Things a Bright Girl Can Do

  ‘Calling up the reserves!’ Nell’s mother cried. ‘But you can’t! Tell them you can’t, Eric. You’ve got six kids to feed!’

  ‘I ain’t got no choice, Lil,’ said Nell’s father. His face was rigid. ‘They’ll give me a couple of days to get meself together, but that’s it. If I don’t go, it’s desertion.’

  ‘They shoot deserters, don’t they, Dad?’ said Bernie. Nell’s father didn’t answer. He went into the bedroom, and pulled the family suitcase out from under the brass bedstead. Dot scrambled over to the side of the bed, crying, ‘Dad! Dad! Dad, what’s happening?’

  Nell’s mother shrieked, ‘Eric! How’m I going to pay the rent if you go off to war? Is the army going to pay it for us? Well, is they? Answer me! Eric!’

  ‘Is you going to Belgium, Dad?’ said Bernie.

  Nell’s father rummaged in his pocket and handed her mother something which chinked. Nell’s mother stared at it. It was a thruppeny bit, and three farthings.

  ‘That’s all I’ve got, love,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to make do until I can send some back.’

  Nell’s mother stared at him, terrified. You could not feed and house seven people on what she earned, even with the extra Nell and Bill brought in. It simply could not be done.

  Nell’s father bent his head and kissed her forehead.

  ‘You’ll manage somehow, pet,’ he said, awkwardly. ‘You always do.’

  And he opened his suitcase.

  Ill

  EVELYN MISSED THE declaration of war. She missed her last weeks at school. She missed her eighteenth birthday, and the long-planned ‘coming-out’, the German advance on Paris and rebuttal at the Marne, and all of the excitement, the shouting in the street, the enlistments, the soldiers and the hastily planned weddings. For many weeks, she missed everything.

  As she slowly got well, she began to learn what had happened to her. She had had appendicitis; a common side-effect of hunger strike, apparently. A doctor had come to the house and operated on her, ‘Right here, on the nursery table, in your bedroom!’ said Kezia, to whom this was the most exciting part of the whole business. But something had gone wrong, and the wound had become infected, and Evelyn had gone from having one serious illness straight into having another.

  Naturally this had meant she’d been unable to return to prison, as her licence required. By the time she was well enough, the government had announced a general wartime amnesty for suffrage prisoners. Evelyn was ashamed of how relieved she felt. More than anything, she’d dreaded going back to prison.

  She had never been really, seriously ill before, and she didn’t like it. At first, she had been too ill to care about anything, and her days had been a confused, shivery, miserable blur of fever, and aches, and always feeling tired.

  In those semi-delirious days, it was not Teddy or the little girls who she wanted, but, astonishingly, her mother and Miss Perring. Miss Perring, whom Evelyn had always rather scorned, turned out to be exactly the sort of person one needed when one was sick. She seemed to know almost by telepathy when Evelyn wanted water, or company, or an extra blanket, or when Hetty and Kezia were getting too much for her. Evelyn marvelled at how little attention she had given to this woman; with whom, after all, she had spent more time than her own parents.

  ‘How did you get so good at looking after people who are ill?’ she asked, one day, and Miss Perring replied, ‘Caring for my own mother when she was dying.’

  And Evelyn realised with a pang that she’d never – in all the years she’d known Miss Perring – once wondered about her own family.

  Her mother, too, was a surprise. Evelyn had supposed that her mother would be very angry about prison, and the hunger strike, and the Suffragettes, but the subject was never mentioned at all. Instead, her mother would bring her mending into Evelyn’s bedroom, and read aloud from the old nursery favourites: The Pickwick Papers, and Puck of Pook’s Hill and Alice in Wonderland.

  It was very strange to go to prison a schoolgirl, and to wake up an adult, in a world at war. Even in the few months that she’d been ill, the world had become a very different place indeed.

  Hetty and Kezia were eager to tell her all about it: who was getting married in a great hurry, who had already joined up, who had rushed out and bought half the grocer’s shop on the first day of the war.

