The Glowing Hours

by Marina Oliver

  'You've ruined my shawl!' she gasped as soon as she could speak.

  'It wasn't worth saving. Don't worry, I'm sure we can find you another. If you tell me why you were in the stable, that is,' he added. 'Come on, it's useless trying to get away from me. You might as well spill the beans.'

  'Let me get up then. I've no breath to talk with a great lump of lard on top of me.'

  He laughed, and taking care to hold on to her tightly eased both of them to their feet. Nell pulled tentatively but gave up at once. He'd been ready for her and she knew she was beaten.

  'Come on, walk,' he ordered, and led the way towards the drive and up to the house. Nell perforce went with him, half afraid she would be punished for her earlier trespass, half eager to see inside this mansion. At the same time her mind was marvelling at the casual way he'd offered to provide her with another shawl. Then mentally she shrugged. Such gestures meant nothing to rich folk such as he must be. Pa was always ranting about how wealthy the factory owners were.

  The front door was open and Nell had a confused impression of huge pale rugs underfoot on a highly polished wooden floor. Intricately carved bannisters rose beside a flight of wide, shallow stairs, and plain white walls surrounded her, with just one painting of startling colours and indecipherable shapes. Then she was thrust unceremoniously into a small room at the back of the house. There was a girl a few years older than Nell lounging on a settee. Elegantly tall and slim, her bobbed hair and make-up impeccable, she wore a pale pink, satin dressing gown and held a glass in her hand. She was nibbling olives from a huge bowl beside her.

  'Andrew! For heaven's sake, darling! What the devil's this?' she asked sharply.

  'This, Kitty, is our nocturnal visitor, come back to explain herself.'

  Nell glowered at him. 'I came to get my shawl, which I left here, and which you've ruined!' she corrected him angrily, then trembled at her temerity at speaking to one of the Edgbaston swells in such a way.

  'And you shall have another, I said so. But only when you've explained. Would you like some coffee? Or a drink? I see Kitty's already started on the cocktails.'

  Nell gave him a startled look. Whatever else she'd expected it wasn't to be offered cocktails. Girls from the slums were not treated as visitors by the gentry.

  'I – please could I have one of them?' she asked hesitantly, gesturing towards the bowl of olives. The smell, strange though it was, had made her mouth water.

  Kitty sat up suddenly. 'Are you hungry?' she demanded, her plucked eyebrows shooting up almost into her shiny dark bob of hair.

  Wordlessly Nell nodded. Kitty smiled at her, suddenly decisive. This was intriguing, a change from the usual monotony of life. 'Then you need something a bit more filling than these. Andrew, Meggy left our lunch on a tray. Be a darling, go and get it, and make some coffee.' She rose to her feet and crossed the room to a small walnut bureau. Opening the top she abstracted a biscuit tin, and came back to offer it to Nell. 'I keep it there because Meggy, my housekeeper, disapproves of eating between meals. But I'm trying to diet, to lose weight, and I get so terribly hungry!'

  She really meant it, Nell could see. How friendly she sounded, and how tempting the biscuits looked.

  'I'm usually hungry,' Nell replied simply, taking a biscuit. She forced herself to eat it as slowly as she could.

  Kitty grinned at her. 'Sit down beside me and tell me about yourself.'

  Nell looked doubtfully at the settee, upholstered in pale cream brocade. 'I'm much too dirty,' she protested. 'My clothes weren't clean before but it didn't help when your – he – knocked me down.' She stole a look at Kitty's hand, but she wore no wedding ring. Perhaps the handsome man, Andrew, she'd called him, was her brother or boyfriend. He didn't seem to be her husband.

  'Is that what he did?' Kitty seemed amused. 'We'll see about cleaning your clothes after you've eaten. Do sit down. I've been thinking of getting the covers done again, I'm utterly bored with the white look, so don't worry about making them dirty. And you don't have to be polite; you can eat the whole tinful if you want. But maybe you should go easy on these, they are rather rich. Are you quite starving?'

  Nell sat gingerly on the edge of the settee, took another biscuit and shook her head. It was so strange to be here in a rich man's house, a much larger house than any she'd ever been inside before, and be treated as a normal human being.

