The Pearly Queen

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Now, missus,’ said the first heckler, ‘it ain’t exactly Christian, yer know, to go about wallopin’ people.’

  The crowd roared again. ‘Give ’im another go, missus!’

  ‘I will if he don’t keep quiet,’ shouted Mother, and Jimmy thought, poor old Mum, Dad’s got a real problem with her.

  ‘The Lord’s enemies shall reap the whirlwind,’ declared Father Peter.

  ‘Ruddy ’ell,’ said the heckler, ‘all I asked was can ’E make – ’ere, missus, I just thought, ’ow about blancmange, then, can ’E make blancmange? Me kids is ’ighly partial to blancmange.’

  ‘Take that!’ cried Mother yet again, and once more her umbrella smote. Mother Verity and Father Luke hastened forward and drew her gently back to the rostrum. Father Peter began to launch a variety of awesome warnings at the crowd. Jimmy retreated before he was spotted by Mother. He suspected he might get thumped himself, for not being at home repenting of Sunday’s roast. He felt she really had gone potty.

  He thought he’d better rejoin his sisters at the Serpentine, but glimpsing horses and riders as he approached Rotten Row, he went to have a look at them. A girl wandered across the sandy riding track. He yelled and rushed at her. A rider’s horse reared up before her. Jimmy pulled her out of its way and dragged her clear. The rider delivered some loud, bitter and pungent comments, and people shook their heads at the girl. She took no notice, she was far more interested in her deliverer.

  ‘Golly, you were quick,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I didn’t want you finishin’ up flattened, it would’ve spoiled your Bank Holiday,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘What?’ she said. She was about fourteen, he thought. She was dressed in a white frock and a round white straw hat. The hat was now a bit crooked. She had light brown hair tied, like Patsy’s, with ribbon. Her eyes were round and brown.

  ‘In case you don’t know, horses can flatten people,’ said Jimmy, always willing to stop for a chat with the man in the street or a girl in a park. ‘My dad saw it ’appen to a soldier in Mesopotamia. Knocked down and flattened by Turkish ’orses, y’know, and when they dug him up he was just like a pancake. You don’t want to go home to your mum and dad lookin’ like a pancake, do you?’

  ‘Well!’ Thirteen-year-old Sophy Gibbs drew a deep breath. ‘Of all the cheek, who’d you think you’re talking to, you rotten boy?’

  ‘Don’t know, do I? Never seen you before, have I?’

  ‘You’ve got a nerve,’ she said. ‘I’m not somebody’s leftover washing, you know. Just because you saved my life, don’t think you can give me all this cheek. I’ve a good mind to push your face in.’

  A string of riders trotted by. ‘I didn’t exactly save your life,’ said Jimmy, his solemn expression hiding a mental grin.

  ‘Yes, you did,’ said Sophy. ‘I suppose you go about saving every girl’s life so that you can lecture them.’

  ‘No, not much—’

  ‘Don’t make excuses,’ said Sophy, ‘just tell me your name and address, and I’ll ask my father to send you a postal order.’

  ‘What for?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘For saving my life, of course. Will a sixpenny postal order do?’

  ‘As much as that?’ said Jimmy. ‘What about just a penny stamp and an empty jam jar?’ Grocers offered a penny for an empty jam jar.

  ‘My life’s worth more than a stamp and a jam jar,’ said Sophy.

  ‘All right, tell you what,’ said Jimmy, ‘ask your dad to give sixpence to some poor old lady in a work’ouse, and we’ll call it quits.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ said Sophy.

  ‘Well, so long,’ said Jimmy, ‘don’t go gettin’ in the way of any more horses.’

  ‘Oh, no you don’t,’ said Sophy, grabbing his arm. ‘You can’t just push off after saving my life, I bet even criminals wouldn’t do that, I bet they’d at least buy me an ice cream wafer. We can get one at the kiosk by the tea rooms.’

  ‘Well, I’d like to,’ said Jimmy, ‘but I can’t afford it. Still, all right—’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got some money, I’ll pay, and you can owe me,’ said Sophy, used to having her own way. ‘Come on.’

  ‘No, I’ve just remembered, I’ve got to go and find me sisters by the Serpentine.’

  ‘Never mind them,’ said Sophy imperiously, ‘just come on. What’s your name? I’m—’

  ‘Hullo, what’s going on?’ A man had arrived, a rugged-looking man in a grey summer suit and light trilby hat, an elegant lady beside him.

  ‘Daddy, I’ve just had my life saved,’ said Sophy.

  ‘Really?’ said the elegant lady. ‘I suppose that means you’ve been up to something again. But at least your frock is still clean. Who’s this young gentleman?’

