Flower Read Free

sit and hem. She slaps me when the stitches are crooked or too big, then I have to do them over. Mrs. Riley says I sew with the wrong hand. She won’t let me use my left hand, my
bad
hand she calls it, but that’s the only way I can hem. I don’t like sewing. Mrs. Riley watches me and hits my knuckles with the wooden spoon if she catches me using my
bad
hand.
    When Queen Victoria died last year, we were sewing black armbands all day long. Even the twins, Ethel and Esther, and they’re younger than me, were helping.Rosie’s got poor eyes; she can hardly see. Mrs. Riley hates her more than any of us. She gets money paid regular for Rosie–that’s why she keeps her.
    Mrs. Riley likes her own boy, Bert. He’s big and mean, always pinching us. I told Helen he looks up our dresses, and she sighed and said, “Keep out of his way.”
    The girls sleep together in the bed upstairs. The twins wet the bed, and Mrs. Riley gives them a whipping most days, but not too hard. At the place I was in before this, at Mrs. Tompkins’, there were seven children. We slept on the floor after she sold the mattress for drink. Helen took me away from there quick as a wink when she found out. “Don’t you ever touch a drop, Lillie, you hear me? Drink gets you in trouble.”
    I try to remember everything Helen tells me. I think over the words after she’s gone back to that big house, where she works for the lords and ladies, and I whisper them to Rosie when the others are asleep. That way I don’t forget.
    Helen told me we have to pretend we’re sisters. I’m not to tell anyone she’s my mother, but I
know
she is, it’s just that I have to keep it a secret. “I was sixteen when I had you,” she said. “If Madam knew I got a little girl and no husband, I’d lose my place.”
    Helen comes to see me every other Sunday afternoon, and sometimes on Wednesdays. Then she pays Mrs. Riley, who always counts the money Helen givesher before putting it in the teapot on the mantelpiece. Sometimes Helen can’t come because she has too much work at the house. She says I mustn’t mind, so I try not to. No one ever comes to see Rosie.
    Helen and I do special things. Once she took me for a ride on a horse-drawn bus. After we stepped down, the street sweeper winked at Helen, and she tossed her head so that the feather on her hat wobbled. I laughed out loud. Helen pushed her hat pin more firmly into her hair–her hair’s golden brown, not black like mine. Mrs. Riley calls me a little Gypsy because my hair’s so dark. Helen’s ever so pretty. “Cheeky blighter, we can do better than the likes of him, eh, Lillie?” she said.
    The house where Helen works is very grand. The dining table seats twenty-four, she told me. She sleeps at the top of the house with Gertie, who helps Nanny with Miss Sadie and Master Rupert and the new baby that lies in a cradle covered with muslin and ribbon and lace. Helen said once, “See, Lillie, I’m not always going to be the maid of all work, filling coal scuttles and polishing grates. One day I’ll be a lady’s maid, bring Madam her breakfast and arrange her hair, lay out her gown and help her dress when she goes to the opera at Covent Garden. You’ve got to aim for something in life, Lillie.”
    She looked at me then, really looked, and said, “Is that Mrs. Riley treating you fair? Feeds you alright, does she?” It wouldn’t do to tell Helen I’m hungry all thetime, that Bert snatches the bread off our plates. If I get moved again, it could be worse. Best to say nothing about it.
    One Wednesday Helen comes and says, “Today’s your birthday, Lillie. You’re seven years old, so I’ve brought you a present. It’s a picture postcard. Do you like it? That’s the famous Lillie Langtry. She’s the most beautiful lady in London … well, after Queen Alexandra, that is. She’s a great friend of King Edward, the one who used to be Prince Bertie. Lillie always wears black, to show off her beautiful white skin.