THIRTY DAYS

 Pam Pheasant

1923

“What do you think, Maudie?  Who would have thought that a year ago this was just a rough old field?”  Edward Lincoln’s chest swelled with pride.

“It’s wonderful,” said his wife obediently, wondering how long she would be expected to stand hugging herself in the cold wind, while the photographer fiddled about setting up, adjusting and readjusting his equipment.  The children had disappeared.  She hoped they were not getting into trouble.  She had asked Prudence to look after little Doris.  At thirteen Prudence should be sensible enough to keep an eye on the others, but Doris was only three and delicate.  The site was full of rubbish.  It would be easy for one of them to fall and hurt themselves.  Why did builders need to make such a mess?  She would insist that Edward had the site cleared and made safe before they moved in. 

Edward paced up and down in front of his property, walking carefully over the rough ground.  He was forty-three and this was the first house his family had ever owned.  Times had been hard after the Great War, but he had been luckier than most.  With so many skilled men lost somewhere in France, he had been in great demand as a cabinet-maker with his own business.  The thing was that he wanted to expand and the family needed more space.  It was difficult to find suitable lodgings to meet Maudie’s social aspirations with room for a workshop.  He’d taken a chance buying this three-acre site on the edge of the suburbs.  Building his own house seemed a very daring step.  Maudie had been dead set against it.

The photographer cleared his throat.  At last he was ready.  “Where have those children gone now?” demanded Edward angrily. 

Maud straightened her back.  “They have gone for a walk.  It’s cold in this wind.”  She managed to convey her own irritation without words.  She would have liked to remind him that those children were not solely her responsibility, but as usual she curbed her tongue.

Sensing her frustration, Edward said more mildly.  “They can’t be far away.  I’ll walk round the side of the house and see if I can spot them.  Perhaps he could take one of you on your own, my dear.  You can stand in front of the porch.”

“Indeed I cannot.  I’m not walking across that rough ground.  I’d be likely to turn my ankle on all that rubble.  You must get it removed before we move in next week.”  She sighed.  She was dreading it.  All that upheaval did not bear thinking about.

The children were grimy, their pinafores not so white and immaculate as they had been when they arrived.  Evelyn had a smudge on her nose and Phyllis had what looked like a tear in her frock that she was trying hard to hide.  They looked cross.   Surely, they hadn’t been fighting again. It was so unbecoming in young girls.  With boys it had to be expected, but girls should be ladylike.  She was thankful that all four of her children were girls, although she knew that Edward hankered after a son to follow him in the business.  There was still time – she was only thirty-nine – but she did hope not.   She set about tidying the children for the photograph, scrubbing Evelyn’s nose so firmly with her white lace-edged handkerchief that she had a red mark instead of a black one. 

“Ouch.  That hurts Ma.” 

“It serves you right.  Now stand up straight all of you.  You too Doris and stop scrunching up the front of your pinafore.  It looks like a dishrag.  Really, I don’t know how I came by such untidy children.”  She straightened Prudence’s wire framed glasses that were always crooked.  “You’d better stand behind the others Phyllis.”  She gave her daughter a meaningful look that told her that the rent in her skirt had not gone unnoticed. 

“Can we go inside?” asked Doris after what seemed like an hour of standing still.  Exasperated her mother noticed the front of her pinafore still screwed up in one hand, the other reaching up for Papa. 

“I think we must leave it for another day, when the builders have had time to clear up the mess.  You wouldn’t want to get your shoes all mucky would you?”  Doris ignored her mother and continued to gaze hopefully at her father, her small fingers tugging at the leg of his trousers.

“We could have a quick look round.  I wanted to show you the new lavatory my dear, now everything’s been installed.  No more going out the back for us.  I’ll carry Dorrie, so she won’t get all mucky.”  His tone was coaxing.

“Take the children if you must, but I’ll wait here.  Please don’t be too long.”  Her disapproval was almost tangible.  Not only had he used the word “lavatory” in front of the photographer, who was taking his time packing away his equipment, but he had deliberately undermined her authority.  He might not mind if his children returned home looking like ragamuffins; she did.

Edward was disappointed.  “As you wish, Maudie.  If you are cold, you could sit in the car.”

