Minerva's Stepchild

by Helen Forrester

  Beside myself with excitement, I thanked her and fled back upstairs to the kitchen, where I stood quivering in front of the sink. A holiday! An undreamed of luxury. A miracle.

  Later, I cautiously inquired of one of the filing clerks if she knew where Kent's Bank was. She looked derisively at me for a moment and then sniggered. That little choking laugh told me that a recipient of charity was contemptible and that she knew why I asked.

  "It's on Morecambe Bay, " she said, and turned superciliously back to her file sorting.

  Terribly hurt, I slunk back to the kitchen.

  As I ate potatoes and cabbage and gravy, saved for me from the hot meal Mother had made at teatime, I told her about the holiday.

  "It's all free. Mummy. Even the train ticket. Except I think I would simply have to have a nightgown and some walking shoes— if you could get them. Mummy."

  "I can't afford them," said Mother simply. She was sitting in the easy chair, Edward on her lap, and smoking a cigarette.

  "It is time you provided things like that for yourself, now that you are at work." She took a slow pull at the cigarette and exhaled the smoke through her nostrils. "You must have had a raise in salaiy since you started. You've been working for over a year now."

  Startled, I blinked at her. I had hardly given a thought to pay increases. I had concentrated solely on retaining my job.

  "No, Mummy. I've never had a raise—only a reduction the first week. I'm still the office girl."

  Mother's eyebrows rose. "That's absurd. You must have had an increase. "

  "Honestly, Mummv. I haven't. I would have told vou if I had."

  Her lips twisted, and she stared hostilely at me. It was clear that she did not believe me.

  My throat constricted. Then I said stiffly, "I don't cheat, Mummy."

  "They don't have money to give increases, " interjected Father, looking up from his book. "Helen should go. She still doesn't look well. Perhaps we could get credit to buy the things she needs. Try. See what you can do."

  It was a further miracle that found me standing on the doorstep of a fine stone mansion in Kent's Bank a few days later. It was run as a guest house by an organization that used its profits to provide free holidays for the less fortunate. The June sun warmed my back, and the clear, sharp smell of the sea wafted around me. In my hand I held a brown paper bag containing a clean blouse and panties, a nightgown and a toothbrush. On my feet I wore a secondhand pair of boy's shoes. Fiona had volunteered the loan of her raincoat, which was a little short on me but made me look quite neat. All the children had been delighted that I was to go on a holiday, though it was clear from their wistful faces that they wished they could come, too.

  In answer to my timorous knock, a middle-aged man, swarthy and black-haired, ushered me in and up a fine, well-carpeted staircase, to a large bedroom containing six single beds.

  "You're the first arrival, so choose whichever bed you like, " he said with a cheerfial grin. "You can put your toilet things on the dressing table there and clothes in the wardrobe. " He gestured toward two enormous pieces of shining Edwardian furniture.

  "I'd enjoy being by the window, " I replied shyly, pointing to the furthest bed, which stood close to a tall light window draped in white net curtains. Through the window I could see pine trees waving in the breeze and a dazzling glimpse of the sea.

  "Fine, " he said. "Come downstairs to the lounge and have some tea, as soon as you're ready."

  I smiled my thanks, and he went away.

  Feeling very nervous, I put the paper bag in the wardrobe, and then like a cat in a new place I walked around the room, examining the peerless white pillows on the beds, looking down at

  the highly poHshed linoleum on the floor, and finally stopping to wash my hands in a tiny basin in a corner. I combed my hair and redid my bun in front of the spotted dressing-table mirror, and then cautiously opened the bedroom door and ventured downstairs.

  The lounge was full of chattering men and women, who all seemed much older than I, and I hesitated in the doorway while the scene came into clearer focus.

  An elderly gentleman was sitting on a settee directly opposite the doorway. When he looked up from his teacup and saw me, he smiled, and evidently realized that I was feeling very shy. He motioned me to come over and sit by him, which I did, perching nervously on the edge of the settee.

