No Place for a Woman Read online

  ‘Mary!’ Lucy was screwing up her nose. ‘Sally has made a big smell.’

  A week later Ada opened the door to Mary. ‘Can I have a quick word with Mrs Thornbury?’ the older woman asked. ‘You can tell her I won’t keep her long.’

  Ada raised her eyebrows and, grinning, she dipped her knee. ‘Come in, ma’am,’ she said, and Mary gave her a nudge and then waited in the hall.

  ‘Hello, Mary.’ Nora came down the stairs. ‘Has something happened?’

  Mary gave a huge smile. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My Joe has been offered a job as a railway porter! Regular hours and a uniform provided. He starts tomorrow – and …’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been told that I can have a look at a place off Mason Street. Man I saw said that it’s on ’list to be pulled down eventually but it’s in better condition than ’one we’re in now; it’s on ’ground floor with an inside tap and our own privy and a cooking range, and if we tek it we’ll be next in line for a new house when they’re available.’

  ‘Mason Street? That’s not far from here, is it?’

  ‘That’s right, ma’am.’ Mary beamed. ‘Keep going up Albion Street and it’s right at ’top, near to ’fire station. It’s where our Dolly’s moved to and hers is very cosy, though she’s due to be rehoused as well.’

  ‘So you’ll take it?’

  ‘I will,’ she said. ‘It’ll be so nice to be near Dolly and not far from Charles Street where my sister Susan’s husband has opened another shop.’ She sighed, and then smiled. ‘It’ll be so nice to be close to everybody again.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In January 1901 Queen Victoria died and her son Edward became king. Lucy cried and cried over Queen Victoria. She said tearfully that she’d thought of her as a kind of grandmother, one that she never saw except in the newspapers. She had never known her own; she had asked Uncle William about them, but he said he hadn’t known her mother’s parents and his own had both died when Lucy was a baby.

  ‘My father was a surgeon,’ he told her one Sunday as they were relaxing after luncheon. ‘A medical man, which was probably why your papa became a doctor.’

  ‘I might be a doctor,’ Lucy said; she was undressing and re-dressing a doll. ‘Or maybe a nurse; or work in a flower shop. Or else,’ she went on eagerly, ‘I might be a baby minder and look after other people’s babies until I’m old enough to have some myself. Then, I’m going to have six girls and Edie’s going to have six boys and they’ll get married to each other when they’re grown up. I thought I might marry Josh, but he said I can’t because he and Stanley are going to be soldiers and fight in South Africa as soon as they’re old enough so I expect they’ll be too busy. I’ll probably marry Max, because he’ll stay at home to mind his father’s shop and won’t go away like Josh or Stanley.’

  ‘It’s manners to wait until you’re asked,’ Nora remarked mildly. ‘That’s the usual way of things.’ She was sitting contentedly in an easy chair with a sleeping Eleanor on her lap.

  ‘Edie said that Josh or Stanley wouldn’t be able to marry me anyway, because they won’t have enough money to keep me, but Max will.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know why Edie said that, because I don’t spend much money, do I, Uncle William? I don’t buy groceries the way Edie does for her mother on a Saturday.’

  William smiled. ‘No, my dear, you don’t. But I shouldn’t worry about it just yet; there are a lot of years between now and then. All of you have got a lot of growing up to do; you’ve all got a life to lead before you need to think about marriage and babies.’

  He cast a glance at Nora. The subject of Lucy’s marriage had only vaguely entered his consciousness, for she was still only seven, but he supposed that her parents would have eventually steered her in the direction of suitable marriage prospects, and certainly not the young friends whose company she enjoyed now. He sighed. Perhaps it had been inappropriate for him to encourage the friendship of these playmates, but they were such delightful children, full of life and spark, bright and intelligent. It was no crime to be born on the wrong side of the class divide.

  He wondered whether Lucy should go away to school to mix with children of her own set, and said, ‘When does Edie finish school? National school, I mean?’

