Our Lizzie (6 page)

Eva was a different kettle of fish entirely, a good little worker and the cleverest girl in the school. Alice Blake thought a lot of her and they had hoped she'd get to secondary school next year, but that was probably out of the question now. Life could be very hard at times.

He didn't allow himself to dwell on that. The world was full of troubles and let alone you couldn't take your pupils' troubles on yourself, there were worse cases than the Kershaws' in times like these: children who grew thinner by the week, who fell asleep over their lessons, who came to school hungry day after day. He'd asked the Council about getting up a subscription from the wealthier citizens of the town to provide free breakfasts for those in need, and the Mayor had given his approval, on condition that no food went to the undeserving whose parents drank up their earnings. But what the Council didn't know, the Council wouldn't worry about. Mr. Dacing wasn't going to refuse a pupil a meal because of a father's sins. He hated to see hunger in a child's eyes.

When he greeted the Kershaws, he noticed how tired the mother looked and how full of herself Lizzie was. “Please come this way, Mrs. Kershaw. May I offer you my sincere condolences on your loss? And those of my staff.”

“Thank you.” Meg's voice was a mere whisper. She felt intimidated by the headmaster, so tall and gentlemanly, with his white upright collar and dark suit. She had never liked coming here to the school, never, and had left it to Stanley whenever she could.

“How may I help you?” Mr. Dacing indicated a chair.

“I'd like—if you agree—my Lizzie's been offered a job, you see—but she needs your permission to—it's part-time, of course. She's only t-twelve, though she turns thirteen in March.”

He nodded and smiled encouragingly. “And where is this job?”

Lizzie could see that Mam had gone breathless, like she did sometimes when she was nervous. “It's at Dearden's, sir. Working in the shop.” She could not prevent a smile at the thought of it.

He was surprised. “I see. A good opportunity, Dearden's. Well, I only hope you'll apply yourself better there than you have done here, Lizzie.” His tone said he wasn't very optimistic about that.

She stifled a sigh. “Yessir.”

He went to the big cupboard at the back of the room and pulled out a piece of paper headed
PERMISSION TO WORK HALF-TIME,
smoothing it carefully as he laid it down on his blotter. There was always something very satisfying about making the first marks on a pristine sheet. He took out his new fountain pen, unscrewed it carefully and tested out the nib on his blotter, before beginning to write in immaculate copperplate script.

His two companions waited, not daring to interrupt.

When he had finished, Mr. Dacing passed the paper to Mrs. Kershaw. “You have to sign it.” She read it and nodded, then signed with the steel-nibbed ordinary pen he passed her. After that, he signed at the bottom, blotting the paper gently to make sure the ink was completely dry before he folded it, for he could not abide smudges.

He allus messes around, Lizzie thought, standing half behind her mother and glowering down at her shoes, which were hurting her after all the walking. He can't do nothin' quick, he can't.

“Listen to me, Lizzie.”

She jerked to attention. “Sir?”

“You are to work harder in future on your half-days at school.” He gestured to the piece of paper. “This doesn't mean you're stopping learning, you know. You'll still be coming here half-time.”

“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir.” But she would be able to learn real things at the shop, she thought, quickly cheering up. Not silly stuff like Miss Blake taught them.

“When is Lizzie required to start work, Mrs. Kershaw?” he asked, folding the paper carefully into three and slipping it into an envelope, before passing it to her.

“Tomorrow, if that's all right with you, Mr. Dacing? The sooner the better, really.”

*   *   *

Eva watched Lizzie come into the class and make her apologies to the teacher. They were both in the same standard because she was better at schoolwork than Lizzie was, but they didn't sit together. Eva sat next to Clara Grey at the back, with the top scholars, while her sister sat at the front where Miss Blake could keep an eye on her. And from now on Lizzie would be sitting with the part-timers at the side, which was even worse in her sister's opinion.

For a moment, looking at the sunshine streaming in through the tall, narrow windows, Eva wished she too had been out walking round town, then she looked down at her page and smiled. No, she didn't. It'd mean she'd have to go part-time and she didn't want to do that. She dipped the pen nib carefully into the ink and drew another stroke, enjoying the way the line of ink curved down the page.

