The Surplus Girls' Orphans by Polly Heron

Author:Polly Heron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books

Chapter Nineteen

MOLLY SPENT SATURDAY morning with Mum. She had popped home regularly and was pleased and reassured to find her parents were genuinely interested in her studies and her job. This morning, she was able to settle in for a good natter because Mum had no cooking to do since Dad always brought fish and chips home on Saturdays for a hearty nosh-up before setting off to watch Tom play football or cricket, depending on the time of year.

‘Gran’s over at Auntie Faith’s this morning,’ said Mum, as they made a pot of tea, slipping automatically into their old routine of Mum seeing to the teapot while Molly got out the crockery. ‘She’ll be sorry to have missed you.’

‘And I’m sorry not to see her,’ Molly answered, ‘but I’m not sorry to have avoided a morning of hints being dropped like bricks about what I’ve let slip through my fingers. That’s why I didn’t tell you I was coming.’

‘Oh, Molly.’ Mum paused in the larder doorway to throw her a look in which sadness, exasperation and concern tussled for top billing.

‘If Gran had known, you can bet Norris would have found out. You know how often Gran bumps into his mother at the tripe shop and the grocer’s.’

‘Mrs Hartley has always been good to your gran.’

‘And to me an’ all.’ Her conscience gave her a nudge. ‘I ought to call on her.’

‘See that you do.’ Mum slid the quilted tea-cosy over the pot. ‘Eh, it’s a messy business when an engagement ends. I never thought it would happen to one of my lasses.’

‘Steady on. You’ll be dipping your toes in the shocking and shameful waters next, like Gran.’

Mum stopped in the middle of stirring her tea. ‘How can you make light of it, Molly? It is a shock and a shame when a girl isn’t engaged any more. You don’t know what it’s been like round here.’

‘You make it sound like I’ve moved to the ends of the earth.’

‘And I’m still here, still using the local shops, being asked how you are and have you seen sense yet and what are the chances of you meeting another man at your age?’

‘There isn’t another man!’

Mum’s gaze homed in on her. ‘That sounded a bit like protesting too much.’

‘No it didn’t.’ Molly picked up her tea, practically sticking her nose into it. ‘Why is everybody so keen to marry me off?’

‘It’s what everyone wants that cares about you.’ Mum opened the cake-tin, releasing the delicious spicy-sweet aroma of cinnamon. ‘I want all my children to get married. I love to see Tilda and Chrissie with their families and I want the same for you and Tom. Even if you do meet someone else eventually,’ she added in response to Molly’s glare, ‘you’ll likely be too old to have children. You’re twenty-seven.’

‘Thanks for reminding me.’

‘I’m serious, love. Carry on the way you are and the only way you’ll become a mother is by marrying a widower who needs a new mum for his kids.

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