The Glowing Hours

by Marina Oliver

  Nell stole down the steep, crooked stairs, Benjy at her heels, his hand on her shoulder. From the kitchen came a series of thumps, interspersed with pleas to stop it from Ma. The gas mantle shed a soft glow over the room, and as she paused at the bottom of the stairs Nell took in the scene instantly. Danny was sprawled across the table, a long cut on his cheek oozing blood. Fifteen-year-old Sam stood before him, valiantly but vainly trying to fend off Pa who was laying about him with his belt, while Ma crouched beside the sink dressed in nothing but her old petticoat, her lank grey hair awry, shaken out of her usual apathy as she alternately wept and begged Pa to stop.

  'Shurrup, woman!' Pa flung over his shoulder. 'I'm not 'avin' me own sons wakin' me up wi' their carryin's-on, defyin' me! I'll teach 'em 'oo's boss!'

  'Yer've killed our Danny! Look at 'im, 'e's not movin'! 'E's dead!'

  At that moment Danny groaned and tried to heave himself off the table, but succeeded only in slithering to the floor in a heap. Sam glanced round as Danny's limp arm knocked against his leg, and with a yell of triumph Pa dropped the belt and waded in with his fists, catching the distracted Sam on the chin. Sam staggered, caught his foot in the orange box doing duty as a stool, and fell heavily to the floor. Before anyone could move Pa was bending over him, kicking him viciously as Sam curled up in a vain attempt to escape the blows. At last Pa, panting from his efforts, stepped back.

  'That'll larn yer both not ter defy me!' he snarled. Danny and Sam lay still, and Nell couldn't tell whether they heard or not. 'An’ stop yer blartin', woman!' he added angrily. 'Leave 'em be! Do 'em good ter lay there all night. Gerrup ter bed!'

  Nell turned and hastily shoved Benjy up the stairs in front of her. 'Hurry! Yer don't want him beatin' you too!' she urged, and Benjy, suppressing his frightened sobs, complied.

  When the sounds from their parents' room ceased, and even Ma's stifled sobs had stopped, Nell crept out of bed again. She hadn't bothered to remove her skirt before scrambling in and hushing the others into silence.

  Cautiously she crept down into the kitchen. Danny was sitting in Pa's chair, a wet rag pressed to his cheek, while Sam crouched on the orange box, clutching his stomach and groaning.

  'Can I help?' she asked quietly. 'Why was Pa so mad at yer?'

  Danny glanced at her. 'We'm all right, just cut an' bruised,' he replied wearily. 'But that finishes it, we'm off the minute we can gerra room somewhere.'

  'Why was he mad?'

  'We brung a couple o' gals in, thought 'e was safe in bed,' Sam said, and groaned.

  'That was a daft thing ter do,' Nell said sharply.

  'Where else can us goo? It's cold ternight, an' they ain't got anywhere.'

  'Go ter bed, Nell. An' thanks, yer a good 'un. We'll be up soon as we'm fit.'

  *

  Emily Baxter sighed. She'd only been asleep five minutes. She eased herself slowly out of the sagging bed, careful not to disturb Albert. After the fight he had taken her roughly, but swiftly, then turned his back and dropped straight into a deep sleep. But Ronny's feeble wails might disturb him and he'd be mad enough to thrash her.

  She staggered across to the small mattress where Ronny and little Joan slept, and picked up her youngest son. Sitting with her back to the wall, her skirt wrapped round them both for warmth, she held the baby to her breast. For a few moments he sucked eagerly, then his sickly wails began again. Her shoulders drooped. She'd suspected it for some time, that her milk had gone. Ronny was puny, not thriving. Although nine months old he hadn't begun to sit up by himself, let alone crawl. In one way that was a blessing, he wasn't always under her feet, but she was desperately afraid he'd soon follow her other two little ones who'd died. Somehow, these days, she didn't seem to have enough milk as she had with the others.

  They couldn't afford cow's milk. Then she straightened her back. She'd find the coppers somehow. And she'd take him to see that new doctor at the clinic. She'd heard he was kind. Meanwhile Ronny would have to make do with a rag soaked in sugar water. Rocking him gently, aware that he was far too small, she crept down the stairs to find some sustenance for her baby.

