The Christmas Rose Read online

  Rose dumped her baggage on the pavement. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m a friend, love. But you’re not from round here, are you? You wouldn’t want to go in there if you was up to snuff.’

  Rose sighed. ‘I was born in London, but my pa took me to Australia when I was a nipper.’

  The woman leaned forward to peer into Rose’s face. ‘I’m Cora Smith, and if you’ve got any sense in that noddle of yours you’ll take my advice and move on from here. What’s your name?’

  ‘I’m Rose Munday and I’m trying to get to the Captain’s House on the wharf at Wapping.’

  Cora threw back her head and laughed. ‘There’s lots of wharfs at Wapping, love. D’you know which one?’

  ‘No, but it wasn’t far from the dock police station. I remember that.’

  ‘Well, that’s a start. Come on then. Seems to me this is my night to be a good citizen, for a change.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My, my, you are a persistent little thing. What did they teach you in Australia, Rose Munday? Didn’t they have women like me, with painted lips and rouged cheeks, what earns their living by any way they can – mostly flat on their backs or—’

  ‘Yes, I understand,’ Rose said hastily. ‘I grew up in a mining town so I know how it goes.’

  ‘Tell you what, Rose. I was going to point you in the right direction, but I don’t want your dead body floating downriver on me conscience. I know this part of London like the back of me hand and I’ll see you safely home. Is someone waiting for you?’

  ‘I hope so,’ Rose said fervently. ‘Max was going to meet me – he gave me his word.’

  ‘Men and their promises.’ Cora tossed her head. ‘Come on, this peasouper ain’t going to clear before morning. Let’s get going.’

  They seemed to have been walking for hours. Rose could feel blisters at the point of bursting on her heels, and she was just beginning to think she would drop from exhaustion when Cora came to a sudden halt. ‘Watch where you go.’

  Slowly and painfully Rose followed Cora down a steep flight of steps, and she was in familiar territory at last. Despite the sulphurous stench of the fog mixed with the smoke from thousands of chimneys, the smell of the river mud took her back to her childhood. In her mind’s eye she could see the run-down boatyard where her father had struggled to make a living. It had been her home and she had forgotten the hardships, remembering only the hot summer days when she had paddled in the shallows and picked wildflowers on the river-bank.

  ‘This must be it,’ she whispered. ‘The Captain’s House can’t be far now and Max will be there waiting for me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it, love.’ Cora reached out to clutch Rose’s hand. ‘Keep close to me. There’ll be coils of rope, chains and all sorts waiting to trip you up and fling you into the river.’ She paused. ‘Can you hear it? The water is lapping the wharf and that means it’s high tide.’

  ‘Yes, I remember now.’

  ‘Good. Then you know that if you fall in you won’t stand a chance. No one will see you and they won’t hear your cries for help. The current will suck you under and you’ll be a goner.’

  ‘Why are you doing this for me, Cora? Why would you want to help someone you’ve never met before?’

  ‘You ask too many questions. Come on. I’m dying for a smoke and a drink, and the sooner I deliver you, the sooner I can find a nice warm pub.’

  ‘All right. I’m coming.’ Rose tried not to drag her feet as she followed Cora, who seemed to have limitless energy. Then, just as Rose was about to give up, she was aware of a different smell and one that was very familiar. It was a mixture of burning sugar, roasting coffee beans and spices emanating from the warehouses surrounding the docks.

  ‘This is it,’ she said excitedly. ‘We must be very near. I remember how it smelled when the wind was in a certain direction.’

  ‘There ain’t no wind, duck. It’s your imagination.’

  ‘You’re wrong. I know this is the place.’ Rose dropped her bag and, holding her arms outstretched, she walked slowly, feeling the way until she came to the wooden steps. She ran her fingers over the rail and there it was. ‘This is the house,’ she cried triumphantly. ‘Max carved his initials on this piece of wood the day before we left for Australia.’

  ‘Then there’s only one thing to do.’ Cora pushed past her and marched up the steps to hammer on the door. ‘I want to meet this young man of yours and give him a piece of my mind for leaving a kid like you to find her way home in the middle of a London particular.’ She took a step backwards as the door opened and a pale shaft of light pierced the fog.

