The Best of Sisters Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Dilly Court

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Copyright

  About the Book

  The Thames carried him away from her, but would it bring him home…?

  Twelve-year-old Eliza Bragg has known little in life but the cold, comfortless banks of the Thames. Living above her uncle’s chandlery she has grown accustomed to a life of penury and servitude, her only comfort the love and protection of her older brother, Bart.

  But one day Bart accidentally kills a man and is forced to flee to New Zealand. Alone, barefoot, beaten down and at the mercy of her cruel uncle, Eliza realises that her very survival is at stake…

  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 three grandchildren, and now lives in Dorset on the beautiful Jurassic Coast with her husband and a large, yellow Labrador called Archie. She is also the author of Mermaids Singing, The Dollmaker’s Daughters and Tilly True.

  Also by Dilly Court

  Mermaids Singing

  The Dollmaker’s Daughters

  Tilly True

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank David Clarke of the Lakes District Museum and Gallery, Queenstown, New Zealand for his invaluable help in my research concerning the larger than life character Captain William (Bully) Hayes, and the fascinating history of the Otago goldfields.

  I would also like to thank Matt Brown for giving me an insight into sail making and life aboard nineteenth-century sailing ships.

  Thanks too, to my friends Kate, Georgina, Ellie and everyone at Random House for their support and encouragement, and last, but certainly not least, my splendid agent, Teresa Chris.

  Chapter One

  Wapping, East London, summer 1862

  A shaft of moonlight struggling through the grimy panes of the skylight sketched the pattern of the window on the bare floorboards of the sailmaker’s loft. Huge rolls of canvas, wooden spars, spools of twine, sailmaker’s palms and needles were set out with workmanlike precision, in readiness for the next morning when the sailmaker and his apprentices would arrive for an early start. It was hardly a comfortable dwelling place, but orphaned, twelve-year-old Eliza Bragg had only vague memories of living in a proper house. She was used to the smell of hemp, tar and beeswax and the eerie shadows, like ghosts of long-dead mariners, that lurked in the corners of the sail loft above Uncle Enoch’s chandlery.

  Eliza had never known her mother, who had died giving birth to her, and, although she could remember her dad’s gruff voice, his infectious chuckle and the smell of the river mud that had clung to his clothes, mingling with the faint aroma of pipe tobacco, his craggy face was rapidly fading into a misty blur. He had been a waterman, working the dark and sometimes sinister waters of the Thames. In the end it was the river that had taken his life when, in thick fog, his boat had been rammed by a larger vessel. His body had never been found. Eliza, who had been just seven at the time, had comforted herself with the fancy that he slept beneath the glassy surface of the great river, rocking gently in a cradle of green waterweed, and one day might simply wake up and come home.

  Her elder brother, Bart, had followed the family tradition and was now in his last year as an apprentice waterman. She was waiting, a little impatiently as she was hungry, for his return from a hard day’s work on the river. Straining her eyes in the light of a guttering stub of a candle stuck in an empty beer bottle, Eliza sat on a stool at one of the trestles, reading a history book that she had won for being a diligent student at the church school for which Uncle Enoch had grudgingly paid a small annual fee. To her chagrin, he had tried his hardest to get her into one of the non-fee-paying ragged schools, but her entry had been refused on the grounds that Enoch Bragg was a comparatively well-off man. Her schooldays had ended when she was ten years old. Enoch did not approve of educated women and Eliza suspected that he did not like women at all. He had made it clear that, in his opinion, she had had enough book learning and she must now earn her living by working in the chandlery.

  At one end of the table, she had set out supper for herself and Bart: half a loaf of bread, a heel of cheddar cheese, from which she had scraped most of the green mould, and a pitcher of small beer. Outside the sail loft, the familiar sounds of the Thames were muted by the night, but Eliza knew that the river never slept. Working with the tides, there was the constant movement of sailing ships, barges, lighters and wherries, docking and unloading with the banging of hatch covers, shouts of the stevedores and clanking of anchor chains. Then the whole process would continue in reverse as the empty holds were loaded with cargo. There was the seemingly endless tramp of feet on gangplanks, the rumble of cartwheels over cobblestones, the creaking of cranes, and finally the setting of sails, with the flapping sound of canvas taking up the wind.

  By day there was hustle and bustle, noise and colour, but by night the soot-blackened buildings and the inky water took on a more sinister aspect. Eliza had read in her history book that the pre-Celtic name for the Thames was tamasa, meaning dark river, and she could see how the swirling water had earned its reputation. Slithering its way through London, the river was life and death to the folk who eked out a living on its banks. Sometimes the water was thick and oily-brown, the colour of stewed tea, and sometimes it was grey-green and scaly with flotsam like a half-submerged crocodile. At night, living up to its name, the dark river slunk through the city, black and sticky as tar; the last resort for the desperate and suicidal. In all its moods, the river was both awesome and dangerous. But then, Eliza reasoned, the whole of London was dangerous and the East End particularly so: Bart had forbidden her to go out alone at night and never, never to venture up Old Gravel Lane to the Ratcliff Highway, where every other building was a cheap lodging house for seamen, a drinking place or a brothel, and deep in the alleyways there were gaming hells and opium dens. By day there was drunkenness, violence, vice and robbery and, by night, even the police were afraid to venture into that particular area.