  *

  Kitty brushed her hair vigorously until it shone like silk. Then she slipped on her newest dress, straight and simple in heavy pale yellow satin, with slightly deeper coloured fringes in layers from the shoulders to the knee-length skirt. Her satin shoes with the instep strap had been dyed to match. Leaning close to the looking glass she carefully outlined her mouth with bright red lipstick, emphasising the rosebud shape, then patted on powder to dry it. She looked discontentedly at her nose, wishing it was fractionally shorter. She considered it marred what was otherwise an acceptably pretty face. Then she shrugged. It didn't seem to deter men, she could attract any she chose. Perhaps that was why all the girls she knew seemed jealous and unfriendly. More powder on her cheeks and nose, half a dozen gold bracelets pushed high up one bare arm, a lavish spraying with her latest apple blossom perfume, and she was ready. She picked up her pearl-embroidered bag and lacy gloves and went downstairs. Meggy, grey hair scraped back in a bun, thin lips almost invisible in her lined face, her once upright figure old and bent now she was in her late fifties, waited in the hall holding Kitty's fur coat.

  'Put this on. You're not decent in that dress, showing yer arms and legs like a hussy.'

  'Meggy, it's the fashion. And I don't need a coat, it's still warm and I'm going in a motor,' she protested, while allowing Meggy to help her into the long enveloping coat.

  Meggy had been with them since the age of thirteen. She'd started as a tweenie at her grandmother's country house near Warwick, risen to be cook, and when her mother became involved in the suffragette movement in London, had gone to keep house for her.

  'I didn't want her to come, I couldn't afford to pay her nearly as much,' Kitty's Mama had once explained when she was exasperated with Meggy. 'I actually dismissed her a couple of times, but short of throwing her and her boxes out into the street there was no way of getting rid of her.'

  Kitty knew exactly what her mother had faced. Meggy never took no for an answer, she ignored all protests until the other person, weary and probably by now late for half a dozen appointments, gave in. Kitty, as a child, had screamed and thrown tantrums to no avail. Now, though she made token protests, she had learned to give in at once. She could always take the coat off once out of sight of the house.

  A moment later there was a toot on a motor car horn, and Kitty ran down the steps, Meggy looking after her with a mixture of reluctant pride and more open disapproval. Kitty scrambled into the car, leaned over to kiss the young man driving it on the cheek, then turned and grinned back at Meggy.

  'Was that for my benefit or Meggy's?' the Honorable Timothy Travers asked languidly.

  'Hers, of course. I wanted to see whether her mouth would turn down any further. Stop round the corner, there's a darling, I must take this frightful coat off.'

  'It's only a few hundred yards,' he remarked, but obligingly stopped so that Kitty could wriggle out of the heavy coat and stow it in the dickey seat.

  'The car's divine, especially the two-colour design. Is it new?' she asked.

  'I've had it a month or so. It's fast, does sixty on the flat.'

  'But it's a Morris, isn't it?'

  'Yes, an MG Super Sports. They've only just begun to build them.'

  'You have a nerve, darling, bringing an Oxford car to Birmingham!'

  'These will be the rage soon, you'll see.'

  Their destination was one of the large houses on the Calthorpe estate. When they arrived there were already a dozen motor cars parked in the drive and Timothy tucked his neatly into a space and scrambled out over the door.

  'Come on, old girl. I can hear the music already.'

  A four-piece dance band was playing in the large drawing room, where the carpets had been taken up to make a dance floor. Several couples were already revolving, and Timothy immediately whisked Kitty onto the floor. Two hours later they sat together in a large c
onservatory which had been turned into a dining room, eating small cakes and sipping champagne.

  'You dance superbly, darling,' Kitty said, licking cream from her fingers. 'I hadn't done that outside spin before. I'm beginning to realise there's a lot more to it than most people think.'

  'Most people just walk round and do the occasional jig, and think they're experts.'

  'I suppose in the old dances everyone could follow those who knew it, you were either in teams and they'd drag you through the figures, or you were following everyone else round the room. In modern dancing each couple is on their own. If you try to watch anyone else you fall over your partner's feet.'