  ‘What d’yer want?’

  Rose hesitated. It was not Max’s voice and a shiver ran down her spine. ‘I’ve come to see Max Manning,’ she said nervously.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You heard her, mister,’ Cora said angrily. ‘Have you got cloth ears or something?’

  ‘Less of your lip.’ The man held the lantern close to Cora’s face. ‘Ho, touting for business, are you? You’d best come in then.’ He reached out a skinny but muscular arm and yanked Cora over the threshold before she had a chance to argue.

  Rose dropped her carpet bag and ran to Cora’s aid. ‘Leave her alone. We just want to see Max.’

  ‘There ain’t no one of that name here, girl.’ The man shoved Cora so hard that she stumbled and fell in a heap with a flurry of red flannel petticoats, exposing legs clad in black stockings.

  ‘What have you done with Max?’ Rose demanded, standing her ground. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘What’s going on, Sid?’ A second man staggered out of what Rose remembered to be the front parlour. ‘What’s all the din?’

  ‘We got company, Wilf. Two ladies of the night to warm our beds. It must be our lucky day.’ Sid slammed the front door and leaned against it, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Nice of you to come calling, ladies. I think I’ll take the younger one. You can have the old tart, Wilf. Let’s get to it before the others come to.’

  ‘No,’ Rose cried. ‘There’s been a mistake. We’re looking for someone.’

  Cora scrambled to her feet. ‘Move aside, cully.’ Before he had a chance to argue she had a knife to his throat. ‘I don’t go out at night without my chiv, so get away from the door.’

  Terrified, Rose held her breath. She had seen plenty of brawls in the streets of Bendigo, but she had never encountered danger at such close quarters.

  ‘Get out, Rose,’ Cora hissed. She twisted the knife so that it nicked the flabby skin at the base of Sid’s scrawny throat, and she gave him a hearty shove that sent him cannoning into Wilf. The pair of them fell to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. ‘Run for it, Rose,’ Cora screamed. ‘Run.’

  Chapter Two

  Rose wrenched the door open, but in her hurry to escape she misjudged her footing and tumbled down the steps, landing on the carpet bag, which served to break her fall. Unhurt, she scrambled to her feet and Cora leaped to the ground, grabbed Rose by the hand and headed off into the fog. She did not stop until they reached the relative safety of the High Street.

  ‘That was a close one,’ Cora said breathlessly. ‘I knew I should have walked on when I spotted you outside the pub. This is what I get for doing a good deed.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Cora.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, young ’un. Coming here at night in the middle of a peasouper weren’t the best idea I ever had.’ Cora brushed a strand of unnaturally brassy hair from her forehead. ‘What am I going to do with you now? Do you know anyone in London?’

  Rose bent double, holding her side in an attempt to relieve a painful stitch. ‘There’s Max’s sister.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? Where does she live?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That ain’t no help. What’s her name? Maybe I knows her.’

  ‘She’s called Caroline and she married Phineas Colville. He owns—’

  ‘He owns the bigg
est shipping company in England. Well, I’m blowed. Who’d have thought it?’ Cora put her head on one side, narrowing her eyes. ‘You’re not making this up, are you? It ain’t funny.’

  ‘No. On my honour, it’s true.’

  ‘On your honour.’ Cora hooted with laughter. ‘Where’d you learn to talk stuff like that?’ She held up her hand. ‘No, don’t tell me. I ain’t sure if you’re genuine or the best little liar I ever met, but I ain’t hanging around here a minute longer than necessary.’ She walked off, heading back the way they had come.

  Rose grabbed her bag and hobbled after her. ‘I’m sure that Mrs Colville will vouch for me, Cora. I just need to find out where she lives.’

  Cora paused, glancing over her shoulder. ‘Maybe she’ll offer a reward. I mean, a girl has to earn a living. I could have been working instead of traipsing round the docks with you.’

  ‘I really am sorry.’

  ‘Of course you are.’ Cora stopped and turned to give Rose a searching look. ‘What am I going to do with you, Rosie? I can’t abandon you, even though common sense tells me that I should.’

