Together for Christmas

  Carol Rivers, whose family comes from the Isle of Dogs, East London, now lives in Dorset. Visit www.carolrivers.com and follow her on Facebook and Twitter @carol_rivers

  Also by Carol Rivers

  Lizzie of Langley Street

  Bella of Bow Street

  Lily of Love Lane

  Eve of the Isle

  East End Angel

  In the Bleak Midwinter

  East End Jubilee (previously Rose of Ruby Street)

  A Sister’s Shame

  Cockney Orphan (previously Connie of Kettle Street)

  A Wartime Christmas

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Carol Rivers, 2014

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Carol Rivers to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  HB ISBN: 978-1-47113-129-5

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47113-131-8

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI UK Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

  For the Fallen

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  This year, 2014, has been a great year for me. I would like to acknowledge the reviewers and readers who have kindly recorded the book’s journey on Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, blogs and websites of all shapes and sizes. I hope you know by now how much I appreciate your feedback.

  This is my first year working with my skilled and supportive editor, Jo Dickinson, and inspirational agent, Judith Murdoch. It has been wonderful! Thank you. I am more than grateful to all the guys and gals at Simon & Schuster, who make everything flow so seamlessly en route to publication.

  Prologue

  August 1914

  Flora Shine smiled at her watery double shimmering on the surface of the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park. But all too soon her reflection disappeared, lost in the ripples that spread towards the excited revellers on the far bank.

  ‘Just look at them silly chaps!’ exclaimed Hilda Jones, Flora’s best friend. ‘You’d think Britain had won the conflict already from the way they’re carrying on. And it was only four days ago the prime minister announced we are at war!’

  ‘And now Mr Asquith’s calling for our boys to volunteer,’ said Flora. She was not for war at all, though watching the rejoicing crowds today it seemed that the rest of the country disagreed with her.

  Hilda nodded, causing her brown curls to bounce on her leg-of-mutton sleeves. ‘Just listen to ’em, boasting they’ll teach the kaiser a lesson he’ll never forget.’

  ‘The kaiser should have accepted Britain’s help after Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated,’ Flora said knowledgeably. ‘Instead, he took offence and in no time at all, the Austrians declared war on Serbia.’

  ‘I don’t even know where Serbia is,’ said Hilda.

  ‘Serbia is near Russia and the Russians are on Serbia’s side,’ Flora began to explain. ‘France, who is Russia’s ally, was forced to join in. And Germany stuck with the Austrians, declaring war on Russia and France. So if you look on a map—’

  ‘Politics befuddle me brain,’ Hilda interrupted. ‘But I don’t mind the sight of a nicely turned-out uniform.’

  Unperturbed by her friend’s disinterest, Flora stretched out on the soft green grass, arranging her long skirt modestly over her ankles. ‘A dirty-brown colour and rough material doesn’t appeal to me in the least.’

  ‘Bet you wouldn’t mind an admiring wink from a handsome young soldier, though?’ Unlike her friend, Hilda tugged up her skirt to reveal an enticing three inches of ankle above her laced boot. ‘Neither of us have sweethearts, do we? What’s to stop us from finding two nice fellows from the army?’

  ‘No,’ Flora swiftly replied. ‘A soldier might be wounded or killed.’

  ‘But just think,’ said Hilda, a mischievous twinkle in her big brown eyes, ‘since you’re a nurse you could cure him. That is, if he didn’t end up stone-cold dead before you could lay your hands on him.’

  Flora frowned at her friend’s mockery. ‘War is a solemn matter, Hilda. And anyway, I’m not a qualified nurse.’ Her sunny blue eyes widened under her fringe of strawberry lashes. ‘I’m just a doctor’s assistant.’

  ‘Don’t seem to matter to your Dr Tapper, does it?’ said Hilda. ‘He calls you nurse and insists you wear that posh blue uniform.’

  ‘Only because the patients expect it,’ said Flora, feeling a little hurt. ‘Dr Tapper says the sick and desperate need to see signs of medical authority. Not, of course, that I have any,’ she added hurriedly.

  ‘Hark at you!’ Hilda spluttered, looking astonished. ‘If I was one of your patients, I’d cut me tongue out before I’d dare answer you back.’

  Flora chuckled and snatched Hilda’s parasol. She gently poked Hilda in the side with it.

  ‘Ouch! You see?’ said Hilda. ‘You’re a real sergeant major when you want to be.’ She squirmed away from the parasol as the tears of laughter slipped down her pink cheeks.

  ‘And you’re no shrinking violet yourself, Hilda Jones.’ Flora chuckled. ‘You’re never lost for a word or two, especially when poor Mrs Bell asks for your help.’

  Hilda stopped laughing and lifted her dimpled chin. ‘It’s not my job to slave in the kitchen. Mrs Bell seems to forget she has Aggie for the scullery and she piles all her work on muggins here. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of changing me job. I’ll never amount to much if I stay there.’

