The Surplus Girls

by Polly Heron

  ‘A handwritten letter is so much more personal, don’t you think?’

  ‘While that is appropriate in the context of your charity work, it wouldn’t be suitable in an office environment. Do you consider yourself to possess any office skills?’

  ‘None at all, I’m afraid.’ Miss Palmerston smiled disarmingly. ‘That’s why I wish to attend your business school. I – I find myself in a situation that requires me to earn a wage.’

  Patience sat forward a little. Poor girl. She had clearly been brought up to better things.

  ‘And why do you require lodgings?’ Prudence asked bluntly. ‘Why not simply attend our night school?’

  ‘Well, the distance, you know. All the way here from Wilmslow and back again…’

  They talked on for a while, Patience speaking in a soothing tone to show she was sympathetic to Miss Palmerston’s plight, but when she expected Prudence to offer Miss Palmerston a place with them, Prudence merely thanked her for coming.

  ‘We have some other young ladies to consider and we need to meet them before we make our decision. If we’re unable to offer you a place as pupil lodger on this occasion, shall you wish to be added to our waiting list?’

  Miss Palmerston blinked. ‘I’m not sure. I rather thought… that is, I hoped…’ The engaging smile reappeared, composure restored.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Prudence.

  She rose. Patience and their visitor followed her lead. When Patience had seen Miss Palmerston out, she returned to the sitting room to find Prudence marching up and down, head bent in thought.

  ‘Prudence, what’s the matter?’

  Prudence stopped. ‘Our dear brother, that’s what. We came this close,’ she held a thumb and forefinger a breath apart, ‘to having a spy in our midst.’

  ‘Miss Palmerston?’

  ‘Yes. Palmerston: don’t you remember? That evening when Lawrence and Evelyn descended on us with that generous offer of a flat in Seymour Grove, they were en route to have dinner with their friends, the Palmerstons.’

  Patience frowned. It rang a bell.

  ‘It came back to me while we were talking. I knew there was something iffy about her, I knew it. That drivel about handwritten letters: a real applicant would have said something about wanting to learn to use a typewriter.’

  ‘Now you mention it, she was vague about wanting to come here.’ That hadn’t happened before. All their girls, quietly, sometimes with a trembling lip, but always with dignity, had spoken of a dead fiancé, of being the breadwinner for a widowed mother, of pulling her weight in her brother’s household now that their parents had passed away and she had had to move in with him and his family.

  ‘She didn’t know what to say about being added to our waiting list,’ Prudence added. ‘No one had coached her in that one, had they?’

  ‘Do you really think that Lawrence…?’

  ‘A spy in the camp, that’s what he wanted.’

  ‘We must write to Miss Palmerston and put her off.’

  ‘Not immediately, though,’ said Prudence. ‘Give it a day or two. Let Lawrence stew.’

  ‘That reminds me. I must write to Mrs Atwood.’

  ‘Who?’ said Prudence. ‘Oh, the Vera’s Voice enquiry. I put her letter behind the clock.’

  Patience retrieved it. She cast her eye over it, then read it again. ‘Prudence, did you read Mrs Atwood’s letter?’

  ‘She lives in London.’

  ‘Didn’t you read the rest of it?’ Her pulse quickened with the first stirring of excitement. ‘She’s coming to live up here. She has a job with the new Board of Health – I haven’t heard of that.’

  ‘There are moves afoot to do away with the workhouses,’ said Prudence. ‘The new Boards of Health will gradually take on the responsibilities of the Boards of Guardians… assuming the Boards of Guardians can be prevailed upon to let go of the old ways.’

  ‘Mrs Atwood is to take up her position towards the end of April.’ She let out a huge breath. ‘You realise what that means? She’ll be out at work all day and come to night school.’

  ‘Let me see.’ Prudence read the letter. ‘This is precisely what we were hoping for: a girl working locally, with a genuine reason for requiring lodgings. Mrs Atwood may have solved our problem.’

  ‘You’re going to court? Ruddy heck, our Bel! What have you been up to?’ There was no censure in Thad’s voice, just surprise and a healthy dose of admiration.

  Belinda swung round, glaring at him across the bedroom, where she and Mum were squeezing a stack of ironed clothes into the chest of drawers.

