Read Online A Child's Voice Calling by Maggie Bennett - Free Book Online Page A

said, ignoring Mimi. ‘We won’t get anything out o’
her
, she’s as hard as nails. Come on.’
    Annie’s face was streaming with tears and her best hat was askew as Mabel gently pulled her to her feet and smoothed down her skirt and jacket. She put Walter into his little wheelchair where he sat grizzling dolefully. ‘Let’s go, Mother,’ said Mabel again, taking Annie’s arm. ‘Sooner we’re out o’ here the better.’
    ‘Just a minute, young miss, I want a word with yer,’ interposed Mimi, seizing Mabel’s other arm. ‘’Oo gave
you
leave to—?’ But she stopped inmid-sentence when Mabel angrily shook off her hand and spun round to look straight into her eyes. The burning fury in the level blue-grey gaze was more accusing than any words and Mimi recoiled from it, biting her lip and clearly disconcerted. She cleared her throat and spoke in an almost conciliatory manner. ‘’Ere, I can let yer have ten shillin’s to see yer through till Jack turns up again,’ she muttered, taking the lid off a ginger jar on the mantelpiece and extracting two banknotes. ‘’E’ll be ’ome again on Friday, I shouldn’t wonder. An’ yer can take another ten for Walter, what with ’im bein’ sickly an’ all. An’ I’ll settle with the, er, Lawton woman for the piano lessons, rather ’n let ’er think yer can’t pay.’
    The suddenness of this concession took both mother and daughter completely by surprise and much as they would have liked to throw Mimi’s two ten-shilling notes back in her face, they knew they could not afford the luxury of refusing money. Annie kept her eyes lowered as she pocketed the notes and Mabel said ‘Thank you’ with cold dignity on behalf of them both. Mimi saw them to the door without uttering another word.
    It was a victory of sorts, because they had got what they went for, albeit at the high price of Annie’s humiliation, for which Mabel thought she would never forgive her grandmother. And yet she had shown that she was not afraid of the formidable woman, in spite of being beholden to her for money; nor would she ever be bullied into submission by anybody in the future. On reflection Mabel realised that she had grown up in some way today and it was a good feeling, though her heart ached for her mother.
    On the silent bus journey home, Mabel took Walteron her knee and pondered on some of the things she had heard said, certain mysterious references that had been made. What had her grandmother meant by the ‘fine Hampshire home’ and the ‘sisters who had grabbed the old man’s money’? What old man? And why had her mother not denied any of it? Mum never spoke about her own family and had only said that both her parents were dead; she had not mentioned any sisters, or a fine home or money. Yet Mabel had noticed certain things about her mother that did not seem to belong to Sorrel Street. She spoke differently from her neighbours, in a better kind of accent, like Dr Knowles or the vicar at St Philip’s church. Mum was more like a
lady
than Mrs Bull or Mrs Finch, and certainly Maudie Ling had been impressed, declaring Mabel’s mum to be ‘ever so posh’.
    Mabel glanced towards her mother sitting on the bus with her hat pulled forward to conceal her red, swollen eyes. Now was not a good time to ask, but Mabel longed to know more about the – what was it, the Chalcott family? – because any sisters of Mum’s would be her aunts, and Mabel longed to have an auntie, as so many of her school friends had.
    There was little opportunity for finding out more about her mother’s history in the weeks that followed. Dr Knowles’s predictions proved to be only too true, and as soon as summer gave way to September’s chillier days and early frosts, Walter developed a cough that racked his small frame and left him wheezing and blue round the mouth. Mabel’s time was taken up in looking after him and the others as Annie’s pregnancy advanced, and only she could get him to take Dr