  ‘There are soldiers drilling every day on the Heath,’ Hetty told her excitedly. ‘There’s soldiers everywhere you go, everyone’s joined the army, practically. Kit’s desperate to go too, only Father says he’s too young and he’s to finish his education. But Kit went back to Oxford and he says nearly all the boys have joined up already; there’s just cowards and the medically unfit left, Kit says, and the foreigners. And his college is full of soldiers now, and they’re ever so sniffy about the students. Half the colleges have soldiers billeted there, or they’ve been turned into army hospitals, Kit says. He stuck it out for three days, then he came home and said either Father had to let him enlist, or he was just going to sit around until Oxford sent him down for not showing up to lectures. But Father says he’s too young – I don’t think nineteen is too young, do you? I think it’s rather an awful thing to have a brother at home in a time of national emergency. But you know what Father’s like.’

  Kezia and Hetty were both very excited about the war. They’d been on a rally supporting the soldiers, and Hetty’s guide troop had already started making bandages for the wounded, which seemed a little premature to Evelyn.

  ‘Captain says it’s especially important to look smart and always wear our uniforms properly,’ Hetty announced. ‘She says it’s every Englishman or woman’s duty to maintain discipline and morale and that way we can show the troops how much we support them. Isn’t it marvellous?’

  ‘Did you tell Captain you’d got a sister who assaulted policemen?’ said Evelyn, amused.

  ‘Gladys did,’ said Hetty. ‘Captain said that sort of thing was all very well in peacetime, but in war we must put our differences behind us and work together to defeat the Hun. I told her you would. You will, won’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Evelyn. She felt rather bewildered. Mrs Pankhurst had been very vocal about how the needs of the country should come before the needs of the Suffragettes. Evelyn knew she was right. The whole point of the suffrage campaign had been to make life as difficult as possible for the government. But in wartime, wasting government time and money would put British soldiers at risk. It was the sort of thing traitors and resistance fighters did; it would, in a very real sense, be doing the enemy’s work for them. Of course the Suffragettes couldn’t do that. And yet …

  She was filled, once again, with the impotent rage that had dogged her for most of her childhood. That this one thing that was so important to so many women had once again been trumped by the preoccupations of bloody men. Is it worth dying for? Teddy and her father had said to her, the implication being that it wasn’t. And now this other thing, this vague thing, that seemed to be mostly about treaties and alliances and other people’s battles, this thing was supposed to be worth it. And the worst of it was, she didn’t exactly disagree. It wasn’t that she thought they ought to break their promises and abandon their national duties. It was just … rather insulting to realise that the rights of British women sat quite so far below the rights of Belgians in the British psyche.

  She had seen very little of Teddy at first. Evelyn was not sure if this was because he was still forbidden to enter the house, or because she was too ill to be allowed visitors outside of family. For a long time, she had been too ill to notice who was there and who wasn’t. But when the world began to settle down, and her head to clear, she had asked after him.

  ‘Where is he?’ A terrible thought struck her. ‘He hasn’t joined the army, has he?’ He wouldn’t, surely, without seeing her, or at least writing? Would he?

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ her mother said reassuringly.

  ‘And you aren’t still angry with him, are you?’

  ‘
No,’ said her mother, rather surprisingly. ‘Goodness, no!’ And, seeing Evelyn’s questioning expression, ‘How could I be angry with him? Not now …’

  She meant not now they were at war.

  ‘Can I see him?’ she said. ‘I do so want to.’

  ‘All right,’ said her mother, rather anxiously – this was in the days before Evelyn was allowed even to sit up in bed, and everyone was very worried about upsetting her. And Teddy had been brought upstairs to visit.

  ‘Hullo, old man,’ he said. There was something fearful hovering behind his eyes, which hadn’t been there before.

  ‘Hullo,’ she said, and held out her hand.

  ‘Goodness,’ he said, and his voice wavered. ‘Don’t you ever do that to me again. I think I aged ten years that week you were in prison. And then you come out and throw this at me!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and he took her hand and squeezed it.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘After due consideration, I have decided to forgive you.’

