Born to Trouble Read Online Free PDF Page B

was her mother and she couldn’t remember ever having one kind word from her. As Kitty began to eat, she turned and left the room.
    It was dark and the aroma of fresh bread was filling the house when a knock came at the front door. James and Patrick had been fed and bathed and were now asleep in the bedroom in the wooden cot Seth had bought after Patrick was born. Pearl was in the kitchen, stirring the pan of hodge podge simmering on the hob. It was rich with plenty of neck of mutton, just the way Seth liked it so he could mop up the thick gravy with chunks of warm crusty bread.
    Pearl wasn’t thinking of anything more important than whether she’d seasoned the hodge podge sufficiently when she opened the door. It was snowing again, the two figures facing her white flecked.
    ‘Hello, lass.’ Constable Johnson was bigger, heavier than she remembered and he had another policeman with him who was built like a brick outhouse. ‘Your brothers in?’
    Pearl found herself stammering when she said, ‘My – my younger brothers are in bed,’ even though she knew he didn’t mean James and Patrick.
    ‘Your older brothers, lass. Seth, isn’t it? And Frederick and Walter.’
    Somehow the fact that he knew her brothers’ Christian names was more terrifying than anything else. Pearl shook her head.
    ‘Your mam then?’
    ‘She’s – she’s in bed with the flu.’
    Constable Johnson looked at his associate. Neither spoke, but then he turned back to Pearl. ‘We need to come in and make sure, lass. All right?’
    It wasn’t all right. If Seth had told her and her mother once he’d told them a hundred times never to let the law into the house. The thought of displeasing her brother overriding her fear of the policemen, Pearl shook her head again. Instinctively knowing she mustn’t bring Seth and the lads into it, she said, ‘Me mam wouldn’t like it.’
    What the Constable would have said next, Pearl was never to find out. Kitty, with the uncanny ability any East Ender had for smelling a policeman miles away, had got out of bed and come to the top of the stairs where she peered down at them. ‘What’s up?’ She clutched her shawl against her night-dress, coughing loudly for good measure. ‘What do you want?’
    ‘A word with your lads, Mrs Croft.’
    ‘They’re not in. Didn’t Pearl tell you they’re not in?’
    ‘Aye, she did.’
    ‘There you are then.’ Kitty’s voice had taken on a slightly belligerent tone. ‘I’ll tell ’em you were askin’ for ’em when I see ’em.’
    By way of answer to this, Constable Johnson and his colleague pushed Pearl aside and stepped into the hall.
    ‘Here, who said you could come in?’ Kitty came down the first few stairs, her voice rising as she said, ‘This is a respectable house, this is.’
    Ignoring her, the two policemen opened the door to the front room. By the time Kitty had reached them they had moved on to the kitchen, where they turned to face mother and daughter.
    ‘Where are your lads, Mrs Croft?’ The other policeman spoke, his voice flatter, harder than Constable Johnson’s.
    ‘I told you, they’re not in and they don’t tell me what time they’ll be back. They’re not bairns any more.’
    ‘Where do they sleep?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Which room or rooms do they occupy?’
    ‘Now look, you sling your hook—’
    As the policemen brushed past Kitty and made for the stairs, Kitty growled, ‘Theirs is the first one at the top of the stairs,’ before hissing at Pearl, ‘Now look what you’ve done. You should have slammed the door in their faces an’ bolted it.’
    Pearl stood in the hall biting at her thumbnail as her mother followed the policemen upstairs. It wouldn’t have made any difference if she’d done what her mother said, she told herself sickly as thuds and the sound of drawers being opened came from the lads’ room. Look at the Holdens in Fighting Cock Lane. The police had broken the door down when they’d come after Mr Holden, and