  He had a large, gray mustache and heavy black eyebrows under which bright blue eyes twinkled merrily. He took a pipe out of his mouth and said, "J^^* arrived?" I nodded, and he put down his teacup. "I'll get you some tea. Do you take milk and sugar?"

  I assented with another shy nod, and he went to the tea table and returned with tea and three biscuits. He pulled a small table forward and set the cup in front of me.

  "There we are," he announced. His voice was deep, with a pleasant Welsh singsong to it. He sat down beside me and took up his own cup again. He had put his pipe away in the pocket of his finely cut tweed jacket.

  "My name is Emrys Hughes," he said. "And that's my brother, Gwyn, over there." He gestured toward the mantelpiece against which leaned a tall, thin man, also gray-haired, talking to a lady in a green dress. "What's your name?"

  I told him, and while I sipped my tea, he asked where I came from and whether I was still at school. Each question came out in such a breezy, cheerful manner that I was soon relaxed and laughing with him. He told me that he and his brother owned two big dry-goods shops in North Wales, that he himself had had a heart attack at the beginning of the year, so he had come to Kent's Bank for a holiday. He had prevailed upon his bachelor brother to come with him, and they had left the businesses to the tender mercies of managers.

  The teacups were removed, and still we gossiped. For the

  first time for many years, I was among people who knew nothing about me and judged me by what they saw. Gwyn brought the lady in green over to us. She proved to be a schoolteacher, who had already been at Kent's Bank for a week. Emrys looked at a heavy gold pocket watch which he took out of his top pocket, suggested that we all go for a stroll in the grounds and then eat dinner at the same table. So, much to the amusement of the older people, I spent a happy half hour running about among the trees, trying to get close to one of the many squirrels, and arrived at the dinner table glowing with the fresh air and the happy anticipation of an adequate meal.

  The staff who served the meal seemed to be accustomed to very hungry people, and I ate my way through three plates of meat and vegetables and two of pudding. Emrys, who had to keep his weight down, leaned back in his chair and watched me speculatively, while Gwyn and Margaret, the schoolteacher, teased me about how such a small person could find room for so much food.

  Having lived so much with Grandma, I felt quite at home with older people. I lost my nervousness completely, my usual awkward manners gave way to the good conduct instilled in me as a child, and I felt so happy I thought I would explode. Emrys had a way of sitting quietly and giving complete and careful attention to what was said to him. He would run his tobacco-stained fingers through his thick, gray hiar, and smile, and comment or argue with me carefully, as if I were an adult whose ideas were important to him. I was unused to anyone giving me his fijll attention and if I had been less innocent, I might have been troubled at such aflFability. But as I responded to his good-humored teasing, I knew only a great gaiety and lightness of heart. A liveliness I did not know I had began to emerge.

  The first two days of the holiday were taken up with long, organized walks in the countryside, broken in the middle by a picnic lunch. The guests were divided into two groups, those who could take very long walks and those who preferred easier ones. Since both Emrys and I had been ill, we chose the easier walks, and Gwyn and his schoolteacher came along with us.

  I now shared the bedroom with five mill girls fi-om Rochdale. All of them had been ill and said frankly that they, too, were enjoying free holidays. They all had several changes of clothing

  and enough money to buy tickets for th
e bus trips, later in the week, and to purchase endless sweets and ice cream cones from the village shop. They ignored me and kept up a raucous conversation among themselves. Though I had often heard foul language in the streets of Liverpool, I had never lived with people who used it, and I was frequently shocked and sickened by them. They also came on the easy walks, but fortunately stayed within their own group.

  I danced along beside Emrys, through forest glades dappled with sunshine or along the sides of fields waving silvery green with growing oats. Occasionally, Gwyn would make us stop, while Emrys sat dov^m to rest. He carried a piece of mackintosh in his pocket and when a convenient wall or bench did not present itself, he spread the mackintosh on the ground and sat on that. While he regained his breath, I would cast around, picking wild flowers or small sprays of fresh green foliage, which one of the staflP would put in a vase on the dining table for me. Emrys did not know the names of many of the plants, but I had learned their names as a child and was able to identify them for him.

