Two for Three Farthings

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Where’s your boater?’ he asked.

  ‘Can’t find it,’ she said.

  ‘Look under the bed.’

  Effel looked under the bed. She pulled out her boater.

  ‘That Orrice,’ she said, ‘where ’e puts fings.’

  ‘Me?’ said Orrice. ‘Me? That’s good, that is, I don’t fink. I’ll plonk yer one.’

  ‘No plonking,’ said Jim. ‘March.’

  They all went out on another excursion. Jim kept them so active that it was only in the evenings, when he was at work, that they thought about not having their mum and dad any more. Orrice revelled in every excursion. To him, it was really lively being out with their new uncle, their guardian. Effel went along with each outing in the way of a little girl still not quite sure exactly what her new life was all about, or exactly what their guardian meant to her.

  Jim called in at the post office to draw five pounds from his savings, and he helped Orrice open an account with the money the boy still had. Orrice deposited a pound of it. The woman at the counter, giving him the book, said, ‘Could I see what you look like under your cap, Master Withers?’

  ‘What for?’ asked Orrice cautiously.

  ‘I’m curious to see if there is anyone,’ smiled the woman. Orrice, not given to being as retiring as Effel, lifted his cap. ‘My,’ said the woman, beaming, ‘aren’t you a pretty boy?’

  Orrice nearly fell over in his horror.

  ‘Me?’ he gasped in outrage.

  Effel giggled.

  ‘’Oo’s a pretty boy, then?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll kill yer,’ bawled Orrice, much to the amusement of other people.

  ‘No killing,’ said Jim, ‘especially not in public.’

  Orrice slammed his cap back on, pulled it down to his nose, marched to the door in high blind dudgeon and cannoned into an entering woman.

  ‘Oh, hexcuse me, I’m sure,’ she said.

  ‘He’s a little off colour at the moment,’ said Jim.

  ‘Can’t tell if ’e’s on or orf under that cap,’ said the bumped woman.

  ‘’E’s pretty, yer know,’ said Effel, and Orrice, with a strangled yell of rage, hurled himself through the door into the street. He fell over the feet of an elderly man. It wasn’t the best few minutes of Orrice’s life. He marched along with Jim and Effel, with strange noises issuing from under his cap.

  Jim bought two black skirts, two white bouses and two pinafore dresses for Effel to wear to school. And a yellow frock for Sundays, plus vests, knickers, shoes and socks. Effel was openmouthed. She’d never seen so many actually new clothes, and she’d never worn shoes, only boots. She consented to try the frock on. Jim thought she looked delicious.

  ‘Yes, very nice, Effel,’ he said, at which Effel rushed back into the changing-room.

  ‘That’s a shy one,’ said the assistant.

  ‘She wasn’t in the post office,’ growled Orrice.

  In the boys’ department of a men’s outfitters, Jim bought Orrice two good quality woollen jerseys, one dark blue, the other dark grey, and two pairs of trousers. He also bought him underwear, socks and shoes, and a Sunday suit for fifteen shillings. Orrice wasn’t sure about a Sunday suit, he’d never had any kind of suit, and he didn’t want other boys catcalling him. But Jim prevailed, and Orrice tried the suit on.

  ‘Oh, don’t ’e look more pretty?’ cried Effel.

  ‘That’s done it, that ’as,’ said Orrice, ‘I ain’t ’aving no suit.’

  ‘Wrap it up when he’s taken it off,’ said Jim to the assistant.

  ‘Might as well be dead, I might,’ muttered Orrice. When they were outside with their many parcels, he said between grinding teeth, ‘I dunno I’m goin’ to let me sister live for more’n a few more days.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Effel.

  ‘I betcher yer would,’ said Orrice, ‘I betcher you’d holler when I’m cuttin’ yer bonce orf.’

  ‘Wouldn’t,’ said Effel. ‘Would it ’urt?’ she asked Jim.

  ‘Only at the time,’ said Jim. ‘But no cutting off of bonces, Orrice.’

  ‘Only Effel’s,’ said Orrice, ‘that’s all I’m beggin’ yer, Uncle Jim, just Effel’s.’

  ‘Forbidden,’ said Jim. ‘Now, who fancies fried eggs and bacon again at Toni’s?’ He guessed, correctly, that eggs and bacon were a treat to the kids.

  Effel and Orrice were totally in favour, although Orrice said he wasn’t going to take his cap off. Jim said caps would be removed at all meal times. Orrice growled that Effel would say things out loud about his looks.

  ‘Effel, no talking out loud in Toni’s,’ said Jim.

  ‘Don’t want to,’ said Effel.

