Our Lizzie

by Anna Jacobs

  Johnny squirmed, but was held fast, and shaken again for good measure when he did not immediately apologise. Fear had now replaced the impudent expression.

  “Thanks, Sam. He can be a bit of a handful sometimes.” Lizzie beamed up at their rescuer.

  Eeh, Sam thought, that smile lights up her whole face. It’s a pity she doesn’t smile more often. “My pleasure, lass.” He turned to look down at the boy. “I’m still waiting to hear that apology, you.”

  Johnny wriggled, but the hand was firm on his neck. “Sorry.”

  “I couldn’t quite hear that.”

  “I said I were sorry!” He glared at his sisters as he spoke, though.

  “Right, then. And don’t let me hear you talking to any lasses like that again. Where do you think you are, using such foul language?”

  Johnny shrugged.

  Sam let go of his collar and turned to offer an arm to each girl. “May I escort you young ladies home?”

  Grateful to be spared a confrontation with her younger brother, Lizzie giggled and dropped him a mock curtsey. “We’d be delighted, kind sir.” She took his arm.

  Polly moved to Sam’s other side, but didn’t take his arm, just began walking along beside him, staring down at the ground and stealing the occasional glance sideways when he wasn’t looking.

  “Now, tell me what you’ve been doing with yourselves?” But it was Lizzie Sam was looking at, Lizzie whom he encouraged to speak, listening with a flattering attentiveness to what she said and asking her questions about the shop.

  And for once, she felt happy to see him. This was the first time a man had ever treated her as grown-up enough to be offered an arm and she rather liked the feeling.

  Polly didn’t say a word the whole way home. But she worried a lot. Why was Sam Thoxby fussing over Lizzie like this? What did he want? Because she’d noticed, if no one else had, that Sam only fussed over you when he wanted something from you.

  * * *

  At the house, they found Emma Harper in the front room, in attendance on their mother who was lying exhausted on the sofa, whimpering from time to time. Percy, who had just returned, was sitting in the kitchen and making no attempt to help. He’d not have come home at all if it hadn’t been for the other children being due back and the need to protect them.

  Scenting a scandal, Sam accepted Lizzie’s invitation to come in and have a cup of tea.

  Percy seconded the invitation warmly. “Could you make us all a cup of tea, love?” he asked Lizzie. “Mam’s had a funny turn. Eva’s gone to stay the night at Miss Blake’s house. And I reckon you’d better know what it’s all about. You see…”

  “Oh, crikey!” said Lizzie, when he’d finished. “Mam will never agree to that.”

  “I think she will,” Percy said thoughtfully. “In time.” If not, he’d do something to make her, he would that.

  “Well, I wish I could go and stay with Miss Blake for a few days, too. It’s going to be murder here with her having hysterics all over the place.”

  * * *

  It took a month to wear down Meg Kershaw’s resistance. Eva returned home and everyone tried to behave as if things were normal, but they weren’t. Polly often sported a reddened cheek and wept into her pillow. Johnny, too, suffered indiscriminate slaps, but just shrugged them off. And one day Meg raised her hand to Lizzie in the kitchen, but dropped it again when the girl raised her own hand back and glared at her, saying, “I meant it, you know!”

  In the end, Percy went out with Sam and fortified himself with a couple of drinks and some friendly encouragement.

  “Your thumping the children has got to stop,” he announced to his mother from the doorway when he came home. “If it doesn’t, I’ll not only leave home, I’ll take them with me.”

  He’d threatened that before, but he’d never said it in such a forceful way, never looked at her as if he hated her. Fear shivered through Meg. Somehow she believed his threat this time. And she’d never manage without Percy’s wages.

  “It’s all that Lizzie’s fault,” she muttered. “She cheeks me all the time.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  “And now you want to take Eva away from me.”

  “She’s definitely going.”

  Meg sat sobbing quietly into her handkerchief. “It’s all gone wrong since Stanley died. I wish I’d died with him, I do that.” She sometimes thought about killing herself, she really did.

