Our Lizzie

by Anna Jacobs

  “Oh? I thought you’d have me out praying every Sunday?” teased Lizzie.

  It took him a minute to realise that she was joking again, then he gave her a perfunctory grin and changed the subject. “Are you doing owt on Sunday morning?”

  “Nothing apart from going to church. We’ll get it over with early, shall we, and then we can enjoy the rest of the day?”

  “Good idea. And after church, I want to show you something.”

  “I was going to come and give that house of yours a good clean-out afterwards. That neighbour hasn’t given you good value for money and I can’t bear to think of you living in such a tip.” And she was going to speak to Sam about them getting a new bed and a few other bits and pieces, too, before she moved in.

  “I need to show you something first.”

  “All right.” She peeped sideways at him, glad to see he was recovering his good humour. “What is it?”

  “Wait and see.”

  * * *

  A state of armed neutrality existed in Bobbin Lane from then onwards. Meg was informed by Percy in no uncertain terms that if she wanted to get rid of Lizzie, she was to do right by the lass. And for a while, she even felt a bit warmer towards her—the first of her daughters to get wed. Especially as Sam was buying the bride’s dress and the flowers, as well as taking all the family out for a meal afterwards, so she’d not have too much extra work to do.

  When Percy gave his mother some extra money to buy herself a new dress and hat, and get Johnny a new outfit, Meg grew even mellower and decided that it was almost worth the fuss. And she was finding life a lot easier without the lodgers.

  So Lizzie found her washing done without complaint and her meals more appetising for a week or two.

  Meg had viewed and turned down one house, because it had a shared privvy, but Mr. Cuttler said another place would come up soon. They always did.

  “Your Lizzie’s wedding Sam Thoxby, isn’t she?” he said as he was leaving. It didn’t sound as if he approved.

  “Yes, an’ she can think herself lucky to get him.”

  “Oh, like that, is it?”

  “Like what?”

  “Needs to get wed.”

  “No, she does not! None of my daughters is like that, thank you very much.”

  “Pardon me.” But he wondered as he walked down the street what that nice little lass was doing tying herself to such a shifty lout.

  * * *

  On the Sunday, Sam sat and scowled his way through a service he considered a load of claptrap, not even trying to mouth the hymns. But he listened with pleasure to the banns being called and enjoyed the stares as heads swivelled round.

  After that, he got out as quickly as he could, refusing point-blank to answer Lizzie’s questions about where they were going. He wanted it to be a complete surprise. He wanted to see her face when he showed her the house.

  Stopping outside number one, Maidham Street, he waved one hand carelessly towards it. “There, what do you think of that?”

  She stared at it in bewilderment. “What do you mean, what do I think of it?”

  “Do you like it?”

  Lizzie shrugged. “Of course I do. They’re lovely houses. Emma Harper and her sister live in number seven now.”

  “Yes, I know.” It was the reason he’d turned down number five and paid twenty pounds extra for the end house; that and the knowledge that he’d be able to come and go through the back yard at night with less chance of anyone seeing him. “Want to go inside?”

  “Can we?”

  “Of course we can.” Sam pulled a key out of his pocket with a flourish, opened the front door and gestured her inside.

  “Where did you get that?” Lizzie was beginning to realise what this might mean.

  “From Mr. Cardwell, where d’you think?” He gave her a little push inside.

  “Ooh, isn’t it lovely, all new and clean?” She tiptoed into the front room. “Look at that bay window. Doesn’t it give the room a stylish air?”

  In the kitchen, she voiced unqualified approval of the latest in gas stoves and marvelled at the thought of electric lighting, though it wasn’t working yet. Then she turned to him. “Are you going to rent this house?”

  “Not rent, buy.”

  Her mouth fell open and she gaped at him as if she couldn’t believe her ears. Sam enjoyed her surprise. In fact, he was enjoying everything about this visit. It almost made up for that old fart spouting on and on in church.

  “Sam!” She flung her arms around him. “I didn’t know you had that much money.”

  “Well, I’ve been saving, like. I’ve allus done extra jobs for folk. An’ Gran had a bit put by, too.”

