A New Dream, Maggie Ford [books to read romance txt] 📗

you could have found something a bit larger, a bit brighter, something more…’

‘I had two days. We’ve hardly any money…’

‘But it’s awful…’ Stephanie broke off as their mother began to cry. ‘Mummy, it’ll be all right. We’ll find something better in a day or two,’ she soothed, sitting down beside Victoria to put an arm about her shoulders while her brother and youngest sister looked on, silent and lost.

James was the first to recover. ‘It’s not too bad, considering,’ he said, trying hard to sound encouraging. ‘So, what are the bedrooms like? I hope they’ve got beds in them.’

He gave a forced chuckle to accompany the lame humour, but already Stephanie was staring at the pile of material stacked in one corner. ‘What’s all that?’

‘It’s from Father’s warehouse,’ Julia said, encouraged to see that her mother had recovered enough to follow her daughter’s gaze with curiosity. ‘I got Fred to put it all in the car for me and bring it here.’

Stephanie stared at her, aghast. ‘You broke into Father’s warehouse after it had been locked up? What were you thinking? You could have got us into terrible trouble. And why bring the stuff here?’ She cast an arm in the direction of the pile. ‘There’s hardly room here for us to live without you turning the place into another warehouse and cluttering it up even more.’

She stalked over to the pile to glare at it as if it had done her some gross injustice, her hands now fists, her arms akimbo ‘What on earth did you think you were going to do with it all? Honestly, Julia, you must be stark-staring potty!’

‘Thank you, Stephanie!’ Julia’s voice was tense with rage. ‘No one else but me lifted a finger to find us somewhere to live. And now that I have…’

‘Please, dears,’ came her mother’s tremulous voice. ‘Haven’t we been through enough trouble? Please, don’t start arguing, on top of everything else.’

‘Let’s see what the other rooms are like,’ suggested James in an effort to break up the tension.

‘I know what they’re like,’ Julia said almost childishly.

‘But we don’t. Two bedrooms, right?’

Julia pulled herself together with an effort. She nodded to the second door in the room. ‘That leads to the main bedroom.’

‘And where do I sleep?’ he asked flippantly.

Julia held her temper. ‘That third door in the kitchen takes you into the room you’ll be using.’

‘From the kitchen?’ he echoed, attempting a laugh. ‘Isn’t that a stupid place to have a door to a bedroom?’

‘Go and look!’ she snapped, in no mood for banter.

When he returned his humour had faded. ‘You mean I have to go through the kitchen to get to my room and to go to the bathroom?’

‘We don’t have a bathroom,’ she told him. ‘The toilet’s downstairs.’

‘Downstairs?’

‘It’s an outside toilet – in the yard.’

‘You mean we have to go down two flights of stairs,’ Stephanie broke in, ‘whenever we need to go in the night?’

‘What about the bathroom?’ young Virginia asked innocently.

‘There’s only that galvanized bath hanging on the wall in the kitchen,’ Julia supplied, trying to disguise her wretchedness.

‘You mean that’s what we have to take a bath in?’ Virginia cried. ‘We can’t! Everyone will see us!’

‘We’ll keep the doors shut or put up a curtain of some sort.’

‘But what if James opens his bedroom door? What if he peeps?’

‘James will not peep!’ cried her brother indignantly.

‘You could, by accident,’ Virginia shouted at him.

‘Why would I want to do something as daft as that?’ he shouted back.

‘Please,’ their mother bleated, ‘I can’t take any more argument. So many awful things have happened I can’t stand much more.’

Instantly the two girls hurried to comfort her, leaving James standing uncertainly, wondering what to do, while Julia fought to avoid being undermined by her mother’s unrelenting distress. She wanted to tell her that this was what they would have to endure from now on and that they must try to make the best of it; that it could have been worse; that at least it was a roof over their heads, but she held her tongue. No use making it any worse than it already was. She turned her thoughts instead to how they were going to survive.

They must start by thinking how they were going to keep themselves. There was rent to be paid, coal and food to be bought, money needed to keep them decently clothed and shod. James was going to have to find a job, Stephanie and Virginia too. It was going to be hard for people who had never had to work in their lives but they’d have to adapt or go under. What going under meant she dared not begin to imagine.

As for herself she knew exactly what she was going to do. She glanced towards the bolts of cloth she’d stacked as neatly as she could in one corner of the room. If she was successful at what she had in mind, they might not only survive, they could rise. She hadn’t loved her father, but one thing she did have in common with him was his business sense.

So long as she hadn’t inherited his weakness for gambling; his reckless quest to double his wealth that had led to his own and his family’s downfall. Even so, she reflected, all business was a gamble, so in a way it might be a good thing if she had inherited a little of that side of him. It remained to be seen. But as she stood looking around the pathetic room that was now their home, she vowed that this wouldn’t be the end. Rather, as her gaze moved again towards the small pile of fabrics that her sister had so scorned, she felt that it could be a beginning.

Seven

It was harder than they’d imagined trying to settle into this new life that had been thrust on them, even for Julia who was determined to make a go of it.

She missed her friends while at the same time telling herself they weren’t worth