  'Not really. I found half a loaf on my way here. It's just there's so many of us at home, there never seems enough to go round.'

  'So you have a home. We wondered. We thought perhaps you didn't have anywhere to sleep. That was why you came to the stable, wasn't it?'

  'Partly.' Nell hesitated. Ought she to explain about her Pa's vicious temper to these rich folk? She compromised. 'It's crowded at home. I sometimes can't bear it so I get out and sleep wherever I can find a shed or something. But I wanted to be with horses. They're warm, and company. That's why I looked for a stable.'

  'You must live nearby. In Ladywood perhaps? Oh, good, here's Andrew. Put the tray on this table, darling, and we can all reach it. Lovely, ham and beef sandwiches, and cheese and tomatoes. Have as much as you can manage, there's far too much for us. And then we can talk.'

  *

  Nell lay back in the hot water, foaming hillocks of bubbles heaped around her body. She must be dreaming. She hadn't known such luxury existed. She'd heard of bathrooms, of course, and at school had even known a couple of girls who had indoor water closets at home instead of having to use communal privies at the end of the courts, but she'd never imagined them to be like this.

  Ruefully she readjusted her ideas. Instead of the tin bath and stone sink of her imagination, and the odorous pit like the one which, as small children, they'd all been terrified of falling into as they balanced on the wooden seat, here was a porcelain palace. The bath was enormous, shiny white and surrounded by a wide shelf of polished mahogany. It perched on elaborately carved legs which looked like the claws of some huge animal, and she dreaded to think how many buckets of water it would have needed to fill if there hadn't been, miraculously, both hot and cold taps. The washbasin was similarly huge, and both it and the lavatory pan were decorated with pale pink and blue flowers.

  Kitty had turned on the taps, thrown lavish handfuls of bath crystals into the steaming water, scenting it and producing the foam, and pulled two enormous white fluffy towels out of a cupboard.

  'Take as long as you want. Wash your hair, too. I'll be sorting out some clothes for you, so come along to my room when you've finished. It's the one I showed you at the top of the stairs.'

  As she began to unbraid her hair Nell remembered the hard green soap she'd used that morning, and the promise she'd made herself that one day she'd have better. Well, this wasn't hers, but now she knew what it could be like she was even more determined to achieve a small part of this luxury, one day, however hard she had to work and however long she had to wait. With renewed vigour she washed herself all over, lathered her hair and then lay back again in the water until it began to cool and her flesh became wrinkled. Reluctantly scrambling out she wrapped herself in one of the towels, and marvelled at the effortless way the water disappeared. No heaving heavy buckets outside, and dragging the tin tub out when it was empty enough to move. She rinsed her hair in the washbasin and rubbed it as dry as she could.

  At last she had no more to do. She had to leave this incredible room. Nell glanced with a shudder of distaste at her old skirt and blouse, which however hard she tried she could not keep clean, and the underclothes she shrank from touching now that her body was warm and clean and fragrant. Kitty had promised her some clothes. Wrapping the towel more firmly about her she went along the passageway to the room the other girl had indicated. The door was open and she could hear Kitty inside, singing tunefully as she opened and closed cupboard doors. Nell tapped hesitantly on the door.

  'There you are! I began to worry you'd slipped away down the plughole! Come in, let's sort out some underthings first. What about
these?'

  'But – they're far too good to give me!' Nell protested, backing away yet with an unconscious hand stretched out towards the flimsy silken garments Kitty was holding.

  'Nonsense! And anyway I haven't any other sort, and these are at least a year old. Try them on. You're thinner than I am but that doesn't matter.'

  Nell slipped into the camisole and drawers and petticoat. They were so thin she felt naked still, but they caressed her body gently and as she moved slightly there was a whispering accompaniment. 'That's perfect,' Kitty gloated. 'Now I've sorted out some things that might be suitable. They're on the bed. Try them on.'

  It was impossible to resist. Nell swallowed her qualms. All they owed her was a shawl that was so tattered no one else would have given her a halfpenny for it. Even Ma had stopped trying to pawn it. Yet Kitty was so eager, and genuinely seemed to take pleasure in giving away her clothes, she could not refuse. She tried on gowns softer and warmer than she'd known existed, but knew she mustn't give way to temptation. She wouldn't be allowed to keep them.