  Lizzie stood there, face aglow. “Our own house. Oh, Sam.” And she hugged him again.

  After that, she had to rush upstairs, then go over everything in detail, bubbling with delight at the convenience of it all. “An inside lavatory and a proper bathroom! Oh, look at that big linen cupboard! And I’ll be living close to Emma, as well.”

  He jerked her to a halt. “You’ll not have owt to do with them two stuck-up bitches.”

  “You mean Emma?” Her joy began to fade.

  “Aye,” he mimicked her softer voice, “bloody Emma Harper.”

  “But—I thought—I thought you were friends with them, Sam?”

  “Well, I’m not. They cheated me out of a bit of business an’ I don’t forget anyone as cheats on me. I’ll get back at them one day, see if I don’t.”

  “Sam, I’m sure they’d never—”

  “I don’t want to talk about them, not now or ever, so just remember—I’m not having you going in and out of their house, tattling over tea cups and wasting your time.”

  Lizzie swallowed a hot reply in defence of her friend. Something had upset him, so she’d have to tread carefully for a while. He’d get over it. But her joy in the house was tarnished, somehow, though she tried not to let that show.

  * * *

  Blanche Harper came into Dearden’s on the Monday morning and waited for Lizzie to finish serving a customer. “When I heard the banns called in church, I was so happy for you, child.” Even if it was Sam Thoxby the girl was marrying. “We—Emma and I—wanted to congratulate you.”

  “Oh.” Lizzie blushed. She still hadn’t got used to all the fuss. Mrs. D had started the day in the same vein. “Yes, well, thank you.”

  Blanche held out a parcel. “And we wanted you to have this.”

  “Oh, Miss Harper, you shouldn’t have!”

  “It’s the little picture you always liked.”

  Lizzie’s eyes filled with tears. “How kind of you!” On impulse she hugged the older woman, though it was Emma with whom she’d always been more friendly. “I wish—” She cut off the words. She wouldn’t dare ask them to the wedding, not with Sam feeling the way he did.

  Blanche gave her a wry smile. “It’s all right, dear. We know that Sam’s not best pleased with us at the moment. Or your mother. We’d have liked to come and see you married, but we shall be there in spirit. Now, I’d better buy something from the shop or your employer will be telling you off. A pound of sugar, please, and some of those caramels Emma likes.”

  * * *

  On the Tuesday evening, Sam called round and was allowed to sit alone with Lizzie in the front room. “I’ve made an appointment for you at the dentist’s,” he said without preamble.

  “At the dentist’s?” She gaped at him. “But there’s nothing wrong with my teeth. It’s very kind of you, but—”

  “It’s to have your teeth out.”

  She could only goggle at him, too shocked to form a single sensible word.

  “One of the fellows was telling me—his wife had hers out before they were wed. Saves a lot of trouble and expense with dentists later.” He grinned.

  Lizzie got her breath back. “Well, you can just unmake that appointment! There’s nothing wrong with my teeth, nothing at all.” She’d seen old women without their teeth and the thought of ha
ving only pink gums filled her with horror and revulsion.

  “I’d rather you had them out,” said Sam, mildly for him.

  “Well, I’ll not do it.”

  Veins swelled in his forehead. “You’ll do as you’re bloody well told!”

  She bounced away from him on the couch. “Not when it’s something daft, I won’t.” Suddenly she felt afraid. “Sam, don’t,” she quavered. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  He snorted angrily. “I want to do what’s best for us.”

  “But—but why spend money on having my teeth out?”

  “I told you—to save money later.” As Lizzie opened her mouth to protest again, he held up one hand. “I’ll call for you at the shop tomorrow and come with you. You’ve no need to be afraid. I’ll be there with you all the time.”

  Even through her fear, she could not agree. “You’ll go there on your own then, Sam Thoxby! I’m not doing owt so daft, for you or for anyone.”

  He took hold of her and shook her. “We’re doing things properly!”