  Lucy gazed at him blankly, but Nora shook her head. ‘She’s only ten. She can stay on two more years I believe, and then she will leave. Are we having the same thoughts?’

  ‘I rather think we might be.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘Oswald is settled at boarding school. Enjoying the companionship of his fellows, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘It’s different for boys,’ Nora pointed out. ‘They need to be taught independence,’ and then reflected that she herself had learned it at an early age. It was all dependent on where and to whom you were born in the rank and class of the social scale.

  ‘True,’ William commented. ‘Boys have to be taught to stand on their own feet, to defend themselves, get a few knocks, that sort of thing; that’s what Joseph and I had to learn.’

  ‘Oswald knew how to stand up before he went away, Uncle William,’ Lucy murmured as she fiddled with the tiny buttons on her doll’s dress. ‘He was eight, remember?’

  Nora hid a smile. ‘Piano lessons could begin, I think,’ she said, ‘and in a few years’ time, lessons in deportment and the art of conversation. I think that’s what is expected.’

  ‘Yes, and French too,’ William went on, continuing the conversation over Lucy’s head. ‘We should plan ahead. I suppose it’s never too soon. Can Miss Goddard cope, do you think?’

  Nora looked down at her sleeping daughter. Would Eleanor have the same advantages as Lucy, she wondered. Oswald was certainly having a better start in life than she had ever envisaged, and there was no reason at all why a daughter shouldn’t be offered the same chances as a son. The world was changing: young women were thinking for themselves and some becoming quite vociferous in their demands. Mrs Pankhurst and her daughters were forever lobbying Parliament on behalf of the movement for women’s suffrage.

  ‘I’ll ask her,’ she answered. ‘She’ll probably know someone if she can’t.’

  Miss Goddard spoke reasonable French, but in answer to Nora’s query said that her brother was fluent in the language and would be a more suitable tutor, and so it was arranged that after Easter he would come every Monday morning for an hour to begin teaching Lucy basic French. She also knew of an excellent piano teacher, so Nora arranged for lessons to be started.

  ‘Good,’ William said to his wife. ‘Well done, my dear. That’s real progress.’

  The Boer War was declared over in the May of the following year. Stanley Morris was very disappointed to have missed it but joined the military as a boy soldier anyway. It was what he had always wanted, as Josh did too.

  In the summer of 1903 Edie left school and went to work for her uncle in his grocery shop for three days a week. He was trying her out, she told Lucy, so she still came for lessons in Baker Street on the other two days. She was so quick and useful, however, that within a month her uncle offered her full-time work serving in the shop with her cousin Jenny, whilst her brother Josh delivered grocery boxes to the customers and waited impatiently to grow up and join his brother as a soldier. Max was in charge of the ordering of supplies from the wholesalers, leaving his father to sit back and take it easy, except that he didn’t, but considered opening yet another shop in another part of town as he had such a willing band of assistants among all his nephews and nieces.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Lucy,’ Edie said, ‘but I have to work. We all have. Mam and Da can’t afford to keep us all, not now that we’re nearly all grown up, and we’re lucky to have an uncle who can employ us.’

  Lucy tried hard not to cry but tears were not far away when she said, ‘I won’t have any friends to talk to now.’ She would miss Edie so much, not only as a friend and companion but as a fount of all knowledge, even more so than Miss Goddard, for Lucy now had a smattering of understanding about the intricacies of how babies came
to be inside their mother’s bodies and how they got there, which she thought disgusting, and also about the horror of what was to come with her own body when she was old enough, and this she had promised, on pain of death, never to reveal to any other girl under the age of ten. She had promised this with a finger-slash across her throat and a spit.

  ‘I’ll come and see you every Sunday,’ Edie said. ‘Honest to God I will. We’ll be friends for ever,’ and she too made the same vow.