  ‘You shouldn’t be listening,’ she said.

  ‘Come off it, Bel. Tell us what you’ve done. I never thought you had it in you.’ Thad yelled over his shoulder, as if Jacob was up the other end of the road instead of sitting at the table, ‘Hey, Jakey-boy, come and hear this. Our Bel’s only got herself nicked by the police and she’s up before the beak tomorrow.’

  There was a scrambling sound, then Jacob bobbed up beside Thad, followed by Mikey. For once, Thad managed to be in close proximity with Mikey without attempting to throttle him.

  ‘What have you done, Bel?’ Jacob demanded. ‘When I think of the times you’ve had a go at me and Thad—’

  ‘I haven’t done anything. I might be required as a witness, that’s all.’

  ‘A witness?’

  ‘Witness to what?’

  ‘A bank robbery?’

  ‘A murder?’

  ‘Was there loads of blood?’

  ‘Just wait till I tell the lads at school.’

  ‘There was no robbery and no murder and not so much as a speck of blood.’ She had to raise her voice to make herself heard.

  ‘Aye, and she hasn’t done owt wrong neither,’ said Mum, ‘so don’t you go telling everyone she has. Bel, these boys will have us the talk of the wash-house, just you wait.’

  ‘No, they won’t, because if they say anything, they’ll end up looking like idiots.’ Hands on hips, Belinda stared at Thad. ‘You wouldn’t want that, would you? If I’m called as a witness – and it’s only an if – it’ll be to describe how a man came into the bookshop and another man didn’t recognise him, and that’s all.’

  ‘You what?’ said Thad. ‘That’s stupid, that is.’

  ‘Not as stupid as you’ll look if you try to make something of it – but if you want to run round telling all and sundry, be my guest.’

  Muttering, the boys melted away. Belinda shut the door on them.

  ‘So go on,’ said Mum. ‘Why are you really going to court?’

  ‘It’s like I told the boys.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean what you said to them. I mean the real reason.’

  ‘That is the real reason.’

  ‘I thought you said it just to fob them off.’

  ‘No, it’s true. When Richard first saw Mr Linkworth, he didn’t recognise him.’

  ‘Richard? Is there summat you’re not telling me, young lady?’

  ‘Slip of the tongue.’ She shoved the drawer closed. Was she blushing? ‘I meant Mr Carson.’

  ‘I should hope so.’ Mum’s voice was sharp. ‘I wouldn’t want to think there was anything untoward going on.’

  ‘Keep your voice down.’ She couldn’t have the boys hearing that. Forget the blood and murder they had hoped for. They could do a lot more damage if they spread it round that their Bel was cosying up to her old boss.

  ‘So you’re to go to court in case you’re needed to say that your old boss didn’t recognise your new boss?’

  ‘I don’t suppose I’ll be needed,’ said Belinda. ‘There’s no doubt as to who Mr Linkworth is.’

  ‘Then why does it need to go to court at all?’

  ‘Because of the will. If Mr Carson wasn’t named in the will, it might not matter, but because he started off thinking he was the heir, Mr Linkworth’s solicitor wants to prove Mr Linkworth’s identity beyond doubt and he wants Mr Carson there when he does it.’

  ‘So he can’t
cause trouble in the future.’

  ‘Something like that.’ How could she ever have fancied herself in love with him? ‘Have the boys found jobs yet?’ Or was it too much to hope for? Mikey would have found a job if he could, if being Thad’s brother didn’t hold him back, but as for the other two…

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve got too much else to worry about.’

  ‘If they brought some money in, that would ease the worry.’

  ‘Don’t go on at me, Bel. You don’t know what it’s like.’

  ‘I’ve got this court matter tomorrow—’

  ‘Ooh, hark at you. Very grand!’

  ‘All I meant is that I’ll be back on Saturday to see what the boys have done.’ And clearly there would be no support from Mum on the subject. Oh well. ‘I’ll give you a hand to get started on the tea before I go. Where’s Dad?’ He couldn’t be down the pub. It wasn’t opening time.

  ‘He’s got a job.’

  A job? Lay ’Em Out Layton had a job? It couldn’t be one that required a character reference. Should she be pleased or worried?

