A Glimpse at Happiness Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Also by Jean Fullerton

  No Cure for Love

  A Glimpse at Happiness

  JEAN FULLERTON

  Orion

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  An Orion ebook

  First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Orion Books, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd Orion House, 5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane London WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette UK Company

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Jean Fullerton 2009

  The moral right of Jean Fullerton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

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

  eISBN : 978 1 4091 1321 8

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  This ebook produced by Jouve, France

  For my three daughters, Janet, Fiona and Amy, to thank them for their love and support and for putting up with a constantly distracted mother.

  Acknowledgements

  As with my first book, No Cure for Love, I have used numerous sources to get the period setting and feel of A Glimpse at Happiness right, but I have to mention a few books and authors to whom I am particularly indebted.

  First and foremost, Henry Mayhew, deceased, for his detailed contemporary accounts of the poor in London Labour and the London Poor (edited by Neuburg, Penguin, 1985) and The London Underworld in the Victorian Period (Dover Publications, 2005). His painstaking reporting of the worries, concerns and language of the people he interviewed and scenes he witnessed allowed me to hear the voices and see the lives of the men and women of London as if I were there myself. My fellow East End author Gilda O’Neill’s book The Good Old Days (Penguin, 2007) has given me an invaluable insight into various aspects of 19th century life in East London, as did the out of print The East End of London by Millicent Rose (The Cresset Press, 1951). This account of East London was written before the slum clearances in the late 50s and early 60s and gives a tantalising glimpse into tight-knit communities clustered around the London docks before they were dispersed to high-rise flats and post-war estates. Judith Flanders book The Victorian House (Harper Perennial, 2003) helped me with the little details of Ellen and Robert Munroe’s family life, while Lisa Picard’s Victorian London (Orion Books, 2005) helped me with the details of Victorian London life, such as public baths. I also want to mention Love and Toil: Motherhood in Outcast London 1870-1918 by Ellen Ross (Oxford University Press, 1993). This detailed academic study has vivid accounts of the trials and tribulation of mothers struggling to raise their children in squalor and poverty in Victorian London. There are several photographic books of old East London that helped me visualise what the streets of East London looked like when Josie and Patrick walked them. These include East London Neighbourhoods by Brian Girling (Tempus, 2005) Victorian Street Life by John Thompson (Dover Publications, 1994) and Dockland Life by Chris Ellmers & Alex Werner (Mainstream Publishing, 1991). One photo in particular, The Bustle of the Pool of London at Black Eagle Wharf Wapping, which is part of the Museum of London collection, is particularly evocative. Google it and see what I mean. Lastly, and by no means least, I would like to mention author Lee Jackson’s brilliant website The Victorian Dictionary (http://www.victorianlondon.org/) which is packed with everything you could ever imagine about Victorian London.

  I would also like to take the opportunity to thank a few people. My friend Dee, for being there for me always. My fellow historical author Elizabeth Hawksley, for her help in untying the knots in my plot. My many friends in the Romantic Novelist Association who encourage me, in particular Janet Gover and Fenella Miller. My lovely agent Laura Longrigg, who gets long emails from me detailing everything I’m doing and thinking but still smiles warmly at me whenever we meet. Finally, but importantly, a big thank you to the editorial team at Orion, especially Sara O’Keeffe and Natalie Braine, firstly for loving my stories and secondly, turning my 400+ pages of type print into a beautiful book.

  Prologue

  Wapping, East London, 1844

  Ma Tugman, owner of the Boatman freehouse, wedged herself into her usual chair beside the counter of the main bar. The pub was the only thing of any worth she’d got from her old man. Snapper, her stubbed-nose terrier with a temper as short as his docked tail, shuffled under her chair and lay down with a loud huff. Ma’s broad hips spread across the surface of the seat and her feet just skimmed the sawdust-covered floorboards. She could feel the tightness around her ankles so she wriggled her toes inside her scuffed boots. The pain was always worse at the end of the day.

  The Boatman was set a few streets back from the river and tucked up the side of Lower Well Alley. It wasn’t frequented by watermen with wages burning holes in their pockets, as the Prospect or the Town were, but then it didn’t have the peelers from Wapping police office passing through its doors either.

  Ma rested her hands on the curved wooden arms of the chair and leant back. It was just after six and they would light the lamps in a while, but for the next half hour or so the light from outside would be enough. Not that it could illuminate much of the interior: most of the windows were covered by packing cases instead of glass, leaving the light from outside to cut through the darkness in haphazard shafts. Daylight never reached the back of the narrow bar, so the full extent of the beer stains and ground-in dirt on the floor remained hidden.