  ‘Afterwards,’ said Jim, ‘we’ll buy toothbrushes and toothpowder for both of you.’

  Toni looked up at the entrance of Jim and the kids.

  ‘Ah, good-a morning, sir,’ he said to Orrice. ‘Good-a morning, signorina,’ he said to Effel, who at once planted herself rigidly behind Orrice. Toni grinned.

  ‘It ain’t funny, mister,’ said Orrice.

  ‘Eggs, bacon and bread and butter for three, Toni,’ said Jim, ‘and lemonade for sir and signorina.’

  ‘You got kids, I got eggs-a bacon coming up pretty quick, Jim,’ said Toni, and put his pan to work. He watched them seat themselves at a table. He saw Orrice take his cap off. ‘Hey, what you think, Jim,’ he called, ‘first time I see that kid. Hey, you kid.’ Orrice turned his head. ‘Hey, what-a you wear that cap for, kid? You’re a fine-looking boy, eh?’

  Orrice turned slightly red. Effel simpered with mischief.

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Orrice, ‘I s’pose that ain’t as bad as being called pretty. You ’eard that, Effel?’

  ‘’Oo’s a pretty boy, then?’ said Effel, but not out loud, only in a murmur.

  Orrice ground his teeth.

  ‘I ain’t got the strength to ’old meself back, Uncle Jim,’ he said. ‘I just got to shut Effel up, I just got to spread ’er all over the pavement when we get outside.’

  ‘Well, just this once,’ said Jim.

  ‘There, you ’eard that, sis, didn’t yer?’ said Orrice.

  ‘Ain’t saying nuffink out loud,’ said Effel.

  Jim took them to their new school on Monday morning, Effel in new white blouse, sensible black skirt and her better boater. With the class of seven-year-olds seated, Effel stood beside the teacher’s desk.

  ‘Children,’ said the teacher, Miss Forster, ‘say hello to our new pupil, Ethel Withers.’

  ‘Hello!’ bawled the class of boys and girls.

  ‘Hello, Ethel, if you don’t mind,’ said Miss Forster.

  ‘’Lo, Effel!’

  ‘Go and sit down, Ethel,’ said Miss Forster, ‘there’s a place in the front row, next to Daisy Rogers.’

  ‘Don’t like ’er,’ muttered Effel under her breath.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Nuffink,’ said Effel.

  Miss Forster took the girl’s hand and led her to the desk. Daisy Rogers made room. Effel sat down, mutinously.

  ‘There’s pencils there, look,’ said Daisy, lifting the desk lid.

  ‘Oh, a’ right,’ said Effel, yellow ribbon around her hair, white blouse so neat-looking to herself that it almost worried her.

  Miss Forster set them to work after the Scripture lesson, the pupils using coloured crayons. She walked round the desks, encouraging and cajoling. Crayon drawing was very popular, and the pupils became absorbed in their fanciful creations. Miss Forster stopped to look at Effel’s drawing-book. The page showed round dots of different colours, each conglomerate of dots forming a rough circle, and the whole forming a large circle.

  ‘What’s that, Ethel?’ asked the teacher.

  ‘A wreaf,’ said Effel, who knew from her experiences at her other school that it was no good telling teachers she wasn’t talking. If you did that they made you stand in front of the class with everyone looking at you. You felt silly. ‘A wreaf like at funerals, miss.’

>   Having received certain information from the headmistress about both new pupils, Miss Forster said gently, ‘Yes, I see. Well, do you know, Ethel, it’s very good. Why, it’s impressionist.’

  ‘What’s imp – what’s that?’

  ‘It’s a method some famous painters use. See, you’ve made an impression of a wreath of different flowers. The little circles are all heads of flowers, aren’t they, close together?’

  ‘It’s for our mum an’ dad,’ said Effel. Her head dropped and her eyes were suddenly wet. But she wasn’t going to cry, not in front of a classful of other children. Miss Forster lightly patted her shoulder.

  ‘It’s very good, Ethel,’ she said, and moved on.

  ‘Don’t you like it ’ere?’ whispered Daisy. ‘I’ll look after you. See, I’m drawing a cat.’

  ‘We ’ad a cat,’ said Effel, and wondered what had happened to it.

  Orrice too had stood by a teacher’s desk to be introduced. The teacher was Mr Hill, known as Whiskers behind his back because he had a large grey moustache. The class was for nine-year-old and ten-year-old boys and girls. Orrice’s eyes flickered about, ready to alight on anyone making faces at him because he was new here.

  ‘’Ere, sir,’ called a boy from the back, ‘he’s got his farver’s trousers on.’

  Girls giggled. Orrice took a note of the boy.

