A Mother's Promise (2 page)

‘I wish she was here now.’ Sammy threw himself down on his seat and laid his head on his arms. His thin shoulders heaved.

Eddie climbed up on his stool and began to snivel. ‘M-me t-too.’ Strings of mucus dribbled from his nose.

‘Now look what you’ve done, Jane. You should have known better than to mention Ma.’ Hetty wiped Eddie’s nose on the corner of her apron, and she gave Sammy a sympathetic hug. ‘Ma’s in heaven now, boys. Up with the angels, and in a far better place than Autumn Road.’

Sammy wiped his eyes on his sleeve, suddenly curious. ‘D’you think they mended her face – the angels?’

Hetty opened the drawer in the kitchen table and took out the bread knife, nodding emphatically. ‘Of course they did. That would have been the first thing the angels did when Ma entered the pearly gates. I’ll bet St Peter took one look at her and said “Hello, my dear. Don’t worry; we’ll fix you up good and proper now that you’re in heaven. Just go over to the Angel Gabriel and he’ll put your face back just as it was afore you got the phossy jaw in that damn match factory.”’

Jane sat back on her haunches as flames licked round the kindling and twists of newspaper. She gave Hetty a withering look. ‘How can you tell him off for swearing when you’ve just done the same thing?’

Hetty pulled a face which made Sammy and Eddie giggle. ‘Oops! Sorry.’

Sammy rested his chin on his cupped hands, staring hard at her. ‘Does that mean you won’t go to heaven, Hetty?’

She cut the crust off the loaf and scraped it with margarine. ‘Here, shove this in your gob and don’t ask awkward questions.’

‘I can’t eat crust, Hetty,’ Sammy said with fresh tears spilling from his eyes. He pointed to the gap where he had lost his top two baby teeth.

‘I can.’ Eddie snatched it from his hand, and took a bite as if to prove his point.

Hetty hacked off another slice and gave it to Sammy. ‘Don’t be a crybaby. Eat this and then we’ve got work to do.’ She modified her words with a smile. ‘There’s a good boy.’

Jane had succeeded in getting the fire to light and she put the kettle on the hook over the feeble flame. ‘I could murder a cup of tea.’ She rose to her feet, and peering in the shard of broken mirror on the mantelshelf she patted her luxuriant chestnut locks in place. ‘Just look at my hair – it’s gone all frizzy with the damp.’

‘Here’s a slice of bread and scrape for you, you vain hussy,’ Hetty said, chuckling. ‘You’re very pretty, Jane. But since it’s only me and the boys will see you for the next twelve hours, it don’t matter what you look like.’

Jane snatched the bread and bit into it hungrily. ‘You’re just as bad,’ she said, swallowing a
mouthful and licking her lips. ‘I wasn’t the one who almost started a fight because someone messed up her hair.’

‘That was different. Anyway, you’ve no need to worry about your looks. You’ve got the face of an angel, didn’t Ma always say so?’

Jane’s sulky lips curved into a smile. ‘I might be what they call pretty, but Ma always said you’d be a handsome woman when you was grown up. I’d kill for a straight nose like yours, and not one that turns up at the tip like mine. I’ve always wanted blue eyes like you and Sammy, instead of brown ones that look like puddles of muddy rainwater.’

‘Never mind all that. We’ve got work to do, and you don’t have time to go primping in the mirror every five minutes.’

‘It’s called keeping up appearances,’ Jane retorted, smiling serenely. ‘Ma would have approved. She always liked to look nice, no matter what she was doing or who she was seeing.’

‘She was beautiful inside and out. Nothing could take that away from her.’ Hetty slumped down on a stool at the table. ‘Eddie, don’t gobble your food, you’ll make yourself sick.’ She raised the slice of bread to her lips but her appetite left her as she remembered Ma’s last days with the dreadful disease that had eaten half her face away. Phossy jaw was an
occupational hazard amongst the girls and women who worked with the white or yellow phosphorus used in the manufacture of matches. On her deathbed, Ma had made Hetty and Jane promise that they would work from home, partly so that they could keep an eye on their younger brothers, but mainly so that they would steer clear of the hazards of working in the factory itself. Girls as young as fifteen often went completely bald from carrying heavy boxes on their heads. There were accidents with machinery and a high risk of burns from the matches themselves. The matchgirls’ wages were scandalously low and outworkers were paid even less, but working from home had enabled Hetty to keep the family together. She had vowed to look after the little ones as though they were her own and she had kept that promise. Her eyes filled with tears as she thought of her mother, who had worked so hard to raise her seven children after their father had been killed in an accident at the gasworks. Betty, Ida and Fred had all succumbed to childhood diseases, diphtheria, measles and whooping cough, which had broken Ma’s heart, but had made her even more protective of her surviving children.

