‘All right, Mother, I’ll come in as soon as Nanny wakes,’ Sara said soothingly. ‘There’s Mrs Buckman, she’s beckoning you.’
Mrs Cordwainer, who had seemed in a poor sort of mood for Christmas Day, brightened.
‘Adolphus, I
must
have a word with Beatrice,’ she purred, her voice, which had been lemony in the car when the subject of snow was raised, suddenly turning creamy. ‘Wait, Sara.’
Sara waited. Her father moved off to talk to a couple of dark-coated, solemn-looking men, the car moved away with Robson at the wheel, and though she glanced round hopefully, no one she knew came into sight. Most of the congregation were already in the church, she supposed, and she edged nearer the grownups.
Then she saw the girl, standing against the church wall with a baby on her hip. She must have been thirteen or fourteen, older than Sara anyway, and she couldn’t guess at the baby’s age, not being knowledgeable about such things, but the girl didn’t look old enough to be the child’s mother. She’s probably minding her, Sara thought, moving a little closer. Martha, in my class at school, minds her little sister sometimes.
It was then that she noticed the baby’s feet. They were bare, and a horrid purplish blue colour. And when Sara looked down, the big girl didn’t have proper shoes either, only a pair of cracked and gaping boots, many sizes too large. And neither was warmly clad, though the baby did have a thin blanket half-wrapped round her, from which the blue, bruised-looking feet protruded.
The big girl saw her staring and moved closer herself. She smiled. She didn’t have very many front teeth and those that she did have were broken and grey-looking. But there was something in her smile . . . it made Sara want to cry and also to hit something or someone very hard, though she could not have said why she felt either emotion.
‘Hello, chuck,’ the girl said. ‘You goin’ into church?’
‘That’s right. In a minute, when my mother’s stopped talking to her friends.’
The girl smiled more broadly. ‘Oh aye, I’ve gorra mam like that an’ all. Talk the ’ind leg off of a donkey, mine.’ She turned the baby so that it faced her. ‘You know what I mean, don’t you, our Moll? Our mam clacks from momin’ till night, don’t she, queen?’
The baby gurgled and a thin little hand appeared above the blanket. The hand patted the girl’s cheek, then withdrew quickly back into whatever warmth the blanket offered.
‘Well, ain’t you a one?’ the girl marvelled. She turned back to Sara. ‘Understands every word, she does . . . clever little bugger!’
‘She’s very pretty,’ Sara said, more from politeness than anything, but when she looked into the baby’s face, she saw she had spoken no more than the truth. The baby had skin like milk, big, blue eyes and soft little tendrils of red-gold hair which curled all over her small head. ‘How old is she?’
‘She’ll be a year old in February,’ the girl said, then added, in a very much quieter voice, ‘If she lives, acourse.’
‘If she . . . is she ill, then?’ Sara asked, appalled by the matter-of-factness of the remark. ‘She’s awfully cold, her feet are quite blue.’
‘Nah, she’s not ill; but she only ’as buttermilk, an’ the clinic nurse says it ain’t enough,’ the girl explained. ‘Me mam won’t feed ’em for long, says it drags ’er down, and me da’s out o’ work, see – an’ when ’e’s workin’ chances are ’e won’t bring nothin’ ’ome, ’cos ’e likes ’is bevvy, does our da, and that costs.’ She sighed. ‘You don’t know what to want for the best, eh? If ’e’s sober ’e beats us up, if ’e’s drunk there’s nothin’ to eat. Why, me sister Grace – she’s goin’ on four – got a bang across the ’ead last night what knocked ’er cold, just about. Still, the ould feller went off drinkin’ this mornin’, so I left Grace lie. Me da won’t go ’ome till the boozers close, now.’ She jiggled the baby on her hip. ‘We’s glad of it, ain’t we, our Moll? In fact it would be a good Christmas if we ’ad something other than buttermilk for the littl’un ’ere.’
‘Doesn’t the baby drink tea? Or orange juice?’ Sara asked. Now that she was so close she could smell a rather nasty, sour sort of smell hovering round the couple. She had never heard of buttermilk, but it sounded all right. ‘What does she eat? Bread and butter? Oh, but today it’ll be roast turkey, I suppose, and plum pudding. Do babies eat things like that?’
