The Surplus Girls

by Polly Heron

  ‘As you wish.’

  ‘Excuse me.’ Belinda stepped forward. ‘We were discussing my wages for last week.’

  ‘There’s no call to make a song and dance out of it,’ Richard hissed under his breath.

  ‘I’ll pay your wages,’ said Mr Linkworth. To Mr Turton, he said, ‘That’s in order, isn’t it? Good. Don’t let us detain you, Carson.’

  Richard thrust the box onto the table, took his gloves from his pockets and snapped them on, then snatched his trilby from the top of the cupboard and jammed it on his head. Grabbing his cardboard box, he started to leave.

  ‘We’ll see you in the magistrate’s court on Friday, Mr Carson,’ said Mr Turton. ‘As the person who initiated this matter by casting doubt on Mr Linkworth’s identity, your presence is essential.’

  ‘Believe me,’ said Richard, ‘I have no intention of missing it.’

  Gabriel Linkworth opened the door and Richard stalked out.

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Turton, ‘that wasn’t as unpleasant as it might have been.’

  ‘How did you know he’d be leaving today?’ Belinda asked.

  ‘Winterton, Sowerby and Jenks wrote to him and suggested that, unless he seriously intends to dispute Mr Linkworth’s identity, perhaps he should withdraw from the late Mr Tyrell’s property.’

  ‘I see.’ Time to bow out gracefully, indeed!

  Mr Turton turned to his companion. ‘There’s nothing else for me to do here, Linkworth, so I’ll take my leave. Good day, Miss Layton. You’ll shortly receive a letter from Winterton, Sowerby and Jenks, confirming your position here on a temporary basis.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  She settled down to begin typing.

  ‘What’s that you’re working on?’ asked Mr Linkworth.

  ‘The stock inventory Mr Carson asked for. I think it was something to do with selling all the books.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to sell them. That is, I do, but not in the same way. I want to take over the shop and be a bookseller.’ He smiled – a real smile that broke through his habitual gravity.

  She smiled. She was glad for him. Glad for the shop, too.

  ‘I’m pleased Tyrell’s Books will continue. Or will it become Linkworth’s Books?’

  ‘Now there’s a thought.’ He laughed and the lines of his serious face relaxed. That cautious, guarded look vanished from his eyes.

  On impulse, she said, ‘You haven’t seen upstairs yet, have you?’

  He indicated for her to lead the way. Upstairs, she put her hand on the back of the chintz armchair.

  ‘These chairs and the table are from Mr Tyrell’s cottage,’ she started to say, but he was already between the bookshelves, taking care where he put his feet.

  ‘Are all these boxes full of books?’

  He walked around the shelves for a minute or two, gazing at the titles.

  ‘Forget the inventory, for now at least. We need to unpack some of these boxes and get as many books as we can onto the shelves, both downstairs and up here. Then the remaining boxes will need to have their contents listed.’ He opened a couple of boxes, looking ready to get stuck in immediately.

  She didn’t want to sound work-shy, but she had to warn him. ‘It’s grubby work and neither of us is dressed for it. If you don’t mind waiting, I can bring a pinny from home tomorrow, and I’ll put my hair in a snood; or I could run home in my dinner hour and fetch them.’

  ‘It can wait until tomorrow. Let’s go to the cottage and unpack those tea-chests. It didn’t seem right last week, leaving them dumped on the floor.’

  ‘Before we go, do you mind if I pop down the road to Brown’s for a new typewriter ribbon? I’ll only be a minute.’

  ‘Did Mr Tyrell have a petty-cash tin? I must top it up.’

  She hurried along the road to the stationer’s, where she found Mr Brown dealing with three customers at once and looking frazzled.

  ‘Are you on your own this morning?’ she asked when it was her turn.

  ‘Our Jeanie is expecting a happy event, but she’s having a bad time of it. The doctor has told her to rest with her feet up and no arguments, so Mrs Brown will be over there every day for the foreseeable future, doing the necessary and looking after the little ’uns for her.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Aye, well, you do what you have to, don’t you, for your family.’

  Yes, you did. Would the boys sort out jobs for themselves or would she have to do it for them? She made her purchase and returned to the bookshop.

