Next moment the children’s father was opening the kitchen door and stepping into the room, glad to be home at last. There was not yet an opportunity for him to relax, however, for as he took off his hat his wife said plaintively, ‘Before you sit down, Edwin, I want you to deal with that boy. He’s been a wretch today, and has caused me no end of trouble.’
Mr Clair was a tall man, still handsome for his forty-four years, though tending to heaviness about the middle. Usually upright in his carriage, and fairly vital in his mien, there was this evening a look of weariness about him that came from more than having worked a hard day at the tile factory. At his wife’s words his look of weariness increased,
and he sighed and put a tired hand to his face. ‘God almighty,’ he said, ‘can’t a man even get in the bloody door before trouble greets him?’ Without looking at Lily he thrust out his hat, and in silence she took it. Then he lifted his hand and pointed at Tom. ‘You – get here in this scullery.’
After a moment’s hesitation, Tom stuffed the piece of string into his pocket, got up from the stool and scampered across the room, past his father and into the scullery beyond. Mr Clair glared out into the kitchen, at nobody in particular, then took off his jacket and undid his belt buckle. As he drew out the belt he followed the boy into the scullery and closed the door.
Silence in the kitchen. Dora looked at her mother as Mrs Clair moved to the table, her lips set in a grim line. Lily stayed where she was, holding her father’s bowler hat, her face turned towards the scullery. Almost immediately there came her father’s voice barking out from the other side of the door, ‘Don’t move! Don’t you move, you little wretch.’ And then a brief silence, a whimpering murmur from Tom, and then the sound of the belt striking. Lily could hear it through the door. As Tom’s half-stifled yelps stabbed into the quiet, Lily pressed her hand to her mouth, and choked back a sob.
‘Yes, and
you
can stop that fuss,’ her stepmother said, ‘– unless you’d like some of the same. What I have to go through with you two would test the patience of a saint. You don’t see your little sister making such trouble.’
After a while the door to the scullery opened and Mr Clair came through, holding his belt and jacket. In silence he handed the jacket to Lily and she took it into the hall and hung it up along with his hat. As she went back into the kitchen he finished fastening his belt then turned and rapped out over his shoulder, ‘Now, Thomas, you get upstairs, and stay there till you’re sent for – and let me have
no more complaints about you. You won’t get off so lightly next time.’
Quickly Tom passed through the room, head lowered so that no one would see his reddened eyes and tear-stained cheeks. After the hall door had closed behind him, Lily heard his footsteps creaking on the treads as he ascended the stairs.
As the boy’s footfalls faded, Mr Clair moved to his chair and sat down. ‘I need a rest and a smoke, and then I’ll go and wash.’ Turning to his wife he added, ‘Unless, of course there’s something else you’d like me to deal with before I do.’
‘I had to tell you about him,’ she said defensively. ‘That boy – he’s the end.’
Mr Clair sighed again, then bent to his boots to undo the laces. ‘Something happened today,’ he said, ‘– and it’s not good news.’
‘Something happened?’ Mrs Clair sat up straighter. ‘What happened?’
‘I’ll tell you later on, when there aren’t so many ears around.’
Mrs Clair nodded and looked at Lily. ‘Are you going to stop there all day, miss?’ Her voice was all impatience and irritation. ‘The table won’t get laid with you just standing there. And when you’ve done that you can take your sister up.’
Lily finished setting the table, and then went to Dora who stood on the hearthrug between her father’s spread knees, showing him her doll. As Lily approached, the child grabbed at her father’s hand and wailed, ‘Oh, have I got to go to bed yet, Papa? Can’t I stay up a while longer?’
The response came from Mrs Clair. ‘No, dear,’ she said kindly. ‘You be a good girl and go with Lily, and I’ll be up later to tuck you in.’ To Lily she said, ‘Take her up now, will you.’
This was a task that Lily undertook almost every evening.
It helped her stepmother out, and it was no unpleasant chore for Lily, for she was fond of her half-sister, and had helped care for her since her birth.
Now, as Lily trailed a hand over the child’s golden locks, Dora looked up at her and gave a sigh. ‘Must I, Lily?’
Lily gave a nod. ‘Your mama says so, dear.’
As Dora sighed again, Mr Clair drew her to him and kissed her cheek. ‘Goodnight, my pet,’ he said. ‘You go on up with Lily, there’s my good girl.’