  Eliza cocked her head, listening to the throbbing of a steam engine and the hoot of its whistle as the ship prepared to sail. She could hear the rhythmic chant of the seamen as they hauled in the anchor, and the even louder voice of the mate bellowing orders to the crew. Glancing at the clock on the wall, Eliza chewed the tip of her finger, wondering where her brother had got to; he was late for his supper and that wasn’t like him. She closed her book and she blew out the candle to save it for when Bart came home, dirty, tired and hungry. It was stiflingly hot in the loft as it always was in summer, and correspondingly cold in the winter, but she had grown used to the extremes, having lived here since her father’s untimely death five years ago. Uncle Enoch had begrudgingly taken them in, or rather he had allowed them to live in his sail loft, given them just enough food to keep body and soul together, and had insisted that they attend the mission church of St Peter’s in Dock St
reet, at the end of Old Gravel Lane, three times on a Sunday. Bart had complied with this at first, but now at twenty he was a full-grown man, strong and muscular from years of rowing and working on the river, and his fiery temperament often clashed with that of their domineering uncle. Eliza admired and adored Bart, who was not only her elder brother but also her protector and her friend.

  Waiting anxiously, she went to the top of the ladder that led down into the chandlery where Uncle Enoch spent his days making a tidy profit, though what he did with it was a mystery. Eliza imagined that he had a brassbound chest hidden in the cellar of his house just a few streets away, where he lived alone; too miserable and mean to share his life with a housekeeper, let alone a wife.

  Straining her ears, she leaned through the opening and peered down the wooden stepladder. She shivered suddenly, in spite of the heat, and her heart began to thud; there was no reason to be frightened, but a dreadful feeling of apprehension enveloped her like a London particular. Sliding down the ladder with the nimbleness of long practice, she made her way between the shelves stacked with every conceivable item that a shipmaster might want or need. Alone in the darkness, she hesitated, pricking her ears and listening to the pounding of booted feet on the cobblestones. As they came nearer, Eliza knew by some sixth sense that Bart was in trouble and she ran to the street door. She had barely reached it when someone began hammering on it with their fists. She could hear Bart shouting urgently for her to let him in and she tugged at the iron bolts with both hands. Before she had got the door half open, Bart pushed in past her. ‘Lock it, for God’s sake. Bolt it, Liza, and don’t open it for no one.’

  Even as she shot the last bolt, Eliza could hear the sharp blasts of police whistles and men shouting. ‘Whatever is it, Bart? What’s happened?’

  Leaning against the wall, Bart bent double, fighting to catch his breath. ‘I killed a man, Liza. I killed him dead.’

  ‘No, no, you couldn’t have, not you.’ Eliza peered into his face. Even in the gloom, she could see that he was deathly pale and a pulse was throbbing at his temple. ‘Speak to me, tell me it ain’t true.’

  ‘Shhh!’ Bart clamped his hand over her mouth as the footsteps stopped outside.

  Someone tried the door. ‘It’s locked. He can’t have gone in there.’

  As the sound of trampling feet grew fainter, Bart released her with a long, shuddering sigh. ‘They’ve gone, but they’ll be back. I’ve got to get away, Liza. If they catch me I’ll hang and that’s for sure.’

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ Eliza cried, running after him as he made his way through the shop, his boots barely seeming to touch the rungs of the ladder as he climbed up to the sail loft.

  Hampered by her long skirts, Eliza got there to find Bart throwing his few possessions into a ditty bag. ‘Bart, for the love of God, tell me what’s going on.’

  He paused, staring at her, his face ghostlike in the moonlight. ‘I never meant to do it, Liza, but I lost me temper. The cove was drunk and he wouldn’t pay what he owed me. I threatened to toss him in the river if he wouldn’t cough up the money. He took a swing at me, caught me on the nose and I was mad with pain. I picked him up and chucked him over the quay wall.’

  ‘That’s not so bad, is it? I’d say he deserved a ducking for trying to cheat you.’

  Bart’s face contorted with anguish as he shook his head. ‘If only it were just that. He was stone dead when we pulled him out. He must have hit his head on something and his neck was broke.’

  ‘Oh, Bart!’ Eliza wrapped her arms around his waist in an attempt to comfort him. ‘You never meant to hurt him, I’m sure. The coppers will understand that it was an accident.’

  ‘I won’t stand a chance if they get me. There’s no justice for those what can’t afford a mouthpiece. If I go up before the beak, it’ll be the gallows for me.’

  ‘No, no!’ She hugged him with all her might. ‘Don’t say that.’

  Gently, Bart disentangled himself from her grasp. ‘Don’t be scared, Liza. I just need to get away from London for a while.’

  ‘But what will we do, where will we go?’ Eliza struggled against the tears that burned the back of her eyes. She must not cry; she was a big girl now and not a baby.

  Bart shook his head. ‘Not you, poppet. You’re only a kid, and a girl at that. I’ve got to make a run for it and I can’t take you with me.’

  ‘But you can’t leave me here on my own. You can’t.’

