The Beggar Maid 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

  The wonderfully nostalgic, vivid and compelling new novel from the Sunday Times top five bestselling author of A Loving Family.

  From the age of eight, sixteen-year-old Charity Crosse has been living rough with her grandfather and begging on the streets.

  When he grandfather passes away, Charity is helped by a kindly doctor who introduces her to bookseller, Jethro Dawkins. He takes Charity in to help in his bookshop and keep house in their one room behind the shop.

  Charity sleeps under the counter and is not well treated, but Jethro instills in her the love of books that began when her grandmother taught her to read. And she starts to hope for a better future for herself.

  But Jethro dies unexpectedly, and Charity is faced with eviction when the rent is raised by the unscrupulous landlord. Must Charity give up her dream of running the bookshop herself, and worse, be forced to return to the streets ...?

  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 nineteen novels. She also writes under the name of Lily Baxter.

  Also by Dilly Court

  Mermaids Singing

  The Dollmaker’s Daughters

  Tilly True

  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

  Cinderella Sister

  A Mother’s Trust

  The Lady’s Maid

  The Best of Daughters

  The Workhouse Girl

  A Loving Family

  The Beggar Maid

  Dilly Court

  For Ruth May and Steve Pardoe BDS, two of my favourite people

  Chapter One

  Threadneedle Street, London 1887

  ‘CAN YOU SPARE a copper, mister?’ Charity held out her hand to the gentleman in the city suit who was hurrying towards the imposing colonnaded entrance of the Bank of England. He ducked his head down, eyeing her warily beneath the brim of his bowler hat as he quickened his pace and strode past her. ‘A halfpenny, then,’ she shouted after him. ‘Blooming old miser.’ She shivered as a bitter east wind whistled between the buildings, picking up bits of straw and scraps of paper and flinging them about like a naughty child having a tantrum.

  She cupped her mittened hands around her mouth and blew on them in an attempt to bring back the feeling. Her fingers and toes were numbed by cold, and hunger gnawed at her belly. She had eaten nothing since the previous evening, when supper had consisted of a crust of dry bread and a cup of ice-cold water from the communal pump. Duck’s Foot Lane, where she and her grandfather lived in a basement room in a dilapidated terraced house, was not the sort of area where anyone would want to venture in daylight, let alone after dark. The damp cellar with fungus growing from the walls and water seeping through the flagstone floor at high tide offered the most basic shelter to a constantly changing assortment of itinerant Irish, immigrant Jews and anyone who could afford to pay the landlord for a night’s lodging. It was the last stop before living rough underneath railway arches, or facing the final indignity of the workhouse.

  Charity had grown hardened to the privations she suffered daily, but her rebellious spirit refused to accept that this was the way it would always be. She supported her ageing, alcoholic grandfather as best she could, and had done so since the age of eight when begging on street corners evoked some sympathy in the hearts of passers-by. Now, at sixteen, she was only too well aware that men looked on her in a different way. The offers of money she received were rarely unconditional, and she had to choose the time and place where she importuned the better-off with great care. The bustling world of finance in the City was as safe as any area, and safer than most.

  She spotted an older man as he emerged from the Monument station with a leather document case under one arm and a tightly furled umbrella in his hand. His greying beard and air of respectability made him a likely target, and she sidled up to him with an appealing smile. ‘Good day to you, sir. Would you have a halfpenny to spare for a cup of tea? Please,’ she added hastily when he stopped and gave her an appraising look. ‘I ain’t used to begging, sir, but misfortune has come upon my family, and I’m an orphan with an ailing grandparent to support.’

  The gentleman frowned thoughtfully. ‘There are charities that will help such as you, young lady.’

  She could see her chance slipping by and she managed a weary smile. ‘That’s me name, sir. Charity is me name, but I seen little of it since me dad passed away.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘Died giving birth to me, sir. My grandpa is the only one left.’

  The gentleman put his hand in his pocket and took out a handful of change. He selected a silver sixpence and gave it to her. ‘I hope you’ve been telling me the truth, young lady. Don’t go spending it on a new bonnet or such fripperies as young women are so fond of.’

  She drew herself up to her full height. ‘You can’t eat fripperies, sir. It will feed Grandpa and me for three days, if I’m careful. God bless you, your lordship.’ She could hear the small change clinking in his pocket as he walked away, and for a brief moment she wished she had learned to dip like the street arabs who roamed the East End. She had been brought up to be honest and God-fearing, and only in the direst of circumstances had she overcome her scruples and stolen a loaf of bread or a meat pie. Before the lure of jigger gin had stolen his health and loosened his grip on reality, Grandpa had instilled morality into her young mind, and she had learned how to read, write and do basic arithmetic at the Ragged School. She tucked the coin into the top of her stays with a wry grin. Not that learning had been much help to her on the streets, but at least she could add up her takings for the day, and she knew when she was being cheated over the price of a fish supper or a dish of jellied eels.

