South Riding (37 page)

“Why don’t you practise loosening your muscles? Here! Here!” Madame Hubbard darted forward, caught at Violet’s lean thigh, and jerked it ruthlessly. “Stiff as a poker. Not one of you girls except Lydia Holly ever learned how to lift a leg. Stand up, Jeanette! This isn’t the Dying Swan.”

Jeanette’s glance under her long fair lashes was sulky and self-pitying, but she did not complain of the headache knocking like hammers at her forehead, nor the rasping throat that made each answer painful. Madame Hubbard’s dancing class was not the High School. No Miss Parsons fussed here shaking a thermometer at the first hint of indisposition. Jeanette pulled herself together. She lifted her heavy head, she arched her pretty foot, she submitted to the only discipline which she was willing to acknowledge, driving her weary muscles and aching bones at the dictation of her unflinching will.

Madame Hubbard pounded the piano, Vi and Jean repeated over and over again their lovers’ quarrel, and the bell on the shop door tinkled and was silent. Mr. Hubbard had to lurch four times from his chair and across the kitchen to explain that he had no eleven and a half inch woollen stockings, to repulse a traveller who wanted to unload on him twelve cards of hair-slides, and to measure a yard of tape. The fourth time the bell rang he entered the shop, his hands full of artificial apple blossom, to find Lydia Holly, with Lennie and the baby in a pram and Kitty and Gertie dragging at her coat.

She had come in to town to do her weekly shopping and had left till the last, like a tit-bit on her plate, this visit to the Hubbards. She needed buttons for her father’s shirts and some more sewing thread; there were other and nearer shops where she might have found these; but she hungered for just what she heard as her little cavalcade trundled across the street—the pounded piano, Madame Hubbard’s voice raised in shrill admonition, and the tap-tapetty-tap of the dancing pupils.

Already, within a few weeks, she had changed from the bright schoolgirl, who dreamed of scholarships to college, into an undisciplined careworn household drudge. Under her tumbled brown school tunic she wore a torn green bodice, relic of somebody else’s party frock, bought at a jumble sale. Her neglected hair had been pushed under a crocheted cap rather like a sponge bag; her legs were bare; on her feet were soiled white gym shoes. She scolded Lennie, whose face was mottled with chocolate from a biscuit given him by Tadman’s assistant when Lydia paid three shillings on account of her weekly bill. She snapped at Gertie, who did not see why Lennie alone should be favoured in this matter of chocolate biscuits. She wrenched her messed tunic out of Kitty’s sticky fingers. She looked hot, cross, unhappy, and did not need the black band round her sleeve to mark her mourning.

“Why, it’s Lyd! Well, how goes it?” asked Mr. Hubbard amiably.

“All right. I want some of them metal buttons with soft middles for Dad’s shirt.”

From upstairs came the slither and glide of waltzing feet. Piano and voice supplied the time and words:

“Love is the sweetest thing

What else on earth can bring . . .”

Lydia had little use for the waltz—a sloppy dance offering small scope for her favourite acrobatics. She was disappointed in love. It was a bitter thing, bitter, not sweet. She had loved her mother, and a fat lot of use that had been to any one. She had loved Sarah Burton, and Sarah had forsaken her. Oh, she’d been kind enough at the beginning of term, promising to find some way out for her, running her over to supper at her own home once in her little motor-car, after the children were in bed. But since the measles started, she said she was in quarantine, and Lydia, with her brothers and sisters, must keep away from a house used as an isolation hospital.

So Lydia’s heart was sore and her manner ungracious and she faced Mr. Hubbard with the stolid defiance of unhappy youth. But Mr. Hubbard happened to be one of those wastrels who remained charming to women and to children. He touched the baby’s cheek with a friendly finger. He consoled Gertie with a faded cardboard lady, once used to display Saucy Slumber Caps. He gave Kitty a strip of shop-soiled lace, and to Lydia he said: “They’re rehearsing upstairs. Why don’t you go and see ’em? The missus has been missing you for the ballet, I bet.”

“Can’t,” said Lydia. “Kids.”