  ‘Mummy, he’s the one who saved my life, from a galloping runaway horse,’ said Sophy, ‘but I wouldn’t call him a young gentleman, you should have heard the cheeky beast lecturing me.’

  ‘It wasn’t a runaway horse,’ said Jimmy, and Sophy’s parents, Mr and Mrs Gibbs, took a good look at him. Mr Gibbs had a slight smile on his face, as if his daughter was an amusement to him. Mrs Gibbs looked as if Sophy could be a trial to her.

  ‘I’d like to have heard the lecture,’ said Mr Gibbs.

  ‘So would I,’ said Mrs Gibbs, a lady of refined looks.

  ‘I didn’t exactly save her life,’ said Jimmy, ‘just from gettin’ herself knocked down.’

  ‘He’s going to buy me an ice cream wafer now, at the kiosk,’ said Sophy.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be buying him one?’ asked Mr Gibbs.

  ‘Oh, I’m going to pay,’ said Sophy, ‘and he’s going to owe me.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound right,’ said Mrs Gibbs.

  ‘Actu’lly,’ said Jimmy, ‘I’ve got to join my sisters at the Serpentine, they’re waitin’ for me.’

  Liking his looks, Mr Gibbs said, ‘Well, bring them along and I’ll buy ice cream wafers for everybody.’

  ‘Tea for me, Frank,’ said Mrs Gibbs.

  ‘I’ll go and help this boy bring his sisters,’ said Sophy.

  ‘Not by the Serpentine you won’t,’ said Mrs Gibbs. ‘I know what will happen, you’ll fall in and your father will have to come and pull you out. You’ll come with us.’

  ‘Oh, blow,’ said Sophy, adventurous, capricious and headstrong.

  ‘All right, I’ll bring my sisters,’ said Jimmy, and off he went.

  ‘Who is he, what’s his name?’ asked Mr Gibbs.

  ‘He didn’t say,’ said Sophy. ‘Don’t some boys make you want to spit?’

  ‘You terror, I’ll give you spit,’ said Mrs Gibbs.

  Sophy rolled her eyes.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ asked Patsy.

  ‘Yes, her dad’s goin’ to buy us all ice cream wafers from the kiosk,’ said Jimmy, who’d given a sensible account of the incident. ‘You go on to the tea rooms with Betsy, while I tell Dad and Aunt Edie where we’ll be, then I’ll catch you up.’ Off he went to the bandstand, the afternoon concert still going on. Dad and Aunt Edie were enjoying the music. Jimmy explained the situation.

  ‘Oh, you met a girl, Jimmy?’ Aunt Edie showed the natural interest of a woman who held her nephew and nieces in affection. ‘Is she nice?’

  ‘Barmy,’ said Jimmy. ‘Still, we can’t say no to ice cream wafers.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said dad, ‘and I’ll bring your Aunt Edie over for a cup of tea in a while.’

  ‘See you in the tea rooms, then,’ said Jimmy. ‘Aunt Edie, you don’t half look peachy.’

  ‘That boy,’ smiled Aunt Edie, watching him go.

  ‘He’s got taste,’ said Dad, ‘I’ll say that much.’

  ‘I wonder who ’e gets it from,’ said Aunt Edie.

  ‘Me?’ said Dad.

  ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ said Aunt Edie, who had long wondered what he saw in her cousin Maud. The band launched itself into the ‘Radetzky March’, and at once her feet began to tap. She liked a military band and its rousing music.
>
  Jimmy, catching his sisters up, took them on to the tea rooms where Sophy and her parents were waiting. Patsy saw at once that the girl’s dress and hat were posh and expensive, and that her mother’s summery outfit was ever so elegant. Crikey, she thought, Jimmy’s met rich people.

  ‘Hullo again,’ said Mr Gibbs, ‘are these your sisters?’ He smiled. ‘You didn’t tell us they were pretty. Sit down and I’ll get the wafers and then order some tea. I’m Mr Gibbs, and this charming lady is my wife.’

  ‘This is Patsy,’ said Jimmy, ‘and this is Betsy. We’re Andrews.’

  ‘I’m Sophy,’ said Mr Gibb’s daughter, a law unto herself if she could get away with it. ‘You haven’t said your own name.’

  ‘He’s Jimmy,’ said Patsy, with Betsy hanging shyly back.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Mr Gibbs again, then went to the kiosk. Everyone else sat down, Mrs Gibbs viewing Jimmy and his sisters with a little smile. She had seen their like in Brixton, the birthplace of her husband.

