Our Lizzie (17 page)

He looked at her face, so set and determined. Like Lizzie, she seemed to have grown up a lot lately, and in fact, although she was a year younger, she looked older, with a plump, womanly figure. There was also a look in her eyes that said she considered herself an adult, not a child, even though she'd not tried to put up her hair yet or lengthen her skirts.

“So the thing to do is to decide how we tell Mam.”

“We?”

She nodded. “I really do need your help on this, Percy.”

He sighed and sat staring at the folded fan of coloured paper in the empty fireplace. The whole house was full of pretty touches like that. His mam kept their place immaculately clean, but she didn't have a sense of beauty. The Harpers had made the attic beautiful, though. He loved going up there for a cup of tea. It felt so restful, with its soft colours and pictures on the wall.

The two women exchanged glances as he said nothing, allowing him time to think.

“Well, I have to admit it'd be the best thing for you, Eva,” he said at last. “But I'm going to miss you, love. A lot.”

Relief flooded through her. “I'll miss you, too. But I won't miss Mam. You don't see the half of it, Percy. You ought to pay more attention to what she's doing.”

Lizzie had said that too. He was puzzled as to how he could do or see more. What with work all day and then evening classes, he had as much on his plate as he could take. Too much. As Lizzie said occasionally, life wasn't fair. Not on any of them. But then, that was how it went. Things just happened and you had to cope with them.

Chapter Nine

1912

The next day, after dinner, Percy slipped Lizzie a shilling and told her to take Polly and little Johnny out to the park for the afternoon.

“I don't mind taking Polly, but I don't want
him
tagging along.”

“I need to speak to Mam, love. An'—well, there's going to be trouble. So you'll be best out of it. All of you.”

“It's not about me?” Lizzie still had nightmares about her mother throwing her out of the house and for the first time in her life had started saving money. But the change from the shilling a week she was allowed to keep didn't mount up very quickly.

“It's about our Eva.”

She sighed with relief, then looked at him, head on one side. “She's found a way to become a teacher, then? How?”

“It'll be best if I don't say anything to you till after we tell Mam, I think. You know how touchy she can get about things like that.”

Lizzie rolled her eyes. “Don't I ever! All right. What time should we come back?”

“As late as you can. About four, or half-past even.”

But Meg became suspicious when Lizzie and Polly, having finished the washing up, began to chivvy their little brother to get ready to go out. “It's not like you two to take Johnny with you.”

Lizzie felt the anxiety radiating from Polly, standing beside her, and stepped in. “Oh, I thought it'd give you a bit of peace. We can go and watch the model boats on the pond.”

With the promise of an ice cream in the park if he went with them, Johnny nodded his agreement.

“There's something going on,” Meg said stubbornly, eyes narrowed as she stared from one to the other. “I can always tell.”

Eva concentrated on folding up the tablecloth.

Percy looked up from his newspaper and jerked his head at Lizzie and Polly to leave. “I asked them to go out. Me an' Eva want to talk to you, Mam. We have some good news.”

“Oh?” Suspicion was writ large on her thin face. “What is it?”

“We'll wait for Miss Blake to come round first, shall we? She's part of it all.”

“I see. You've been plotting with that woman behind my back again.” She glowered at her middle daughter. “You can be a sly one, Eva Kershaw, when you want something.”

Percy kept his voice calm. “We've been discussing things with Miss Blake, that's all. Now, let me make you another cup of tea and we'll go and sit in the front room, shall we?”

“I'll make the tea,” Eva said quickly. She delayed completing that task as long as she could, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece from time to time and praying that her teacher would hurry up. Just as she was setting the teapot on the tray, there was a knock on the front door. “Thank goodness!” She added another cup to the tray as she heard her brother walk down the hall to answer it.

But it was Sam Thoxby, calling to invite his friend to go for a walk with him.

