The Dollmaker's Daughters Read online

  About the Book

  For Ruby and Rosetta Capretti life in the slums of the East End holds little promise. Although very similar in looks they dream of very different futures. Coquettish, flamboyant Rosetta is desperate to leave the claustrophobic confines of the sewing sweatshop to follow in her wayward aunt’s footsteps and work under the bright lights of the music hall. Ruby, quieter and more modest, has always longed to train as a nurse, a pipe-dream for a girl from her humble background.

  And then, by the side of their father’s grave, they meet handsome Jonas Crowe, but little do they know how much one man will affect both their lives forever …

  About the Author

  Dilly Court grew up in North East London and began her career in commercial 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.

  Also by Dilly Court

  Mermaids Singing

  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.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781446472637

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Arrow Books in 2006

  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

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  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

  20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney,

  New South Wales 2061, Australia

  Random House New Zealand Limited

  18 Poland Road, Glenfield,

  Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Random House (Pty) Limited

  Isle of Houghton, Corner of Boundary Road & Carse O’Gowrie,

  Houghton, 2198, South Africa

  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 978 0 09 949098 2 (from Jan 2007)

  ISBN 0 09 9490978 6

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Dilly Court

  Title Page

  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

  Dedicated to my husband,

  Dr John Curthoys, BDS.

  Chapter One

  Whitechapel, London, 1898

  The wax effigy of the Christ Child flew past Ruby, narrowly missing her head, hitting the brick wall of the railway arch and landing on the concrete floor of the workshop with a squishing thud. Rescuing it from the dust, Ruby cradled the tiny figure in her arms as if it were a flesh and blood baby. Choking back tears, she wiped away the dirt and grit. Just moments ago the angelic face had been a work of art and devotion lovingly created by her father, Aldo Capretti, the best dollmaker in the East End, if not the whole of London. At least that was Ruby’s opinion, and she guessed that there must be hundreds of little rich girls, proud owners of a Capretti doll, who would agree with her. Poppa didn’t usually make religious icons, but this order had been an exception, a favour for Father Brennan, the fierce Catholic priest who had frightened the life out of her as a child. Even though she was almost twenty, he still had the power to put the fear of God into her. Ruby shuddered at the thought of Father Brennan’s reaction when he was told that the crib at St Augustine’s Catholic Church would be empty at Christmas, just days away.

  Aldo, who was normally so kind and gentle, let out an angry roar followed by a stream of invective: a strange mixture of Italian and English swear words that were even more shocking to Ruby than the distorted wax face of the baby Jesus. Dancing up and down on the spot, Aldo shook his fist at her, his face purple with rage, knotted veins standing out in his throat like coiled ropes. ‘You bleedin’ stupid, clumsy little bitch.’

  ‘Poppa, no. It weren’t my fault.’ Ruby clutched baby Jesus to her bosom. She had spent so many painstaking hours pricking each individual hair into the tiny scalp that to see such devastation was heartbreaking. What was even worse, the hair was real; she had plucked each raven-black, shimmering strand from her own head.

  ‘Don’t talk back to me. You got no respect for your poppa, that’s your trouble.’

  A shadow fell across the entrance to the arches. ‘Hey, what’s all the shouting about, old man? I bet they can hear you clear down to Wapping.’

  Ruby spun round, bristling with indignation at the intrusion. ‘Mind your own business, Billy Noakes.’

  ‘Get out, you no good chancer!’ Aldo made a move towards Billy, fisting his hands.

  ‘Calm down, guv,’ Billy said, grinning. ‘If you don’t want me to take them dollies to the wholesalers, it’s no skin off my nose.’

  ‘No, wait,’ Ruby called out as he turned to go. ‘Poppa didn’t mean it. He ain’t hisself today.’ She laid baby Jesus gently on the railway sleeper that served as a workbench and, scurrying to the dark recess at the back of the arch, Ruby hefted a tea chest packed with finished dolls, complete with frilled dresses made by her mother and tiny straw hats fashioned by her grandmother. She staggered beneath the weight and Billy leapt forward, taking it from her hands.

  ‘Steady on, girl. You should let the bad-tempered old bugger over there do the heavy work.’

  Aldo lunged at him but Billy held him off with the tea chest. ‘Just joking, Poppa. Can’t you Eyeties take a joke?’

  Aldo opened his mouth as if to say something, staggered backwards and would have crumpled to the ground if Ruby had not rushed forward to support him. She turned on Billy in a fury. ‘Ain’t you got no more sense than to tease a sick man?’

  His cocky grin replaced by a frown, Billy nodded. ‘You’re right. He don’t look too clever at that. Let me get this chest on me cart a
nd I’ll give you a hand to get him home.’

  ‘Ta, but you done enough harm upsetting him like that. I can manage.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Billy said, with a casual shrug of his shoulders.

