Our Lizzie (12 page)

Meg glared at her daughter. “I shan't forget this, Polly Kershaw!” She clutched her son's arm, trying hard not to sob as well. “I'm not having cheek from them. I'm not!”

Percy turned her gently round towards the kitchen. “Mam, please go and sit down.”

When she'd left, he shut the door between the scullery and kitchen and looked sternly at Polly. “What's got into you today, upsetting Mam like that?” Then he looked at the piles of dishes and frowned. Now he came to think of it, there did seem to be rather a lot of them.

“Mam leaves everything for our Lizzie to wash up after work.”

“Perhaps she was busy today?”

Polly shook her head. “No. There's allus a pile like this. So I thought I'd help out. I don't mind, really I don't. And Lizzie never asked me to do it. It was my own idea.”

He made no further comment. “Well, it's very kind of you to help your sister, love. You'd better get on with it while the water's hot. Shall I dry the dishes for you?”

“Eeh, no! Mam'd have a fit at you doing that, then she'd get mad all over again. She's allus mad at our Lizzie since Dad died. You go back into the kitchen an' talk to her. She'll like that.” Polly picked up the pieces of broken plate then took the dishrag and plunged her hands into the hot water again. She had meant what she said. She did enjoy housework of all sorts, though she didn't like schoolwork much.

Still upset by the red fingermarks on his little sister's cheeks, Percy went back into the kitchen.

His mother greeted him with, “Have you found out what that young madam's been saying to make Polly do her work for her?”

“She hasn't been saying anything. It's Polly's own idea.”

“Ha! You don't know our Lizzie if you think that.”

“You're very hard on her lately, Mam. What's the matter?”

“Nothing's the matter. I'm just seeing she buckles down.” Meg stared at him defiantly. “An' I don't want you interfering in how I bring up the girls, Percy Kershaw.”

“I'm not interfering, but it can't do any harm to let Polly help out, if she wants. I dare say there won't be as many things to do tomorrow. You must have been too busy to wash up today.”

She breathed deeply but did not pursue the matter, though she mentally added it to her growing list of grievances against her eldest daughter. “Children are supposed to be a comfort to you,” she said bitterly, “but Lizzie's no comfort at all, and Eva's just as bad nowadays. Always round at that schoolteacher's or doing her homework. And for what? We can't afford her to go to secondary school, whatever you say. I keep telling you that. I sit here on my own evening after evening, with no one to talk to, and when I do say something, no one listens.”

Percy immediately put down the newspaper.

“Oh, go on with you! It's no use buying that if no one reads it.”

She dabbed at her eyes and hunched her shoulder at him, so he picked up the newspaper again.

How was he going to persuade Mam to give Eva her chance? It had become something of an obsession with Percy. If he could help his clever sister, then he'd feel he'd won something, at least, from the ruin of their lives. His own future looked very bleak, tied to his mother. And she wasn't easy to live with since his father had died. Well, she never had been, but she was worse now.

*   *   *

At half-past eight Lizzie came in from work and Percy studied her surreptitiously. Polly was right. Their sister did look tired. He set himself to distract his mother from nagging the poor lass, and had the happy idea of inviting Mam to come out for a glass of shandy with himself and Sam.

Meg gaped at him. “Go into a public house! What do you think I am? It's not respectable. Why, I've never been inside one in my whole life.”

“Things are changing, Mam. They've got a ladies' room at the Hare and Hounds now. You already know one or two of the women who go there, so you could sit with them. Fanny Preston from across the road for one, and Rosie Holden for another.”

She looked at him, clearly tempted.

“I wouldn't ask you to go into the Carter's Rest or the other pubs down the south end, but the Hare and Hounds is very respectable nowadays, I promise you. Mrs. Sampson, the landlady, keeps a very quiet house.” Which was why he preferred it, though Sam liked the Carter's Rest better.

In the end Meg agreed and went upstairs to put on her second-best hat, for she was not one to go out with only a shawl flung over her head.

Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief as the front door closed on them and went to get her dinner. She found the usual dried-up mess congealing on a plate in front of the fire.

When she had finished eating what she could, Polly came across and took the plate from her. “You never eat your tea when you're on afternoons.”

“It's never worth eating.” Lizzie hauled herself to her feet. “I'd better get the washing-up done or she'll go mad at me again.”

“I've done most of it already.”

They walked into the narrow scullery together and tears came into Lizzie's eyes at the sight of the piles of clean crockery on the shelves. “Oh, Polly, you are a love!” And she hugged her younger sister again.

They heard footsteps and turned to find Miss Emma standing in the kitchen doorway. “Our alarm clock's broken, so I wonder if one of you could wake me up early in the morning? I have to go out tomorrow to see about a job and I want to look my best.”

Lizzie nodded politely. She was always awake early. “Yes, Miss Emma. I can do that. I hope you get your job.” Since their Christmas chat, she'd listened with interest to tales of the commercial college lessons and the difficulties of learning to type, feeling a new kinship with their younger lodger.

“Thank you so much, dear. I must say, it's a relief to have that course over.” Emma had worked hard and had paid “practice money” to go back to the school at weekends and use the typewriter, as some girls did, feeling that twenty lessons weren't enough to learn to type accurately.

Yesterday Miss Aspinall had told her about a job that was going. “They work their staff hard, but it's a place where you'll get a good range of office experience.”

Emma realised that she'd been lost in thought and the two girls were staring at her, so she winked at them. “Do you still like caramels?”

They nodded.

She reached into the pocket of her skirt. “I just happen to have a couple to spare.” In her opinion, both of them looked as if they needed a treat and the older girl looked absolutely worn out.

So the two sisters spent a companionable half hour sitting by the fire, seeing how long they could make their caramels last. Lizzie enjoyed the rare luxury of talking about her day and Polly just enjoyed being the focus of someone's attention, because Eva was in the front room as usual, doing her school work, saying that being cold there was better than suffering the noise of the warm kitchen, and Johnny had gone up to bed, grumbling all the way, but not daring disobey orders about what was his proper bedtime.

By the time their mother came home, flushed with enjoyment from her first evening out since Stanley's death, Lizzie and Polly were both in bed and the younger girl, at least, was sound asleep. It was much longer before Lizzie got off. She heard Eva close the front room door, say goodnight to her mother, then tiptoe up the stairs. As Eva climbed over her, she pretended to be sleeping, so she wouldn't have to talk. Her sister was asleep in minutes, but Lizzie was wide awake for some reason. She heard the low voices of the two lodgers from the attic room above and wondered what they were talking about, remembering with a pang what the low rumble of her father's voice used to sound like.

Downstairs, she heard her mother making a cup of cocoa and chatting to Percy. Mam sounded happier tonight. Lizzie only hoped that would last, but she wasn't building her hopes on it. Nothing satisfied Mam nowadays, nothing!

*   *   *

The next morning, Emma Harper admitted to herself that she felt nervous as she walked along York Street. What if they laughed at her at Sevley's? Twenty commercial lessons and no experience at her age.

Miss Aspinall had said to wear dark, plain clothes to the interview, but the only dark clothes Emma had in her wardrobe were her old tweed walking skirt and the dark brown jacket she used to wear with it, and she didn't think they would look smart enough. Well, she knew they wouldn't. The skirt had a mend on it where she'd caught it on some brambles, and she'd had the jacket for five years, which meant she was now twenty-four years old.

She sighed as a couple of kids ran past her, shouting. She'd expected to be married and have at least one child by the time she reached this age. But it was no use repining. When she was younger, her father had discouraged admirers, and anyway, she'd known even then that she couldn't leave Blanche to cope with him on her own. It was a small comfort that one or two young men had shown an interest, but to tell the truth it hadn't broken her heart to discourage them because she hadn't been particularly smitten.

