All these worries were forgotten when the three younger children became ill with measles. Sarah and Mick had only a slight attack and they recovered quickly, but Kate was very ill.
The other children went to stay with their grandparents and Cathy nursed Kate in the small back bedroom of Norris Street. The doctor recommended a carbolic-soaked sheet hung over the door and Cathy stayed with the sick child night and day, until the doctor at last announced that she was out of danger.
Kate had been a very pretty baby, with her Aunt Mary’s delicate features but with brown eyes and dark curls like Cathy. She was totally unlike shy Sarah, fond of attention and always ready to sing or dance for any audience, but after her illness she was thin and pale, and most of her hair had fallen out. There was a slight squint in one eye too but this eventually righted itself and her hair grew thick and curly and much lighter than before her illness.
While she slowly recovered Kate was happy to lie in her father’s arms as he read to her or told her stories. There was no trace of a Liverpudlian accent in his deep, pleasant voice and as Sarah sat listening to him reading to Kate one night, she remembered a conversation she had overheard between her grandfather and Josh Adamson. Josh worked in the same railway office as Greg and he told Lawrie that there was no hope of promotion for Greg.
‘Too much of a gentleman to suit them, y’see, Lawrie,’ the old man said. ‘The way he speaks an’ all.’
‘I don’t see why that should hold him back,’ Lawrie protested.
‘Aye, well, some of the bosses don’t speak as good as him and they don’t like it. A general clerk showing them up.’
‘But he’s not putting it on. It’s the way he’s always talked. He’s not one for showing anyone up or throwing his weight about, not Greg,’ said Lawrie.
‘Yes, he’s well liked by the lads and he’s always very quiet – but that’s another thing holds him back. There’s some pushy fellows would tread on anyone to get on, but Greg’s not like that, see.’
Now Sarah felt indignant, as she recalled the conversation, to think that people might be jealous of her father for the very things she loved about him: his voice and his gentle manner.
Sarah was in difficulties at school at this time because she had not been doing her homework and was falling behind in class. She had been away from school while she had measles. When she returned she was staying with her grandparents while her mother nursed Kate, and they were unaware that she should be studying at home.
With so much else on her mind Cathy had not thought of Sarah’s homework. It was a shock to her when she received a note asking her to call on the headmistress.
‘Why does she want to see me?’ Cathy demanded, and Sarah was forced to admit that she had not been doing her homework.
‘I don’t know how to do the sums, Mam,’ she said. ‘Mary Cullen is supposed to show me what we’d have learned in Standard Two, but she doesn’t know herself. She copies the answer off the girl in front, then when I have to do sums for homework I don’t know how to do them.’
‘That’s no excuse. Why didn’t you ask your dad or John to help you?’
‘I didn’t want to tell them I couldn’t do the sums.’
Cathy made a gesture of impatience. ‘The truth is, you’re not even trying because you’ve still got this idea in your head about Elsie’s shop,’ she said. ‘What did your teacher say?’
‘She asked me why I didn’t do the homework. She said my work was a disgrace and I wouldn’t pass the scholarship if I didn’t do better,’ Sarah muttered.
She lifted her head and looked defiantly at her mother. ‘I told her I didn’t want to pass it.’
‘You stupid girl!’ Cathy exclaimed. ‘I’ll never forgive you if you waste a chance like this.’ She seized Sarah and shook her. ‘I’ll go to the school, all right, and I’ll tell them you’ll do what I tell you to do, so don’t think you’ll get your own way like this. Now go to bed.’
Sarah fled upstairs to cry herself to sleep, but when Greg came home and read the letter he was against the idea of forcing her to take the scholarship.
‘If the child is good at floristry and wants to do it, she’ll be far happier working in Elsie’s shop. I believe in a square peg in a square hole. Sarah’s happiness is what counts, not our ambition for her.’
‘My ambition, you mean,’ Cathy retorted, but she felt guilty when she saw how pale and miserable her daughter looked the following morning.
On the way to the school in the afternoon Cathy called in at her mother’s house to leave Kate with her, and confide in her the reason for the visit to the headmistress.