  As she and Mr Linkworth walked to Limits Lane, he said, ‘May I ask a personal question? Please say if it’s inappropriate. It’s your black shawl: it’s not very spring-like.’

  ‘It’s a mourning garment.’

  ‘My condolences. I apologise for speaking out of turn.’

  Condolences for the girl who longed for colour! She was accustomed to accepting sympathy and letting others assume she was deep in mourning, but it was time to be honest.

  ‘My fiancé lost his life in the war.’

  ‘And you still mourn him after all this time.’

  ‘Yes, I do and in a way I always will, but…’ How to express it? ‘I live with his mother and grandmother. They are in deepest mourning to this day and…’ Never mind all the ins and outs: get to the point. ‘…and it hurts them dreadfully that I feel ready to reduce mine.’

  ‘You were wearing a pretty scarf last time I saw you.’

  ‘That’s what caused the dreadful hurt; well, and that I tried to keep it secret from them. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to foist my family troubles on you.’

  ‘No one’s life is straightforward.’

  ‘True.’

  But her spirits lifted at having shared her ‘disloyalty’ and not been slammed for it. Then she sighed silently as she thought of Dad, unemployed yet again and now unemployable. She could never share that with Mr Linkworth. And what did that say about her, that she picked and chose which shame to share? Then she realised. No longer being in mourning wasn’t a matter of shame. It was the natural progression of a young, heartbroken girl as she gradually healed. She hadn’t forgotten Ben, but she wanted to look to the future. She wanted to make a future – one that didn’t involve dressing in crow-black from head to toe.

  At Mr Tyrell’s cottage, Mr Linkworth unlocked the door and stood back for her to enter.

  ‘Let’s have some fresh air in here.’ He opened the windows, throwing up the sashes with no difficulty. ‘I thought they’d be stiff, in an old place like this.’

  ‘Homes need fresh air,’ said Belinda. The cottage felt stale. It needed more than air. It needed someone to live here and love it. Would Mr Linkworth do that?

  She started unpacking the tea-chests as Mr Linkworth looked round. He disappeared upstairs; she heard his footsteps overhead. When he came down, he went through the back door into the garden.

  ‘The place is in good condition,’ he remarked when he returned. ‘Exceptionally so. The range in the kitchen is modern and there’s a new water pump outside next to the old well.’

  ‘Shall you move in?’ Belinda asked, unwrapping a figurine.

  ‘Yes.’ He lifted a newspaper-wrapped object out of another tea-chest. ‘I’m in digs at the moment. I’ll run the shop and live here. You can’t imagine how good it feels to have a purpose.’

  ‘Do you have any family?’

  ‘I have a cousin called Irene and she has children. When everything is settled, I intend to write to her and then visit.’

  ‘Why wait?’

  ‘At this point, she doesn’t know I’m alive.’

  She stopped in the middle of unwrapping a cut-glass vase. ‘Then you must get in touch at once.’

  ‘It’s not that simple.’ Mr Linkworth folded some newspaper and added it to the pile she had started. ‘My father, believing me dead, left everything to Cousin Irene in his will. Her circumstances are such that she desperately needs the inheritance.’

  ‘Oh. So she’s
got your inheritance and you’ve got Mr Carson’s.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking; the difference being that my father, thinking me gone for good, changed his will, whereas Mr Tyrell, thinking the same, didn’t bother.’ He unpacked some books and put them onto the bookcase. His back was to her – on purpose? – as he said, ‘I know Mr Carson feels hard done by and I can’t blame him. I sense you sympathise with him.’ He turned to face her.

  She leaned so far into the tea-chest, she almost fell in. ‘Of course I sympathise. Who wouldn’t? But I’m not on his side against you. I didn’t altogether understand the situation to start with – not that it’s any of my business.’

  He stood with his hands on the edge of his tea-chest. ‘I apologise if I’ve made you feel uncomfortable, but I don’t wish there to be any misunderstanding between us.’

  He smiled and it was impossible to feel awkward. She liked him – oh, not in that way. She just… liked him.

