Minerva's Stepchild

by Helen Forrester

  I gaped at her, struck dumb by the unexpectedness of the offer. Then I gasped, "Oh, yes."

  She smiled at me, and continued, "The salary is not much— about twelve and sixpence a week. Would you like me to arrange an interview for you?"

  Twelve shillings and sixpence a week seemed a huge sum to me. All the wonderful things it would buy danced before me, mixed with a terrible apprehension that I would not get the job because I was so dirty and had no clothes except the grubby, ragged collection I was wearing.

  The deaconess was talking. "I thought I would ask you first, before speaking to your mother."

  At the mention of Mother, I remembered the sweetshop episode.

  "My parents will never agree to it," I said hopelessly. "I have to look after Edward."

  "I've already thought of that," she responded eagerly. "Alice Davis lives a few doors away from you. She has an invalid mother who cannot be left alone, and she badly needs to earn a few shillings. I am sure she would take care of Edward during the day—and she wouldn't charge much."

  A fairy godmother in a blue mackintosh! A try fairy godmother. A wave of gratitude surged through me, but I did not know how to express it. "Would she, really—^would she do it?" I whispered.

  "I'm sure she would, if I ask her."

  I was acquainted with Alice. She belonged to the Salvation Army. I said "good morning" to her most Sundays, as she strode along the street pushing her mother's wheelchair down to the Citadel. Her mother would be bundled up in rough gray blankets, regardless of whether it was winter or summer, and Alice wore a navy-blue uniform, with a matching Victorian bonnet trimmed

  with a red ribbon proclaiming "Salvation Army." Her cheerful face shone like her shoes. Occasionally, the Salvation Army band played at the end of our street, and Alice would rush down to them, clutching her cymbals, ready to join in. Alice was rough, but Edward would be safe with her.

  Please, Lord, please let it happen, I prayed silently. Aloud, I said, "That you very, very much. I would love the job if you think I can do it."

  She smiled. "Of course you can do it. Shall I call on Mrs. Forrester tonight? You might like to talk to both your father and your mother first."

  "I will," I said, though I had no real hope. Perhaps, however, with an advocate like this respectable lady, just perhaps, they could be persuaded.

  "I'll come this evening, then?"

  "Yes, please," I mumbled.

  In a daze, I wheeled Edward home, pushing the pram unsee-ingly through the usual crowds of black, white, and yellow men idling at the comers.

  How on earth was I to approach Mother and Father about this oflFer? I worried. A chance of fi-eedom at last, a tiny flame of hope in a very bleak world.

  The whole routine of the family would have to be altered. Alan and Fiona would have to shoulder some of my work. And Alice would have to be paid. Some clothes would have to be redeemed from the pawnbroker—or obtained fi*om somewhere else. Where would Mother find the money?

  At home, I poked up the fire and began to make toast for the children's tea, while I thought once again of running away. Could I live on twelve shillings and sixpence? Boys sometimes ran away to the south, where there was more work than in financially ruined Liverpool. Occasionally, girls did, too. I had read in the newspaper, however, about the flourishing white-slave trafiic into which girls were sold. I was not clear what happened to white slaves, except that they were kept in bondage and abused by ruthless men until they died. I imagined them being misused like American black slaves, and I had no wish to die a dramatic death like Uncle Tom in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

  I did some careful arithmetic. A small, unheated housekeep-

  ing room could be found for about seven shillings and sixpence a week; food, say, four shillings, firing in winter would take the other shilling, leaving nothing for clothing. I did not consider that I might need tram fares—I had been walking, now, for the past three years all over south Liverpool. Makeup was beyond my experience and pocket money an idle dream, anyway.

  The children drifted in for tea, and I dealt with their squabbles and their hunger as best I could.

