‘Life tried to crush her, but only succeeded in making a diamond’
John Mark Green

PROLOGUE

London’s Ragamuffins by Lady Dorothy Harcourt
London 1900

They beg and dance for pennies outside West End theatres, selling bunches of wilted lavender in the summer, or hot chestnuts in the colder months, in their hand-me-down clothes so tattered and torn.

But who are they, these mysterious creatures, who emerge from dark, winding alleyways and slip into the shadows when mischief is afoot? Where do they come from?

My first attempt to find out more took me to the Seven Dials in Covent Garden, accompanied by my butler, who followed me at a safe distance. I had listened intently to gossip at Mayfair dinner parties denouncing the area as a Hell’s kitchen, a den of thieves, but I must confess, despite the obvious dangers, my interest was piqued.

Late one afternoon, I entered the warren of ordure-filled narrow lanes bordered by squalid tenements, in search of my subjects, rather like an intrepid explorer setting off into the jungle. Having been told to fear the inhabitants of the Dials: the thief, the boorish labourer, the wily second-hand salesman, the brawling brats and the loud, ill-dressed fallen women, my heartbeat quickened. But what I found was a way of life so honest in its poverty-stricken state that it was quite touching.

Yes, people are poor, but haven’t we had enough of paintings of pitiful mites with sad, sunken eyes or half-starved mothers, clasping tiny scraps of humanity to their withered bosoms? I saw beauty among the detritus, like flowers blossoming in a fertile soil, which had yet to be tilled by decent society. I knew then I had to capture it all on canvas. My husband, Lord Wilberforce Harcourt, whose work you will almost certainly know from his exhibitions at the Royal Academy, has been kind enough to indulge my little hobby and provided me with the paints, easel, pencils and paper needed to carry out my research.

What, I wondered, as I perused the bustling street scene unfolding before me, of the other side of life? Of happy poverty! The roister-doister boys careering down the lane on their home-made carts, the girls skipping happily through the streets in torn pinafores and the merry mothers bouncing ruddy-cheeked babies on ample hips as they gossip together. I spied some women snatching a few moments to attend to their piecework, peering through the cracked windowpanes of their tenement sculleries as their little ones ran amok. The children were not wretched or miserable. They were enjoying playing in the mud! That is the London I believe people want to see. And so, dear reader, that is why I set about creating my first compilation, which I share with you now in this book, very modestly, for I am no great artist.

But, I humbly venture, I believe I have captured something of the spirit of the London of our day, the other side of life, that of the ordinary folk. And I would entreat you to entertain my folly a little longer, as I share the secrets of how I, a mere baronet’s daughter, captured them at work and play, my ragamuffins.

Firstly, you must watch, study them in their natural habitat. Keeping your footman or butler at a discreet but reassuring distance can provide the necessary feeling of security you may need to take that first step into a neighbourhood more familiar to those below stairs. Over time, they will come to accept your presence. And a good supply of ha’pennies in your pocket can go a long way to securing that first, crucial contact with the underclass!

A favourite spot of mine is near the fountain in Endell Street, a mere stone’s throw from the workhouse. I have spent many hours observing them there: young children playing in the dirt or struggling to reach the cooling waters of the fountain to quench their thirst, mothers weighed down with baskets from the slum laundry, husbands frittering their wages on penny bets on street corners and young girls, with faces so fresh and full of hope, that they are almost exquisite in their rags. I defy you not to feel captivated by them, as I was.

After many of those tentative forays, I would return, as evening fell, to the safety of my mansion in Mayfair. I sat in my studio with a good oil lamp, my pencils and my sketch book and revisited the whole scene in my mind’s eye. But something was missing, and I felt the first stab of disappointment that my artistic venture may have come to naught. Then, as slumber enveloped me that night, I realised that if I were to truly recreate them, to capture their essence, I needed living, breathing specimens, just as the botanist culls the plants from the jungle floor to study them more closely. Oh, I was filled with such energy the following morning, I was unstoppable.

My servants were dispatched at first light in search of the large hamper of rags I required to help dress my specimens in my studio, by frequenting the market at Petticoat Lane. The bundles were thoroughly fumigated, rendering them perfectly safe from fleas. Then, I, most daringly, had to venture once more into the Seven Dials to see who could be persuaded to sit for me and to recreate the vibrant scenes from my imagination.

As a brief warning to every budding artist, there may be many false dawns, no matter how many ha’pennies, pennies and even shillings you may part with to buy their goodwill. For the pledge by some wastrel to bring his chum who never washes, or the girl with matted ringlets, or the little boy with gaping holes in his boots, may lead to much frustration and disappointment.