‘It’s about the scholarship class, Mam. Sarah admitted she hadn’t been doing her homework, and she turned round and told her teacher that she didn’t want to pass.’
‘I don’t see the sense in forcing her, Cathy,’ her mother said. ‘She’s got a real gift for flowers. Elsie Hammond says she’s as good as any apprentice she’s had, even at her age, and if she’d be happy there—’
‘That’s what Greg says, but I don’t want her to throw away a chance like this for a child’s whim,’ Cathy protested.
Lawrie was sitting by the table reading a newspaper. He looked up. ‘A chance for what, love? What sort of job d’you think she’d get in the end?’
‘She could do anything, Dad. Be a teacher or even a doctor if she worked hard, or a politician like Miss Rathbone.’
‘Cathy, girl, come down to earth. I thought I was the one who built castles in the air,’ he said with a sigh. ‘The truth is, love, the girls who do that sort of thing have monied families behind them. How far do you think Eleanor Rathbone would have got if her father had worked for the railway and they’d lived in Norris Street?’
‘But times are changing,’ she argued.
‘For the worse, as far as I can see,’ her mother said. ‘Jobs are getting harder to come by all the time.’
‘Aye, and when it comes to it a girl hasn’t much hope of an office job, even if she’s been to College,’ Lawrie said. ‘You’ve seen it yourself, Cath – the queues of girls outside any office where there’s a job going – but it’s not what you know but who you know that counts.’
‘That’s true,’ Sally said. ‘There was a job going in that office where Peggy cleans, and she said it was a shame to see the long line of girls waiting to apply when the job had already gone to the niece of a friend of the boss.’
‘Well, I don’t know what the headmistress will say,’ Cathy said. ‘It’s such an honour to be picked out for that class – I don’t know how I’m going to tell her that Sarah doesn’t want it. She’ll blame us, I suppose, for not making her do as she’s told.’
‘Tell her you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink,’ Lawrie said with a grin.
And Sally added, ‘Yes. The trouble is that Sarah’s as stubborn as you are, Cathy.’
‘Me! I’m not stubborn,’ she said in amazement.
‘Of course you are,’ her mother said placidly. ‘But you might have met your match in Sarah.’
‘Aye, what do they say?’ Lawrie said laughing. ‘The irresistible force meeting the immovable object. That’s you and Sarah, Cath.’
She was only half convinced by her parents’ arguments, and as she walked to the school decided that she would apologize for Sarah’s behaviour and ask for her to remain in the scholarship class. So much might change in a few years, she felt.
At the school she was kept waiting outside the headmistress’s room for ten minutes, and when she was finally admitted the nun greeted her coldly. She was a small woman, standing with her hands inside the wide sleeves of her habit, wearing a deceptive air of humility belied by the set of her thin lips and the cold glare she directed at Cathy.
Before she could speak the nun said cuttingly, ‘I hope you’re ashamed of yourself, Mrs Redmond. To deny the child this opportunity simply to send her out to work at fourteen is most unfair.’
Cathy’s temper rose. ‘That’s not
the reason, Sister,’ she said. ‘Sarah doesn’t want to stay on at school. She’s been promised a place as an apprentice in a florist’s when she’s fourteen, and that’s what she wants to do.’
‘So, you allow a girl of eight years of age to dictate to you?’ the headmistress said. ‘We teach our girls obedience, but if the parents don’t continue the training our efforts are wasted. She will be moved to Standard Two and her place given to a girl who will appreciate it. Good afternoon.’ She swept forward and opened the door and Cathy found herself in the corridor again, before she could say any of the things she had meant to.
She waited for Mick and Sarah to leave school. When Sarah came out her face was pale and tear-stained, but Cathy waited until they were away from the crowds of children before she took out her handkerchief and wiped her daughter’s face.
‘Did Sister say anything to you, love?’ she asked gently.
‘Yes. She said I was a wicked, ungrateful girl and teacher had wasted six months on me. She said another girl would have been glad to go in the class, and I was being moved to Standard Two because I was too stupid for the scholarship,’ Sarah said. Her voice trembled and Cathy drew in her breath in anger.
