Read Jam and Roses for Free Online Page B

table.
    ‘I’ve already told you, woman,’ he barked, ‘she can’t go, we need her wages!’
    Milly jumped. ‘But I’m the best picker down there. I can earn more than twelve bob, easy!’ she blurted out.
    The old man’s coal-dark eyes lit with a slow burning ember, then suddenly the cane flashed in the air, whipping down across her hand. Stifling her cry as pain shot up her arm, she stuffed her hand under her armpit. The two younger girls sat stock-still and her mother shook her head imperceptibly. The fight was over as far as her mother was concerned, but for Milly it was only just beginning.
    That night she didn’t sleep. As her sisters’ breathed and snored beside her in untroubled slumber, Milly lay awake, watching the moon move slowly across the sky. At two o’clock the door to their bedroom creaked open and her mother crept over to the bed.
    ‘I’m sorry, love, once he’s made up his mind...’
    ‘Don’t worry, Mum, you did your best.’ Her mother had taken hold of the damaged hand, and Milly winced. She hoped he hadn’t cracked any finger bones, for her work depended on her nimble fingers. She eased herself out of bed, nipping across the freezing lino, to pull on her stockings and clothes. She’d promised her mother she’d help get the box and her sisters to London Bridge. If she couldn’t go herself, she’d still have the thrill of the excited crowds as they jostled along the platform, jamming themselves and all their chattels into the too few carriages. She helped Amy get her things together, but the child was sleepy and truculant, and as Milly brushed her hair the younger girl squealed. ‘You’re hurting me.’
    Milly tapped her on the head with the brush. ‘Shhh! You’ll wake him up, then you’ll be staying behind with me! Do you want that?’
    Amy shook her head and followed meekly as Milly led her sisters gingerly down the creaking staircase to the kitchen, where their mother had a single candle burning. Bundled into their coats, they left quietly, Milly carefully closing the front door behind them. Their mother took Amy’s hand and Elsie followed with a bundle of clothes under her arm, while Milly trundled the hopping box through the silent, moon-streaked streets, past Dockhead to London Bridge.
    Once in Tooley Street, they joined scores of other families making the same pilgrimage. It seemed as if all the women and children of Bermondsey were being spirited away by some pied piper of the hop fields. The station was boiling with families milling about, trying to keep together, desperate not to lose either children or luggage.
    ‘Elsie, where’s Elsie gone?’ Their mother’s eyes searched the jostling crowd. Milly, tall enough to see above the surrounding heads, spotted her sister standing before a poster advertising a seaside holiday in Ramsgate. Three beautiful young women in flowing summer dresses, with wide-brimmed hats and parasols, were perched frivolously on the promenade railing. Elsie was staring intently. Milly elbowed her way through the crush and caught her by the arm. ‘What are you doing? Do you want to get left behind?’
    ‘Milly, look, perhaps they’re sisters, don’t they look like us a bit? Wouldn’t it be lovely to go to the seaside, instead of down hopping?’ Her unfathomable, almond-shaped grey eyes stared up at the poster. Milly couldn’t tell if she was being deliberately provocative. The beautiful girls in their expensive dresses didn’t look anything like the ‘set of jugs’ from Arnold’s Place.
    ‘Don’t be so ungrateful, you’re lucky to be going at all! Just think of me staying home with him.’
    Elsie grimaced and shuddered, as Milly hauled her back to her mother. Soon the smell of the stoking boiler and the shrill hoot of the train whistle pierced their goodbyes. Milly hoisted the hopping box up into the carriage, kissed her mother and waved as the train moved out with a final, mournful hoot. She stood on the smoke-wreathed platform