“Very good, Eva,” Miss Blake's voice approved from behind her. “You're developing a fine hand.”

From behind the teacher's back, Lizzie beamed across the room and nodded her head vigorously to indicate success—till her deskmate jabbed her in the ribs.

Not wanting to get into trouble, Eva ignored her sister. Next year, she thought gloomily, she'd probably have to go part-time herself and sit at the side of the class as if she didn't matter any more. It wasn't fair. She wanted quite desperately to go to the secondary school. If her father hadn't been killed, he would have managed the fees and the cost of the uniform somehow, she knew that. It just wasn't
fair!

*   *   *

When Meg arrived home from the visit to the school, she made herself a cup of tea and allowed herself a ten-minute sit down, for she felt exhausted already. Just as she had poured the boiling water into her own little teapot, however, someone knocked on the front door. “Oh, bother!” she muttered and put a tea cosy over the pot.

At the door she found Mr. Beckins, the new manager from the brewery, with two men standing behind him, shuffling their feet and looking embarrassed. She scowled at them all impartially. If Mr. Beckins hadn't insisted on buying that horse, her Stanley would be alive now.

He nodded. “Mrs. Kershaw.”

She nodded back and folded her arms.

“I wonder if we could come in? I—we have something for you.”

She could guess what it was so she led the way into the parlour, feeling a pang as she went inside it. She was even going to lose this, the room that was her pride and joy, because the lodgers would want somewhere to sit. Manners obliged her to offer the men seats, but she kept Stanley's big armchair for herself, feeling comforted by the shape of it, as if he were still nearby, somehow, watching over her. “What can I do for you, Mr. Beckins?”

“I…” He cleared his throat. “That is, the owners of the brewery want you to take this.” He got up and walked across to press an envelope into her hand. “It's something to help you out till you get on your feet again.”

“I'll never get on my feet properly again without my Stanley,” she said, but took the envelope. Pride kept her from looking inside it, but she hoped they'd been generous.

Frank Beckins turned to one of the men. “Peter?”

“The lads took up a collection as well, Mrs. Kershaw,” he said, standing up and twisting his checked cap round in his big callused hands as he spoke. “We thought a lot of your Stanley.” He could not resist a sideways scowl at the new foreman. They none of them thought much of this new fellow and his penny-pinching ways, but he was thick as thieves with the owners. “So we'd like you to accept this, with our
sincere
sympathy.”

Meg accepted a second, heavier envelope, full of coins. “Thank you, Peter. I'm grateful to you all. Tell the men thank you for me. It's going to be a—a bit hard. With the children still so young.”

“But your Percy is, I believe, working at Pilby's?” Frank Beckins said, angry that she was not showing more gratitude. “At least you'll have a man's wage coming into the house still.”

“And my Percy was going to take a year on half-time, to get himself some more schooling. He won't be able to do that now, will he? And it's all
your
fault.” Suddenly Meg couldn't bear to see him sitting there in her parlour, looking down his nose at her. “If you hadn't insisted on buying that animal … my Stanley
told
you it was a bad 'un…” Her voice broke and she buried her head in her hands, sobbing.

Peter stared at the floor. She was right about that, and Beckins was still insisting on keeping that brute, which was just asking for trouble. It was the most edgy drayhorse he'd ever seen, for all its good looks. Twitched at the mere sight of a dog coming towards it in the street. No one liked driving it. Suddenly, hearing her sobbing, realising how much trouble his own wife would be in if anything happened to him—for none of their four children was near working age—he said gruffly, “We're getting rid of that horse.”

Meg gaped at him. “Is it still there? Haven't you had it put down?”

Beckins glared at them all. “That's a valuable animal. We can't just buy and sell horses all the time, or what would happen to the owners' profits?”

Meg's voice came out shrilly and she made no effort to moderate it. “And what are you going to do about the
next
man that brute kills? Or maybe it'll be one of the stable boys another time.”

