Two for Three Farthings

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Yes?’ said Miss Pilgrim, who did not think the morning had been at all good. Nor did it look as if an improvement had arrived.

  ‘I understand you’ve rooms to let.’

  ‘You can read, I hope?’ said Miss Pilgrim.

  ‘Yes, of course—’

  ‘It’s a disgrace if you can’t read at your age.’

  ‘I read quite a lot, in fact,’ said Jim equably. Certain now that lodgings for himself and the kids weren’t going to be easy to come by, he was prepared to put up with the eccentricities already obvious in this stiffly dressed woman with an equally stiff look. One could never tell, in any case, what lay beneath the most forbidding front. ‘Reading’s a hobby of mine.’

  ‘Good reading is an education, I should hope,’ said Miss Pilgrim, and raised a dark eyebrow as she saw the little girl move to hide herself behind the boy. ‘Did you not see that the suite of rooms are available to single ladies only?’

  ‘Well, I’m glad for the single ladies,’ said Jim with a smile, ‘they seem to be getting a rough deal elsewhere. But no, I wasn’t aware of your preference. Were the rooms advertised, then?’

  ‘In Mr Smith’s window.’ Mr Smith ran the newsagents.

  ‘We missed that, didn’t we, youngsters?’ said Jim.

  ‘Oh, lor’,’ said Orrice. Effel, almost out of sight behind him, said nothing.

  ‘We were recommended by a lady in Dawes Street, who knew a friend of yours,’ said Jim. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t consider letting the rooms to us?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Pilgrim. ‘I should hope you could provide your wife and children with a decent rented house instead of a lodging of three rooms. Not that there’s anything wrong with my house, or with the rooms, but three for a family of four are quite out of the question.’

  ‘I’m not married,’ said Jim, ‘I’m the guardian of these children. They’ve just lost both their parents in the flu epidemic.’

  Miss Pilgrim frowned, as if she would have rather not been told.

  ‘I’m sorry, sincerely sorry,’ she said, ‘but I find it difficult to believe that as their guardian you apparently do not have a suitable home to offer them.’

  ‘We’re very squeezed in my present lodgings, that’s a fact,’ said Jim, ‘which is why I’m looking for better and roomier accommodation.’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’ Miss Pilgrim, strict Christian and daughter of a missionary, was vexed to find herself becoming uncomfortable. ‘But I wish to let the suite to two single ladies. It is not suitable accommodation for a man who has two children in his charge.’

  ‘It sounds happily suitable to me,’ said Jim, ‘but I understand your feelings. Well, we’ll look elsewhere. Thank you, anyway, for talking to us.’ He gave her a wry smile. Her look became stiffer, her discomfort increasing.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said, ‘but I have been opening my door all morning to unsuitable applicants.’ At which, Orrice gave her a sorrowful look. He did not think himself unsuitable, or Effel, or their new uncle. Miss Pilgrim, catching his look, experienced further vexation. ‘Good morning,’ she said, and closed the door.

  Jim sighed. He liked both the look of the house and the look of the street.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t our good fairy, after all,’ he said. ‘Never mind, let’s go round to Mr Smith, the newsagent, and see if he can help us.’

  The door opened again as they descended the steps. They turned.

  ‘One moment,’ said Miss Pilgrim, and fixed Orrice with eyes bluely frosty. She had felt most offended by his look. ‘Are these children baptized?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jim, surprised at the question, and taking for granted that Mr and Mrs Withers, in the tradition of most cockney parents, had certainly had Effel and Orrice baptized.

  ‘They go regularly to church?’

  ‘May I ask, madam—’

  ‘I am Miss Pilgrim.’

  ‘The children’s parents took them regularly to church,’ said Jim, plunging into the unknown.

  ‘Your name, please?’

  ‘Cooper, Jim Cooper.’

  ‘Yes. Very well. I shall think things over, Mr Cooper. You may call again this afternoon. I cannot say whether or not I may let the rooms to you, only that I’ll think it over. Good morning again.’ Miss Pilgrim closed the door decisively.

  As they walked away, Orrice said, ‘Crikey, what a funny woman, I betcher she’s starchy all over, I betcher she’s even got starchy drawers, I betcher she can’t even bend over. That’s a sorrowing fing, Uncle Jim, not being able to even bend over. She couldn’t even pick up anyfing she dropped.’

  ‘Yer naughty, saying that word,’ complained Effel.

  ‘What word?’ asked Orrice.

  ‘Ain’t telling,’ said Effel.