Then, almost out of nowhere, she appears, a mischievous grin lighting up her freckled, heart-shaped face, with knotted raven tresses falling to her slender shoulders and just a glimpse of lily-white skin visible through a rip in her pinafore which is festooned with patches. Not for her, the constraints of bodices, ribbons and bows. And her feet! Her pretty little bare feet, stained with mud because her shoes no longer fit, and her mother has spent the housekeeping on gin.

She is older than she first appears, because she’s never known a full plate, or a full belly, giving her an almost luminous beauty, a waif-like quality. She is on the brink of womanhood but retains the innocence of childhood.

‘Wotcha, Missus!’

She is perfect. You have your model, your muse, and your work can begin!

CHAPTER 1

MARY
Seven Dials, London June 1898

The first time I clapped eyes on her, all dolled up in her finery in the Seven Dials, I thought she was one of those women who pretend to look for servants in the slums but who are really hunting for girls, to get them into trouble. They promise them a good job, with board and lodging and pay, whisking them off to houses in the country or abroad. But when they get there, the girls discover they are entertainment for some wealthy bloke and his friends to ruin with their wicked misdeeds, just for fun.

Oh, I won’t spare your blushes about that kind of funny business because it’s the God’s honest truth, and my ma told my eldest sister who told my middle sister who told me. The chimney sweep’s boy said it’d happened to his stepsister’s half-cousin, or maybe it was his full cousin, a couple of years back and she was never heard of ever again, the poor cow. And that was just because she got ideas above her station and left the Seven Dials and went off to work with one of the hoity-toity families down in Surrey instead of staying home to help her dear old ma, so the story goes. Well, it ain’t really a story, like I say, it’s gospel and I, for one, believe it.

Posh folks simply don’t mix with the likes of us.

So, when I was at the fountain in Endell Street, keeping an eye on my baby brother Jem, while my ma was taking the weight off her feet down the boozer, my heart skipped a beat as this well-to-do lady wafted by. I thought she was up to no good, with her fancy gown and her butler following along a few paces behind her. When she doubled back and started heading in my direction, well, I almost died of fright.

Her face was covered by a gauzy veil and her hat was the loveliest thing, with cream and pink flowers all over the brim and she smiled at me, like an angel, and offered me a coin in her gloved hand. It was a shiny one an’all. Silver.

I wasn’t about to be asked twice. It was a florin, two shillings, a king’s bleeding ransom, if you please.

I curtseyed as I accepted it because she was a toff and I thought she’d like that: ‘Thank you, Missus.’

And then I stuck it in my pocket in case she changed her mind and asked for it back.

She lifted her veil and I saw her eyes, which reminded me of the violets up in Covent Garden. They were framed by the darkest lashes, and her hair was curled in a fashionable high fringe. She didn’t look dangerous. In fact, she looked at me with kindness and that didn’t happen very often round our way, I can tell you.

‘Such lovely manners!’ she chuckled. ‘There’s another coin for you if you’ll show me around. What do you think of that?’

I shrugged and stared at my feet, which were bare and turning black as soot from the filth littering the streets. Now, I didn’t mind going barefoot because it was summer, and my boots had been pawned so that Ma could have her tot of gin. She worked in the laundry, and it was hot as holy hell in there and she wasn’t born to just slave her fingers to the bone for no reward. That’s what she told me as she yanked the boots off my feet and dashed off to the pawnbroker to put them in hock. But I was in no mood for long walks, and I had the baby to think about. He was quite happy grubbing about in the dirt, looking for something to play with. I’d have to bring him with me if I gave her a look around the Dials.

‘I’m sorry, Missus’ I said, sheepishly, sweeping some hair from my face, ‘I can’t leave my brother, see?’

‘Oh, how terribly sweet you are,’ she said. ‘Well, in that case, might I persuade you to come and visit me at my studio in Mayfair tomorrow?’

Blimey, maybe she was one of those child snatchers I’d been warned about!

I shook my head.

Some of the other girls near the fountain had stopped their game of skipping ropes and were making a beeline for us. It wasn’t every day of the week you got a toff in the Seven Dials.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ she soothed, ‘I’m an artist.’ She flicked open her pocketbook and showed me a couple of sketches she’d drawn of boys and girls from around the Dials, leaning on lampposts, playing in the gutter, dressed in pinafores and breeches that were every bit as tattered and torn as my own.

I wasn’t sure what to say because they looked very much like the sights I saw every day and I didn’t think they were anything special. In fact, it was a bit strange for a wealthy person to want to lower themselves by drawing a bunch of urchins like us. But I wanted to butter her up, in the hope she might give me another shilling. Or at least a ha’penny or two.

‘Very nice,’ I said politely, ignoring the poke in the ribs I was getting from the other girls, who were jumping up and down by my side, like a bunch of stupid rabbits, led by gap-toothed Polly.

‘Got any more coins, Missus? Have you?’ they chorused.