  Struggling beneath her father’s weight, Ruby regretted being so hasty as she watched Billy carrying the tea chest out to his cart, where a sorry-looking, sway-backed nag waited, placidly munching the contents of its nosebag despite the sleety rain falling from a pewter sky. Ruby hooked Aldo’s arm around her shoulders in an attempt to get him onto his stool, but he seemed to have lost control of his legs and they both skittered crabwise across the concrete floor. Swallowing her pride, she called out to Billy and he came striding back into the workshop.

  ‘Best leave the old feller to me, Ruby.’ Taking Aldo by the arm, Billy hefted him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. ‘I’ll drop you both back home. I got to go past Tobacco Court; it’s on me way.’

  Ruby hesitated, covering her head with her shawl and shivering as the icy spikes of sleet pierced the thin cloth. She didn’t want to take any favours from Billy Noakes, who had a bad reputation with women and whose business dealings were on the grey side of shady, but on the other hand, there was no way she could get Poppa home on her own. She watched silently as Billy set her father down on the driver’s seat, covering him with a tattered piece of sacking that smelt strongly of the stables.

  ‘You coming or staying?’ Billy leapt up beside Aldo and picked up the reins. ‘I ain’t got all day.’

  A bitter east wind, straight off the Essex marshes, caught Ruby like an icy slap in the face, making up her mind for her. ‘Just a sec,’ she said, slamming the wooden gate and turning the key in the lock. Normally she wouldn’t have been seen dead riding on Billy’s cart, and Mum would have forty fits if she found out, but today was the exception and she clambered up beside her father just as Billy urged the horse into a shambling walk.

  Cable Street was packed with the everyday chaotic mix of horse-drawn drays, carts and wagons loaded with cargo for the docks at Wapping and Shadwell. The air was punctuated with puffs of steam from the engines that rumbled along the railway tracks into Fenchurch Street station. Clouds of sweat from the flesh of overworked horses mingled with smoke from clay pipes clenched between the drivers’ teeth in rictus grins. The smell of hot cinders, horse dung and chemicals from the manufactories added to the harsh stench of raw sewage floating in the coffee-coloured waters of the Thames. Huddled in her shawl, Ruby’s teeth chattered so that she couldn’t speak even if she had had anything to say to Billy. She clutched Aldo’s hand as he slumped against her, his breathing ragged and his face beaded with sweat even though his fingers felt cold as a dead chicken’s claw.

  As the cart entered Spivey Street, the sleet turned into hailstones, frosting the rotting vegetable matter and excrement that littered the cobblestones, creating a fleeting illusion of beauty until it melted into a stinking morass. Barefoot and blue with cold, street urchins huddled in doorways begging, or lingered in the shadows ready to dip the pocket of an unwary passer-by. Billy urged his old nag to go a bit faster holding his whip poised, ready for trouble, as they passed the dark slits between the buildings, little slices of hell, where prostitutes, pimps and hustlers hung out in a permanent twilight underworld. As they neared Tobacco Court, Ruby saw Billy’s grip on the whip handle relax and she heaved a sigh of relief. She had been born and bred here and was streetwise, but only a fool would let their guard down in the slum area of Spivey Street. Despite the soot-blackened brickwork, the peeling paint and a general air of dilapidation, Tobacco Court was a respectable cul-de-sac lined with two-up, two-down working men’s cottages. The residents were mostly artisans and manual workers, who just managed to keep their families above the breadline unless overtaken by the disaster of unemployment or chronic sickness. Ruby, who knew and was known by every family living in the Court, was thankful that the bitter weather had kept the neighbours indoors. The street was empty of the usual cluster of women standing in doorways passing the time of day, and the rough and tumble of the Court kids who were too young to work or attend the school in Kinder Street. Ruby was thankful that no one would see her or Billy as they half lifted, half dragged Poppa from the cart outside number sixteen.

  ‘Ta,’ she said, with her hand on the latch. ‘I can manage now.’

  Billy pushed the door open with the toe of his boot. ‘Don’t be daft.’ Ignoring Ruby’s protests, he carried Aldo into the living room and set him down on a bentwood chair. Granny Mole, who had been dozing by the fireside, opened her eyes and Sarah Capretti leapt to her feet, pale with alarm.

  ‘Aldo!’ Sarah threw her arms around him, giving him a shake as his head lolled against her shoulder. ‘Aldo, can you hear me?’

  ‘Poppa had one of his funny turns,’ Ruby said hurriedly, knowing that Mum had a very poor opinion of Billy. ‘And Billy give us a lift home on his cart.’

  Sarah turned her head to glare at Billy. ‘A gentleman takes his cap off in the presence of ladies and, anyway, you’re not welcome here, Billy Noakes.’

  ‘Ta, Billy,’ Ruby said, embarrassed by her mother’s rudeness. ‘You was good to help out.’

