Tattycoram by Audrey Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

Southampton Row. I did not dawdle, but I observed everything — the multitudes of men and women hurrying along, going from somewhere to somewhere else, the carriages of the fashionable ladies, the nursemaids in Russell Square chatting to one another as their precious charges ran about on the paths, the hawkers of fruit and vegetables, of oysters and pies. The boardmen along Tottenham Court Road advertising chop houses, plays, patent medicine. Once I even saw a procession of huge portmanteaux and boxes proceeding down Oxford Street, followed by a group of laughing boys. I thought for a minute I had lost my senses, but it was really a parade of men with only heads and legs sticking out, advertising a trunk maker. The boys were abusing them, shouting at them and shoving, trying to knock them over. The sight was comical in the extreme, but the boardmen did not look happy; I never saw one that did. They could not stand still, like the costermongers or flower sellers, but had to be forever on the move.
    Always I looked for Jonnie; I felt sure I should recognize him if I saw him, even after all this time.
    Sometimes men spoke to me, but something in my manner must have dissuaded them from following.
    There were many beggars, often dressed in bits of soldiers’ apparel, but Cook told me she’d eat a fish head if any of them had done service anywhere but in a pub.
    I walked miles and miles, sometimes as far as Kensington Gardens, sometimes down to the river, always listening for the church bells so I would not be late returning home. I never went to the very poor areas around Seven Dials; Mrs. Dickens had warned me that no girl should enter such places alone.
    â€œMr. Dickens goes, but he is a grown man. Nevertheless, I even fret about him sometimes, although I know he must because of his work.”
    The freedom to move about, the freedom not to be one drab child in a host of drab children. On washdays, when I helped the washerwoman with the family wash and my hands became rough and raw from the soda and scalding water; on days when Charley had been fractious and I had to sit up half the night with him and still be up before dawn to light the fires and heat water; on days when nothing seemed to go right — then I grumbled a little to myself, but really, I felt so free compared to my prison life at the hospital that my grumbling did not last long.
    One person, however, could always rub me the wrong way and reduce me to smouldering fury.
    My single extravagance was stationery, for every fortnight I wrote a letter home to Father and Mother in Shere, describing my life on Doughty Street and the wonderful sights that I saw on my walks through London. I told them how well I was treated and how I prayed for them both every night and for Sam and Jonnie as well.
    Until the penny post came in, I had to save enough to pay for the delivery of the letter, for I knew they would go without to pay the postage if I didn’t.
    I told them how noisy London was, once you got out into the crowded streets, and how often I thought of the music of the Tillingbourne as it rushed along and the song of the lark in the clear air. Sometimes my tears smeared the letters by the end, for I did sorely miss them and always would.
    Mrs. Dickens had a young sister named Georgina. She was just a little girl, no more than ten or eleven when I first went into service in Doughty Street, but she had a sharp tongue and made pronouncements as though she were much older.
    â€œ
Who
is that girl?” I heard her say, shortly after I arrived. “Surely that is not the new housemaid?”
    Mrs. Dickens said yes, that was indeed who I was.
    â€œShe looks like a gypsy, she looks like a girl not to be trusted.”
    She liked to call me Coram, unlike the rest of the household. Early on Mr. Dickens had suggested that I might prefer not to be called by the name of the Foundling’s father and that I might prefer to be addressed as Harriet or