  'If I could have just this skirt, and a blouse?' she said at last regretfully.

  'You must take more than that!'

  Nell shook her head. 'Pa would take them away from me if I have more than I can wear,' she explained reluctantly.

  Kitty was unconvinced, and Nell had to give more details than she wished about her family. Kitty was shocked, but finally accepted Nell's assurances that one dress would have to be enough.

  'But you must take this coat, it's nice and warm,' she insisted. 'And look, what about this hat? It's the same shade of brown, although it's not very fashionable now with a brim and feathers. Still, you could take the feathers off. And you must have some gloves, no outfit is complete without gloves.'

  Nell surrendered to the magic of the moment, and bemused at the sheer volume of discarded clothes on Kitty's bed, agreed.

  *

  'That's enough! If you can't tango now, Kitty, you never will,' Andrew declared, and took the record off the gramophone.

  'Thanks, old chap. She's utterly inexhaustible. After last night too, I expected to find her prostrate today.' Timothy, tall, slender, thin-faced, heaved a great ostentatious sigh and flung himself down into one of the armchairs they'd pushed to the side of the drawing room. Kitty came and perched on the arm, mockingly fanning him with a newspaper, and stroking back the overlong lock of blond hair which had fallen over one eye.

  'Weakling,' she chided. 'Let's have a cocktail, Andrew. I fancy a Side Car. Meggy left something in the slow oven for dinner, but it's too early yet.'

  'Tell me about your mysterious visitor,' Timothy said as Andrew filled the cocktail shaker. 'You actually asked her to lunch? Wasn't that rather – well, unnecessary? One doesn't hob-nob with the proletariat.'

  'Even you'd have felt pity if you could have seen the way she was eyeing the olives, and doing her desperate best not to gobble the biscuits,' Kitty replied slowly. 'She was so thin! I know it's fashionable, but this was pitiable. And when she was cleaned up and wearing my clothes she was amazingly beautiful!'

  'You lent her some of your clothes?' Timothy was shaken out of his usual languor. 'Kitty! What the devil will you do next? A girl from the slums borrowing your clothes? You'll have to burn them!'

  'She didn't have nits or lice, if that's what you mean,' Kitty retorted. 'Darling, don't fret. I gave her my clothes, her own weren't fit to wear, and they were much too small for her. Besides, Andrew practically tore them off her.' She looked mischievously across at Andrew, who was scowling at her remark. 'I wanted her to take more but the foolish girl wouldn't accept them.'

  'You know she said she daren't leave them lying about or her mother would either pawn or sell them,' Andrew said quietly. 'She had just the clothes she stood up in, and they were thin as well as almost threadbare.'

  'Surely she could have found somewhere to hide them. Everyone has somewhere,' Kitty said.

  'From what she said, and she was so apologetic that her clothes weren't clean, she wasn't even able to wash them because she didn't have anything else to wear while she did so,' Andrew reminded her.

  'You'll have to burn the ones she left,' Timothy insisted, a grimace of distaste pursing his lips.

  'I can't. She took them away, said her next sister would be glad to have them.'

  'Ugh! How revolting! I can't understand why people tolerate living like that!'

  'Perhaps they should all join the trades unions, old boy,' Andrew chuckled. 'You'd like that even less.'

  Kitty leapt angrily to her feet and interrupted him. 'Timothy, don't be such a boring snob! I've never heard anything like it before, but she can't help it. Her father's a drunken sot, her mother's browbeaten and defeated, and so would any woman be after having sixteen children in twenty years! Fourteen are still living, and all but two of them in a tiny back-to-back house no bigger than this room!'

  'If that's what you believe.' Timothy shrugged. 'I'm not interested enough in how the peasants live to argue with you. It's much too boring.'

  'I do believe her. I've never seen those awful houses, and I truly can't imagine what they're like, but Mrs Cartwright next door works at some Mission in Hockley and she's told me how dreadful they are. Besides, someone so beautiful couldn't tell lies. She had a heart-shaped face, and green eyes, and they slanted a little, and her chin was pointed. Her hair was so thick and long it almost made me regret I'd cut my own. Andrew, wasn't she lovely?'

