The Surplus Girls' Orphans

by Polly Heron

  ‘I think no such thing.’ Molly reined in her temper. ‘I simply wish to point out that Mrs Atwood said she would write to the Panel on Mrs Fletcher’s behalf, asking for leniency regarding her keeping her most precious possessions. Shouldn’t this be allowed to stand?’

  ‘Be silent! Mrs Fletcher, if you desire the Panel’s assistance, there must be no subterfuge. Sell the photograph; sell the brooch; and then you may be considered. Good morning. Miss Watson, come.’ She might as well have said, ‘Heel.’

  Mrs Wardle stomped down the stairs so heavily, it was a wonder she didn’t bring the decrepit staircase crashing to the floor. At the bottom, she turned on Molly.

  ‘Contradict me again in front of one of these people and I’ll dismiss you on the spot.’

  Molly bit her tongue all the way back to the Town Hall. She was going to tell Mrs Atwood everything and hope she could set things to rights. Molly was at her desk for the rest of the day, but so was Mrs Wardle. Had she guessed Molly’s intention?

  In the end, when the other two, as well as the two colleagues who occupied the other desks, tidied up and got ready to leave, Molly stayed put.

  ‘I’ll finish writing this.’ Blimey! As if she was composing a report to be presented to the Lord Mayor himself. ‘I’ll see you at home,’ she told Mrs Atwood.

  Alone, she quickly wrote an explanation of what had happened at Mrs Fletcher’s and popped it in Mrs Atwood’s top drawer for her to find tomorrow. Although work was regularly mentioned at home, it was only in general terms. The strictest confidentiality regarding one’s place of work was one of Miss Hesketh’s golden rules.

  Molly left the building with a lighter heart, feeling she had done her best for poor Mrs Fletcher. Albert Square was busy with office-workers heading for home. She felt a thrill of pride. As heartily as she loathed Mrs Wardle, this knocked spots off working at Upton’s.

  ‘Evening, Molly.’ Norris raised his hat in jaunty salute.

  ‘Norris! What are you doing here?’

  ‘Waiting for you, of course. I haven’t seen you since you went to live elsewhere. We can’t have you forgetting me.’ He chuckled. Was there anything that didn’t make him chuckle?

  ‘I’m hardly likely to forget you.’

  ‘That’s what I like to hear. I hope you’ll allow me to take you for a bite to eat. I want to hear all about your new job.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t, Norris. I’m expected home for tea.’

  ‘Home?’ His frown was an indulgent reprimand. ‘I hope you don’t call it that in front of your mum.’

  Her throat tightened with guilt, preventing her from answering.

  Norris had consolation at the ready. ‘Don’t look so stricken. I know you’d never hurt her, not knowingly anyway, and I’ll tell her so the next time I see her.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Molly exclaimed. ‘I can’t hang about. I really do have to get back.’

  ‘Get back? Not go home?’ Norris’s smile was more than a little smug. ‘You’ve adapted your vocabulary already. I’m pleased to have helped you appreciate your error.’

  She made a move in the direction of the tram-stop. Norris kept pace.

  ‘We’ll travel together. I’ll pay for you as a gentleman should.’

  ‘There’s no need. I’m an independent woman now.’

  ‘Oh, Molly, there’s no such thing. There are widows and old maids. You can’t call them independent when they’re forced to fend for themselves. And then there are young ladies – like yourself – who have their reasons, or imagine they do. Maybe they hanker after the taste of freedom the war provided…’

  Was that a veiled dig at her? Surely not. He wouldn’t stoop so low. She increased her pace. So did Norris.

  ‘…but they’re acting contrary to their true natures, so it isn’t real independence.’

  On the tram, Norris paid both their fares by virtue of waving his coins practically in front of the conductor’s nose.

  ‘That’s the way it should be,’ he remarked complacently, ‘a fellow treating his girl like a lady.’

  Molly recalled various occasions when she had paid for herself, or for both of them, and clamped her lips together. It was in the past. It was the future that mattered.

  As they approached Norris’s stop, he didn’t get up.

  ‘Norris,’ she said.

