Yes, Mama. Helen Forrester

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ I love ’im.’ The dark head with its frilled cap was raised proudly, as she paused, hand on banister, to look back at her fellow servant.

      Fanny opened the staircase window and leaned out to shake her duster. She laughed. ‘Aye, you’ve got it bad, you ’ave.’

      Polly sighed again. ‘Aye. I wish he didn’t ’ave to go to them furrin parts. The Missis told the Master as he’s goin’ back to India soon – he’s bin in Aldershot so long, I begun to think he’d be there always. It makes me sick to me stomach to think about them blackies in their turbans, with their guns.’

      When Edward did return to India, this time to the Punjab, Alicia began to get regular letters from her brother. He would invariably end them by sending his love to her and asking her to remember him kindly to Polly, who, he trusted, was well. In neat script, seven-year-old Alicia would equally invariably reply that Polly was well and sent her best respects.

      II

      In an effort to re-establish herself, Elizabeth had, about a year after Alicia’s birth, plunged into the fashionable world of charitable undertakings. The ladies of St Margaret’s Church found her so useful, when planning church bazaars, that they began to ignore the occasional innuendo which reached their ears about their fellow parishioner.

      With one or two other ladies from the church, she became a fund-raiser for the new Royal Infirmary and for the Sheltering Home for Destitute Children in Myrtle Street. She was occasionally snubbed, but a number of the ladies appreciated her hard work and, with them, she was sometimes asked to receptions given for the many important visitors who passed through Liverpool. Humphrey soon discovered that she was acquainted with the wives of men he would like to know, and he suppressed his smouldering anger with her sufficiently to be able to address her and encourage her to ask these people to dinner.

      A handsome, well-dressed woman in her forties, forced to deny her natural sensuality, she became, as the years went on, extremely peevish with those who served her.

      ‘Forever pickin’ on yez,’ Fanny complained to Polly, while they prepared the dining-room for a formal dinner in September, 1896. She pushed a mahogany chair more exactly in position at the glittering table. Quick and impatient, she could be nearly as irritable as Elizabeth was.

      ‘Aye,’ agreed Polly, ‘and I’ll get it if I don’t hurry. Got to collect Allie from Miss Schreiber’s.’

      ‘She’s risin’ eleven now. She’s old enough to take ’erself to school and back.’

      ‘The ould fella says as she’s to be escorted. I heard ’im. Gettin’ at her, he was, pickin’ on her for nothin’. Tryin’ to make things awkward for her. She said as Allie were old enough.’

      ‘Don’t want ’er to stray like her Mam,’ opined Fanny, positioning finger bowls round the table with mathematical precision. ‘It’s herself what needs escorting. She’s still fine lookin’.’

      ‘Fanny!’

      ‘Well, she’s forever trailin’ her petticoats afore one man or another. You watch her tonight.’

      ‘Nothin’ comes of it,’ Polly responded forcefully. ‘It’s just her way – and she must be all of fifty by now – an old woman. You shouldn’t say such things – and about a good Mistress an’ all.’

      ‘Aye, she’s quite good,’ agreed Fanny reluctantly. She turned to poke up the fire. ‘How do we know what comes of it? Anyway, who’s comin’ tonight?’

      ‘A professor and his missus and two other couples. They’re all at that big meeting in St George’s Hall. A real famous doctor come to talk to ’em. Read it in the paper. Name of Lister.’ Polly surveyed the table, set with Elizabeth’s best china and Bohemian cut glass. ‘Well, that’s done, anyways.’

      ‘Better snatch a cup o’ tea while we can,’ suggested Fanny, putting down the poker on its rest in the hearth.

      ‘Not me. I must run to get Allie.’

      III

      After school, Alicia sat by the kitchen fire, watching a harassed Mrs Tibbs baste a huge joint of beef, while Fanny stirred a cauldron of soup. Polly thrust a glass of milk into the child’s hand and told her that after she had drunk it she should go into the garden and do some skipping in the fresh air.

      ‘Do I have to?’

      ‘Aye, coom on, luv. I’ll come with yez and count your peppers for a mo’. Then I got to help Cook.’

      She put her arm round Alicia and together they went out of the back door, which led into a brick-lined area, and then up well-washed stone steps to the long, narrow walled garden. A straight, paved path ran from the area to a wooden door in the high, back wall. The wind was whirling the first autumn leaves along the path and over the lawn, and the single aspen tree at the far end shivered, as if it already felt the cold of winter. Opposite the tree, on the other lawn, stood an octagonal summerhouse, where Alicia occasionally played house with a little girl called Ethel, who also attended Miss Schreiber’s school. Nearer the house, an apple tree bore a crop of cooking apples almost ready for picking.

      At Polly’s urging, Alicia did a fast pepper, her skipping rope thwacking the path quicker and quicker. Polly counted, and they both laughed when Alicia finally tripped over the rope.

      ‘Seventy-two,’ shouted Polly.

      The latch on the back gate rattled suddenly, as it was lifted. A grubby face, topped by wildly tousled hair, peered cautiously round the door. A very thin boy, about eleven years old, entered like a cat on alien ground. His breeches were in the last stages of disintegration and were topped by a ragged jacket too large for him. He wore a red kerchief round his neck and was bare-legged and barefooted. Alicia smiled at him; he was Polly’s brother who came sometimes, when he was unemployed, to beg a piece of bread from her. Though he smelled like a wet dog, Alicia accepted him as part of her small world, as she did the coalman, the milkman and the postman.

      This visit was obviously different. The boy was blubbering like a brook in spate, and when he saw Polly he ran into her arms.

      ‘Why, Billy! What’s to do?’ She hugged him to her white, starched apron.

      ‘It’s Mam,’ he told her. ‘She’s took bad – real bad. Mary’s with her and Ma Fox from upstairs. Dad says to come quick.’

      Unaware that his sister had suckled both of them and was equally loved by Alicia, he ignored the girl and clutched at Polly.

      ‘Jaysus! What happened?’

      ‘She’s bin sick of the fever for nearly a week and she don’t know none of us any more.’

      Fever was a scary threat, and Alicia interjected impulsively, ‘Polly, you must go. I’ll do my homework while you’re away.’

      ‘I’ll have to ask your Mam. We got a dinner party.’ She looked down at the mop of hair on her shoulder and gently pushed the boy away from her. ‘Don’t grieve, luv. I’ll come, somehow.’

      Billy stepped back and wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. This left a dirty smear on either cheek.

СКАЧАТЬ