“I shall be perfectly all right.”   Maud held herself upright, her expression one of martyrdom.  She did wish he wouldn’t call her Maudie.  She always called him Edward, never called him Ted as his sister, Nellie, did – so common. 

The children and their father picked their way carefully over the uneven ground to the front door, where he set his smallest child down on the step while he felt in his pocket for the key.  None of them looked back, all too aware of disapproving eyes boring into the backs of their heads.

Once inside the house, the children forgot their mother instantly in amazement.  Without any furniture, the rooms seemed huge, big enough to play games in.  The low autumn sunshine shone through a stained glass window halfway up the stairs reflecting their vivid colours on the dark tiled floor of the big square hall.  “This is the lounge.”  Their father opened one of the double doors on the left, which also had stained glass panels.  Doris stood on tiptoe to look through each coloured square, viewing the room in monochrome, pink, blue and yellow.  The others ran from room to room, their leather-soled boots thudding on the bare floorboards.

Upstairs, the children were enthralled with the three large bedrooms and one smaller room above the porch.  They were not as impressed with the bathroom and separate water closet as their father had hoped.  Where would Ada sleep they wanted to know.   Would she have the small room? 

“No, said their father.  “There is a delightful little attic room for Ada.  See the stairs leading to it are in a cupboard.  It will be like her own front door.”  He kept his fingers crossed.  If Ada refused to come, he didn’t know what they would do.  Maudie would never consent to come without her.  The children were the key.  Ada was devoted to them, particularly little Dorrie.   

The children charged up the narrow stairs and found two rooms of equal size.  “Will Ada have two rooms,” asked Dorrie innocently  “She always says there isn’t room to swing a cat where we live now.”  She had always wondered why one would want to swing a cat.  The only swings she knew were the ones in the park and she could not imagine Tibby, who had a mind of his own, consenting to sit on one of those.

“One of them is for Ada, the other room is to store things, our trunks for when we go on holiday, that sort of thing.  We’ll let Ada choose which one she likes best shall we?  Don’t forget to tell her how big they are.”   Doris nodded.  She was well aware that Ada had threatened not to come with them to the new house, but she was already aware that she had powers of persuasion that the older children no longer possessed – a few tears and she was sure to get her way.

“This will be your mother’s bedroom.  Do you think she will like it?”  Edward led the children into the big back bedroom.  They looked around dutifully and then ran to the window to peer out.

“How much of it belongs to us?” asked Prudence. 

“Right up to the line of the trees.”  Her father came to stand behind them.  “Then all the land between the house and the railway line.  The other side where those posts are will be fenced to separate our land from the farm.  We will be able to buy fresh milk from the farm.  Perhaps the farmer will let you go and watch the cows being milked.”  He noticed that Doris was looking puzzled.  For her milk came in a big metal churn with measuring jugs banging on the side that was brought to the door on a horse drawn cart.

“Have they got horses on the farm?” asked Prudence hastily. 

“Yes, I believe they have.  Two great big Shire horses.   One’s grey like Dapple your little wooden horse.”  He cast his older daughter a grateful look.  Fortunately, Doris was easily distracted.  Edward had been brought up in the country and found it difficult to understand his wife’s embarrassed avoidance of making reference to any bodily function.  He would be in trouble if Doris went home enlightened on the primary attributes of mammals.  Ada had been in banned from instructing the children on any such matters.  Maud would tell them what they needed to know, when the time was right.  Somehow it seemed that the time might never be right.  

Phyllis and Evelyn had wandered back onto the landing and were discussing the allocation of bedrooms.  Their voices were raised already in what sounded like the beginning of an argument.  He wished he had designed the house with five bedrooms, but the project had been planned before Doris was born.  Two of the girls would have to share and Phyllis and Evelyn sharing would be a disaster.  On the other hand, if anyone deserved a room to herself it was Prudence.  She needed some privacy.  He looked with affection at his eldest daughter, a plain child with her steel rimmed spectacles, but clever, he believed.  She had not been fobbed off with the fairy stories that the others seemed to accept without question, like the doctor brings the baby in his bag.  By hook or by crook Prudence had to know.   Most of her information came from Ada or one of Ada’s many sisters.  At least, she knew better than to share her knowledge with the others.  Just recently she’d started to come to him occasionally, for verification of some of Ada’s wilder flights of fancy, and he welcomed this.  At least this child would not go into marriage as ignorant as Maudie, who had never fully recovered from the shock.