Hetty nibbled at her slice of bread as she watched Eddie swallow the last crumb of his food, and, despite his missing teeth, Sammy
was not far behind. They were eyeing the remaining half of the loaf like a pair of hungry wolf cubs, but that was for their dinner, and must not be touched until at least midday. Hetty tore what was left of her slice in half and gave it to them. ‘Eat slowly and it will fill you up more.’ She turned to Jane, who was standing so close to the fire that her skirt was steaming. ‘Has the kettle boiled yet?’

Jane shook her head. ‘Not quite. We’re in desperate need of some more kindling and coal. We need matches and candles and goodness knows how we’re going to find the rent on Saturday.’

Hetty glanced anxiously at Sammy as she heard his sharp intake of breath. ‘Don’t worry, Sammy. Jane and me will sort it out. If we can make three gross of matchboxes today, we’ll have a fish and chip supper.’

Sammy beamed at her. ‘Really, Hetty? Is that a promise?’

‘Cross me heart and hope to die.’ Hetty made the sign of the cross on her chest. ‘Before we start work, you two take the bucket to the pump and get us some water.’

‘Aw, do I have to?’ Sammy groaned.

‘Yes, you do. Or there won’t be any fish supper for you, my lad.’

‘Come on then, Eddie.’ Sammy slid off his stool. ‘You get the bucket. I’ll open the door.’

Hetty watched them through the cracked windowpanes as they ran up the area steps. She could hear their childish laughter and yet again she was amazed by their resilience. The last few months had been truly terrible with their mother’s dreadful suffering and subsequent agonising death. Money had been so tight that they had come close to being evicted from their one-room home. If she had not pleaded with the landlord, they would all have been out on the street or, worse still, in the workhouse. Hetty shuddered at the mere thought. Things were a little better now, although not much. They had borrowed money from Cyrus Clench, the tallyman, in order to pay for Ma’s simple funeral and it would take months, if not years, to pay it all off.

Jane popped the last morsel of bread into her mouth. ‘Put what’s left of the loaf out of sight, Hetty. I’m still so hungry that I could eat the lot.’

‘The kettle’s boiling. You make a brew and I’ll wrap the bread to keep it fresh. If we all work hard we should be able to earn sixpence three farthings today.’

Jane spooned tea into a chipped brown china teapot. ‘This is the last of it, and these leaves have been used so many times I could read newspaper print through each one. They won’t do another brew and that’s for certain.’

‘One day I’ll buy me tea by the pound,’ Hetty said, closing her eyes to shut out the cracked windowpanes, the fungus growing out of the brickwork and the worm-eaten beams above her head. ‘I’ll never use the leaves more than twice and if I wants two slices of bread for me breakfast, then two slices I shall have.’

‘And jam every day,’ Jane added wistfully. ‘And cake on Sundays. I can’t remember the last time we had cake.’

‘I had jelly once, at Gran’s house,’ Hetty mused. ‘Strawberry jelly. I never tasted nothing like it before or since.’

‘Well Granny Huggins don’t want nothing to do with us since Pa died, she made that plain, and she never even come to see Ma when she knew she was dying, so I’d rather you didn’t talk about her.’ Jane shook out her damp skirts. ‘Anyway, there’s no point going on about strawberry jelly and such; just the thought of it is making me feel faint from lack of nourishment. We’d best get started or we’ll not earn a penny today, and the tallyman will be round tomorrow for his money. Don’t forget that.’

‘I ain’t likely to forget him, the dirty old man.’ Hetty shuddered; she had come to dread Clench’s regular Friday morning visit to collect the next instalment on the loan. He never failed to make suggestive remarks and he had a nasty
way of licking his lips as he stared at her breasts. She sighed and wrapped the loaf in the brown paper bag and placed it on the top shelf of the crudely fashioned dresser. Her pa had made that piece of furniture with his own hands soon after he and Ma were married, or so Ma had told them. A real labour of love, she had called it. It didn’t matter that the shelves weren’t quite straight and things slid to the end, or that the doors didn’t fit exactly and often swung open on their rusty hinges. Ma always said it was the damp in the basement that had caused these things to happen; it wasn’t a reflection on her Samuel’s craftsmanship, because he was a perfectionist.