  Tuesday: Vera’s Voice day, and not only a fresh copy of the weekly periodical to enjoy, but also another thick envelope like that other one that had been sent to them from the magazine’s offices. Another enquiry about pupil lodgers? Too late, of course, because they were now looking for local girls, but it was good to receive it even so – if that was what it was. Patience put it on the mantelpiece for Prudence to open that evening. Another letter came by the four o’clock delivery, in a neatly handwritten envelope of high quality. Was it too much to hope that they already had an application from a local girl?

  She thrust the letters at Prudence almost the moment she walked in.

  ‘You know we don’t open the post until after tea,’ said Prudence. ‘But I think today should be an exception. Here: I’ll have this one and you open that one.’

  Patience waited while Prudence had first use of the letteropener, then she slit open the envelope that had been entrusted to her. Hers was the local letter. Please let it be an application.

  It was.

  ‘It’s from a Miss Wilhelmina Palmerston. Goodness, what a name. You’d have to be frightfully successful at whatever you did, with a name like that. She saw our advertisement and, oh, Prudence, she wants to be a pupil lodger. Isn’t that splendid? What about yours?’

  ‘It was sent on by Vera’s Voice, with a rather charming covering letter from the editor, a Mrs Newbold. Apparently, Mrs Brewer’s series about surplus girls has generated a lot of interest and she has received a gratifying amount of correspondence.’

  ‘Some of it has appeared on the letters page. And the letter she posted on to us?’

  Prudence barely spared it a glance. ‘From a Mrs Vivienne Atwood, a war widow living and working in London.’ She dropped both letters on the table beside her armchair. ‘What about Miss Palmerston? Does she look promising?’ She took the letter and scanned it. ‘Hm… address in Wilmslow: very nice… Clerical work in a voluntary capacity for a couple of charities… Wants to train properly and have a career.’

  ‘She sounds ideal,’ Patience ventured.

  ‘But why lodge with us? Why not live at home?’

  ‘It would be quite a trek for her to come just for night school.’

  Prudence tilted her head from side to side in a sort of leftright nod. ‘We’ll ask her at her interview.’

  ‘Good. I’ll write to her after tea and pop out to the pillarbox before lessons. That will catch the ten o’clock collection and she’ll receive it tomorrow. Should I invite her to come on Thursday?’

  And then, after Miss Russell and Miss Dean went home this weekend, there would shortly be another girl to take their place. Perfect.

  It was funny how you could change your mind about someone. Belinda liked Gabriel Linkworth. She liked the way he mucked in. Take yesterday. When she had arrived at the shop with her hair in a snood and a pinny in her bag, he had produced a warehouseman’s coat and they had worked on the boxes all day. Not only that but they stopped for their tea-breaks together, sitting chatting in the chairs from the cottage.

  And at dinner-time yesterday, when he had gone across the road to Richardson’s to buy barm cakes, he had offered to get one for her as well, saying ‘My treat’ in such a casual way that there had been nothing inappropriate in it. It had almost been a shame to refuse, but Grandma Beattie had provided her with a slice of pork-and-apple pie.

  Now, again, today, it was the same: another morning of working together, sorting through the boxes of books, shelving what there was room for and listing what had to be put back.

  Mr Linkworth paused to glance through the window. ‘Look at that sunshine. What do you say to a picnic in the rec?’

  When he popped out to purchase his barm cakes, he bought a bottle of cordial as well.

  ‘We need mugs,’ he said, ‘and don’t forget the tablecloth. You can’t have a picnic without a tablecloth. If the grass is damp, we’ll spread it between us on a bench.’

  The grass was dry. Mr Linkworth spread the cloth and they sat down. Belinda drew her shawl around her shoulders. The sun was bright but there was a snap in the air.

  ‘Cold?’ Mr Linkworth asked her. ‘We can go back inside.’

  She shook her head. There was a curious feeling of lightness inside her chest. It took her a moment to recognise it. This was fun. When was the last time she had had fun?

  Afterwards they returned to the shop and were soon back at work.