Listening to Doris’s meaningless chatter, he was reminded of Maudie when he first met her, vivacious, teasing, almost coquettish, fluttering her eyelashes and leading him on.  He had been flattered by the interest of a stylish woman far above him in the social order.  Of course, there was no money otherwise he would have stood no chance.  Her family lived in far more impoverished conditions than his family, but they maintained their standards and status.  His own lack of experience with women did not prepare him to overcome Maud’s disgust.   Her mother had taken her aside the day before their wedding and warned her what to expect.  “If that is so, I shall never smile again,” she declared in disbelief and kept her word.  She did her duty, no more, no less, but the eager spontaneous girl looking forward to the importance of becoming a married woman, disappeared overnight. 

Edward and the children paused in the big square hall, brushing the dust off their clothes and bracing themselves for a cool reception back at the car. 

“Are we really moving next week?” asked Evelyn.  “Mother says we must start packing when we get home.  Are we taking everything?”  She looked doubtful, visualising the lovely spacious rooms crowded and cluttered like their present lodging.

“Almost everything.”  Edward could not imagine how they would get Maudie’s huge Victorian sideboard through the doorway, let alone the ornate Jacobean style chairs and massive dark oak dining table, but they would meet that problem when it arose.  He had shown Maudie the designs for the modern oak furniture that he was constructing in spare moments in his workshop.  She had not been much interested.  He planned to have it all in place before the move, together with the new Axminster carpets that he had chosen.  There really would not be room for all the heavy Victorian stuff, but he had been putting off the inevitable conflict.  In the end she would acquiesce.  She would not be happy, but he had long ago given up trying to bring her happiness.  You had to know when you were defeated.

Maud was still standing where they had left her.  Edward felt a surge of irritation.  Why could she not have sat in the car?  It was a deliberate ploy to make them feel guilty and of course they did. 

“You should have come with us, my dear.  We could have discussed the best way to manage the girls’ sleeping arrangements.” 

“I’ve already made my decision on that subject.”  Maud paused by the car door, waiting for her husband to step forward and open it.  Her tone was non-confrontational, but final.  No one dared ask what she had decided.

Edward put all his effort into cranking the handle that might or might not be effective in achieving ignition.  If he had married Edith from the farm, she would be out of the car giving him a hand.  Maudie sat upright in the passenger seat, gazed straight ahead, her expression one of endurance.  It was no good harking back.  He had left Edith behind as he became more successful in his business.  Remembering her generous figure and welcoming arms led nowhere.  His sister, Nellie, maintained contact with Edith.  The child was a few months older than Prudence.  It was ironic that Maudie had insisted on the name of Prudence for their first child, almost as if she guessed, although surely she could not have done.  He had not been prudent then, but since then, what with the war and everything, there had been no opportunity to be anything else. 

A final turn brought a hesitant cough from the engine.  With renewed hope, he gave another crank to be rewarded by the welcome clatter as the engine came to life.  Relieved, because dear Maudie would never let him forget it if the car let him down outside their new home, Edward inserted himself into the driver’s seat and after a stern word to Evelyn and Phyllis who were arguing again, headed the car towards the town.  It had been a relatively calm and happy day.  There was nothing at all to prepare them for the shock when they arrived home.

1928

The two girls were a complete contrast.  Prudence was plain.  There was no getting away from it.   She had a long straight nose, protruding eyes and a lopsided face with one ear higher than the other that made her glasses tilt however often she straightened them, not that she bothered that often being supremely indifferent to her appearance.  She was fashionably dressed, her long hair neatly pinned up and crowned by a small flyaway hat.  Although she was eighteen, her mother still chose all her clothes and dictated how she wore her hair.  Sometimes, she thought that Edwina was lucky to have no mother always telling her what she could and could not do.

Edwina wore her pale marmalade hair cropped and no hat.  Her clothes were neither fashionable nor new, but no one ever noticed what Eddie wore.  They noticed her beautiful grey-green eyes, her perfectly heart shaped face and charming smile.  As they dawdled home through the dusty fields, Prudence thought back to the day they had first met when they were both thirteen years old.  Edwina’s eyes had not been big and shining then.  They had been red and swollen, her face distorted with crying, her long hair coming adrift from its pins.  She had longed to put her arms round her.