  As Lucy’s tenth birthday was almost here, her aunt asked her if she’d like to go out for tea somewhere. Lucy shook her head. ‘No thank you, Aunt Nora,’ she said sadly. ‘Not unless I could have it on the Sunday, and invite Edie to come. Then it would be a real party, and Eleanor could share it too.’ Her little cousin was turning four and was a proper chatterbox who adored Lucy.

  ‘What a lovely idea. We’ll all come, Uncle William and Oswald too. Would you like to write an invitation to Edie?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said, cheering up at the prospect. ‘I’ll go and do it straight away.’

  ‘Just a moment, Lucy. Uncle William and I were discussing …’ Nora began, ‘well, we were wondering – would you like to go to school? We’ve been trying to find a suitable day school in Hull but haven’t succeeded yet.’ There were many national board schools in the city and good private ones for boys, but private establishments for girls appeared to teach social behaviour and little else.

  ‘However,’ her aunt went on, ‘I have had a recommendation for one in York where you could be a weekly boarder.’

  It was Mrs Walker who had recommended it. Her own daughters had been pupils there and one had gone on to teacher training college while the younger girl was studying science in her final year with a view to attending university. Mrs Walker was most impressed by their progress. ‘I always knew that women could do most things that men can if they put their minds to it.’

  ‘Providing they have a brain,’ Nora had said decisively. ‘I know that I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Nor I, if I’m honest,’ Mrs Walker admitted, ‘but it’s all about being given the chance.’

  ‘So what do you think, Lucy?’ Nora asked now. ‘I realize how much you miss Edie, but you would make new friends at school.’

  ‘And could I come home every weekend as Oswald used to?’

  ‘Of course, and there’ll be lots of holidays. We could ask Uncle William to take us to see it if you’d like, before you decide.’

  And so they did, and although there were no children there in the summer holidays Lucy immediately liked the atmosphere of the red brick building and the grounds, which were close by a section of the city wall. It wasn’t long before the start of the autumn term, but the headmistress agreed to take her even at such short notice.

  ‘You’ll be all right here, Lucy,’ said Oswald, who had come with them for the tour of inspection. ‘They’ve got a good library and a common room as well as a games room, and only forty pupils so you won’t be swamped. And,’ he added, as at thirteen he was very well informed about most things, ‘I expect you’ll be allowed to walk on the city walls and look at the historic buildings and the Minster and everything.’

  Lucy began to smile. It would be like an adventure. She had been very nervous at the thought of leaving home, and as they’d journeyed on the train to York had had a strange sensation of having once before set off on a journey that had changed her life, but the memory was somewhere in the distant past and she couldn’t quite bring it to mind.

  She clutched William’s hand and nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like to come, but if I don’t like it I can come home, can’t I?’

  ‘Of course you can, my dear, but my worry is that we’ll all miss you so much that we’ll want to bring you home.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  1911

  Lucy had made some good friends in York and renewed her acquaintance with Elizabeth Warrington, who had left school a year earlier than Lucy for finishing school in France. Lucy had been pleased to see her depart as she thought her very snooty and arrogant, tending to brush off anyone she considered unworthy of belonging to her set.

  Jane Woodall and Primrose Chambers, both country girls, and Celia Marriot from Harrogate had become Lucy’s special friends, and on their last day at school they had all promised to keep in touch, each in her heart wondering if she would ever see the others again. Their lives had been about to change and each was taking a separate path. Jane and Primrose had been returning to their parents’ respective country estates whilst Celia was going on to finishing school in the Swiss Alps. ‘Not,’ she had emphasized, ‘anywhere near Elizabeth Warrington. I shall be in the mountains above Interlaken, and if you happen to be holidaying in the district do come and see me. My parents know someone whose daughter went there and she recommended it highly.’

  Jane and Primrose had said they might, but Lucy had shaken her head. She had other ideas that she hadn’t shared with them, but she had mentioned them to Oswald. She knew she would get a straight answer and opinion from him.

  ‘So what are you going to do, Lucy?’ Celia had asked her. ‘Wait for someone rich and handsome to ask for your hand?’

