Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [7]
‘I saw Mrs Craven outside. She said she’ll come round later and try to talk to her; maybe it will be best if you try the dress then. However bad Mama feels, she won’t want a neighbour knowing she’s leaving everything to us.’
Beth heard the bitterness in his voice and got up to put her arms around him. He had been in the shop from first light till dusk most days, finishing up all the repairs, and she knew how frightened and worried he was. ‘You said we’d manage the night it happened, and we will,’ she said.
‘I’ve got a feeling Mama knows why he did it,’ Sam said in a low voice, leaning his chin on her head as she held him. ‘I’ve gone through the accounts and although there isn’t very much money, he wasn’t in trouble. He never went out, so he wasn’t drinking or gambling, and he certainly didn’t have another woman. It can only be something to do with her.’
‘Don’t think that, Sam,’ Beth begged him. ‘It won’t help putting the blame on Mama.’
Sam caught hold of her arms tightly and looked right into her eyes. ‘Don’t you realize everything is going to be different from now on?’ he said fiercely. ‘We are going to be poor. I wish I could promise you that I could keep the shop going, but all I can do is repairs. I’m not skilled enough to make boots and shoes, and that was what Papa made the money on. I’m going to have to get another job, but that won’t pay enough to keep all three of us.’
‘I can get one too,’ Beth said eagerly. ‘We will manage, Sam.’
He looked at her doubtfully. ‘It may come that we have to find a cheaper place to live, or take in a lodger. We won’t be able to live the way we’ve been used to.’
Anger flared up inside Beth again. All her life she’d heard Papa telling her that he wanted her and Sam to have all the advantages he’d never had. He’d made her believe that they were gentlefolk, a cut above most of their neighbours. But he’d shamed and ruined them without even an explanation as to why.
Chapter Three
As Beth laid the table for the evening meal she watched her mother stirring a pot of stew on the stove. As usual she was in her own private world, barely aware even that her daughter was in the room with her.
Three months had passed since she was widowed, but this was how she had remained. While she did the washing, cooking and cleaning in much the same way she always had, she only spoke when asked a direct question, and she took no interest in anyone or anything.
Mrs Craven, their kindly neighbour who had been so supportive at the time of their father’s death, had said that Beth and Sam should be patient with her, for grief affected people in many different ways and their mother would come out of this silence when she was ready. But a month ago even Mrs Craven lost her patience when Mama told her to go away when she’d called round.
‘’ Er face was as cold as a marble headstone! Fair gave me goose pimples, cos it was like she didn’t know me,’ she reported indignantly to Beth.
It seemed incredible to Beth that her mother could dismiss the one person who had been a true friend. But then she didn’t show any appreciation for all Sam had done for her either.
He had tried so hard to keep the shop going, but the people who used to bring in their boots and shoes to be repaired stopped coming. Whether this was because of the suicide, or because they didn’t think Sam could do the job, wasn’t clear. So Sam rented the shop out to someone else. Mama merely shrugged when he told her.
For a dreamy and previously very lazy lad, Beth thought her brother had proved himself to be a real man by dealing so masterfully with all the family problems. With someone downstairs paying almost the entire rent for the building, they only had to find a small balance so they could continue to stay in the flat. Sam had got himself a position as a junior clerk with a shipping company and he brought home every penny he earned to keep them all. Mama should be praising him to the skies, not just ignoring him.
But then she hadn’t praised Beth either when she found a position as an assistant in a hosiery shop.