A Maiden's Voyage Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Also by Rosie Goodwin

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Welcome to the world of Rosie Goodwin!

  A Letter from Rosie Goodwin

  Recipe of Jai Li’s Chinese Curry

  Tales from Memory Lane

  Memory Lane Advert

  Readers First Advert

  Copyright

  Also by Rosie Goodwin

  The Bad Apple

  No One’s Girl

  Dancing Till Midnight

  Tilly Trotter’s Legacy

  Moonlight and Ashes

  The Mallen Secret

  Forsaken

  The Sand Dancer

  Yesterday’s Shadows

  The Boy from Nowhere

  A Rose Among Thorns

  The Lost Soul

  The Ribbon Weaver

  A Band of Steel

  Whispers

  The Misfit

  The Empty Cradle

  Home Front Girls

  A Mother’s Shame

  The Soldier’s Daughter

  The Mill Girl

  The Maid’s Courage

  The Claire McMullen Series

  Our Little Secret

  Crying Shame

  Dilly’s Story Series

  Dilly’s Sacrifice

  Dilly’s Lass

  Dilly’s Hope

  The Days of The Week Collection

  Mothering Sunday

  The Little Angel

  A Mother’s Grace

  The Blessed Child

  This book is in loving memory of

  Philip Howells 20th January 1933 – 17th July 2018

  A dear uncle and a very brave man.

  Rest in peace.

  Thursday’s child has far to go

  Prologue

  December 1911

  ‘Oh, do hurry up. Father will be home soon. He took his dinner suit to the office with him so he could get changed there and you know he’ll be impatient to be off.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’ Eighteen-year-old Flora was suddenly all fingers and thumbs as she tried to pile her young mistress’s hair on top of her head in loose curls, but the faster she tried to do it the more the curls escaped. Constance’s – or Connie as she preferred to be known – wild tresses seemed to have developed a life of their own. Connie had only recently adopted this style, saying that it was more sophisticated and made her look older but Flora hadn’t mastered the art of getting it quite right yet. ‘It’s just that you have so much hair,’ she muttered through a mouthful of pins.

  Connie grinned at her in the mirror of her dressing table. ‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ she said, and she was right, for Flora’s hair was just as long and thick as her own although not quite so curly. In fact, the girls were very similar in looks in many ways. They were both of much the same height and build with long dark hair, but where Connie had deep-blue eyes, Flora’s were a warm brown colour. They were very close in age too. Connie had just celebrated her eighteenth birthday, while Flora would be nineteen the following March. Connie supposed that was why she had managed to persuade her father to let Flora be promoted from general maid to her own personal maid, and she had never regretted it. It was nice to have someone her own age to help with her dressing and act as her companion. Since Flora had taken on the role, it had afforded Connie a lot more freedom. Her father didn’t mind her going out so much if Flora escorted her, whereas before he had always worried if she were to go out on her own.

  ‘There! I think that’s it,’ Flora breathed suddenly as she jammed yet another hair clip into the mass of springy curls. ‘What do you think, miss?’

  ‘Hmm …’ Connie turned her head this way and that then smiled. ‘I suppose that will do nicely. I think you’re getting the hang of it. But come along. I need to get dressed.’

  She rose from the dressing table and moved across to the armoire that stood against the far wall of her bedroom, where the gown she’d had specially made for the occasion was hanging. She fingered the smooth, cream silk and asked, ‘Do you think Father will approve?’

  ‘I don’t see ’ow he couldn’t, miss,’ Flora said enviously.

  ‘How he couldn’t, not ’ow,’ Connie absently corrected her and Flora sighed. Connie had been giving her elocution lessons ever since the day she had appointed her as her maid but she still tended to forget herself from time to time.

  While Connie stood in front of the mirror, Flora began the difficult job of lacing up her corset.

  ‘Pull it tighter,’ Connie instructed. ‘I want my waist to look really tiny.’

  ‘If I pull it any tighter you won’t be able to breathe,’ Flora pointed out.

  Connie supposed she was right, so she stood quietly while Flora lowered the gown over her head, careful not to mess her hair, and fastened the buttons at the back. Finally, Flora helped her slip her feet into dainty satin shoes. It was to be Connie’s first trip to the opera with her father and she had gone to endless trouble to make sure that her outfit was just right, although Flora was a little concerned how the shoes would fare outside. It had been snowing steadily all day, but then she supposed that Connie couldn’t wear boots beneath such an elegant gown and she did only have to go down the steps and straight into her father’s gleaming new Rolls-Royce after all.

  At last the girl was ready and turning to Flora in a swish of silken skirts she asked, ‘So how do I look?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ Flora answered truthfully, wondering what Connie’s father would think of the plunging neckline on her dress. She did indeed look very grown-up.

