A Better Man
Chapter Thirteen
Daylight
Spring 1917
Eleanor nearly cried the day the flowers were ripped from her garden, but she understood why, and had consented to it when asked. The food shortages were becoming unbearable, with the farmers fleeing their plows to fight in the war, and the blockades. Eliza had approached her with an idea one morning during breakfast; the flower shop was failing dismally, and Eliza felt that people would much rather have something to eat rather then smell or look at. Eleanor's gardening space was expansive, and Eliza had been reading about cultivating vegetable gardens. Wouldn't it be a marvelous venture - she had suggested - to use the space they had for growing and selling vegetables at a very reasonable - nearly charitable - price?
Eleanor agreed that it would, and had kissed the young girl on the cheek and commended her for being so very clever - even though her heart was breaking just a little bit.
So there she found herself, sitting at a small table in the gardens, dandling seven month old Jack on one knee, as Eliza and Burt the gardener diligently pulled out the prized flowers, and replaced them with seeds that would produce snap beans, tomatoes, and anything else that could turn a good profit and fill an empty belly.
"Eliza - really, dearest, you need not work yourself so hard!" Eleanor chided.
Eliza looked up from her work, hair a frazzle, and a smudge of dirt marring her fair skin. "Now, ma'am, I ain't 'fraid to get me 'ands a little dirty." Jack squealed with delight at the unfamiliar way his mother spoke, and she rewarded her son with a wink. Eleanor felt relief at the child's joy; his first tooth was coming through and his temperament at the unwelcome intrusion was making life difficult for everyone.
Henry walked into the garden, upon hearing Eliza speaking in her native tongue. He felt as though he had stepped into the past, when he saw her bent over in the dirt, looking every inch the impoverished flower girl he had discovered that one fateful night. The thought was not an unpleasant one, for those memories came from a much simpler time - a time he would willingly turn the clocks back for.
"Mother - you really must not let in any sort of riffraff from the street into your home - Oh, hello Jack; come here, my boy - if you let one in, more will follow," Henry teased, taking the child from Eleanor, and sitting down. His fondness for the child never failed to astonish Eleanor, or anyone else for that matter. Perhaps it was the fact that Jack had immediately become attached to Henry, without any sort of urging from outside influence. The child just naturally gravitated towards the man, and - miracle of miracles - Henry did not discourage it.
"Professor, my son is not a cat!" Eliza scolded with a half smile - Henry was dangling his pocketwatch in front of the boy's pale, captivated eyes, and Jack was attempting to grasp at it with his small, chubby hands.
"Oh, very well then - here you are, boy." Henry allowed Jack to take the time-piece, in which he promptly shoved into his drooling mouth, and then removed with an unguarded look of infantile disgust before dropping it entirely. Henry did not seem appalled in the least bit at the child's rough treatment of the expensive trinket, as his eyes were trained on Eliza, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Eleanor.
"It must be so wonderful to be such a natural beauty that a little bit of dirt and grime does absolutely nothing to distract from it - don't you agree, Henry?" Eleanor could not decide who was blushing the deepest at her remark: Eliza, who was still having trouble accepting such compliments, or Henry, who probably was not aware that someone had noticed his staring.
"She looks the same to me as she ever has," Henry remarked, after clearing his throat. Jack began to fuss.
Eliza rose to her feet, and wiped her dirty hands upon her skirt, her cheeks still blazing from Eleanor's little exchange with Henry. She took her son out of Henry's custody, and pressed a kiss against his chubby cheek.
"Whatever is the matter, Jack?" She threw an apologetic look at Burt. "I am afraid I have to put my son down for his nap, Burt - can you manage without me for a while?"
The gruff old man waved his hand at her, dismissively. "I managed just fine fer three decades before ya decided to lend a 'and, Mrs. 'ill - go and get out o' the sun before ya freckle yer fine complexion."