  She looked round for another likely benefactor, but the clerks in their cheap suits with frayed cuffs and leather patches on their elbows were not worth bothering with. They worked long hours for low wages and their grey faces etched with worried frowns suggested married men with families to support, and neat little suburban houses to maintain. She suspected that the brown paper packages clutched in their hands held their lunch, which they would take to St Paul’s churchyard at midday and devour in seconds before returning to their dingy offices and dusty ledgers.

  The minutes were flying by and soon th
e streets would be all but deserted as the business of the day commenced. There would always be one or two latecomers scurrying to work, their features pinched with cold and the fear of instant dismissal, but they would as soon trample her underfoot as waste another second and were best avoided. She had learned early in her life that philanthropy was far from the minds of ordinary people whose day to day existence was hard enough, without worrying about the poor and needy.

  A hansom cab drew up at the kerb and a gentleman wearing an expensive cashmere coat with an astrakhan collar climbed down. He tossed a coin to the cabby and was about to walk off without demanding change when Charity barred his way. ‘Can you spare a copper, sir?’

  He came to a halt, giving her a speculative look, and for a moment she thought she had struck gold, but then she realised her mistake. He shook his head. ‘My dear girl, what you need is gainful employment. You should not be begging on the streets.’

  ‘I know that, sir,’ she said humbly. ‘But you see I have an aged grandpa to care for and . . .’

  He laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Even more reason for you to find honest work. How old are you?’

  ‘Just sixteen, sir.’

  ‘And what is your name?’

  ‘Are you a cop?’

  He smiled. ‘I am not a policeman, and I believe I have your best interests at heart.’

  ‘I’m not that sort of girl,’ Charity said, backing away.

  ‘I can see that,’ he said slowly. ‘And I wasn’t propositioning you. I merely asked your name, but you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

  There was something in his tone of voice and an earnest expression in his dark eyes that convinced her he was speaking the truth. ‘Me name’s Charity,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Charity Crosse. Now you know, so push off and leave me to earn a crust.’

  ‘Charity,’ he said slowly. ‘It seems apt.’

  ‘I only beg because we’ve fallen on hard times, and I can’t find work.’ She glanced down at her soiled and ragged skirts. The uppers of her shabby boots had parted from the soles, exposing her bare toes which were ingrained with dirt and blue with cold.

  ‘So you took to begging on the streets. Not perhaps the best way out of poverty.’

  ‘What would a gent like you know about how the rest of us lives?’ she said angrily. ‘Who’d take me on looking like this? I’ve tried knocking on doors, asking for work of any sort, but they was always slammed in me face. No one wants to employ a girl like me.’

  ‘You would make an interesting case history.’

  ‘I ain’t no one’s whatever you said. I’m off.’ She was about to walk away when he caught her by the sleeve.

  ‘Don’t be frightened, Charity. I mean you no harm.’

  ‘They always say that. I know your sort.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, you’ve misunderstood my motives. I am an academic and a lecturer at University College. You must have heard of it.’

  It was her turn to look baffled. ‘No, sir. Like I said, I’m off, so kindly let go of me sleeve or I’ll have to call a copper.’

  ‘I’m conducting a study on social anthropology. Your case interests me.’

  ‘I got no idea what you’re talking about,’ Charity said, wrenching free from his grasp. ‘And I ain’t a case. Now if your lordship will excuse me, I’m moving on.’

  ‘Where will you go now?’

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but I make me way towards Fleet Street, and if there’s no profit to be had there, I go to Covent Garden. Sometimes I can pick up a few flower heads and sell them as buttonholes, but you got to watch out for them flower girls. They’ll pull your hair out by the roots if they think you’re queering their pitch.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ he said, falling into step beside her. ‘Tell me more.’

  She stopped. ‘What’s it worth?’

  ‘How much do you earn an hour, Charity Crosse?’

  ‘You are a cop,’ she said, narrowing her eyes. ‘I knew it. You want to bang me up for soliciting.’

  ‘No, indeed I don’t. I told you, I’m a professor of anthropology, and I would genuinely like to have someone like you to tell me first hand about life in the gutter.’

  She recoiled angrily. ‘Hold on, guv. Who said I live in the gutter? Me and Grandpa live in a room. We pays our rent and that’s what I’m trying to earn, so sling your hook and let me get on with it.’

  ‘I’ll give you my visiting card and you will see that I’m telling the truth.’ He slipped his hand into his pocket and took out a small silver case. He paused, staring at her with twin furrows on his brow. ‘I don’t suppose you can read . . .’

  ‘I can read and write, guv. Just because I’m poor don’t mean I’m ignorant. I can add up and recite me times tables with the best of ’em.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He managed a faint smile. ‘I stand corrected, but that just shows how much I’m in need of your guidance. My card, Miss Crosse.’ He handed it to her with a curt bow.

  She tucked it into her stays next to the silver sixpence. ‘I’ll think about it. Now I’ll be obliged if you’ll let me go on me way.’

  ‘Sixpence an hour,’ he said hopefully. ‘If you will come to my house in Doughty Street, I’ll pay you that for each hour or part of an hour.’