  ‘Right, then I’ll go downstairs and wait for Father.’ Connie snatched up a dainty satin evening purse and a fur-lined cape and headed for the door where she paused to say, ‘Do take the night off if you want to, Flora. You’ve more than enough time to go and see your family if you don’t mind braving the weather. I doubt we’ll be back before eleven o’clock at the earliest.’

  ‘Thank you, miss.’ Flora bobbed her knee and set about tidying the room. There were clothes and underwear strewn about all over the place but she was used to it by now. Connie liked to be waited on and was not the tidiest of people.

  Downst
airs she heard the general maid opening the front door and she rightly guessed that it was Mr Ogilvie, Connie’s father, returning home after a day at his office. He owned a number of warehouses in Whitechapel as well as a fleet of boats that imported goods from abroad and it was rumoured that he was one of the richest men in London. Flora had never had any reason to doubt it, for his town house was situated in one of the richest areas of Mayfair and Connie had had every advantage a young woman could possibly have – private tutors, a nanny and beautiful clothes. She had never known what it was like to be cold and hungry as Flora had, but for all that she didn’t envy her.

  Her family lived in a poor part of Whitechapel and her father was reliant on getting work daily on the docks unloading the boats that came in. If he didn’t get work one day they didn’t eat, it was as simple as that, yet for all that they were happy, unlike Connie who, Flora had realised within a very short time of working there, was desperately lonely. The girl’s mother had died while she was still very young, but before she’d died, she had coldly informed the child that she was adopted and that she had never really wanted her. Poor Connie had been heartbroken and had never really recovered from these cruel words. Thankfully, though, her father doted on her and spoiled her shamelessly, but he had a busy job so after her adoptive mother’s death Connie had been left in the care of a number of tutors and nannies who came and went.

  Flora hurriedly finished tidying the room. It wasn’t often she was given some unexpected time off and she intended to make the most of the next few hours. Once everything was neatly put away she threw some coal onto the fire so that the room would still be warm when Connie returned then hurried away to fetch her hat and coat. Much to her delight, she now slept in the room next to Connie’s, which was not only much nicer but was also warmer than the chilly room she had slept in up in the servants’ quarters in the attic when she had first started there.

  In no time at all she was wrapped up warmly and once down in the hall she smiled at Gertie, the little general maid who was flitting in and out of the dining room laying the table in readiness for Connie and her father’s breakfast the next morning.

  ‘Off out, are you?’ Gertie raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, Miss Connie said I could ’ave … sorry, have a few hours off seeing as she was going out.’

  Gertie shuddered. ‘Well, ravver you than me. It’s enuff to freeze the ’airs off a brass monkey out there.’

  Flora laughed as she stepped out into the snow, then gasped as the cold almost took her breath away. Gertie was right but there was no way she was going to waste the chance of a few precious hours at home. Hopefully she would be able to take a tram most of the way there if she got her skates on. That’s if the snow hadn’t stopped them running!

  Thankfully, as yet it hadn’t and half an hour later she stepped off the tram close to the workhouse in Whitechapel. Averting her eyes from the grim building, she made for the backstreets that would lead to Pleasant Row where her family lived. The name always made her smile for the rows of tiny, damp, soot-blackened terraced houses were anything but pleasant. They were all exactly the same with front doors that opened directly on to the street. In the winter the houses were bitterly cold and in the summer stiflingly hot. Tonight black icicles hung from the window frames and the eaves.

  Even so it was the only place she had ever called home and soon she walked into the tiny kitchen. Flora’s eyes swept around the familiar room. Gas mantles sputtered on the walls and an oil lamp spread a warm glow across the table that stood in the centre of the room. On the wall next to the table stood an old oak dresser displaying her mother’s mismatched but much-loved china, and brightly coloured rugs, which her mother had spent countless hours making, were scattered across the floor.

  Her mother, Emily, turned from the stove where she was stirring a pot of stew for the family, and swiped a lock of hair from her eyes, looking surprised but pleased to see her. ‘What are you doing here, luvvie?’ Then the smile faded as she whispered fearfully, ‘You ain’t got the sack ’ave you?’ She’d come to rely on the wages that Flora gave her each month.

  Flora giggled as she removed her bonnet and crossed to warm her hands by the fire. ‘No, Ma, I haven’t got the sack. Connie has gone to the opera with her father tonight so she gave me a few hours off and I thought I’d pop home to see you all.’

  ‘Hmm, well lovely as it is to see you I reckon you’d have been better stayin’ in the warm.’ Emily glanced towards the window, through which she could see the snow still steadily falling, and shuddered. ‘But now you are ’ere pull up a chair an’ come an’ ’ave somethin’ to eat.’

  Flora shook her head as she bent to plant a kiss on Timmy’s head. At five years old he was the baby of the family and Flora adored him.