“Evelyn and Phyllis go to your room and practice your scales.  Prudence take Doris into the drawing room and keep her amused. You can get out the mah-jongg pieces.  You,” she pointed her finger at the cowering girl, “remain here.”  Shocked by the surprising turn of events, Evelyn and Phyllis left the room casting scared glances at the strange girl who had apparently arrived with Auntie Nellie, who stood, hands on hips, her usually laughing mouth, set in a straight forbidding line.  Doris ran off towards the drawing room and Prudence heard her struggling to open the built-in games cupboard.  She paused in the doorway looking back at the figure huddled up on the uncomfortable high-backed chair beside the front door.

“Would you like to come …..?”   Her hesitant question was interrupted abruptly by her mother.  “Do as you are told for once, Prudence.  You are not to speak to her.”

Prudence had a lasting impression of her father, ashen faced and looking sick, before the three adults disappeared into the dining room shutting the door firmly behind them.  Prudence did not dare to disobey her mother’s command and speak, but taking her own clean handkerchief from the pocket of her pinafore she carried it across the hall and placed it on the girl’s knee.  The girl looked at her out of small bloodshot eyes that seemed to hold no hope.  She said nothing, but her hand closed on the handkerchief and Prudence noticed how small and delicate it was.  No words of comfort came to mind and fearing the return of her mother, she backed away into the drawing room. 

Ada came in later to collect Doris for her supper.  You’d best come too Miss.  Put away those pieces and come up to the nursery.  We’ll all have supper together.  Afterwards Prudence remembered it as a cheerful evening, toasting crumpets over an unusually generous open fire and working their way through Ada’s repertoire of guessing games. It wasn’t until Ada said:  “Time we all retired for the night.  Doris is already in the land of nod and I’ll have to wake her to put her to bed,” that Prudence realised how late it was.  It was after nine o’clock and Ma had still not come to say goodnight.  

Phyllis and Evelyn said goodnight and withdrew, unusually docile.  Prudence waited until they had gone, then looked at Ada questioningly.  “Sorry me duck.  No good asking me.  Reckon it’s one of those times when its best not to ask questions, then you’ll get told no lies.”  Ada had an unlimited fund of such sayings, one for every occasion.

Troubled, Prudence had gone to bed.  When she arose in the morning after a restless night drifting in and out of vague nightmares, everything seemed unexpectedly normal.  Papa had already left for his workshop two streets away.  Her mother, presiding over the breakfast table, seemed much as usual.  Auntie Nellie and the strange girl had gone and no mention was made of them.

It was the Easter following, when they were all settled into the new house, that the girl came to spend the holidays.  “This is Edwina.  She’s your third cousin, the daughter of your father’s cousin.  Her mother has died so she is living with your father’s sister, Nellie.  Of course, Nellie has to go to work, so Edwina will spend the holidays with us.”  After that introduction, it seemed to Prudence that her mother went out of her way not to address the girl directly or use her name. 

Edwina had joined them for every holiday period since and gone to the same posh private school.  The other girls, if they had known, would look down on Edwina living with an Auntie who worked in a shop.  Prudence didn’t have to pretend.  When she told people her father made furniture, no one imagined that he did it with his own hands, although he did.  Her mother always told people that her husband had his own cabinet making business, suggesting, without actually saying, a full complement of skilled workers.

“I can’t believe that next week you will be going out to work.  You will properly grown-up.  It’s just not fair.”  Prudence shook her head in disgust. 

“Let’s change places then.  I’m terrified.  I hoped I’d be able to work in the shop with Auntie Nellie, but she said it was a waste of my expensive education.  So I’m going to be stuck in the office with grim Miss Harcourt learning how to keep the books.  It will be worse than school.  I wish I were going to Switzerland.”

“And I wish I could have a job.  Do something useful.  Earn some money.  Why should I need to practise carriage and deportment and learn to speak French.  Just as if we hadn’t had those things drummed into us enough at school.  Ma won’t hear of me getting a job and Pa’s useless in matters like this.  He lets Ma have things all her own way.  And the worst of it is that we shall see hardly anything of each other.   When I get back, you’ll be working and I’ll be at home, bored to death.”

