Katy's Men (7 page)

Vera
Spargo loomed in the doorway, tall and rake-thin, with a pointed nose and beady black button eyes that ran over Katy from head to toe. Then that sharp gaze flicked to Ivor instead and she ordered him, ‘You behave yourself. Do you hear?’

He
muttered, ‘Yes, Ma.’ He was no longer swaggering but submissive and wary. When his mother jerked her head at him in dismissal, he dropped Katy’s case at her feet and slouched away. Vera said contemptuously, ‘Him and his father, both the same — slipshod. But you’ll find things different in here. I run the house.’ Katy was to learn that Vera ran the business as well. But now the little eyes swept Katy again: ‘You’ll need to tidy yourself up, lass. I’ll stand for no scruffiness in here. That’s one of the reasons I sacked the last girl. But you’ll dress plain, nothing to catch the men’s eyes.’ Her own dress which brushed the floor was unrelieved black and the white apron over it was starched and crisp, sterile. She went on, ‘You’ll have no trouble of that sort in the house, though. Speak a word to me and I’ll stop it. And if I catch you at it, I’ll put you out on the street where you belong.’ The black eyes glittered with menace.

Katy
answered, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘
Fetch your case.’ Then Vera warned, ‘But after this you use the kitchen door and the back stairs.’ The hall inside the door held a coatstand with one lady’s coat, an umbrella and a walking stick. A wide carpet ran from the front door to the back of the house and also up the stairs. The floor on either side of the carpet gleamed with polish.

Vera
led the way up the stairs. The bedrooms of the family were on the first floor but Vera went on to the landing at the top of the house and Katy followed, carrying the case. The house appeared immaculate to Katy’s eyes, so far as she could see. But Vera sniffed and complained, ‘There’s plenty needs doing. I’ve only had dailies in to help Rita and after a day or two they don’t come back.’ Four rooms opened out of the landing and these were the servants’ quarters. Vera pointed at one: ‘That’s Rita’s, and Cook is next door to her. They’re both working in the kitchen at the moment. You’re the youngest so you’ll do as they say if I’m not about. Otherwise, I give the orders and set out the duties.’ She threw open one of the other doors. ‘You’re in here. Put on your working clothes and be down in the kitchen in ten minutes. As I said, there’s plenty to do.’ And she swept off down the stairs like a black shadow.

The
room held a bed and a small chest of drawers. A string stretched across one corner, so clothes could be hung on it, served as a wardrobe. The narrow bed had a strip of threadbare carpet alongside it, otherwise the floor was bare, but scrubbed white. Katy guessed who would do the scrubbing. She laid her case on the foot of her bed, opened it and got out an old dress for work. She changed quickly then paused for a second or two to peer out of the window. She looked out over the smoking chimneys of the town and the cranes of the shipyards and thought that there was some advantage in living on the top floor. But it would be icy cold in the winter. Then she remembered Vera Spargo was waiting for her and hurried downstairs.

Vera
greeted her at the foot of them, ‘Come on!’ She beckoned with a finger like a claw and Katy followed her as she started back through the house, pointing to her right then left, ‘Drawing-room, dining-room, master’s study, my
boodwar
.
’
She pushed open the door at the end of the passage and they entered the kitchen. Scullery and kitchen ran the width of the house. ‘Cook’ was Mrs Cullen, round faced, with flyaway grey hair and beaming vaguely. The ‘Mrs’ was a courtesy title which went with the office of cook; in fact she was a spinster. Rita might have been forty or sixty and was sullen and pouting. Vera said, ‘This is Katy. Start her on the vegetables.’ And left.

Cook
said, with an absent smile, ‘Show her, Rita, there’s a good lass.’

Rita
threw aside the mop she was using to wash the floor and muttered bad-temperedly, ‘In here.’ Katy found herself in the scullery with a sink, knife and sacks of potatoes and greens.

In
the next hour or so she worked under Cook or Rita and learned from both — separately. Cook complained, ‘You’re just the latest. None o’ the lasses stay for long. That Rita, she only keeps on ‘cause she’s frightened she’ll never get another job.’