  The tea rooms were crowded. There were cockney families, middle-class families, and a small group of ladies with Belgravia accents. In such a cosmopolitan atmosphere, the post-war depression seemed a lot less depressing. Cockney dads were in form, threatening their kids with the belt if they misbehaved. Cockney mums were making tart comments to waitresses about the shocking price of currant buns. Bright little bunches of cherries or grapes splashed their large hats with colour. A single glossy white feather adorned Mrs Gibb’s small hat.

  ‘Did your brother tell you he saved me from being trampled to death by a runaway horse?’ asked Sophy of Patsy.

  ‘Crikey, did yer really, Jimmy?’ asked Betsy, coming out of her shyness at this breathtaking news.

  ‘He just said he’d met a girl in Rotten Row,’ said Patsy. ‘He said she was standin’ in front of a horse.’

  ‘A moving horse?’ smiled Mrs Gibbs.

  ‘Moving?’ said Sophy. ‘It was jolly well galloping. And foaming at the nostrils,’ she added for good measure.

  ‘Oh, crikey,’ breathed Betsy.

  ‘I think I’d better make it clear that Sophy has a habit of exaggerating everything,’ said Mrs Gibbs.

  ‘Dad says vinegar on the tongue is a good cure for that, Mrs Gibbs,’ said Jimmy, ‘but you have to catch the tongue while it’s still young.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll try that,’ said Mrs Gibbs.

  Mr Gibbs returned with five wafers, one each for everybody except his wife. He handed them out with a smile. A waitress arrived and he ordered a pot of tea and fruit cake for six. The waitress said she didn’t know if the wafers ought to be eaten at the table, but as they were ordering tea and fruit cake perhaps it was all right.

  ‘There’s a nice girl,’ said Mr Gibbs with a smile, and that did the trick, it made the waitress feel she was special.

  Mr Frank Gibbs was a man of enterprise and initiative. Born of cockney parents in Brixton, he had pulled himself out of the rut to become a skilled carpenter, joiner and furniture designer. He worked for high-class manufacturers, but by the time he was twenty-five he had started his own business. It had expanded rapidly. He was forty-seven now and the owner of two factories. His wife, Elizabeth, had a middle-class upbringing. Needing someone to supervise his office staff and to act as his secretary, he advertised and she applied for the job. She was twenty-one then, he was twenty-seven, and in a week he was in love with her. He married her six months later. He still had a few rough edges and knew it, so he made his proposal prepared for her to turn him down. But she accepted without hesitation. She liked his masculinity and his vigour. She turned him into a man with no rough edges at all, but changed nothing of his enthusiastic approach to life and to business. She gave him three children, twin boys first and then a girl. Both boys at eighteen had entered the Army, both had wanted a military career. Sophy, their daughter, was her father’s one weakness. She could get anything she wanted out of him. He spoiled her day in, day out. Only his wife stood between Sophy and domestic anarchy.

  An outgoing man, Mr Gibbs engaged himself in conversation with Jimmy and the boy’s sisters. The wafers finished, a large pot of tea arrived with a plate of fruit cake slices. While Mrs Gibbs looked after the wants of the young people, Mr Gibbs talked and listened. He soon found out that Jimmy was in need of a job.

  ‘I can give you something to do until one turns up,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, he can come and do things for me,’ said Sophy, who was presently looking for a kindred spirit.

  ‘I forbid that here and now,’ said Mrs Gibbs.

  ‘But, Mummy—’

  ‘Never,’ said Mrs Gibbs. ‘I don’t want the responsibility of having to tell Jimmy’s parents that he’s died a sudden and violent death.’

  ‘Crumbs,’ said Betsy through her fruit cake. ‘Our mum an’ dad wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘No, I suppose it’s not popular,’ said Jimmy gravely. ‘Mr Gibbs, can you really give me something to do till I get another job?’

  ‘Twice over,’ said Mr Gibbs, and went on to say that he and Mrs Gibbs had just purchased a house in Anerley, not far from the Crystal Palace. It was an old but impressive property with several acres of grounds that had been left to run wild. The house itself had been fully redecorated and essential repairs carried out, and the family was in occupation. During the last week, landscape gardeners had begun a massive clearance of the overgrown grounds. All kinds of work needed to be done. Could Jimmy use a saw? Jimmy could.

  ‘Well, that’s fine,’ said Mr Gibbs. ‘If you’d like to come every day, there’s work for you for quite a while.’

  ‘Yes, and I’ll help,’ said Sophy.

  ‘I think not,’ said Mrs Gibbs.

  ‘Mummy, you do fuss,’ said Sophy.