  ‘Stiff petticoats don’t always mean no heart,’ said Jim. ‘She’s going to think it over. And Orrice, as she might think in favour of us, kindly watch your language when your sister’s present.’

  ‘That’s good, that is,’ said Orrice, stepping out in springy fashion, ‘I dunno when Effel ain’t present, I dunno when she ain’t treadin’ on me ’eels or gettin’ in me way or jumpin’ on me back, I dunno I ever ’ad a time when I was by meself. Uncle Jim, we goin’ to come back an’ see that lady again?’

  ‘Yes, we are, Orrice. It’s a nice house and a nice street, close to your new school and the church.’

  ‘Ain’t goin’ to no church,’ muttered Effel.

  ‘Uncle Jim, we don’t go to no church,’ said Orrice, as they entered the familiar ground of Walworth Road. ‘Mum and Dad always let us go down the market Sunday mornings.’

  ‘That’s going to alter, Orrice.’

  ‘Oh, cripes,’ said Orrice.

  ‘Ain’t goin’,’ said Effel.

  ‘Black mark, Effel,’ said Jim.

  ‘What’s a black mark mean?’ asked Orrice.

  ‘It means watch out,’ said Jim. ‘Two black marks mean dry bread and water.’

  ‘Cor, Effel won’t like that.’

  ‘Don’t care,’ said Effel.

  ‘Yer new frock looks nice, sis.’

  ‘Ain’t talkin’,’ said Effel.

  ‘Best thing, that, sometimes, not talking,’ observed Jim. ‘Silence is often golden. Well, let’s hope the lady with starched petticoats will take us in.’ He had faint hopes himself. ‘Now, suppose we buy a loaf of bread and some tasty ham, make sandwiches at home and then take a tram ride to Ruskin Park and have a picnic on a bench? With a bottle of lemonade? The sun’s out, Effel’s looking pretty and Orrice a proper little gent. How about it, kids?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Effel, and came out of her no-talking mood. She did a little skip. ‘I like the park, it’s got grass.’

  ‘Yer can’t walk on it,’ said Orrice. ‘Well, yer can if the park-keepers ain’t got their mince pies on yer, and even if they do see yer, yer all right as long as yer can run fast. Can we go, then, Uncle Jim?’

  ‘We’ll do that,’ said Jim, ‘and when we come back we’ll call again on Miss Pilgrim.’

  Effel said, ‘Can I hide behind yer when we get there, mister?’

  ‘If you want to,’ said Jim.

  ‘You got to excuse ’er,’ said Orrice, ‘she’s only little and she don’t like being looked at.’

  ‘Well, tell her from me that pretty little girls are bound to be looked at,’ said Jim, ‘and that when she’s older she might even get boxes of chocolates as well as looks.’

  ‘She’ll still want to ’ide behind yer, Uncle, she’s shy, yer see,’ said Orrice. ‘Ain’t yer, sis?’

  ‘Mind yer business,’ said Effel, who felt an instinctive need for the protection of a grown-up, but still wasn’t sure about a man who wasn’t her dad.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘You may enter,’ said Miss Pilgrim.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jim.

  Miss Pilgrim had given considerable thought to the matter, more especially after other people had knocked on her door without in the least impressing her.
It had seemed to her, once she had reconciled herself to taking in lodgers, that the process of selecting the most suitable would be quite straightforward. After all, her advertisement had clearly stated applicants were to be respectable. She had envisaged two young ladies of Christian virtue willing to share a living-room with basic kitchen facilities, and out at work all day. She had not envisaged having to interview applicants who were clearly not respectable. One young woman had declared she would rent one bedroom for five shillings, but didn’t wish to share any part of her existence with some female she didn’t know. Miss Pilgrim had told her she did not consider that at all Christianlike, and had thereupon been accused of being a stupid old – well, the word was not one she would repeat, even to herself.

  Uncomfortable though it was to admit it, the most presentable person had been the man with two wards, a boy and a girl. He had been pleasantly well-mannered and polite, and the children did not seem like noisy nuisances, although the boy had been precocious in giving her a look of reproach. She wrestled at length with her Christian self and with what was right and what was suitable. Her Christian self told her she could not dismiss the need of a man who had taken on the guardianship of two recently bereaved children. Her reserved self told her that she would not feel right with a man in her house, that it would not be either suitable or proper. Worse, a man’s close presence would arouse unwelcome memories.

  Her Christian self prevailed.