Percy glanced over his shoulder, hoping Sam's voice had not penetrated to the front room and gesturing to him to keep quiet. “I need to have a little talk with Mam today, I'm afraid, lad. About our Eva. I've sent Lizzie and the two young 'uns out to the park, so I can't ask you in just now.”

“Ah? Secrets?”

“Things to be decided about our Eva. I'll tell you when it's all settled.”

So Sam walked back down the street and turned towards the park. This would be a good time to check whether Lizzie was meeting that lad. If they looked too cosy together, he'd have to do something about it. Anyway, he'd waited long enough for her now. He wanted to start courting her himself.

Just as Eva was carrying the tray through, there was another knock on the door. Alice Blake this time. “Do come in.” She gave a quick shake of the head in answer to her teacher's mouthed query about how things were, then picked up the tray off the hallstand and gestured to the visitor to precede her into the front room.

Percy stood up and shook the teacher's hand, worried at his mother's angry expression and lack of welcome. “Won't you sit down, Miss Blake?”

For a few minutes they made stiff conversation and sipped their tea, then Meg set her cup down with a clatter. “Well, what's this about, that it needs three of you to tell me?”

Percy tried to speak cheerfully, as if he was about to give her good news. “It's about Eva's future, Mam. You know she wants to become a teacher and—”

“She's had more than enough favoured treatment already and we can't afford another two years without her paying her way. She could go and do a commercial course like Miss Emma did and be earning in a few weeks. I'm not having—”

Her voice was rising, becoming so shrill that Percy came across to sit beside her and laid his fingers gently on her lips. “Let us tell you what Miss Blake has offered before you say anything else, Mam.”

She batted his fingers away, but took a few quivering breaths and managed to regain control of herself. “Well? I'm listening.”

So they told the story again.

And Meg listened in absolute silence, her face a sour mask of disapproval.

“It'd be ever such a good chance for me, Mam,” Eva said when her teacher had finished. “Don't you think?”

“No, I don't. What I do think is
she
is trying to take my daughter away from me and I'm not having it. So the answer is no.” She gave a hiccuping laugh and added, “If you want one of my daughters, Miss Blake, you can take Lizzie. I wouldn't miss
her
in the slightest. But you're not having my Eva.”

Percy sighed. He'd known she'd be awkward about this. “Let me talk to Mam alone now, will you, Eva, Miss Blake?”

“We'll go into the kitchen.”

“I'd be better suited if
she
went back home again and stayed there!” Meg called after the visitor, forgetting her usual awe of teachers in her anger. “I'm not going to change my mind.”

“I hate her,” Eva tossed into the heavy silence as they stood in the kitchen. She stared blindly down at the tray. “I really do hate her.”

And Miss Blake didn't check her. For she knew all about how Mrs. Kershaw picked on Lizzie, hit the younger children regularly and hung like a heavy weight round Percy's neck. Besides, Mrs. Kershaw was right in one way. Alice would be taking a daughter away from her family. Only—the daughter was unhappy there and wanted nothing more than to leave.

In the front room, Meg stared accusingly at her son. “Nice little plot you've hatched.”

“Mam, it's not—”

“But you're not persuading me this t-time. She's my daughter,
mine
. I b-bore her. Carried her in my belly, here, as I carried you all. And I f-fed her, washed her, did everything for her.
So I'm not giving her away
.” Meg felt short of air and for a moment the room was filled with her harsh, rasping breaths.

“Eva
wants
to go with Miss Blake, Mam,” Percy said when her breathing calmed down.

“Well, she can just w-want. She's not leaving home.”

He looked at her face, grown ugly with spite, remembered her nasty remark about taking Lizzie instead and lost patience with her. “You haven't asked me what I want.”

“I don't need to. Eva's
my
daughter.”

“Aye, and if you stop her becoming a teacher,
your daughter
is going to hate you for the rest of her life.”

“She can hate all she wants. You won't change my m-mind with arguments like that.” But Meg's voice wobbled as she spoke.

“You don't really have much choice about it, Mam.”