  ‘It’s just as well I do,’ said Mrs Gibbs amid the enjoyable clatter of Bank Holiday tea, ‘someone has to make sure you stay alive.’

  ‘Well, I’ll just tell him what to do,’ said Sophy, ‘that’s all.’

  ‘Your father will do that,’ said Mrs Gibbs, and took fresh stock of Jimmy. Along with her husband, she liked the look of the boy. He had to be saved from Sophy. ‘Would you like to do the work?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’m all for it, Mrs Gibbs,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘I’ll pay you, of course,’ said Mr Gibbs.

  ‘How much, please?’ asked Patsy, pleased for her brother but impulsively wanting to find out if he was going to be slave-driven.

  ‘How about four bob a day?’ said Mr Gibbs.

  ‘Four bob a day?’ said Jimmy. At this particular moment in his life, that sounded highly profitable.

  ‘Fair do’s, I hope, Jimmy?’ said Mr Gibbs.

  ‘I’ll come tomorrow, on an early tram,’ said Jimmy. ‘Patsy’s on her school holidays, so I’ll ask her if she can do the rounds of some firms for me, to see if there’s any job on offer.’

  ‘Me do what?’ said Patsy.

  ‘I like Patsy,’ said Jimmy. ‘You could ask some sisters favours and all you’d get would be a poke in the eye. But Patsy’s kind and obligin’.’

  ‘I can’t remember she’s obliged me,’ said Betsy.

  ‘Yes, I ’ave,’ said Patsy indignantly.

  ‘Yes, but not much,’ said Betsy, and Mrs Gibbs laughed. She recognized the typical cockney liveliness of these two girls. Sophy was watching Jimmy, a little hint of wickedness in her eyes.

  Dad and Aunt Edie entered the tea rooms and came over. Jimmy did the introductions, and Mrs Gibbs, of course, wondered about the presence of the boy’s handsome aunt and the absence of his mother. Dad shook hands with Mr Gibbs, and Aunt Edie said hullo to Mrs Gibbs, who thought her large hat spectacular. Aunt Edie thought the single feather in Mrs Gibb’s small hat very stylish, and she observed with interest the lady’s daughter, the girl Jimmy had met in Rotten Row. My, what a poppet, Jimmy already knew how to pick them. With a name like Sophy too, just about the most teasing name a girl could have. Aunt Edie felt there was a very teasing minx behind the girl’s demure loo
k. And didn’t Jimmy look at home. Mr and Mrs Gibbs were obviously well-off, but Jimmy was so cool anyone would have thought he mixed with rich people every day. Well, it took a lot to put Jimmy out of his stride. He was like his dad. Bless them all, thought Aunt Edie.

  No-one quite knew the extent of Aunt Edie’s affection for Jimmy and his sisters, or the contempt she felt for their mother’s cranky self-indulgencies. Their dad, she felt, deserved a far more loving wife than Maud had become.

  Mr Gibbs ordered more tea and fruit cake, and Aunt Edie and Dad joined the little party. Chatter chased itself around the table. Mrs Gibbs, who liked men in a sensible way, which meant she found them entertaining enough to overlook their faults, engaged Dad in conversation. Discovering he had served in the Army during the war, she told him that her twin sons had joined the regulars six months ago. Dad said he hoped they wouldn’t run up against his old sergeant-major, who’d been known to eat recruits. Mrs Gibbs laughed. Dad said no laughing matter, it can be seriously painful. What was his sergeant-major’s name, then? George Frederick Hobbs, said Dad. Mrs Gibbs said she’d write to her sons and ask them if that’s the name of their sergeant-major. Well, said Dad, if it is, your letter might not arrive in time. There might only be bones left. Mrs Gibbs laughed again. Dad had already passed the test of being entertaining.

  Aunt Edie was chatting with Mr Gibbs, and Sophy was doing her best to monopolize Jimmy. She asked him if he liked chopping trees down.

  ‘I’m choppin’ them down all the time,’ he said, ‘about fifty a day.’

  ‘That’s a fib, no-one could chop down fifty a day,’ said Sophy.

  ‘All right, say forty a day.’

  ‘What a fibber,’ said Sophy, ‘you’d have to have hundreds of trees in your garden to chop down even ten a day.’

  ‘We only got a back yard,’ said Betsy, ‘we don’t ’ave no trees.’

  ‘No, well, I’ve chopped them all down,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘How many did you have, then?’ asked Sophy.

  ‘About a thousand,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Oh, you flabbergasting fibber,’ said Sophy in delight.

  ‘You’d best not believe ’ardly anything my brother says,’ advised Patsy.