“Why, it’s Lyd! Well, how goes it?” asked Mr. Hubbard amiably.
“All right. I want some of them metal buttons with soft middles for Dad’s shirt.”
From upstairs came the slither and glide of waltzing feet. Piano and voice supplied the time and words:
“Love is the sweetest thing
What else on earth can bring . . .”
Lydia had little use for the waltz—a sloppy dance offering small scope for her favourite acrobatics. She was disappointed in love. It was a bitter thing, bitter, not sweet. She had loved her mother, and a fat lot of use that had been to any one. She had loved Sarah Burton, and Sarah had forsaken her. Oh, she’d been kind enough at the beginning of term, promising to find some way out for her, running her over to supper at her own home once in her little motor-car, after the children were in bed. But since the measles started, she said she was in quarantine, and Lydia, with her brothers and sisters, must keep away from a house used as an isolation hospital.
So Lydia’s heart was sore and her manner ungracious and she faced Mr. Hubbard with the stolid defiance of unhappy youth. But Mr. Hubbard happened to be one of those wastrels who remained charming to women and to children. He touched the baby’s cheek with a friendly finger. He consoled Gertie with a faded cardboard lady, once used to display Saucy Slumber Caps. He gave Kitty a strip of shop-soiled lace, and to Lydia he said: “They’re rehearsing upstairs. Why don’t you go and see ’em? The missus has been missing you for the ballet, I bet.”
“Can’t,” said Lydia. “Kids.”
“Oh, that’s O.K. I’ll look after the family. Won’t I, sweetie?”
He took his lip between thumb and forefinger and stretched it out for Lennie’s delectation. He lifted Gertie on to the counter and pretended to sell her.
“Go on up. You know the way. We shall be happy down here.”
The tune changed to a rollicking gallop. It was too much for Lydia. Off she ran, springing up the shaking stairs two steps at a time.
“Hallo! Madame!”
“Why, Lydia! You are a stranger. The very girl I wanted. Take off your cap. Find her some slippers, some one. Can you still turn a cart-wheel?”
“Can I?” laughed Lydia, and before she knew what she was doing, she was back into the old storm and glory of the ballet. Cart-wheels, pirouettes, high kicks—her disappointment, her bereavement, the burdens of her responsibilities forgotten.
When Councillor Huggins arrived collecting for the Thirty Thousand Kingsport Infirmary Fund, he found Mr. Hubbard playing shops with the three small Hollies, the baby asleep beside him in its pram.
Councillor Huggins’ enthusiasm was quite simply explained. Snaith said that the Thirty Thousand Fund must be settled first. When that was done all Kingsport as well as the South Riding could be drawn into the Leame Ferry Waste scheme for a new maternity home. Therefore the sooner the thirty thousand pounds was raised, the better. He had come to consult the Hubbards about an entertainment to raise money, and the first people whom he saw were the motherless Hollies. Clearly here was an indication of providence. He had been right to come. The thirty thousand pounds were a matter of urgency, not only because Mrs. Holly must not go unavenged, but because, while the Leame Ferry Waste scheme hung fire, the warehouses deteriorated and did not rise in value, Reg Aythorne clamoured for money, Snaith’s loan remained unpaid, the wilderness did not blossom. Clearly Huggins had every incentive to help the hospital.
He followed Mr. Hubbard, who still carried Lennie, up the stairs, the little girls behind him. He found himself engulfed in a flood of femininity. Brown, blonde and red heads tossed, bare arms were waved, sturdy naked legs, grey at the knees, thrashed the hot air. A scent of warm active bodies and cheap talcum powder assaulted his nostrils. The girls he saw, except for their brassieres, were naked from the waist upwards.
Urgently he told himself that he was there for the glory of God. He watched with envy Mr. Hubbard’s casual ease, as he threaded his way between the panting torsos and buxom rumps. He observed the flash of understanding between husband and wife, and realised that Mr. Hubbard was saved by his wife’s bright eyes and rounded bosom. Now, if Nell had been different. . . . Oh, Lord, he prayed. I am Thy humble servant. Since the escape from Bessy Warbuckle, he had been doomed to strict celibacy.
