Читать книгу The Secret Letter - Kerry Barrett - Страница 18

1910

I walked the long way round to the house, clutching my bag to my chest as I tried to remember the name of the suffragette who lived there. Agnes, I thought. I couldn’t recall her surname. It was a long walk up the hill from Stockwell, and when I eventually found the house, hot and bothered and with my cheek throbbing, Agnes wasn’t in.

I pulled the bell and heard the noise echoing round the empty house and then, completely out of ideas and energy, I sat down on the stone step. I’d wait, I supposed, until she came home. It wasn’t as though I had anywhere else to go.

Leaning against the iron railings I found my eyes closing but I forced myself awake. I may have been on my uppers but I wasn’t about to start sleeping in the street like an urchin.

‘Are you waiting for me?’

I looked round to see a woman, older than me – in her thirties I guessed – hurrying up the stairs. She looked vaguely familiar.

‘I’ve seen you at meetings,’ she said now. ‘I’m Agnes Oliver.’

‘Esther,’ I said, standing up. ‘Yes, I was hoping you could tell me where I could find Mrs Pankhurst.’

‘Oh, heaven knows, that woman is never around when we need her.’

Faintly amused by the woman’s sense of entitlement, I smiled. ‘She is often busy.’

‘We’re all busy,’ Agnes said. ‘She wants me to put together this blessed newspaper and it’s all well and good, but when I’m spending all the hours God gives me on that, she forgets I’ve also got three children who need looking after. And she promised she was going to find me a governess but has she? No, she has not …’

Without stopping to think, I interrupted her tirade. ‘She has,’ I said. ‘Found you a governess, I mean.’

Agnes blinked at me and I stuck my hand out for her to shake.

‘It’s me. I’m Esther Watkins and I’m a schoolteacher. At least I was.’

‘What happened?’

I screwed up my face and took a chance. ‘I lost my job because I was in Holloway.’

Agnes nodded slowly. ‘The school won’t have you back?’

‘No.’

She was looking at me, sizing me up, I guessed. I tried to stand up straighter, aware that I was not at my best, and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear.

‘What happened to your cheek?’

‘I tripped over a tree root on my way here.’

Agnes nodded again, her eyes never leaving my face.

‘Is it a live-in position?’ I said, hoping beyond hope that it was.

‘I would prefer it to be live-in but if that’s a problem, we can discuss it. Did Mrs Pankhurst not explain all this when she told you about the position?’

‘I must have forgotten,’ I lied. ‘So much has happened.’

‘Hmm,’ she said. For a moment, I thought I’d made a big mistake and that this wasn’t going to be the answer to my prayers but then she clapped her hands together.

‘You’ll be perfect,’ she said. She gripped my arm tightly. ‘Could you possibly start today?’

Relief flooded me. ‘I could.’

‘Wonderful. I can get you a cab and we can collect your things.’

‘I have all my things,’ I said, gesturing to my carpetbag. ‘I don’t have much. And, well, I can’t go home because my mother is of the same mind as my former headmistress.’

Agnes’s face softened. ‘Doesn’t approve?’

‘Not in the least.’

The familiar frustration and rage that I felt when I thought of my mother began to build.

‘We lost everything when my father died because of mistakes he made,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘We had to sell the house. But still she thinks women are supposed to suffer and that this is just the way it shall be.’ I took a breath. ‘Sorry.’

Agnes shook her head. ‘Don’t apologise,’ she said. ‘We all have our reasons for finding our way to each other.’

She picked up my battered bag. ‘Now, shall we go in?’

She unlocked the large front door and I followed her inside. I hadn’t even asked how many children I would be teaching. I hoped it would be two quiet little girls rather than four boisterous boys, but I felt I couldn’t ask because I’d pretended that I knew all about the job.

‘Edie?’ she called. ‘Edie?’

A woman wearing an apron came rushing through the hall from the back of the house. ‘I was hanging out the washing,’ she said. ‘Have you been knocking?’

‘Not at all,’ Agnes said, peeling off her gloves. ‘This is our new governess, Esther. Esther, this is Edie our housekeeper.’

Edie and I nodded hello to each other.