  He didn’t go over to sit beside her. Sam had said he should give her a slap or two to make sure she understood who was boss, but Percy wasn’t like that. He could never have hit a woman. All he wanted was a peaceful life. And the only times he really felt at peace now were when he went off to his evening classes or took tea with the Harpers. Even that caused trouble with his mother, though, who didn’t like him going up to the attic.

  After a while, when the silence had dragged on and Percy’s expression hadn’t altered, Meg gave in. “All right, then. Eva can go and live with that woman.”

  “I knew you’d see sense, Mam.” Percy forced himself to take her in his arms, which he knew she wanted, and just held her close for a minute, patting her back gently. “You always lose your children as they grow up, you know.”

  You lose everyone, she thought, everyone who’s dear to you anyway. But she’d still got Percy, thank heavens. And would make sure she kept him.

  * * *

  Sam had been heartened to find that Lizzie was not with Jack Dearden in the park, but he kept an eye on the situation and saw the two of them together once or twice on other Sundays. There was a comfortable look to them that made his hands clench into fists, but he had no intention of letting a mere strip of a lad steal a girl who was old enough now to start courting, especially when that lad was Peter bloody Dearden’s brother. Sam had waited long enough for Lizzie to grow up. Now it was time to act.

  He took to walking in the park himself on fine Sundays. He found a bench which gave him a good view of the main promenade area and would sit there, alone, scowling at anyone who approached. If people ignored the scowl and actually sat down, he found that a fart or belch would soon send them packing again.

  One evening, he happened to be passing as Jack Dearden left the shop with a late delivery, so seized the opportunity and followed him. When the lad came out of one of the big houses near the park, Sam deliberately blocked his path. “A word,” he said and stepped into the alley.

  Jack was daft enough to follow him, which was more than Sam would have done if he’d been accosted by someone after dark.

  He took up a position which blocked the entrance to the alley, seeing by the light of the street lamp uneasiness creep into Jack’s face. He bunched one hand into a fist and saw the lad flinch.

  “Got an interest in Lizzie Kershaw, have you?” he asked mildly, examining the clenched fist.

  “She’s a good friend. What’s it to you?”

  “I’m a friend, too, a good friend of the whole Kershaw family, an’ they’re getting a bit worried about things, so they asked me to find out what was going on.” He let the clenched fist thud into his other hand and saw the lad wince.

  “I don’t reckon it’s any of your business.” Jack didn’t believe anyone had asked Sam Thoxby to speak to him about Lizzie. That rotten mother of hers didn’t care two hoots about what she did. “And I have to get back to the shop now.” He made a quick dash for safety.

  Sam tripped him up, then hauled him to his feet by the scruff of his neck and shook him. “Dear me! Did you fall over, then?”

  Jack tried vainly to push him away. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know your intentions towards Lizzie. We all do. We don’t want you mucking that lass around.”

  “Intentions?”

  “Aye.”

  Jack stared at him, this huge man standing half in the shadows. He felt afraid, really afraid. Most people did when Sam Thoxby got that look on his face. Only, Jack had never been afraid in quite that way before. He was tall for his age, t
hough not as tall as his brother Peter, but he was still thin and lacking a man’s muscles. Sam towered over him, six foot two of solid manhood. And hostility.

  “I asked your intentions, lad. Was you intending to marry our Lizzie, like?”

  “Marry?”

  Sam felt exultation course through him at the shock in Jack’s voice. No, of course he hadn’t intended to marry her. Sam had seen it all before. A lad and a lass walking out, just enjoying one another’s company, then they slipped up and had to get married. Well, no one was slipping up with Lizzie. No one except him, any road.

  He held Jack against the wall, enjoying exercising his own strength, enjoying the fear on the other’s face. “I’m very,” he bumped Jack’s head deliberately against the wall, “very fond of that lass. And I’m not,” another thump, “having her messed around. So, if you’re not intending to marry her, you’d best stop seeing her.”

  “She’s my friend, that’s all.”

  Sam laughed. “Lads an’ lasses your age don’t stay friends. Things happen between them. Only they’re not happening to our Lizzie, not with you.”