Rita
whined that: ‘Cook, she’s been sacked from most o’ the houses in the town. The bottle, y’know.’ She mimed drinking. ‘Rum when she can get it, owt else when she can’t. Vera keeps her on because she’s cheap and the men won’t touch her. They won’t touch me, neither.’ She sniggered, ‘Wish they would.’

Both
said that Vera ran the house — and the two men: ‘She wears the trousers and they do as they’re told. Like us. And that stick she keeps by the front door, she uses it on anybody that gets on the wrong side of her.’ Rita hoisted up her skirts to show the leg above her black stocking marked by a livid bruise: ‘That was done by her and her stick!’

At
six Cook looked up at the kitchen clock. ‘Katy, you tell Mrs Spargo that dinner is just about ready.’ So Katy walked through the hall and found Vera standing at the front door. She delivered her message and Vera nodded without turning. Katy could see past her into the yard and now it was full of vehicles. There were another three carts lined up beside those previously there and outside the workshop stood two steam lorries with their huge iron wheels, and tall chimneys giving off a drift of smoke from their coal-fired engines. As Katy watched a third turned in at the gate, its driver sitting behind the big locomotive boiler which ran across the front of it. There was a smell of smoke and oil and hot metal mingling with the ammoniac odour of manure coming from the stables.

Vera
said with gloating satisfaction, ‘That’s a Yorkshire steam wagon coming in and that’s the last of them. They’re all ours and they’re all home now. Sometimes the lorries aren’t back till long after dark, if they’re carrying a load to Shields or Durham.’ Then she repeated what Ivor had told Katy:
And
we’ve got a bigger yard than this in Yorkshire. But I grew up here, and here I’m staying.’ She continued to watch as the drivers shut down their charges and dismounted, called to each other across the yard. One by one they reported to Arthur Spargo where he stood by the office, then walked out between the gates on their way home. As the last of them left, Vera turned away, but sneered, ‘He’s standing there like the boss but if it hadn’t been for me pushing him he’d still be working out of a back lane with one horse and cart! Him and Ivor, they’re stick-in-the-muds, the pair of them.’

Katy
helped Rita to serve the dinner to the Spargos in the dining-room, then cleared up after it. By now Cook was sprawled in a chair before the kitchen stove with a glass in her hand, her speech thickened and face sweating. The work was left to the two maids and it was close to midnight when Katy locked her door and crept into her bed by the light of a candle. Nervous and physical exhaustion brought sleep soon, but in the few minutes before it claimed her images flickered through her brain like those she had seen in the silent films: her father sending her away, the Spargos, Cook and Rita. But she was determined she would not break and run. She would never go back to her father again, nor fall into vagrancy, whatever dreadful fate that might mean — or go to the workhouse. She would make a better life for herself, somehow.•

It
was a determination difficult to hold to. Rita was a hard-working maid under Vera’s eye but idle out of it —and no cook. So Katy had to cook when Mrs Cullen was unfit for duty, drunk and insensible. This was on top of her other duties. Then the Spargo men both attempted to fondle her but she immediately threatened, ‘I’ll tell Mrs Spargo.’ Somewhat to her surprise, they always retreated, grumbling, ‘No harm in a bit o’ fun!’ Or some similar complaint. It proved they were afraid of Vera, but they always tried again and the threat was always there. So Katy often went to her bed afraid, despite the lock on the door, and despairing of any improvement in her life. She slept in spite of her misery, the sleep of exhaustion, falling into bed every night, worn out, and was unconscious in seconds. Relief came only after three hard months which seemed like three years.

‘
To hell with him! He’ll not tell me how to run my business!’ Arthur Spargo fumed as he sat down to the mid-day meal. He had just sacked his clerk after an exchange of Insults.

Vera
Spargo said acidly, ‘Somebody has to. You’ll have to replace him.’

Arthur
grumbled, ‘That won’t be easy, the money they’re wanting these days. It could take me weeks to find the right feller.’

Katy
was leaning between Vera and Ivor to set a dish of potatoes on the table and she skipped away as she felt his hand on her leg. She said, ‘Mrs Spargo?’ And Ivor looked scared for a moment.

Vera
glared at her, outraged. ‘How dare you! Speak when you’re spoken to — and till then you keep your mouth shut! Have you got that into your thick head?’