  She gave a hiccupy gurgle of a laugh. Then …

  ‘Teddy,’ she said. ‘Teddy. You came to the action.’

  ‘Well, of course.’ He sounded surprised.

  ‘But I was so ghastly to you.’

  ‘Well, yes. You were rather hideous. But you didn’t think I’d let you face that on your own, did you?’

  She felt her eyes fill with tears.

  ‘And you didn’t tell Father I was doing it.’

  ‘No. It didn’t seem quite the thing, somehow.’ He winced. ‘There was rather a scene about that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Poor darling.’ Of course, he’d had to tell them what had happened to her. It occurred to her for the first time what an awful job that must have been.

  She rubbed her eyes. Goodness! To do all that …

  It did make one look at him in a different light.

  That was the sort of partner one wanted. A man who would tell you to your face when he thought you were acting like a bloody fool, and then stand beside you when you went ahead and did it anyway. There wasn’t one man in a thousand who would do a thing like that.

  Want

  THE NEXT THING that happened was Nell’s jam factory closed down.

  ‘But why?’ said Nell, when the foreman told them. ‘Governor’s enlisted, hasn’t he?’ said the foreman. ‘So’ve half the men on the shop floor. Who’s going to run the place? And,’ he said, with an air of importance, ‘there’s no money in jam, anyway. Half the market’s gone, ain’t it? We can hardly sell jam to the Huns any more, can we?’

  ‘But there must be money in jam!’ said Mrs Dunbar, who lived two streets over from Nell, and had four children to feed. ‘Everyone eats jam!’

  The foreman shrugged.

  ‘Set up your own factory, then,’ he said. And that, it seemed, was that.

  ‘Don’t fuss,’ Nell told her mother. ‘I’ll get work. You’ll see.’ But it wasn’t so simple. Half the East End factories were closing. And those that weren’t were swamped with applications.

  Domestic jobs were being lost as well, as every male member of the middle classes who could was joining up. The gentry apparently considered it a point of honour to ‘do without’ male servants, and more and more women were seen driving their own cars and ‘making do’ without chauffeurs or handymen.

  ‘Patriotic duty!’ said Nell’s mother, furiously, when Mrs Prickett’s son was told that his services would no longer be required, as Mrs Thomas believed it was her patriotic duty to release young men of an age to serve in the army. ‘Where’s your duty to them’s that need to pay the rent?’

  A week later, Nell’s mother also lost her job. This was a blow, but hardly a surprise. The socialist organisation existed in a state of permanent near-crisis. They were perpetually disorganised and underfunded, and the war was the straw that broke the already-bowed camel’s back. The foreman told Nell’s mother that Britain was in a national emergency, and nobody bought skirts in a state of national emergency. He advised her to try and get work making soldier’s uniforms – ‘There’s a national shortage’ – but there were no uniform factories anywhere near Poplar. Nell’s mother asked the Suffragettes if they thought it was worth moving for the work, and was told it was unlikely; the uniform factories, like those in Poplar, were inundated with women. Nell’s mother wept, and Siddy cried, and Bill swore, and Dot said, practically, ‘What’s we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nell’s mother. She wiped her eyes furiously on the edge of her shawl. ‘We’ll think of something. Don’t worry.’

  But it was impossible not to. Nell’s mother’s wage had meant more than just money. Since their father had gone, Bernie and Dot had been getting free dinners at school. Now, however, because their mother was an able-bodied woman who did not work, the Poor Law stated that they could not be given charity.

  ‘How am I supposed to work?’ Nell’s mother raged at the school ma’am. ‘Do you have work? If you have it, I’ll do it. There ain’t anything.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Swancott,’ said the school ma’am. She did look sorry. ‘I wish I could help you. But the law’s the law.’

  ‘If those children end up in the workhouse,’ said Nell’s mother. ‘It’ll be on your conscience. You and your bleeding Poor Law!’

  ‘We won’t end up in the workhouse, will we, Nell?’ said Bernie that evening, as they sat on the step of the house watching the children playing in the street. Bernie’s little face was whiter than ever, and his eyes were huge. He wouldn’t survive the workhouse.

