Two for Three Farthings (21 page)

‘Oh, you're awf'lly lovely, Orrice.'

Orrice went for her. Effel ran, out of the living-room and down the stairs, shrieking. Orrice caught her at the foot of the stairs, and they both fell to the floor of the little hall. Miss Pilgrim appeared.

‘Disgraceful! Get up, both of you.' Effel and Orrice scrambled to their feet. Jim showed himself at the top of the stairs. Miss Pilgrim looked up at him. ‘Mr Cooper, my house is not a boxing ring or a fairground. Kindly inform your wards of that.' She rustled stiffly back to her kitchen.

‘Come up here,' said Jim. They went up. He read them a minor riot act and sent them out to the market. When they returned, he despatched them downstairs to make their peace with Miss Pilgrim. Orrice knocked on the kitchen door.

‘Come in.'

They went in, Orrice bearing a wrapped sheaf of bright-headed daffodils, bought in the market. Effel hid herself behind him. An aroma of cooking food assailed their noses.

‘If yer please'm,' said Orrice, ‘we're sorry and would yer kindly accept these daffs, if yer please'm.'

Miss Pilgrim regarded the flowers in surprise. Orrice gazed in hope at her. Her clear searching eyes sought Effel. Effel gulped and hid herself deeper at her brother's back.

‘Thank you, Master Horace,' said Miss Pilgrim, and took the sheaf. ‘What is the matter with your sister?'

‘She don't like showing 'erself when she's got worries, Miss Pilgrim,' said Orrice. ‘She finks yer goin' to throw 'er out.'

‘Thinks,' said Miss Pilgrim.

‘Yes'm.' Orrice untied his tongue. ‘Thinks,' he said.

‘Good. Ethel, show yourself.'

Effel emerged, head hanging.

‘Sorry,' she said.

‘Well, I'm sure it won't happen again,' said Miss Pilgrim graciously. ‘I am quite used to children through my mission work, but not to thumping, bumping and rolling ones. Also, I don't wish either of you to break your legs. I will see you all at midday dinner. Thank you for the flowers, both of you. But such extravagance. However, off you go.'

‘Thumping, bumping and rolling,' said Jim, over a stomach-filling meal of steak-and-kidney pie.

‘Pardon, Mr Cooper?' said Miss Pilgrim.

‘Can't have that,' said Jim. ‘Told 'em so. Can't have racketing about, or thumps and bumps.'

The severe blue eyes regarded him suspiciously.

‘We agreed, Mr Cooper, on good behaviour.'

‘Do you hear that, kids?' said Jim.

‘I won't fump Effel indoors again, Miss Pilgrim,' said Orrice, ‘only in the street.'

‘Incorrigible boy, I hope your guardian will see to it you don't thump your little sister in this house or out of it.'

‘Yes,' said Jim, ‘and it's thump, young man, not fump.'

‘I ain't—'

‘Aren't,' said Jim.

Puzzled, Orrice said, ‘I aren't sure—'

‘I'm not sure,' said Jim.

‘Crikey,' said Orrice, ‘now I dunno where I am.'

Miss Pilgrim coughed. Jim hid a smile.

‘I'll serve the rice pudding,' said Miss Pilgrim.

‘Rice puddin'?' said Orrice, eyes glowing. ‘Cor, yer a swell, Miss Pilgrim.'

‘That is an absurdity, boy. However, the daffodils were not. I think, Mr Cooper, you will be able to turn these children into children of the Lord.'

‘Don't want no Lord,' mumbled Effel, ‘just me mum an' dad.'

‘Oh, dear,' sighed Miss Pilgrim.

On Sunday morning Miss Pilgrim departed early for church, but not before she had made it clear she expected her lodger to take his wards to the service. Church and God's Commandments, she said, shaped the minds of children and taught them the difference between self-indulgence and self-discipline.

Effel, discovering she was about to be taken to church, said, ‘Ain't goin'.'

‘Untrue,' said Jim.

‘Ain't,' said Effel.

‘Is,' said Jim. ‘We're all going. That's why you're wearing your Sunday frock. Now put your boater on.'

‘Don't like you,' muttered Effel.

‘Well, you're stuck with me at the moment,' said Jim.

‘Ain't goin' to no church,' said Effel.

‘You're askin' for it, you are, sis,' said Orrice, who wore a new Sunday cap. It was against his will, but Jim had advised him his old cap wasn't a church-going one.

‘Well, never mind,' said Jim, ‘you and I will go, Orrice. Come on.' He and Orrice left the house. Effel stamped around, ran down the stairs and opened the front door. She saw them walking up the street. By the time they reached St John's Church she was close behind Orrice. Orrice turned and saw her. People were crowding in.