“Here’s Mr. Huggins come to see if we can’t do our bit for the hospital,” announced Mr. Hubbard. The pianist turned and saw the councillor standing four-square, black-coated and solid, twiddling his watch chain among the giggling nymphs. Public performances were good advertisement. The lower the shop sunk, the higher it was essential for the dancing class to rise.
“Well, girls,” Madame Hubbard surveyed her talented pupils. “Do you think we could put up a show in August? Something out of doors, perhaps, to catch the visitors?”
“Oooh. yes. Yes, madame, yes.”
Kiplington was not so dull in summer as during the winter months, but an open air ballet, in the Esplanade Gardens, with floodlights and photographs and fancy costumes and a band, would lend excitement to the entire season.
“We always like to do our bit for charity,” Mr. Hubbard said demurely.
Madame Hubbard was reckoning expenses against assets. It would be worth it.
“You’ll join us, Lydia?”
“How can I?”
“Like you did to-day. Bring the nursery. Maybe we can use the kids. Tinies are popular.”
Miss Burton had not liked the Hubbards, but Miss Burton had failed her.
“Jeanette, take out—which is this?”
“Gertie.”
“Gertie—swing her round a bit. Let’s see how she frames. Now then, ducky.”
Jeanette swung Gertie, Violet held Kitty, Lennie toddled among the other dancers.
The Holly family should perform in the cause of charity, Councillor Huggins should have his gala evening. Lydia saw the desolate monotony of her life relieved.
“I’ll come if you want me. Bert and Dad must get their own teas.”
The streaming eyes and flushed cheeks of Jeanette went unregarded. Nobody realised that the girl had measles. The contacts which Miss Burton had avoided had now been all too thoroughly established. But Lydia Holly went home singing, hope in her heart.
Book Five
PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
Resolved—That rates for the several amounts required for the first six months of the current financial year be levied as undermentioned:— viz.:—
General County Purposes:—
Estimated
Rate in the £ to Produce
Public Assistance 1s. 7½d. £60,411 0s. 0d.
Resolved—That the Common Seal of the Council be affixed to the following documents, viz.:—Agreement as to the submission to the Ministry of Health of a question affecting chargeability under the Poor Law Act, the Council and the Kingsport Corporation.
Resolutions of the County Council of
the South Riding County of York, May, 1933.
1
Nancy Mitchell Keeps Her Dignity
SINCE WHITSUN the Shacks had been filling up with summer visitors. Five tents had been pitched beyond the Mitchells’ chicken run. The railway coach which had been Lydia’s “study” was now occupied each week-end by youths from Kingsport. The Turners had let their place to three school teachers who came by train every Friday night. A bronze-skinned giant whose hair was bleached flax-white by sun and weather lay all day under the cliffs and slept by night in the smallest of the huts. Rumour credited him with being an unemployed ex-officer, weary of canvassing for vacuum cleaners, who now lived on a pound a week from reluctant relatives.
The Hollies fraternised with this care-free community. Now that Mrs. Holly no longer summoned her family from her railway coach, like a hen clucking over a brood of ducklings, the girls ran wild among the visitors. The smaller children played in the dust among goats and fowls, scattering crusts and fish bones to the sea-gulls.
To Nancy Mitchell, keeping herself to he
rself in Bella Vista, this halcyon life added insult to life’s injury. The girls in bathing suits, the boys sunning themselves naked to the waist, the braying of jazz from portable wireless sets and the frizzling of sausages over Primus stoves jarred her strained nerves and pinched with acid disapproval her once pretty face.
She had done her best with Bella Vista, cut flower beds on the turf outside that the hens scratched to pieces, repainted the name of her house on its little gate, tied her curtains with pale blue ribbons, and washed and rewashed the blankets for Peggy’s pram. But the vagabond company of the Shacks destroyed her edifice of respectability.
