The Surplus Girls

by Polly Heron

  ‘I hope you’ve seen sense at last,’ said Lawrence.

  ‘Patience will take your coats,’ Prudence replied.

  She threw Patience an apologetic glance, but it wasn’t necessary. Patience was well aware that Prudence had to stagemanage every moment of this crucial meeting. As the others went to the sitting room, she dumped the coats on the monk’s bench and hurried behind them.

  Prudence entered first. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my brother has arrived: the man of the hour, Mr Lawrence Hesketh and his wife, Evelyn.’

  ‘I didn’t realise this was to be a social gathering.’ Full marks to Lawrence for a swift recovery.

  ‘This is no time for modesty, Lawrence. Evelyn, have a seat over here, dear. May I present Mrs Brewer, who writes for Vera’s Voice, and these young ladies are the first pupils…’ she drew a breath, ‘…for our business school.’

  ‘Your… what?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you he’s modest?’ Prudence steamrollered on, smiling ruthlessly. ‘Lawrence, these gentlemen are Mr Cox and Mr Fielden from the newspapers. They and Mrs Brewer are anxious to write up the story of the generosity of Mr Lawrence Hesketh, that well-known businessman who is rising in the world and who has kindly offered to use one of his properties as a business school to assist those unfortunate girls who, because of the terrible loss of life in the war, have little hope of finding husbands and instead face a lifetime of fending for themselves.’ She glanced at the journalists. ‘Did you get all that?’

  ‘Mr Hesketh, this is a magnanimous gesture,’ said Mr Cox. ‘Where did you get the idea?’

  ‘You must allow my brother a few moments to recover,’ Prudence said smoothly. ‘He intended that the school should be set up without fuss. We’re deeply proud of him – aren’t we, Patience?’

  ‘Indeed, yes.’ And then, somehow or other, words spilled out of her in a torrent. ‘Prudence and I, being spinster ladies ourselves, feel a particular concern for this young generation of surplus girls and we’re gratified that our dear brother shares our anxiety.’ Goodness, where did all that spring from? Might she read her words in a forthcoming issue of Vera’s Voice?

  ‘Mr Hesketh.’ Mr Cox tried again. ‘I’ve heard your name before, sir. There are those who suggest that one day you might be elevated to the position of alderman. Do you think this venture might assist in that?’

  Patience poured a thousand blessings on Mr Cox’s head. That word, alderman, was more powerful than abracadabra.

  Lawrence lifted his chin and thrust back his shoulders. ‘I’m glad to have the opportunity to answer that question, Mr – Cox, is it? – Mr Cox, because while there might be people who imagine that such honours can, as it were, be bought and paid for through good works, I take the view that one’s good works have to emanate from one’s own integrity and a deep-rooted desire to do one’s best for one’s fellow man, or in this case,’ and he glanced round in an avuncular fashion at the girls, ‘one’s fellow woman; and in the truest spirit of philanthropy, I seek no advantage to myself from this, or indeed from any other venture with which I might have the good fortune to be associated, and I would never push myself forward into the public gaze, but prefer to take a private, modest satisfaction in whatever I do that might, in some small way, serve to benefit others, as indeed my sisters will testify, since this gathering here today was entirely at their instigation and my good lady wife and I had no notion of what we would be walking into when we arrived.’

  Thank goodness: a full stop at last. Patience was almost breathless as Lawrence ceased pontificating for long enough to flash a dangerous smile at Prudence and herself. She felt a quiver in her stomach.

  Had they done enough to secure their home?

  Belinda almost skipped down Grave Pit Lane. She had been anxious about the afternoon and having to hold her own among her fellow pupils, whom she was meeting for the first time, and it had come as a massive relief to find there were only three others so far. After Mr and Mrs Hesketh had taken their gracious leave and the reporters had departed, Miss Patience – they had been instructed to call the ladies Miss Hesketh and Miss Patience – had invited the girls to have tea and cake with them, whereupon she had sprung to her feet, saying she was expected at home.

  ‘I’ll see you out, Miss Layton,’ said Miss Patience.