  ‘You could do wo
rse, much worse,’ warned Flora.

  ‘I’m sure I could do much better,’ Hilda argued. ‘After all, it’s two years now since we left the orphanage. Time for a change, I’m sure.’

  ‘But you were in raptures when Sister Patricia found you the position. It was like going to heaven, you said.’

  ‘It’s more like purgatory now,’ muttered Hilda with a scowl. ‘I’m at the beck and call of down-and-outs and drunks. Even the smell of the soup makes me feel sick. And then, after wearing meself out on the ungrateful rabble, I’m expected to have her ladyship’s private rooms all spic and span for her visits. Sometimes, you know, I’m quite dizzy with fatigue.’

  ‘You’re doing God’s work,’ Flora replied kindly. ‘There’s no better calling in life, according to the Sally Army.’

  ‘Well, I’m no Salvationist!’ Hilda burst out. ‘I’d never wear one of them funny bonnets for a start.’ Her ample bust heaved indignantly under her blouse. ‘Imagine banging a tambourine all day. I wouldn’t be caught dead going into taverns to beg for alms. Charity might be God’s work, but it ain’t mine.’

  Flora shook her head disapprovingly. ‘I’ve never known anyone so particular as you, Hilda. ’Specially as we’re orphans and lucky to have jobs. You could have ended up in the workhouse if it hadn’t been for the nuns of St Boniface.’

  At this comment, Hilda recoiled. ‘The workhouse? Never!’ She wrinkled her proud little nose. ‘Mother would never have let such a thing happen. She’d have taken me off to a better life if she hadn’t been killed by that perishing steam from the orphanage laundry.’

  ‘It was a job, after all.’ Flora didn’t remind Hilda that the nuns had practically saved Rose Jones from a life on the streets. She knew that would upset her friend.

  Hilda scowled at the young men who were now throwing their hats, ties and shirts into the Serpentine. ‘Men can lark about and show off. But we women can’t act like idiots and strip down to our knickers. We’d get arrested in the blink of an eye. That is, if the bluebottles could run fast enough to catch us!’

  Once again, they were smiling.

  ‘Hilda, you don’t sound like the God-fearing young lady the nuns raised you to be.’

  ‘I could never be as holy as you, dear girl. In fact, now I come to think of it, these days, you’re the very image of Sister Patricia herself. All chin and long nose under that silly white wimple.’

  Flora ignored the face that Hilda pulled. ‘Sister Patricia was strict but she was kind. We were taught that being humble is what God wants of us.’

  Hilda snorted loudly. ‘Answer me this then. Why ain’t the king humble if it’s what God wants?’

  ‘Perhaps he is,’ Flora replied uncertainly.

  ‘Don’t be daft. He don’t come to the East End and put right all the slums. He don’t shake your hand or ask how you are. I reckon we was taught to be humble to keep us in our place. God is on the side of the well-to-do. Just like the king is.’

  ‘That’s an awful thing to say, Hilda.’

  ‘Do you think so? It seems sense to me.’

  Flora considered Hilda’s outburst; it was quite a revelation. ‘I didn’t know you felt like that about God. Or even the king.’

  ‘I didn’t know meself until I said it.’ A long moment passed before Hilda added, ‘You being humble an’ all is why the nuns gave you the good job, and sent me into service.’

  Flora allowed a shocked breath to escape. ‘Is that what you really think, Hilda? That the nuns favoured me above you? Well, you’re quite wrong there. I was sent to Dr Tapper because I’d assisted the nuns in the convent infirmary and had some experience with the sick. That was the only reason. And as for being humble, it’s what we were taught. You should be grateful we had an education. And a good one at that.’

  Hilda turned away, mumbling to herself.

  ‘You could have worked in the infirmary too, if you’d volunteered.’ Flora felt it was unfair of Hilda to think she was hard done by. ‘The sick children liked your sunny smile when you visited them. Even though it was only once or twice,’ she added cautiously.

  But Hilda only shuddered. ‘I ain’t got a strong stomach.’

  Flora smiled. Hilda was squeamish. She had been known to faint at the briefest sight of blood.

  ‘I didn’t even like looking at the cross in chapel,’ Hilda admitted with a rueful grin. ‘I hated seeing a dead body. It felt like we was worshipping death, not life.’

  ‘Hilda!’ Flora was hearing things from Hilda she’d never heard before. ‘What’s come over you? Why are you talking this way? Weren’t we happy at the orphanage? You, me and Will – just the three of us, as close together as a real family could be?’

  Hilda plucked a few shiny blades of grass and leaned forward to scatter them on the water. ‘We were close – are close,’ she agreed, though with a reluctance that Flora couldn’t fail to miss. ‘You and Will are family to me. But it’s just – just that . . .’