Effel aimed another arrow. Loudly, she said, ‘Oh, ain't you pretty in yer Sunday suit, Orrice?'

The fates were against Orrice that morning.

The service opened with a hymn. In a front pew, with some ladies of her acquaintance, Miss Pilgrim stood to sing in a clear, fearless soprano. Effel mouthed inaudibly over the hymn book Jim had placed in her hands. Across the aisle, she saw Alice French with her mother and father. Effel scowled. Alice smiled.

The service got under way. Effel didn't mind the hymns too much, but everything else reminded her of Scripture lessons at school, which were boring. Orrice took it all in his stride. Orrice was adaptable. Effel was cast in a more rigid mould.

Alice sought to catch Orrice's eye.

‘'Aunting me, that's what she is,' growled Orrice during a hymn, but he put a penny in the collecting plate as a sign that he recognized his mum and dad had gone to a Christian heaven.

The sermon was all about Fight The Good Fight. The vicar, mellow of voice, spoke mostly of the fight against hardship. He was not too concerned about the antics of the devil, implying that his parishioners could recognize that dark gentleman when he knocked on their doors, and could, with a few exceptions, send him packing. Hardship was the greater menace to the people of Walworth.

Effel fidgeted. Jim thought about his dead mother, and the fact that he didn't even have a photograph of her. She must have had some possessions when she died. Where had they got to?

Orrice kept his eyes off Alice and on the pulpit. But there was no escape. She was waiting for him when he came out of the church, her mum and dad with her. Alice whispered to her mum, a plump lady with a stalwart-looking husband.

‘So you're Horace Withers,' said Mrs French.

‘Who, me?' said Orrice in alarm. Effel, close by, began to grind her teeth.

‘I'm Alice's dad,' said Mr French, ‘and Alice 'ud like you to come to tea one Sunday.' Mr French eyed the boy with an amused smile. This was the one Alice had gone potty about. He could see why. There wasn't a healthier-looking boy in Walworth, nor a better-looking one. Kids were fun, especially nine-year-old daughters potty on a boy. ‘Any Sunday you like, 'Orace.'

‘Me?' gasped Orrice, wondering why life was dealing him blow after blow. Only his new uncle represented a decent bit of luck. ‘Me?' he gasped again.

‘Do say when, Horace,' begged Alice, stunningly pretty in a yellow frock and little bonnet.

‘Take your time, young 'un,' said Mr French with a little grin. He could sympathize with the boy. He caught the eye of a tall one-armed man, who winked at him. Jim and Mr French both understood Orrice's problem.

‘I dunno when I can say when,' said Orrice desperately.

‘Next Sunday?' suggested Alice.

‘Next Sunday?' queried Orrice, and received a kick in the back of his right leg from Effel. People, pouring out of the church, stopped to speak to friends or neighbours, and the churchyard, bright with April sunshine, became a hubbub of voices. In the distance could be heard the strains of a marching Salvation Army band. Orrice searched for escape words. ‘I'm busy next Sunday.'

‘Oh, you're not,' protested Alice.

‘I'm busy most Sundays. Well, I will be, like. It's Miss Pilgrim's garden, yer see. She's our landlady. I got to 'elp wiv 'er garden on Sundays.'

‘Yes, we heard she'd took in lodgers,' said Mrs French.

‘Yes, well,' said Orrice, and stopped. Cool blue eyes were looking straight into his. ‘Oh, cripes,' he muttered, ‘now I done it.'

‘Good morning, Mrs French, good morning, Mr French.' Miss Pilgrim's crisp voice cut in. ‘Alice? Good morning. The sermon was encouraging, wasn't it?'

‘Something like with our backs to the wall let's advance,' said Mr French, a man of thirty-four who had seen service with the Army in France and who considered himself lucky in stepping straight into a job as a railway ganger after being demobbed.

‘We are all in service to God, we are all fighting His battles in our own way,' said Miss Pilgrim. ‘Some more so, some less so. Alice, how pretty you look.'

Young Alice blushed a little.

‘We're just asking Horace to Sunday tea, Miss Pilgrim,' she said.

‘That is a kind Christian hand to a newcomer,' said Miss Pilgrim, and caught Jim's eye. Because Orrice was being trapped, Jim gave his handsome landlady a smile and a little wink. Miss Pilgrim stiffened in the way of a woman to whom a wink was more heathen than Christian. She said, ‘I don't think Horace will be too busy in my garden, Alice.'

