by Anna Jacobs
“I allus fancy earning a bit extra. What’s the job?”
Josh winked. “Tell you later. Don’t drink too much. You’ll need your wits about you.”
At closing time they left together, with Josh explaining in a low voice what he’d noticed. They called in at his place to get his special tools. His wife and children were in bed already. Sam waited in the kitchen, staring round in disgust. She was a slattern, that Dora. He’d not put up with this sort of thing. Even Gran managed better. And the whole place smelled sour. He was glad to get out into the fresh air again.
When they got to the warehouse, it looked deserted. The office window at the side was, as Josh had said, a bit loose. It was the work of a moment to jemmy it open and climb inside.
Sam felt alert and excited, enjoying this as he hadn’t enjoyed anything for a while. He’d never have thought of doing a warehouse but as Josh said there was some good stuff stored here.
It was as they were carrying it back to the office that they bumped into the watchman. It happened so quickly that Sam was caught off guard for a moment, but Josh lashed out with his jemmy and the old fellow toppled with only a gurgle of protest.
“Hell! You didn’t tell me they had someone keeping watch!” Sam snapped.
“I didn’t bloody know, did I?”
“We’ll have to be a damn sight more careful next time.”
And they were.
It was a pity the old fellow died, but at least it meant he couldn’t identify them. They didn’t do any more jobs till all the fuss had settled down, but the stuff they’d taken brought in a nice bit of cash.
* * *
The week after Lizzie turned thirteen, Sam found a piano going cheap and offered it to the two ladies. After much anxious thought, Miss Harper asked if she could put it in the front room so that she could offer singing lessons. She’d pay extra for using the room and to make up for the noise.
Meg brightened and said yes at once, wondering how much extra she could charge.
“I won’t take a lot of pupils, just a few, but it will help pay for the piano. And it’ll give me an interest.” You could grow tired of reading library books and sewing.
In fact, there was soon a trail of children coming for lessons, girls mostly, from higher up the hill. Folk up there weren’t finding times as hard as people in the Southlea district.
Meg didn’t mind the noise, because Miss Harper played the piano so beautifully and she seemed to have a gift for teaching the girls to sing nicely. When the lodger offered to teach Polly for free, as well, saying again that the child had a lovely voice, Meg hesitated and consulted Percy. But he said why not, so she agreed to the lessons. Singing wouldn’t bring in any more money, but it wouldn’t cost anything, either—unlike this daft idea of Eva’s going to secondary school, which Meg did not favour at all but which Percy was proving really stubborn about. She didn’t know what had got into him lately, she really didn’t.
* * *
Polly now helped Lizzie out with the jobs round the house whenever she could. The two of them would chat as they worked and that seemed to get things done faster. She’d teach Lizzie the words of some of her songs and they’d sing them together, though only quietly, so as not to upset Mam. And they knew a few music hall songs, too, though Miss Harper hadn’t taught them those and some of the words were a bit cheeky.
She was, Polly felt, getting to be quite good friends with her big sister now. Before Dad died, Lizzie had been more friendly with Eva, but nowadays she either had her head in a book or was round at her teacher’s “helping out.”
After a week of worrying about Lizzie and thinking the situation over carefully, Polly got up one evening after tea and started doing the dishes in the scullery, setting the enamel washing-up bowl in the big, shallow slopstone, and pouring the hot water into it carefully from the kettle so that she wouldn’t splash herself or spill any on the floor.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a voice shouted suddenly in her ear.
The plate Polly was holding fell back into the soapy water, but fortunately didn’t break. “I’m doing the dishes, Mam.”
“What’s the point of doing the dishes when your sister hasn’t eaten yet?”
“Lizzie’s tired when she comes home after work. She can wash her own things up then. And I don’t mind doing the dishes, really I don’t.”
“Well, I mind, so you can just leave them be. Lizzie will do them after she’s eaten. If she makes extra work, it’s only right that she clears it up.”