‘That’s not true, love. I told Sister you had a job promised with Elsie because you’d be such a good florist. Don’t worry about what she said – she was just annoyed with me.’
Sarah looked happier. When they reached Miss Tulley’s sweet shop, Cathy gave the children a halfpenny each.
‘I’m going to call in to see Elsie. When you’ve got your sweets, go straight to Grandma’s. I won’t be long’
Elsie Hammond welcomed her with a smile. ‘Hello, Cath. On your own?’
‘Yes, I sent the kids on because I wanted to talk to you, Elsie,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been to the school to see the headmistress about Sarah.’
‘Why? What’s wrong?’ Elsie said anxiously.
‘Nothing really, only Sarah hasn’t been doing her homework so she’s being moved out of the scholarship class.’
‘Is she? Does that mean she’ll leave at fourteen?’ Elsie said eagerly. ‘Yes. She’ll go in Standard Two now,’ Cathy said.
‘So she’ll be able to come to me. Well, I can’t say I’m sorry she’s left that class. It would have been a waste, Cathy.’
‘That’s what I wanted to see you about, Else,’ Cathy said, looking embarrassed. ‘I don’t want you to feel – well, that you’re sort of obliged to take her just because she’s left the class. I don’t want to take things for granted.’
‘Cathy, I can’t wait to start her here!’ Elsie exclaimed. ‘I wish she was fourteen this minute.’ She looked down the shop to where a thin pale girl was slowly pressing a handful of moss against a wreath frame and binding it with thin wire. Elsie lowered her voice. ‘Sarah’d have that frame done in half the time that Celia takes. It’s always the same – they’re either careful but slow, or quick and slapdash. Sarah’s one in a thousand.’
‘Celia looks delicate,’ Cathy whispered.
‘She is. The whole family are. She’s lost two sisters already with galloping consumption and her mam’s not well. That’s why I have to keep her on,’ Elsie said.
A customer came into the shop and Cathy left. When she reached her mother’s house Mick and Sarah had gone out to play. Sally poured tea for her.
‘How did it go?’ she asked.
Cathy shrugged. ‘That headmistress is a faggot, Mam, nun or not,’ she exclaimed. ‘She tried to make out that we just wanted Sarah to leave at fourteen so she could go to work. I stood up to her though and told her about Elsie. You should have seen her face when I answered her back.’
Sally smiled. ‘You’ve changed, love,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t say boo to a goose when you were little. Our Mary was the one who enjoyed a row. You were as different as chalk and cheese – not a bit like sisters. I never thought you’d stand up to anyone.’
‘Someone’s got to stand up for the kids. Greg won’t – he just lets people walk on him,’ Cathy said.
‘Including you,’ her mother said dryly. ‘Greg’s gentle and well mannered, Cathy, but he’s no weakling.’
‘I didn’t say he was,’ she flashed, more sharply than she intended. She added quietly, ‘I didn’t say half I wanted to. All the way home I kept thinking of things I should have said.’
‘I usually do that in bed at night,’ Sally said. ‘I think of great things I could have said if only I’d thought of them.’
They laughed, then Cathy said seriously, ‘She told Sarah she was wicked and disobedient and too stupid for the scholarship. I told her it wasn’t true and I’d told Sister about the shop. I went in to see Elsie too, and said she mustn’t feel obliged to take Sarah, but she said she can’t wait for her to start.’
‘Sarah’ll be happy there with her too. Elsie’s a nice girl and she’ll be kind to Sarah. She’s been a good daughter, looking after her mother all these years and working hard in that shop to keep them.’
‘It’s a wonder she never married,’ Cathy said. ‘She’s such a nice-looking girl.’
‘It’s the old story,’ Sally said with a sigh. ‘The lad she was engaged to was killed in Mesopotamia and she’s never looked at anyone else. It’s a good thing she’s got the shop.’
Cathy called Sarah and Mick and they set off for home. Cathy said nothing about the school and only asked how they had spent their halfpennies. Sarah had bought a sherbert dab and Mick had bought a gob-stopper. He told her happily that a boy had given him a go with his boomerang for a suck of the sweet.
