“Look at that,” she said, nodding down at the girls, “two little apple-heads.”
Meghan giggled into Molly’s lap. Danny laughed. “They really were ever so big, the apples we had. You ask Aunt Annie. Some of them you couldn’t hold in your hand, honest you couldn’t. Aunt Annie cooked them in a lovely pudding, in a pot over an open fire like the gypsies. And we slept on straw. And I picked hops into a big umbrella, and Aunt Annie gave me a shilling. Did you know that when you pick hops your fingers go all black and funny-tasting? Sort of bitter. Nice, though—”
“How old do you be to go hop picking?” Meg asked ungrammatically. “When can I go?”
Molly shook her head. “Oh, well, I really don’t—”
“Girls wouldn’t be any good at it,” Danny interrupted scornfully, conveniently ignoring the fact that half the children in the hop gardens had been just that. “There’s spiders and beetles and great big green caterpillars that you don’t see until you’ve squashed them in your fingers…”
Kitty, within the circle of her mother’s arm, flinched.
“Aunt Annie goes,” Meghan said firmly. “She told me she’d been every single year since she was a baby. And she was a girl.”
“Aunt Annie’s different,” Danny retorted.
“Aunt Annie,” said a new voice from the doorway, “is very pleased to hear it. Some’d probably mean it less flattering. Hello, young Danny. Recovered, have you?” She grinned down at the boy who had run to her, tousled his hair with her long, bony hand. “You’ve got a real worker here, you know, Moll. Fingers to the bone stuff.” She winked down at Danny, who flushed hotly. Aunt Annie’s one and only defect was her tendency to sarcasm.
“I found one or two things of Danny’s packed in with ours,” she said, dumping a paper parcel onto the table. “Thought I might as well bring them round straight away. Didn’t actually expect to find you here, though. I thought it was your day at the office. Isn’t Nancy supposed to be here on Mondays?”
“Yes it is. And yes, she is,” Molly said a little shortly. “But our Nancy had other things to do today. The sooner I can get something sorted out the better—” She gestured at the open books on the table.
“You haven’t mentioned it to Jack, then yet?”
“No.”
“You’ll have to, you know, sooner or later. You never know, he might jump at the idea: nice, big house in Plaistow.”
“He’ll say we can’t afford it”
“And can you?”
“With the money the agency’s earning, yes.”
“Ah.” Annie flopped into a chair. “I see the problem. And where’s Nancy? Marching up and down with a banner somewhere?”
“Something like that. Gone to listen to one of the Pankhursts, I think.”
Annie arched fine-drawn eyebrows. “She’s really been bitten by the bug, hasn’t she?”
“To the exclusion of almost everything else, I sometimes think. I expected her ages ago. With her away I’m stuck with this—” she flicked at the page she had been working on “—and the children as well. I feel like writing a nice polite little note to the prime minister asking him please to give women the vote so that I can have my assistant back!”
Annie, smiling her wide smile, drew Kitty up onto her knee. “All seems like a lot of hot air to me. Votes for women? That’ll be the day. The old world’s run by men for men, isn’t it, Danny boy?” She poked the boy in the ribs. “They’re not about to give any of it up just for the askin’, are they? Stands to reason. Waste of time, all this talkin’.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that.” Molly leaned back in her chair, one hand absently fondling Meghan’s mass of hair. “I agree with them. I hope they win, though I don’t think it’ll happen until the majority of men have the vote. I just wish that Nancy hadn’t joined the Cause quite so wholeheartedly. I’ve a business to run, and with John Marsden retiring it’s going to get worse. I need more help, not less.”
Annie looked closer at the tired face, the harassed eyes, then asked, indicating the paper strewn on the table, “You trying to work now?”
“I am. Some hopes.”
“Right.” Briskly Annie clapped her hands. “Come on, kids, get your things. You can come and give your Aunt Annie a hand in the shop. How’d you like that?”
The girls’ faces lit with pleasure. “Yes, please!” said Danny.
