Our Lizzie (34 page)

As she stared round, she was quite horrified at how many things were stored there, things she had never seen before, clocks and candlesticks, all sorts of objects, nothing very big, but everything of the best quality.

Shivering, she crept upstairs to the kitchen again. It must be stolen stuff. It must. What else could it be? She gulped as another thought inevitably followed—what if the police came to search the house and found it? Would they take her to prison as well, for lying to them?

She didn't say anything about the cellar and neither did Sam. But he never forgot to lock the door again.

*   *   *

The next time Sam hit Lizzie, he bruised her face badly. When she'd got him off to work the following day, she studied herself coldly in the mirror, then put on her hat and coat and went into town, brazenly flaunting the bruise.

She met Mrs. Preston in the street and saw how the older woman's eyes went to her face, the look of shock, quickly followed by a look of sympathy.

“Oh, Lizzie love—are you all right?” Fanny Preston reached out to pat her arm.

Lizzie shrugged. “As you see.”

“Aye. Eeh, lass, it's a bad do.”

Lizzie nodded and walked on into York Road. After hesitating for a minute at the door, she went inside Dearden's, where she intended to purchase some of the biscuits Sam specially liked with his cups of tea—biscuits which were not sold in any other shop in town.

Sally came forward herself to serve her former assistant. Like Mrs. Preston, she stared at the big bruise along Lizzie's jaw in shock. “Eeh, lass, did you fall over?”

“No. Sam hit me.”

At the back of the shop, Peter froze where he stood. Hell, that bastard had started thumping her now! And there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing. He remained behind a display of biscuit tins, unable to face Lizzie.

Sally's face crumpled for a moment, then she pulled herself together. “What can I get you, love?”

“A pound of your special shortbread biscuits, please.” Lizzie stood and willed herself not to cry as the tin was pulled out and the biscuits weighed and put carefully into a paper bag. She tendered the correct change and then said goodbye, walking out slowly, aching to run back and throw herself into Mrs. D's capacious arms but too proud to do so.

Back in the shop, Sally went searching for her son and found him out at the back, thumping one hand into the other and muttering to himself.

“Did you see her, Peter?”

“Yes.”

“That poor lass!”

“I knew it was the wrong thing for her to do.” He suddenly kicked a box across the yard, then shoved his clenched fists into the pockets of his overall and went to hide himself in the store room. He felt sickened. And helpless. Kept seeing her battered face. Kept remembering what she had looked like when she was happy.

Lizzie strolled slowly along the shopping street, stopping to stare in all the windows, deliberately showing off her injuries, then sat for a while on a bench near a watering trough for cab horses, a place lots of folk passed. She saw people she knew, saw them jerk in shock at the sight of her face, then avoid her eyes and hurry on.

It was all she could think of to do, the only way she could get back at him.

*   *   *

When Sam came home from work the following day, he slammed open the front door in a foul mood and roared, “Where the hell are you?”

Lizzie tensed. “Here in the kitchen.” She found her hands were trembling, so busied herself with setting the table.

“Why did you have to go out into town for yesterday, with a face like that?” he demanded.

“I had my shopping to do. You'd have soon complained if there'd been nothing for tea.”

“You could have tried to hide your face.”

“You can't hide a bruise like this one.” Lizzie winced and tried to pull away as he drew her to the window and held her face towards the light.

He turned away and his voice was muffled as he said, “You'll have to learn not to cheek me.” But still he didn't apologise.

“I'm not a child, Sam. I have a mind of my own and a right to my own opinions.”

The veins in his face swelled with anger and she wondered how soon he would hit her again. It had taken only a few months for him to strip her of every illusion she had ever had about him. Now she was fighting back in the only way she could, exposing his nasty ways to the world. And something inside her had grown hard, so that she didn't care what he said, or even if he hit her again. She intended to keep her self-respect at least.