  In the dim recesses of the room, men hunched over their drinks while a few of the local trollops jostled for their first customers of the night.

  Ma thrust her hand under one pendulous breast and scratched vigorously. She had been a looker years ago but had long since given up wearing stays. She glanced across the bar at the thin young woman cleaning the tankards and yelled across at her to bring a brandy.

  The girl dried her hands and brought over a bottle and short glass, just as the door opened to admit Harry, Ma’s eldest son. He stumbled in with his brother, Charlie, a step or two behind, then a wild-eyed Tommy Lee, a bargeman from Chapel Street.

  Ma’s gaze ran over her first-born. He had his father’s looks - square and stocky. Unfortunately, he also had his father’s hair, whi
ch had started to disappear in his early twenties. Rather than try to comb over what was left of it, Harry had shaved his head clean with his razor. Ma shifted her gaze to her other son, Charlie, ten years Harry’s junior, and smiled. He had her slighter build and topped his brother by half a hand. He also had her golden hair, which she had spent hours combing and curling when he was a small boy.

  Elbowing aside the men clustered near the door, Harry stomped across the floorboards, Charlie and Tommy Lee following close behind.

  ‘’Ows me best gal?’ Harry asked, kissing his mother on her forehead.

  ‘All the better for seeing my sweet boy,’ she answered smiling at his brother.

  Harry’s lower lip jutted out. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a red and green apple. He threw it in the air, bounced it off his bicep and caught it again. ‘I got this from Murphy’s stall. He said I was to give it to you, to brighten your smile.’ He handed it to her.

  Ma slid her knife from her skirt pocket. She held it in her palm for a second to feel the smoothness of the ivory handle. It had been her Harry’s and his father’s before that, and it would no doubt pass to her son Harry in time. It was well crafted, balanced and razor-sharp. She ran her thumb up to the pin at the top of the handle and pressed it. The blade sprung out.

  Suddenly, Tommy stumbled and looked for a moment, as if he might fall to the floor. Charlie dragged him upright and, holding him tight by the arm, said, ‘Look who we found skulking in the Ten Bells.’

  Ma looked Tommy up and down. ‘The Ten Bells? What took you so far from home then?’

  Sweat glistened on Tommy’s narrow forehead.

  ‘Me ma’s talking to you,’ Charlie growled, ‘and I ’ope for your sake you’ve got an answer.’

  Ma waved her knife in the air and it gleamed in the light. ‘Now, Charlie, Tommy didn’t mean no ’arm.’ She began paring the skin from the apple.

  ‘Nah, nah, I didn’t mean no ’arm at all, Mrs T,’ Tommy replied, his body losing some of its tension. ‘I just fancied a stroll and found myself up Shoreditch way.’

  Harry snorted. ‘Long bloody stroll! Your old lady hasn’t seen you for a week.’

  ‘And neither ’ave we,’ Ma added, slicing into the apple and popping a wedge in her mouth. ‘Bring ’im ’ere.’

  Snapper, who’d settled under the table to gnaw at his haunches, heard the change of tone and sprang to his feet. Tommy yelled and lurched away but Harry and Charlie thrust him towards Ma and held his hands down on the table.

  Tommy’s eye fixed on the blade in Ma’s hand as it twinkled in the light. She paused, savouring his terrified expression then, with a twist of her fingers, she gripped the knife and slammed the blade through Tommy’s outstretched hand.

  An ear-piercing yell tore through the bar. Snapper barked and danced around their feet. Some of the patrons looked up but most, knowing where their best interests lay, continued to stare into their glasses.

  Still clutching the ivory handle, Ma leant forward. ‘And how is your old lady and those four lovely kids of yours?’ she asked in a conversational tone.

  A rivulet of blood was rolling off Tommy’s hand, staining the tabletop beneath.

  Charlie shook him. ‘Me ma asked you a question.’

  ‘She . . . she’s f . . . fine, Mrs Tugman.’

  ‘And the children?’

  Tommy was all but on his knees now in an effort to minimise the pull on his injured hand. ‘Grand. They’re grand.’

  Ma’s free hand shot out, grabbed the tattered scarf around Tommy’s neck and hauled him towards her. He lost his footing and would have fallen but for his hand nailed to the table.

  ‘If you want ’em to stay that way, Tommy Lee, when my boys give you something to take upriver, you fecking take it.’ Ma wriggled the blade. ‘Understand?’