  'She looked a hundred times better after you'd made her have a bath and put on some of your old clothes,' he agreed slowly. 'And she had the sense to choose good warm ones, not finery which would have been quite out of place in her home.'

  'She'll be on your doorstep begging every week,' Timothy prophesied gloomily.

  Kitty shook her head. 'I'm sure she won't. I had a dreadful job to make her accept anything but a new shawl and she only took that to replace the one Andrew tore to shreds when he rugby tackled her in the shrubbery.'

  Timothy grinned, his long, lean face lightening and his blue eyes suddenly filling with amusement. 'Rolling in the bushes, Andrew? Tearing the clothes off a poor working gal? Not your usual style, is it?'

  Andrew laughed self-consciously and explained. 'So we owed her a shawl. Kitty, I've only just realised. She spoke quite well, didn't have much of a Birmingham accent.'

  'I asked her about that. She lived for most of her life with her mother's parents, who were, it seems, several classes above her father. She went to a school in Sutton Coldfield, and was taught to speak properly.' Timothy looked sceptical, and Kitty frowned at him. 'You're being beastly, Timothy! Don't say another word! You won't turn me against her. She was beautiful, and gentle. I could do a lot with her, I know.'

  Timothy laughed. 'Somehow, my dear Kitty, I don't see you as a female Professor Higgins creating a beautiful swan out of your ugly duckling.'

  'She was far from ugly, old chap,' Andrew said quietly. 'There was something about her – I'm not sure what – she was wary, vulnerable, ready to vanish at the slightest hint of danger. If you ever get the chance to see her, even in her old clothes, you'll be shaken out of that complacency of yours!'

  'Don't argue, boys. Now, darlings, let's have dinner. Shall we eat in Meggy's kitchen? She won't normally allow me to, says it's slumming! Oh dear! What a dreadful thing to say. I don't suppose poor Nell has anything half as good in her home.'

  *

  Nell eased her sore shoulders as she hauled on the lever of the press, but even the pain couldn't dim her glow of triumph. She still had the good serge skirt and the neat white poplin blouse, as well as the hat and thick woollen coat. She'd spread that on the bed in the hope of keeping it out of Pa's clutches. Now she could really begin to look for another job. She had respectable clothes in which to go for interviews. You weren't respectable without a hat and gloves.

  Pa had been surly when she'd returned the previous afternoon. 'Where've you been?' he demanded as she slipped through the door. 'And what the
bloody 'ell's that on yer back?'

  Since she couldn't tell him the truth she chose to say nothing, and all hell had been let loose. He'd ranted like a madman, and the rest of her brothers and sisters had slid out of the kitchen, the younger ones escaping into the yard to cower out of sight, the older ones to walk the streets until his anger was exhausted. She and Ma were left to face him alone. When he'd done accusing her of selling her body for useless finery, and punched away her mother who tried to defend her, he'd ordered her to give him the clothes.

  'They'm far too good fer you!'

  'My old 'uns are too small! If yer takes these away I'll march down Ryland Street naked, and tell folks yer thieved 'em off me!'

  For a moment she quailed, thinking she'd gone too far. It had been a silent but intense struggle, but he must have seen she meant it, and he still had a shred of pride left. Besides, Sam or Danny had managed to land a few punches last night and he was sporting a colourful bruise on his cheek and limping slightly.

  'Tellin' 'em all yer no better'n a drab!' he muttered, and slumped in his chair in front of the feeble fire. The remains of the old fishy crates Danny brought home from the fried fish shop where he worked glowed feebly, giving out just enough heat to boil a kettle.

  It had been too easy a victory. By the time the rest of the family crept back in to snatch slices of bread and dripping, all they had for tea, he was simmering with frustrated fury, and found the excuse he needed when four-year-old Betty dropped her piece of bread on the cracked, dirty floor slabs and began to wail.

  'Yer pushed 'er!' he promptly accused Nell. She was sitting on the upturned orange box next to Betty who stood beside the deal table to eat her tea.

  It was patently untrue, but no one dared to remonstrate. His small eyes gleaming maliciously, Mr Baxter stood up, slowly undid the wide leather belt which held up his patched trousers, and ordered Nell to bend over in front of him. She glanced towards the door but there were too many people in her way. Before she could reach it he would be on her, and defiance would make him more vicious.