  ‘I only done what anyone else would have done,’ Billy said, tugging his cap off his head. ‘He don’t look too clever to me, though.’

  ‘He looks half dead to me,’ Granny Mole said, huffing on her specs and polishing them on a corner of her skirt. ‘But he’s been acting odd for weeks. Gone a bit barmy he has. That’s what comes of marrying an Eyetie. I always told you it would end in grief, Sal.’

  ‘Shut up, Mum,’ Sarah said, chafing Aldo’s hand. ‘Aldo, love, it’s me, Sarah.’

  Aldo’s eyelids fluttered and opened. His mouth worked but no sound came from his pale lips.

  ‘You’ve had one of your turns, ducks,’ Sarah said gently. ‘You sit there quiet-like and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.’

  Billy backed towards the front door. ‘I’d best be going then.’

  Sarah snapped to attention. ‘Don’t think I ain’t grateful but I’d be obliged if you didn’t come here again. We got our reputation to think of.’

  ‘Mum!’ Ruby felt the blood rush to her cheeks; everyone knew that Billy was an undesirable who ducked and dived and only kept one step ahead of the coppers, but he had done them a good turn. ‘That ain’t fair.’

  ‘Don’t you cheek me, my girl,’ Sarah said, bristling.

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs Capretti, I’m going.’ Billy put his cap back on his head and was about to open the door when a girl, almost identical in appearance to Ruby, rushed into the room bringing with her a gust of cold, smoke-laden air.

  ‘Well now,’ Billy said, eyeing her appreciatively. ‘If it ain’t the other half of the pair.’

  ‘Shut the door, Rosetta.’ Sarah picked up the brown teapot from the trivet by the fire, pointing the spout at Billy. ‘He’s just going.’

  ‘Hello, Billy.’ Rosetta shot him a sidelong glance beneath long, black lashes, her full red lips curved in a provocative smile. ‘And goodbye. Pity you can’t stay.’

  Knowing that Rosetta had a soft spot for Billy and that Mum didn’t approve one bit, Ruby caught her twin by the arm and dragged her into the room. ‘G’bye, Billy. You was a great help.’

  ‘Glad to have been of service, ladies!’ Angling his head towards Rosetta, Billy flashed her a wink and a smile. ‘See you later, Miss Rosetta.’

  ‘What did he say?’ demanded Granny. ‘I hates people what mumble.’

  Sarah glared at Rosetta over Aldo’s head as she held a cup of tea to his lips. ‘He’d better not have said nothing. I don’t want either of you two mixing with the likes of Noakes. He’s bad news and we’re respectable folk in Tobacco Court.’

  ‘Not like them in Spivey Street,’ Rosetta said, with a suggestive wiggle of her hips.

  ‘Don’t be crude, Rose. Your father is a craftsman, a master dollmaker. We’re not like them in Spivey Street. We may not be rich but we got st
andards and don’t you girls forget it.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing!’ Rosetta threw off her wet shawl and tossed her bonnet onto the table. ‘Any tea left in the pot, Mum? I’m bloody freezing.’

  Aldo raised his head, scowling. ‘Wash your mouth out. I’ll not have no child of mine using foul language.’

  Rosetta’s bottom lip trembled. ‘Sorry, Poppa. I love you, Poppa.’

  Aldo smiled weakly. ‘You’re a minx, my little Rosa.’

  ‘You’re better, Poppa.’ Ruby flung herself down on her knees by his chair. ‘You had us worried sick.’

  Aldo patted her hand. ‘It’s nothing. Just a bit of colic.’ He pushed his tea away. ‘Can’t drink no more, Momma. Tastes a bit funny.’

  Sarah bridled. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my tea. It’s you, old man. If you ate proper then you wouldn’t go falling down faint and scaring us all to death.’

  Aldo’s expression darkened and he struggled to his feet. ‘I don’t have to listen to you nagging me. I’m fine now. I go back to the arches.’

  Sarah pushed him back onto the chair, holding him down with her considerable weight. ‘You’re going nowhere, Aldo Capretti, except up to bed.’

  Aldo cast an agonised glance at Ruby. ‘Father Brennan!’

  ‘He’s out of his head with fever,’ said Granny, wagging her finger. ‘Thinks he needs a priest to give him the last rites.’

  Ruby knew instantly what was worrying her father. Poor little baby Jesus with the squashed face was not going to go down well with Father Brennan. She chewed the inside of her lip, wondering if she could fix the damage on her own. Although it wasn’t her choice, she had become quite competent at some of the aspects of doll-making. Poppa fashioned the bodies from linen stuffed with sawdust, the heads and limbs from papier mâché, but he kept to himself the secrets of mixing the wax with red and white lead in order to achieve perfect skin pigmentation. Ruby had learned a little about how to mould the wax but she was by no means an expert. Mainly she did the finishing off, tinting the lips and cheeks, as well as pricking in the eyelashes and the hair.