Free The Best of Sisters by Dilly Court Page B

a miracle and that’s for certain. And, Ted Peck, I owe it all to that Dr Prince. He give me this tonic for my blood and it’s worked a treat. I feel well for the first time in years, and it’s all thanks to him.’
    Ted stared at her in disbelief. ‘And you’re wearing your spectacles!’
    ‘Just for the close work, my dear. You know very well that I don’t need them the rest of the time.’
    ‘I forgot for a moment.’
    ‘And you must allow these girls to work for the good doctor. Think of the people he can help, just like me.’
    ‘But the child, Dolly.’ Lowering his voice, Ted jerked his head in Millie’s direction. ‘Think of the responsibility. We can’t take on another mouth to feed.’
    Eliza had kept her head bent over her sewing, but she looked up now, casting an appealing look at Dolly. ‘Please, let Millie stay. I’ll help look after her and Dr Freddie said she can earn some money as the ailing child.’
    ‘Then that’s settled.’ Dolly fastened off her piece of sewing and snipped the thread, pointingher scissors at Ted. ‘It’s up to you, Mr Peck, you being the head of the household, but for myself, I say yes.’
    Freddie had rented a room in a house in Anchor Street, just around the corner from Hemp Yard. It was not much of a place, as Eliza discovered when she went round to his lodgings for her first lesson in her new trade. The house was a modest two-up and two-down, very similar to Ted and Dolly’s dwelling, but in a much less salubrious neighbourhood. In Hemp Yard, the terraced houses were tenanted by workingmen and their families, but the dwellings in Anchor Street were crammed from attic to cellar with unfortunates who had nowhere else to go. The buildings were unsanitary and run-down to the point of dereliction. Whereas the inhabitants of Hemp Yard considered themselves to be respectable, hard-working people, and took a pride in keeping their street clean, tidy and relatively vermin-free, the denizens of Anchor Street seemed to be content to live in squalor. Feral children roamed the street day and night, begging or stealing off unwary passers-by. Horse dung and dog excrement carpeted the road and clogged the drains. Rotting vegetable matter filled the gutters; the air was thick with flies and their squirming grubs thrived on the corpses of dead cats and rats.
    Although she was used to the rough areasaround the docks, Eliza had never had cause to venture into this particular slum. The buzzing of bluebottles in the summer heat provided a constant humming background to the whining of beggars, the shrieks of the street urchins and the cacophony of voices shouting in many different languages. The people who hurried past without giving her so much as a casual glance were a colourful mix of all nationalities and occupations: dock workers, sailors, prostitutes, bootblacks and match sellers. A chimney sweep emerged from one house followed by his stunted apprentice boys: skinny little fellows with soot engrained into their flesh and their stick-like extremities burnt and scarred. It seemed to Eliza that the dregs of London’s poor lived in this street; many of them would end their days at the bottom of the river, driven by drink, opium and relentless poverty. If Dr Prince had not offered to teach her an honest trade and one that would benefit the poor and underprivileged, she might have turned tail and run home. But she was determined to work hard, if only to repay Ted and Dolly for their unstinting kindness. Stepping over a body that lay slumped in a doorway, Eliza continued up the street, searching for number seventeen.
    The first time was the worst, and gradually she grew accustomed to the sights, sounds and disgusting smells that were part of life in AnchorStreet. Eliza went to Freddie’s lodgings early each morning to begin a day of work and study. The main tenant was the widow of a seaman, who had been left to raise four children with no income but that which she could make from