Free Liverpool Miss by Helen Forrester Page B

there,’ as if any other place of work was probably a cesspool of immorality.
    Father was embarrassed. ‘I don’t doubt it,’ he muttered, and looked across at Mother.
    I looked down at my hands resting on the back of the easy chair, and burst into tears. It was easy tosee that my parents were boiling with suppressed anger at the intrepid little deaconess’s foray into our affairs. They would raise hell when she was gone. I put my head down on my hands and cried until the tears ran through the fingers on to the shiny green leatherette of the chair.
    Avril, who had been sitting on a matching poof, sucking her thumb and watching the proceedings very quietly, suddenly started to cry as well, and was immediately whisked into the hall and the door shut on her. I could hear her wailing in the dark.
    ‘Don’t cry, Helen,’ said Father ineffectually.
    Mother turned to Miss Ferguson, as she shut the door after Avril.
    ‘Helen is obviously very upset, Miss Ferguson. Perhaps we should discuss the matter with her and let you know in a day or two what has been decided.’
    I was not just upset; I was nearly out of my mind with despair. But the tears came with such tremendous force that I could do nothing to stop Miss Ferguson being quickly, though politely, eased out of the house.
    When I heard the latch on the front door click shut, I flung myself wildly on to the settee and continued to sob. What was the use of a day or two, when the appointment was for tomorrow?
    It was fortunate that Father and Mother had already exhausted themselves with one quarrel that evening, and Mother, therefore, contented herself with ordering me to control myself, while Father asked how they could talk to me when I was making such a racket.
    I made a violent effort, sat up and dried my face with the backs of my hands.
    Mother looked so terribly exhausted, when finally I lifted my eyes to look at her, that I felt an overwhelming guilt and said, ‘I’m sorry, I really am.’
    Mother had been dreadfully ill just before we arrived in Liverpool. She had had no real care since then, so that she was soon drained of strength. I truly did not want to add to her hardships; yet I could not bear my present miseries much longer.
    ‘Have you been talking to Miss Ferguson or to the Fathers at the church, behind our backs, Helen?’ asked Mother. There was an implied threat in the question. Family affairs, we had been taught from infancy, were not discussed with servants or outsiders. Childish revelations, whenever discovered, had been dealt with by a sharp spanking or, sometimes, caning.
    I was too upset to care or remember about Miss Ferguson’s tour of our house, so I said indignantly that I had not. I took off my glasses and wiped themdown the front of my gym slip, while I tried to think how my going to work could be managed.
    ‘You know, Daddy,’ I said, approaching the weaker partner, ‘the salary offered is quite good. It would mean three salaries coming into the house.’
    ‘Alice Davis wants ten shillings a week to look after Edward,’ interrupted Mother. ‘And there are still the other children’s needs.’
    ‘Surely if everybody helped, we could manage between us. It wouldn’t hurt Fiona and Alan to help – they are quite big now.’
    Mother dismissed Fiona and Alan with a gesture.
    ‘On Sundays I could clean the house, and, if Fiona and Alan could make the tea, I could put Edward and Avril to bed when I came in.’
    ‘It is not very practical,’ Father said. ‘Someone has to be at home to make the children’s lunch.’
    My temper was rising, that incorrigible devil which dwelt within me. I fought it by praying each night that I would manage to keep calm until prayers the following night, and so often I failed. I made tremendous efforts to control it, not realising that insufferable people and unbearable circumstances could make a saint angry.
    I stood up and flounced towards the door.
    ‘I am going for the interview, whether you like