  She took them into her parlour, where the lace curtains, lace table overlay, delicate ornaments and tasteful, well-preserved furniture gave the room a predominantly feminine look, even a pretty look. She walked to an armchair. Her clothes rustled and crackled. Jim saw a little grin slide over Orrice’s face. Miss Pilgrim removed a cushion from the armchair.

  ‘You may sit here, child,’ she said to Effel. Effel gulped, sat down on the very edge of the armchair and pulled the brim of her new boater down until it shielded her from being looked at. Miss Pilgrim did not ask Jim or Orrice to seat themselves. At this initial stage she elected to preserve a cautious and formal front, to avoid encouraging anything in the way of the smallest familiarity. She faced Jim, her clasped hands on her firm stomach. ‘I have given your application serious thought, Mr Cooper.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, Miss Pilgrim,’ said Jim, hat in his hand. Orrice had his cap off. Miss Pilgrim noted the boy’s need of a haircut.

  ‘It doesn’t do a Christian woman credit to turn away a man with two children to look after, unless there are more unfortunate persons on her doorstep,’ she said. ‘The rooms I have to offer are not to be bettered in the matter of cleanliness, which is something I insist on in my house. While there are no frills or fripperies, the rent of twelve shillings a week includes use of all bed linen, the sheets and pillow-cases going into my Monday wash, and spare ones put in their place. The children must go to bed clean, and I must ask if they have any weak habits.’

  Jim knew she meant did Orrice or Effel wet the bed. They had not wet his bed.

  ‘No ailments of that kind, Miss Pilgrim,’ he said.

  ‘Their behaviour?’ she enquired, with Orrice gazing at her as if she had come from a world unknown to him.

  ‘Oh, they behave like a boy and girl,’ said Jim, ‘but I prohibit rowdyism.’

  ‘I should hope so, Mr Cooper,’ she said, and Jim felt he was being addressed by a schoolmarm. She had obviously not yet entered the twentieth century. All the same, she was handing out hope. ‘Do you drink?’

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘Me and Effel do, missus,’ said Orrice, ‘we—’

  ‘Boy?’ said Miss Pilgrim freezingly.

  ‘Well, lemonade an’ cocoa an’ tea, like,’ said Orrice humbly, ‘except Effel likes tea most—’

  ‘Young man, I am speaking to your guardian. Also, I am not Mrs.’

  ‘Yes’m. No’m.’

  Miss Pilgrim, handsomely imposing, resumed her catechism of Jim.

  ‘Do you drink, Mr Cooper?’

  ‘Well,’ said Jim, ‘I—’

  ‘I hope you are not addicted, Mr Cooper. Drink weakens a man’s Christian faith and his sense of responsibility. A man who takes to drink is a poor creature. I cannot permit the introduction of beer and spirits into this house. If you are addicted, please say so.’

  ‘I’m not addicted, Miss Pilgrim, but I admit to enjoying a small glass of beer in a pub now and again.’

  ‘H’m,’ she said. But she noted his lost arm again, and his look of a man who had endured, which to her was a sign that he had fought in the trenches. One could not be wholly critical. ‘I should hope no more than that,’ she said.

  ‘I do all things in moderation,’ said Jim, almost lost for words at the formidable Victorianism of this incorruptible female. He wondered how old she was. His own age? Younger? No. Older? Perhaps. Was it important? Not really.

  ‘Do you indulge in tobacco?’

  ‘Moderately.’

  ‘Well, that is not a sin,’ said Miss Pilgrim in Christian tolerance, ‘merely a bad habit. Should we come to terms over these rooms, please do me the courtesy of not smoking in my house. It will set a bad example to the boy. I assume that as you have accepted the serious responsibility of becoming guardian to these children, you are not an unworthy man, that you do not blaspheme or conduct yourself in indifferent fashion. I practise strict Christian principles that include self-denial and self-discipline, my father having been a missionary in China until I was twenty, when he and my mother and I returned to London for him to take up his work at the Bermondsey mission. This he did for eight years until he died of a heart attack, having worn himself out in the service of God. I then considered it my duty to look after my mother, who suffered from malaria and herself died six months ago. We chose, after the death of my father, to remain in this house, having lived here since our return to London from China. And I chose, after the death of my mother, to remain here, for the house bears the imprint of both my God-fearing parents. It need not concern you, the reason why I am willing to rent out the upper floor. Where are you employed, Mr Cooper?’

  Jim, experiencing for the first time since he had come to manhood the bemusing effects of a Christian female’s missionary zeal, said in a slightly helpless way, ‘Where? Oh, where, yes. At the United Kingdom Club near Blackfriars.’