  Percy came in, holding the newspaper. “Sam, I just read—” He stopped in astonishment, for it was obvious they were quarrelling. And he didn’t like to see Sam lay hands on his sister, either. That was no way to settle an argument.

  “Tell her not to be so daft,” Sam said, trying to hold on to the remnants of his temper but not letting go of his intended’s shoulders.

  “Lizzie?” Percy’s tone sounded a warning as well as asking a question.

  She glared at them both. “He wants me to have my teeth out. All my teeth. Like an old woman! And I’m not doing it, and nothing he can say or do will make me. It’s just plain stupid, that is.”

  “Sam, lad—” Percy frowned at the black anger on his friend’s face. “Why? I mean, false teeth are expensive and—and our family has good strong teeth. There’s nowt wrong with mine and I doubt there’s anything wrong with our Lizzie’s, either. Even Mam’s got most of hers still. It’s a waste of good money and—”

  “Sid Barnes said—”

  Lizzie stood up and stormed towards the door. Men sticking together as usual. “You two can discuss it all you like. They’re my teeth and I’m keeping them.” She reached the door just as Sam stood up, and turned to say loftily, “I’m going upstairs. If you can’t talk any sense into him, Percy, the wedding’s off.”

  But Sam strode across the room, caught hold of her skirt and dragged her back inside. “Stay here, you! Leave us alone, Percy, will you?”

  Lizzie looked pleadingly at her brother, who shook his head and went out. You didn’t interfere between man and wife, which was what these two nearly were.

  Feeling betrayed, Lizzie turned to Sam, lips tight with determination. “I won’t do it.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said. “But if I decide it’s right, you’ll do it—this and anything else I tell you to.”

  She looked at him with that new, mature expression on her face again. “I can never do something daft just because someone else tells me to do it, Sam, whether he’s my husband or not.” She wished her voice hadn’t wobbled, but he looked so big and angry. “So if I’m not going to be the sort of wife you want, you’d better say so now.”

  Too fast, a voice said inside his head. You pushed it too fast this time. “You’re exactly the kind of wife I want. Only, you must learn to mind what I say. It’s a wife’s duty to obey her husband. That’s what they make you promise in that bloody church.”

  Lizzie laid one hand pleadingly on his chest, “Oh, Sam, you wouldn’t want a wife so stupid that anyone could persuade her to do anything, whether it was right or not? Surely you wouldn’t?”

  “A man is master in his own house.” He saw her lips set stubbornly and for a moment was reminded of the little lass who had walked along the top of that wall, so long ago.

  She shook her head again. “Well, I’ll still not do something stupid, not even to please you, Sam.” She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her go.

  Admiring the fire in her eyes, he drew her slowly towards him. “Eeh, lass, you’d try the temper of a saint, you would. And I’m no saint.”

  The air between them was suddenly charged with tension and his mood changed, breathing quickening and that familiar feeling of need tugging at his loins.

  She opened her mouth to protest again, but he closed it with his own, kissing her till she could hardly stand upright. He laughed then, all temper gone.

  For the first time Lizzie had felt a surge of physical longing and she didn’t know what to do. With her usual candour, she gasped, “Sam—you make me feel—funny.” She indicated her belly. “Inside.”

  “Good. I’ll make you feel even funnier before I’m through, lass. Right inside you.”

  And seeing the white teeth gleaming in her soft pink mouth, he decided abruptly that Sid Barnes had been wrong. His gran had had no teeth. Her sunken mouth had looked horrible.

  Mind you, that didn’t change the fact that Lizzie had defied him.

  But now wasn’t the time for a lesson in obedience, it was a time for lessons in love. He pulled her towards him again, rejoicing that she was at last showing signs of responding as he wanted her to. He knew she was a virgin, and she’d be one till their wedding night, he was determined on that. It was part of his plan to have a wife as unlike his mother as possible. But afterwards, he’d have Lizzie in every way he wanted. And he’d train her to be so tame she’d stand on her head if he told her to.

  “Come here,” he said huskily. And this time she did as he told her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  December 1913

  On the Wednesday before she stopped working at Dearden’s, Sam came to collect Lizzie after work and she rushed out to meet him. “Mrs. D says you’re to come in. She wants to drink our health and give us our present.”