Dora moved from her father’s embrace, saying to her mother, ‘Will you be coming up to see me, Mama, before I go to sleep?’
‘Yes, of course, dear, but you close your eyes in the meantime.’
Lily took Dora by the hand and led her into the hall and up the stairs to the room they shared. There was no need for a candle on these summer evenings. The light of the day was bright enough as it filtered through the curtains.
In the bedroom Lily pulled back the covers. ‘There, now – into bed with you, like a good girl.’
With her doll in her arms, and helped by Lily, the child climbed into bed. ‘I’m not a bit sleepy, Lily,’ she said. ‘Honestly I’m not.’
‘Still, you have to sleep,’ Lily said. She gently touched the child’s doll on her topknot of curls. ‘And I think Millie’s tired too.’
‘Oh, Millie’s
always
tired.’ Dora pressed the doll’s scratched china head into the pillow.
‘Well, I think you should both close your eyes and go to sleep.’ Lily looked down at the child. Dora was so like her mother: the same bone-structure, visible in the sharp, pointed chin, the small, high-arched nose. ‘I shall be up to bed later on.’
‘You’re not going yet, are you?’
‘No, of course not. I shall stay here with you for a while.’
‘Till Mama comes up?’
‘Yes, till Mama comes up.’ This was a lie, for Lily knew that her stepmother would not come upstairs as she had promised. She rarely did; it was always Lily’s job to stay with the child until she dropped off to sleep, and only then, when the child was sleeping, could she creep away. If Dora remembered the next day that her mother had not come to visit her while she was awake, Mrs Clair would always say, ‘Oh, I did, my dear, but when I came you were fast asleep.’
Sometimes Lily had to wait a good while till Dora fell into her slumber, and on a few occasions she herself had fallen asleep.
Now, looking up at her, Dora said, ‘You’ve got to lie down too. Not just me.’
Kicking off her slippers, Lily hoisted her legs up on the bed and laid her head on the pillow next to Dora’s. After a while the child’s eyes closed, and then the rhythm of her breathing changed as she drifted into sleep. Lily remained there; it would be a mistake to get up too quickly. Best to be sure. Her own eyes closed and she gave herself up to the comfort of lying there. This evening she was tired; she had had a long day at the Mellers’ house. With the harvest due, there was always extra work to be done. Every summer, for the past few years she had worked as a general maid for the Mellers, a farming family in the village. It brought a little much-needed extra money into the house, and also kept her occupied during those weeks when she was away from school. Her brother worked at the farm also, having started there just this summer. A willing boy, he revelled in doing odd jobs about the place and helping with the stock. He loved to be out in the open air too, added to which, it got him away from his stepmother.
While Tom loved his time on the farm, for Lily it was only a stopgap. All summer long she looked forward to September, and the day when she would be back at school.
At fifteen she was no longer an ordinary pupil. Her elementary schooling had ended soon after her thirteenth birthday. However, she had remained on as a pupil teacher, assisting the schoolmistress. She had completed two years of her apprenticeship so far, and had another three years to go, at which time she would herself qualify to seek work as a teacher. She could not wait for that time to come. Then perhaps, if things worked out, she might even gain a scholarship to go to Chelsea in London and study further at Whitelands, the famous school for female teachers. That was in the future, though, for now not even to be dreamt of.
She opened her eyes. For a moment there she had been in danger of dropping off. At her side Dora was sleeping soundly. Lily waited another minute or two, just to be absolutely sure, then carefully drew herself up. Dora slept on, her little pink mouth slightly open. She would not now waken until the morning.
After putting on her slippers, Lily crept across the room, stepped out and closed the door behind her. On the small landing she moved to the door opposite and scratched at the wood panel with a fingernail. There was no sound from within. After waiting a few seconds she eased the door open and crept inside.
Now she could hear his breathing as he lay on his bed. She could see him too. The curtains had not yet been pulled across the window, and the fading light filled the small room with a soft glow. The space was small, and simply furnished. Against the wall opposite the window stood the single bed. The only other furniture in the room was a chest of drawers, a narrow little wardrobe, and a rather rickety chair. She came to a stop on the worn bedside rug, listened for a moment for some acknowledgement of her presence, then whispered, ‘Tom? Tommo, are you all right.’
He replied then, his voice only just there, in a murmuring
whisper, half stifled by his hand: ‘Go away, Lil. Please. I don’t want to talk to anybody.’
