The Surplus Girls' Orphans

by Polly Heron

  ‘Make the most of your time here, Miss Watson. I don’t imagine it will last long.’

  *

  Limits Lane was a poor-looking little road, more of a glorified track, really, with grand, leafy Edge Lane at one end and a bumpy slope down to the meadows at the other. On one side was a spread-out row of shabby cottages, each inside its own tiny privet-hedged garden. At the far end was the ruined remains of a cottage.

  Molly perked up. ‘Limits Lane: I knew it rang a bell. My dad is a builder. That end cottage burned down in April and the owner wants Dad’s company to clear the remains.’

  ‘Small world,’ Mrs Atwood commented as she opened a gate which gave a prolonged squeal. ‘Here we are. The boy’s mother is Mrs King.’

  The door was opened by a school-age girl with red-rimmed eyes. Mrs Atwood introduced them and the girl opened the door wider to let them in. Even though Molly had witnessed severely cramped conditions and rampant mould today, it still came as a shock that the cottage’s floor was nothing more than compacted earth.

  Mrs King, eyes bleak and not quite focused, sat hunched in a tatty armchair, with her children hanging about her. A couple more women perched on wooden chairs while another busied herself with the kettle. There was barely room for anyone else.

  Mrs Atwood edged towards the bereaved mother. ‘Mrs King, I’m Mrs Atwood from the Board of Health and this is my colleague, Miss Watson. We’ve come to offer you our deepest condolences on the loss of your son.’

  ‘That means they’re sorry our Len got squashed,’ one of the children whispered to a smaller one.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mrs King. Her chin puckered. ‘It’s good of you to come.’

  ‘What’s the Board of Health when it’s at home?’ demanded another of the women.

  ‘We’ve taken over from the Boards of Guardians,’ Mrs Atwood began.

  Indignation rustled round the cramped space.

  One of Mrs King’s daughters twined her arms around her mother’s neck. ‘They’ve not come to tek us away, have they, Mam?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Mrs Atwood said gently. ‘I hope you’ll find the Board of Health more sympathetic and more useful to you than your Board of Guardians would have been.’

  ‘Is there still the Panel?’ asked one of Mrs King’s visitors.

  ‘Mrs Shelton, please,’ murmured Mrs King.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Mrs Atwood. ‘Yes, the Panel is still in operation.’

  ‘And the means test?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘That don’t sound very sympathetic to me. Does it to you?’ Mrs Shelton nudged the woman beside her.

  Mrs King lifted her head. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘As I said, we’ve come to offer our condolences.’

  ‘That’s reet kind of you. Thank you.’

  ‘And are you here to be useful?’ Mrs Shelton enquired. ‘Sympathetic and useful, you said – so you can offer to pay for the funeral.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that.’

  Mrs Shelton lurched upright in her seat, pursing her lips in triumph.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time for us to go,’ murmured Mrs Atwood.

  ‘Aye, p’raps it is,’ Mrs Shelton agreed.

  Molly fumbled in her bag for the packet of tea, then pressed her way into the group. ‘Mrs King, I’m sure lots of folk must be dropping in at the moment, so here’s a little extra tea to help tide you over. You don’t want to run out.’

  She held her breath. Would her gesture be accepted – or hurled back in her face? Something shifted inside the room and the atmosphere mellowed.

  ‘That’s proper neighbourly of you, miss.’ The woman at the range reached across and took the packet. ‘Will you stay for a cup?’

  ‘If it’s no trouble,’ said Molly. ‘Thank you.’ She looked at Mrs Atwood. ‘We’d like to hear about Len, wouldn’t we?’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘MRS AT WOOD SAID it was a good idea to take the tea and she’s going to do it herself if she finds herself in that situation again.’

  Was she boasting? Molly glanced round the table as they ate their evening meal of pork chops with apple sauce. Mum always had a hearty meal ready at the end of the day, because Dad and Tom came home hungry as hunters. Gran was here too, having invited herself specially.

  ‘Fancy,’ said Gran, ‘and on your first day an’ all, but then you’ve always been a kind girl. That’s one thing Norris has always appreciated about you.’