  'I hadn't liked to mention it,' Timothy murmured, and Kitty flicked a dollop of cream towards him.

  'We ought to practise together. When can you come?'

  'There's only this weekend. I have to go back to London on Monday. I'm sailing to South Africa for a few weeks.'

  'South Africa?'

  'The Pater's uncle out there wants to see me. He lost his son in the war, and wants to inspect me to see whether he'll leave me his ill-gotten gains.'

  'Timothy! How simply divine! Is he filthy rich?'

  'I expect so. He owns a diamond mine, or a gold mine, I forget which. He was the black sheep, you know, a remittance man, and was packed off there years before I was born. The next thing we hear, he's richer than a bank. It made the Pater's old man furious to know his kid brother was richer than he was, able to buy up the family acres if he wanted to.'

  'Goody for you. Go and pay lavish attention to the old rogue, and make him give you a gold mine or two to be going on with. I'll have to find another dancing partner though.'

  'Unless you wanted to come with me?' Kitty glanced at him, startled. She and Timothy had been friends for a year, since they'd met at the London house of one of Kitty's aunts. He visited Birmingham every few weeks, either to stay with friends or on business at one of his father's smaller estates to the west of the city. Usually he came to see her and they enjoyed one another's company. Never before, though, had he suggested anything other than friendship. She wondered precisely what he was suggesting now. She couldn't see Timothy getting married.

  'I think I'll wait and see whether you inherit, darling,' she replied lightly.

  'Right ho! I'll send a cable if I do. Mind you, the old chap's still hale and hearty, probably good for another twenty years.'

  'The dancing. Let's try the tango, I've never mastered it properly, and I'd love to show off like some Argentinian gypsy.'

  'Tomorrow then? Or would Meggy object on a Sunday?'

  'What if she does? She's my servant. Anyway, it's her day off, she won't know. She'll go to her sister's as usual. Come in the afternoon, and if Andrew's in a good mood we'll get him to wind up the gramophone.'

  *

  Only a couple of the families in their court went to church, to the Weslyan chapel down towards Broad Street. Most of them were only too glad of the chance to lie late in bed, sleeping off the excesses of payday.

  It was quiet when Nell slid out of bed and crept, boots in hand, down the stairs. After the previous night's row everyone else was asleep. There was some scummy water in a bowl in the corner sink, which the others would use for washing if they thought about it, or Ma remembered to nag them, but she preferred the fresh tap water out in the yard, even when it was freezing cold.

  She seized the rough towel hanging on a nail. At least it was still quite clean, having been washed yesterday. The only soap they had was the strong green block used for the clothes, but she felt lucky to have any at all. One day, she promised herself, she'd have soft, perfumed soap which lathered easily.

  In the empty, quiet yard she filled a bucket and carried it into the wash house. There she quickly stripped off her clothes and carefully hung up her belt with the treasured patch-box. She pinned her hair on top of her head, then soaped her body all over, shivering as she upended the bucket to rinse herself. A fierce rubbing made her skin glow, and with a grimace of distaste as she saw how grubby they were, she climbed back into her clothes. How could she keep clean when she had no clothes other than those she stood up in, and even had to sleep in her underthings? She had to borrow her Ma's old dress when she wanted to wash her own, and could only do that when it wasn't in one of the pawn shops in Monument Road.

  She shrugged as she took the bucket and soap and towel back into the kitchen. One day she'd leave. Even if Eth wouldn't come with her she'd find a way. Then she'd have all her money to spend on herself, to buy a change of clothes, to get good soap. Most of all she'd have space to herself.

  With a sigh Nell recalled the difficulties as she used the almost toothless old comb and braided her hair. She had no money, her wages were all given to Pa. She couldn't get a room of her own without her employer, and therefore Pa knowing where. She'd have to find another job, secretly. Yet as she looked now she couldn't expect any respectable employer to take her without references. She couldn't get references without her father knowing. It seemed utterly hopeless. She would, however, find a way.