  ‘Where?’ she asked. The mere fact that Mum had left it till now to mention it didn’t bode well.

  It came out on a whisper. ‘At the Bucket of Blood.’

  ‘The Bucket of Blood? Oh, Mum!’

  Despair gushed through her, drying her mouth. The Bucket of Blood wasn’t the pub’s real name, but it was what everyone called it. It was a rough place with a violent reputation and only the most hardened characters drank there. Belinda had thought that clobbering his boss had been the lowest point of her father’s increasingly dismal working life but, no, if he had been taken on at the Bucket of Blood, he had sunk yet further.

  ‘I want you to fetch his wages,’ said Mum. ‘I made him promise to get Mr Reece to hand over half the money to me.’

  ‘You want me to go to the Bucket of Blood?’

  ‘It’s the only way them wages will make their way home. Your dad ’ull drink ’em otherwise or else gamble ’em away.’

  Belinda had heard the rumours. Hadn’t everyone? Mr Reece used to be a prize-fighter and it was said he now organised bare-knuckle fights in the pub yard in the dead of night. The word was that the police stayed well away.

  ‘Mum, I can’t. It’s a rotten area. If I’m seen there, a girl on her own, people will think… y’know.’

  ‘Take our Thad with you,’ Mum urged.

  ‘Thad? Don’t be daft. I know he’s a thug, but he’s only a kid when all’s said and done.’

  ‘I have to have that money, Bel, and who else is there to fetch it?’

  Belinda felt a sour ache in the back of her throat. She was the one who had told George to stay away. She was the one who had declared she would sort things out.

  ‘We’ll go together,’ she said.

  Mum’s face blanched. ‘I can’t go there.’

  She clenched her hands as annoyance flared. ‘What, you can’t, but I can? I’m not going alone.’

  She bundled Mum into her hat and coat and hustled her out of the house, linking arms with her and hurrying through the streets. Did they look guilty? Ashamed? Did they look like they were headed for the dark, rank, disease-ridden streets where only the desperate and most hardened lived? Beneath the sheen of wariness, a mixture of anger and humiliation bubbled in her stomach. What sort of husband and father was Dad to reduce them to this?

  ‘You’re late home, love. Everything all right?’ Grandma Beattie asked as Belinda unlatched the door and walked in.

  ‘I’m sorry. I had to go somewhere with Mum.’

  ‘Well, if you had to be late, you chose the best day,’ said Grandma Beattie. ‘It’s poached eggs, so I weren’t going to start them until you got home, anyroad.’

  ‘How are things at your mum’s?’ asked Auntie Enid.

  She turned away to hang up her shawl. She had practised a pleasant, non-committal expression as she walked up the lane. She turned to face them.

  ‘Oh, you know. Mum’s in a fret about money but Dad’s picked up a few hours’ work. Thad and Mikey managed to stand beside one another without war breaking out. Wonders will never cease.’

  ‘Were your Sarah there?’ asked Auntie Enid.

  ‘No, she’s working till eleven.’

  ‘We wanted to have a word about Sarah,’ said Grandma Beattie. ‘We’ve had an idea, haven’t we, Mrs Sloan?’

  ‘Aye. We don’t want to speak out of turn about your family, but things are hard for your mum, with your dad out of work. Even if he’s found a few hours, that’s just casual, not like having a proper job.’

  ‘And with all of them crushed into two rooms an’ all,’ Grandma Beattie added.

  ‘And you said there’s no room for your Sarah in the bedroom, which can’t be easy on a lass.’

  Belinda swallowed a cold lump of humiliation. Yes, her family’s circumstances weren’t anything to be proud of, but did they have to spell it out?

  ‘So we’d like to offer your Sarah a home here with us,’ said Auntie Enid. ‘It’d be a squeeze, especially for you, sharing that single bed, but she does work them odd hours, so you’d both get the bed to yourselves sometimes.’

  ‘It’d be easier on your mum,’ said Grandma Beattie, ‘one less mouth to feed.’

  ‘And Sarah would have a bit of privacy away from those lads.’ Auntie Enid’s mouth set in a thin line. ‘Her having to dress and undress in the kitchen-sitting room: it’s not nice.’