  ‘Listen to me, Liza. There’s a ship sailing for Australia on the tide and I aim to be on it.’

  ‘Then take me with you.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Bart’s voice cracked with suppressed emotion. ‘I’ll have to work me passage. Uncle Enoch will look after you, and I’ll send for you when I’ve made me fortune in the goldfields.’

  Her tears were flowing now, pouring down her cheeks in an unstoppable stream. Hiccuping and sobbing, Eliza clutched Bart’s hand to her wet cheek. ‘Please take me, I’ll work me passage too. I’m stronger than I look.’

  ‘You wouldn’t last the voyage, sweetheart. Now let me go, don’t make it harder for me than it is.’

  ‘You said you promised our mum on her deathbed that you’d look after me,’ Eliza cried, dashing the tears from her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘You can’t leave me. I won’t let you.’

  Before Bart could answer, there was a loud hammering on the door downstairs. ‘We know you’re in there, Bartholomew Bragg. Give yourself up or it’ll be the worse for you.’

  Fear for his safety surmounted Eliza’s dread of losing him. She pointed to the skylight. ‘Get up on the roof and you can shin down the drainpipe, just like we used to do when Uncle Enoch locked us in with no supper.’

  Bart stared at her for a moment and then he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close and rubbing his cheek against her hair. ‘Be brave, Liza. I swear I’ll send for you as soon as I can.’ With one last hug, he let her go, and hitching the ditty bag over his shoulder he leapt onto the table beneath the skylight. He pushed it open and climbed out. Eliza could just make out his silhouette crouched against the purple night sky. A cloud had passed across the moon giving him a fleeting chance of escape. With a wave of his hand, Bart disappeared into the darkness.

  Composing herself, she went back down the ladder and made her way slowly through the shop. ‘All right, no need to beat the door down. I’m coming.’

  The thudding on the door persisted, accompanied by threats bellowed through the keyhole. Slowly, to give Bart more time, Eliza pulled back the bolts, one by one.

  ‘Open up, I say.’

  She opened the door and was pushed back against the wall as two policemen barged in, their truncheons held at the ready. Outside, she could see a group of sailors, most of them the worse for drink, and she slammed the door.

  One constable raced up the ladder and the other came towards Eliza, his black brows drawn together in a menacing frown. ‘We know he come in here, so where is he?’

  ‘I dunno what you’re on about,’ Eliza said, shrugging. ‘There’s been no one through that door since the shop closed.’

  He caught hold of her ear, giving it a vicious tweak. ‘You’re lying, girl. He was seen heading this way.’

  Before she could answer, the other man slid down the ladder. ‘There’s supper set for two up there, Reg.’

  She could smell onions on the breath of her tormentor. His black walrus moustache and mutton chop whiskers quivered as he spoke. ‘Tell me the truth now.’

  ‘I am telling you the truth. Me brother is due home for his supper and that’s all I know.’

  ‘Leave her, Reg. Ten to one he’s given us the slip down one of the alleys. We’re wasting valuable time here.’

  He released her with an exclamation of annoyance and Eliza staggered against a stand of shelves. They left the shop, banging the door behind them and she shot the bolts across, leaning against the wall and stuffing her hand in her mouth so that they would not hear her anguished sobbing. Without Bart
her whole world felt as though it was crumbling into dust. He had been mother, father and brother to her since they were orphaned and now, suddenly he was gone; accused of a terrible crime and set on leaving the country for a far-off land. Somehow, Eliza managed to climb the ladder to the sail loft. She threw herself down on the straw palliasse that served as a bed and cried herself to sleep.

  Next morning, she found that the rats had polished off the bread and cheese and there was nothing left to eat, but she was not hungry. Downstairs she could hear Uncle Enoch hammering on the shop door and demanding to be let in. Climbing stiffly off the thin mattress, she made her way slowly down the ladder. She pulled back the bolts with a heavy heart, dreading Uncle Enoch’s reaction when he found out what had happened last night.

  ‘Lazy little good-for-nothing,’ Enoch said, pushing her out of the way. ‘I expect the shop to be opened and cleaned ready for business and I catch you sleeping. Just look at the state of you.’

  ‘Sorry, Uncle.’ Eliza bent her head, staring down at her bare feet.

  ‘And I’ve had the police round knocking on my door in the middle of the night. Where is he? Where’s that bastard brother of yours?’

  So he knew; her heart sank. ‘I – I don’t know.’

  Enoch glowered at her. His eyes narrowed into slits beneath beetling brows. ‘Don’t lie to me, girl. Unless you want your mouth washed out with soap. Where is he?’

  ‘Gone.’ Raising her chin defiantly, Eliza looked him in the eye. ‘He never done it. It were an accident and Bart’s gone off on a ship. They’ll never catch him.’

  He caught her a blow across her cheek that knocked her to the ground. ‘I’ve raised a nest of vipers. Is this all the thanks I get for my Christian charity? I never wanted to take you in, but I did it for the sake of my dead brother. Is this how you repay me?’

  Eliza bit her lip so that she would not cry. She scrambled to her feet, clutching her cheek. ‘It were an accident and I don’t know where he’s gone to.’