  ‘Kind of you to worry about me, Molly, but I’m staying on until the terminus so I can see you home properly.’

  That was too much. ‘No, you aren’t. I’m quite capable of seeing myself home. It’s time for you to get off, Norris. I mean it. It’s been good seeing you, but now you have to go.’

  The sidelong look he gave her said he was weighing up his chances. ‘If you insist. Never let it be said I don’t listen to what you want.’

  As he swung himself out of the seat, Molly gave him her sweetest smile. ‘And thank you for using the word “home” a moment ago. I’m glad you realise it’s my home now.’

  Making her way from the terminus to Wilton Close, she didn’t know which of them she was more annoyed with: Norris or Mrs Wardle. Or possibly herself. Why had she let Norris say those things to her about women’s so-called independence? But then, why shouldn’t he hold such views? He hadn’t said anything that wasn’t considered normal. She was the one who was out of step.

  Chapter Twelve

  PRUDENCE HAD TO bend forwards to do her hair in her dressing-table mirror. The dressing-table had a matching stool, but she never bothered with it, apart from standing on it once a year to take down the curtains to be washed. Like everything in the house, the curtains were old. How many more spring cleans would they stand before they disintegrated? Mind you, though faded, they still looked all right, because they were good quality.

  A bit like herself. Faded, but good quality. Her quality was all on the inside – education, standards, duty. She had never been much to look at, even less so now. Thin and plain, bony, all angles. It was only the quality of her clothes that prevented her from looking like a scarecrow.

  As always when she arrived home from the office, she unfastened her hair from its severe bun, gave it a brisk comb and put it up again. Every so often, Patience suggested she wore a looser bun for evenings at home, but that was just Patience being soppy. Anyway, they didn’t have evenings at home any longer, not in the accepted sense. Weekday evenings were spent teaching and even at weekends, the house was no longer their own, now that they had their lodgers. Mrs Atwood and Miss Watson were pleasant young women, but it wouldn’t do to unbend.

  She fastened her bun with expert fingers. She didn’t really need to look. Standing in front of the looking-glass was more habit than necessity. She jabbed in a few hairpins. She might not look like anything much, but she hadn’t felt so good in years. It ought to be exhausting, travelling into town every day to do a day’s work, then coming home to teach in the evenings, but it wasn’t. It was exhilarating.

  She had worked in the offices of Manchester Corporation for forty years, ever since she left school at the age of twelve. How clever, how indispensable, she had thought herself – office junior by day, household manager at home. She had been in charge of ordering the coal, paying the butcher’s bill and organising repairs ever since Mother died. Strictly speaking, she hadn’t worked for the Corporation absolutely all that time. She had left for a while. She had meant to leave for good, had intended to leave her old life behind. Oh yes, she had been full of plans and excitement and determination to build a fulfilling new life and career for herself. But the trouble with making plans was that other people and circumstances and life in general didn’t know what was meant to happen and waded in and made other things happen instead. She had ended up coming back home and she had been here ever since.

  Her jaw hardened. Home: the house where she had been born, the house that should by rights be hers now, hers and Patience’s. It had originally belonged to Mother, who had inherited it before she met Pa. Poor Mother died young and she had left the hou
se to Pa. When Lawrence had grown up, he left home, but Prudence and Patience had stayed put. Patience had stayed put to the extent that she had never worked outside the home, but had kept house, shopping and cooking and doing as much housework as was ladylike, the rest being undertaken by their daily, and generally pandering to Pa and his whims.

  Pa and his whims! Prudence had revised her opinion of Pa considerably since the beginning of this year. You weren’t supposed to think ill of the dead, but honestly! When Pa had passed away in the new year, she and Patience had taken it for granted that the house would come to them. It was only right and proper, given that it had originally belonged to their mother, but Pa, blast his eyes, had left it to Lawrence, the son of his first marriage.