  She would much rather have seen herself out, but Miss Patience had helped her on with her coat – they had a little room just for coats: imagine that! – and nothing in her tone or manner had suggested that Belinda’s, or rather Mrs Harrison’s, old coat and hat were in any way inferior to the stylish coats belonging to the other girls.

  She was dying to get home and describe to Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie how the ladies had taken the girls into the dining room, with its polished table of dark wood and matching chairs, so they could try out the typewriter and pretend to have conversations using a toy telephone. Belinda had felt hopelessly self-conscious, but not for long. Encouraged by Miss Michaels, she had typed her name and address, using capitals and commas and everything, and Miss Michaels had applauded when she finished, though not in a snooty way, but rather as if she had managed something both clever and amusing.

  Miss Patience had given her the piece of paper on which she had done her typing. ‘To show them at home,’ she said with a smile.

  Warmth had radiated throughout Belinda’s body. Might she fit in at the business school? Even though she was from a lower rank in life, did being surplus girls make them all equal? Might she really and truly earn the right to wear a hat and coat to work instead of a shawl?

  Oh, Ben, you don’t mind, do you?

  Opening the door to End Cottage, she bounced in, wanting to regale Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie with the wonderful details. They weren’t as keen as she was, not by a long chalk, but surely they wouldn’t be able to resist when she spilled out her description of this afternoon.

  The grim faces they turned to her made her insides slump. Then she realised their sombre expressions weren’t because of her.

  Dad was here.

  ‘Dad!’

  He never came here. And Sarah was in the corner, her face rigid with misery. Belinda hung up her borrowed coat and hat. Would it look false to smile as she turned round? It would look strange if she didn’t. You were supposed to be pleased to see your dad, weren’t you? But she wasn’t. She felt wary. Even if his unexpected visit, coupled with his uncertain temper and money-first attitude to life, weren’t reason enough for wariness, Sarah’s frozen posture and sidelong glances would have rung warning bells.

  ‘Your father says he’s come to take you home,’ said Auntie Enid in a flat voice that held on tight to her thoughts.

  ‘Aye, I have that.’ Dad came to his feet. ‘And not a moment too soon, if yon coat and hat are owt to go by. Frittering your money away on clothes, when you ought to be helping your family.’

  ‘They’re borrowed,’ said Belinda.

  ‘Where have you been that you needed to do yourself up like a dog’s dinner?’ His eyebrows drew together. ‘You’ve not got yourself a new man, have you?’

  Cries of denial met this, not just from her but from Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie, their words clashing together, none of them distinct. Belinda didn’t even know what her own words were. They just burst out of her; or maybe it had simply been a howl of protest.

  ‘Get upstairs and get packed,’ ordered Dad, ‘since our Sarah weren’t allowed to do it for you.’ He glared at Auntie Enid.

  ‘You can’t come here, expecting to walk off with Belinda’s things,’ said Auntie Enid. ‘As for her moving back in with you, it’s the first we’ve heard about it.’

  ‘So you keep saying, missus.’ He jerked his chin at Belinda. ‘Don’t gawp at me like that, girl. George has left home, so you’re to come back. He said he’d told you, so don’t pretend not to know.’

  ‘Sorry, Bel,’ Sarah whispered. ‘He made me come.’

  Belinda stood up straight. ‘I’m not coming, Dad. I told George I woul
dn’t.’

  ‘There, then that’s settled,’ said Auntie Enid. ‘This is Belinda’s home. You agreed to let her come here and—’

  ‘That were when she was going to marry your lad. Now she’s just any old spinster and spinster daughters belong at home with their parents.’

  ‘I stand in the place of a mother-in-law to her.’ Spots of red appeared in Auntie Enid’s cheekbones, sharpening her features.

  ‘But you’re not her ma-in-law, are you? That’s the whole point. Unmarried daughters live with their parents.’

  ‘And hand over their wages, I expect,’ said Auntie Enid.

  ‘What’s wrong with that? Me and her mother fetched her up: now she pays us back.’

  ‘She’s not going with you. She wants to live here and her grandma and me want her to stay.’

  Dad snorted. ‘She’s not Bel’s grandma and you’re not her mother-in-law. Our Bel’s nowt to you, not since your Ben went. Ta for putting up with her this long, but she’s coming home with me and she’ll pay her way in my family, not yours. Sarah, Belinda, get up them stairs and pack Bel’s stuff.’