  Father and Mother returned from work soon after the children. Inside five minutes, they were quarrelling violently. I cannot remember what triggered the trouble. It did not matter, because the underlying animosity smoldered all the time and needed very little to make it flare up. As usual, they drew each child into the argument in an effort to make them take sides, and this frequently reduced Avril and Brian to hysterics. Fiona and Alan were old enough to retreat to fiiends' homes if they got desperate enough, but poor Avril, Tony, and Brian had no such refuges. Tony usually managed to stay a little calmer, though he was always upset, and Edward just stuck firmly in whichever lap he happened to be cradled when hostilities broke out.

  Alan had piled into the fight with some furious, rude remark and was sharply slapped by his father. He shot out of the kitchen door into the backyard, raging nearly as incoherently as Father was.

  Fiona wept helplessly, her head on the table. Brian and Tony stonily muched their toast, their movements nervous and uncoordinated. Avril stood behind Mother's chair, shaking it and shouting hopelessly, "Stop, everybody. Why can't you stop? "

  Neither protagonist would give way.

  I was silent with despair. What was I going to do when the church lady arrived? Mother seized a cup and saucer fi-om the table and hurled them into a comer. Through her screams of rage, I heard a knock on the front door.

  The other children had also heard the sharp rat-tat. When they instinctively turned their heads. Mother stopped in mid-scream .

  "What was that?" snarled Father.

  "Someone is at the door," I said, too much in anguish to move.

  "Well, get a move on, girl. Answer it. Say we're not at home."

  Reluctantly I obeyed, feet dragging.

  As I turned the lock on the front door, I wished, for the first time, that it was only a creditor. The moment I swung back the door, she was in the muddy hall and pulling off her gloves, as the wind gusted behind her.

  "It's quite cold this evening, " the deaconess said cheerfully. "Well, have you asked them, my dear?"

  "I haven't had an opportunity yet, " I apologized.

  Her smile faded, and she sighed. "Never mind. I'll ask for you. "

  "They said they are not at home tonight."

  From behind the closed door came the sound of renewed strife, though the level seemed more subdued—the interruption had broken the continuity of the argument. The lady laughed and looked at me conspiratorially. The back room was suddenly quiet. The feminine chuckle must have penetrated to the family.

  The deaconess tucked her gloves into her handbag and said briskly, "I imagine your mother would be at home to me. We know each other well enough to call occasionally without warning, don't we?"

  I tried to smile at her as I heard the door open behind me. "Will you come into the fi'ont room? " I asked hastily. "I'll inquire if they are at home. " These were phrases I had often heard our parlormaid use, and they came automatically to mind.

  I opened the door to the front room and ushered the blue-clad lady into it, just as Avril stumped out of the other room, her mouth surrounded by black toast crumbs. She marched into the sitting room after the visitor and stood staring at her.

  Nervously I announced our visitor to Mother and Father. Both parents were standing motionless, like alerted hares.

  Mother, her face and neck still red from combat, pushed past me and went into the front room. Father gave a great sigh and flopped into a chair. His hands were trembling as they always did when he was upset.

  Fiona had ceased to weep and gazed up at me with great pansy eyes still dewdropped. Brian and Tony asked Father's permission to leave the table.

  "Yes," he said peevishly.

  They scrambled down from their chairs, and I heard the back door slam, as they went out to play in the last of the evening light.

  Father turned back to me. He ge
stured with his head toward the front room. "What does she want?" he asked. I think he was always nervous that his wife had done something outrageous that he did not know about.

  I knelt down on one knee and began to pick up the bits of cup and saucer that Mother had shattered. Through my draggling hair, I hesitantly answered him.

  "She has come about me."

  He sat up straight and looked at me. "About you? What have you done?"

  I stood up and faced him. "I haven't done anything. She's got a job for me. And she's keen that I should take it."

  "What nonsense!" he sniffed, and then added angrily, "I wish she'd mind her own business. "

  "She means well. Daddy. "

  "She should hie her back to her nunnery and stay there. She has no right to interfere with my family." He thumped the arm of his chair. "She has no right to put ideas into your head."

