Two for Three Farthings
Page 32
She put a hand to her throat, her heartbeats erratic.
What could she say to him? That Miss Keating was far more suitable?
She drew a deep breath and went back to the kitchen. The children, with time to spare, were washing up for her. That would have been Horace’s idea. The boy was like herself, fundamentally a compulsively busy person, always liking to be doing something, whatever it was. His one objection was to skipping with girls, even with Alice, now his best friend. And Ethel, presently a very relieved little girl, was drying up with care and without grumbles. Once Miss Pilgrim would not have let either of them handle her china.
‘Well, thank you both for that help,’ she said. ‘I’m taking some things up to your guardian so that he can wash and shave. When I come down, you can go up and say goodbye to him before you return to school.’
‘Yes, fank you, Miss Pilgrim,’ said Effel.
‘Honest,’ said Orrice, ‘I dunno—’
‘Now, Horace,’ said Miss Pilgrim in reproof.
‘I don’t know, I mean,’ said Orrice. ‘I mean I don’t know what we’d do without you, Miss Pilgrim.’
She smiled.
‘Children,’ she said, ‘would you like it, then, if I were always with you, to help your guardian take care of you?’
‘Crikey, not half we wouldn’t, wouldn’t we, Effel?’ said Orrice.
‘I don’t mind,’ said Effel, typically understating her approval.
‘But would you like it, Ethel?’
‘I fink so.’
‘Truly, child?’
Effel hung her shy head.
‘Yes, Miss Pilgrim,’ she said, and gulped.
‘Well, that’s splendid,’ said Miss Pilgrim.
Jim looked up as she reappeared carrying a towel and a bar of soap, together with his face flannel and his shaving things. She seemed quite composed. She placed the items on the little bedside table, and took the tray up from his lap. The soup bowl was empty, both slices of bread and butter eaten.
‘Good,’ she said, ‘now you may wash and shave.’
‘Yes, I’d like to,’ said Jim, ‘but I think I’ll need the bowl of hot water you promised.’
‘Pardon?’
‘It’s all right, I’ll ask Horace. You’ve done quite enough.’
‘Hot water?’ Miss Pilgrim suddenly seemed not at all composed. ‘Oh, dear, have I forgotten it?’ She had. But she was not herself, of course. ‘I’ll get it, Mr Cooper, I’ll take this tray down and be up with the bowl as soon as I can.’
‘And that’s all?’ said Jim wryly.
‘All? Oh, are you referring to your proposal? Yes, very well, Mr Cooper.’ She made for the door.
‘Wait a moment,’ said Jim, ‘what d’you mean, yes very well?’
‘I asked the children if they minded,’ she said, her back to him, ‘and they were very sweet. They don’t mind at all. Naturally, we must adopt them. It really won’t be enough just to be their guardians.’
Jim sat straight up.
‘Rebecca, d’you mind not talking to the door? D’you mind telling me exactly what you mean?’
Still with her back to him, she said with a slight catch in her voice, ‘It means I’m very happy to know you love me.’
‘Rebecca, look at me.’
She turned about, and Jim saw that her fearless blue eyes, which missed nothing, were actually moist.
Incredible. She had been there during all the years he’d spent in Walworth. He had so often tried to convince himself that somewhere out there in the world was a woman willing to share his life, despite his background, a woman who was waiting for him. And here she was, the proudest and most courageous woman he had ever known.
And she had only been just round the corner, more or less.
‘Yes, I do love you, Rebecca, probably more than I’ll ever be able to tell you.’
‘Darling, how much money do we have?’
‘Pardon?’ said Jim. It was close to Christmas.
‘How much money do we have?’
‘No, what else was it you said?’
‘I’m tragically poor myself—’
‘You didn’t say that.’
‘Well, I’m saying it now,’ said Rebecca, ‘and I’m happy to have someone I can say it to. One is too proud to admit poverty to others. Perhaps you are tragically poor yourself, in which case we have nothing except what is in my purse and your pocket. Never mind, we shall make do on what you earn.’
‘It so happens I have this.’ Jim extracted his wallet, flipped it open and showed her five white five-pound notes sitting loose between the covers. ‘I’ve left a few pounds in the account – Post Office savings – and I’ve drawn this for you. Well, for all of us, but you take charge of it. It’s for wedding expenses. You’ll make wiser use of it than I will.’
Rebecca took the banknotes and spread them out on the kitchen table, her blue eyes warm and alive. She gazed at the fivers, then looked at Jim.
‘Pride in someone is a happy thing,’ she said. ‘I am very proud of you. Now I can buy myself a handsome costume and blouse for the wedding, which will be very useful afterwards, and a bridesmaid’s frock for Effel.’
‘Effel?’ said Jim, keeping his face straight.
‘Oh, horrors!’ exclaimed Rebecca and clutched her forehead in theatrical despair. ‘What is to become of my King’s English if Horace doesn’t positively mend his ways and call his sister Ethel?’
‘You sure you don’t mean Orrice?’ said Jim.
Rebecca struggled to find a frosty look. Failing, she laughed.
‘Jim Cooper, you’re as bad as they are,’ she said.
‘Three of a kind,’ said Jim, and Rebecca smiled.
‘Four of a kind, darling,’ she said.
‘What did you say?’ asked Jim. Endearments from Rebecca were new.