  A solid block of unfairness had lodged inside Prudence’s chest ever since. Lawrence and Evelyn wanted her and Patience to move out, so they and the girls could take possession. Not that there was anything wrong with the house they rented, but Lawrence fancied the prestige of owning his own place. Idiot! What was wrong with renting? Far more people rented than owned their own houses. But Lawrence had an inflated opinion of himself. His success as a businessman wasn’t sufficient. He wanted the title of Alderman in front of his name; and jollying along with the right people and getting a name for himself as a philanthropist by sticking his fingers in various social reforming pies was how he intended to achieve it. Owning his own home would make him look good too.

  A pulse jumped in Prudence’s neck as the fear that had enveloped her at the reading of Pa’s will swooped through her, as it sometimes did, though she would never admit it. She was the strong one, the capable one, the one who organised repairs when the gutter got blocked or the attic skylight leaked. Patience was the sweet-natured one, the kind one. Well, she could afford to be. She had Prudence to tackle all the difficult things.

  No, that wasn’t fair. Being gentle didn’t mean Patience was weak. In her own quiet way, she had shown her mettle in recent weeks in all she had done to involve herself in their business school and also in the way she had helped the Layton family after that dreadful fire.

  Their business school: this was how they had rescued their house – yes, their house, whatever Pa’s will said – from Lawrence’s grasping fingers. Using Prudence’s years of office experience and Patience’s social skills, they had set themselves up to train girls to be office workers; and not just any girls, but surplus girls, that blighted generation whose chances of matrimony had perished in the fields of Flanders. Opening their night school had been carefully choreographed, with Lawrence, poor sap, being invited to its official opening, complete with journalists not only from the local press but also from Patience’s favourite weekly paper, Vera’s Voice. Under the circumstances, Lawrence had had no choice but to blather on about his social conscience and his dear sisters, who were going to run this business school on his behalf.

  Hard cheese, Lawrence.

  Since then, he had made various attempts to discredit the school, even to discredit Prudence personally – and she would never tell a living soul how deeply that had shaken her – but he hadn’t managed to wrest the house back. He never would, if she had anything to do with it.

  She changed into fresh collar and cuffs, the merciless starch chafing her skin as she fastened them. She used to change out of the ankle-length skirt and plain blouse she wore at the office into an equally plain dress and cardigan for the evening. Not now, though. Now, evenings were spent working and that meant being appropriately dressed.

  Downstairs, the hall smelled of beeswax with a trace of the lemon Patience added to it. Patience was a good little housewife. Everything was neat and clean. Even the small cloakroom at the foot of the stairs was perfectly tidy. Not that they possessed many coats and hats and umbrellas to make a mess of it. Mrs Atwood, when she moved in, had hung up her worsted coat without smoothing it and had tossed her hat onto the shelf, but now, after the smallest of hints from Patience, who was far more diplomatic than Prudence would have been, she was as neat as they were.

  Why did Mrs Atwood go out to work? Her smart coat and that oversized beret of stiffened felt suggested she wasn’t exactly on her uppers. Maybe she worked because what reason had she, a youngish widow, to stay at home? It wasn’t something you could ask – as Prudence had told Patience in no uncertain terms. Patience had a regrettable tendency to make pets of their pupils and having pupils living with them as lodgers increased the danger. Patience was such a softy. Prudence had no desire to be anything other than impersonal and professional towards their pupils – or anybody else, for that matter. She preferred to keep herself to herself.

  In the sitting room, Patience and Mrs Atwood were talking. It was the custom of the household to gather together for a few minutes before heading into the dining room.

  ‘Where is Miss Watson?’ asked Prudence.

  ‘She stayed on at the office to finish something,’ said Mrs Atwood.

  ‘I’m sure she won’t be late for tea,’ Patience added.

  ‘I hope not,’ said Prudence.

  No sooner had she uttered the words than the front door was heard opening whereupon Patience excused herself to serve their meal. They all ate their main meal in the middle of the day, so this was a high tea of corned beef patties with salad. Nevertheless, they ate in the dining room, the table complete with linen, Grandmother’s cut-glass six-piece condiment set on its solid silver tray, and a dainty vase of lily-of-the-valley as a centrepiece. They used the best china these days too. Why not? It had sat in the sideboard for donkey’s years, kept for best and consequently never used, because they didn’t lead a ‘for best’ kind of life; but Pa’s will had changed a lot of things.

