Our Lizzie (20 page)

Miss Harper heard the sound of coughing from the girls' bedroom and hesitated outside the door, then shrugged and went downstairs to make herself a cup of tea. “Is one of the girls ill?” she asked Meg.

“It's that Lizzie. She's not bad, just wants to laze around. Ignore her.”

But when Miss Harper carried her cup of tea back upstairs, she heard muffled weeping coming from the bedroom and couldn't ignore that. She tapped on the door and when there was no answer, pushed it open a trifle. “Lizzie? Are you all right, dear?”

The face that peered back at her from under the bedcovers was bleached white, even the lips looking bloodless, and Lizzie was shivering so hard that Blanche could see it from where she stood. She didn't make the mistake of going into the room, because she was terrified of catching anything herself. “I'll go and fetch your mother, dear.”

“She w-won't come.”

Blanche went back downstairs. “Lizzie's really ill, I'm afraid, Mrs. Kershaw. I do think you should go up and see her, maybe take her a warm drink. She's shivering and—”

“If she wants a hot drink, she'll have to come down and get it. I've just been ill myself. I have to be careful.”

Without a word, Blanche went back upstairs, listened again to the sound of hopeless weeping, then put on her hat and coat, feeling furious. Only when she was outside did she stop and wonder who to fetch. Polly? No, Mrs. Kershaw would just send her back to school. It had to be Percy. Only he had the authority to get something done.

When she got to Pilby's, she hesitated a moment at the gate. It was such a big place, with all those huge workshops and sheds, and it looked so dirty. Almost she turned away, then she thought of the sick girl, lying alone and weeping, and gathered her courage together.

Inside the yard she found her way to the office and asked for Percy Kershaw. “His sister is very ill indeed, I'm afraid.”

When Miss Harper had explained in a low voice why she'd come, Percy looked sickened. “Is there no end to her malice?” he whispered before he could prevent himself.

“I'm sorry to trouble you at work, but I daren't care for Lizzie myself, given my own state of health. Your sister seems very bad. I think you should send for the doctor and get someone in to look after her. Perhaps Polly again?”

“I'll go and tell the foreman, then I'll come back with you, sort something out.”

“I, um, think it's best if we don't arrive home together. It'll make your mother even angrier. You could perhaps hint that Mrs. Dearden sent a message to you at work?”

“All right.”

He told the foreman briefly what had happened.

Ben stared at him. “But your mother's at home! Why can't she look after things?”

Percy was sick of hiding the truth. “Mam hates our Lizzie. She'll not lift a finger to help her.”

“Eeh! What a thing to say!”

“Aye, but it's true all the same. You know I wouldn't ask for time off if it weren't necessary.”

As he walked along to get his coat, Percy nearly bumped into Sam.

“What's the matter with you? You look like you've lost ten bob and found a farthing.”

“It's our Lizzie. She's ill. Really ill, Miss Harper thinks. And Mam is refusing to look after her, won't even take her up a hot drink.”

“Your mother is a wicked old bitch!” Sam snapped.

Percy nodded. “Trouble is, she's getting worse. I—I worry that she'll do Lizzie real harm one of these days. Since Eva left, she's been so strange at times.” He sighed and finished buttoning up his overcoat. “What the hell am I going to do about looking after her, though?”

“I'd send my gran over but she's got the influenza herself.” Sam frowned. “What about getting one of the neighbours round?”

Percy shook his head. “My mother would go mad if we brought one of them in.”

“Well, you'll have to do something if the lass has got it really bad.” And Sam decided he'd go straight round after work himself to make sure Lizzie was being cared for.

Percy nodded. “Aye. Well, best I go and see what's what first. No use borrowing trouble till you know what you're facing, is it?”

*   *   *

At home he opened the front door quietly, tiptoed along the hall and found his mother in the kitchen, toasting her feet on the fender and sipping a cup of tea. She looked up, startled to see him.

“Eeh, Percy! You did give me a turn. What on earth are you doing home at this hour?”

“I had a message to say Lizzie was ill.”