  Molly subsided. She didn’t want to talk about Norris, but her family seemed to have other ideas. Tilda turned up with the children and engaged in a loud conversation with Mum about the benefits of a happy marriage. Molly ground her teeth. Mum had sent her on an errand to Christabel’s yesterday evening and Chrissie had told her to her face that she and Tilda were under strict orders to lay it on with a trowel how wonderful marriage was, whenever they saw her.

  Later, Auntie Faith and Dora popped round to hear about her first day.

  Dora dragged her aside. ‘This job of yours, is it my fault?’

  ‘Your fault?’

  ‘Aye. Because of me and Harry setting a date.’

  Molly blinked. ‘You think I changed jobs because you set a date?’

  ‘It must have been hard for you to see us getting engaged and then organising our wedding so soon after, when you’ve been waiting for Norris since Adam was a lad.’

  ‘I haven’t been waiting for Norris. A long engagement was what we settled on at the outset.’

  Dora put on her sympathetic face. ‘You don’t have to pretend with me, love. We all know it were Norris’s idea.’

  ‘What if it was? I agreed to it. Norris wanted to save up.’

  ‘Well, you had to agree, didn’t you? It were that or nothing for you, especially at your age.’

  Molly’s astonished intake of breath hit the back of her throat, rendering speech impossible. Not that it mattered. She was stumped for words. Was that what others thought of her? That she had been obliged to fall in with the five-year engagement because it was her only chance? Ruddy heck. Didn’t it occur to anyone that she had been happy to agree to the long engagement? And just why had she gone along with it? She had never asked herself that before. Could it be that, deep down, she had been reluctant even then to tie herself to Norris?

  It was high time she joined the local business school for surplus girls. She had meant to do it anyway, but now she felt fired up. Would Mrs Atwood mind? She had mentioned being a pupil there the first time they met.

  ‘I wouldn’t want you to feel I’m muscling in on your patch,’ Molly explained the next day.

  ‘I think it’s an excellent idea,’ was the encouraging reply. ‘If you take my advice, you’ll sign up for everything they can teach you. Even if you don’t use it in this job, you never know how it might benefit you in the future.’

  The future. That was what this was about. Choices. Opportunities. Self-sufficiency. She wouldn’t earn as much as a man, which was jolly unfair these days with all the war widows and surplus girls having to fend for themselves, but at least her money would be her own to dispose of as she saw fit, rather than living her life beholden to a tight-fisted husband, who would watch like a hawk the way she managed the housekeeping, while expecting her to be eternally grateful for her vacuum cleaner.

  Before she applied to the business school, she had to tell her parents about it. It would be difficult to go ahead without their support – but, given that they were as baffled as anyone by her rejection of Norris, what would they say? It was exasperating to be on the receiving end of everyone’s confusion, the niggling comments and the tactics to make matrimony appear wonderful. Explaining Norris’s failings might bring her family firmly onto her side, but she had to keep her lips firmly shut on that subject or there was no knowing what Norris might say in retaliation.

  ‘You’ve only just started a new job and now you want to go to business school,’ said Dad. ‘What’s going on, Molly?’

  �
��That’s a lot of change all in one go,’ Mum added.

  ‘I know you’re worried about her,’ said Tom, ‘but she’s determined to do this, so we need to help her. I think attending the business school follows on naturally from having the new job. Come on, Dad. Learning secretarial skills will improve Molly’s prospects no end. She might even end up in our office!’

  Molly had been all set to talk Mum and Dad round, but Tom had done it for her. He was the best brother in the world. They ended up talking about the fees. Dad wanted to pay, but Molly insisted the money must come out of her own salary.

  ‘Assuming I get a place,’ she added.

  ‘Of course you shall,’ said Mum, ‘a bright girl like you.’

  Molly penned a careful letter of application to Miss Hesketh and Miss Patience Hesketh at the business school.

  ‘It’s only Miss Hesketh you need to address it to, really,’ said Mrs Atwood when Molly gave it to her to look over. ‘Miss Patience is an absolute lamb and you’ll love her, but Miss Hesketh is very much in charge.’