“It does seem difficult to believe that this will be our last summer.  I did wonder if your Ma would let me come this time.  Now that I’m eighteen she thinks I should be grown-up enough to look after myself.”

“I wish she thought I was.”   Prudence glanced sideways at her friend.  “Why does Ma hate you so?  I’ve never understood.  You’re so much nicer than the rest of us.  You never answer her back or get into a tantrum.”

Edwina was silent.  Her normally pale faced flooded with colour.  Prudence stopped in consternation.  “Gosh, I’m sorry Eddie.  I shouldn’t have said that.  Of course, Ma doesn’t hate you.  It’s just …..”

“Yes she does.  Of course, she does.  And who could blame her?”

“Whatever it is can have nothing to do with you.  You’ve done nothing wrong.  Is it something to do with your mother?  No one ever speaks of her.”

“No,” said Edwina bleakly. 

Prudence took her friends hands and pulled her round to face her.   “What then?”

“I can’t tell you.  You wouldn’t love me any more and I couldn’t bear that.”

“Come on Eddie,” coaxed Prudence, keeping hold of her hands.  “Of course, you must tell me.  Nothing is as bad as a secret.”

“Can’t you guess?”

“No.”

“Then I really can’t tell you.”  Eddie pulled her hands away and started to run, stumbling over the dry rutted ground. 

“Stop Eddie, I won’t ask any more questions.  It doesn’t matter.”  Prudence ran after her friend and having longer legs caught her up before the gate onto the road.  “Let’s forget about it.  Don’t let’s spoil our last week.” 

They spoke little more until they reached the house.  “Not cross with me Eddie?”  Prudence reached for her friend’s hand.

“No, no.  Of course, I’m not.  We’d better go and change before your mother sees us.  It was so dusty across those fields.  Just look at the hem of your skirt.”

“It will brush off, but my stockings are another matter.  I seem to have snagged them on the brambles and they are quite ruined.  Ma will moan.  Silk stockings are so expensive.   I don’t know how you manage to keep your clothes spick and span.”

“That’s because I didn’t go scrambling through a ditch to get the best blackberries.   You’d better take the basket into Ada before we go upstairs.  Be quick or the girls will beat us to the bathroom.” 

Phyllis and Evelyn were already in the drawing room when Prudence and Edwina joined the family.  Seated either side of their mother sorting through the coloured threads for their latest piece of cross stitch, they presented a tableau of domestic harmony.   Dorrie sat on the footstool at her mother’s feet, resting her head on her knee, idly turning over the pages of the Illustrated London News.  Their father was leaning over the back of the sofa apparently to admire the design.  Perhaps he had just made a rare small joke because they were all smiling. 

As Maud Lincoln looked up and saw her eldest daughter in the doorway and the furtive figure of her friend behind, her smile faded.  Perhaps it had been merely a trick of the firelight.   “Wherever have you been?  We had to wait tea.  She stood up and gave the cord by the fireplace a deliberate tug, although they could all hear the rattle of the tea trolley being vigorously propelled across the hall by Ada.

The entrance of Prudence and Edwina heralded the disintegration of an apparently happy interlude.   Papa straightened up and moved away.  He looked discomforted.  Perhaps they had been laughing at him not with him.   Phyllis snatched up a skein of red silk.  “I need this one for my roses,” she declared prompting a wail of protest from her sister.” 

Dorrie jumped to her feet dropping the magazine on the floor.  She hated conflict. She seated herself on the arm of Pa’s chair leaning against his shoulder, aware that although this would irritate Ma, she would say nothing.  Prudence frowned.  At eight years old, Dorrie was by far the youngest and indulged by both parents.  It was too easy to play one off against the other. 

As Edwina took the seat furthest from the fire and just outside the family group, Prudence bent to pick up the magazine discarded by Dorrie.  She flicked through the pages.  It was the May edition so not the latest. There was an article about the Equal Franchise Act.  Women would be able to vote when they reached the age of twenty-one, the same as men.  Women were doing all sorts of things that had never been dreamed about before.  A lot were going out to work.  One woman had even swum the channel.  It wasn’t that easy though.  She had said she envied Edwina getting a job, but did she really?  The positions open to women were mostly poorly paid and menial.  Women had qualified as doctors and lawyers, but it was rare and needed a lot of support from their families.  She was not going to get that kind of support.  The best she could hope for after her year in Switzerland would be some form of voluntary work.  She could keep up the pressure on Pa, but every time she seemed to make a little headway, Ma put a stop to it.  There was no doubt that Ma ruled the roost as Ada might say.        

