London - Edward Rutherfurd [565]
Respectable? For someone like Jenny, respectability meant clean sheets and clothes; a man with a steady job, food on the table. Respectability was morality, and morality was order. Respectability was survival. No wonder then that it was so highly valued by so many of the working class.
The meeting that Saturday had been the same as all the others. They had sat, talked a little. She had brought little presents for her six-year-old nephew and his little sister. She had played with the youngest, a baby girl of only two. She had wondered if perhaps she should mention Percy, but although she was going to see his family at Crystal Palace the next day, there was nothing really, as yet, to say. And the visit would have ended inconsequentially enough, like all the others, if it had not been for the pale and scrawny woman who appeared at the door, just before she was due to leave.
She had red hair, which might have been striking enough, though it was stringy and unkempt; but what made an even greater impression upon Jenny were her eyes, sunken with fatigue and staring. Holding her hand was a filthy child who was bawling because he had cut himself. A quick inspection showed Jenny that the cut wasn’t serious, but the poor woman claimed she had nothing to bandage it with. They found something, quietened the child, and also two more of the woman’s children who came wandering in. They all looked undernourished. After they had gone her brother had explained.
“Her husband died two years ago. Four children. We all give her a bit of help but . . . .” He shrugged.
“What does she do?” she had asked. “Matchboxes?”
“No. You can get more stuffing mattresses at home. But it’s heavy work, you see. Wears you out.” He shook his head. “Lost her man, see?”
Soon after that she had left, kissed her father and the children goodbye, and her brother, unusually, had walked with her a little way. At first he remained silent, but after they had gone about a quarter mile he said quietly:
“You done well for yourself, Jenny. I don’t begrudge you that, you know. But it’s more than that.”
“How do you mean?”
“You did right not to marry.” He shook his head. “That one you saw. Her husband had a good job, you know. Plasterer he was. And now he’s gone . . . .”
She was silent.
“If anything ever happened to me, Jenny, you’d keep an eye on my little ones, wouldn’t you? I mean, not let them starve or anything? You not being married, that is. You could do that, couldn’t you?”
“I suppose,” she said slowly, “I’d do my best.”
It was a very jolly party the next day. Percy was looking so pleased and happy as he met her at Crystal Palace Station. She was wearing a pretty little straw hat she had bought herself, a very nice green and white dress, quite simple but very good material, that she had got from Mrs Silversleeves. She had even, though she had never done such a thing before, taken a little parasol. She could see Percy felt proud of her.
The villa where Herbert lived was a nice little house, two storeys over a half-basement, the front door being up a few stone steps. There was a little patch of lawn at the front with a privet hedge around it. There was an evergreen tree in the garden next door which perhaps made the place a little bit dark, but inside it was very nice. Indeed, Jenny’s practised eye took in at once, every square inch of the place was polished and gleaming. As soon as she met Maisie, she could see why.
For the greatest social change wrought by the Industrial Revolution in London concerned the suburbs. The vast scale of trading operations, the growing banks, insurance companies and imperial administration in Victorian and Edwardian