Spots of colour burned suddenly in Meg's thin cheeks. “It'll be that Sally Dearden interfering again. And even if Lizzie
is
ill, why you had to come home from work, I don't know. What will they think at Pilby's? Anyway she's not really ill, just a bit under the weather.”

“I'll go up and see for myself.”

“She's all right, I tell you. Sleeping. You get back to work or they'll dock your wages.”

“They'll dock them anyway now so I might as well see how she's going on. Have you been up to see her lately?”

“Of course not. I'm only just getting better myself.”

He looked at her, not hiding his disgust. “You didn't even take her a cup of tea, did you?”

Meg avoided his eyes. “She's asleep.”

“How can you know that if you've not been up to see?”

“There hasn't been any noise. If she was awake, I'd hear the bed creaking.”

He stood over her, anger making a muscle twitch near his left eye. “Make her a cup of tea now, Mam, while I go upstairs. And fill her a hot water bottle, too.” Then he walked out.

Muttering to herself, Meg lit the gas under the kettle again and went to fetch the flat-based earthenware bottle she always called a “hot piggie.”

As Percy knocked on Lizzie's bedroom door, he heard a voice muttering inside. His sister was lying half-covered on the bed, tossing and turning, so lost in fever she didn't even notice him.

He tried to tuck her up under the covers but she beat him away, murmuring in delirium. Appalled, he ran downstairs and began to pull on his coat again.

Meg peered out of the kitchen. “There, I told you she was all right. You get yourself back to work.”

“I'm going to fetch the doctor. She's bad—far worse than you were.”

James Balloch took one look at Lizzie then turned to Percy. “I think we should get her into hospital. She's seriously ill. Pneumonia, I'm afraid. She must have been coming down with this for a while. Why didn't you send for me sooner?” When patients looked like this, he didn't give a lot for their chances, though he was amazed to see how neglected this lass was. Usually the families had drinks by the side of the bed, and someone nearby keeping an eye on the invalid. “Who's been caring for her?”

“No one.”

The two men exchanged glances. “Your mother still playing at being ill?”

Percy nodded.

“But surely even she—”

“Um … she doesn't like Lizzie.” It felt awful to have to admit this to a doctor.

Lizzie had begun to shiver violently again and huddled down under the bedclothes, whimpering.

The doctor spoke briskly. “Well, I've got my motor car outside. If you'll wrap your sister up in a blanket and carry her downstairs, I'll drive you to both to the hospital and see her admitted.”

*   *   *

For several days, Lizzie hovered between life and death. Sam sent her flowers but the nurses wouldn't put them by her bedside, saying she needed all the oxygen herself. When he was allowed in to see her for a minute, he was shocked by her pallor. He was suddenly terrified he'd lose her. He'd waited so long, so very long, for Lizzie to grow up.

“How much is it for a private room?” he asked abruptly, looking round the long ward with its twenty beds full of wheezing, coughing patients, for the epidemic was at its height.

Percy looked at him aghast. “We can't afford a private room.”

“I can.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'd better tell you now that I mean to marry your sister one day. I've been waiting for her to grow up and I'm not having her die on me like this. She's mine!”

“But—you haven't even been courting her, Sam.”

“I was just about to. Let's go and see that bloody starched-up head nurse with the silly hat on.”

It was arranged very quickly.

Gran Thoxby fell ill that same day, but she didn't seem too bad so Sam just paid a neighbour to come in and look after her. She grinned at him from the bed and wheezed, “Treating me like a queen, eh? You're a good lad, Sam.”

When she died quietly during the night, he stood for a long time by the bed before saying abruptly, “You did well by me, Gran. I'll give you a decent send-off.”

In the morning, after he'd got a death certificate from the doctor and booked the funeral, he went out to the hospital to see Lizzie.

“I'm not having you dying on me as well,” he told her, holding her hand fast in his.

Lizzie blinked up through a fever dream to see a large figure standing by her bed. It seemed to her weak, watering eyes to be haloed in light from the window behind. “Dad!” she sighed. “Oh, Dad, I've missed you so.” And after that she started to get better.

