‘Perhaps she can’t help it,’ Milly suggested. ‘After all, she is sick.’
‘You are so stupid sometimes,’ Pearl said, exasperated. ‘Don’t you understand? That woman is breaking up our parents’ marriage. If that happens, she will live here with her brat and we shall have to live in some pokey little cottage miles from anywhere. We won’t have servants or pretty clothes.’ She tugged at Milly’s dressing-up things. ‘And you won’t be able to play any more. You’ll have to go out to work like Martha.’
Milly’s eyes grew wide. Pearl threw herself onto the settee and began to cry. Milly did her best to comfort her sister, but all at once Pearl sat up and pushed her away. ‘We have to do something,’ she said desperately.
‘But what can we do?’ Milly said helplessly.
Pearl rose to her feet with a sudden determination. ‘I don’t know, but something.’
After supper, the two girls had a bath and Martha washed their hair. As always it took an age to dry but eventually they were ready for bed. Martha put their clothes on a chair ready for the morning and she listened as they said their prayers. After that, she left the nightlight in the saucer on the dressing table.
‘Goodnight, Miss Pearl, goodnight, Miss Milly.’
‘Goodnight,’ said Milly. Pearl didn’t answer.
Martha closed the door and they heard her going downstairs.
‘Whatever you do,’ Pearl hissed in Milly’s ear as Martha’s footsteps faded, ‘don’t go to sleep.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Because as soon as they’re all in bed, we’re going out.’
‘Going out?’ said Milly. ‘Where?’
’To sort this out once and for all.’
Chapter 4
Milly did her best to keep her eyes open, but the next thing she knew, Pearl was shaking her awake.
‘What? What’s happening’
‘Shh,’ Pearl said.
Milly blinked and put on her glasses. Her sister was fully dressed and she was wearing her coat. The nightlight was guttering in the saucer, casting long moving shadows over the ceiling. The house was deathly quiet.
Pearl pushed Milly’s coat towards her. ‘Here, put this on and be quick about it. You haven’t got time to get dressed now.’
Milly was already feeling uneasy. ‘Why? Where are we going?’
‘Keep your voice down,’ her sister hissed. ‘I’ll tell you when you’ve got your coat on.’
Milly pulled her coat over her nightie. Using the guttering nightlight, Pearl lit a long candle, swung a canvas bag over her shoulder and beckoned Milly to follow her. The two of them crept along the landing and down the stairs. In the downstairs cloakroom, Pearl put on her shoes while Milly slid her bare feet into her wellington boots. She watched as Pearl grabbed a torch and blew out the candle, which she then stuffed into the bag. With a great deal of stealth, she opened the back door and they stepped outside. It was very dark when the door closed behind them, and the two girls hurried along the wall of the house until they reached the lawn, then set off across the grass towards the ha-ha. It had been raining.
By the time they reached it, Milly was really scared. She was trembling with the cold and her heart was going like the clappers. Pearl was the first to jump the ha-ha, but Milly was frozen to the spot. She started at the sound of every strange noise: snuffling sounds, an owl hooting, and something rustling in the ditch below them. White shapes were moving about near the edge of the woods, and her heart was in her mouth until she realised they were sheep.
‘I want to go back,’ Milly whimpered.
‘Well you can’t,’ said Pearl.
‘But I don’t like it out here in the dark,’ Milly complained, her voice wobbling. ‘It’s spooky.’
‘Come on or you can stay here on your own!’
As Milly landed beside her, Pearl grabbed her arm and pulled her closer. Look,’ she spat, ‘if you want Mummy and Daddy to stay together, we have to do this. Do you really want them to get a divorce and have him leave us to live with that awful woman?’
Milly’s eyes pooled with tears as she shook her head miserably. ‘No.’
‘So come on then and keep your voice down.’
Pearl led the way with the torch. They moved as quietly as they could, although Milly’s wellies made squishy noises on the wet grass.
By the time they reached the cottage, it was raining again. The only sign of life was a soft light in the bedroom. They crept along the wall but there was no room to hide under the eaves now that it was full of logs. Ducking under the window, Pearl crawled on her hands and knees until she found a small recess. Sitting with her back to the wall, she struck a match and lit the candle, then motioned Milly to join her. As they both squatted over the wet ground, Pearl pulled the canvas bag from her shoulder. Milly caught her breath as her sister took out a doll, a book and a knife.
‘That’s my old dolly,’ Milly said surprised. ‘You never asked if you could bring her. Give her back.’
But Pearl wasn’t listening. She rubbed the doll’s face in the mud.
‘Stop it!’ Milly squeaked. ‘Give her back. She’s my dolly.’
But her sister batted her hand away.
In the room above them, another child – a girl called Lena – lay very still. Her heart was beating faster than normal but she was doing her best to quell the fear already creeping up her body. This was the first time she’d ever slept in a house. Her mother had warned her it was bound to feel strange, and it did. Lena lived in a world of fairground rides and living in caravans, which moved from one place to another. Now she was tucked up in bed inside bricks and mortar. She didn’t like the feeling of being hemmed in and now, more alarmingly, she could hear odd noises coming from outside in the dark.
Life with the travellers was never quiet. As soon as they’d pitched up on a gaff, she would usually hear the cries of the showmen claiming their patch of grass, and that was sometimes followed by an argument. Once the riding master was satisfied, the chaps would start setting up framework for the rides. Depending on who was with them, that could be anything from chairoplanes to dodgems; from knock-’em-downs to the coconut shy. While the men did the hard graft, the women, including her mother, would unpack the caravans and set up home for the next few days. The chavies like herself would put the horses out to grass, although these days horses were being used less and less. After all, this was 1930, and the motor vehicle was now the way to go.
Once everything was set up, the noise from the fairground rides filled the night air until quite late. She would fall asleep to the sound of the wheezers and maniacal laughter coming from the ghost train, or the music from the carousel and the cries of the hawkers as they tried to tempt the public to part with their money. That sort of sound didn’t faze her, but the sound of scrambling and hissy whispers from under the window bothered her a lot because she had no idea who was out there.