“Oh, that’s O.K. I’ll look after the family. Won’t I, sweetie?”

He took his lip between thumb and forefinger and stretched it out for Lennie’s delectation. He lifted Gertie on to the counter and pretended to sell her.

“Go on up. You know the way. We shall be happy down here.”

The tune changed to a rollicking gallop. It was too much for Lydia. Off she ran, springing up the shaking stairs two steps at a time.

“Hallo! Madame!”

“Why, Lydia! You
are
a stranger. The very girl I wanted. Take off your cap. Find her some slippers, some one. Can you still turn a cart-wheel?”

“Can I?” laughed Lydia, and before she knew what she was doing, she was back into the old storm and glory of the ballet. Cart-wheels, pirouettes, high kicks—her disappointment, her bereavement, the burdens of her responsibilities forgotten.

When Councillor Huggins arrived collecting for the Thirty Thousand Kingsport Infirmary Fund, he found Mr. Hubbard playing shops with the three small Hollies, the baby asleep beside him in its pram.

Councillor Huggins’ enthusiasm was quite simply explained. Snaith said that the Thirty Thousand Fund must be settled first. When that was done all Kingsport as well as the South Riding could be drawn into the Leame Ferry Waste scheme for a new maternity home. Therefore the sooner the thirty thousand pounds was raised, the better. He had come to consult the Hubbards about an entertainment to raise money, and the first people whom he saw were the motherless Hollies. Clearly here was an indication of providence. He had been right to come. The thirty thousand pounds were a matter of urgency, not only because Mrs. Holly must not go unavenged, but because, while the Leame Ferry Waste scheme hung fire, the warehouses deteriorated and did not rise in value, Reg Aythorne clamoured for money, Snaith’s loan remained unpaid, the wilderness did not blossom. Clearly Huggins had every incentive to help the hospital.

He followed Mr. Hubbard, who still carried Lennie, up the stairs, the little girls behind him. He found himself engulfed in a flood of femininity. Brown, blonde and red heads tossed, bare arms were waved, sturdy naked legs, grey at the knees, thrashed the hot air. A scent of warm active bodies and cheap talcum powder assaulted his nostrils. The girls he saw, except for their brassieres, were naked from the waist upwards.

Urgently he told himself that he was there for the glory of God. He watched with envy Mr. Hubbard’s casual ease, as he threaded his way between the panting torsos and buxom rumps. He observed the flash of understanding between husband and wife, and realised that Mr. Hubbard was saved by his wife’s bright eyes and rounded bosom. Now, if Nell had been different. . . . Oh, Lord, he prayed. I am Thy humble servant. Since the escape from Bessy Warbuckle, he had been doomed to strict celibacy.

“Here’s Mr. Huggins come to see if we can’t do our bit for the hospital,” announced Mr. Hubbard. The pianist turned and saw the councillor standing four-square, black-coated and solid, twiddling his watch chain among the giggling nymphs. Public performances were good advertisement. The lower the shop sunk, the higher it was essential for the dancing class to rise.

“Well, girls,” Madame Hubbard surveyed her talented pupils. “Do you think we could put up a show in August? Something out of doors, perhaps, to catch the visitors?”

“Oooh. yes. Yes, madame, yes.”

Kiplington was not so dull in summer as during the winter months, but an open air ballet, in the Esplanade Gardens, with floodlights and photographs and fancy costumes and a band, would lend excitement to the entire season.

“We always like to do our bit for charity,” Mr. Hubbard said demurely.

Madame Hubbard was reckoning expenses against assets. It would be worth it.

“You’ll join us, Lydia?”

“How can I?”

“Like you did to-day. Bring the nursery. Maybe we can use the kids. Tinies are popular.”

Miss Burton had not liked the Hubbards, but Miss Burton had failed her.

“Jeanette, take out—which is this?”

“Gertie.”

“Gertie—swing her round a bit. Let’s see how she frames. Now then, ducky.”

Jeanette swung Gertie, Violet held Kitty, Lennie toddled among the other dancers.

The Holly family should perform in the cause of charity, Councillor Huggins should have his gala evening. Lydia saw the desolate monotony of her life relieved.