  ‘And what do you expect from me?’

  ‘I just want you to talk, and I’ll make a note of what you say.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And no funny business?’

  ‘Certainly not. I told you, I’m an academic. I’m Professor Wilmot Barton.’

  Charity shrugged her thin shoulders and walked away, but the temptation to look over her shoulder to see if he was watching her was too great. She turned her head, and saw him striding off in the opposite direction with a feeling of pique. ‘So much for the professor,’ she muttered. ‘Didn’t trust him anyway.’ She set off in the direction of Cheapside and St Paul’s, where she often lingered on the steps, hoping that a pious worshipper might take pity on her. Flakes of snow had begun to flutter from a pewter sky, but by the time she reached the cathedral people were scurrying for shelter and she might as well have been invisible. She wrapped her shawl around her head and shoulders and continued on her way. Fleet Street was buzzing with activity as reporters hurried into the newspaper offices, clutching their notebooks in a race to be first with the latest story to hit the headlines. Covent Garden market was busy, although the first rush of the day was over, and the flower girls long gone. The few crushed blooms that lay wilting on the cobblestones glistened with lacy snowflakes, but their diamond brightness would soon fade, leaving them slimy and unrecognisable. There was no profit to be made here.

  A sudden wave of nausea washed over her and she felt faint, but she managed to stagger into the shelter of the colonnades. She leaned against one of the pillars, taking deep breaths until the world righted itself. It was only when the warm aroma of baked potatoes assaulted her nostrils that she realised she must eat or collapse with hunger. She peered through the lace curtain of falling snow and saw a man with a handcart who was selling baked potatoes served with a generous dollop of butter, and mugs of tea. She had intended to use the sixpence to pay the arrears in rent, but she knew that she would never make it back to Duck’s Foot Lane in her present state. She hooked the coin from its warm hiding place and made her way across the slippery cobblestones to the stall.

  A burly young porter stood in the queue beside her. ‘Care to join me, love? I’d share my murphy with you any day.’

  She managed a weak grin. ‘Ta, mate, but you got nothing that interests me.’ She held her money out to the vendor. ‘Baked tatty, please, and a cup of split pea.’

  The young porter tipped his cap to the back of his head. ‘Come and sit with me then. I promise to keep me hands to meself.’

  ‘Ta all the same, but I prefer to eat on me own.’ She took her change and counted it carefully, despite the trader’s protests that he
was an honest man.

  ‘Mistakes happen,’ she said tersely and walked away, carrying the potato wrapped in newspaper and the mug of tea to the church on the far side of the piazza. She thought at first the young man might follow her, but he had gone to join his mates, leaving her to eat her meal in peace. She sat on the cold stones, sheltering from the snow beneath the portico, and munched the hot, buttery flesh of the potato with relish, savouring each mouthful and trying not to feel guilty. Grandpa would be hungry too, and he would be desperate for a tot of gin. It was all very well for people to tell her not to give him money for drink, but it was the only thing that stopped the terrible tremors which affected his whole body, turning him into a gibbering mass of humanity who could hardly string two words together. A jigger or two of blue ruin would stop the shaking and he would be able to function again, albeit in a limited way. His use of the harsh spirit had wreaked a terrible revenge on him, taking away the power of rational thought and robbing him of memory. It took more and more of it to settle him down these days and he often became violent. He had never struck her, but sometimes, when he returned from the pub very much the worse for drink, she was afraid of him. The drunken stranger who inhabited Joseph Crosse’s body would start fights over the most trivial matters, and had to be restrained by the men who shared their lodgings. The humiliation of seeing her grandfather carted bodily into the yard and having his head held under the pump was not something she cared to witness, but it happened all too often these days.

  Fortified by the hot food and sweet tea, Charity stood up and stretched. She took the battered tin mug back to the stall and started on the long walk back to Duck’s Foot Lane, hoping to pick up a penny or two on the way. But the weather was not such that it made people feel generous and she was largely ignored. On a couple of occasions she received a mouthful of abuse, and as she drew nearer to her destination she had a sudden and terrible premonition that something was wrong.

  It was late afternoon and already dark by the time she reached Upper Thames Street. The snow was thick underfoot and beginning to freeze, and as her feet crunched its brittle surface the ice penetrated the holes in her boots, stabbing her toes and causing her to yelp with pain. Above her head snowflakes danced dizzily in the yellow gas light, and the sounds of the river filled her ears as she neared the place she called home. The hoots of steam boats and the creaking of wooden masts were almost drowned out by the grinding and groaning of cranes as ships discharged their cargoes onto the wharves. The great River Thames never slept, nor did the denizens of the tightly packed buildings that crowded its banks. Narrow alleyways threaded their way from the main streets to the wharves at the water’s edge. These dark and dangerous conduits were lined with warehouses, manufactories, pubs, brothels and tenements housing workers and their families, as well as the dispossessed. Communal cellars often filled with water and sewage during a particularly high tide, and rats the size of cats lived alongside the human occupants in the most unsanitary conditions imaginable.