Jessica.
It was the third of December, seventeen ninety- nine. I cleaned the kitchen, alone. The staff had finished for the night. My husband had been chasing a carriage down the streets. One of the guests, Miss. Dunn, had left her fan in the dining room. I heard him thudding in through the hall as he returned.
‘Jessica! Jessica! Make haste woman!’
‘Mr. Fitzwilliam, do not take that tone with me! The guests, no doubt, do not wish to be disturbed with - ’
I stopped in the kitchen doorway. He was cradling a child.
‘Who - what?’
The little boy was covered in blood and dirt and snow. I took him from Peter. I could feel his shivers. I could feel his bones. I could smell him. It is an odd thing, a truly wonderful thing; the soft, overlooked smells of skin, of hair…the harsher, heavier smell of blood.
‘Oh, Peter,
what’s his name?’
‘…Frank.’
And I was holding Frank.
…Our Frank …
I carried him into the kitchen. He sat on my knee, rigid but shaking. I lent him against my bosom, my white apron became red with his blood.
I felt his tiny ribs.
His cradle cap was blood, his hair had been shorn. His right arm was broken and he was clutching it as tightly as another child would clutch a toy. I sent Peter back out to fetch water and then I readied the bath for him. He put up some resistance as I tried to peel off the filthy clothes. When Peter returned he watched him, petrified.
‘No! Leave me!’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Leave me! He said you couldn’t have me! When he offered he wasn’t thinking, he wasn’t thinking…’ He jumped off my lap and fled into the corner. He slid down against it; too poorly to stand. He glared at us like he was a vicious animal.
I looked at Peter, who shrugged. Then Frank’s stomach rumbled; loudly and painfully. I smiled at him; walked to the oven and got him what was left of the pease pottage. I set it before him.
‘Eat it,’ I said. ‘It’s yours.’
He did, slowly at first. When he had finished I picked him up and, keeping his clothes on, I walked him over to the bath. He struggled as I tried to put him in; but he was too weak to put up much of a fight. I left him to take his own clothes off once he was in the warm water. His body was covered in sores and welts. I washed off his blood with the water in my kitchen. The water in the tin bath went red.
That night is the only time I’ve seen Frank cry, and he really cried hard - really sobbed.
‘Please don’t cry, don’t cry my dear.’
His face stopped moving, but those, huge fat tears poured down his cheeks. I took him out of the bath, wrapped him in a towel and held him to me. I brought down an old shirt of Peter’s for him and I fed him bread and butter. Whilst he ate I burnt his old rags on the fire.
That night he slept in our bed, between us. We had yet to make him up a room. We did not sleep; I stroked his face with my finger. Peter and I just watched him all night.
‘You know, Jessica,’ whispered Peter. ‘He doesn’t look like how we imagined Little Peter…He’s got blonde hair.’
‘Like me,’ I said. ‘And green eyes like you.’
Frank.
Our Dad, he found me. I tried to move away but he’d seen me. (Not the work house not the workhouse, run, not the docks, not those docks, please, and run till it burnt his throat and slip and fall and fall and fall and fall no no and fall no no…JAMES! Crack! Wake up James, please wake up. I’m sorry, wake up, wake up. Maybe if Francis goes for a medicine man…Francis promised he would not fail James again. He promised to come back. He told James how much he loved him. Francis loved James so much it ached. He waited and waited until it got dark, but not the workhouse, not the dockers, ‘If you were pretty enough, I could sell you.’ Not the work house so Francis ran, he left James there and he ran and ran then he fell again and he slipped and fell and…) Our Dad picked me up. He took me to the kitchen and Our Ma was so kind, the kitchen was so warm. The soup was the best thing in the world.
Peter.
I found him. I was walking back past the docks, and he ran out of Denmark St., tripped and fell. He didn’t get up. I went over to help him. He was bleeding heavily. I helped him to his feet. He was a right mess, all blood and tears. He had no coat or shoes and his hair had been cut very close to his head. I asked him what was wrong and he just sobbed. I realized passers by would think he was mine… I took my coat off and wrapped it around his shoulders.
‘Where’s your Father?’
He started to mutter incoherently, pushing his hands down on his head.
‘Is he in trouble?’
‘You have to help-,’ he gasped. ‘You-’ He choked on his own sobs.
‘And your Mother?’
He swayed like he would faint. I picked him up.
‘What’s your name?’
With all his sobbing and gasping I could scarce make out what he said. It sounded like ‘Frank is Holt.’
I took him home. Jessica adored him. As soon as I’d sorted the bath she sent me away for the physician. By the time I came back with Mr. Rogers the boy was washed, dressed and asleep at the table.