  Auntie Enid stood up. ‘Belinda is stopping here.’

  Dad swaggered across and thrust his face close to hers. Auntie Enid flinched but held her ground.

  ‘I’m her father and I say what’s what. That’s the law, that is.’

  With an ugly smirk on his face, he tapped the side of his nose, then pointed his finger at Auntie Enid. Belinda bunched her hands into fists as shame seared through her.

  As he turned away, Auntie Enid breathed in, making her nostrils flare. ‘It would be the law if you still had your parental rights, but you haven’t got those any more.’

  Dad swung round. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘When Belinda asked you for parental consent to her joining the business school, you refused.’

  ‘As was my right, as her father.’

  ‘All you wanted,’ cut in Grandma Beattie, ‘was for her to carry on earning at her present rate so you can squeeze a few bob out of her every week. The poor lass tips up here every Friday and then tries to help her family an’ all. Me and Mrs Sloan know full well what goes on – and not because your Belinda has ever said a word against you, so don’t be giving her any sideways looks.’

  Dad wrenched his glare away from Belinda. ‘Me and her mum are entitled to a share of her wages and if I don’t want her to go to business school, she doesn’t go.’

  ‘But she does go,’ said Auntie Enid. ‘That’s where she was this afternoon – because I gave my consent.’

  ‘You did what, missus?’

  ‘I’m the adult she lives with and that makes me her guardian. As such, I wrote a letter giving my parental consent. If you don’t like that, Mr Layton, I suggest you pike off down Chorlton and take it up at the business school. They’re proper ladies, they are, and they won’t take kindly to you arriving on their doorstep, shouting the odds.’

  Belinda saw her chance to jump in. ‘Auntie Enid’s right, Dad. The Miss Heskeths had the newspapers there this afternoon and their brother is a famous businessman. The school is all his idea. He won’t let you spoil owt.’

  Dad banged his fist on the table. ‘She’s still coming home with me.’

  ‘No,’ said Auntie Enid. ‘This is her home and has been since she were a lass of fifteen. I have parental responsibility now and, if you don’t believe me, we can take it up with them posh folk.’

  ‘The Heskeths,’ said Belinda.

  ‘You keep out of this,’ growled Dad.

  ‘Aye, them Heskeths,’ said Auntie Enid. ‘And kindly don’t thump your fist on my table.’

  ‘Come on, Dad.’ Sarah tugged his arm. ‘Let’s go home.’

  He yanked his arm away, his elbow jerking up and outwards, making Sarah flinch away. Belinda took a protective step towards her. She hadn’t seen him this riled up since she couldn’t remember when. The blaming and bickering that would go on between Dad and Mum when he got home didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘Aye, well, happen you can stay for now, our Bel,’ said Dad, ‘but you needn’t think this is over.’

  Snatching up his cap, he gained the door in a couple of strides and threw it open, letting the cold air pour in. ‘Come on, Sarah. Let’s go and tell your mum that our Bel has turned her back on her family.’

  ‘If it helps,’ Sarah whispered, ‘he were just as angry with George.’

  ‘Now!’ shouted Dad and Sarah scuttled out. Dad followed, banging the door shut.

  Belinda didn’t know whether to crumple with relief or drop her chin to her chest in shame. How could Dad come here and make a show of her like that? There had never before been a word spoken against her family under this roof, but now the pretence had been dashed aside and she felt diminished.

  ‘Now there’s a lass who doesn’t want to go home,’ said Grandma Beattie.

  ‘Thank you for standing up for me,’ said Belinda.

  ‘I didn’t mean you,’ said Grandma Beattie. ‘I meant your Sarah.’

  Chapter Ten

  BELINDA WENT BACK to Saturday morning cleaning to pay her night school fees. She wished she could have used some of the money to smarten her appearance. It was surprising and rather shaming how quickly she had gone from feeling special in her borrowed coat and hat to feeling dowdy. The other girls wore such attractive clothes. Miss Hunt had a dark green cotton mackintosh that rippled around her when she walked down the Heskeths’ path in that brisk way of hers; and Miss Shaw’s wooltweed, though by no means new, had been spruced up with braid around the collar and cuffs and along the tops of the patch pockets. And they wore colours too. Miss Shaw’s tweed was a heathery shade and Miss Hunt’s mackintosh was a mustardyellow that Thad would take devilish pleasure in aiming mudpies at, if Belinda had ever dared wear anything so bold.