There was nothing, no hope, no comfort, no alleviation. Even when she cycled into Kiplington she saw nothing but poverty. Summer had come, but the visitors, the money-spenders, on whom the little town lived, were not arriving. The sands might be crowded with day trippers but they carried their own picnic parcels with them and bought nothing except the jugs of tea, 2d., 4d., 6d., sold from the wooden booths. All the shops offered cakes for sale, even the drapers and stationers, displaying buns and rice loaves among their other wares—as though a population could live by taking in each other’s baking. No one wanted to be insured. Premiums lapsed. Fresh clients did not appear. The Kingsport office reprimanded Fred.
Long ago the Mitchells had abandoned their small luxuries —Fred’s cigarettes, Nancy’s toilet soap, bus fares and newspapers. The grim hand of poverty lay upon them, and now one final economy had undone them. For Nancy knew that she was pregnant again. It was an accident, an ironic catastrophe of over-prudence. Cheap substitutes in which she and Fred had trusted had betrayed them.
The sting of the failure lay in their unstaled love, their passion, their desire for another child. As soon as “things” grew better, Peggy was to have had a baby brother. As soon as the South Riding could afford again the luxuries of forethought and insurance. But not like this. Not now.
Nancy dared not tell Fred. She dared not follow Mrs. Holly’s example and “take things for it.” There were women in Kingsport who “did things,” but Nancy did not know where to find them. And if she knew, where could she get the money? And if she had the money, how could she face the furtive secrecy, the doubt, the danger? Nancy knew of such things only through police court cases reported in the papers. Her fastidiousness was not superficial. She could not bear that she, Nancy Mitchell, who had been Nancy Whitefield, should come to that. She could imagine the report of the inquest, the shameful questions, the publicity.
No, she could not do it. But what shall I do? What shall I do? she asked of the dull grey sky, the trampled field.
It was Thursday afternoon and the camp was nearly full, yet Nancy felt her loneliness intolerable. Fred was away as usual, pedalling through the mild July rain on fruitless errands. Hikers in mackintoshes strolled along the Maythorpe Road; bathers climbed down the muddy path to the beach. But Nancy had not a soul in whom she could confide. The aching humiliation and despair of her secret ate her heart.
It was to escape from herself that she walked across the camp to the Hollies’ coach. Peggy slept in her hooded pram outside the house The campers gathered in their tents and huts, singing or playing cards. The hatless ex-officer strolled up from the tap, a bucket of water in each hand. He greeted Nancy with his friendly grin.
“Weather to make you grow.”
She stared at him, the damp air uncurling her careful waves. He exasperated her because he was a gentleman yet lived like a tramp.
“Perhaps it’ll stop the drought,” she suggested politely, biding her contempt.
“Not enough for that.”
“My husband says that if the tap dries up we shall have to close the camp.”
“There are other places.”
She could have hit this scarred amiable face. Men who had no responsibilities, men who had no children to provide for, they could be casual and philosophical. She hated them. She hated all care-free and unburdened people.
She picked her way across the hen-scratched turf, holding her mackintosh above her head like a hood, her lips compressed in a thin line of disdainful indignation. She climbed the three steps to the Hollies’ coach and knocked commandingly.
Daisy opened the door—a stolid twelve-year-old with round red cheeks and greedy small grey eyes. Of all the Hollies, Nancy disliked her most, but dislike gave her self-confidence. The Hollies were so certainly her inferiors that their poverty and squalor and fecklessness soothed Nancy’s pride. Here at least she could patronise and snub; here she could feel sure of her superiority.
“Is Lydia here?”
“No. In Kiplington, rehearsing.”
“Rehearsing?”
“Carnival ballet.”
“Carnival!”
To Nancy it seemed as though the whole world were bent on pleasure except herself. A bitter pride stiffened her.
She looked round the neglected room, the tumbled bunk, the clutter of cooking materials, the baby staring wide-eyed at the rusty stove.
“Where’s your father?” she asked,
“Out.”
“Oh. Got a job yet?”
“I don’t know. I expect he’s down at the Nag’s Head helping Mr. Sawdon build a garage.”
“Oh, I see.”