  Molly nodded politely, but didn’t commit herself to making the alteration. If Miss Hesketh was in charge, Miss Patience would probably appreciate the courtesy of being included. Molly had recently been on the receiving end of enough astonishment and anxiety about her own apparently incomprehensible decision to feel determined to offer every possible civility and support to every female she came across.

  She was invited for an early evening interview the following week. She wore her lucky knickers, which she had been wearing the evening she and Tilda won the beat-the-clock crossword competition at the church social and the day the hairdresser put the clever layers into her bob. She damped down her hair to make it as smooth as possible and went downstairs.

  ‘Are you ready, love?’ Mum’s cheery voice set alarm bells ringing. ‘Look who’s going to take you.’

  Molly bit back a retort. It might, after all, be Tom. But, as she entered the front room, Norris sprang to his feet, beaming.

  ‘You look smart, Molly. Doesn’t she look smart, Mrs Watson? May I have the honour of escorting you to your appointment?’

  ‘How do you know about it?’ She would clobber them.

  ‘Your gran told me. Dear old soul, she was worried I’d take it amiss, so I said I’d deliver you to your interview myself and that made her feel much better.’

  She felt like gnashing her teeth. ‘I don’t need to be delivered, thank you. I’m not a parcel.’

  Norris chuckled. ‘You are a card, Molly. Haven’t I always said your Molly’s a card, Mrs Watson?’

  ‘You may have mentioned it,’ Tom murmured. He put down the paper and stood up. ‘I’ve already offered to walk Molly there, so your services aren’t required, old bean.’

  Norris looked crestfallen, but only for a moment. ‘We’ll both escort her. Is that acceptable, Molly? Being escorted instead of delivered? And by two gentlemen – won’t you look important? Quite right too.’

  Oh, the temptation to tell him to sling his hook, but she couldn’t, not in front of her family, who had accepted him into their midst as their future son- and brother-in-law. It wouldn’t be respectful.

  Outside, she linked arms with Tom, giving him a secret squeeze, which he returned.

  ‘May I have your other arm?’

  Norris crooked an elbow enticingly in her direction and she couldn’t decline, could she, not when she was already hanging onto Tom. So they walked across Chorlton three abreast through evening sunshine edged with gold. But when they reached the corner of Wilton Close, she stopped.

  ‘I’ll see myself to the house.’

  ‘No need,’ said Norris. ‘If they see you arriving in our company, they’ll understand how precious you are.’

  Tom unlinked from her. ‘Leave her be, Norris. Our Molly’s perfectly capable of walking up the road on her own.’

  Tom made a move as if to kiss her cheek. The Watsons always kissed or shook hands in greeting and farewell and to say goodnight. But Molly quickly stepped away. If Tom kissed her, Norris might also swoop in for a peck and she couldn’t have that.

  Saying a swift goodbye, she entered Wilton Close, a quiet cul-de-sac with two pairs of large semi-detached houses on either side and another at the top. Peering over the garden walls to check the numbers on the front doors, she opened the gate to number 4 and walked up the path to the porch. The front garden had a neat lawn, with shallow flowerbeds next to the walls adjoining next door and the pavement. Forget-menots and grannies’ bonnets mingled with the sparkling white of honesty and the wispy petals of cornflowers.

  She rang the bell. The door was opened by a thin middle-aged lady whose dress fell past mid-calf length, as befitted her years in these days of ever-shortening hemlines. Pale-blue eyes and fair skin suggested her hair had once been blonde, but now it was grey. Not white like Tom’s, but grey. She wore it in an old-fashioned bun, again as befitted her age. She ought to have been drab, but she wasn’t. There was a kindness about her, a gentleness that was instantly appealing. Molly warmed to her, at the same time hiding a smile. This had to be Miss Patience, the ‘absolute lamb’. Never in a million years could it be the Miss Hesketh who was in charge of everything. The most Miss Patience would be in charge of was the tea-tray.

  ‘Miss Patience Hesketh?’ she asked.

  ‘And you must be Miss Watson. Do come in. Let me show you into the sitting room.’

  Molly entered a high-ceilinged room with a gracious bay window. The furniture and curtains spoke of quality, but also of age. The Miss Heskeths must be what Dad would call middle class without the money.