‘Are the children here?’ Agnes looked around her as though she expected them to appear in a puff of smoke.

‘Went for a walk with Mr Oliver.’

‘I shall go and find them.’

Edie showed me to my room while Agnes went to find the children. My bedroom was on the top floor alongside another room with bookshelves crammed with books, a blackboard, and a low table. The windows looked out over London.

‘What a marvellous view,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine the children ever want to do schoolwork when they could be looking at the rooftops.’

‘Mr John always wants to do his schoolwork,’ Edie said as I sent silent thanks upwards for a scholarly pupil. ‘The girls don’t apply themselves so much, so I’ve heard.’

I wondered how many girls there were. ‘Remind me of how old they all are,’ I said casually.

‘John’s ten, Meg’s eight and Pearl’s almost seven,’ she said. ‘They’re nice kids most of the time. Just don’t let them run rings round you.’

I smiled. ‘Don’t worry about me. I can give as good as I get.’

She looked at me with a critical eye. ‘Yes, I reckon you can. Though right now it just looks like you could do with a good dinner and an early night.’

I nodded, almost moved to tears by her kind words, which seemed ridiculous. It was just such a long time since anyone had said anything nice to me.

‘Go and meet the children, then come into the kitchen for some food,’ Edie said. ‘You’ll soon settle in here.’

She was right. Within a week I felt like I’d been there forever. Agnes and her husband – who was also called John – were kind, the children were welcoming, and I was so grateful to have a roof over my head and money in my pocket that I thanked my lucky stars every day that I’d bumped into Agnes on her doorstep.

On my first Saturday with the family, Agnes knocked on my bedroom door.

‘I know it should really be your day off but I have some jobs to do for Mrs Pankhurst,’ she said. ‘And Christabel is breathing down my neck, too. Could you possibly take the children to the park?’

‘Of course,’ I said. I had nothing else to do, though I was itching to get back to meetings. ‘What sort of jobs do you have to do?’

‘Lord, I almost forgot you were one of us,’ Agnes said, pleased. ‘It’s mostly frightfully dull newsletter bits but I can show you this afternoon, if you like? And I have a meeting this evening – would you like to come along?’

I was thrilled. ‘Yes please,’ I said. ‘I’m feeling a little out of touch.’

‘You can tell us all about your exploits in jail,’ Agnes said.

I picked up my shawl. ‘I’m not sure about that,’ I said. ‘But I’d like to come, thank you.’

After a delightful morning with the children, who were really a lovely bunch, I tracked Agnes down in the dining room. She was sitting at the table, a typewriter in front of her. She was surrounded by reams of paper and looking flustered.

‘Oh, Esther, thank goodness,’ she said. ‘Can you help me?’

I pulled out another chair and sat down. ‘I can try.’

‘Christabel and I want to get this all to the printer next week, but we’re missing a few pages, and I need to fill them.’

She looked up at me and gasped in delight. ‘Of course!’

‘What?’ I said, warily. I may only have known Agnes for a week but I was already getting to understand her spontaneity didn’t always work out for the best.

‘You have to write something about your time in jail.’

‘Really?’

‘I heard a whisper that you were the one writing to Mrs Pankhurst about her experiences in Holloway,’ she said. ‘Is that true? I heard the letters were wonderfully detailed. Evocative.’

I bowed my head, embarrassed by the praise.

‘Come on, Esther,’ Agnes urged. ‘You’re educated and witty, which is more than I can say about some of the writers we have contributing to the paper. Don’t tell Christabel I said that.’

I smiled briefly but then shook my head. ‘I’m not sure, Agnes.’

She took my hand. ‘You’ve been through an ordeal,’ she said, her reading glasses slipping down her nose. ‘I believe it would be good for your own peace of mind to share your experiences.’

I nodded. ‘That is true. It always helps me to write things down.’

‘It would certainly be good for others to read about them. So they’re prepared, if needs be.’

She pushed the typewriter towards me.

‘You want me to do it now?’

She held out a piece of paper and slowly I fed it into the typewriter.

‘I shall do my best,’ I said.

Agnes smiled at me. ‘That’s all I can ask.’