  I stood irresolutely before him, the broken dishes in my hand. I wanted to put my arms around him and beg him to intercede for me. When I was small and he was not too busy, we had been able to talk to each other. But this ease between us had got lost in the maelstrom of trouble which had engulfed us. So I hesitated, and the opportunity was lost.

  "Where's the newspaper?" he demanded irritably.

  I put down the broken china and picked up the paper from the floor, where it had been thrown down during the quarrel. He shook out the pages and vanished behind them.

  Washing greasy dishes in cold water without soap is not easy. I had two saucepans left over from lunch time to wash, and their exteriors were covered with soot from the fire. Now the soot floated revoltingly amid the grease. I did not dare to put a kettle of water on the fire for fear of irritating Father frirther by pushing past him. I let the water from the single cold-water tap cascade

  into our tin wash basin to sweep out some of the soot, and stood gazing at the backs of my hands in the Hght of the candle.

  My hands were small and well-formed, but the skin was ingrained with dirt, and around the quicks the nails were almost black. With a stomach clenched with apprehension, I realized that to make myself thoroughly clean and neat for work would be very difficult.

  In a painfully sweet voice. Mother suddenly called me from the front room, and I was jolted back from depressing contemplation to frightening reality.

  I wiped my hands on the family's solitary towel—black from use by nine people—and went to the front room.

  Father had joined Mother and the deaconess, Miss Ferguson. I could feel the blood draining from my face as I gave our visitor a nervous smile.

  "Miss Ferguson insists on hearing from you personally that you do not want to go to work, ' announced Mother frigidly. "I understand she spoke to you in the library this afternoon."

  "Yes, she did," I whispered.

  Miss Ferguson took a large breath, as if the effort to speak was going to be too much for her. Then she turned her worried-looking face toward me, and said very carefully, "I have been trying to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Forrester that it would be greatly to your advantage if you could go to work and be trained for some worthy occupation, and that it would be possible for them to spare you from the house to do this. I tentatively made an appointment for you for tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock."

  Father made a wry face, and Mother interjected, "Helen will not be keeping the appointment, I am sure. "

  Undeterred, Miss Ferguson pressed on. "I have assured your mother that you will be working with nice women, all from good families, and I am sure you will be well trained. " She turned to Father and said very earnestly, "She would be quite safe there."

  Father was embarrassed. "I don't doubt it," he muttered, and looked across at Mother.

  I looked down at my hands. It was easy to see that my parents were boiling with suppressed anger at the intrepid little deaconess. They would raise hell when she was gone. I put my head

  down on my hands and cried until the tears ran through the fingers.

  Avril, who had been watching the proceedings, suddenly started to cry as well, and was immediately whisked into the hall and the door shut on her. I could hear her wailing in the dark.

  "Don't cry, Helen," said Father ineffectually.

  Mother turned to Miss Ferguson, as she shut the door after Avril.

  "Helen is obviously very upset. Miss Ferguson. Perhaps we should discuss the matter with her and let you know in a day or two what has been decided."

  I was not just upset; I was nearly out of my mind with despair. But the tears came with such tremendous force that I could do nothing to stop Miss Ferguson being politely eased out of the house.

  When I heard the latch on the front door click shut, I flung myself wildly onto the settee and continued to sob. What was the use of a day or two, when the appointment was for tomorrow?

  It was fortunate that Father and Mother had already exhausted themselves with one quarrel that evening, for Mother contented herself with ordering me to control myself, while Father asked how they could talk to me when I was making such a racket.

  I made a violent effort, sat up, and dried my face with the backs of my hands. Mother looked so terribly exhausted that I felt an overwhelming guilt and said, "I'm sorry, I really am. "

  "Have you been talking to Miss Ferguson or to the fathers at the church, behind our backs, Helen? " she asked. There was an implied threat in the question. Family affairs, we had been taught from infancy, were not discussed with servants or outsiders.