  ‘Maybe I could spend the night at your lodgings?’ Rose suggested tentatively. ‘I haven’t got much money, but I think I have enough to pay my way – for one night, anyway.’

  ‘Oh, all right. I suppose I ain’t got no choice. You’d best come with me.’

  Rose could hardly put one foot in front of the other by the time they reached the run-down building where Cora lived. Rose was completely disorientated and she could not have said where they were, except that she was glad to stumble into the relative warmth of the building when Cora ushered her inside.

  ‘It ain’t much, but this is where I doss down,’ Cora said firmly. ‘My room is upstairs.’ She mounted the narrow staircase, trailing her hand casually on the banister rail, which was blackened from years of grease and dirt. The flickering yellow gaslight popped and fizzed, adding its own pungent odour to the general fug, but Rose was too tired to be critical. It felt good to be safe from the outside world, even if some of the stair treads were rotten and several of the banister supports were broken or missing.

  She had barely reached the first landing when a door opened and a man lurched out, ramming his cap on his head as he pushed past her and thundered down the stairs. A young woman poked her head out, grinning when she spotted Cora.

  ‘Had a good night, duck?’

  Cora jerked her head in Rose’s direction. ‘Got a visitor, watch what you say, Flossie.’

  ‘Ooh, hark at her, girls.’ Flossie took a drag on her cigarette.

  ‘Shut up, you silly tart,’ Cora said affably. ‘Poor kid’s just got off the boat from the back of beyond and been let down by her bloke.’

  ‘We’ve all been there, luv.’ Flossie exhaled a plume of smoke at the grimy ceiling. ‘Did you see Regan hanging around downstairs?’

  Cora shook her head. ‘No sign of him. I should take a break if I was you, girl. There’s not much doing out there tonight – it’s a real peasouper.’

  Flossie’s throaty laugh echoed off the walls. ‘Good advice. I could use some beauty sleep.’ She stubbed her cigarette out on the doorpost, eyeing Rose curiously. ‘What’s your name, luv?’

  ‘It’s Rose Munday, miss.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Rose. And it’s even nicer to have someone in the house what has good manners. Charmed, I’m sure. My name’s Flossie Boxer, and you can call me Flossie.’

  ‘Don’t listen to her yakking on and on.’ Cora opened a door further along the narrow passage. ‘Come on, Rose. This is where I hang out.’ She ushered Rose into a small room that contained a brass bed, a chest of drawers and a washstand. A single chair, draped with woollen stockings and a pair of stays, was placed in front of a fire that had burned down to nothing, and an overfull ashtray spilled cigarette butts onto the hearth. Cora tossed her feathered hat onto the bed, followed by her shawl, and she sat down to unlace her boots. ‘You can stay here tonight, but you’ll have to take the chair or sleep on the floor.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Rose glanced at the Windsor chair, which would not have been out of place in Sadie’s kitchen. ‘I’m so tired I could sleep almost anywhere.’

  Cora gave her another searching look. ‘You’re whiter than the sheet on my bed. When did you last eat?’

  ‘Breakfast,’ Rose said, closing her eyes in an attempt to stop the room from spinning out of control. ‘I didn’t eat much because I was so excited at the thought of seeing Max again. It’s almost two years since we last met.’

  ‘That’s a long time to be apart. Are you sure he hasn’t changed his mind?’

  ‘I’ve known Max since I was a child. He wouldn’t behave like that and he wrote beautiful letters.’

  Cora tossed one boot on the floor and began to unlace the other. ‘You’ve got more faith in men than I have, kid. In my experience they’re rats, all of ’em.’

  Rose moved the grubby stays from the chair and sat down as another wave of dizziness threatened to overcome her. ‘I thought he’d be at the Captain’s House.’

  ‘Well, he weren’t, and you’ll have to get used to the idea that he’s changed his mind.’ Cora picked up a pillow and threw it to Rose. ‘Here, get your head down, love. You’ll have to wait for morning to get some grub. I don’t keep food in me room because of rats – the four-legged kind.’ Cora chuckled and turned on to her side with a creaking of bed springs. ‘There’s a spare blanket under me bed,’ she added sleepily. ‘Night-night.’