‘My word, this child has suffered quite a beating,’ Mr. Rogers said. He ran his eyes over Frank. I noticed his gaze stopping at the laceration marks on the boy’s wrists. I looked away. ‘Or a series of them. I wonder-’
‘What can be done to set him right, sir?’ asked Jessica eagerly. ‘Please.’
Mr. Rogers nodded and complimented Jessica on her treating of Frank’s wounds; then he bound his broken arm and head. The child slept through it.
‘Will the cut on his head scar?’ Jessica asked.
‘I should think so, but he is fortunate of the positioning. Let that hair grow back to a sensible length, it’ll hide it.’
Jessica smiled. ‘So his hair will grow back? He hasn’t lost it through illness?’
‘No, Mrs. Fitzwilliam,’ Mr. Rogers said, he pointed to the small cuts on the scalp. ‘The hair has been shorn for profit, no doubt.’ He ran a finger over Frank’s pale eyebrows, they twitched but he did not wake. ‘Such an unusually fair colour, nay it’s nearly white, people would pay good money for that.’
Jessica patted her gold bun. Mr. Rodgers went on to recommend that we shouldn’t leave the boy to sleep unsupervised after the injury he had sustained to his head.
‘Of course not,’ Jessica said and gestured for me to pick him up. ‘He can sleep in with us for tonight, can’t he?’
I knew he was here to stay.
The next day I started to ask around a few pubs for anyone by the name of Holt.
‘Oh, you want Holt? He’s barred from here. I think them at The Hatchet still serve him though.’
I went to The Hatchet and asked them. They asked if I was here to settle his tab. I said no and spoke of how I had found a child with the surname last night.
‘Oh, you mean Little Francis?’
The woman behind the bar started to explain, with help from her regulars, the boy’s origins. They told me Jim Holt was the second son of a wealthy family. He had been disowned and disinherited, however, for marrying a French woman with a revolutionary background. She died seven years ago in childbirth. After her death Holt had disgraced himself with drinking, gambling and such displays of violence towards the child they said he’d gone mad with grief.
‘Well, where is he now?’
The woman shrugged. ‘God alone only knows. He’s normally sniffing around here come this hour.’
There were no other relatives to claim the boy, I was welcome to him. I came home and he was still asleep in my bed. Little Francis. I did not like that. He’d been Our Frank for a day and that sounded better. Francis was too French, too feminine. Frank though, it was strong, it was definite. Jessica came in.
‘I thought we could open the nursery for him.’
I shook my head. He was too old for a nursery, in age and from what the woman at The Hatchet had said, experience…and we may yet have Little Peter. ‘Use the smaller room.’
She nodded.
‘Mrs. Webster came to visit today…he slept through it, though,’ she smiled. ‘She gave me some of her boys’ old clothes.’
She sat down on the bed and stroked his head. ‘We think he must be about the same age as young William, though I fancy Frank is taller. I didn’t think …but perhaps he’s tall for his age.’
She did not take her eyes from him.
‘How old is William?’ I asked.
‘Six.’
‘Frank’s older,’ I said. ‘They told me today his mother died seven years ago bringing him into the world.’
Jessica stood up. ‘Peter -’
‘I went to a pub, near to where I found him. They told me -’
‘Is he an orphan?’ she asked.
‘His Father, Jim Holt, is no where to be found. He has no family to -’
She put her hand on my chest. ‘That’s it, Peter. Thank you. Thank you…,’I put my arms around her and she rested against me. ‘I should prepare his room. I think we should christen him as soon as possible…it’s just Frank then, is it? Do you want to give him Peter for a middle name?’
She drew back and I shook my head.
‘Very well. I’ll ask the Websters to be Godparents. It’ll take too long to sort your brothers out. The Websters can come back over tonight.’
I nodded. Better to save my brothers for blood. She looked close to tears but she went to ready his room. I looked back at him. He started to stir, then took a deep breath and sat bolt up right. He looked around the room, panicked and moved to get out of the bed. ‘Where is James?!’ He gasped. ‘Please, where is James?!’
I sat on the bed next to him.
‘He is gone.’
He pulled the covers up to his chest. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ I said and put my hands on his shoulders. He flinched, but I tightened my grip. ‘Now…Frank, it would be best if he was forgotten. Do you understand me? It will only upset your mother.’
‘Frank?’ he whispered. ‘Who’s …My mother?! My mother is here?! Where am I? What happened? Is she angry with me? My mother is here?!’
‘Yes, your mother, my wife, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.’
He stared at me blankly.
‘The blonde lady,’ I said.
‘I don’t-’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We will look after you now. You need rest and in the morning everything will be better. Everything will be as it should be.’