  “I’d never—” The words were cut off as Jack was shaken again.

  “You’d better not.” Sam let go. “And I reckon you’d better find yourself another friend to walk out with of a Sunday or there’ll be trouble. We look after our own in Southlea. She is one of our own. You aren’t.” The lad was looking so stunned, Sam couldn’t help tormenting him a little more. “Of course, if you were intending to wed her, that’d be different, like.”

  He saw the horror on Jack’s face and laughed. Stepping back, he brushed his hands against one another as if cleansing them of dirt. “Think on. It’s marriage or nowt with our Lizzie.”

  He chuckled as he watched the lad hurry away. That’s fixed the young sod. Exultation filled him. Now he was going to start paying attention to Lizzie himself. Sam whistled all the way home and poured himself a big tot of rum to celebrate, raising it in a silent toast to his wife-to-be.

  When Gran commented on his good spirits, he just nodded. Tell her what he was planning and it’d be all over Southlea that he was courting Lizzie Kershaw. He didn’t want to frighten the lass away.

  Chapter Ten

  Winter: 1912–1913

  Cold, rainy weather and fog conspired to keep Jack and Lizzie apart for the next two Sundays, and after that it was the run-up to Christmas so they were both working flat out at the shop, with less time than usual to chat to one another.

  Lizzie thought he seemed a little strange, not his usual self, but she was too busy to worry about it. Mr. Dearden had had a feverish cold, and it’d been touch and go for a time. Mrs. D had nursed him and Peter had taken over management of the shop as well as going round to the posh houses to take the orders. He was nice to work with, Peter was, and just occasionally he’d talk to her about the produce they sold or about a film he’d seen. She felt as comfortable with him as she did with Jack, even though he was a few years older. Peter was like his mother, kind and easy to get on with.

  At home things were as bad as ever. Lizzie was missing Eva more than she had expected to and felt jealous sometimes when her sister’s letters revealed how happy she was. Eva loved being a pupil teacher, especially as the children were quieter in the country and not nearly as much trouble as the lively youngsters of Overdale. And “Alice says…” All the letters quoted that lady extensively. The Kershaws soon grew sick of the sound of her name.

  “Eva’s forgotten us already,” Polly said to Lizzie one day. “You won’t forget me when you get married, will you?”

  “Me? Get married?” Lizzie nearly fell off her chair laughing. “I’m not going to get married, not ever.”

  “Oh, I expect you will. The lads look at you…” Polly frowned, searching for words and finding only “… as if they’re interested.”

  “Who does?”

  “Well, Jack used to—only we don’t see much of him now, do we? And some of the other lads we pass in the park. They look, too.”

  Lizzie shrugged. “You’re imagining things, love.”

  “I’m not! And there’s Sam Thoxby as well, lately.”

  “Sam? He’s old, even older than our Percy.”

  “But he still looks at you.”

  “Does not.”

  “Does so.”

  They repeated the words, each getting louder and louder till they couldn’t speak for laughing. It was a habit of theirs, but only when their mother wasn’t around. She always said something nasty if she caught them laughing.

  But Polly’s words stuck in Lizzie’s mind and sometimes she couldn’t help peeking at Sam, to see if he really was looking at her. And he was. It made a little shiver run down her spine. Lots of girls had set their caps at Sam, including her old enemy, Mary Holden, because he was considered quite a catch in the streets of Southlea, even though he wasn’t exactly good-looking. But Polly was right. He didn’t pay attention to any other girl but Lizzie. Not that she wanted him, certainly not. She still didn’t like ginger hair or beefy men. Peter Dearden was her ideal of how a man should look, for Jack still kept getting spots, and anyway he had been funny with her lately, she didn’t know why.

  But whether she wanted him or not, it was nice to think of Sam looking at her like that. Especially as her mam had said to her once or twice that no one would ever want to marry a scrawny rat like her.

  * * *

  Two days before Christmas, Percy came home from work to find his mother looking even more miserable than usual. “Something wrong, Mam?”

  She gestured towards the mantelpiece. “That came by second post. Read it.”