Polly stood stock still, frightened at the words that were forming inside her head. But for once, they wouldn’t be held back. “It isn’t fair of you to make her do all the washing up. An’ I—”
Meg gasped in outrage and slapped Polly on the side of her head, then cracked her again on the other side as well.
Polly wailed loudly and this time she knocked a plate off the wooden draining board and it shattered on the slopstone.
“Look what you’ve done now!” Meg shrieked, for the lodgers were safely up in the attic after tea. “You can just clear that mess up and then do as you’re told and leave this for your sister! I get no respect since your father died, none at all, and I’m not having it!” Another slap made Polly cry out again. “If you’ve nothing better to do with yourself, there’s plenty of mending in the basket.”
Percy’s voice made them both jump. “What’s the matter, Mam?” He couldn’t remember anyone ever having to shout at Polly like this, for she was always so quiet and eager to please, more like a little ghost round the house, he sometimes thought, though she was a bit plump for a ghost.
Meg turned to him. “Our Lizzie’s got Polly doing her chores for her now. I don’t know how she managed that. And when I told this one to leave things for her sister, she answered me back. I’m not having that from any of them.” It had become a point of honour to her since Stanley’s death to keep control of her children.
Polly stopped sobbing and in the heat of the moment allowed more words to escape. “It’s not fair, leaving the whole day’s dishes for Lizzie to do. She’s tired when she comes home. And she didn’t make me wash up. I wanted to do it, to help her.”
“Well, listen to that!” Meg moved forward again, hand upraised.
Polly ducked, clutching her reddened cheek with one soapy hand and continuing to sob.
Percy grabbed his mother’s hand and stepped between them. “Leave her to me, Mam. You’re tired out. Why don’t you go and have a sit-down, eh?”
Meg glared at her daughter. “I shan’t forget this, Polly Kershaw!” She clutched her son’s arm, trying hard not to sob as well. “I’m not having cheek from them. I’m not!”
Percy turned her gently round towards the kitchen. “Mam, please go and sit down.”
When she’d left, he shut the door between the scullery and kitchen and looked sternly at Polly. “What’s got into you today, upsetting Mam like that?” Then he looked at the piles of dishes and frowned. Now he came to think of it, there did seem to be rather a lot of them.
“Mam leaves everything for our Lizzie to wash up after work.”
“Perhaps she was busy today?”
Polly shook her head. “No. There’s allus a pile like this. So I thought I’d help out. I don’t mind, really I don’t. And Lizzie never asked me to do it. It was my own idea.”
He made no further comment. “Well, it’s very kind of you to help your sister, love. You’d better get on with it while the water’s hot. Shall I dry the dishes for you?”
“Eeh, no! Mam’d have a fit at you doing that, then she’d get mad all over again. She’s allus mad at our Lizzie since Dad died. You go back into the kitchen an’ talk to her. She’ll like that.” Polly picked up the pieces of broken plate then took the dishrag and plunged her hands into the hot water again. She had meant what she said. She did enjoy housework of all sorts, though she didn’t like schoolwork much.
Still upset by the red fingermarks on his little sister’s cheeks
, Percy went back into the kitchen.
His mother greeted him with, “Have you found out what that young madam’s been saying to make Polly do her work for her?”
“She hasn’t been saying anything. It’s Polly’s own idea.”
“Ha! You don’t know our Lizzie if you think that.”
“You’re very hard on her lately, Mam. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter. I’m just seeing she buckles down.” Meg stared at him defiantly. “An’ I don’t want you interfering in how I bring up the girls, Percy Kershaw.”
“I’m not interfering, but it can’t do any harm to let Polly help out, if she wants. I dare say there won’t be as many things to do tomorrow. You must have been too busy to wash up today.”
She breathed deeply but did not pursue the matter, though she mentally added it to her growing list of grievances against her eldest daughter. “Children are supposed to be a comfort to you,” she said bitterly, “but Lizzie’s no comfort at all, and Eva’s just as bad nowadays. Always round at that schoolteacher’s or doing her homework. And for what? We can’t afford her to go to secondary school, whatever you say. I keep telling you that. I sit here on my own evening after evening, with no one to talk to, and when I do say something, no one listens.”