I told him to sleep. I don’t know if he did. I left him alone and went downstairs. I called a staff meeting and told them what had happened. For Jessica’s sake I asked that they accept him. They all nodded.
‘Of course,’ Albert said. ‘I cannot think of a woman more deserved of a child then the mistress.’
Frank.
(You can’t leave me Francis! You can’t leave me! ) They were always at the door, around the door. She was always there with kisses and cuddles and food. If she was not I knew he watched me. It will only upset your mother. We didn’t want that, I didn’t want that. She made soft, warm bread, steaming, thick stews, sweet, sugary truffles. She sat me on her lap and told strange stories about princess and dragons or arks and animals. She made me sleepy, she made my stomach full…when we cooked together it was like nothing I ever felt before. (Did you see how I did not betray you as you betrayed me? You will never know what love is, someone as hateful and wicked as you! You mustn’t leave me, Francis, can you promise me that? )
*
One day we had visitors. They were called Uncle Henry and Aunt Jane. She went out with Aunt Jane. I was alone in the kitchen. (Francis promised to get a medicine man, Francis promised never to leave James. Francis was supposed to go ahead but he left James behind. Francis betrayed him, where James had never Francis.) It will only upset your mother. (And what has it done to James? What did Francis do to James? James will still be there, waiting for help and rescue.) It will only upset your mother. But she is not Francesca. (James will be crying, James will be hurting and Francis just left him after he promised to get help. This woman was not Francesca. Who was this man? Who was this man? Peter? Fitzwilliams, Fitzwilliam, Fitzwilliams, Frank. FRANK. Frank. What of James? Peter says it will upset the woman, the mother. Why is she mother? Francis’ mother is dead…and James? What of James? Was it that man, that Peter? What if James is still there? What if the men came? The men. Men from the work house or the doctors or the prison or Dresden. What if Dresden came? Francis cannot, cannot leave James to Dresden. )
It was raining. I stood at the back door. I pushed it open. I stood in the door way. (Francis cannot, cannot leave James to Dresden.) So I ran, pulled. (Francis ran home) Skidding over cobbles, dodging sledges running, running past the docks. Between sailors legs and past the wigged men with their dark people. Negroes, chains on ankles, black eyes, black hair, brown skin and red blood. Crones. A woman laughs open mouthed. Jessica, the mother does not laugh like that. Does not wear a dress too small, does not have breasts like that. I can smell gin again, gin and wetness, rotten meat, shit and rot. There are more crones, the streets are windier and darker, darker. Coughing and coughing, singing songs with no words. The cobbles don’t fit in the ground, some have scattered about, holes in the roads. People are shouting, not as many horses but more dogs.
Compared to The Fitzwilliam…it was dark. Skinny hands, big eyes, toothless mouths, rags and dirt. Not everyone was like this. I had thought this was it, but there was a place that was bright and warm and…I stood opposite the old door. (Francis could take James to Frank’s life. Jessica could be kind to James as well, there was so many beds. James could sleep in a bed!) The door opened. Mr. Dresden stared down. ‘Bless my soul.’
(‘Mr. Dresden,’ James said, ‘Don’t ever tell him anything about money! Don’t you dare talk to him Francis or I’ll make you swallow for bloody teeth!’
Mr. Dresden grabs Frank and pulls him in the house. He slams the door then pins Francis to wall. ‘Three months rent, you bloody rascal! And I had to pay some one to clean that mess he left!’
‘Where is he?’
‘I’ll tell you if you pay up.’
‘Dresden, Dresden-’
‘Shut your mouth and pay up! Did you stay at that place he took you? I bet you made a pretty penny there-’
‘No, I let him down, I-‘
‘Well, where did you come by such fine clothes?‘
Frank will not tell on Jessica. Dresden slaps Francis. He keeps Francis pinned to the wall and he goes through his pockets. They are empty.
‘Shoes now.’
‘Will you tell me?’
‘Shoes and you may as give me the stockings and jacket in all.’
Francis obeys, for James. ‘Where?’
‘You think I know? I sold what was left of he.’
Sold him? Francis left him to be sold and carved up, carved and cut up and buried away from her Francis betrayed James, he betrayed James. Dresden runs his hands through Francis’ hair. ‘I should lock you back in the basement until you have enough for a ladies wig. I could make a tidy profit a few times a year.’) I jabbed two fingers in his eyes. ‘You shit!’ He loosed his grip and I ran. Out of the door into the street. Run. Sludge and shit under feet, croons wailing, beggars sleeping or dying or both, no food no warm, nothing but darkness. Wet rot and gin. Run. Didn’t stop until I was back in the kitchen, door shut. I stood alone. It was only then my feet started to feel cold, to ache with cold. I saw they were dirty.