  After tea, Prudence repaired to the sitting room with the pupil-lodgers while Patience cleared away. On her first day, Mrs Atwood had offered to assist, but hadn’t been permitted to. You couldn’t have a paying guest doing housework. She and Patience might not be rolling in money, but they had their standards. Standards were everything. Standards were what held their lives together.

  After tea, the Miss Heskeths prepared to teach. Neither Molly nor Mrs Atwood had a lesson this evening, which meant they were required to absent themselves from the sitting and dining rooms, both of which were required for lessons.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ murmured Miss Hesketh, as if they weren’t perfectly well aware of what was expected; but that was Miss Hesketh all over, always observing the proprieties.

  ‘Thank you, dears,’ added Miss Patience. Molly had soon got used to being ‘Miss Watson dear.’ There was no doubt Miss Patience was fond of her p.g.s. Was it only Miss Hesketh’s unyielding formality that held her gentle sister back from making complete pets of their pupil-lodgers?

  The doorbell rang.

  Miss Hesketh raised her eyebrows. ‘I hope that isn’t one of tonight’s pupils. I know I impress upon everyone the importance of never being late, but really, there is such a thing as too early. It’s most inconsiderate.’

  Miss Patience went to answer the door. Molly and Mrs Atwood followed her into the hall to fetch their outdoor things from the cloakroom, ready to go for a walk.

  Miss Patience opened the door and there was a pretty, dark-haired girl of about twenty. She wore a cherry-red loose swing-jacket that hung over a cream dress with patch-pockets in the drop-waisted skirt. A brown leather suitcase stood beside her in the porch and she clutched the handles of a tapestried handbag in slender gloved fingers.

  ‘Oh, Auntie Patience!’ Her voice wobbled on the brink of tears. ‘Can I come and live with you and Aunt Prudence, please, and attend your school? Mummy says you’re taking pupil-lodgers. Please may I be one? You’ll fix up that old boxroom for me, won’t you?’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘LUCY, WHAT’S THIS about?’ Prudence demanded the moment the pupil-lodgers departed and the front door shut behind them. ‘Do your parents know where you are?’

  ‘I left a note.’

  ‘A note?’ Prudence couldn’t reme
mber the last time she had taken Lawrence’s side, if indeed she ever had, but right now she was in full sympathy with the shock and vexation he and Evelyn would experience when they read Lucy’s words. ‘I suppose this means we can expect them to turn up at any minute.’

  ‘No. They’re out at a function. They won’t be home before midnight.’

  ‘So you picked your moment to run away.’

  ‘I haven’t run away. Not exactly.’

  ‘What else do you call it when you turn up on someone’s doorstep and demand a room?’

  ‘But you’re my aunts,’ Lucy pleaded. ‘I thought you’d be pleased to have me.’

  ‘Of course we are, dear,’ said Patience, ‘but it is rather unexpected.’

  ‘It’s entirely unexpected,’ Prudence said drily. Trust Patience to ooze sympathy.

  ‘I know and I’m sorry,’ said Lucy. ‘But Daddy is always trying to close down your business school. Fliss and I aren’t meant to know, but we do.’

  ‘Because you’ve been listening in?’

  Lucy flushed, but lifted her chin. ‘I thought if I came here, he would look more kindly on it.’

  ‘Is that why you’ve come?’ asked Patience. She threw Prudence a look of urgent appeal.

  Prudence wasn’t going to be rushed into anything. ‘While we’re teaching, you must make yourself scarce.’ She held up her hand for silence as both Patience and Lucy opened their mouths. ‘You’re overwrought, child. Have a lie-down.’

  Patience took Lucy upstairs. Prudence followed, just in case Patience made any rash promises.

  On the landing, Lucy threw open the box-room door. ‘How big is it? Oh! You’ve already turned it into a bedroom.’ Her face glowed.

  ‘Don’t get any ideas,’ said Prudence. ‘It’s spoken for.’

  ‘Oh.’ From glow to gloom in an instant.

  ‘You can rest on my bed,’ Patience offered.