  Rose slid off the chair, lifted the trailing edge of the coverlet to look under the bed, and found herself staring into the beady eyes of a huge spider. She retreated hastily and curled up as best she could on the chair, resting her head on the pillow. Cramped, stiff and cold, she thought longingly of her old room in the school house, and the tantalising aroma of baking that floated up from the kitchen where Sadie was undoubted queen. She and her husband, Laurence, ran the school that Max’s stepfather had built for the local children. Rose was in awe of Raven Dorincourt, but both Max and Jimmy thought the world of him. Even so, she preferred gentle, unworldly Laurence, who believed strongly that girls ought to be as well educated as boys, and she had benefited from his teaching.

  As she struggled with the cold and damp of an English winter and the discomfort of trying to sleep in an upright chair, Rose was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her actions. Had she been carried away on a romantic dream, fuelled by ardent love letters from Max? More to the point, what would she do now that she was on her own in London? The questions kept coming but there were no answers. Eventually, she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.

  ‘Wake up.’

  Someone was shaking her and Rose opened her eyes to such an unfamiliar scene that she thought she was dreaming.

  ‘You was dead to the world,’ Cora said cheerfully. ‘Put your boots on, Rose. We’re going out to get some breakfast.’

  Rose stretched her cramped limbs, wincing with pain as the feeling came back to her hands and feet in the form of pins and needles. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘There’s a coffee stall on Tower Hill.’ Cora sat on the edge of her bed and pulled on her boots. ‘How are you off for readies?’

  ‘I’ve got some money,’ Rose said warily. ‘But it won’t last very long. I was counting on Max meeting me at the docks.’

  ‘You said your Max was related to the Colvilles. Is that true?’

  ‘His elder sister married into the family. I was at her wedding.’

  ‘So she knows you.’ Cora tied the second bootlace into a neat bow and stood up, reaching for her hat. ‘Then after we’ve had breakfast I think we should pay a call on this lady. The Colvilles are rolling in money.’

  ‘I don’t want to go begging,’ Rose protested. ‘I’m sure Max has a good reason for not coming to meet me. Anyway, I told you, Cora. I don’t know where Caroline lives.’

  ‘But I do.’ Cora thrust a hatpin into the feathery creation on her head. ‘Don’t argue, kid. Food first
and then we’re going to Finsbury Circus. I know that’s where we’ll find them because one of their footmen was a client of mine, if you get my meaning?’ She winked and opened the door. ‘Come on, don’t loiter. I’m dying for a cup of coffee.’

  Having eaten a ham roll and drunk a mug of hot, sweet coffee, Rose was beginning to feel more optimistic. The fog had lifted, leaving a sooty smell lingering in the air, and it was bitterly cold, but at least they could see where they were going and Cora set off at a brisk pace with Rose hurrying after her. The blisters on her heels had burst and were painful, but she was feeling more positive and the thought of receiving news of Max, or even finding him at home with his sister, made the walk to Finsbury Circus seem less arduous. But it was a nerve-racking experience as they had to dodge in and out of the traffic and push their way through crowds of pedestrians. Rose was uncomfortably aware of the withering looks that Cora received from respectable matrons, who had their maidservants in tow, and the knowing grins from the costermongers and road sweepers. Whistles, cat calls and scornful glances accompanied them, but Cora herself did not seem to notice and she marched onwards, head held high, and the black and red ostrich feathers on her hat fluttered in the breeze. She swung her hips and twirled her reticule as if performing on stage, to the obvious delight of small urchins, who mimicked her shamelessly. In daylight the colour of Cora’s hair was even more remarkable – almost white at the tips, darkening through every colour of yellow to bronze at the roots – but beneath all the paint and rouge Cora’s good nature shone out like a beacon, and Rose was well aware that she owed her new friend a huge debt of gratitude. What might have befallen her last evening without Cora’s timely intervention was anyone’s guess.

  ‘We’re here,’ Cora announced, coming to a sudden halt.

  Rose just managed to avoid colliding with her as she stopped, staring up at the grand façade of what was undoubtedly a mansion. Sadie had often mentioned the old days, before Mr Manning’s premature death, when the family lived in Finsbury Circus, and she might have been describing this very house.