“You're my bloody wife,” he began in a loud voice, “an'—”

“I'm not your slave, Sam. And I'm fed up of being treated like one. I don't mind looking after the house, but I do mind being thumped. I mind it very much.”

“A man has a right to—”

“You had no right—
and no reason
—to hit me like that.”

He was growing redder and redder, the veins bulging in his temples. Lizzie braced herself for the inevitable as he raised one hand, but she wouldn't let herself cringe away, just stared at him defiantly.

There was a knock on the door, a loud knock, repeated within a few seconds.

Sam's clenched fist dropped to his side and he gave her a shove. “Go an' bloody answer it. An' tell whoever it is to bugger off. A man wants a bit of peace an' quiet in his own home.”

Percy stood on the doorstep, staring at Lizzie aghast. He turned her face towards the light with a gentle hand and said in a broken voice, “It was true, then?”

“What was?”

“What Mrs. Preston said. That he'd hit you.”

“Yes.”

“Shut your trap, you stupid cow!” Sam roared from the back of the hall.

“Come home with me, Lizzie,” her brother urged. “Come home now. You don't have to put up with that.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “It's too late. I'm married to him. It's what you all wanted and—”

Sam dragged her backwards and shoved Percy from the door, slamming it in his face and yelling, “An' don't come back, you!

“Right then,” he said thickly to Lizzie, giving her a shake. “From now on, you can tell your bloody family to stay away from here.”

“I'll not.”

His fist bunched again and she stared him unflinchingly in the eyes. He growled, muttered something under his breath, and for the second time that evening his fist dropped to his side without smashing into her. “Get up to bed now.”

“
Bed?
But it's only seven o'clock. And I haven't—”

“I've got some work to do in the cellar. I don't want you getting in my way.”

“But—”

He propelled her towards the stairs and sent her on her way up with a hard, stinging slap to her bottom. “An' if you set one foot down here again, I'll beat the rest of you black and blue to match your face. I mean that.”

She went upstairs, but left the bedroom door open, peeping down after a while. She wasn't able to see anything and tried to work out from the sounds what he was doing. It didn't take her long to realise he was clearing the stuff out of the cellar and stacking it in the kitchen. Good. She'd feel better without stolen goods in her house.

When it grew dark, someone came to the back door. Lizzie left the front bedroom light on and tiptoed into the dimness of one of the back bedrooms to peer down into the yard. She saw the kitchen light go out and heard the back door open. There were muffled voices, then sounds of activity. Two people, she saw in the moonlight, carrying things out of the back gate. Once her eyes had grown accustomed to the dimness, there was enough light from the gas lamp at the corner of the street for her to recognise Sam's friend Josh helping him carry stuff out.

“Good riddance!” she muttered and went back to bed, putting the light out and lying in the darkness, dreading Sam's coming up.

That was the second night he didn't attempt to make love to her. Usually only her monthlies stopped him and he grew impatient about that. When she pretended to be asleep, he just got in beside her and settled down as quickly as usual, filling the room with his snoring.

*   *   *

When Percy picked himself up from the pavement where the force of Sam's push had flung him, he found Emma Harper staring at him. “Oh God!” he said, still shocked rigid. “Oh God, he's started beating her.”

Her face crumpled and she nodded. “I heard about the bruise.”

They both looked towards the house, but there was not a sign of life from it.

“You look upset, Percy. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?”

He nodded. “Aye. Thanks. I would.” His voice was shaky and he felt like he'd been hit by a ton of bricks, he did that.

Emma walked along the street beside him. “I don't think there's anything you can do, you know. It's accepted by the courts that a husband has a right to
chastise
his wife. And the police never interfere between husband and wife.”

Percy stopped and looked at her miserably.

She opened the front door of their house and when they were inside, said hurriedly, “I'll just tell my sister why you're here,” and went ahead of him.

He hovered in the hall, still feeling sick and shocked. Lizzie's face. That bruise. How it must have hurt her. The gossip about it at work. Tears of shame filled his eyes.

