The Children's Book

was his sister Elsie. Elsie, a year older than Philip, was the sister he loved, had found it hardest to leave. He said

“Elsie. It’s me. I am Philip.”

“I can’t see your face because of the sun. I got lost. I walked and walked and walked, and there were no people or places. What are you doing out here?”

Philip felt briefly very annoyed.

“What are you doing is the question. Can you sit up?”

He pulled at her, no longer with respect, but with the intimacy of family. She sat up, and smoothed her skirts, stretching her horrible feet in front of her. She had always been, as far as was possible, fastidious about her person and clothing.

“Mum died,” said Elsie. “I came to tell you.”

“No one wrote.”

“You don’t put any addresses on your postcards, do you? Probably you don’t want to be bothered. But I thought you ought to know Mum died. Auntie Jessie took the others, except Nellie, who’s gone into Service. I didn’t think I could last, I didn’t think I could see the year out in a house with Auntie Jessie.”

“What did she die of?”

“Lead poisoning. That’s what was always coming, and it came. She asked for you. A lot. She wanted me to give you her brushes and the Minton cup, and I’ve got them in that suitcase. I said I’d find you. She knew I couldn’t abide to be with Auntie Jessie. And I have found you, though not where I’d have expected.”

She spoke with a kind of determined vehemence, her voice thick with dust and thirst. She said

“You ought not to have …”

She began suddenly to weep, hot little tears bursting out through her eyelids, spattering on her grey cheeks.

Philip was partly trying, and partly refusing, to think about his mother. He half saw her, thin and stooping, and crossly shut the picture out.

Elsie heard the next question.

“The postcards said Romney Marsh, and Winchelsea. I walked to Winchelsea, and someone said if I was looking for potters there was a madman out at somewhere called Purchase. So I set off walking there, and got lost, as you see.”

“You’d better come back wi’ me. Can you walk?”

“I was walking.”

“Aye, and you fell over, I saw you. Can you get on your feet?”

“I shall have to.”

It took a long time, a rather painful time, to walk back to Purchase House. Elsie leant on Philip, briefly from time to time, and then limped on, erect and full of will. She was a thin, wiry girl, with high cheekbones, blue eyes, and a set mouth, not sulky, but ungiving. That was new, the hardness of her look.

Philip was ashamed of his most powerful feeling. This was that he had lost something—and he was not thinking of his mother. He was thinking of his solitude. He had, through sheer willpower, broken free of the Five Towns, and come to an unlikely place where no one knew who he was, or what he felt, and all that mattered was that he was good at doing what he had always known he must do, making pots with his hands. If he had a sister—who would spread her disparaging opinions, or just as embarrassing, her loving opinions, of him, amongst these people who helped him, but weren’t interested in his self or soul—he would have lost something, he thought. Then he thought at last, as he trudged along the lane, between hedges now, of his poor mother, who had always lost almost everything, except the skill at painting that had killed her, and the brood of children who might die, or become horribly ill, and were too many for her small wage to feed, so that they grew thin and grey-skinned like Elsie. Who had a will, he said to himself, thinking furiously as he didn’t often think. Elsie had a will, and it looked quite as strong as his own.

He thought also, no one paid him any money, he had nothing to give Elsie, he was going to have to beg on her behalf. It was a bad business.

•  •  •

When they arrived back at Purchase House, they were both shocked to find the kitchen full of people. The whole lunch party was there, Prosper Cain and Humphry Wellwood, Benedict and Seraphita, Olive. The young people had gone on a beach ramble, and were back with things collected from the shore, shells and seaweeds, razors and angels, crab-claws and carapaces, bladderwrack and leathery bladed fronds, bronzed or bleached. Arthur Dobbin and Frank Mallett were there, having been invited to tea though not to lunch. Seraphita had bestirred herself to make some insipid tea, which she served in a variety of faience cups and saucers, no two the same. Imogen had made a cake, which had sunk towards the centre, and crumbled on the plates. Everyone was standing round the kitchen table, peering at it, so that the two Warrens, coming quietly in through the door, saw only bent backs and heard the murmur of voices. Elsie thought, erroneously, her head swimming, that Philip had become part of fashionable society. They were perceived by Pomona, who hurried towards them, crying “Here he is, here he is,” and stroking Philip’s arm. Everyone turned round. The party surveyed the two Warrens.

Benedict Fludd said “Ah, there you are. We are looking at your handiwork. At what you have made.”

Philip said “Excuse me, this is my sister Elsie, from Burslem. She come to look for me. She walked. All the way from Burslem.”

The gathering took stock of Elsie. Elsie was intimidated by Olive’s hat, which was black and ample, decorated with scarlet bows and fruit. Olive said “Extraordinary.” Seraphita said “Really?” Frank Mallett observed that the young woman looked ready to faint with exhaustion and should be given a chair, and some tea, perhaps, or a glass of water. Dobbin brought a chair which he set down near the back door. Elsie collapsed onto it. Everyone went on staring. Seraphita absently poured a cup of tea, which Dobbin gave to Elsie. Elsie handed it back to him: she was