Katy
swallowed her anger. ‘Yes, Mrs Spargo.’

‘
I should hope so. I don’t know what the world’s coming to, with lasses like you putting your oar in.’

Katy
said, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Spargo.’ But she did not retreat.

Vera,
mollified, said, ‘That’s better.’ Then remembering: ‘What did you want, anyway?’

Katy
ventured, ‘I think I could do the books for Mr Spargo. I worked in an office for three years before I came here.’

‘
Did you now?’ Vera raised her eyebrows. ‘I wonder why you left?’ But she did not press the matter when Katy remained silent, but glanced at Arthur and told him, ‘You might as well give her a try.’

He
protested, jowls wobbling, ‘What — a lass?’

‘
Why not?’ demanded Vera. ‘If I can run this business better than you, the lass could well manage better than the feller you sacked. Besides, she’s on the doorstep and she’ll be cheaper.’

That
appealed to Arthur. ‘Aye, all right.’

So
the next morning Katy carried out her normal duties of cleaning out grates and lighting fires, sweeping and dusting. But before the men arrived for work she was seated at the desk under the window in the office. She found that all she had to do was follow the ways of her predecessor. Inside of a week, Arthur was satisfied. ‘Right, I’ll keep you on. You can work for me instead o’ the missus.’

There
was a brief argument when Katy insisted she should give up all her housework. Rita wanted her to continue with some of it but Katy found an unusual ally in Vera, who ruled, ‘The business comes first. We’ll be taking on another lass as a maid and she will do the housework. Until she arrives, Rita will have to cope.’

Katy
was closer to happiness than she had ever been since Charles Ashleigh had left her. It was as well she could not see into the future.

Chapter
Six

ALDERSHOT. SEPTEMBER 1907.

Corporal
Matthew Ballard, Army Service Corps, stepped out of the barrack room onto the verandah and paused to look out over the bare expanse of the square. He squinted into the evening sunshine, watching the mounting of the guard with a bawling of orders and rattle of rifle drill. To one side of the square lay the vehicle park and the big sheds which housed the tractors and lorries . . . There were a lot of them because it was the job of his company to evaluate them for use by the Army.

The
file of men that was the guard marched off the square, heading for the guardroom and their duty. Matt started down the stairs, a tall, wide-shouldered young man now, with dark eyes and a thatch of black hair cut short by the Army’s barber. His parents had died of cholera in India and he had been raised by the Army in the Duke of York’s School at Dover. From there he had entered the Army Service Corps and worked on and with tractors, for some years in South Africa. He had returned to join this company when it was formed in 1903.

He
carried himself like the soldier he was as he marched round the square and out of the barracks. In the married quarters he saw Eunice Taylor, the pretty daughter of a sergeant-major, passing on the opposite pavement. He swung his hand up to his cap in a salute and smiled. Eunice blushed and returned the smile but Matt marched on.

He
found his friend in the married quarters. Corporal Joe Docherty, thin, leathery brown and a head shorter than Matt, stood by the horse-drawn cab at his front door. He grinned as Matt came up and said, ‘Off in a minute. Just waiting for the missus.’

Matt
nodded, ‘Aye.’

Joe
was an older man by ten years or more. He had taken Matt under his wing when the boy moved up to man’s service, and had been like a father to him. Joe was leaving the service partly because he had finished his engagement, partly because he had amassed a comfortable sum running a crown and anchor board, which was illegal in the eyes of the Army, but Joe had not been caught. Mainly he was leaving because his wife had said she was tired of living in a succession of married quarters and wanted to settle down. Now he said, ‘If you ever want a job, just drop me a line.’ Joe was going to buy a lorry and start his own business. As he put it, unconsciously repeating Ivor Spargo some three hundred miles away, ‘Shifting furniture or anything else, anywhere.’

Matt
grinned, ‘I’ll think about it.’

Joe
’s wife came out then, a pretty but faded woman. She had a smile for Matt and they all said their farewells, the two men monosyllabic, with nothing to say now because they had said it all before. They shook hands, then Joe and his wife rolled away in the cab and Matt strode away. He had a good idea where he would find Eunice.