  He nodded and, as Ma yanked the knife out of his hand, he collapsed. Snapper barked a couple of times at the crumpled heap then waddled off.

  Ma’s hand went to her chest.

  ‘Has ’e upset you, Ma?’ Harry asked, glaring at the man on the floor.

  ‘Just catching my breath,’ she replied.

  Harry circled around Tommy, who was now coming to and scrambling to his feet.

  ‘You upset me ma,’ he shouted, and booted Tommy in the stomach.

  Tommy fell sideways, holding his bleeding hand, and vomited into the beer-soaked sawdust. Charlie went to boot him, too.

  ‘That’s enough!’ Ma barked. ‘Throw him outside. And you’ - she jabbed her index finger at the girl behind the bar - ‘get a bucket and clear up this mess.’

  Harry and Charlie heaved Tommy up once again, dragged him to the door and threw him out to the street.

  Ma wiped the blade of her knife on her skirt and resumed eating her apple, but felt a sudden sharp sting under her arm. Letting the knife fall to her lap, she slid her right hand between the buttons of her grubby blouse, over to her left armpit, where she caught her minute tormenter between her thumb and forefinger. She extracted it and idly studied the flea as it struggled. ‘You can hide from Ma and give ’er a nip when she ain’t looking,’ she told the insect as she cracked it between her black-rimmed nails, ‘but she’ll get yer in the end.’

  Chapter One

  Stepney Green, 1844

  With her hand on the polished banister, Josephine O’Casey, known as Josie ever since she could remember, lifted her skirts and made her way down the uncarpeted stairs from the main part of the house, to the kitchen. The heat from the room burst over her as she opened the door. Tucking a stray lock of her auburn hair back behind her ears, she stepped down to the flagstone floor.

  The kitchen of number twenty-four Stepney Green was half below street level. The range, with its two ovens, roasting spit and six hotplates, dominated the space. Daisy, the maid, lit it at five in the morning and it supplied the household not only with food but, thanks to the copper incorporated into its design, a constant stream of hot water.

  Standing with her back to Josie was Mrs Woodall, the Munroe family’s cook. Her wide hips shook as she furiously stirred the contents of one of the large saucepans.

  On a normal day Mrs Woodall accommodated the erratic working hours of Josie’s stepfather, Dr Robert Munroe, as well as the vagaries of the tradesmen and the children’s fads and fancies; however, today was not a normal day, and the usually unruffled cook looked as if she was about to boil over, just like one of her pots.

  ‘Oh, Miss Josie, it’s you. I thought it was your mother again,’ Mrs Woodall said, some of the worry leaving her face.

  Josie smiled. To her knowledge her mother, Ellen, had already been down to the kitchen three times in the last two hours and by the look on Cook’s face she was expected again.

  ‘You’d think the Queen of Sheba was coming, the amount of dishes I’ve got to prepare,’ Mrs Woodall continued.

  Queen of Sheba! No, someone much more important: Mrs Munroe, her stepfather’s elderly mother.

  ‘Can I do anything to help?’ asked Josie, skirting around the stained chopping block which still had the odd chicken feather stuck to its surface. She, too, had escaped from the turmoil upstairs.

  Apart from her trips to see Cook, Ellen had visited the guest room twice to check that the bed linen was properly aired, and her temper was shortening by the minute.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Josie, but I’ve taken the plates up and now I just have to wait for the meat to cook and the fruit to arrive.’

  There was a crash from the floor above. Josie and Mrs Woodall looked up.

  ‘Your poor mother,’ tutted Mrs Woodall, and, turned her attention to the pile of cabbage sitting ready to prepare. ‘She shouldn’t be running about in her condition.’

  Josie agreed and, pushing her way past the basket of potatoes on the floor, went over to the roasting hook to rewind the clockwork that had begun to slow.

  Mrs Woodall gave her a grateful smile. ‘I could do with Daisy down here to help,’ she said, attacking the wrinkled leaves of the
Savoy cabbage with her vegetable knife. ‘I don’t know why nurse needs help with the children.’

  Josie repositioned the dripping tray under the roasting side of beef turning in front of the fire. ‘George and Joe have been up since dawn,’ she said. ‘Their racket woke Jack, who grizzled for an hour, and then the girls got out of bed. Poor Nurse has to help Miss Bobby and Lottie into their best clothes and take the rags out of their hair, and at the same time try to soothe Jack, who’s teething. She needs Daisy to make sure they are all ready on time.’

  Mrs Woodall looked unconvinced. Josie noticed the jam tarts on the cooling tray by the open window.