“I’ll come if you want me. Bert and Dad must get their own teas.”

The streaming eyes and flushed cheeks of Jeanette went unregarded. Nobody realised that the girl had measles. The contacts which Miss Burton had avoided had now been all too thoroughly established. But Lydia Holly went home singing, hope in her heart.

Resolved—That rates for the several amounts required for the first six months of the current financial year be levied as undermentioned:— viz.:—

General County Purposes:—

Estimated

Rate in the £ to Produce

Public Assistance 1s. 7½d.
£60,411 0
s. 0d.

Resolved—That the Common Seal of the Council be affixed to the following documents, viz.:—Agreement as to the submission to the Ministry of Health of a question affecting chargeability under the Poor Law Act, the Council and the Kingsport Corporation.

Resolutions of the County Council of
the South Riding County of York, May, 1933.

S
INCE
W
HITSUN
the Shacks had been filling up with summer visitors. Five tents had been pitched beyond the Mitchells’ chicken run. The railway coach which had been Lydia’s “study” was now occupied each week-end by youths from Kingsport. The Turners had let their place to three school teachers who came by train every Friday night. A bronze-skinned giant whose hair was bleached flax-white by sun and weather lay all day under the cliffs and slept by night in the smallest of the huts. Rumour credited him with being an unemployed ex-officer, weary of canvassing for vacuum cleaners, who now lived on a pound a week from reluctant relatives.

The Hollies fraternised with this care-free community. Now that Mrs. Holly no longer summoned her family from her railway coach, like a hen clucking over a brood of ducklings, the girls ran wild among the visitors. The smaller children played in the dust among goats and fowls, scattering crusts and fish bones to the sea-gulls.

To Nancy Mitchell, keeping herself to herself in Bella Vista, this halcyon life added insult to life’s injury. The girls in bathing suits, the boys sunning themselves naked to the waist, the braying of jazz from portable wireless sets and the frizzling of sausages over Primus stoves jarred her strained nerves and pinched with acid disapproval her once pretty face.

She had done her best with Bella Vista, cut flower beds on the turf outside that the hens scratched to pieces, repainted the name of her house on its little gate, tied her curtains with pale blue ribbons, and washed and rewashed the blankets for Peggy’s pram. But the vagabond company of the Shacks destroyed her edifice of respectability.

There was nothing, no hope, no comfort, no alleviation. Even when she cycled into Kiplington she saw nothing but poverty. Summer had come, but the visitors, the money-spenders, on whom the little town lived, were not arriving. The sands might be crowded with day trippers but they carried their own picnic parcels with them and bought nothing except the jugs of tea, 2
d
., 4
d
., 6
d
., sold from the wooden booths. All the shops offered cakes for sale, even the drapers and stationers, displaying buns and rice loaves among their other wares—as though a population could live by taking in each other’s baking. No one wanted to be insured. Premiums lapsed. Fresh clients did not appear. The Kingsport office reprimanded Fred.

Long ago the Mitchells had abandoned their small luxuries —Fred’s cigarettes, Nancy’s toilet soap, bus fares and newspapers. The grim hand of poverty lay upon them, and now one final economy had undone them. For Nancy knew that she was pregnant again. It was an accident, an ironic catastrophe of over-prudence. Cheap substitutes in which she and Fred had trusted had betrayed them.

The sting of the failure lay in their unstaled love, their passion, their desire for another child. As soon as “things” grew better, Peggy was to have had a baby brother. As soon as the South Riding could afford again the luxuries of forethought and insurance. But not like this. Not now.

Nancy dared not tell Fred. She dared not follow Mrs. Holly’s example and “take things for it.” There were women in Kingsport who “did things,” but Nancy did not know where to find them. And if she knew, where could she get the money? And if she had the money, how could she face the furtive secrecy, the doubt, the danger? Nancy knew of such things only through police court cases reported in the papers. Her fastidiousness was not superficial. She could not bear that she, Nancy Mitchell, who had been Nancy Whitefield, should come to that. She could imagine the report of the inquest, the shameful questions, the publicity.