The Pawnbroker's Niece

by June Francis

  Miss Turner was unable to prevent a tiny smile. ‘You are going to have your work cut out. God help you and I hope you both gain from having found each other.’

  Not the right phrase to use, thought Margaret, because she and her niece had not gone looking for the other. As soon as she closed the door behind her she checked the bolts were still drawn top and bottom on the scullery door and then she went into the storeroom behind the shop where she kept unclaimed knick-knacks, pictures, small pieces of furniture and racks of clothes, the latter depleted today. On Monday they would fill up again with Sunday-best clothes.

  ‘Come out from where you’re hiding and I will not hurt you. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry for wasting my time like this,’ called Margaret.

  Silence.

  She walked about the room moving this and that but there was no sign of her niece. Unlocking the door that led to the shop, Margaret stared at the pitted mahogany counter where her father had performed so many transactions of a profitable nature. She placed her hands on it, levered herself up and looked over the other side, but there was no Rita crouching on the floor.

  Margaret hurried upstairs but there was no sign of her niece there. She returned to the kitchen and looked under the table, and then walked into the scullery, frowning as she gazed about her. Then she felt a draught fan her skirt and her gaze went to the cellar door. She called down the steps. ‘Are you down there?’ Her voice bounced back off grimy cobwebby walls and then she heard the slightest of movements. Was it a mouse, the cat or her niece?

  There was nowhere else she could be, so she had to be down the cellar.

  ‘Rita! Will you come out of there?’

  Again came the slightest whisper of movement but not a word spoken. ‘You’re being silly!’ Still there was no response. ‘Well, if that’s how you want it, then you can stay down there,’ she said losing patience and letting the latch fall into place. Sooner or later the girl would see sense and ask to be let out. She, herself, had not forgotten how the darkness had felt like a living presence threatening to smother the life out of her. It had been filled with imagined demons and ghoulies she remembered from the descriptive ghost stories Alan’s twin, Will, had told her when they had played games with the lights out. What had happened to him after she refused his proposal of marriage, the one after Bella’s death?

  Margaret put on the kettle and then returned to listen at the cellar door. All was quiet. What was Rita doing down there, that’s if she was there? ‘If you want to come out you only have to say sorry.’ Again there was no answer. This is ridiculous. Ignore her!

  Margaret took the teapot into the kitchen and sat down. She poured herself a cup and then reached for the jar of chocolates. It was not there! A chocolate a day was all she ever allowed herself. She had been reared in ways of thrift, and treats had seldom come her way. Even now, when she had inherited her father’s business and had a nice little nest egg, it was difficult to break the habits of a lifetime. She had worked hard for those chocolates. In fact, since her father’s death she had been overworked. One of the reasons she had changed her mind about her niece staying with her was that she needed help in the shop and the girl was family.

  Margaret became aware of knocking coming from the scullery and was up like a shot and into the scullery. ‘Did you steal my chocolates? I warn you that act will not go unpunished.’ She waited for the girl to admit the theft but there was only silence once more. Margaret could feel herself losing control of her temper. If she let the girl out now she would not be able to contain herself and would land her a clout. She would leave her there for a while longer; to try and keep her mind off her she would do some work.

  She went into the shop and took a ledger from beneath the counter. The figures blurred before her eyes and, with a muttered curse, she went for her spectacles. The banging had begun again. Margaret went to the door and demanded an apology. All she got for her pains was silence. She thought of the darkness in the cellar and could not understand the girl’s stubbornness. She would have been terrified, but then Margaret remembered leaving the door open between the two rooms of the cellar. In the far room was a grating high on the wall that let on to the pavement. She fetched the ledger from the shop and sat at the table in the kitchen and tried to pretend her niece was not there.

  When the singing started, Margaret could scarcely believe her ears. She shot up and went and opened the cellar door. ‘Come out of there,’ she said in an angry voice.