The girl shrugged. ‘I dunno. She ain’t never ’ad the chanst. Nor me, neither.’ She gestured towards the church porch, towards which the congregation were now drifting. ‘You’d best gerrof, your mam’ll give you stick, she’s hollered you twice . . . you are Sara, I s’pose?’
‘Oh goodness . . . thanks,’ Sara said, turning away. As she turned the girl put a hand out, then hastily withdrew it and tucked it into the cloaklike garment which she wore round her shoulders. It was a man’s jacket with the sleeves cut off and the armholes roughly stitched closed, Sara realised. But the movement, suddenly, said all the things that the girl had never put into words.
I’m hungry
, it said.
I don’t know where my next meal’s coming from, nor the baby’s, neither. And you’re so warm in your pretty red coat and hat, your nice woolly gloves . . . don’t go just yet, don’t leave me out here in the cold!
‘Sara! Come here at once, please, your father and I are about to take our places.’ Mrs Cordwainer’s voice was that of someone used to being obeyed, which was probably why she turned straight round and went into the church, her hand tucked into her husband’s elbow, enabling Sara to turn quickly to her new friend, stripping off her white woollen gloves as she did so. She thrust them at the older girl.
‘Here, take these, put them on the baby’s feet, they’re ever so nice and warm. And . . .’ her hand plunged into her pocket and came out again with a bright, shiny shilling. ‘ . . . Here’s something for Christmas, just a little present. Buy some milk!’
The girl took the gloves wonderingly, turning them over and over, then she smiled brilliantly at Sara and took the shilling as well. This time, the smile turned her small, pale face into a thing of such beauty that Sara didn’t even notice the state of her teeth.
‘Thanks . . . you are good, I ’opes you don’t gerrin trouble for ’elpin’ me like this. Are you sure . . . But I sees you are . . . I’ll get some milk right away, Moll shall ’ave a Christmas treat, a bottle of it, warmed all nice. Me an’ ’er’s ever so grateful, Sara.’
‘What’s your name?’ Sara asked shyly, preparing to depart. ‘I know the baby’s Moll, but what are you called?’
‘She’s Mollie Carbery and I’m Jess,’ the girl said. ‘We’re from Kirkdale, we ain’t from these parts, we’ve walked a good ways to get ’ere, Moll an’ me. Kept our minds off of our bellies, see? Now we’ll walk ’ome, and we’ll ’ave somethin’ to look forward to, eh, Moll? Some milk for you, an’ mebbe a loaf or a cake for me. Ta, Sara.’
‘Bye,’ Sara called softly. She ran into the church porch, then slowed to a decorous walk, glancing over her shoulder as she did so. The girl, with the baby hitched up on her hip once more, was making her way along the road, walking fast considering her burden.
Sara slid into the pew beside her mother and dropped to her knees. Her mother cast her an angry look but said nothing; there were people too close who might overhear. And presently the service began, with pomp and ceremony and some of the nicer carols. And during the third carol the sidesmen took the collection and Sara suddenly remembered where the shilling had come from. It had been her collection, and now it was being handed over a counter somewhere, in exchange for milk and food.
She watched the plate approaching. It was a huge affair and today it was well laden with money, notes even. I’ll pretend to put something in, Sara thought, delving into her pocket. I’ll have to, because church isn’t a good place to explain something to a grownup.
But she was saved by the collection itself as it turned out. Mrs Cordwainer saw the plate, heavily laden, making its way towards her, and obviously realised that her daughter’s shilling would stand out as being the smallest contribution so far. She nudged her husband and said something to him in a low voice, there was a moment’s scuffling, and then Sara felt something large and round being pressed into her palm.
‘Put it in the plate, dear,’ her mother hissed. ‘I believe I gave you the wrong coin this morning.’
Sara did not argue. She put the heavy silver coin into the plate and passed it along to her mother, then her father, watching them contributing generously with a feeling of puzzlement. It was all wrong! They had ignored the shabby little girl with the baby in her arms even when they had seen their daughter talking to her. They refused to give money to carol singers, saying the children were begging, and even grudged them the mince pies and hot cocoa which the staff handed out. Yet they put generous amounts of money into the collection plate at church and saw to it that she, too, gave sufficient.