  ‘Stand up, Higgs,’ said Mr Hill.

  ‘Yessir,’ said Higgs, a slim boy, and stood up.

  ‘Did you say farver’s trousers?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Father’s, Higgs, father’s.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Kindly say it.’

  ‘Yessir. Farver’s, sir.’

  ‘I’m onto you, my lad,’ said Mr Hill. ‘Ten minutes reading aloud for you in a moment. And kindly note that Horace Withers’s trousers fit him. So they can’t be his father’s. Withers, find a place at a desk.’

  Orrice walked straight up a gangway between desks, found a spare place next to a girl, and eyed Higgs across the gangway. Higgs met the challenge with a bold grin. The girl whispered, ‘Is that really your name – Horace?’

  ‘What’s yourn, then?’ asked Orrice.

  ‘Alice French. Fancy long trousers.’

  ‘Fancy a frock with egg on it,’ said Orrice.

  ‘Oh, it isn’t,’ protested Alice.

  ‘All right, only jokin’,’ said Orrice, and gave her a smile. It wasn’t fateful to give girls a smile, it just showed them you were willing to put up with them being girls.

  Nine-year-old Alice looked into joking brown eyes and at a fresh, healthy face. Her lashes fluttered.

  ‘You’re ever so nice,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, gawd,’ said Orrice. That was the trouble with girls. You couldn’t have a sensible conversation with them.

  ‘Attention, class,’ said Mr Hill. ‘Scripture books out.’ He tapped his desk with a ruler, and his pupils came to order. ‘Higgs will read out loud from the top of page ten, where Jesus is comforting His disciples.’

  ‘Oh, blooming blimey,’ muttered Higgs to himself. He thought that what Jesus said to His disciples ought to remain private. But he began. ‘“Let not yer ’eart be troubled yer believe in God believe also in me in me—”’

  ‘Punctuation, Higgs.’

  ‘Yessir. “In me Farver’s ’ouse are many mansions—”’

  ‘In me Farver’s ’ouse?’ said Mr Hill.

  ‘Yessir.’

  Mr Hill shook his head.

  ‘You can do better than that. Look at the spelling. You’ve turned my into me, Father into Farver, and house into ’ouse.’

  ‘Yessir. Sorry, sir.’ Higgs continued. ‘“If it were not so I would ’ave told yer and if I go—”’

  ‘Cheeky,’ said Mr Hill. ‘You’re dodging the column. Go back to “In my Father’s house.”’

  ‘Yessir.’ Higgs groaned. Painfully he said, ‘“In my Father’s ’ouse – house – there are many mansions.”’

  ‘Better,’ said Mr Hill. ‘Not exactly perfect, but better.’ He persevered with the boy. The class listened. Finally, the teacher said, ‘All right, improvement noted, Higgs. Now, would you like to say something cordial and in fairly good English to our new pupil, Master Withers?’

  ‘Yessir. Like you said, ‘Orace Wivvers ain’t wearing ’is farver’s trousers.’

  Mr Hill sighed. The class couldn’t think why. Higgs’s speech sounded all right to them. It was teachers who talked funny.

  Orrice experienced a reasonable morning. Arithmetic was no problem to him. He helped Alice with hers. She surreptitiously slipped him a boiled sweet. He popped it into his mouth.

  ‘No, it’s not for now,’ she whispered, ‘you’ll catch it sucking sweets in class.’

  ‘I’m suckin’ it now to show yer I appreciate it,’ murmured Orrice, dividing 27 into 405 with ease.

  ‘Oh, could we sit next to each other every day?’ asked Alice.

  Orrice almost swallowed his boiled sweet in his alarm. He had all the problems he wanted with Effel, always at his heels and getting in his way. He didn’t want another girl doing it.

  ‘I’ll let yer meet me sister at dinnertime,’ he said. Effel would see Alice off.

  At dinnertime, half the children went home for a meal. The rest stayed to eat what they had brought with them. Some had sandwiches, some just two slices of bread and marge, some an apple and a piece of cake. Jim arrived with fresh sandwiches for Effel and Orrice, who received them from him at the gate to the playground.

  ‘Brawn sandwiches with pickle,’ he said.

  ‘Yer a sport, Uncle,’ said Orrice.

  ‘Don’t like brawn,’ said Effel, unwrapping hers with a lack of interest.

  ‘Course yer do, I seen yer eat tons of brawn,’ said Orrice.

  ‘That’s wiv ’ot potatoes,’ said Effel, ‘not between bread.’

  ‘Try it,’ said Jim, and she took an obedient bite. She chewed and swallowed. ‘Awful?’ said Jim.