Late that night Prudence cornered Ada in the kitchen as she did her last chores.  “Cor Miss, you nearly made me jump out of me skin.  What are you doing prowling around at this time?”

“Seeking information, what else?  Here, let me help you polish the shoes.”

“What are you after now?  Knowledge can be a dangerous thing you know.”

“A little knowledge can be.  That’s why I need to know everything.”

“Everything about what?   Be careful with the blacking.  It’ll stain your fingers and then what will your Ma say.”

“I want to know exactly what it is that Ma has against Edwina.  It’s so unfair.  Edwina thinks she won’t be allowed to visit now she’s over eighteen and grown up.  If you won’t tell me, I shall ask Pa.”

“No, don’t do that lovely.  It would only make matters worse.  Have you really no idea?”

“I used to think that maybe Edwina was born out of wedlock.  Ma would not approve of that I know, but in that case I can’t think why she agreed to have her to stay.  I can only think of one reason why Ma might feel obliged to take her in, but hate her at the same time.  It’s not that is it?”  Prudence was almost pleading.

“All right.   I don’t know what your Ma will say if she ever finds out I told you.  Now do put that brush down.  You’re flicking the blacking all over the place and it’s the very devil to get off clothing.” 

1933

“Oh, Eddie, darling!  I can’t believe that we’ve really been accepted.  I don’t know what Papa will say.  I do know what Ma will say – not a fitting occupation for a young lady – but I don’t care.  I can’t wait to start.  We need to present ourselves at the hospital on the fifteenth, it says in the letter, to start our training.  There’s a daunting list here of all the things we’ve got to bring with us.  I shall have to ask Papa for some money, preferably when Ma is not around.” 

“Have you told your mother yet?”  Edwina lent across to straighten Prudence’s wire rimmed spectacles.  It was a beautiful sunny day, mild for September and in the park the summer abundance was only just beginning soften and fade, with just occasional patches of the rich autumnal colours to follow.

“No.  There’s time enough.  No point in causing an upset too soon.”  

Prudence looked at Edwina with love in her eyes.  It would be wonderful to be doing something together.  It had been difficult to keep in touch over the years, with Eddie working in her pokey office and only having Sundays off and one half day in the week.  Prudence was never free on Sundays.  It was a family day, starting with church and followed by a heavy midday lunch with all the family present.  In the afternoon, they would either go visiting or have friends to tea.  

 “Pru?  What’s the matter?  Why are you staring at me like that?”

“I was just thinking.  It was so sad that your mother died, but if she hadn’t we’d never have met.  I’d never have known I had another sister.”

“A half sister.  And for goodness sake don’t let your mother know you know.  It’s hard for her, poor lady.”

“Hmm.  She makes it hard for herself and for everyone else.  It’s Papa I’m sorry for.  Just imagine living with someone day in and day out and knowing all the time they hate you, but nothing being said.  Christmas time and Sundays are the worst.  The rest of the time, he just keeps out of the way.  Spends most of his time in his workshop.”

“Most people wouldn’t see it as you do,” said Edwina wisely.   “Most people would think your mother was being absolutely marvellous.  I bet your sisters would all be on her side if they knew.”

“Yes.  But they don’t have much time for Papa.  Ma belittles him all the time in trivial ways.  Oh, on the surface, she’s the dutiful wife, but she knows how to make him appear inadequate.  Once upon the time, he stood up for himself, but ever since … you know … he’s not been the same person.”

“I know, ever since Auntie Nellie turned up with me in tow,” said Edwina sadly.  “I wonder what was said that day.  Auntie Nellie says your mother will barely give her the time of day, not that I think she cares much.”

“Ma never had much time for Papa’s family.  She thinks they’re so common.”  Pru hushed her voice and wrinkled her long nose in a fair imitation of her mother and then laughed.