Molly shook her head, protested half-heartedly, “Oh, no, Annie. I couldn’t let you do that.”
“Rubbish,” Annie said cheerfully. “We’d love to have them.”
“Well, if you’re sure?”
“’Course I’m sure. Go on, Danny love, get the girls’ coats.”
“I haven’t even made you a cup of tea.”
Annie stood up. “Couldn’t have stopped anyway. Charley’s all right on his own for a little while, but I don’t like to leave him for too long.”
“It’s incredible how he manages.” Molly buttoned the impatient Meghan into her sailor-collared coat; Kitty stood quietly holding hers, waiting her turn.
“He’s a game lad, my Charley,” Annie said softly, her eyes upon the bright faces of the children.
“Are you certain he won’t mind this lot descending on him like a plague on Egypt?”
“No. He won’t mind.”
Molly did not miss the undertone of sadness in the simple words. The fact that Annie and Charley had no children was not, she knew, of their own choosing. “Well, there they are,” she said. “If you’re sure?”
“Right. They can stay to tea. What time’s Jack due?”
“I’m not sure. These last weeks they’ve had to go downriver for work – Tilbury, Northfleet. He’s back at all times.”
“Well, at least you’ll get some peace and quiet Come on, troops, quick march—”
Molly watched them down the street. Only Kitty turned to wave. The other two danced around Annie, laughing and shouting as they hurried through the autumn rain.
The tiny house, as she shut the door, sang with blessed quiet. The tick of the clock was clearly audible in the silence. Peace. For a few hours at least.
With a breathed prayer of thanks to Aunt and Guardian Angel Annie, Molly went back to her books.
* * *
It was almost three hours later and close to the time when Jack might reasonably be expected home that Molly heard the back door open and close quietly. She leaned back in her chair, stretching cramped muscles, guiltily aware that in her absorption she had not finished the preparations for supper.
“Is that you, Jack?”
“No. It’s me.” Nancy’s voice. Molly breathed a small, relieved sigh. She got up and walked to the door of the scullery.
“Where on earth have you been? I thought—” she stopped, her eyes wide. “In God’s name, Nancy, what’s happened to you?”
Nancy half-leaned, half-sat upon the kitchen table. She was soaking wet; in her hand she held a shoe, the heel of which was missing. Her coat was muddy, her hat gone, her hair, obviously very hastily re-pinned, was tumbling untidily around her coat collar. The thin face was flushed, the dark eyes bright as candles in the dim-lit room.
“It’s started, Molly, started at last They won’t stop us now.”
Molly stared. “Nancy, what are you talking about? Where have you been? What have you been doing? You look as if you’ve been in a fight—”
“I have. I did this,” she said, brandishing the broken shoe, “on a policeman’s helmet. They’re harder than you’d think, those helmets.”
“A policeman’s – you’ve been fighting with a policeman?”
“A squad of them. An army of them. Oh, Molly, you should have been there. It was wonderful! We got into the Central Lobby of the House of Commons, and Mrs Pankhurst and a couple of others jumped up onto a settee and started to speak. That was when the police came, and tried to throw us out.”
“Oh, my God.” Molly sat down hard on a painted kitchen chair.
“They wouldn’t allow u
s to speak. They evicted us by force, carried us out. But we didn’t go easily, I can tell you. Ten women were arrested. They should have arrested us all! I’ve a mind to—”
“Nancy!”
Nancy seemed for the first time to register that Molly’s reaction to her story was not one of wholehearted admiration.
Molly stood up. “I’m expecting Jack at any minute,” she said, “I’ve been working all afternoon and I haven’t got supper ready. The children aren’t home from Annie’s yet and are going to be late for bed. Jack isn’t going to like any of those things. And tonight I have to talk to him. About John’s retirement. The house. The business. Oh, Nancy, how could you?”
“You haven’t asked him yet?”