  Something came flying out of the depths narrowly missing her head. It smashed on the red-tiled floor. Before she could recover her equilibrium her niece was up the stairs and forcing her way past her. She made a grab for Rita but missed. She whirled round and saw her niece picking her way through broken crystal. The sight caused Margaret to see red. ‘You little bitch!’ She sprang at the girl, whose face bore evidence of the chocolate she had devoured. This time Margaret managed to grab one of her pigtails.

  Rita screamed and put up her hands to ease the pressure on the roots of her hair. ‘Let me go, yer ol’ hag!’

  Margaret’s breath hissed through her teeth. ‘Shut up, you stupid girl! Do you want to go back in the cellar again?’

  ‘I don’t care. I just close my eyes and pretend I’m in a palace. If you hadn’t been so cruel as to shut me in I would have eaten only half of the chocolates, but I got hungry and then thirsty and so I ate them all just to show you yer can’t have yer own way all the time. Yer know where people like you go? To hell!’

  ‘I can’t believe your cheek! Can’t you see the danger you’re in?’ Margaret almost choked on the words and her free hand was twitching. ‘There’s no one here to save you. That jar you broke was pure crystal. I’ve a cane in the shop that my father used on naughty boys who came into the shop and shouted rude words.’ She felt a shiver go through the girl and added in a quiet voice, ‘Understand?’

  Rita nodded and said huskily, ‘I’m sorry about your jar but I was cross with you.’

  Margaret gasped. ‘You cross with me! How do you think I felt when I found my chocolates missing? You can sweep up the mess while I decide what I’m going to do with you.’ She went for the hand brush and dustpan.

  As she watched the girl clear up the broken crystal she wondered how her sister could have let her get into such an undernourished and filthy state. ‘You’ll have a bath. I can’t let you between the sheets in the state you’re in.’

  ‘Yer wha’? A bath! I don’t like water.’ Her dismay shone in her eyes.

  Beautiful eyes, thought Margaret. Far better than a doll’s glass ones. ‘You will do as you are told,’ she said distinctly.

  ‘I don’t get yer. Yer didn’t want me last night so why d’yer want me now?’ Rita’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘I know! Yer going to do something nasty to me ’cos of the chocolates.’

  ‘I’m going to improve the way you talk, for starters,’ said Margaret. ‘My mother wouldn’t put up with such sloppy speech from us so why should I from you? As for you having a bath, you’re not getting out of that. You could have fleas so I’m not taking any chances. We’ll try drowning the…the horrors.’ She would have liked to call them little buggers but her upbringing stopped her this time.

  ‘Drownin’!’ Rita’s voice was horror-struck. ‘Yer not getting me in no bath. I’m off!’

  Margaret reached the door before her and put her back to it. Rita flung herself at her, pummelling her stomach with bony fists. She remembered one of Eve’s men dunking her in a tub. The water had come right over her head and she had thought her last day had come.

  Aunt and niece struggled against each other but the woman’s superior strength told and her strong fingers imprisoned the girl’s wrists. She managed to lift her and swing her over the sofa and then dropped her. Margaret wiped her hands on her skirt as if to rid herself of all contact with her niece.

  Rita huddled in a corner of the sofa, wanting to weep, but she was determined her aunt would not see her cry. She buried her head between her knee
s and forced back the tears.

  Margaret went into the storeroom and her hands trembled as she took several items from a cardboard box. Then she brought in the galvanised zinc bath from the yard. Fortunately there was a boiler behind the fireplace which provided her with hot water. She placed a bucket in the sink and began to fill it. She washed the scratches inflicted by her niece, then from a cupboard she took a purple bottle and painted them with gentian violets. She replaced the bottle and took carbolic soap, a loofah and flannel from the same cupboard, as well as two towels.

  It was after the umpteenth trip with buckets she noticed Rita had vanished again. She had that desire to hit out once more and yelled, ‘You smell, girl. By hook or by crook you’re having a bath!’ She went in search of her.

  She found her in the shop gazing at a wall of shelving where unclaimed goods lay gathering dust. ‘You shouldn’t be in here,’ said Margaret sharply.

  Rita looked up at her from eyes swimming in tears. ‘What harm am I doin’? I don’t want to stay here but right now I don’t seem to have a choice.’