  ‘Course we won’t,’ said Nell. ‘Don’t be daft. We’ll be all right once Dad’s money comes.’

  ‘I could work maybe,’ said Bernie. ‘Mum were working when she were my age. I don’t care about school. I could be a delivery boy, like Bill.’

  Nell ruffled his hair.

  ‘You!’ she said. ‘Not likely! Who’d ever think you were fourteen? And if you ain’t fourteen, you ought to be in school. That’s law, that is.’

  ‘Most folks don’t care about that,’ said Bernie, which was probably true. But still …

  ‘Go to school, Bern,’ said Nell. ‘We’ll be all right.’

  The only wage now coming into the household was what Bill could earn as a delivery boy, and that barely covered food and coal. Almost as soon as war was declared, prices had begun to rise. Dealers sent men to all the small shops, to buy up their stock and drive prices up still further. Anything imported from the continent disappeared. So, of course, did anything made in places like Nell’s jam factory which had closed. Those who could afford to panic-bought coal and bread and soap and tinned food, which of course just made things worse. That autumn Nell’s days became a desperate trudge from office to office to household to household to factory to factory, looking for work. There was none. Everyone Nell knew was in a similar position. Everyone was hungry. Everyone was cold. Everyone’s babies were crying, their children grizzling, the frailer members of the family were beginning to fall sick. Everyone was desperate, and as the weeks dragged on, the desperation rose.

  The biggest worry was of course the rent. One of the houses in the street across from Nell bore a calico banner which read:

  PLEASE, LANDLORD, DON’T BE OFFENDED,

  DON’T COME FOR THE RENT TIL THE WAR IS ENDED.

  It had been impossible for some weeks since for Nell’s mother to pay her rent to Mrs O’Farrell, which in turn meant Mrs O’Farrell couldn’t pay their landlord.

  ‘I don’t want to give you notice,’ Mrs O’Farrell said. She really didn’t. The few shillings Nell’s mother could scrape together each week were better than nothing, and who knew how long it would take to find new tenants? ‘But …’

  Letters from Nell’s father came from an army camp. All soldiers were supposed to receive a month’s pay on mobilisation, but this had not happened. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know when it would come. Once they were paid, he would be allowed to send half his wages home, but nobody had been pa
id anything yet. There were forms you were supposed to fill in to make sure that your wife got her share of your wages, but these forms had not materialised. Everything was chaotic and disorganised. They didn’t have proper equipment yet. They didn’t even have proper barracks. They were sleeping on straw mattresses on the floor of a church hall. He missed them. He loved them. He didn’t know when he would be sent to France.

  Meanwhile, Nell’s mother was raising money the only way she had left. Day after day, she loaded their possessions into the perambulator in which, until recently, she had taken her shirts to the factory. Day after day she joined the queue of women outside the pawnbrokers, pawning everything except the barest essentials. Their Sunday clothes. The china dogs which sat on the overmantel. The wardrobe. The table. The bedstead.

  ‘Soon there’ll be nothing left but us,’ said Bernie mournfully. ‘And then what?’

  And then the workhouse. Like most of the working poor, Nell’s mother lived in terror of the workhouse. They took your children from you in the workhouse. The work was perishing hard, and the food pitiful. You didn’t die of starvation, but you probably died of something else instead. Plenty of people did.

  And you never saw your children again.

  Nell went down to the Women’s Hall and knocked on the door. The Suffragettes were sympathetic, but helpless. Women like Nell and her mother came there every day, all with the same story. They took down her details, and her mother’s details, and promised to let them know when there was work.

  But there never was.

  One of the young ladies who worked for the Suffragettes explained to Nell that her mother could apply for a separation allowance. Nell’s mother queued all day at the Bromley Public Hall, along with hundreds of other soldiers’ wives and dependants. But the money simply didn’t arrive. It seemed to be a symptom of the general disorganisation into which the entire country had been thrown. Who cared about the East End women when soldiers like Nell’s father didn’t have boots?