  There were just a few crusts in the kitchen, which the babies needed more than she did. She could probably scavenge some discarded apples behind the shops in Monument Road. It was fortunate Ma was paid by the day when she went scrubbing for her ladies, or they'd never have anything to eat. The boys were good, bringing their wages home, but her father demanded of their mutual employer that Nell's wages were given to him, and she doubted whether Ma saw more than a few coppers. She was lucky. She found half a loaf of yesterday's bread in the gutter, and it wasn't very muddy. For a moment she thought of taking it back home, but the temptation and the gnawing hunger were too great. As she wandered on in the bright sunshine she tore off rough chunks and stuffed them greedily into her mouth. After the cold night it was a lovely September day and she'd go a longer way round towards the house where she'd lost the shawl, approaching it from another direction.

  In this wealthier part of the city many people were driving or walking to church. Nell felt a sudden nostalgia for the small squat-towered Holy Trinity church where she had worshipped with her Gran, and loitered amongst the gravestones until the last stragglers had entered. Then she crept through the door and huddled into the corner of the pew, making herself as small and inconspicuous as possible. When they sang one of her favourite hymns, though, she joined in without thinking, and more than one head turned to see where the pure clear soprano voice came from.

  Suddenly aware of the interest Nell clamped her mouth shut, and as soon as the congregation bent forward again in prayer she slipped out of the door and hurried on her way. It had been foolish, forgetting herself like that. She could have got into dreadful trouble. People who lived in these big houses didn't appreciate ragamuffins from the slums singing in their churches.

  When she got to the house with the stable she looked round cautiously, but there was no one in sight. She darted through the gateway and plunged into the shrubbery, but was so eager to get to the back of the house she didn't notice the shawl Kitty had placed for her.

  She didn't have to get close to see that a new lock had been fixed to the stable door. If her shawl was still inside she couldn't get to it. Her shoulders slumped. Eth was right, it was cold without even that pathetic extra cover on the bed the four older girls shared. When winter came it would be much worse. Only as she turned away did she remember that the haven she had been so excited about, the warm bed she had looked forward to on those nights when fear of her Pa's violence drove her out of her own home, was no longer within her reach.

  She went back through the shrubbery, head bent dejectedly. Unless news of her escapade had been spread about the district, and everyone else had made their coach houses and sheds secure, there were still other places where she would be comfortable and warm. They didn't have the horses, though, and Nell saw with sudden clarity it was their companionship she craved as much as their warmth. She blinked back sudden tears. She was being ridiculous, mourning someth
ing she'd never had. She threw back her head proudly and saw, draped on a bush in front of her, the shawl.

  'Oh! Thank God!' she exclaimed, and reached for the familiar, once despised but now precious object. She lifted it gently from the bush, taking care not to snag its fragile threads, and with a smile of delight twisted it round and over her head. She crossed her arms, her hands on her shoulders, and then jumped with surprise and fear.

  'This time you won't get away so easily,' a deep masculine voice said in her ear as large hard hands covered her own and grasped her wrists.

  ***

  Chapter 3

  Nell fought ferociously, but this time Andrew was ready for her. Despite her backward kicks and attempts to bite the hands which held her imprisoned she was helpless in his grip, her arms crossed in front of her and his large muscular body pressed tight against her back.

  'Little wildcat!' he commented coolly. 'All I want is for you to calm down and tell me what you were doing in our stable the other night.'

  Nell redoubled her efforts, in vain. Suddenly she slumped in his arms and went totally limp. As Andrew, startled, relaxed his grip she wriggled free, and leaving her now utterly ruined shawl in his hands fled for the drive.

  Andrew reacted instinctively, hurling himself after her in a flying tackle reminiscent of his schooldays. They sprawled together in the loamy soil, Nell pinioned beneath him with the breath driven from her body. Before she could move Andrew ripped away the shreds of the shawl which clung to him, seized both her thin wrists in one huge hand, and then lay triumphant, looking down at her with a grin on his face.

  Panting for breath Nell was forced to study the face so close above her own. It was handsome, was her first irrelevant thought. He had smooth dark hair at the moment flopping across a wide brow, and grey, deep set eyes which twinkled in amusement. There was a decided cleft in his square chin, and another above his wide mouth.