Molly shook her head. “It has to be tonight. I’ve put it off too long already. John Marsden needs to know if we’ll take the house, or if he has to give notice to the landlord to find someone else. And if Jack walks through that door and finds you in this state, and guesses where you’ve been – I suppose the story’s all over London by now?”
“I should think so.”
“—then there will be hell to pay, and me to pay it. I’m sorry, but you know it’s so. God knows what he’d say if he saw you like this. You’ll have to leave before he comes.”
“Of course. I’m sorry. I know Jack doesn’t approve of the cause. To be honest with you, I just popped in to ask if – well, if I could just tidy up a bit before I went home? I don’t really want Mam to see me looking like this.” She had the grace to look a little shamefaced, and Molly, relenting, laughed and pushed her towards the door which led to the stairs.
“I should think so too. You look like something the cat dragged in. Upstairs. Our bedroom, in the front. But do, please, be quick.”
She was peeling potatoes with ink-stained fingers over the big, chipped sink when Nancy reappeared much tidier and with most of the more obvious damage either hidden or repaired. Nancy dropped an impulsive kiss on her sister-in-law’s cheek.
“Thanks, Molly. Sorry to have bothered you. Good luck with Jack.” She lifted a gentle finger to Molly’s black hair and wound a silky tendril around her finger. “Not that you need luck. Not with our Jack. He’s still as soft on you as the day you married. A bit of Irish blarney and we’ll all be living in that nice house before you can say ‘knife’.”
Molly lifted cold, water-roughened hands. “I wish I could be so sure.”
The austere, boyish face broke into a smile, but Nancy said no more. She pulled her shabby coat round a frame that had thinned to gauntness; the garment hung loose as she buttoned it. Nancy could never be persuaded to spend the money she earned on herself.
Molly dropped a potato into a pot that was now, thankfully, almost full. “See you tomorrow then.”
“Yes. Oh, by the way—” halfway to the door Nancy stopped, “I almost forgot. Mam said that a gentleman was down home looking for you the other day. That lawyer. I’ve forgotten his name. The one who dealt with Sam’s will?”
“Mr Ambler.”
“That’s it.”
“What did he want?”
“He wouldn’t say. Anyway, Mam gave him this address, so I expect you’ll be hearing from him. Do you think Ellen’s found a way round the will after all this time?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. It would please her spite. Well, she’s welcome if she has. I can afford it if they want me to give it back. I wouldn’t mind at all. It would be as if Sam had lent me the money to get started and now I was paying it back, and that would be the end of that. I almost hope she has.”
From the front of the house came the sound of a key in the lock. Molly hastily flung salt into the potatoes and swung the heavy pot onto the stove. Nancy, finger to lips, slipped through the back door and shut it quietly behind her.
Molly untied her grubby apron and patted her hair, which had grown long now and coiled demurely and fashionably at the nape of her neck, though the wild curls still refused to behave entirely properly, wisping around her face and neck no matter how hard she combed and pinned them. Then with lifted chin and bright smile she prepared for battle.
* * *
The small, smoky room was quiet. The only sound was the rhythmic ticking of the clock, the only movement that of the pendulum and the leaping flames in the hearth. Jack sat, pipe in hand, in the big chair opposite her on the other side of the tiny fireplace. Neither had spoken for several minutes. Silence shrouded the room, yet it seemed to Molly that she could still hear the passionate echoes of her own voice, arguing, reasoning, pleading. Jack had brought against her every single argument that she had expected and prepared for, and a couple that she had not.
Now, with no more to be said, she waited.
Jack stirred. In the restless light of the fire his hair and moustache gleamed gold. His eyes, shadowed deep in their sockets, she could not see.
“It’s a lot of brass, lass,” he said quietly, “to be found, week in, week out.”
“I know it.” How many times had she heard it this evening?