Holly drew unemployment benefit. Fred Mitchell was a black-coated worker on his own and drew nothing. He pedalled through the rain after non-existent premiums, while Barney Holly both worked at the Nag’s Head and drew his dole. Nancy had the vaguest notions about the economics of unemployment insurance. She was only sure that the lower classes were impossible.
“Who’s in charge here, then?”
“I am.”
Daisy moved a little so that her body screened the table with its tell-tale mounds of pink shredded cocoa-nut and bags of sugar.
“I see. Then I’ll be obliged if you’ll keep Kitty and Allie from teasing my hens.”
“Who’s that, Daisy?”
A child’s voice called from the inner room.
“Only Mrs. Mitchell, Gert.”
“‘Only’ indeed! I’ll give her only.”
“Is that Gertie in there? I thought she was in the ballet too.”
“She’d a bit of a headache to-day and didn’t want to go.”
“Oh, didn’t she? I’m not surprised. You children run wild half the night playing about with the camp boys, disturbing decent people, and then you expect to feel all right next morning. That baby needs changing.”
Nancy was beginning to feel better, feeding on scorn; yet beneath her patronage lay the hurtful knowledge that the Hollies were dirty, careless, frivolous, yet it was she, not they, who paid the penalty of pleasure. That great lump of a Lydia, rolling about, screaming with laughter, exposing her thick brown thighs under her ragged tunic to all those camping boys, while she, Nancy, a faithful wife, lay sleepless with fear— it wasn’t fair. Well, perhaps Lydia might do it once too often. Aha, my lady! We’ll see who’s caught out next. Like father, like daughter.
Viciously, standing on the half-rotten steps of the dark evil-smelling coach, Nancy wished Lydia ill.
“Hallo, Mrs. Mitchell! Tea ready, Daise?”
Bert Holly, grinning through the rain, swung off his bicycle.
“I came to tell your sister that if she can’t keep those two young madams from poking at my chickens I’ll deal with them myself.”
“Go ahead, Ma.”
He called her “Ma.” She felt the insult to her wasted youth, her faded prettiness. Well—she was a Ma, wasn’t she?
“Go on, Daise. Get busy. I’m in a hurry.”
Bert squeezed in past Nancy and poured water from the bucket into a cracked enamel basin. He flung off his jacket, preparing for his evening toilet. Nancy knew that she should go, but an instinct of self-preservation held her in the doorway.
The boy sluiced water from cupped hands over his damp red face, but Daisy did not move. She stood between the oil stove and the table.
“Get a move on. I gotta dat
e,” her brother urged, groping for the towel.
The child turned slowly. She was twelve years old, and had been kept from school by Lydia to look after the baby and get the tea while she and Lennie went to a rehearsal. She had been given a shilling to buy bread when the baker’s cart came round, and, instead, she had fallen victim to a bright temptation.
Moving as in a dream, she crossed to the oven and pulled out a baking dish filled with brown, sickly-smelling stuff.
“What the hell’s that?” asked Bert.
The child stood dumbly, the hot dish held in a soiled oven-rag.
“It looks to me,” sniffed Nancy, “like cocoa-nut ice— burned.”
“Blast you, bloody bitch!” screamed Daisy, hurling her tin down on the table where it slid across the sheets of spread newspaper and fell clattering to the floor. In a burst of tearful rage she made for the door, head down, face distorted. It was only by swinging violently half off the step that Nancy avoided being thrown also to the ground. She was left to face Bert across the scattered ruins of cocoa-nut ice.
“Gosh! The little besom! Hi, Kitty, Al! Here’s summat for you!’
Bert went down on his knees, collecting the charred coagulating lumps. The little girls approached nervously, their pinafores torn, their sandshoes stiff with mud. Nancy felt their fear of her. They edged round the table. The boy was unperturbed.
“Come on. Only top’s burned. Give us a knife. Have a bit, Mrs. Mitchell? Where’s Daisy gone? Go and fetch her, Al. Tell her it’s not half bad.”
His good humour shamed Nancy. Because of it, she started to scold again.
South Riding Page 27