She beamed at them and murmured: ‘How charming!’

‘We’re nicer than Mary!’ they said, pulling at my hair. I swatted them away like annoying flies.

They were starting to crowd around my lady a bit too much for my liking.

‘’ Ere!’ I said, putting my arm out protectively to shield her, ‘Shove off, you lot! She’s talking to me.’

Her butler made to step forward to give them a clip around the ear, but she shooed him back.

‘That’s fine, Jenkins, no need. They are just a little enthusiastic.’

She really had no idea. They could all be proper little bitches when they felt like it, biting and scratching anything in their path. But I stood a full head taller than any of them and was noted for my left hook, which I’d learned from my da, who’d been a boxer before he joined the Merchant Navy and naffed off abroad. So I wasn’t scared of giving them a clump or two.

‘Well,’ she said, fixing me with those beautiful violet eyes once more, ‘might you come and visit me? I’d love you to sit for me.’

‘Sit for you?’

‘I’d like to draw you, to paint you … My name is Lady Dorothy Harcourt. I will pay you well for your time.’

I’d never met an artist before, let alone a lady. I thought the hoity-toity folk just sat around all day in their posh houses eating cucumber sandwiches and drinking tea.

‘But, I ain’t got anything pretty to wear …’

She laughed at that.

‘You are perfect just as you are, I don’t want you to change a thing. In fact, you must absolutely promise not to! No scrubbing yourself clean in the scullery or putting on your Sunday best. Do you understand?’

I didn’t have any Sunday best that I knew of. Religion wasn’t big in our house unless the Salvation Army were giving out free cakes, in which case I had been known to march up and down and sing along with the band, just for the hell of it. I’d even been known to sit through an entire sermon for a Chelsea bun.

‘Where’s your mother?’

I didn’t want to tell her the truth, that she was drinking gin in the pub down the road.

‘In the laundry, Missus. She’s a washerwoman. She won’t mind.’

‘Well, you can bring the baby too, if that helps. Your mother is expecting you to care for him while she is out at work, isn’t she?’

I nodded. Ma wouldn’t care where I was, or the baby for that matter, as long as she had a nice half bottle of booze at the end of the day to drown her sorrows. Maybe this way, I could get my boots back from the pawnbroker and still have money left over to keep her happy and in drink, because that way, life was easier.

Ma really wanted me to go to work as a laundry maid with my sisters, earning a pittance for getting an earbashing from Mrs Dean, who ran the place and ruled with a rod of iron. Her girls worked eight ’til eight, learning to sew neat letters and numbers with red thread on a white handkerchief to mark the customers’ clothes. I’d already proved my mettle at that, completing the work more quickly than all the rest, so she’d given me a pile of torn sheets to mend, and I did those too. Sewing was easy, child’s play. I’d always had nimble fingers.

But I wanted more than a life full of endless hours toiling in the laundry, either sewing letters, or with my feet sloshing in the water from the vats or my head bathed in steam. I’d persuaded Ma that the baby-minder wasn’t a good sort and it’d be better if I looked after Jem until he was old enough for school. We called her the Crawler, that old crone. She sat in a doorway at the end of our street, cradling little ones in her arms or under her skirts as the women went off to earn their pennies as charladies or worse.

Jem was a lovely baby, chubby-cheeked and curious, with big brown eyes, and I didn’t want him ending up like one of the pasty-faced, skeletal-looking mites that the Crawler had in her care. She snaffled half the scraps and milk that the mothers left for their babes; I’d seen her do it with my own eyes. And she’d let them wander in front of a cart or fall over in a puddle rather than get up off her backside and chase after them. She was more interested in slurping at her tin mug of stone-cold tea. Jem was such a sweet little bundle; I wasn’t going to let Mrs Dean get her bony hands on him.

Maybe it wasn’t right to want to leave the Dials and I didn’t want to end up disappearing like the chimney sweep’s half-cousin, but this lady did seem nice, and she was offering me easy money.

Her butler handed me a card with an address on it, in Mayfair.

I’d spent long enough in school to be able to read the fancy lettering. It said 7 Grosvenor Square.

‘It’s a short walk from Oxford Street. Be there, one o’clock sharp. And don’t be late,’ he said, looking down his nose at me. I could tell he thought I belonged in the gutter and had no business up in his mistress’s mansion. But she had other ideas.

I gazed at her departing back as she picked her way across the cobblestones, with her butler trailing in her wake, and felt little bubbles of excitement rising in my chest at what tomorrow afternoon would bring.

The other girls were tugging at my sleeves, begging me to tell them more about what the posh lady had said to me and trying to snatch the calling card from my grasp.

But I just smiled at them and kept my secrets to myself.

I’d had a glimpse of another life and I knew for certain I wanted to see more.

And nobody from the Seven Dials was going to stop me.