  ‘I likes the pickle,’ said Effel. It was Hayward’s famous Military Pickle.

  ‘How did the morning go?’ asked Jim, watching kids running about the playground.

  ‘We done drawing,’ said Effel, and took another bite. With her mouth full, she mumbled, ‘I done a wreaf for our mum an’ dad.’

  ‘A wreath?’ said Jim.

  ‘I drawed it,’ said Effel mournfully.

  ‘Well, that was a nice thought, Effel,’ said Jim. ‘Ethel,’ he mused correctively. ‘I’ll be leaving you cold meat and boiled potatoes again for your suppers. A bit boring, but it’s only for this evening. Tomorrow you’ll go from school to Miss Pilgrim’s. I’ll prepare a nice supper for you.’

  ‘Ain’t goin’,’ said Effel.

  ‘You’re goin’,’ said Jim, ‘or Orrice will drown you.’

  ‘You went an’ said no drowning,’ protested Effel.

  ‘That was yesterday, or the day before,’ said Jim. ‘So long now, be good. You too, Orrice.’

  ‘So long, Uncle,’ said Orrice.

  Jim, going on his way, stopped and turned.

  ‘Give Effel another Bible reading this evening,’ he said.

  ‘Crikey, Uncle Jim, yer givin’ me an ’ard life, you are,’ said Orrice. Jim smiled and went on his way. Orrice and Effel went back into the playground. Alice came up, bright-eyed and fair-haired in a pinafore dress.

  ‘’Lo, Horace,’ she said.

  ‘’Oo’s she?’ asked Effel aggressively.

  ‘She’s Alice,’ said Orrice, ‘she’d like to meet yer.’

  ‘You look nice,’ said Alice to Effel, ‘what’s your name?’

  ‘Ain’t got no name,’ said Effel.

  ‘But you have to have a name,’ said Alice, one of the pupils, a minority, who didn’t massacre the King’s English.

  ‘Ain’t telling you,’ said Effel, who regarded Orrice as her exclusive property and all other girls as interlopers.

  ‘She’s Effel,’ said Orrice.

  �
��’Lo, Ethel,’ said Alice.

  ‘G’bye,’ said Effel.

  ‘Oh, I’m not going anywhere,’ said Alice, ‘except can you come and do skipping with me, Horace?’

  Effel muttered a hiss of rage, and Orrice tottered.

  ‘Skippin’?’ he said, horrified. ‘Skippin’?’

  ‘I’ve got a new skipping-rope,’ said Alice, ‘with pink handles. It’s over there.’

  Over there was where girls were skipping and eating sandwiches in between.

  ‘I don’t do skippin’,’ said Orrice, slighly hoarse.

  ‘Oh, I’ll show you,’ said Alice, as eager as a girl already in love, ‘I’ll show you how we can skip together.’

  Orrice, aware of boys playing leapfrog and other manly games, said, ‘I don’t feel well.’ And he didn’t.

  Effel hissed, ‘’E ain’t goin’. ’E’s my bruvver, not yourn.’

  ‘But he’s ever so nice,’ said Alice.

  Effel jumped up and down in her jealous rage.

  ‘Go away, or I’ll kick yer!’ she said.

  ‘Now, Effel, that ain’t nice,’ said Orrice.

  ‘Don’t care,’ said Effel, ‘I’ll kick all ’er teef out, I will!’

  ‘No, yer won’t,’ said Orrice.

  Fiendishly, Effel said, ‘I’ll make ’er go away, I’ll tell ’er you’re pretty, that’s what I’ll do.’ Orrice tottered again.

  ‘Oh, yes, he’s the nicest-looking boy ever,’ enthused Alice.

  ‘That’s done it,’ said Orrice, ‘I’m goin’ to shoot meself, I am. I don’t ’ave anyfing to live for now. I dunno, I betcher I done more good turns in me life than I’ve ’ad ’ot dinners, and where’s it got me, go on, Effel, tell me that. ’ere, excuse me, I’m sure, but what do you want?’

  Higgs had arrived, with two other boys.

  ‘Oh, I just wanted to show me mates yer wearing yer dad’s trousers,’ said Higgs.

  Orrice, not liking any mention of his dad, showed a firm, balled fist. ‘See that?’ he said. ‘No, yer can’t see it, can yer? It ain’t close enough. Now d’yer see it?’ The hard young fist stopped inches from Higgs’s nose.

  ‘I’ve seen bigger,’ said Higgs.

  ‘Bigger or smaller don’t count,’ said Orrice, ‘it’s how ’ard it feels when it cops yer sniffer. Which it is goin’ to if yer don’t take yer face away.’