Henry thought that it was a bit too late for that. A smattering of freckles played across the bridge of her nose as they spoke. Unfashionable to most, but devilishly charming to Henry. As though hearing his thoughts, Eliza raised her hand to self-consciously cover her nose, before entering the house. Henry found himself smiling fondly at the sight, before checking himself. There would be quite enough of that for one day.
13 June 1917
"Come now, Eliza - can't someone else take your little charity basket for you?"
Eliza narrowed her eyes at Henry. "Burt is escorting me, and it is not a charity basket, it is a sample basket in order to show people the quality of my wares, and tell them where they can be purchased."
"It is a charity basket, Eliza. No one is going to travel from Whitechapel to Brompton for a green grocer."
"They will if the price is right."
"Is that so? Well, enjoy being torn limb from limb by starving ruffians."
Eliza pressed her lips into a thin line, and deepened the intensity of her glare, before turning dramatically on her heel and storming from the house, with Henry chuckling at her. It was true, she was heading towards the east end with wares that were to be given freely to its denizens, and she doubted any of them would be in a position to travel to the posher neighborhood her flower shop was located at. She did not care a jot, though. Memories of leaner times still plagued her, and while she did not have much, she still had considerably more then the people of her former caste. Professor Higgins' scorn at her gesture stung a great deal - what was wrong with having a kind heart towards the less fortunate? He would never understand what it was like to shiver, and starve to the point of digging through the dustbin, as she had done as a child when her father's meager income was being thrown away in the pub.
Henry Higgins could take his fine airs and graces and shove them up his arse. Eliza had better things to do then to look down her nose at the less fortunate.
The less fortunate seemed a bit proud on that day. Eliza faced incredulous looks, and outright rejection from some when she entered the Whitechapel district.
"Yer pride gonna feed them four, then?" Eliza asked, when a worn-out, pinched face mother of indeterminate age tried to tell the 'fine lady' off. Astonished at the familiar dialect coming from such a nicely turned out specimen, the woman bit down on her pride and accepted one of the baskets.
"Eliza?" The woman in question turned to see a rather pretty - albeit rather dirty - young woman wave her down. Eliza walked over to her, hesitantly.
"It's Emma Smith, ya silly girl!" Ah, yes - Eliza remembered now. She had been a bit of a confidante, back in the old days. The years of living rough had not done much to dim the brilliant hue of her bright blue eyes, although lines on her face were beginning at the corners of her pert mouth.
"Emma, what ya doin' all this way? Don't ya still live-"
"I live 'ere now, 'Liza. Been down on me luck, and 'ad to move elsewhere."
The two women strolled together, catching up, and making a curious sort of pair. Burt completed the oddity, grizzled and slightly bent, arms overflowing with baskets.
It was only when they heard the aeroplanes overhead, did the girls stop their chatter in order to gaze up at the sky to see the crafts, great and white flying above.
"It's our boys!" Emma cried, shouting joyfully at the spectacle. Eliza felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, which always signified trouble.
"Emma, I think we had better get to shelter."
"Why ya talkin' like that, 'Liza? It's just our-"
Emma was cut off by the screams in the street as the bombs began to fall in broad daylight.
Henry had only been teasing Eliza, earlier that day, but the look she gave him as she stormed away stayed with him for some reason. He had been told on several occasions that he tended to tease too hard, especially where Eliza was concerned. They had been getting on so very well, too.
The look continued to plague him as he sat in the nursery with Jack, urging the boy to improve his crawling. The child fell to his stomach after a failed attempt, and had raised his head to give Henry a look that eerily echoed his mother's.
"Tosh, Jack - It's not as if I pushed you down." The boy began to scream, and Henry picked him up in a panic, dead-set on searching for Pickering, Eleanor, or even that hanger-on Clara. They were all better equipped to deal with Jack's tantrums.
"Mother!" He cried, hurrying down the stairs. A violent tremor tore through the house, and nearly caused Henry to lose his footing, and drop the boy.
