A wave of nausea made her gasp and suddenly the world seemed to spin around her in concentric circles. Judy clutched at nothing but thin air and felt herself falling …

Chapter Three

‘Oy! Look where you’re going, you silly mare.’

The irate voice brought Judy back from the realms of semi-consciousness and she realised that she was clinging to a woman’s arm.

‘I’m so sorry. I felt a bit faint.’

‘Probably drunk,’ the woman’s partner said angrily. ‘At this time in the morning, too. Shame on you, miss.’

Judy staggered to the nearest shopfront and leaned against the door. Was everyone in London rude and mean? If that had occurred in Little Creek, someone would have helped her and taken her into their home. She would have been offered tea and something to eat, even if they had very little themselves. The hunger pangs were another reminder of her childhood. She had roamed these streets looking for farthings or halfpennies that might have been dropped by more affluent people, and she had snatched up bruised fruit that had fallen off costermongers’ barrows to take home for Molly and the boys. Those days were far behind her now, but an empty stomach felt the same whatever her age.

The scent of hot tea and coffee floated past on a gentle breeze, blotting out the less pleasant smells of the city, and as her mother had always said, Judy followed her nose. The stall was set up in a narrow alleyway and she bought a ham roll and a mug of coffee laced with sugar. The vendor had taken pity on her and had given her a broken biscuit as well, and she gobbled the food in a way that would have earned her a sharp rebuke from her mother or from Cook at Creek Manor, but she was too hungry to care. The hot, sweet coffee went down well and she handed the empty mug back and thanked the stallholder for his generosity.

‘You’re welcome, miss,’ he said, grinning. ‘You was half-starved by the look of you.’

She smiled. ‘I used to live near here, but I’ve been away in the country for a long time.’

‘Looking for work, are you, love?’

‘Yes, how did you guess?’

‘I see many like you every day. Folk come up from the country thinking that the streets are paved with gold, like in the storybook, but they ain’t. You ought to go back to the country and settle for what you had, miss.’

‘I do need work, but I don’t know how to set about it.’

‘You could look in shop windows. Sometimes people put cards in, advertising vacancies, but you need to be careful what you go for. Or you could look in the posh newspaper.’ He leaned over and picked up a tattered copy of The Times that someone had carelessly discarded. ‘Take a look in the “Situations Vacant” column. You seem like a well-spoken young lady. Maybe you’ll find something there.’