  ‘This is my sister, Miss Hesketh,’ said Miss Patience, ‘and this is Miss Watson.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Miss Hesketh offered a firm, bony hand. Firm and bony summed her up pretty accurately. She was all angles. She had the same colouring as her sister, but hers was set in a sharp face with penetrating eyes and a no-nonsense mouth that looked as if it considered smiling to be nonsensical.

  Molly quelled a flutter of panic. She had come here assuming this interview was a formality. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  ‘How do you do?’ She shook hands firmly, fearful of being damned instantly and for ever in Miss Hesketh’s piercing eyes if there was a suggestion of a wet lettuce handshake.

  ‘Please sit down.’ Miss Hesketh barely gave Miss Patience time to usher Molly to the sofa before continuing, ‘You submitted a very good letter of application. Tell us about your new position.’

  Molly described the sort of work she had been doing.

  ‘None of it sounds like office work as such,’ said Miss Hesketh. ‘What makes you wish to attend our business school?’

  ‘I know you teach surplus girls, so you’ll understand that, as a surplus girl, I want to have as much training as I can, so that I keep my options open for the future. I – I haven’t been a surplus girl for long. I was engaged until recently.’

  ‘You poor dear,’ murmured Miss Patience.

  ‘Your personal life is none of our business,’ stated Miss Hesketh.

  Heat rose in Molly’s cheeks. ‘I only meant that I’m aware of the responsibility I’ve taken on. It’s up to me to do the best I can for myself.’

  Miss Hesketh nodded. Approval?

  ‘I had intended to apply here anyway and sign up for everything you offer, but a colleague whose opinion I respect also said it would be a good idea.’

  ‘That would be our dear Mrs Atwood.’ Miss Patience smiled.

  Our? Dear?

  ‘When we received your letter,’ said Miss Hesketh, ‘Mrs Atwood told us you’re a hard worker and you’ve made a good start in your new post.’

  Warmth filled Molly’s chest. She must thank Mrs Atwood for the impromptu character reference.

  There was a soft tap on the door and Mrs Atwood – Mrs Atwood! – popped her head round. ‘Have you finished? May I join you?’

  ‘I think we’ve finished, haven’t we, Prudence?’ Miss Patience looked at her sister. �
��Come in, dear. Poor Miss Watson, you appear surprised.’

  ‘She doesn’t know I live here.’ Mrs Atwood sat at the other end of the sofa. ‘The Miss Heskeths’ other pupils just attend the night school, but I’m fortunate enough to be a pupil-lodger. You were worried about treading on my toes by applying, so I thought I’d best keep quiet about being in digs here—’

  ‘Being a paying guest,’ Miss Hesketh corrected flatly.

  ‘—being a p.g., in case I frightened you off entirely.’

  Paying guests. Pupil-lodgers.

  Molly sat up straighter as a new idea unfolded.

  Norris popping up in Mum’s front room. Norris pumping Gran for information. Norris generously supporting her in her new endeavour.

  If she lived here, she would be well away from him.

  Tilda and Chrissie singing the praises of their happy marriages. Dora, convinced her top-speed race up the aisle had driven Molly off her rocker. Gran muttering darkly about foolish girls who were plenty old enough to know better, all the while her eyes filled with shame and distress.

  She would be further from her family too, her lovely family, whom she loved so much, but who were being rather exasperating at the moment.

  Could she do this? Tom would understand, she knew he would, and he would help Mum and Dad accept it. After all, it wouldn’t be for ever. Pupil-lodgers stayed here for the duration of their course and then they left. Surely she would be able to afford it. She had always paid for her keep at home. Dad hadn’t wanted her to. He would have been perfectly happy to support her financially, but she had insisted on paying her way.

  Molly sat forward. ‘Do you have room for another pupil-lodger? I’d like to apply.’

  It was Cuffy Loudwater’s birthday. After playtime, he was allowed to stand on the form behind the double-desk he shared with Jacob in the middle of the classroom. It was meant to be a big secret, what the classroom arrangements meant, but everybody knew. Bad boys and dimmies at the front, good girls and anyone with a hope of grammar school at the back, leaving the middle ground for those who were never going to set a pond on fire academically but who weren’t going to set the school on fire either.