‘Oh, thanks ever so,' said Alice, who had a natural way of doing justice to the King's English, her mum coming of a respectable family in Brighton. ‘Horace can come next Sunday, then?'

‘If his guardian gives permission,' said Miss Pilgrim. It was all over the neighbourhood by now, the fact that two new pupils at St John's School were in the care of a guardian, a Mr Cooper, and that they were lodging with Miss Pilgrim.

‘You've my permission, Horace,' said Jim, and Orrice gave him a look of soulful reproach. ‘But of course, if you really are busy—?'

‘Well, I might—' Another kick arrived in the back of Orrice's leg.

‘Come about half-four, Horace,' said Mrs French kindly, ‘and we'll have shrimps and winkles.'

Effel, behind Orrice, uttered a suppressed gurgle of rage. Her boater and face suddenly materialized. She was pink with jealous fury. But before she could deliver herself of anything shocking, Jim interposed.

‘This is Ethel, by the way. Horace's little sister. Say hello, Ethel.'

‘Ugh,' said Effel under her breath. Out loud she said, ‘Orrice don't go nowhere wivout me.'

‘Well, love, you come to tea too,' said Mrs French.

‘Oh, yes, d'you want to, Ethel?' asked Alice.

‘'E can't go wivout me,' said Ethel, hotly jealous. Fiendishly, she added, ‘'E'll get lost if I don't go wiv 'im.'

‘Me?' said Orrice faintly. That was Pelion piled on Ossa. ‘Me get lost, me?'

‘It's only Crampton Street,' said Mrs French, ‘number fourteen. Next Sunday, then, Horace. And Ethel too.'

Orrice felt sick. He knew it would soon get out at school, that he was going to Sunday tea with Alice French. That Higgs, he'd smirk all over his clock.

Mr French caught Jim's eye again. Jim smiled. It struck Mr French that a man with one arm had taken on a packet of problems with these two kids. But he must be a bit out of the ordinary in getting lodgings with Rebecca Pilgrim. Regular particular, Miss Pilgrim was, and an old maid before she was forty. Some said before she'd even come of age. Might have had something to do with a bit of a scandal in China when she was twenty. Her mother, Mrs Pilgrim, a lovely old girl but a bit faded, had told Mrs French during the war that there'd been a man out there in China, that he'd died from the bite of a poisonous snake just before the Pilgrim family left the mission and came back to England. Mr French couldn't see that as a bit of a scandal, or that it could turn a girl of twenty into an old maid. Oh, well, a girl of twenty and a man, said Mrs French. Yes, what about it, asked Mr French. Well, you wouldn't understand, you've never been a girl of twenty, said Mrs French.

Still, there it was. Rebecca Pilgrim was an old maid. The last woman to take a man in as a lodger. And two kids as well, and her as fussy and pernickety as an old hen, demanding upright Christian behaviour of everyone. Everyone said she'd got a mission, which was to turn Walworth into the most upright Christian place in England. Be a job, that would. Bet she'd have a go at turning Jim Cooper into a missionary.

‘Well, come on, kids,' said Jim, ‘let's walk home with Miss Pilgrim.'

‘A' right,' said Effel, but cautiously.

‘Goodbye till school tomorrow, Horace dear,' said Alice.

Orrice almost died on the spot. Effel ground her teeth. Jim said goodbye to the French family. Orrice recovered with an effort, but as he began the walk home with Effel, Jim and Miss Pilgrim, he expressed his feelings bitterly.

‘I dunno, I been called some names in my time, I 'ave,' he said, ‘but I ain't never been called Orrice dear. Nor ain't I ever 'ad to go to Sunday tea wiv a girl. I been done down an' jumped on, I 'ave. I dunno what the blokes at school's goin' to say, I betcher they won't believe it. I dunno I believe it meself. Bleedin' 'ell—'

‘Boy!' Miss Pilgrim, shocked, cut him off.

‘Steady, Horace,' said Jim pacifically.

‘I ain't said nuffink,' said Orrice aggrievedly. ‘It's all right for you, Uncle Jim, you ain't been called Orrice dear, nor sorely tried like I been.'

‘Nonsense,' said Miss Pilgrim, starch crisply rustling, long legs taking her firmly along. Smoke was rising from chimneys on this bright May day. Sunday dinners were cooking, and not every family was solely using gas ovens. ‘I've never heard such a fuss. You've been invited to tea with a very nice family. That is a compliment.'

‘Ugh,' said Effel indistinctly.

‘What did you say, child?'

‘Wasn't me,' said Effel.