  “But—” The protest that he wouldn’t even stop to piss on Peter Dearden’s floor died in his throat. Mrs. D was already waiting just inside the door, so he couldn’t refuse without giving offence or putting himself in the wrong.

  “Mrs. D, you haven’t really met my Sam,” Lizzie said brightly, tugging him through the doorway.

  His smile became a sneer for a moment because they had met once when he was a lad. Sally Dearden had clouted him round the ears in the school yard and told him to stop fratching with her Peter. She’d clouted her son, too, and said the same thing to him, which had made Sam snigger afterwards.

  A quick glance around revealed there were other people in the shop looking at him so he held out one hand. “Glad to meet you properly, missus. My Lizzie’s been happy working here.”

  “She’s a good little worker. If ever she needs a job, she’s got one here.”

  “Oh, she won’t need to work again. I can keep a wife in comfort and,” he patted his belly suggestively, “I hope my lass will soon have other things to keep her busy.”

  Lizzie blushed and stared at the ground, wishing he wouldn’t say things like this. But he seemed really eager to start a family and had refused even to consider using the preventive methods that Mrs. D, in a motherly talk, had told her about. Lizzie would rather have postponed that side of things for a bit.

  Sally turned and said brightly to Peter, “You remember Sam from school, don’t you, love?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ll never forget those days,” he said. “Never.” Not even for Lizzie, of whom he had grown really fond, could he force a genuine smile to his face.

  Sam turned to stare at him. “Neither will I, lad. Neither will I.”

  Sally intervened again, sensing the undercurrents of antagonism. The two of them should have forgotten those childish quarrels by now! “And you know my other son, Jack?”

  He nodded indifferently to the younger lad. “We’ve met before. How do?”

  Jack nodded, his bearing as stiff as his brother’s.

  “Well, I’d like to drink your health and give you your present,” Sally said, abandoning the attempt to include her sons in the celebrations. “
I have a nice bottle of port upstairs, if you’d like to follow me, Mr. Thoxby? My husband can’t get about much at the moment, so he’s waiting for us up there. Peter—I can leave you to lock up, can’t I?”

  He nodded. But he stood and watched them cross the shop and go out at the back before he returned to work. Lizzie looked so small against Sam’s bulk, so bright and alive against his heaviness. It was like—like sacrificing a virgin in the old days, offering her to an evil god. How could she ever be happy with that lout? And she deserved to be happy, because she was a plucky lass and always had been. He’d never forgotten the incident of the shoes.

  He liked to see her serving in the shop, too. His father could talk about men making the best grocers, but Peter reckoned the customers enjoyed being served by Lizzie, with her wide smile and clever suggestions. He was sure most of them went out with more stuff than they’d intended to buy. And she didn’t do it just to sell, but because she took an interest in her work. As Jack never did. He was going to have to have another word with his young brother, he was that. Mooning about, thinking of aeroplanes, when he should be giving the customers his full attention. He’d got some orders mixed up the previous day—again—which had upset their mother.

  Upstairs, Sally introduced Sam to her husband, who didn’t attempt to get up, just nodded his head and wheezed a greeting. She poured them each a glass of port and solemnly drank the couple’s health. Then she handed them her present: a box of crystal tumblers which had Lizzie in raptures, so pretty were they.

  After they’d left, Sally poured herself another glass, an unusual indulgence for her, and sipped it slowly. “That lass is in for trouble,” she confided in Bob. “Or I’ve never seen trouble on two legs.”

  He watched her sip her port. “Eeh, you’re still a lovely woman, Sally lass.”

  She turned to him with a smile. “Now what brought that on?”

  He gestured to himself. “What do you think?”

  Her smile faded. “Oh, Bob.” She went to sit on the arm of his chair, leaning against him, hating the feel of his thin bony shoulders next to her plump softness. They both knew he hadn’t long to live. But what was the use of going on about it? You just had to make the last few months as happy as you could. She forgot Lizzie for a while, just sat there with her fellow.