Christmas Child: an absolutely heartbreaking and emotional Victorian romance by Carol Rivers (classic english novels txt) 📕

last night in the house,’ she murmured, hoping she gave no offence. ‘To make certain it’s left in a presentable state.’

‘Why my dear!’ he objected, throwing up his arms, ‘that blessed bank don’t deserve a presentable state. It deserves a kick up its backside!’

‘If only Mr Benjamin had been able to repay the debt,’ Ettie murmured sadly, ‘the salon might have been saved.’

The butcher nodded slowly. ‘You may be right, but that don’t mean a stuffed shirt might put you under the cosh.’

Inhaling the familiar and beloved smell of sawdust on Terence’s clothes, Ettie kissed his cheek.

‘What’s that for, dear girl?’ he said in embarrassment.

‘You’ve been a dear friend.’

‘Truly my gain,’ he replied with a choke.

Ettie’s heart ached. She knew, though Terence did not, that her mind was made up for the future.

She could not walk the streets of Soho to find a position. Or live in Terence’s spare room and each day, see again, the sights of Soho that had brought her such happiness or remind her of whom she had lost. The family’s ghosts would always be there, shadowing her footsteps; Lucas and Clara and their boy, half in another world now, but trapped in this earthly limbo by Ettie’s own painful longing.

She would not wish to extend their suffering, but free them to go their way, as she must hers. Though it would cost her every ounce of willpower, her life in Soho had come to an end.

‘I’ll allow your request,’ said Terence stoutly, clearing his throat with manly fortitude. ‘But tomorrow, my beauty, at nine o’clock sharp, I shall call for you. Carry your bags I will and we’ll parade down Silver Street with our heads held up high.’

Ettie smiled, forcing back the tears so that Terence would not guess that this was a parting.

Their final goodbye.

Chapter 45

Ettie sat for the last time in Clara’s nursing chair. She felt the gentle breeze blow through the window, as if Clara was answering her thoughts and bidding her goodbye with nature’s own sweet breath. The candlelight flickered and Ettie smiled as if they were together in a pact.

The perambulator and crib stood with their pretty covers and the little table with its trinkets and brushes that Ettie had arranged.

Rose’s portrait now hung where the bishop’s silver crucifix had hung; its nail secured by use of the kitchen rolling pin, to support the frame’s weight. Rose looked benignly down on her grandson’s room. Ettie knew that whatever might befall this building, she had done her very best to send it off, like the Vikings of old sent their barges to Valhalla, and the people of the Ganges, might send their funeral pyres. She had read of these commemorations in the convent’s history books and now it seemed, they had guided her to this moment, when her life had returned full circle to its beginning.

Memories of Sister Patrick and Sister Ukunda, and the orphans surrounded her. Michael appeared, undiminished in her mind from the young rebel of her early years at the orphanage. And together with Lucas, Clara and the baby, was her mother, Colleen O’Reilly of Henrietta Street in Dublin, Ireland.

That night, she went to Lucas’s bedroom. Gone was the agony her employer had suffered. ‘Goodbye, Mr Benjamin,’ she whispered as she took the crucifix from under his pillow. ‘We’ll meet again one day, I am sure. You are free from the chains that bind you here. Take care of your little family.’

Dawn broke and Ettie left the letter she had written for Terence on the glass counter. She had promised to write to him, though when she could not say. Slipping on her coat and taking her cloth bag, she slipped quietly down Silver Street and away from the place she had once called home.

Chapter 46

Ettie reached Oxford Street just as the city began another busy shopping day. She had banked all her hopes on the milliner’s offer of an apprenticeship and she opened the door cautiously, hoping to see a friendly face.

‘Is the milliner here?’ Ettie asked as a haughty looking woman appeared. Her expression showed that she clearly disapproved of Ettie’s appearance.

‘I am the new owner,’ she replied.

‘Oh dear …’ Ettie had not expected this turn of events.

‘How may I help you?’ the new owner enquired, not sounding as though she wanted to help Ettie at all.

‘The lady who was here before, offered me an apprenticeship …’

‘What are your skills?’ interrupted the woman before Ettie could finish her sentence.

‘I was employed as an assistant to the tobacconist of Silver Street in Soho.’

‘Soho?’ the new owner repeated, stepping back a little as if she might catch a disease. ‘I’m afraid there are no vacancies here.’

‘But I was …’

‘I bid you good day,’ came the reply, leaving Ettie in no doubt that their conversation had ended.

With shoulders drooping Ettie left, wondering why she had not considered the possibility there may have been a change in the shop’s circumstances. Disappointed that her one realistic hope of employment had vanished, she walked the length of Oxford Street, gazing in the shiny windows, ashamed of her dowdy reflection.

It was not surprising that the new owner of the milliner’s had refused her request. Nevertheless, she continued her search, enquiring in the busy shops that were now filling with customers.

‘All positions are taken,’ said the owner of a restaurant, as he kept her standing at the entrance, unwilling to let her in.

‘Clear off, we don’t want your sort round here bringing down the tone of the area,’ scolded a red-faced woman behind the counter of a prosperous-looking bakery.

‘I suppose you’re on the cadge from the parson,’ demanded a policeman when she asked the way to the nearest church.

‘I should like to pray,’ Ettie replied unwittingly.

‘Go back to the East End,’ he ordered, ‘and don’t let me see you round here again.’

Ettie felt her cheeks burn with humiliation. Did her appearance condemn her so badly? If only she had cared for herself a little more, but she had lost interest since