  ‘Of course you have a choice,’ said Margaret. ‘You can live on the streets, there’s the workhouse or you stay here and work for me. The latter means, though, that you have to be clean. Now back to the kitchen.’

  Slowly Rita followed her but she hesitated just inside the kitchen and stared at the water in the bath. ‘Couldn’t I just wash?’

  ‘No! Fleas spread diseases. Now take off your clothes!’

  Rita shook her head and placed her hands beneath her armpits. Margaret’s lips tightened and before the girl could prevent her, she managed to lift her fully clothed and dunk her in the water. Rita let out such a scream it echoed in Margaret’s head. The girl clung to the bodice of her aunt’s frock as her skinny legs thrashed the water, and then she brought them up and wrapped them around her waist.

  Margaret could have screamed. ‘Will you stop being so silly and act your age!’ she cried, exasperated.

  ‘You’re going to drown me!’

  ‘Don’t tempt me!’ Margaret struggled to get her niece’s legs from about her waist but as quickly as she got one into the water, Rita drew it up again. In the end, Margaret kicked off her slippers and stepped into the bath water in her stockinged feet. ‘I will not let you drown. I don’t know where you’ve got this fear from but take off your frock and underclothes now and wash yourself standing up in the water if you must.’

  ‘OK! But turn your back! I don’t want you looking at me in the nuddy.’ Slowly Rita lowered her feet into the water and released her hold on her aunt.

  Margaret turned her back, wondering if she had gone quite mad stepping into the water the way she had and letting her niece have her way. Rita stripped but for her knickers and picking up the soap and loofah gingerly began to wash herself. ‘I don’t have to wash me hair, do I?’

  ‘Of course you do! Undo your plaits and I’ll wash it for you.’

  ‘No thanks! I can manage meself,’ she muttered.

  ‘It’ll need rinsing.’

  Margaret heard her niece take a deep breath. ‘OK! But not until I say I’m ready…and I want the two towels handy. I don’t want you looking at me.’

  ‘This is silly,’ said Margaret turning round.

  Immediately Rita placed the loofah in such a way as to cover her private parts. Margaret tried to conceal her dismay at the amount of red marks, which she presumed were bug bites, all over her niece’s body. She had little in the way of breasts and Margaret could have counted her ribs if she had wanted. She went and filled a pan with warm water from the tap.

  After rinsing her niece’s hair Margaret picked up the smaller of the towels and averted her eyes as the girl dropped the loofah and wrapped the larger towel about her slender body. She waited until she climbed out of the bath before fastening the smaller towel about her hair, turban fashion.

  She handed Rita a nightdress. ‘Put that on,’ she said brusquely, turning her back so she would not have to look upon her niece’s naked defenceless body, and left the kitchen to change out of her damp clothes.

  When she returned it was to find Rita kneeling on the fireside rug with her wet hair dangling in front of her face as she tried to dry it in the fire’s heat. In her mind’s eye Margaret could imagine fleas dropping onto her rug. ‘We’re going to have to cut your hair,’ she said abruptly. ‘I should have done it before you washed it. Tomorrow you can go to the chemist and buy a fine toothcomb and a bottle of nit lotion, as well as some special soap.’

  ‘Your hair’s long. Why should I have mine cut?’ said her niece, slanting her a glance from those lovely brown eyes.

  Margaret did not answer. She had thought of having her hair shorn six months ago and her father had almost had an apoplexy when she mentioned doing so, even though cropped hair had been fashionable for years.

  ‘Up, Rita!’ She beckoned her niece with a finger.

  The girl stayed where she was, her eyes wary. ‘I don’t want my hair cut.’

  ‘OK. But right now I need to look at your hair, so don’t try my patience to the limit.’

  Rita got to her feet. Margaret picked up a comb and gingerly began to part the girl’s hair as she looked for the telltale tiny white specks that were nits’ eggs. They were there all right and Margaret shivered. Fleas spread disease. She went over to the large dark-oak sideboard and took a pair of scissors out of a drawer. ‘You’re going to have to have it cut. If you don’t you’ll have another lot of fleas in the morning crawling all over your head.’