My parents are definitely Christians and therefore good people, Sara told herself. They go to church every Sunday, and Mother goes to sewing circle and makes clothes for the heathen in Africa. When the Liverpool Goodfellows came round collecting for Christmas parcels for the very poor, her parents always put money into the box. Yet they had not even seemed to notice Jess and the baby.
I’ll ask Nanny why they don’t give to Liverpool children, Sara decided as the congregation got to its collective feet to sing the last hymn. She’ll know, and she’ll explain it to me. Only I do wish that someone, either my parents or someone else’s, had seen Jess and baby Mollie and given them some money, too. Perhaps as much as a whole half-crown . . . imagine what they could have bought with that!
And when the service finished the Cordwainer family made their way out of the church, pausing in the porch to wish everyone the compliments of the season, whilst Reverend Atwell handed Sara a small, flat parcel, gaily wrapped, and told her to be good and to enjoy her Christmas.
I never thought, I ought to have told Jess to come in and bring Mollie; probably the reverend would have given them both presents, Sara thought, assuring the clergyman that she would be good and would try to enjoy her Christmas. ‘But there were two little girls outside . . .’ she was beginning when the reverend switched away from her to the next child, behaving as though she had not spoken at all. More puzzled than ever, Sara turned away. How very odd grownups were, to be sure. They preached goodness, kindness, but they didn’t appear to practise what they preached, not even clergymen.
Outside, the snow was still falling, but more gently now. Robson wasn’t in the car but he came hurrying over to it when he saw them.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he said to Sara’s father, opening the back door with a flourish. ‘I never went out of sight of the car, but I had to keep movin’, else I’d have frozen stiff in me seat.’
‘You could have exercised in your seat, I suppose,’ Mr Cordwainer said irritably. ‘I do trust you’ve not been drinking?’
‘No, indeed, sir, I never touch a drop,’ Robson said and Sara, whose eyes seemed to have been opened today by her encounter with Jess, realised that Robson, a grownup, was actually frightened of her father. Why? What could her father do to Robson, who seemed a sturdy, independent type of man? Nothing, surely! Except dismiss him.
Jess had said her father was out of work and had implied that this meant there was no money for milk. Sara frowned. Robson had no babies who needed milk, but if he lost his job he would also lose his room over the garage and the meals he ate in the kitchen with the rest of the domestic staff.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Mr Cordwainer said, but he said it as if he did not believe a word and Sara saw the chauffeur’s unease deepen. Quickly, without stopping to think, she burst into speech.
‘Wasn’t it a lovely service, Mother? I liked the last hymn . . . I wonder what my present is, this year?’ She turned to the chauffeur. ‘What did the other drivers do, Robson, whilst we were in church? What did Mr Hartley’s chauffeur do?’
Robson turned to her eagerly. ‘They walked, same as I did, Miss Sara. We must ha’ covered a couple of miles, I’d say. Mr Hartley’s man suggested the walk, an’ he said we looked like a brigade of guards, so smart in our uniforms, all marchin’ along the pavements swingin’ our arms to keep warm.’
Mr Hartley was very rich; he had a house in the South of France and his wife wore mink, wonderful sables and Paris dresses. Their daughter was being educated in Switzerland and their son was at Eton. None of this meant much to Sara, but she knew her mother always talked about the Hartleys with a sort of awe, as though they were special people, like the King and Queen, or the handsome young Prince of Wales. So she imagined that her parents would be pleased that Robson had followed the Hartley chauffeur’s lead.
Mr Cordwainer helped his wife into the vehicle, then pushed Sara in ahead of’ him. He said, through the glass panel once Robson had run round and jumped behind the wheel, ‘Oh well, if Hartley’s man went walking I suppose there can be no harm in it. Home, Robson.’
‘No, Robson,
not
home,’ Mrs Cordwainer interrupted pettishly. ‘Dear me, Adolphus, it’s Christmas Day! Drive to number three Snowdrop Street, Robson. We are to pick up Mrs Prescott at that address.’
The chauffeur touched his peaked cap and put the car into gear. He had started it as soon as they appeared so that the engine was purring softly when they reached the vehicle and now it moved slowly away from the kerb as Mrs Cordwainer leaned back against the dark leather upholstery and heaved a sigh.