  I was too upset to remember about Miss Ferguson's tour of our house, so I said indignantly that I had not. I took off my glasses and wiped them down the front of my jumper, while I tried to think how my going to work could be managed.

  "You know. Daddy," I said, approaching the weaker partner, "the salary offered is quite good. It would mean three salaries coming into the house. "

  "Alice Davis wants ten shillings a week to look after Ed-

  ward," interrupted Mother. "And there are still the other children's needs."

  "Surely if everybody helped, we could manage between us. It wouldn't hurt Fiona and Alan to help—they are quite big now."

  Mother dismissed Fiona and Alan with a gesture.

  "On Sundays I could clean the house, and if Fiona and Alan could make the tea, I could put Edward and Avril to bed when I came in."

  "It is not very practical, " Father said. "Someone has to be at home to make the children's lunch."

  My temper was rising. I stood up and flounced toward the door.

  "I am going for that interview, whether you like it or not. I may never get such a chance again. I must take it."

  "Helen, you forget yourself, " exploded Father.

  "Oh, no, I do not. For once, I am remembering myself."

  "Helen!"

  Mother's voice came in behind him. There was more than a little malice in her tone, as she said, "You have no suitable clothing, anyway."

  "I'll borrow some," I replied recklessly.

  "Helen! That would not do at all." Father sounded genuinely shocked.

  "It's no worse than borrowing money, " I retorted, and his face whitened. I had hit home most cruelly. Savagely satisfied, I fled from the room and back to the sooty saucepans.

  I peeped over the railings. The curtains had not yet been drawn over the barred windows of my dear Spanish lady's basement living room. In the soft light of her oil lamp, I could see her sitting in an easy chair on one side of the fireplace, with a pile of crochet work on her lap. Her handsome, black-eyed husband, Alonzo Gomez, sat opposite her on another easy chair. The remains of their evening meal still lay on a nearby table.

  I opened the iron gate and ran down the winding iron steps of the area, knocked at the plank door and, alter waiting a moment, walked in.

  I was engulfed by skinny brown arms and a flood of mixed Spanish and English words of welcome.

  Alonzo put down his paper. "Come, come/' he said, gesturing toward the blazing fire with one hand. He got up and bowed me to his chair.

  Sudden
ly, I was in a different world. Despite the general squalor, there were many people like Cristina Gomez who created real homes out of attic crannies or damp basements. There was never much money, but the few pieces of well-worn furniture, the primitive cooking utensils hanging by the fireplace, the stone floor covered in coconut matting, all were clean and well cared for. Alonzo had an explosive temper, but the explosions seemed to be rare, and at other times there was a lot of good-natured banter and teasing.

  Cristina Gomez had a good collection of clothing. She had once told me that whenever her husband earned overtime money or won on the horses, he would spend the money on clothes for one or the other of them. And now I needed to borrow a whole outfit.

  All Cristina's clothes were black, even her petticoats, but that would not matter. Black was the uniform of work. It was usually worn by shop assistants and by many office workers.

  After I had been cuddled and installed in Alonzo's chair, an orange was sliced and put on a saucer and a cup of strong, black coffee set before me. The health of all the family was inquired after by Cristina, and Mother's poor health sighed over with much rolling of eyes and shrugging of shoulders.

  At the mention of Mother's health, my determination faltered. If I went to work, her load would inevitably be increased. But I realized that, on average. Mother did not earn much more than I would get, that if she stayed at home to look after the family, we would be very little poorer. And my resolve hardened.

  Cristina asked me how I was faring at night school, and this gave me a chance to talk about my own troubles and the reason for my visit, to borrow a dress, shoes, and stockings, if she would be kind enough to lend them to me.

  "Certain, certain, you can have anything." She paused and looked uneasily at her husband. "I would not wish to anger your good mother, though."

  "She need never know where I got the clothes from," I assured her. "I only need them for one afternoon. I'll think of

  another way of getting clothes for the job itself." I had already thought of a possible source from which eventually to obtain at least a dress.