‘You dirty thing,’ Sarah said. ‘You could catch something out of his mouth.’ They were passing the corner of a street where a group of ragged young men sat on the pavement, passing a Woodbine from hand to hand, each taking a puff of it. Mick stopped beside them.
‘You don’t catch anything off that, do you?’ he said. He pointed at Sarah. ‘She said I’d catch something because a feller had a suck of my gobstopper.’
Cathy was horrified and tried to pull Mick away quickly but the men laughed. They seemed to know him and one of them said to Cathy, ‘He’s a case, isn’t he, Missis?’
‘He certainly is,’ she said emphatically, pulling Mick’s arm.
He only shouted cheerfully to the men, ‘Ta ra, fellers,’ and left them smiling.
When Greg came home Cathy delayed him in the back kitchen to whisper a brief account of her visit to the school and its outcome. Later, when the children were in bed, she spoke again about her visit to the school and also told him of the conversation with her parents about jobs.
‘I’m afraid they’re right, Cath,’ he said. ‘But I suppose I shouldn’t complain since Josh recommended me for my job.’
‘I never thought of that,’ she confessed. ‘I was really mad about Sister telling Sarah that she was stupid. I didn’t think a nun would be so nasty and spiteful.’
‘They’re only human beings,’ he said tolerantly. ‘I suppose she’s become autocratic because she’s a headmistress, or else she was chosen for the job because she’s naturally autocratic. Either way she doesn’t like being thwarted. Anyway, Sarah will be happy with the result.’
Cathy agreed, rather grimly, but it was true that Sarah was much happier. She liked the teacher in her new class who was younger than most of her colleagues with a fashionable hairstyle much admired by her pupils. The large class of forty-six girls gave her little time to offer individual attention, but the teacher was enthusiastic and did what she could to encourage any talent.
Sarah found that she enjoyed writing essays and often her work was read aloud to the class by Miss Holden. The teacher had a great love of poetry which she tried to instil into her pupils, and was delighted to find that Sarah knew many of the poems that she read to them.
‘They’re in my grandad’s books, Miss,’ Sarah said shyly, and Miss Holden encouraged her to talk about her grandfather and the many books he bought from second-hand shops or barrows.
‘That explai
ns why you have such a good vocabulary, Sarah,’ she said kindly. ‘Develop the habit of reading, dear. It will be a pleasure to you all your life.’
Sarah was not sure of the meaning of the word “vocabulary” but she knew that she was being praised, and the teacher’s kindness and encouragement did much to restore her self-confidence.
Chapter Seven
Although Sarah was such a quiet little girl her happiness seemed to imbue the whole family, and Cathy felt that she had much to be thankful for at this time.
She still spent wakeful hours worrying about money, but she was happy to see Kate fully recovered and a bonny child again, and John and Greg on better terms.
Kate’s hair had grown fairer since her illness and the contrast between her light-coloured curls and brown eyes was very attractive. She was a pretty child and a favourite with Josh Adamson, who declared her the image of Shirley Temple. As a result she pestered her mother until she was taken to see a Shirley Temple film. After that she was always ready to sing “The Good Ship Lollipop” or to dance holding out the skirt of her dress as Shirley Temple did. She was encouraged by Josh who unearthed a mouth organ to play the music for her.
Sally watched her grimly. ‘She’s very like our Mary was as a child,’ she said to Cathy. ‘Don’t make the mistake I made with her. I often think if I’d been firmer when she was little, it would have been better for her in the end.’
‘Kate’s not as moody as our Mary was,’ Cathy said defensively.
‘She can throw a tantrum just like Mary if she doesn’t get all her own way, I’ve seen her,’ her mother said. ‘You’ve got a better chance of stopping yours than I had with Mary. I was living with your grandfather when she was little, and between him and your dad she was well spoiled. I couldn’t prevent it.’
Cathy could see that Kate was growing very wilful but she found it hard to scold her. She was too pleased to see the child well and happy.
There is a Season Page 8