Hetty brushed the crumbs from the table and began setting out the makings of the matchboxes, just as Sammy and Eddie came clattering down the steps to the front door carrying the bucket between them and no doubt spilling most of it on the ground. She cast a warning look at Jane. ‘Don’t say nothing in front of the nippers.’

‘As if I would. I ain’t daft, Hetty.’

‘No, far from it, but you forget sometimes that little pitchers have big ears.’

Before Jane had time to reply, Sammy and Eddie burst through the door, slopping water on the flagstones.

‘Right!’ Hetty said briskly. ‘The sooner we
get down to it, the sooner we can have that fish supper.’

They worked all day, squinting in the poor light at the tiny matchboxes that they worked on so painstakingly, each one handcrafted to exact specifications. Hetty couldn’t help noticing that Sammy held the work very close to his eyes and he often complained of headaches. She feared that the close work was making him nearsighted, but there was no way they could afford to have his eyes tested by a specialist, and, even if they did, there was no money for the purchase of spectacles. Perhaps it was just a growing thing. She had heard women talking in the queues outside the factory and they mentioned mysterious things like ‘growing pains’ and strange afflictions that might or might not disappear with the onset of puberty. So many infants died before they reached their first birthday that tiny coffins were as commonplace in East London as chocolate boxes were up West.

They stopped for a dinner break at midday. Even though she scraped the margarine on the bread, there was only enough for two slices and Hetty gave those to Sammy and Eddie. She and Jane ate theirs dry, washing it down with cold tea. The fire had long since gone out and they had run out of coal and kindling.
It was dark by mid-afternoon and the rain had turned to snow. Huge white flakes fell like feathers from a burst pillow, floating past the window and dissolving almost immediately on the wet ground. Sammy and Eddie were hugely excited and ran to the window to squash their noses against the grimy panes, begging to be allowed outside to play.

‘No, I’m sorry, but you ain’t going out there to get soaked to the skin and catch your deaths of cold,’ Hetty said severely, even though she longed to let her brothers snatch back a little of their childhood. She could see them growing old before their time, but they had to fulfil their quota or there would be no payout at the factory this evening.

‘Aw, go on, Hetty,’ Sammy pleaded. ‘Just a bit of a play in the snow afore it melts into slush, please.’

Jane cast Hetty a meaningful look, shaking her head. ‘Don’t let them.’

‘No, you must sit down and finish your work,’ Hetty said firmly. ‘Maybe later, when we’ve finished the boxes, you can come to the factory with me to deliver them. If the snow is still around then you can have a play in it.’

Reluctantly, Sammy left the window and went slowly back to his place at the table. ‘Don’t forget you promised us a fish supper, Hetty.’

She smiled. ‘Don’t worry, love. I won’t forget.’

At seven o’clock that evening Hetty and Jane were back in the queue outside the factory, but this time they had Sammy and Eddie with them and they were delivering the finished matchboxes. They had to wait for them to be checked and counted, and then they were given a chitty to take to the pay office, where they had to queue yet again to collect their hard-earned sixpence three farthings. The snow was falling heavily when they finally left the factory gates. It swirled around them in a dizzy dance, blotting out the harsh outlines of the buildings and softening the unremitting greyness of the pavements. Sammy and Eddie made snowballs, throwing them at each other and laughing gleefully. Hetty and Jane stopped for a moment, chuckling at their antics.

‘I’m off then,’ Jane said, brushing the snowflakes from her face.

‘Where are you going?’ Hetty stared at her in disbelief. ‘What about the fish supper?’

‘You know I promised to meet Nat outside the gasworks. You can keep me a bit of supper, although, if I’m lucky, he might take me to the pub for a pie and a glass of port and lemon.’

‘I didn’t think you would go,’ Hetty said, hunching her shoulders. ‘I thought you said . . .’

‘Never mind what I said. I’m going and that’s that.’ Jane started to walk away but Hetty caught her by the sleeve.

‘Hold on, Jane. What would Ma say if she knew you was going off to meet a fellow all on your own?’

‘It don’t matter, because she ain’t here.’ Jane shook off Hetty’s restraining hand. ‘We got to look out for ourselves now, Hetty. I have a good time with Nat, and he’s been sweet on me for ages. As far as I can see, the only way you and I have of getting out of this miserable way of life is to find ourselves a husband.’