  ‘What?’ Flora urged, confused.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Hilda threw up her hands. ‘Perhaps it’s all this talk of war. But you see, I don’t want to end up being a skivvy like Mum. I want . . .’ She hesitated, the words trembling on her full lips. ‘I want bracelets and rings that sparkle like boiled sweets in the sunshine. Like Lady Hailing wears on her white neck and slim wrists. I want shoes that are real leather with bows and frills. Ones that ain’t worn and scuffed at the heel. I want a soft bed to lie in and a bedroom far away from the old biddy next door who snores and farts all night.’

  ‘Mrs Bell would have a fit if she could hear you,’ Flora said, disapprovingly.

  ‘Well, it’s true.’

  Flora couldn’t understand these complaints. Was the change in her friend’s character to do with becoming fifteen in April, just four months before Flora’s own fifteenth birthday in August? Or was it, as Hilda suggested, the turmoil of the nation that was turning them all a little barmy on this sunny August day?

  ‘Just look at those idiots!’ Hilda pointed to the young men, who were now boasting to some young women. The girls scurried away, giggling behind their gloved hands. ‘They’re happy, wouldn’t you say? Really happy. They’re about to leave their boring old jobs for a new life.’

  ‘Yes, but an unknown one.’

  For a while they sat in silence. Then Hilda snatched up her straw hat and planted it on her head. ‘Well, I’m bored. How much longer must we wait for Will? It’s past one o’clock. Why can’t he arrive on time for once?’

  Flora searched the crowds for Will’s tall, gangling figure. He looked like a lost puppy with his shaggy golden hair and big blue eyes peeping out from under his curls, Flora thought with amusement. Who would think that Will Boniface was a foundling and hadn’t even got a name of his own, just as she hadn’t. The nuns had chosen their names, even their birthdays, which were taken from the day they had been found outside the convent. Will was older by two years than herself and Hilda. But despite the age gap, he had somehow attached himself to them.

  ‘Let’s wait just a few minutes longer,’ she said, and ignored Hilda’s protesting frown.

  ‘I had to nearly twist Mrs Bell’s arm to let me come today,’ Hilda muttered. ‘She complained she’d have to do all the chores, as Aggie is in the family way again.’

  ‘Aggie is blessed, then, to have such a kind sponsor as Lady Hailing.’

  Hilda drew herself upright. ‘Well, Lady Hailing is a do-gooder, ain’t she? One of them “slummers” that the newspapers write about, what give their fortunes to the poor. But I’ve decided I want to work for real gentry.’

  ‘Lady Hailing is real gentry,’ Flora said in surprise.

  Hilda pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest, just as she always had as a little girl when in one of her stubborn moods. Flora reflected on their life at St Boniface’s Orphanage in the heart of the East End. It had been hard. But though it was a thousand times better than the workhouse, Hilda hadn’t always appreciated it. Flora saw Hilda i
n her mind’s eye, a sprat of a girl, barely eight. She had been allowed by the nuns to live with her mother, Rose, in the laundry outhouse. Flora could still remember Hilda’s grief after Rose’s death. Poor Hilda, a proud little girl who refused to think of herself as just another waif and stray added to the nuns’ long list of dependants.

  ‘Oh, where is that naughty boy?’ demanded Hilda. ‘You don’t think he’s stood us up for a girl, do you?’

  ‘Will wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘He’s seventeen in December. Quite old enough for courting.’ Hilda jumped to her feet and dragged Flora up with her. ‘Come on, let’s stretch our legs.’

  ‘Will’s too thoughtful to stand us up.’ Flora placed her own straw hat on her head and tucked her golden ringlets behind her ears. ‘Besides, Will would need a very special girl, someone kind and loyal, who would look after him.’

  ‘Like us, you mean?’ Hilda laughed.

  ‘We’d need to investigate her,’ Flora agreed with a giggle. ‘Size her up. Put her to the test and see that she came up to our standards.’

  ‘Which are high – in Will’s case,’ Hilda agreed, as she slipped her hand over Flora’s arm. Swinging her parasol, she glanced across the lake. Some of the young men had jumped into the water.

  ‘Our Will is a well-mannered boy, not like them, the tearaways.’ Hilda giggled as the swimmers called out and waved. ‘Oh, you’ll be lucky, m’dears, we’ve got high standards!’ Hilda called back, then, turning to Flora, she whispered, ‘The cheek of it! Thinking we’d look twice at drowned rats like them. Oh, watch out!’ Hilda pulled Flora back with a jolt as a pony and trap sped towards them on the path a few feet away. Flora gazed up into the florid, moustached face of the driver who quite openly winked at her.

  ‘The old devil!’ Hilda said angrily as the trap passed. ‘He wouldn’t dare to do that if we was real ladies. Did you see his backside, bulging out of his breeches like cream from a Lyons scone?’

  They burst into laughter again and were still giggling when a group of women approached them. Flora stared at their big floppy hats and bands across their chests. They were handing out pieces of paper.

  ‘Join our movement, why don’t you?’ one young woman asked them. ‘Read this and it will tell you all about the National Union of Women’s Suffrage. If it were up to women, there would be no wars.’