Peter exchanged glances and nods with his companion. “Well, none of us'll drive it, Mrs. Kershaw. Nor shall we let the yard boys near it.”

Beckins coughed sharply. “This is
not
the time to discuss something like that!”

Peter stood up. “No, but I think Mrs. Kershaw deserves reassuring that we're going to get rid of it.” He bobbed his head awkwardly to Meg and walked towards the door, remembering with a shudder the mess the horse had made of Stanley's lower body.

Beckins gave her a sour look and followed him out.

Meg had to make a huge effort to force herself upright. “Please thank the owners for their kindness,” she said formally at the front door, but as she turned to Peter, her voice softened. “And thank the men, too. For everything.”

When she had shut the door behind them, she trailed into the kitchen and freshened up her tea with some hot water, before opening the envelope.

“Five pounds! The mean devils! Is that all the value the owners set on my Stanley's life?”

The other envelope, from the men, contained over ten pounds, much of it in loose change. She was touched, knowing how much it had cost men who had their own families to look after to give so generously.

She felt a bit shaky still, after her anger, and her breath was rasping in her throat as it did sometimes, but the money was comforting, sitting there in little piles on the table. Then she remembered suddenly that someone had stolen her purse from this very room and scooped the coins into her apron, rushing upstairs to hide this money in her best hat box.

“I'll have to get on or the children will be home for their dinner,” she muttered afterwards as she finished drinking the last of the stewed tea. But it was a while before she started her housework. What was the point? What was the point of anything now?

*   *   *

At dinner time, the two sisters walked home together, with Lizzie boasting of all she had seen in the shop and how much she was looking forward to working there. Eva was silent over the meal, and when they met some other girls on the way back to afternoon school, she managed to drop behind a bit and get away from Lizzie's talk about the shop. She didn't feel like chatting. She felt plain miserable about everything.

That afternoon, when the final bell rang, the pupils tidied up their desks enthusiastically and rushed off as soon as Miss Blake nodded permission. Eva gestured to Lizzie to go ahead without her and lingered. She didn't want to go home and have her mother weep all over her again. So she rearranged the books on a shelf and dusted the window ledge absent-mindedly.

“No home to go to, Eva?”

She jumped in shock. “Ooh! I didn't hear you come back in, miss.”

Alice Blake hesitated. You shouldn't have favourites, but she couldn't help it with this child. If she had ever had a daughter—which she hadn't and never would now that she was forty-five—she'd have wanted one like this. Clever and yet gentle. Thoughtful, too. “Are you all right, dear?”

Eva nodded, but to her dismay, tears suddenly flooded her eyes.

Alice looked down at the big blue eyes, bright with tears, and was betrayed into giving her pupil a quick hug, something she would not normally have done. But the girl was suffering. You got them every now and then, special ones like Eva. As if God had given you a reward for all the “unspecial” ones you had to deal with the rest of the time.

“Did I get on the list for going to secondary school, miss? Did Mr. Dacing say it was all right?”

“Of course you got on the list.”

“I won't be able to go there now, but—I'd like to think I was good enough. So could you leave my name on the list, please?”

Alice Blake nodded.

“Don't tell Mam, though, will you? She'll only ask you to cross my name out, say it's a waste of time.”

“No, I won't withdraw your name.”

“I bet I'll have to go part-time next year, like our Lizzie,” Eva whispered, staring down at her clenched hands. “But I want to go to secondary school and learn to be a teacher, like you. I want it so
much
. It's just not fair!”

“We'll have to see if we can think of something before then.” She felt sure Eva would be offered a scholarship to secondary school—the child was quite exceptional. It would be a crying shame if she lost her one big chance to make something of her life.

Frowning, Alice Blake decided to go and see her old friend, Mavis Pilby, to ask whether the family could see their way to doing anything to help this most deserving case. The Pilbys did a lot of good in this town—well, they owned half of it, didn't they?—so why not seek their help for Eva? And she could talk to the manager of the brewery. Mr. Kershaw had worked there a long time. Surely they'd be prepared to help the children?