Sam couldn't make out what she was mumbling about, but he liked the way she held on to his hand. “Get better,” he whispered when it was time to leave. “I've waited long enough, lass.”

Chapter Eleven

When Lizzie was at last allowed home from hospital, Sam went with Percy to fetch her in their lunch break and insisted on hiring a cab to take her back. She felt shy with him, knowing he had paid for a private room for her though she couldn't imagine why he'd done that. He had been to see her in hospital a couple of times, too. She hadn't known what to say to him and he'd spent most of the time just holding her hand and staring at her. She didn't like to pull her hand away from his, but it made her feel funny to have Sam Thoxby touching her.

“Your gran will be jealous if you keep doing things for me,” joked Lizzie as they jolted along in the cab.

He and Percy exchanged glances, then Sam said, “Look, we didn't tell you at the time, Lizzie, but my gran died a few days ago.”

“Oh. Was it the influenza?”

“Yes.”

She laid one hand on his arm. “Oh, Sam, I'm so sorry.”

He didn't want her pity. He wanted her to look at him with bright-eyed interest, as she had looked at that Dearden lad in the park. “Aye, well, she was over seventy. It was a bit of a surprise, though. She didn't seem to have it all that badly, or I'd have brought her to join you in hospital. I said good night to her, had a bit of a chat, like.” He looked into the distance. “Then next morning when I looked in on her, she were dead.”

He patted the thin hand that still lay on his overcoat sleeve and dared to hold it in his for a moment.

Lizzie looked at him in concern. She'd never seen Sam Thoxby with quite that expression on his face, never thought to feel sorry for him. “You must miss her, though. She brought you up, didn't she?”

“Aye. Right from a baby.” He was still surprised, actually, every time he went into the house, not to find Gran there waiting, and sometimes he felt angry that she'd died without saying a proper goodbye to him. “I gave her a fine send-off, though, with a ham tea for her boozing pals. She'd have liked that.” And there were compensations, as he kept telling himself. He now had Gran's savings to put with his extra earnings. With what he had in the bank, and what he had hidden away, he was about ready to make a few changes in his life.

After a moment, Lizzie looked at her brother and changed the subject. “Mam didn't come to see me in hospital. Mrs. D came, though. Peter brought her in the motor van one morning. It wasn't visiting hours, but the nurse let them come in for a few minutes. She gave me a lovely box of chocolates and said my job was still waiting for me. I really like working for her. And it isn't as if she hasn't got troubles of her own. Mr. Dearden isn't at all well. He's that thin, his clothes just hang on him and he coughs all the time. She's really worried about him, you can tell.” Lizzie paused then added sadly, “But she still came to see me.”

Not for the first time, Sam felt a surge of jealousy towards the Deardens who had so much that he'd never known, with their happy family life, their comfortable income and the easy way they had of making themselves liked. Peter Dearden had gone to school with him and had been tall and good-looking, even as a lad, with dark wavy hair and never a spot in sight. He'd been the most popular kid in the class, the one everyone wanted to sit near or play with. He hadn't been a favourite of Sam's, though. The two of them had clashed physically a few times, with the honours just about even as to who had won those short, fierce bouts of punching and kicking.

The memory of those long-ago fights made Sam's face go still, as it always did when he thought about things that upset him. Bloody Peter Dearden!

Lizzie, seeing that tight expression, decided he must be really upset about his gran dying. Daringly, she reached out and patted his hand again. “I'm sorry about your gran,” she whispered. “Really sorry, Sam.”

He tried to keep a sad expression on his face. “It helps to have friends like you an' Percy. I haven't any relatives now. Not one.”

“Your mother might be alive somewhere?”

He couldn't hide his anger. “She's dead to me an' allus has been! If I saw her coming down the street towards me, I'd turn an' walk the other way. I would that.”

Percy pretended to look out of the cab window, but watched the pair of them from the corner of his eye. If Lizzie married Sam, it'd get her away from Mam. And his friend was never short of a bob or two, so she'd be well set. The younger ones were leaving home now, one by one, Eva gone and Polly going. In the end, he'd be left alone with his mother.