Agnes expelled a deep sigh of delight. ‘Your mum is that kind, Tilly. I was that worried and upset when Matron first told me that I’d got to leave the orphanage, but now, well, there’s no place I’d rather live than here at number thirteen.’
She could hardly believe it. She was going to have something new to wear. Something of her very own that no one else had ever worn. The very thought made Agnes tremble with humble delight. She’d never had anything that was her very own, excepting her underwear. She dare not even imagine how she might look. Not as nice as Tilly, who was so much prettier – that wouldn’t be possible – but if she could just look, well, not like an orphan, but like an ordinary girl who came from a proper home. Not that she wasn’t grateful to the orphanage, of course. She was. Matron had been ever so good to her, she knew that, but to have her own outfit . . . She scarcely dared to believe that it was really going to happen.
Chapter Nine
Early the next morning, before it got too busy and all the best bargains were gone, Olive and a very excited Tilly and Agnes set off for Portobello Road.
They’d decided to take the tube from Chancery Lane tube station to Nothing Hill Gate and then to walk the rest of the way. Agnes, of course, since she worked for London Transport, would be able to travel free.
‘Will we get to see your friend Ted?’ Tilly asked Agnes.
‘No, ’cos he’s on nights,’ Olive heard Agnes answering, as she increased her walking pace to keep up with the girls, who were so excited that they were almost running. Their excitement was infectious, Olive admitted, and she was beginning to feel quite excited herself. Treats like this one had been rare occurrences in her life as a widow who was virtually financially dependent on her in-laws. She and Tilly had never gone without anything, but she’d certainly never felt able to splash out on things, not even for Tilly, which made today’s outing all the more special and something to be enjoyed, she told herself, smiling at Tilly as her daughter linked arms with her on one side and Agnes on the other.
‘He told me on Thursday when we had a cup of tea together that he’s really proud of how well I’ve learned all the stations,’ Agnes continued.
She spoke a great deal about the young man who had been helping her, and although Agnes’s emotional and sexual welfare were not strictly speaking her responsibility, Olive couldn’t help feeling a maternal twinge of concern as she listened. Agnes was virtually the same age as Tilly, and she was naïve. It wasn’t her business to interfere, of course, but since Agnes had no one to stand as a caring parent for her, and since Olive felt morally obliged to keep a protective eye on her young lodger, listening to the two girls chatting she decided that she needed – discreetly, of course – to find out a bit more about this young man.
‘Since he’s been so kind and helpful to you, Agnes,’ she announced. ‘you’ll have to ask him to come and have his tea with us one evening, as a thank you.’
Immediately Agnes looked a bit uncertain. ‘I don’t think I could do that. You see, Ted’s mum likes him to go straight home from work when he’s on days so that he can give her a hand with his younger sisters, with her being widowed.’
Olive could only accept what Agnes told her, though it raised her concern. It sounded plausible enough but who knew if this Ted was telling the truth, and he wasn’t just leading Agnes up the garden path, her being such an innocent sort.
They’d almost reached the end of Chancery Lane. Olive pulled her warm winter coat firmly around herself as a sharp wind buffeted them when they turned onto Holborn, heading for Chancery Lane tube station.
It was definitely time that Tilly had something new, she acknowledged, as she looked at the hem of her daughter’s coat, which barely touched her knees. Tilly must have grown at least a couple of inches since she had bought her the dark green coat with its velvet collar in an end-of-season sale at a shop on Oxford Street.
The grumpy-looking individual from whom they bought their underground tickets, wasn’t as grumpy as he looked, Agnes told them in a whisper as they hurried along the tiled corridor, heading for their train.
‘Ted says he just gets a bit cross because of his gout,’ she explained, adding proudly, ‘Ted knows everything about everyone at the station, and all about the trains as well.’
Although she smiled, Olive sighed to herself. She definitely needed to find out a bit more about this young man that Agnes so plainly admired.
In her room at number 13, Sally tried to sleep, reminding herself that she was starting night duty this evening, but she’d been dreaming about Liverpool and her mother, and she didn’t want to go back into the dream from which she’d just woken herself. She turned over, thumping the pillow, knowing that she’d be cursing herself later on this evening if she didn’t sleep now. Sleep remained elusive, though, so she tried to focus her mind on something else. During a snatched meal in the nurses’ canteen earlier in the week, one of the ward nurses on men’s surgical, a girl called Rachel Horseley, who was around Sally’s age, had invited her to join a group of nurses who were planning to go to the pictures together. Sally had had to turn down the invitation because she would be on duty, but remembering the other girl’s overtures of friendship made her smile.
She had made the right decision in coming to London to have a fresh start. The loss of her mother and what had followed would always cast its shadow over her, she knew, but her mother would have wanted her to be as happy as she could be and to enjoy life. Slowly, something of her old joie de vivre was coming back. She had laughed out loud at a joke one of the other girls had told them all yesterday, and she had hummed to one of her favourite songs when it had been played on the wireless, her feet starting to tap in time to the music. She’d even begun to wonder if George Laidlaw was a good dancer. Smiling to herself, Sally settled down to sleep.
It was just over two and a half hours after they had first arrived at Portobello Market, and the whole street was now a seething mass of enthusiastic bargain hunters, the cries of the stall holders, trying to attract custom, mingling with bellowed warnings from porters bringing up fresh barrows of goods, and even the ring of bicycle bells from those cyclists brave enough to try to ride through the busy throng of people filling the narrow streets.
Tilly and Agnes had been almost beside themselves with excitement from the moment they had arrived, Tilly especially as she had dragged them from stall to stall, calling to Olive to look at some fresh marvel that had caught her eye.
Olive couldn’t really blame her. The market was far bigger and better than she had expected, and she was obliged to admit mentally, if somewhat reluctantly, that Dulcie had been right about the quality of fabric for sale. The problem was that the bargains were almost too tempting.
They’d agreed initially that they would walk round carefully and ‘just take a look’ but that discipline hadn’t lasted very long. That was her fault, Olive knew, but the discovery of the last precious few yards of the most beautiful warm bronze dress-weight wool that was perfect for Tilly’s colouring had been too good a bargain to risk losing, especially when the stall holder had confirmed that since Tilly was so slim there was just enough for a daytime dress and a matching jacket, which Olive had been able to bargain down to a truly unmissable price because it was the end of the roll.
Then, of course, Olive had wanted to get something for Agnes, and they’d soon found a lovely soft blue-grey wool on the same stall. Olive however, mentally scolded herself that there had not really been any excuse for her to let the girls persuade her to give in to a deep dark red for herself, even if the prices were good.
Despite