At least he hadn’t yet said an outright no. Molly leaned eagerly forward. “But we wouldn’t be paying for this place, remember. And if The Larches goes to someone else, Nancy and I would have to find other premises for the agency, pay rent on them—” or give it up. She would not say it, would not think it “And if Nancy takes the attic rooms I told you about – the housekeeper’s rooms – then she’d pay her bit. Oh, Jack, think how convenient it would be: Nancy and me under one roof, the house, the business, the children – everything. It would be so much easier. We wouldn’t be far from your Mam, or Charley—” She had been determined not to start again, but she could not stop. “Just look at this place! ’Tis the size of a tea caddy! Isn’t it just stupid to stay here when we could afford something better? Even if it’s a bit of a struggle at first? We’d have a parlour, a proper one, and a dining room, and a kitchen that’s bigger than this room and the scullery put together! The children could have a bedroom each. And the office and typing pool are completely separate. You wouldn’t be bothered by it. If we don’t take the house – if someone else does—” The thought of what might happen then had been scurrying around her head like a caged mouse ever since John Marsden had finally made the definite announcement of his retirement. Not that his plan to leave the business and join his sister in Southend had been any great surprise; he was no longer young, and the work as the Venture Employment Bureau had grown beyond all expectations was demanding. It had been one of those inevitables that had been pigeonholed in a busy life to be thought about tomorrow; and now tomorrow was upon her. Only Jack’s agreement stood between her and the fulfilment of an ambition that had been born on the day that John Marsden had shown her to her first box-room of an office. She had long outgrown that room.
Now, she shared the big office with John, was only a step away from making it her own entirely.
Jack leaned forward and tapped his pipe out into the fire. He sat for a moment, elbows on knees, frowning thoughtfully into the blaze. “It’s a lot of brass,” he said again, “a lot.”
“I know it is!” Frustration and anxiety curdled to anger. She tried, only partly successfully, to keep the wild impatience from her voice. “But we can afford it, Jack. It isn’t as if John were asking me to buy him out of the business – that would be more difficult. But he isn’t. All we have to do is to take the tenancy of the house and pay him an agreed percentage of the agency’s profits each year. And it’s such a lovely house. I know we’d be happy there.” She stopped. Jack had turned his head and was watching her intently, the sharp blue eyes roaming her face, studying it, feature by feature. Red light flickered and danced on the deep scar that ran from cheekbone to jaw on the left side of his face. She could not fathom the thoughts behind that suddenly intense gaze, yet some hope, some small excitement lifted. “Please, Jack,” she said.
He looked at her for one long moment longer, then said heavily, “I can’t pretend I like the idea of using your money.”
<
br /> She could have cried. “Our money. Our money. What does it matter who earns it? I don’t think you realize just how well the agency is doing.”
“Oh, I realize it all right. I’m not daft, nor blind. And I’ll tell you something else. I’m proud of it. Proud of you.”
She could not believe her ears. “Jack—”
“And I suppose that if John Marsden’s posh house in Plaistow’s what you want, and the chance to run the whole shooting match on your own, then by God we’ll have to see if we can manage it.”
“Jack!” Molly launched herself across the space between them, wound her arms about his neck, kissed his eyes, his nose, his scarred cheek.
“Hey up! Wait a bit, wait a bit. There’s a condition.”
“Condition?” Her head came up sharply. “What condition?”
“You’ll have to give me your sworn word that you’ll keep our Nancy and her half-witted suffragist friends away from me.”
She laughed. “I will.”
“Then we’ll try it.”
She was on his lap, curled into the big chair on top of him; she buried her hands in his thick hair and kissed him, long and slow, felt the ripples of it through his body.
“Thank you,” she said. And as she tried to lift her head his arms went around her, forcing her to him, his mouth hard on hers. His fingers were at the pins that held her hair, then, more impatiently, at the tiny buttons of her bodice. His big hands took her shoulders, held her a little way from him so that he could look at her in the firelight. She shook her head sharply and her hair fell about her naked shoulders. She was trembling; the hard skin of his hands was rough on her smooth, warm body. She slipped from his lap and down to the floor in front of the fire. He towered above her, the bulk of him dark, highlights of bone and muscle lit by the dying flames.
She held up her arms, smiling.
Molly Page 28