“Oh, yes I do! I have the say for once.” She leaned forward, spittle forming on her lips as rage consumed her and made her shake like a leaf. “And even threatening to l-leave won't change my mind, Percy Kershaw. Because I'm her mother and I'm
not
giving my daughter away. And anyway, I don't think you would leave.” She'd thought about that a few times and had decided he was too soft to leave her on her own.

“Then we'll have to take it to a magistrate, won't we?”

She was still suddenly. “What do you mean, take it to a magistrate?”

“Exactly what I say. Which will make it very public.” He waited, hoping that would shake her, but her expression didn't change. “I told you about that chap I've met at my classes, the one as works in a lawyer's office? Well, I was talking to him about this, because I knew you'd make a fuss.”

“I've a right to make a fuss!”

“It seems he's known a case or two like this before, where a parent tries to spoil a child's chances in life. It's not as unusual as you think. An' what we have to do is take it to a magistrate—me and Eva and Miss Blake, that is. I have to show that I'm the main breadwinner in this house, Eva's guardian, like. And she has to show she understands what's going on. Then Miss Blake speaks her piece and the magistrate decides.”

“I don't believe you.”

He shrugged. It was a complete fabrication, but he hoped it might serve, because his mother usually hated the idea of other people knowing their family's business.

“Why would you d-do that to me?” Her voice became a shrill wail. “You and Eva are my favourites, always have been. The only two good apples in a bad bunch. And now you're t-turning against me, too. I wish I'd died with my Stanley, I do that!”

The two listeners in the kitchen heard the raised voice, if not the words, and exchanged resigned glances.

When Percy did not answer, Meg yelled again, “What have I ever done to you, Percy Kershaw, that you'd spite me by giving your sister away to this—this child-stealing spinster?”

“You've done nothing, Mam. It was Dad's accident that messed up our lives—
all
our lives, mine as well. Have you thought that maybe I want a bit more for myself than spending my time and money supporting you and the children? Have you ever thought about that?”

“No.” She was indignant at the very idea. “And you've never s-said anything before about it, either.”

“Because what good would it have done? Before, I had to think what was best for the others. But now what's best for Eva is best for me, too.” He hated having to speak to her like this, but he had suddenly realised that the words were true. “And I'm not letting your selfishness spoil things for us all, Mam.”

Her voice was a hiss, her face twisted with anger. “You can't stop me! She's still under age.”

“I can. I just told you how. Me and Eva can go and see a magistrate.”

She was bewildered, unsure whether to believe him or not. So she resorted to her usual practice and fell into hysterics.

But this time, he simply walked out and left her to it, poking his head into the kitchen to suggest Eva and Miss Blake return to her house for the night. Then he walked along Bobbin Lane and down to the canal, treading blindly along its bank, staring unseeingly into the muddy water. He was tired of all this, tired of his mother leaning on him for everything.
Sick and bloody tired!

*   *   *

In the park, Lizzie and Polly were standing behind their brother, watching indulgently as he chatted to another lad who had a little wooden boat to sail on the shallow water. All three Kershaws had eaten an ice cream and Lizzie intended to split the change from the shilling with Polly later.

“I wonder what Percy wants to talk to Mam about?” she wondered aloud.

“About Eva becoming a teacher, I suppose.”

“But we knew about that already. It's nothing new. Why did he want us out of the house?”

They stood frowning. “Because whatever he's going to say will upset her,” Polly said slowly and her heart lurched. She hated it when there were fusses and scenes. “Oh, I wish we didn't have to go back.” She sighed. “Or that I was old enough to leave school and go into service.”

“I'm glad you're still at home.”

There was silence for a moment then Polly said, “She's getting worse, isn't she?”

“Yes.” Lizzie nodded. “She started going funny when Dad died. It turned her brain.” She'd heard people say that sometimes in the shop, and had decided a while back that it exactly described what had happened to her mother. “We'd better get going.”