She couldn’t think straight. It was such a long time, ten years or more, since she and Delia had been close. They’d done everything together: romped in the playground, walked home from school, strolled by the estuary whenever Delia was allowed out … she didn’t have the freedom that I enjoyed, Jenny remembered. She always had jobs to do, serious work: cleaning the cottage, cooking, tending the vegetable garden, feeding the goats and hens – well, I fed our hens too, of course, but it was never my sole responsibility.
Both Jack and I had to help out on the farm, Jack because it was expected that he would work there when he left school, and me because it was assumed, wrongly, that I would eventually become a farmer’s wife. But school work and playing with friends was of paramount importance too, for us, and our parents knew that, but it wasn’t the same for Delia. She wasn’t allowed any opinions and her free time was strictly curtailed.
And then she remembered that if she called for Delia she wasn’t allowed into the cottage if Mr or Mrs Deakin was there. I had to stand on the doorstep and more often than not I was told that Dorothy – Delia – couldn’t come out until she had finished whatever it was she was doing.
But why did she run away? What was the final hurt that made her decide that she couldn’t stay at home any longer but must plough her own furrow, to use a farming term? Jenny had often worried that her father might have beaten her; quite often she had a bruise on her legs or arms. She sighed. Perhaps one day she might tell me.
Jenny had thought of walking from the train station to her rooms in the park; it was a pleasant walk along the Spring Bank and not too far, but as she left the concourse she saw that it was sleeting hard and it was quite dark so she decided to hire a cab and was home in just under fifteen minutes.
Bliss, she sighed as she climbed the stairs, which were dimly lit by gaslight from a ceiling lamp in the hall, unlocked her door on the first-floor landing and reached for the box of matches that she kept inside the door to light her own lamp. She turned up the wick and as the flame glowed brighter she glanced around in satisfaction at her living room with its comfy sofa, the fireplace where she had left the grate filled with paper, kindling and coal ready to light, her table covered with a chenille cloth with a space to place the lamp, the ornaments on the side dresser, the paintings on the wall and her precious bookcase filled with her favourite books.
She was a neat and tidy person and everything was in its place. ‘I love to visit my family, but I don’t think I could ever live with anyone else again,’ she murmured. ‘It would upset my equilibrium.’
It wasn’t until she had changed from her travelling clothes into something more comfortable, put on her slippers, and eaten the bread and ham her mother had insisted she should bring home, along with a bag of shortbread biscuits just made that morning, that her thoughts drifted back to the boy.
‘Where was I with that?’ she mumbled, breaking into the habit she had of talking to herself. ‘What was the connection?’
She sipped a cup of tea, nibbled on a biscuit and stretched her feet towards the fire. I don’t think there is one, she decided. Delia didn’t say that she had lived in Brighton, just that she had played in a theatre there. Perhaps his family were Londoners and they’d been to the coast for holidays. Then she sat forward. But why did they arrive in such an out of the way place as Paull? Even people from Hull don’t know where it is.
Ah! Of course! She put down her cup. He wasn’t taken there deliberately; he had been in Hedon at the hiring fair and simply joined the children when they went home. He could just as well have turned up anywhere. Thorngumbald or Camerton, Burton Pidsea or Burstwick, or any of the villages round about. There’s no mystery about it – I must write to my mother and tell her she’s got hold of the wrong end of the stick.
The show was in its final week before the theatre closed to prepare for the annual pantomime. Delia had written to her agent to ask if there were any short gaps she could fill in this area, but he’d replied to say there was a vacancy in Leeds, but nothing closer.
I was lucky to find this booking, she thought as she curled up on a chair in her lodgings one evening. But what shall I do now? I have to earn some money; I won’t be paid whilst I’m not appearing even though I have the contract for the next show. Do I take the Leeds booking to tide me over?
She put her head in her hands. I don’t know what to do. I’m no further on than I was before. She took a deep breath. I must tell Jenny when I see her that I can’t join her and her friends on Christmas Day. I don’t have that kind of money to spend. Jenny has a regular salary, and although I don’t suppose it’s huge, it will be a lot more than I can earn. I really do have to sing for my supper.
She began to undress and brush her hair; her stage make-up she had removed before she left the theatre. Giles Dawson had been waiting to walk with her to their shared lodgings.
‘It’s good of you to wait,’ she’d