  He picked up the letter propped behind the clock, a hastily scribbled pencil note, not at all like Eva’s usual letters, which were always exactly two pages long and written in immaculate copperplate:

  Dear Mam and everyone

  Alice has got the influenza and she’s too ill to get out of bed, so I’m afraid I can’t come home for Christmas after all. The influenza’s really bad round here with lots of people ill. A man down the street died of it only last week, so I daren’t leave Alice to fend for herself, not when she’s been so kind to me. And I don’t want to pass it on to you people, either, especially you, Mam.

  I’ll come over as soon as I can and we’ll have an extra celebration. I’ll save your presents till then. I hope you all have a really happy time.

  Love,

  Eva

  Percy’s heart sank, but he tried to speak cheerfully. “Well, let’s hope Eva doesn’t catch it herself.” But if she did, she’d not be really ill, because she hadn’t inherited their mother’s weak chest like Johnny had. “And she’s right not to risk giving it to you, Mam. You know how badly you always catch things.”

  Meg glared at him. “That woman has done this on purpose! She’s probably only pretending to be ill, trying to stop me seeing my own daughter! And at Christmas, too.”

  Rather than telling her not to be silly, Percy drew a deep, slow breath into his nostrils, fingering the moustache he’d grown lately, which his mother hated but which Emma said really suited him. Sometimes recently he had felt like striking out at his mother when she acted so irrationally. Sometimes he … Another long, slow breath and he was in command of himself again. After all, he’d had years of practice at biting his tongue.

  He could guess, even without being told, that Eva was secretly glad of the excuse to stay away. Each of her visits to Overdale seemed to end in tears and recriminations from their mother, which sent his sister away with a tight, angry look on her face. And for days afterwards there would be snide remarks tossed at Lizzie, scoldings for the two younger children (though she didn’t hit them nowadays, thank goodness, or not as much) and weeping sessions in the front room or, if she could catch him, in the arms of her elder son.

  “How do you stand it, living here?” he asked Emma bitterly one day when he met her on the stairs after one of these scenes. “Why don’t you two find yourselves some new lodgi
ngs?”

  They’d considered it a few times, but Blanche had said nowhere was perfect and she had grown quite fond of young Polly lately. “Oh, we don’t hear a lot up in our attic,” Emma told him lightly. “And we really like our nice big room. Besides, your mother’s never rude to us. Your poor little sisters have a lot to put up with, though.”

  “Aye. We all do. And I’m grateful to Miss Harper for taking an interest in Polly. It gets her out of the atmosphere downstairs when you invite her up to visit you.”

  Emma smiled. “My sister and yours enjoy their little tea parties enormously. And it leaves me free to visit my friend Millie more often, so I’m grateful to Polly, actually.”

  He sought for something else to say to keep her with him. “She loves the singing lessons.”

  “She has a nice little voice.” Emma heard Mrs. Kershaw come out of the kitchen and stand at the foot of the stairs. She saw that Percy had heard it, too. They exchanged glances and she repeated, a little more loudly, “Yes, she has a lovely little voice,” then turned to go back upstairs. It annoyed her to know Mrs. Kershaw was eavesdropping. If it had been up to her, they would have left here ages ago and rented a house of their own. But she had realised that Blanche was afraid of making any changes. And not only was their life comfortable here—on the whole—but they were able to save money.

  Embarrassed, Percy wished, not for the first time, that his mother would mind her own business. He stood and watched Emma climb the stairs, trim and neat as usual, with the prettiest pair of ankles he’d ever seen. Then he sighed quietly and went back downstairs.

  * * *

  Just after Christmas, Peter Dearden came home one night to find Jack sitting alone in the darkened shop, which was lit only by a nearby street lamp, staring moodily into space.

  “What’s up with you, sitting out here like a fool in the dark?”

  “I—can you spare me a minute, Peter? I need some advice.”

  “What about?”

  “A girl.” Jack blushed hotly and kept his face averted.

  “Oh, yes? You’re a bit young to be needing advice about girls. Who is it?”