‘Tom,’ she murmured, and stepped closer. He was lying on his side, his hand up to his face. His frame looked small on the counterpane. She sat on the edge of the bed and whispered his name again. ‘Tom . . . Tommy?’
‘Please, Lil,’ he whispered, ‘I’ll be better if you leave me alone. Besides, you’ll cop it if they find you in ’ere talkin’ to me.’
‘They won’t find out,’ she said. ‘Dora went off like a dream, so they won’t expect me down yet. Anyway, they can’t hear us if we keep our voices low.’ She was silent a moment, then she asked, ‘Was it bad, Tommo?’
He nodded. ‘Like it usually is. She’s never liked me,’ he said, ‘– not from the start. And it’ll never be no different now.’
Lily knew he was right. Where their stepmother was concerned, there was little that he could ever do to please her.
‘I know I shouldn’t have lost my cap,’ Tom said, ‘but it was an accident.’
‘Of course it was. I heard you lost your ball too.’
‘Yeh. It was only an old pig’s bladder, but it was a good un. I hopped up on the fence to climb over and my cap fell off. And there I was, ’alf way over the fence when old Neville comes out. Course, as soon as he appears, the other boys ’ave gone. You can’t see ’em for dust. I tried to get back but as I did so I slipped. That’s ’ow I tore me jacket.’
‘I’ll mend it for you,’ she said. Then she asked, ‘How was work today at the farm?’
‘Oh, fine. I enjoy it so much. Mr Meller – he’s so nice.’
‘Yes, I know he is. Mrs Meller too.’
He turned to lie on his back. ‘I wish I was as old as you,’ he said. ‘I’d be long finished with school and I could really
earn a livin’ for meself. And I don’t mean on Mellers’ farm either. I’d like to get right away from ’ere. Well away from Compton.’
‘Where would you go – Corster?’
‘Corster? No fear – I’d go to one of the big cities. One of them up north maybe. They say you can earn lots of money up north in the factories. Or maybe London. They got everything in London. And anything’d be better than this. It’ll be all right for you. You’ll be a teacher one day.’
‘Not for another three years yet, though.’
‘Still, it’ll come, and you’ll be doing what you’ve always wanted.’ He turned to her. ‘One day when you’re a real schoolmarm you’ll have a nice ’ouse, and I can come and stay with you.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that would be nice.’
He fell silent for a second, then said, ‘I know I’m a disappointment to ’im.’
‘To Father? A disappointment? Oh, Tom – that’s a melancholy thing to say.’
‘Well, look at me. I’m not big and tall like ’im. I never shall be. And I can’t do the things he does. He plays the violin, and he paints so well. And ’e’s clever with words and figures and such. The way you are. No wonder ’e hardly ever gets mad at you.’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘I wish our mam was ’ere.’
He was speaking of their own mother, of course. Their own mother who had died a week after Tom’s birth, taken by the Bright’s disease that she had suffered from for months. People had said it was a wonder she had lived for the birth of her son, and indeed a wonder that the boy had survived as well.
‘Was she nice – our mam?’ Tom said. ‘Tell me, Lil.’
Lily smiled. ‘Oh, yes, she was. I may only have been five when she died, but I can remember her very well. Ah, Tom, she was nice, so nice.’
‘These things wouldn’t have happened if she’d still been alive.’
‘No – I doubt they would.’
He winced slightly at a sudden pain that caught at him. Lily said, ‘He hurt you bad this time, didn’t he?’
‘Ah, it ‘urt like billy-o.’ He shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t be like he is if it wasn’t for her. She eggs ’im on and gets ’im riled up. He gets in knackered from work, and all ’e wants is to sit down and catch his breath, but she greets him with complaints about me. No wonder ’e gets mad. No man wants to ’ear that sort of thing the moment ’e sets foot indoors. And tonight he was madder than ever. Not only angry, though. It was like summat was up, summat was different.’
‘He’s had bad news,’ Lily said. ‘He told our mother just before I came up. Though he didn’t say what it was.’ She stirred on the bed. ‘I’d better get downstairs, or they’ll start to wonder what’s keeping me so long.’ She stood up. ‘I wish I could bring you some dinner . . .’
‘It don’t matter.’
‘You’ll be hungry.’
‘It won’t be the first time.’
She smoothed down her skirt, moved quietly to the door, opened it and looked back. The August evening light was fading quickly now. Tom was a dim figure on the bed. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she whispered into the gloom, and then was gone.