‘Four of a kind,’ she said, ‘we all care for each other, you see.’
‘With all these darlings flying about, I suppose we must do,’ said Jim.
‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing, you darling woman,’ said Jim. ‘Will you do me a favour?’
‘Only if it’s serious. You are absurdly ridiculous at times.’
‘Well, this is very serious. When you wear your new costume for the wedding, will you also wear your very best starched petticoat?’
‘Jim Cooper!’
‘I want to hear you rustle as you walk up the aisle,’ said Jim.
‘You absurd man!’
‘By the way,’ said Jim, ‘don’t call Horace darling or he’ll leave home and join the French Foreign Legion.’
They were married at St John’s in the New Year. All Rebecca’s friends and neighbours were there, and so were Jim’s maternal grandparents, in brave defiance of their son Arthur’s sour disapproval. So were Aunt Glad and Uncle Perce. The strains of the Wedding March smothered the delicate rustle and whisper of the bride’s petticoat as she approached her waiting bridegroom. Emerging from the church as Mrs James John Cooper, Rebecca looked splendidly handsome in her new costume and a tall close-fitting feather-trimmed hat quite audaciously striking and modern. Effel was a shy, tongue-tied bridesmaid, Alice an excited and proud one. Orrice wore his Sunday suit and a new cap. Higgs and Cattermole turned up outside the church and catcalled Orrice over his dressed-up look. Orrice arranged to fight them both, but couldn’t manage the engagement before Monday week, because he and Effel, given dispensation by the school’s headmistress, were to accompany their guardian and his bride on a week’s holiday in Brighton. Orrice and Effel had never been on a real holiday, so Jim and Rebecca took them along. Jim felt events had enriched him, the more so because the club management had given him a rise of ten bob a week to bring him up to the wage of a married man. Rebecca said a prayer of thanks, for it meant she need no longer slave over embroidery, but could devote herself fully to her husband and the children.
If it was a winter holiday for Orrice and Effel, it was a honeymoon for Jim and Rebecca. It was al
so a voyage of discovery for Jim. Rebecca, in the intimate finery of her starched and frothy white lace underwear, was worth sailing the seven seas for. And it was impossible for her not to be a pleasure to the man she had admitted into her house with many cautious reservations, but who, with his wards, had gradually thawed out the woman who had frozen eleven long years ago.
After the honeymoon, she took firm control of her newly-won family, and with the help of the vicar arranged for herself and Jim to adopt the children without delay. When it was done, she let the boy and girl know they could call her and Jim their mother and father. Orrice took that in his stride. He addressed Jim as Pa at once, and would have addressed Rebecca as Ma, except that she squashed that immediately. So he called her Mum. She would have preferred Mother or Mama, but let it go. Effel did not call her adoptive parents anything. She liked the situation, it made her feel secure, it made her feel there was affection for her, but she had her shy and sensitive reservations.
Easter approached.
‘Would you like to come to tea Easter Sunday, Alice?’ asked Orrice of his best friend. You had to make a best friend of someone who’d given you a superior kind of clockwork train set, even if she was a girl.
‘Oh, would I, yes,’ said Alice, now ten. Orrice was eleven and due to transfer to West Square in September. ‘You are a dear, Horace.’
‘Alice, you don’t ’ave to go off yer chump, yer know,’ said Orrice, looking around to see if Higgs was in dangerous proximity.
‘But you can call me dear too,’ said Alice. ‘Are you going anywhere on Easter Bank Holiday?’
‘Yes, if it’s a nice day,’ said Orrice.
‘If it is, we’re goin’ to ’Ampstead ’Eaf,’ said Effel, ‘they want to try the coconut shy an’ go on the swings.’
‘Who do?’ asked Alice.
Effel looked scornful.
‘Why, me mum an’ dad, of course,’ she said, and did a little dance and a jig as they walked up Larcom Street together, towards the Walworth Road.
Towards home.
Towards Mum and Dad.
The End
About the Author
Mary Jane Staples was born, bred and educated in Walworth, and is the author of many bestselling novels, including the ever-popular cockney sagas featuring the Adams family.
Also by Mary Jane Staples:
The Adams Books
Down Lambeth Way
Our Emily
King of Camberwell
On Mother Brown’s Doorstep
A Family Affair
Missing Person
Pride of Walworth
Echoes of Yesterday
The Young Ones
The Camberwell Raid
The Last Summer
The Family at War
Fire Over London
Churchill’s People
Bright Day, Dark Night
Tomorrow is Another Day
The Way Ahead
Year of Victory
The Homecoming
Sons and Daughters
Appointment at the Palace
Changing Times
Spreading Wings
Family Fortunes
A Girl Next Door
Ups and Downs
Out of the Shadows
A Sign of the Times
The Soldier’s Girl
Other titles in order of publication
The Lodger
Rising Summer
The Pearly Queen
Sergeant Joe
The Trap
The Ghost of Whitechapel
Escape to London
The Price of Freedom
A Wartime Marriage
Katernia’s Secret
The Summer Day is Done
The Longest Winter
Natasha’s Dream
Nurse Anna’s War
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TWO FOR THREE FARTHINGS
A CORGI BOOK : 0 552 13635 2
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781446488430
First publication in Great Britain
Printing History
Corgi edition published 1990
7 9 10 8 6
Copyright © Mary Jane Staples 1990
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