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve already eaten,’ she assured her mother. She knew that any stew that was left over from this evening would have more vegetables added to it and be served up again the next day and she didn’t want to deprive them of it.

  Emily smiled. ‘Eeh, you don’t ’alf talk posh now since you went to work for that young lady,’ she commented proudly.

  ‘I try to.’ Then glancing about, Flora asked, ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘Still at work unloadin’ a big cargo ship that docked this morning.’ As Emily served herself a small portion of stew and carried it to the table, Flora noticed how tired she looked. People often told her that she looked just like her mother had at her age but worry and overwork had prematurely aged her and now she looked like a woman in her fifties rather than one who was only in her early forties. There were streaks of grey in her hair and her face was lined, but for all that she was still attractive and Flora loved her unreservedly. Shortly after, Katie, Flora’s sixteen-year-old sister, breezed in having just finished her shift in the match factory, she was followed not long after by her brother, Ben, who was seventeen and working with his father on the docks, then came Eunice, the bookworm of the family, who was fifteen and had found herself a job in the city in a small bookshop, which she loved, and finally there was little Timmy. There had been three more children but they had all died in the flu epidemic that had swept through the city a few years ago. Looking back, Flora realised that her mother had never really got over losing them but she had struggled gamely on as most women from hereabouts had to.

  ‘So ’ow come you didn’t go to see your young man, then?’ Emily asked with a twinkle in her eye.

  Flora blushed. ‘If you’re talking about Jamie, I didn’t know that I was going to get any time off until the last minute so there was no time to make arrangements with him.’

  She and Jamie had met back in the summer after he’d come to London from Nuneaton, a small market town in the Midlands, to find work. They had hit it off straight away and had been seeing each other every Sunday afternoon ever since. Jamie was such a lovely person and Flora knew that she would only have to say the word and she could be planning her wedding but she wasn’t sure she was ready to settle down just yet. Because much as she had come to love him, there was no hurry. She and Jamie had their whole lives ahead of them so why should they rush? She didn’t want to be like the other girls from these parts who ended up marrying when they were too young, having a baby every year and becoming old before their time. Oh no! Flora had ambitions. Wasn’t she already a lady’s maid?

  But she wasn’t going to tell her mother that, so instead she continued teasingly, ‘Why, would you rather I’d have gone to see him than come here to see you?’

  ‘O’ course I wouldn’t, you daft ha’p’orth.’ Her mother grinned. ‘But anyone wi’ ’alf an eye can see the lad’s mad about you! When are you goin’ to put ’im out of ’is misery an’ agree to court ’im proper?’

  Flora grinned, but didn’t answer. She loved Jamie and she knew he loved her, but she was only eighteen! Once the meal was over she helped her mother to clear the table and wash the dishes and before she knew it it was time to think of heading home.

  ‘Eeh, but it�
��s blowin’ a blizzard out there, luvvie. Wouldn’t yer be better to stay ’ere tonight?’ her mother suggested worriedly as Flora began to put her coat on.

  ‘No, I shall be fine,’ Flora assured her. ‘I need to be there when Connie gets home to help her undress.’

  ‘Hmph! I should think she could manage to undress ’erself for one night at ’er age,’ Emily grumbled as she tightened the scarf around her daughter’s neck. There were kisses all round then and Flora set off again into the cold night.

  As she neared the smart town house in Mayfair she frowned when she saw a policeman standing outside the front door. The snow was settling on his helmet and the dark material across his shoulders. She climbed the front steps towards him and asked, ‘Is anything wrong, constable?’ Close up she noted that he looked barely older than herself and he blushed furiously.

  He touched his cap and cleared his throat nervously. ‘Er … the sergeant’s inside, miss,’ he told her. ‘He’ll explain what’s happened.’

  A sick feeling started to grow in the pit of her stomach and nodding she rushed past him to find a policeman in conversation with Mrs Merry, the housekeeper, who was wringing her hands and looking distraught.

  ‘Ah, here you are Flora.’ The woman looked relieved to see her. ‘Something dreadful has happened. It’s the master and Miss Constance … They’ve been involved in a terrible accident.’

  Flora’s heart began to thump with panic and she suddenly felt sick. ‘Are they all right?’ she asked in a wobbly voice.

  The woman shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. It seems the master’s Silver Ghost skidded and left the road before crashing into a wall. Miss Constance is in the hospital and the master is …’ She gulped deep in her throat before forcing herself to go on. ‘And the master is dead, God rest his soul!’

  Chapter One

  Connie was discharged from the hospital two days after the tragic accident. Miraculously she had escaped with cuts and bruises and a broken arm, which was now encased in a heavy plaster, much to her disgust. Her father’s solicitor, Mr Wainthrop, who had also been a close family friend, collected Connie and drove her home with promises that he would return the next day to read her father’s will to her.