  ‘Latin grammar… Greek architecture…’ Mr Linkworth lifted books from a box. ‘Some rather handsome Anthony Trollopes… Oh, look, an illustrated guide to the flowers of the British Isles.’ He flicked through the pages. ‘These illustrations are beautiful. Do you have a favourite flower?’

  ‘I always look forward to blossom in the springtime.’

  ‘There’s plenty of that around at the moment.’

  ‘Do you have a favourite?’ She didn’t expect a yes. Women had favourite flowers, not men.

  ‘Roses,’ he said at once. ‘I love roses. I adore their scent.’ He closed the book. ‘Perhaps my mother had roses in her garden.’

  ‘Perhaps you were a gardener.’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ he told her, ‘I was a teacher. A games master, to be exact.’

  He didn’t look like a games master, but then what did games masters look like? And on second thoughts, maybe he did. The way he hefted those boxes around showed him to be strong and supple, and he had a way of running lightly up and down the stairs. Not like Richard, who had sat around much of the time, doing she knew not what.

  ‘I used to work in a school,’ she told him. ‘I went half time when I was twelve, because we needed the money. Mum wanted to find me a job in a shop, but Dad came up with this school job. He knew someone who knew someone and that was how he heard of it.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Mr Linkworth had stopped to listen.

  ‘Drudge. Did you have a drudge where you taught? It would have been all right in a nice school – topping up the inkwells, washing the slates on Fridays, mopping up after the little ones wet themselves – but I was in a rough place. The half-timers in the top class worked in the slaughterhouse in the afternoons: that’s how rough it was. One of my duties was to stand outside each classroom in turn and if it sounded like the teacher was being murdered, I had to run for the headmaster. Once, he sent me for the police.’

  ‘Sounds tough, especially on a young girl. After you left school, did you find a job elsewhere?’

  She opened her mouth, then shut it. Had she really been about to say that, much as she had feared working at St Joseph’s and been desperate for another job, Dad had made her stay; and she had been there until Auntie Enid had found her a place at the mill? As far as Dad was concerned, it wouldn’t have bothered him if she had stayed at Holy Joe’s to this day, as long as she handed over her wages.

  The trouble with Gabriel Linkworth was he was too easy to talk to.

  ‘I stayed for a while, then I went to work in the mill. You’re lucky to have this.’ She indicated the shop and its contents. ‘Lots of
people don’t enjoy their jobs. They work because they have to. I’m lucky. I enjoyed the mill and I love it here.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it, but you understand I can’t make promises about the future. I don’t know whether an assistant is needed or whether I’ll be able to afford one.’

  Afford one. Not afford you. Afford one. She bent her head over her work. It had been decent of him to keep her on at all. Was he warning her that, if he did require an assistant, the position wouldn’t be hers?

  Wilhelmina Palmerston was a stunner. Patience would have given half a dozen years of her life to have had looks like that when she was young. Miss Palmerston was tall and not thin, but willowy. Oh, to be willowy! Her hair was the colour of honey, her eyes almond-shaped, her complexion flawless. And her clothes! No wonder she was able to dabble in charity work, with a dress allowance like that. Her coat, currently hanging in their cloakroom, was a ruby-red wool of a softness that had made Patience want to snuggle it close to her face and there was a matching ruby-red flower attached to the side of her fashionable cloche hat. Her dress, with its stripes of soft brown and warm cream that melted into one another, had a large collar with fancy stitching; and her pointed-toed shoes were trimmed up the side with tiny buttons. She had arrived in a motor car that she had driven herself.

  Patience showed her into the sitting room, where Prudence waited.

  ‘I’m Prudence Hesketh, and this is my sister, Patience. How do you do? Thank you for coming at such short notice.’

  ‘How do you do? I’m Wilhelmina Palmerston, but my friends call me Billie.’

  ‘How nice for them. Do sit down, Miss Palmerston, and tell us about your voluntary work.’

  Miss Palmerston folded her hands in her lap. Her upright figure was elegant, her carriage perfect. She talked confidently about writing thank-you letters for donations received. A lesser person might have said – Patience, in her position, might have said – ‘That’s the extent of my experience, I’m afraid. It probably doesn’t seem much to you.’

  ‘Do you write or typewrite these letters?’ Prudence asked.