Edwina smiled, although she didn’t think it was as funny as Prudence did, but then Prudence didn’t have to live with knowing she was illegitimate and that her best friends wouldn’t be her best friends if they knew too. 

“What’s this about a new house?” asked Edwina, anxious to change the subject.

“It’s Papa’s latest project.  My dear, you should have heard the rumpus it caused when he mentioned it at dinner last week.  Of course, Ma couldn’t say much at the time, with the girls there and Ada, but she had plenty to say later.  I couldn’t make out what Papa was saying, but Ma was really letting rip.  Sometimes I think if that happened more often, they would get on better.  It would clear the air.  Usually, Papa won’t argue back, but just occasionally, he sticks his heels in and I think this could be one of those times.”

“What’s the point of building a new house?  The one you’ve got is big enough and you’ll be leaving home soon, then Phyllis or Evelyn will be able to have your room.  That should make things more peaceful.  It will cost a great deal of money.”

“It won’t cost that much.  We already have the land and they’re asking nearly four hundred pounds for those new houses down the road.  Pa reckons he could get seven and sixpence a week for rent easily.  No, I don’t think he’s thinking about the space.  The new house is going to be smaller probably.  It’s more in the nature of an investment.  You know how worried Papa is about the state of the nation.  Times are hard for a lot of people just now.  He’s been lucky, but …..”

“I know.  He’s a natural worrier.”

“It doesn’t help that Ma takes no interest.  Says it’s up to him to provide.  Won’t ever talk about the future.  I think he feels that if there’s another war or if the business fails, another house would give the family some sort of security.  Ma would never go out to work like Auntie Nellie and she’s bringing up the girls to feel they shouldn’t have to work either.  Neither Evelyn nor Phyllis have a clue what they are going to do with their lives.  I think they expect a queue of young men eager to take on the role of provider.  Of course, Doris is only thirteen, too young to have given the matter a thought.  At least we will have a career.  They’ll always be a need for nurses, war or no war.”

Edwina shuddered.  “You don’t really think they’ll be another war, do you?  Who would it be with?  Not Germany this time.  Everyone seems to think highly of their new leader.”

“Maybe, maybe not.  Anyway, it’s not our concern.  Our concern is to become good nurses and I for one cannot wait to start.  You are excited about it, aren’t you?  It’s what you want as well.”

“Oh yes.  I do indeed.”  Edwina nodded her head emphatically.  “Mind you, I think it’s going to be hard work.

“Hard work for me perhaps, but you’re as strong as horse for all you look as though a puff of wind would blow you away.”

“I don’t mean just the lifting and scrubbing, although I reckon that will come hard to both of us, but you may have to help me with the written stuff, Pru.  I’m not clever like you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  I’m not a bit clever.”

“Oh yes you are.  I’d have struggled with my schoolwork without your help.  You know I would.”

“Well, you won’t have to struggle.  I’ll always be there.  You know that, don’t you?” declared Prudence, meaning it.   She stood up and stretched out her hand.  “Come on. I’ll walk you to the bus stop.  If we stay much longer, it’ll be dark before we get home.”

“I wish there was a bus to take you home.  I wonder why your Pa built his house such a way beyond the town.”

“He’s your Pa too.  Land was cheap out that way with all those run down farms after the war.  There’s a lot of building going on there now, as well as the new houses on the main road before you get to us. They’re are mostly private enterprises, of course, neat detached properties with mock Tudor trimmings, all with tidy gardens and garages.  Papa’s big fear is that the Council will buy up the farm land and build acres of council housing on his doorstep.”

“At least they’d have to lay on a bus service.”

“By that time, I shan’t be living there.  I must say I wish I could learn to drive, but Ma won’t hear of it and once I’ve moved out, I expect she’ll make sure Pa stops my allowance, so I won’t be able to afford it.  I don’t think Ma can realise the danger of walking or bicycling along that road with all the motor traffic you see these days.  I’d be much safer with a car of my own.”

Edwina smiled to herself.  Prudence prided herself on her broad mindedness, her liberal views and independence.  She saw no inconsistency in accepting as her due Papa’s generous allowance.  It was all in her upbringing.   “I expect your Pa will find a way of continuing your allowance,” she said mildly “but if not, we’ll be getting pocket money.  It’s not every job that pays you any wages while you’re training. We’ll manage somehow.”