  ‘That is a club run for the benefit of servicemen?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘One could not call it an unworthy establishment, I imagine. But is drink sold there?’

  ‘In moderation,’ said Jim, ‘but the staff aren’t permitted to indulge.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it. I have known the sad and undignified effects of inebriation.’

  Jim looked astonished, then sympathetic.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’d never have thought it.’

  Miss Pilgrim stared at him with freezing blue eyes.

  ‘Mr Cooper, are you imputing to me, in front of these children, a weakness I have never suffered? Neither I nor my father, and certainly not my mother, ever touched the smallest drop of alcohol.’

  ‘I’m sorry, my word I am,’ said Jim, ‘I should have known at once I was drawing the wrong inference.’

  ‘Oh, lor’,’ breathed Orrice, and Effel’s boater tipped lower.

  ‘Miss Pilgrim,’ said Jim, facing up to the frosty blue eyes, ‘I realize, of course, that you meant you had seen the effects of drink on other people. I do apologize.’ He wanted that suite of rooms. They were self-contained, they were just right, and in them he and the kids could keep out of the dragon’s way. ‘Stupid of me.’

  ‘Very well, I shall accept your apology,’ said Miss Pilgrim. She cast a reproving look at Effel, who was fidgeting. Effel, catching the look, crammed her boater down over her face. ‘What is wrong with that child?’

  ‘Please’m, she’s shy,’ said Orrice.

  ‘That’s true,’ said Jim.

  ‘Well, one cannot object to that,’ said Miss Pilgrim, ‘it is a sign of sensitivity, and sensi
tivity is a sign of humility before God, which is a Christian virtue. Child, put your hat where it belongs, on your head.’

  ‘Oh,’ gulped Effel, and her boater fell to the floor. Miss Pilgrim stooped, rustled, and picked it up. Jim thought it an instinctive gesture to keep the floor looking tidy. She placed the boater firmly back on Effel’s well-combed hair. Effel blushed crimson.

  ‘Hats on young ladies are for keeping on,’ said Miss Pilgrim. ‘What is your name, child?’

  Effel ducked her head again.

  ‘Effel,’ she said.

  ‘Effel?’ said Miss Pilgrim.

  ‘Ethel,’ said Jim.

  ‘I see.’ Miss Pilgrim might have voiced disparagement of Effel’s pronunciation had she not lived among cockneys for eleven years. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Seven,’ said Jim.

  ‘What is your name, boy?’ asked Miss Pilgrim of Orrice.

  ‘Orrice,’ he said.

  Miss Pilgrim looked down her nose.

  ‘I think you mean Horace,’ she said.

  ‘Yes’m, Orrice.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Ten,’ said Orrice proudly. When you reached double figures you counted for something.

  ‘Mr Cooper,’ said Miss Pilgrim, ‘are you agreeable to the rent of twelve shillings a week?’

  ‘I am,’ said Jim, ‘and must say it’s generous of you to include laundering of the bed linen.’

  ‘Who is to do your other laundry? You cannot, surely.’ It was her first reference to his handicap.

  ‘Oh, I’ll take all our weekly stuff to Ashford’s Laundry,’ said Jim.

  ‘I see.’ Miss Pilgrim looked as if that entailed profligate expenditure of money. ‘Perhaps you would now like to inspect the rooms and decide if they suit you?’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jim, ‘I’d very much like to take a look.’

  ‘Then please follow me.’

  They all followed her, Effel scrambling from the armchair to get as close to Jim as she could. Miss Pilgrim sailed handsomely from the parlour and crossed the little hall to the stairs. She hitched her skirts and ascended. She rustled and whispered, and Orrice rolled his eyes, a little grin appearing again. Jim glimpsed shapely ankles in brown stockings. Her long-legged body ascended regally. She turned on the landing and led the way to the front bedroom. It was of a comfortable size, its two windows overlooking the neat street. As she had said, there were no frills or fripperies, except that the lace curtains matched the prettiness of those in the parlour. The mahogany furniture was plain, simple and practical. There was a large wardrobe, a washstand with a bowl and pitcher, a chest of drawers, a dressing-table, one upright chair, a double bed and a small bedside table on which stood a candle in its holder. The single gas mantle was covered by a pearl glass globe. The bed was covered by a patchwork overlay. The linoleum was spotless, and there were floor rugs, one on each side of the bed. A framed picture of a Highland stag hung on one wall.