her eyes and waiting for the blow to fall, ‘but don’t you dare to lay a finger on this poor old nag.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, my man.’

  Opening her eyes Tilly saw a tall gentleman, dressed all in grey, wearing a clerical collar. The crowd parted in respectful silence as he made his way to the edge of the kerb.

  ‘She’s the one out of order, guv,’ Tuffin protested, dragging off his cloth cap. Turning to the onlookers, he held out his hands. ‘You all saw her go for me, didn’t you?’

  ‘For Gawd’s sake cut the cackle and move your bleeding cart,’ shouted the other driver. ‘I ain’t got all day, mate.’

  ‘You should do as he says and think yourself lucky that I don’t call a constable. I could have you up before the magistrate for ill-treating this poor animal and attacking this young woman, who was only doing her Christian duty.’ Turning his back on Bert Tuffin, who seemed to have lost the power of speech although his mouth was working silently, the clergyman stared at Tilly, his pale, grey eyes filled with concern. ‘Are you all
right, my dear?’ He held out his hand, smiling. ‘Francis Palgrave. And you are?’

  ‘Tilly, your worship.’ Tilly bobbed a curtsey. ‘I’m nicely, thank you, sir.’

  ‘Here, guvner.’ Tuffin changed his tone to a wheedling whine. ‘I’m losing money all the while we’re stuck in this here street. What’s an honest working man to do, then?’

  ‘You ain’t the only one, mate.’ The driver of the other cart leapt off his seat and came towards Francis, cap in hand. ‘You can see the problem, your reverence.’

  ‘Hold your horse steady, my man,’ Francis said, taking the reins from Tilly. ‘Lead him slowly forward when I give you a sign.’ Speaking softly to the agitated animal, he began stroking its neck until it grew calmer. ‘Now.’

  Gradually, inch by inch, the two vehicles were eased apart with just the grazing of wheel hubs and a shower of wooden splinters. Once again, the crowd applauded.

  ‘Crikey,’ Tilly said, impressed. ‘That were a blooming miracle.’

  Glowering, Bert took the reins from Francis. ‘I’d have done it meself, given half a chance.’

  ‘Would you be the Albert Tuffin of Wapping, as indicated on the side of your cart?’ Francis took a leather-bound notebook from his pocket, extracting a pencil from its spine.

  ‘What if I am?’

  Francis wrote something in the book, closing it with a snap. ‘I suggest you treat this poor animal with a bit of human kindness and respect if you want it to serve you well, Tuffin. I have your name noted and I won’t hesitate to pass it on to the appropriate authorities if necessary. Do we have an understanding?’

  ‘I’m an honest man, guvner, plying an honest trade.’ Tuffin leaned towards Tilly, scowling. ‘Best keep out of me way. I don’t forget easily.’ Hawking and spitting in the gutter, he climbed back onto the driver’s seat and flicked the reins. The horse shambled forward and the crowd began to disperse.

  Tilly made a move to leave but Francis caught her by the hand. ‘You haven’t told me your full name, my dear.’