“Oh, Percy.”

He hadn't seen Emma come back and couldn't frame a word to her, just shook his head and brushed away the unmanly tears with shaking fingertips.

She gave him a quick hug and put her arm round his shoulders. “Come and have a cup of tea with us.”

He sat silently in their cosy, neat kitchen. When Miss Harper excused herself to get ready for choir practice, he stirred uneasily in his chair. “I suppose I'd better go home now.”

Emma looked at him sympathetically. He still looked shocked and white. “You can stay and keep me company for a bit, if you like?”

He drew in a long, shuddering breath. “Do you—would you mind? I don't—don't want to go home.” He felt as if he couldn't find enough air to breathe. “My mother—she's gloating about this, saying Lizzie deserves all she gets.”

Emma closed her eyes. “Your mother has become very,” she sought for a tactful word and couldn't find one, “peculiar lately.”

“Yes.” She had recently spent most of her savings on a whole new wardrobe of girlish clothes, had taken to making up her face as if she were an actress going on stage, and was down at the Hare and Hounds most nights drinking port and lemons. Everyone was laughing at her, he knew—or saying she had lost her marbles—but what could he do about it?

Eva had come home for a visit one Sunday, at Percy's request, and had tried to talk to Mam, but Meg had flown into a temper and shrieked at her daughter to leave the house and mind her own business from now on.

Percy realised Emma was speaking and came to attention. Her voice was quiet, musical. He loved the sound of it. Missed her greatly.

“If you ever need somewhere to go—just for an hour's peace—well, you'll always be welcome here, Percy. We both understand what it's like for you. And we don't gossip.”

“Thank you.” Then he looked up. “Do you ever see Lizzie? To talk to, I mean. When he's not there.”

“Only to pass in the street. He won't let her associate with us.”

“I didn't realise—what he was like, I mean. I would never have—I didn't
know!
” He covered his face with his hands for a moment, then dashed more tears from his eyes. “I can't think what to do.”

“There isn't anything you can do. She's his wife and that gives him certain—powers.”

After that they sat on in silence for a long time because Emma had her own troubles, notably her growing fondness for James Cardwell. Her employer had said things a few times, hinting that he'd developed similar feelings for her, but she'd ignored his hints. She could not, would not, become someone's mistress. Only she couldn't bear the thought of leaving Cardwell's either. Let alone it was a good job and paid well, she couldn't bear the thought of not seeing him again.

*   *   *

The awkwardness at work, where Sam seemed to take pleasure in sneering openly at him, was solved for Percy the very next week. Ben Symes stopped him during the lunch break and asked, “How are those studies going? The accounts and such?”

Percy shrugged. “All right.”

“Mr. Pilby is looking for someone to work part-time in the office. He wants someone who knows what happens on the shop floor. Are you interested?”

Percy looked up, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Yes. Oh, yes. Of course I am.”

“I thought you would be, lad.” Ben clapped him on the back. “You're to start tomorrow. You'd better come in a suit, with a shirt and tie. They'll try you out for a few weeks, see how you go, and if you do all right it'll mean five bob a week more. When you're not working in the office, Mr. Pilby has some other things he wants you to do. You'll be a sort of assistant to him.”

Ben went back inside his little cubicle of an office and Percy sagged against the wall for a moment in relief, before straightening up and making his way to the lunch room, where, to his further relief, there was no sign of Sam.

When he told his mother about his promotion, she just stared at him and looked pointedly at his callused hands. “I'd have thought they'd want better than you in an office.”

He breathed out hard but didn't say anything. He might have known
she
wouldn't be pleased for him. “So I'll need a clean white shirt each day. Is the ironing done?”

“Of course it's done. I'm not a lazy slut like your sister. My husband never had to beat me.”

“Lizzie's husband doesn't need to beat her, either. She keeps that house immaculate.”