‘What have you been doing?!’
I looked up at Peter and Uncle Henry.
‘You can take the boy out of the gutter,’ Henry said. ‘But you can’t take the gutter out of the boy.’
‘Go and sit in the parlour, Henry,’ Peter said. ‘I’ll deal with this.’
‘Chuck him out on his ear, that’s what I would do,’ Uncle Henry said as he walked away. My gut twisted at the thought of Dresden; hunger, cold, the basement, the cupboard, picking dog shit-
‘What have you been up to?’
‘I- I went back to…’ I braced myself for a beating.
‘You went back? After all I have done for you, you went back? Do you realise how much that would upset your Mother?’
(‘You think I know? I sold what was left of he.’ Sold him? Francis left him to be sold and carved up, carved and cut up and buried away from her Francis betrayed James, he betrayed James.)
‘Now I am going to go upstairs with my brother. You are going to clean yourself up and start preparing for the lunch rush to help your Mother and Albert. You don’t mention this or anything like this to her again. It would upset her too much. Do I make myself clear?’
Jessica.
Compared to other children; Mrs. Webster’s sons for example, he was very sensible. It was only years later that I realised how mature he had been for his age. He was clever as well, not that he possessed book knowledge or the like but…I suppose it was life knowledge that he had.
After his first few days with us he started to come down to the kitchen. I could not help but indulge him and Albert was terrible. ‘Oh, come now Mrs. Fitzwilliam, would you refuse my good friend Frank some Manchester truffles? Look at that little face!’
Frank seemed to have a natural hand in the kitchen and anything which he couldn’t do right straight away he would practice until he was happy with it.
‘There, try some, Ma…what do you think? Albert?’
‘Divine, an absolute treat!’ Albert would say.
And it always was. I had seen so many of my friends heaping undeserved praise on their children, but my Frank, he was different. He had all the makings of an excellent cook. I knew he would surpass me one day, surpass Albert and the very thought of it made me so happy. He would grin and shuffle his feet. ‘Truly? Is there not too much lemon for the cream?’ or ‘Are the peas not too lumpy?’ or something, he would always find fault but no, it was always delicious. It is only looking back that I wonder if I gave him too many jobs but he did them so well, with no compliant I never thought on it.
For a seven year old he was very self sufficient. Mrs. Webster commented on it several times but I secretly thought that simply her own children were backward. But then…I supposed it was rather odd for a seven year old be able to dress unaided, bath unsupervised, eat a variety of food without complaint, have no fear of the dark, to never cry.
As Christmas was quickly approaching I thought he would be filled with childish excitement. I decided we ought to take a turn about St. Nicolas’ Market to get us in a festive mood. The cobbles were frosty, carollers were singing and everywhere was the smell of mulled wine, citrus and spiced mince.
‘Here,’ I said to Frank. ‘Do you wish to hold my hand?’
He looked up at me. ‘If you want,’ he nodded. Our hands gripped each others. Together we weaved in and out of the crowds. I wholly expected, hoped, for strangers to comment on the little boy at my side; I longed to meet old friends so I could introduce him.
‘Should you like some mulled wine?’
He nodded, eyes widening. We walked further into the market and we heard a sledge screech to a holt. I craned my neck to see what had caused the commotion. Two boys had run out in front of the sledge and then frozen in panic. The driver started shouting, the boys crying and the mothers scalding. I looked down at Frank; knowing he would never behave so foolishly.
‘You must always remember to take care on busy roads,’ I said.
‘I know,’ he said. I pressed his hand and we carried on towards the mulled wine stall.
‘Turtles! Fresh turtles!’
‘Geese, got your Christmas goose ma’am?’
‘Sat – sum – as! Satsumas plucked from the green houses of Clifton. One for your son, Madam?’
I could not help but smile and could scarcely refuse. I got us a Satsuma each and Frank smiled at me. I peeled my fruit, smiling at the scent of it. Citrus was indeed the smell of Christmas itself.
‘Careful,’ Frank said suddenly. ‘Snatch clies.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Snatch clies,’ he said with a mouth full of Satsuma. ‘Pick pockets.’
‘Oh…’
I looked about the market again, drawing my basket close to myself. I could see no threat, just ruddy face stall holders and eager hagglers but then my eye caught sight of a child darting into an alley. Suddenly the off streets and alleys were all I could see. Villainous looking wretches stared out of them, grinding their teeth and extending their palms, darting about and scraping all manner of things from the floor. I put a hand on Frank’s shoulder.
‘Perhaps it is getting late,’ I said. ‘Maybe we ought to go.’ I put my hand on his shoulder and guided him home.
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