PART II: JERRY Chapter 1

MRS. BEATUP’S tears ran down her face as she hurried back up the drive, but she wiped them vigorously away with her apron, and had nothing but her red eyes to show when she entered the kitchen. Everyone had gone, except Ivy and Nell. The former had not finished her hearty breakfast, the latter was packing her books for school, and some sort of a wrangle was going on between them. Mrs. Beatup heard Nell call Ivy “vulgar” just as she came into the room. Ivy laughed, truly a vulgar performance with her mouth full.

“Now, you two gals, doan’t you start quarrelling just when you brother’s a-gone; maybe fur ever.”

“We aun’t quarrelling,” said Ivy. “I’ve told her she’s sweet on parson, that’s all.”

“All!” sniffed Nell. “Maybe you think it’s nothing to have your vulgar mind making out my—my friendship with Mr. Poullett-Smith’s the same as yours with—with—anyone that ull let you make sheep’s eyes at him.”

“Nell!” cried her mother. “For shaum!”

“Well, I don’t care”—the younger girl’s anger had been roused by many coarse flicks—“everyone talks about Ivy’s goings-on.”

“I doan’t care if they do,” said Ivy cavernously in her tea-cup. “Reckon it’s cos they’re jealous of me gitting the boys.”

“Well, Ivy,” said Mrs. Beatup, [67] “I doan’t hold wud your goings-on, nuther; but anyway you’re useful.”

“I’m earning money, though,” said Nell; “at least I shall be when my third year’s up.”

“And how soon ull that be, I’d lik to know? There you go, out all day, when you might be helping us at home, and not a penny to show fur it.”

“Mother, I’ve told you again and again—why won’t you understand?—I’m being given lessons in exchange for those I give myself, and——”

“Lessons! A girl turned seventeen! I call it lamentable. I’d a-done wud my schooling at twelve.”

“But you know I have to pass an exam....”

“I doan’t see no ‘have’ in it. Better kip at hoame and help me wud the cooking. Out all day and bring home no money! I doan’t call that——”

“Well, I’m off,” said Ivy, getting up and wiping her mouth. “You two are lik a couple of barndoor cocks, walking round and round each other. I’ve summat better to do—I’ve the passage to scrub”—and she took her sacking apron off the nail.

“Where’s Zacky?” asked Mrs. Beatup. “Has he started for school?”

“Yes, he’s gone wud the Sindens.”

“And Harry?”

Ivy laughed. “Oh, Harry’s along of faather, in the Sunk field—unaccountable good and hard-working to-day, because Tom’s a-gone; seemingly, he’d sooner please him now he aun’t here to see than when he was here fretting his heart out over Harry’s lazy bones.”

“Well, I’m glad as someone remembers my poor boy’s gone, and is lik to be killed.”

Mrs. Beatup’s tears burst out afresh, but Ivy comforted her with a kiss and a clap and a few cheery words, and soon had her interested in the various bootstains [68] on the passage-floor. “Cow-dung, that’s faather; and horse-dung, that’s Tom; and sheep-dung, that’s Juglery; and that miry clay’s jest Zacky spannelling....”