Percy immediately put down the newspaper.
“Oh, go on with you! It’s no use buying that if no one reads it.”
She dabbed at her eyes and hunched her shoulder at him, so he picked up the newspaper again.
How was he going to persuade Mam to give Eva her chance? It had become something of an obsession with Percy. If he could help his clever sister, then he’d feel he’d won something, at least, from the ruin of their lives. His own future looked very bleak, tied to his mother. And she wasn’t easy to live with since his father had died. Well, she never had been, but she was worse now.
* * *
At half-past eight Lizzie came in from work and Percy studied her surreptitiously. Polly was right. Their sister did look tired. He set himself to distract his mother from nagging the poor lass, and had the happy idea of inviting Mam to come out for a glass of shandy with himself and Sam.
Meg gaped at him. “Go into a public house! What do you think I am? It’s not respectable. Why, I’ve never been inside one in my whole life.”
“Things are changing, Mam. They’ve got a ladies’ room at the Hare and Hounds now. You already know one or two of the women who go there, so you could sit with them. Fanny Preston from across the road for one, and Rosie Holden for another.”
She looked at him, clearly tempted.
“I wouldn’t ask you to go into the Carter’s Rest or the other pubs down the south end, but the Hare and Hounds is very respectable nowadays, I promise you. Mrs. Sampson, the landlady, keeps a very quiet house.” Which was why he preferred it, though Sam liked the Carter’s Rest better.
In the end Meg agreed and went upstairs to put on her second-best hat, for she was not one to go out with only a shawl flung over her head.
Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief as the front door closed on them and went to get her dinner. She found the usual dried-up mess congealing on a plate in front of the fire.
When she had finished eating what she could, Polly came across and took the plate from her. “You never eat your tea when you’re on afternoons.”
“It’s never worth eating.” Lizzie hauled herself to her feet. “I’d better get the washing-up done or she’ll go mad at me again.”
“I’ve done most of it already.”
They walked into the narrow scullery together and tears came into Lizzie’s eyes at the sight of the piles of clean crockery on the shelves. “Oh, Polly, you are a love!” And she hugged her younger sister again.
They heard footsteps and turned to find Miss Emma standing in the kitchen doorway. “Our alarm clock’s broken, so I wonder if one of you could wake me up early in the morning? I have to go out tomorrow to see about a job and I want to look my best.”
Lizzie nodded politely. She was always awake early. “Yes, Miss Emma. I can do that. I hope you get your job.” Since their Christmas chat, she’d listened with interest to tales of the commercial college lessons and the difficulties of learning to type, feeling a new kinship with their younger lodger.
“Thank you so much, dear. I must say, it’s a relief to have that course over.” Emma had worked hard and had paid “practice money” to go back to the school at weekends and use the typewriter, as some girls did, feeling that twenty lessons weren’t enough to learn to type accurately.
Yesterday Miss Aspinall had told her about a job that was going. “They work their staff hard, but it’s a place where you’ll get a good range of office experience.”
Emma realised that she’d been lost in thought and the two girls were staring at her, so she winked at them. “Do you still like caramels?”
They nodded.
She reached into the pocket of her skirt. “I just happen to have a couple to spare.” In her opinion, both of them looked as if they needed a treat and the older girl looked absolutely worn out.
So the two sisters spent a companionable half hour sitting by the fire, seeing how long they could make their caramels last. Lizzie enjoyed the rare luxury of talking about her day and Polly just enjoyed being the focus of someone’s attention, because Eva was in the front room as usual, doing her school work, saying that being cold there was better than suffering the noise of the warm kitchen, and Johnny had gone up to bed, grumbling all the way, but not daring disobey orders about what was his proper bedtime.