  ‘So we’re offering to have her here.’ Grandma Beattie made it sound like they were offering Belinda the greatest gift of all. ‘What do you think? We won’t do it if you don’t want it.’

  What did she think? She stared at their expectant expressions. It was a generous and considerate offer and Sarah would leap at it. She wanted to hug them and laugh and cry and thank them from the bottom of her heart for their kindness in offering her sister a stable and appropriate home.

  But…

  But if she said yes, wouldn’t it make her more beholden to them just when she was trying to establish a measure of independence from their life of mourning?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  FRIDAY IS THE last day of March. Tomorrow, April Fool’s Day, might be a more appropriate day for my court hearing. I’m going to have a job not to look foolish, I’m sure. Mr Sowerby has told me that witnesses have been lined up to prove who I am. By the close of proceedings, I’ll be the only person who won’t know for certain. My head knows I am Gabriel Linkworth. By the end of this court case, presumably my head will know it even more so, after the witnesses have done their bit.

  But will my heart know?

  Will listening to the witnesses saying whatever they say make me know who I am?

  I enter the offices of Winterton, Sowerby and Jenks in Rosemount Place. Mr Turton greets me with a handshake. He has a cool, no-nonsense manner that he adopts when dealing with the likes of Richard Carson, but when it is just him and me, his natural friendliness shines through. He once mentioned his family in passing and I sense he is a devoted family man.

  Mr Sowerby is on his way downstairs, looking magnificent in a black wool overcoat with a carnation in his buttonhole, and a silk top hat. He is not a young man. He must have been wearing a topper all his professional life. I imagine younger colleagues consider themselves appropriately dressed in a bowler.

  We walk to the magistrates’ courts. The foyer is lofty, the expanse of floor tiled; there is a wide staircase with shallow treads. We head upstairs and walk along a couple of corridors.

  A clerk greets us and shows us into – a room.

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I was expecting a courtroom.’

  ‘There’s no need for one,’ Mr Sowerby says. ‘The matter in question isn’t in question at all. Your identity is a certain thing. We merely need to prove it with bells on, so that Mr Richard Carson will understand that he has no means of challenging the will.’

  ‘Has he attempted to challenge it?’

  ‘No, but when he met you, he claim
ed not to recognise you, which might or might not have been the truth. Either way, as the usurped heir, as it were, he needs to have your identity made crystal-clear to him, to the world in general, and, most importantly, to the court.’

  In other words, he needs to have his nose rubbed in it.

  ‘He believed himself to be the heir for some considerable time, and Mr Tyrell must have believed it too,’ I observe. ‘I wonder if I should offer him a share.’

  Mr Sowerby looks straight into my face. ‘Mr Linkworth, please do not say or do anything that gives Mr Carson the smallest hold on the late Mr Tyrell’s estate. It is my professional opinion that Carson is a slippery customer. This is the man who commenced the sale of his uncle’s goods without waiting for probate. I strongly suggest you make no concessions.’

  Well, that’s put me in my place.

  There is a large desk in front of a wall lined with shelves of leather-bound books. Behind the desk is a handsome shieldbacked chair. Beside the desk, presumably where the witnesses will sit, is a plain wooden chair that wouldn’t be out of place in any decent kitchen.

  Mr Turton stands at a table on the other side of the room. He places his briefcase on it and starts removing papers. There are three chairs. He glances up and signals to me: this is where he, Mr Sowerby and I are to sit.

  Other chairs have been set out, but no other table. Of course not: my identity is not in question. Carson does not merit a table of his own.

  The clerk walks in and gives Mr Sowerby a sheet of paper. Sowerby glances at it.

  ‘All the witnesses have arrived,’ he says. ‘I’ve decided not to call Miss Layton, but the magistrate may wish to ask her a question or two.’

  ‘Does she have to wait outside with the other witnesses?’ I ask.

  ‘No. It is the people who are here to contribute to the issue of your identification who have to remain outside until they’re called.’

  ‘Then let’s ask her to come in. As first Mr Carson’s employee, and now mine, she has a vested interest in this matter.’

  Miss Layton is shown into the room by the clerk. Yesterday I gave her the money for her bus fare. Expenses, I called it, wishing I could have given her the money for a taxi; wishing I could have collected her from home and escorted her.