Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [21]
Sam had gone downstairs when Thomas arrived to collect their things and Mr Craven had stood out in the alley too in case of trouble. But Thomas had seemed resigned rather than fighting mad. He’d just picked up the bags and left with them.
‘But we’d need money to emigrate,’ Beth said wistfully.
‘We couldn’t go with Molly anyway,’ Sam retorted.
Beth felt a pang in her heart, for she knew that what he really meant was that he wouldn’t want her with them. He hadn’t softened towards her as she’d hoped; he never picked her up or played with her. Even when Molly laughed it didn’t make him smile.
‘If it wasn’t for her we could sell everything to raise the fare,’ he said bitterly. ‘As it is, I’ll have to take those two silver photograph frames tomorrow and sell them, just to keep us going.’
Beth went into the bedroom soon afterwards and opened the back of the photograph frames to take out the pictures. One was of her and Sam when they were around nine and ten, taken in a studio just down Church Street. She was wearing a white dress with a little straw bonnet, her hair in ringlets beneath it. Sam was standing beside her chair in a dark jacket and knee-length knickerbockers, looking very serious. Their mother had loved the picture, and Papa had bought the frame specially for it.
The other picture was the one she’d been asked to keep for Molly. Her parents were both smiling, and Beth remembered that seconds after the picture was taken they had all burst into helpless laughter because when the photographer bent down to put his head under the black cloth to take the picture he broke wind.
If only they could have all stayed as happy as they had been that day! Mama looked so pretty in her best dress and Papa distinguished in his striped blazer and boater. It had been very hot, and they’d all taken off their shoes and stockings and had a paddle in the sea together.
Beth could understand Sam’s bitterness. There were times when she too felt like cursing her mother for bringing all this down on them. Why couldn’t she have been satisfied with a good, kind husband who loved her?
The following morning Beth was feeling rather more positive and decided to write out an advertisement for two male lodgers. Later, with Molly in her arms, she took it down to the sweet shop further along Church Street. After handing it in to be displayed, she stopped to read the advertisements already on the board, and noticed one requiring a woman for a few hours a week to do laundry and sewing.
It was in Falkner Square, in one of Liverpool’s best districts. Beth had often walked around its wide streets and leafy squares to deliver shoes and boots for her father.
Thinking such a position would be ideal for her, Beth rushed round to ask Mrs Craven if she would mind Molly while she went there.
‘I’d be glad to, my dear.’ Mrs Craven smiled, holding out her arms for the baby. ‘And if it’s only a few hours a week I’d be glad to mind her then too.’
Beth polished her boots, then put on her best dark blue dress with a lace collar and cuffs and a plain dark blue bonnet that had been Mama’s. It was the first time she’d worn anything other than black since Papa died, and she felt slightly guilty at not wearing mourning, but both her black dresses were looking a little shabby now, and dark blue was hardly frivolous.
Beth’s spirits lifted as she set off for it was a lovely warm day and it felt good to be going out without Molly for once, almost an adventure.
The gardens in the centre of Falkner Square looked pretty, with many flowering shrubs in full bloom. She stopped outside number forty-two, looking speculatively at the steps down to the basement area behind the black iron railings and the marble ones up to the front door beneath the pillared porch.
Beth had been told about life below stairs in big houses by her mother, and so she knew