  Their dresses were lovely an’ all. Miss Michaels had a linen dress in a fetching hyacinth blue that she wore with a navy cardigan; and Miss Shaw had a cream-and-cherry dress that would look a lot better if the waistline was in the proper place, but apparently your dress’s waist being on your hips was the coming fashion.

  All in black, Belinda felt a hundred years old. What must her fellow pupils must think of her? Not that she saw much of them, since lessons were conducted mostly on a one-to-one basis, with one girl at the dining table with Miss Hesketh and another in the sitting room with Miss Patience.

  ‘We want to give our pupils our best attention,’ Miss Patience told her.

  When she reported this at home, Grandma Beattie said, ‘You’re getting your money’s worth, then.’

  Actually, Belinda wouldn’t have minded group lessons in preference to working alone under Miss Hesketh’s gimlet eye. At her first filing lessons, Miss Hesketh produced a stack of cards, rather like those in the catalogue drawers at the library.

  ‘I’ve put a name on each one: surname, first name and middle initial. Your job it to put them into alphabetical order swiftly and accurately. If you have four beginning with B, what will you do? And if two people have the same surname?’

  Each time she visited the house in Wilton Close, the pile of cards had grown and there were more duplicated surnames and several pairs of names whose only difference lay in their middle initials.

  ‘You enjoy sorting the cards into order, don’t you?’ Miss Hesketh observed. ‘Your interest does you credit.’ But just as Belinda was feeling pleased with herself, Miss Hesketh remarked drily, ‘I hope your interest doesn’t wane when you’ve been filing for twenty years.’

  ‘I hope you aren’t putting Miss Layton off,’ said Miss Patience from the door.

  Miss Hesketh fetched a sigh. There was never anything sorrowful in her sighs. Her sighs were annoyed or scornful. She could even sigh in a contemptuous way, though, thank heaven, she had never directed one of those at Belinda.

  ‘If you’re ready for Miss Hunt, I’ll send her through,’ said Miss Patience.

  ‘Certainly. If you’ll tidy the table, p
lease, Miss Layton.’

  If Miss Hesketh’s attitude was anything to go by, tidying up was an essential skill without which finding employment in an office was out of the question. Belinda tidied, then joined Miss Patience for her telephone lesson.

  ‘Are you quite all right, Miss Layton? You appear a little distracted.’

  ‘It was what Miss Hesketh said. Twenty years! I know the point of coming here is to set myself up for life. But – twenty years. I’ll be forty, forty-one come the summer. Grandma Beattie will be long gone, and Auntie Enid will be in her sixties, hanging on at the mill for as long as she can.’

  ‘It doesn’t always do to look too far ahead. Of course, if you’re anticipating happy things, it’s different.’

  Was there sadness in those pale blue eyes? A middle-aged spinster couldn’t have much to look forward to. She couldn’t have much to look back on either.

  Oh, heck. That’ll be me one day.

  ‘If Ben – that’s my fiancé’s name – if he’d lived, then when I’m forty I could have had a daughter the age I am now.’

  Was Miss Patience about to touch her hand comfortingly? Of course not. Ladies kept their hands to themselves.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Patience. I didn’t mean to speak out of turn.’

  ‘No apology necessary; though you must get used to saying “I apologise” rather than “I’m sorry.” I’ve also noticed that you have a tendency to swap “was” and “were” around. An employer will require you to use correct English at all times. My sister has prepared a telephone lesson about deliveries that have gone wrong, so here’s an opportunity to practise your apologies.’

  It never ceased to be a relief that the telephone lessons were done with Miss Patience, who was such a sympathetic lady.

  With Miss Hesketh, Belinda learned about invoices and delivery notes, using real documents that would otherwise have been disposed of by the Corporation, where Miss Hesketh worked and probably terrified everyone under her. There were also money lessons. Belinda thought those pointless to start with, until she was presented with several pages of columns of money to check.