  ‘You can’t possibly be serious?’ Primrose had laughed. ‘We all know that Lucy is a suffragette and not looking for a husband!’

  ‘I am not a suffragette,’ Lucy had defended herself. ‘I believe that women should have the right to vote, but I am not opposed to men in general and if someone rich and handsome and with half a brain comes along then I might consider him.’

  ‘I’d have your handsome cousin,’ Jane had sighed. ‘Those dreamy grey eyes behind his glasses!’

  ‘Oh, me too!’ Primrose had agreed. ‘Like a shot.’ She too had sighed. ‘That strong square chin …’

  Lucy had bristled. How dare they be so personal? She and the other girls had been in York on a half-day shopping trip the previous year before leaving for the summer holidays, and quite by chance they had met Oswald and two friends who had come into the city from Pocklington. It had been Oswald’s final term at school and he was waiting for his university application results to come through. She had introduced him to her friends and he had introduced his and they’d all gone off to have tea together. Oswald hadn’t spoken much; he was still inclined to be quiet with people he didn’t know, although his friends had chatted volubly, showing off in front of the young ladies and trying too hard to make a good impression.

  ‘His eyes are grey-blue,’ she had reluctantly agreed. ‘And I suppose he might be considered handsome, but it’s difficult for me to judge as I’ve known him most of my life; in fact he’s more like a brother than a cousin. He’s not rich but he is extremely clever and expected to do well at Cambridge, and that’s much more important,’ she had added, in an offhand kind of way.

  Oswald had been determined on studying science and physics and to his amazement had obtained a place at the prestigious university; his school tutors had been convinced he would embark on a brilliant career once he obtained his degree.

  ‘They didn’t tell me what kind of brilliant career it would be,’ he’d told Lucy when he heard he had been accepted. ‘What will I be fit for?’

  ‘Anything and everything,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘You’ll have people scrabbling at your feet to offer you the world!’

  He’d laughed. ‘I don’t think so. And what about you, Lucy? What will you do when you’ve finished at York? I suppose you won’t need to do anything, but of course you’ll want to. You’ll take up a charitable cause or something, won’t you?’

  She had hesitated; she was only just sixteen and so far hadn’t shared her thoughts with anyone as she wasn’t sure that she could achieve what she dreamed of. But Oswald would listen seriously. He wasn’t the negative young boy he had once been, and she had become convinced, once she was old enough to consider the matter, that the change in him had happened when he had adopted the name of Thornbury and become a completely integrated part of the family.
/>   ‘Not charitable exactly,’ she’d answered. ‘Although I’m in favour of supporting those who can’t support themselves, whatever the reason. But I’d like to be a woman with a purpose.’

  He’d cast a questioning glance at her but didn’t speak, which was typical of him, she’d thought. If there was a pause in a conversation he would wait for the person who had started the subject to fill the gap before commenting.

  She’d heaved a breath. ‘I’d rather you didn’t mention it to Uncle William or your mother, not until I’ve thought it through.’

  ‘So are you sure you want to discuss it? This purpose that you haven’t thought through? You don’t have to say anything now,’ he said. ‘You can tell me when you’re ready, if you want to,’ he added.

  The house was quiet. They had both been in the sitting room, Oswald stretched out on the floor reading a newspaper and Lucy on the sofa mending one of her stockings. Uncle William was at the bank and Aunt Nora was out with Eleanor. Lucy was almost ready to go back to school the following week and Oswald had finished sorting out the books that he would need to take with him to university and was wondering how to fill the rest of his time before then.

  It was, Lucy had thought, as good a time as any. ‘You won’t laugh, will you?’

  ‘Why would I laugh?’

  ‘Well,’ she said hesitatingly, biting her bottom lip. ‘It’s a big ambition, although I feel that I can apply myself.’

  He had sat up and hooked his arms around his knees. He was very tall now and his long hair flopped over his forehead, and he was trying to grow a moustache. ‘I won’t laugh.’

  ‘I want to study medicine. I want to be a doctor.’