"Henry!" His mother came into view, face ashen. "We must get to the cellar, quickly!"
Cold panic gripped at Henry. "Where is Eliza?"
"Hurry, Henry - the boy!"
The small, squirming, panicking life in Henry's arms spurred him to action. He followed his mother, while Jack screamed into his ear. Now he feared the sight of Eliza's outraged face would be permanently etched into his memory - something he would see every single time he closed his eyes at night. It could have very well been the last moment he shared with her, and he had mocked her in it.
Stupid, stupid beast.
They were cooped in that cellar for what felt like ages. The entire time, Henry kept his eyes on the door, willing Eliza to come walking through them as though nothing had happened. Henry was certain he would shake her if that happened. How dare she make him worry so? Who the devil did she think she was?
She did not come.
Finally, the little makeshift family emerged from their hiding place, and headed into the streets to survey the damage. It appeared that their neighborhood was untouched, and the tremors they felt had come from a distance. Henry spotted a rather filthy looking boy of about eight running through the streets, and intercepted him.
"Where have you come from, boy?" He barked. The child began to weep, and Henry dimly heard his mother scolding him for being so insensitive.
"T-the east sir - It's real bad over there, it is. Me mum 'as a position in one of the 'ouses over 'ere. I got out of the school but me sister, sir..." The child spotted Eleanor and recognized a maternal spirit in her; with a sob he threw himself into her arms. "Please, 'elp me find me mum! They won't let me in all dirty-like..."
"Hush, child, I will take you to her."
Henry watched as his mother walked off with the boy. He turned to Pickering, who bore a stricken expression as he held on to Jack. "A school, Pickering?"
"God damn them."
"Eliza was giving out baskets on the east end." Henry was beginning to know how Eliza felt, those long and terrible months after Freddy had died. Something inside of him was not quite registering the fact that she could be gone, and yet another terrible part of him was insisting that she was. The war inside of him made his heart feel as though it would hammer clear through his chest, and yet stop entirely. He looked to her son, cranky, and no doubt confused at the long absence of a mother who was usually loathe to part from his side. What the devil would be done about him if his mother was lost?
Henry found himself meticulously going over every memory he had of the girl. Most of them were not pleasant, and he was not proud of those moments. He had bullied, and yelled, and pushed, and...
They had danced together. Oh yes, there had been that dance at the ball, with hundreds of people watching her, and whispering about her, and she had been so ethereal and elegant, but that was not the dance he recalled. No, this dance had occured in the wee hours of the morning, and had been a jovial celebration of her monumental triumph. There had been no princes, dignitaries, or socialites hovering around them - it had been only the two of them... well, and Pickering, but the man had been too lost in the celebration to take note of their own private moment. The way she had looked at him...
He had not taken note of it then, but there had been something more to her dreamy gaze then just mere exhaustion. He so wanted to be able to question her about it now.
She still did not come.
This could not be the end, surely. He refused to believe that his last words to her had been "Enjoy being torn limb from limb by starving ruffians". Impossible. It could not end with that. He may as well have told her that he wished she'd be blown to bits by-
Oh, god, there were tears burning at his eyes. He quickly blinked them down into submission, and sighed, eyes towards the east.
She was running down the sidewalk, crying for her son, with that damned ancient gardener trailing behind her.
"Jack!" She ran to Pickering, blind to everyone but the one person who was the still point in her turning world. Her boy.
Jack was in her arms in an instant, getting kisses rained all over his face, and hair. Neither Pickering nor Henry dared interfere on their reunion, even though the younger man wanted nothing more than to pull her into an embrace, and then lock her in her room, never to venture out alone again.
The violence of that emotion startled him.
Author's note: The school referred to by the young boy is, of course, The Upper North Street School in Poplar. On the thirteenth of June 1917, a bomb was dropped on the school killing eighteen. Sixteen of those deaths were children between the ages four to six.