  Though I had handed to Mother three weeks' salary paid in advance, she had not seen fit to give me any money. I had only a few pennies in my purse, because I had spent most of the three weekly shillings on stockings. This made it impossible for me to buy tickets for the coach tour arranged for the third day.

  Emrys and Gwyn had not yet come down to breakfast, so I ate the meal rather soberly in the company of Margaret and another middle-aged lady. Margaret was herself convalescing after a bout of influenza, and we compared our respective illnesses and then talked about books.

  "See you later, " she said gaily, and I nodded. I went up to the empty bedroom and wondered how to employ the day. I heard the arrival of the bus and the bustle of departure, as I sat with a copy of Lyttons's Last Days of Pompeii in my lap. I had already read the story twice, and this seemed to hold true of all the books in the lounge downstairs. Finally, I tossed it aside. I would have a bath. I had tried several times since my arrival to do this, but the bathroom had invariably been occupied. Today, however, all the other guests had gone out so I could take my time about it.

  The bath was a huge Victorian tub, left over from the time

  when the house had been a private home. I turned on its great brass taps and let the water thunder in until it was quite deep. There was a large, used tablet of soap in a wire basket stretched across the bath. Quickly I stripped off and stepped in.

  This was the first bath I had had for four years, and the water rippling across my stomach felt odd. I looked down at long, slender legs wavering beneath the water, at a stomach which stuck out too much like that of a hungry child, at surprisingly prominent young breasts, at arms so thin they looked like sticks. The skin was a dull yellow, almost bronze in places. I had not looked at myself properly since I was a child, in that long-ago world which we had left so precipitously.

  I knelt in the water, dipped my head in, and then soaped it thoroughly. Three times the brown locks were soaped and rinsed. Then the thin body was soaped until it looked like a snowman. The water was covered with gray soap suds.

  Like a dripping muskrat, I climbed out, emptied the bath and began to refill it.

  The door burst open, and a young male member of the stafi" rushed in, pulling off his apron as he came. He was well into the huge bathroom, before he realized that I was standing there naked, one hand on the brass tap.

  He stopped, his startled face registering shock. Then he blushed hotly.

  "I say, I am sorry!" he exclaimed, and turned and fled.

  I was so used to being intruded upon by my brothers in a house where all washing had to be done in the kitchen that I was undisturbed. But I did for a moment wonder why he should be so flabbergasted. A girl in her skin was nothing special as far as I could see.

  I repeated the scrubbing, and when I finally emerged from the bathroom, hair wrapped in a towel like a turban, I was scarlet from head to heel.

  I drew back the net curtains and sat down by the window to dry my hair in the breeze. Such quietness enfolded me as I had not known before. Leisurely I combed the wet hair over my shoulders, and watched the sun glancing on the sea. I could smell the salt and, closer to hand, the pine trees in the garden. For the first time for years I had nothing to do. It was as if every nerve

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  i

  slowly loosened and relaxed. Three nights of deep, warm sleep and two days of stacks of food had helped to heal both mind and body.

  I sat on the hard bedroom chair for a long time, the two rows of carelessly made beds behind me, the fine view framed by the window in front of me. My mind was empty. There was no past, no nagging family, nothing. No future, except the happy anticipation of welcoming Emrys Hughes and the other kindly guests when they returned, and then eating and eating and eating.

  A train arriving at the nearby station aroused me. I got up and went to the spotty mirror to arrange my hair in a bun again.

  I peered shortsightedly at the image in the mirror and was surprised at what I saw. The hair, usually so straight because of its greasy coating, now waved softly down each side of the thin cheeks, its mousy brown carrying in it a rich red burnish. Surprised, I coaxed it into deeper waves.

  From under smooth black brows, large green eyes, no longer bloodshot, stared sadly back at me. A few lumpy spots marred a complexion which was surprisingly white. I smiled cautiously at myself. The teeth were not straight and were tinged with yellow. I had scrubbed them well, but I had no toothpaste. With newly awakened vanity, I decided I had a nice smile. I wondered if makeup would cover the spots, and then sighed because there was no money for such luxuries. Telling myself to stop playing Narcissus, I put my hair up, taking care, however, not to draw it back too tightly and spoil the waves.