  Rita was mortified and as the cold steel touched her head she cried out, ‘How do I know you’re not gonna slit me throat?’

  ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you again,’ said Margaret, exasperated once more. Yet she could not help wondering where her niece got such ideas. Had she ever been threatened in such a way? Or had she been taken to the cinema and seen one of these American gangster films?

  ‘I’m gonna look terrible,’ moaned Rita. ‘Mam said the fellas like it better long.’ She attempted to pull her head out of Margaret’s grasp and received a light slap.

  ‘Do you want me to cut your neck? Eve has deserted you and if you are to live with me you must learn to do what I say.’ Snip, snip went the scissors. Snip, snip, snip.

  ‘Why d’yer want me here?’ asked Rita. ‘Yer don’t like me and by the sound of it yer didn’t like me mam either.’

  ‘Your mother…if I could find her I’d…’ Margaret stopped. What was the use of thinking of what she’d like to do and say to Eve if she had her in front of her? ‘There!’

  Margaret stepped back to view the results of her handiwork. The ends were not quite even but they would do. She reached for the towel and rubbed dry the dark-red cap of hair. She had decided not to allow Rita to share her bed, but perhaps she had best sleep in her room. She might be frightened in a strange bedroom on her own. Tomorrow she would see what her niece thought of Donald’s bedroom or the small back room, which her father had moved into after her mother’s death. Tonight she could sleep on a mattress on the floor beside her bed.

  Margaret told Rita to dry her hair properly and went into the scullery and made a jug of cocoa. She watched her niece drink it down with such an expression of bliss on her face that she had to smile. Then they went upstairs and, taking the mattress from the bed in the small back room and clean bedding from a cupboard, she showed Rita where to sleep.

  Straight away, the girl curled herself up on the mattress and dragged the bedcovers over her head. She fell asleep immediately much to Margaret’s surprise. She, on the other hand, did not sleep very well at all. Her mind was too busy reliving that day and wondering what the future would hold now she had taken in her niece and whether either of them would ever hear from Eve again.

  Eventually Margaret did fall asleep but she woke with the dawn to immediately recall the happenings of yesterday. She turned and looked over the side of the bed at Rita, who lay on her back, her rust-coloured lashes fanned out
on her thin pale cheeks. The sleep of the innocent, was her first thought until she recalled what she knew about the girl. She was a thief and a liar and she must not forget that her upbringing had been very different to her own.

  Downstairs Margaret drew back the curtains and looked out on the backyard. The rays of the rising sun caught the broken glass embedded in cement on top of the dividing wall between her property and the next. For a few seconds the glass reflected dazzling light. She thought of diamonds and engagement rings and all those single women who had lost fiancés. She thought of Rita and hoped this day would not disappoint, and that the weather and her mood could be sunny all day.

  She went into the yard and deposited Rita’s frock, knickers and odd shoe in the dustbin. Back in the scullery she lit the gas under the kettle and put on the oats she had left in water to soak overnight. Then she heard footsteps on the stairs and, turning, braced herself as the door opened.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Where’s me frock?’ asked Rita, her rusty hair an unruly cap on her small head and her thin bare legs like sticks beneath the hem of the nightgown.

  ‘Where it belongs — in the dustbin,’ said Margaret.

  The girl scowled. ‘You had no right to do that. I’m not staying, yer know. I’m going to find me mam. I’ve always looked out for her.’

  ‘Have you indeed?’ Margaret would have laughed if the girl had not looked so pathetic — the very idea of her being able to look after anyone was ridiculous.

  ‘Yeah! Me!’ lied Rita, strutting into the scullery like a cock bantam. ‘She’s choosy, is Mam! Some fellas she just couldn’t be doing with but she wouldn’t have no pimp looking out for her skimming off some of her earnings.’ She gave her aunt a calculating look from beneath her sweeping eyelashes to see what she made of that. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a fella? Naw! Not with the way you dress. Yer’ve got to dolly yerself up to attract the men.’