When he was in one of his hurtful moods, their father had sometimes said his elder daughter looked just like his own mother: plain as a plank. His younger daughter, on the other hand, favoured his wife, the woman he had idolised and grieved for ever since her early death, and he'd usually treated her more gently because of that. Emma couldn't even remember her mother, who had died when she was three. It was Blanche who had brought her up, Blanche who had done everything for her, Blanche whom she loved dearly.

She was kept waiting at Sevley's, sitting on a bench in a draughty outer room, then brought in with a peremptory command. She didn't take to the owner or to his wife, who managed the office, but kept reminding herself that she had no experience and that beggars couldn't be choosers and managed to hold her tongue.

When she returned home, she had the job, though she knew already that she wasn't going to like it. Mr. Sevley had a look in his eyes she mistrusted. If his wife hadn't been the one running the office, Emma wouldn't have accepted the job under any circumstances. And the wages were only fifteen shillings a week: “Because although you're older than our usual sort of girl, you're nobbut a beginner at office work and we'll have it all to teach you.” But fifteen shillings would make a big difference to their meagre budget, a very big difference, and this job was only a start, after all.

And Miss Aspinall said that Mrs. Sevley knew her job. “You'll learn more there than anywhere else in town. Ask for more money next year. She'll give you a bit more, probably. Then, later on, I'll help you find another job.” She had blushed. “If you wish it, that is.”

“You're being very kind to me, Miss Aspinall.”

“Well, we're both single women with our living to earn and that isn't easy, is it? It's a man's world.” A flush stained her thin cheeks. “And why don't you call me Millie—now that you're no longer a student? If you want to, that is?”

Emma realised that here was an offer of friendship and didn't hesitate to accept it. “I'd love to. And my name's Emma. Um—perhaps you'd like to come to tea with me and my sister one weekend? I'm sure you'd get on well with Blanche.”

“Oh, I'd like that. I'd like it very much indeed. I don't care to leave Mother alone in the evenings, and I teach at Sunday school, but a Saturday afternoon—yes, that'd be very nice.”

“Next Saturday, perhaps?”

“Delightful.” She would look forward to it all week and enjoy telling Mother about it afterwards.

Chapter Seven

May 1909–June 1911

In May, Eva heard that she'd got a scholarship to the secondary school and all hell broke out in the Kershaw household. Percy insisted she was to take it up and was not swayed by tears from his mother or pleas that they couldn't afford this, that they'd all end up in debt and in the workhouse. For once in his life, he held firm.

“Thank you, Percy,” Eva said the first night. The crumpled letter from the school was safely in his pocket, only one corner singed where Meg had tried to throw it on the fire. Their mother was now upstairs, sobbing into her pillow. “I won't waste this chance, I promise you. If you can only persuade her to…”

They both paused to listen.

“I've never heard her go on like this before,” Eva said in a worried voice, when the weeping didn't stop.

“Me neither. What our lodgers must be thinking, I don't know. Eeh, we can't let her carry on making that row.” He went upstairs, flinging open his mother's bedroom door without knocking. “That's enough!” he roared in a voice so loud he surprised himself.

The sobs abated only a little.

He went across to the bed and jerked her upright, giving her a good shake.

Meg gulped. “Percy—”

“
Enough
, I said! I'm the one bringing the wages into this house and I'm telling you now, if you don't let Eva go to that school, I'm leaving.” He let go of her and folded his arms, his expression grim. “I wasn't able to take up my chance, but she's going to get hers, by hell she is!”

Terror replaced the anger in Meg's heart. If he left, she'd lose everything, for the money from the lodgers would not be enough to keep a family.

“I mean it!” He glared down at her. Then, because it was not in his nature to bully and demand things, he turned round before her tears could weaken his resolve, saying over his shoulder, “I'm off to the pub and I don't want to hear any more about this after I get back—or you know what I'll do.”

They all suffered from their mam's bad temper for the next few days, but Eva did take up the scholarship. The knowledge that Miss Blake had persuaded the brewery to pay for the schoolbooks and had got the Pilbys to provide the school uniform helped with Meg. A little. But her fear of Percy's leaving helped far more.