  Lunch was not served in the holiday home to guests, so I went without. It was probably as well, as it gave an overtaxed digestive system time to recuperate. I spent the rest of the day washing my spare blouse and panties and ironing them dry with an iron borrowed from the kitchen. Then I went for a long walk.

  The lanes had all the bright greenery of June, but last year's leaves lay sodden at the bottom of puddles formed by overnight rain. They reminded me of winter.

  I dreaded the winter. Another year of cold, sopping wet feet, of piercing wind, of long stone staircases to be climbed, of shivering in a freezing bed. Another winter, too, of incredible loneliness.

  Fiona is growing up, I comforted myself. She will be com-

  pany. Yet instinct told me that Fiona would never really communicate with me; she was too crushed, too determined never to be caught out of character, as a passive, pliable, inoffensive, obliging person, guaranteed not to answer back. The steel which I felt lay deep within her would be used for her own self-defense. She would crouch behind it, hiding any real feeling lest someone take offense. Just as I had been cast as a maiden aunt, she had been cast by my parents as a lovely girl who would make a good marriage, which would help to raise the family again to its former stature. And yet sometimes I thought that Fiona might surprise my parents more than I ever could. As with the rest of the children, I could give Fiona love, but she was incapable of giving me friendship.

  After my walk I tidied my windblown hair and then went down to the lounge and curled up on a settee with a woman's magazine. I was soon engrossed in enthralling stories in which the heroine was always blonde and invariably won the hero over the machinations of a dark sultry villainess. The kisses were passionate.

  The bus disgorging a noisy crowd of returning guests put an end to my quiet day. I reluctantly uncurled myself from the settee and put down the magazine I had been reading. Emrys came puffing into the lounge, gray raincoat flying behind him, pipe aglow like a watchman's stove. He was followed more slowly by his brother Gwyn.

  "Why didn't you come?" he asked. "We missed you, didn't we Gwyn?"

  Gwyn smiled kindly down at me. "Yes, we did," he assured me.

  I went pink with embarrassment, and said, "I thought I'd have a quiet day. Did you
enjoy the trip? "

  "I'd have enjoyed it a lot more if you had been there, ' Emrys replied roundly, and playflilly pinched my cheek.

  Now I was blushing at the compliment. He evidently saw it, as he struggled out of his coat.

  "Well, I've made sure you come on the other trips. Gwyn and I have bought tickets for all of 'em for you. Now you have to come." He gusted with laughter, and Gwyn chuckled and Siiid, "Well, we hope you will."

  "That's immensely kind of you both," I told them, laughing myself, because I could not help it.

  While Gwyn helped Margaret off with her coat, Emrys stood in front of me, sturdy legs apart, while he struck matches to relight his pipe. He had told me that he was not supposed to smoke, but he could not give it up. As he gossiped about the lakes they had seen, I wondered what he would think if he saw my poverty-stricken home. Both brothers were obviously prosperous; both had gone to the prayer meeting held in the lounge each evening, and both had joined earnestly in the prayers that were oflPered; kindness and thoughtfulness in small things was obvious in every move they made. They were very different from anybody I had ever met before.

  As the fortnight progressed, my friendship with Emrys deepened. I began to feel a real affection for the man, but such was my innocence that I never considered what he might be feeling. He was so much older than I.

  Once, when he held my hand during a bus trip, some of the ladies saw it. They teased me and said I had made a conquest. This embarrassed me, because I felt that anybody could see I was incapable of conquering any man; I was too plain.

  He never overstepped the bounds of propriety, however, and I never felt frightened with him. A couple of days before the holiday was due to end, he wrote out his home address for me, and said he hoped I would come to see him.

  "My wife died three years ago, " he said simply. "Gwyn and I keep house together in a flat over one of the shops. But my sister lives nearby, and you could stay with her."