By the time their mother came home, flushed with enjoyment from her first evening out since Stanley’s death, Lizzie and Polly were both in bed and the younger girl, at least, was sound asleep. It was much longer before Lizzie got off. She heard Eva close the front room door, say goodnight to her mother, then tiptoe up the stairs. As Eva climbed over her, she pretended to be sleeping, so she wouldn’t have to talk. Her sister was asleep in minutes, but Lizzie was wide awake for some reason. She heard the low voices of the two lodgers from the attic room above and wondered what they were talking about, remembering with a pang what the low rumble of her father’s voice used to sound like.
Downstairs, she heard her mother making a cup of cocoa and chatting to Percy. Mam sounded happier tonight. Lizzie only hoped that would last, but she wasn’t building her hopes on it. Nothing satisfied Mam nowadays, nothing!
* * *
The next morning, Emma Harper admitted to herself that she felt nervous as she walked along York Street. What if they laughed at her at Sevley’s? Twenty commercial lessons and no experience at her age.
Miss Aspinall had said to wear dark, plain clothes to the interview, but the only dark clothes Emma had in her wardrobe were her old tweed walking skirt and the dark brown jacket she used to wear with it, and she didn’t think they would look smart enough. Well, she knew they wouldn’t. The skirt had a mend on it where she’d caught it on some brambles, and she’d had the jacket for five years, which meant she was now twenty-four years old.
She sighed as a couple of kids ran past her, shouting. She’d expected to be married and have at least one child by the time she reached this age. But it was no use repining. When she was younger, her father had discouraged admirers, and anyway, she’d known even then that she couldn’t leave Blanche to cope with him on her own. It was a small comfort that one or two young men had shown an interest, but to tell the truth it hadn’t broken her heart to discourage them because she hadn’t been particularly smitten.
When he was in one of his hurtful moods, their father had sometimes said his elder daughter looked just like his own mother: plain as a plank. His younger daughter, on the other hand, favoured his wife, the woman he had idolised and grieved for ever since her early death, and he’d usually treated her more gently because of that. Emma couldn’t even remember her mother, who had died when she was three. It was Blanche who had brought her up, Blanche who had done everything for her,
Blanche whom she loved dearly.
She was kept waiting at Sevley’s, sitting on a bench in a draughty outer room, then brought in with a peremptory command. She didn’t take to the owner or to his wife, who managed the office, but kept reminding herself that she had no experience and that beggars couldn’t be choosers and managed to hold her tongue.
When she returned home, she had the job, though she knew already that she wasn’t going to like it. Mr. Sevley had a look in his eyes she mistrusted. If his wife hadn’t been the one running the office, Emma wouldn’t have accepted the job under any circumstances. And the wages were only fifteen shillings a week: “Because although you’re older than our usual sort of girl, you’re nobbut a beginner at office work and we’ll have it all to teach you.” But fifteen shillings would make a big difference to their meagre budget, a very big difference, and this job was only a start, after all.
And Miss Aspinall said that Mrs. Sevley knew her job. “You’ll learn more there than anywhere else in town. Ask for more money next year. She’ll give you a bit more, probably. Then, later on, I’ll help you find another job.” She had blushed. “If you wish it, that is.”
“You’re being very kind to me, Miss Aspinall.”
“Well, we’re both single women with our living to earn and that isn’t easy, is it? It’s a man’s world.” A flush stained her thin cheeks. “And why don’t you call me Millie—now that you’re no longer a student? If you want to, that is?”
Emma realised that here was an offer of friendship and didn’t hesitate to accept it. “I’d love to. And my name’s Emma. Um—perhaps you’d like to come to tea with me and my sister one weekend? I’m sure you’d get on well with Blanche.”
“Oh, I’d like that. I’d like it very much indeed. I don’t care to leave Mother alone in the evenings, and I teach at Sunday school, but a Saturday afternoon—yes, that’d be very nice.”
“Next Saturday, perhaps?”
“Delightful.” She would look forward to it all week and enjoy telling Mother about it afterwards.
