A Brighter Tomorrow by Maggie Ford (read with me .txt) 📕

Lying on the couch trying to sleep, Ellie listened to the sounds outside and inside the house: Mr Sharp’s snores, seeming to shake the place; from the scullery the drip of a water tap into the battered, galvanized basin in the sink; the wavering yowl of cats, then a muffled shout; somewhere a dog barking.

Ellie turned her mind inwards, trying to seek sleep.

One thing she’d need to do would be to keep in touch with Ronnie’s mother, for who knew? – he might come up with the whereabouts of her father and her quest would be over. But again came the question: when she was able to trace him, what precisely was she going to do?

One thing was certain: she had no intention of seeing him get away lightly with what he’d done to her and Mum.

Twenty-One

It seemed to Ellie that she’d been living on her own for ever.

So far it had not yet been a week. It felt so much longer. She had never truly known loneliness before, not real loneliness. When Mum had died she’d felt alone, cast adrift, but Dora had been there, and her neighbours, and there had been the hope of Charlie coming back, perhaps even her father, and two days later she had been taken in by Doctor Lowe. But this – this was isolation completely and utterly.

She sat on the hard, broken-backed chair in this attic room in a back street not far from Euston Station. It had come to her that she should be where other artists were and she had been told it was mostly around Camden Town these days. But she knew no one. Sitting here gazing at paint dabs on the walls and floor, she’d been told by the landlord that the room had previously been rented to an artist; but, unable to pay his rent, he’d been required to leave.

‘I hope you can pay,’ came the low warning when she’d handed over a week’s advance payment. ‘I like my rent regular, in advance and on time.’

Ellie had nodded with a show of confidence and prayed, knowing she hardly had money left from what Ronnie had given her even to buy food for the next few days or coal for warmth, let alone pay a regular rent.

With the few sticks of smouldering firewood in the tiny grate scarcely sending out enough heat to combat the November cold creeping in through the ill-fitting window and skylight, Ellie shivered under the blanket draped around her shoulders. They let in plenty of daylight, which had probably suited the previous tenant, but plenty of draughts too. December a few days off, she couldn’t remember ever feeling so cold. Still, with no means of paying the following week’s rent she might be out of the place hardly having settled in.

Something she hadn’t anticipated: having gone to the bank on the Monday morning after saying goodbye to Mrs Sharp, she had found that she would have to have Doctor Lowe’s permission before she could draw out a single penny.

Alone in the room, Ellie offered up silent thanks to Ronnie for the half-crown he’d stealthily slipped into her hand as she’d left that Monday morning. Two shillings and sixpence was a lot of money. As soon as she’d felt the coin, she’d protested that soon she would have plenty of money; but he’d held her hand closed – how warm his had felt – and refused to let her open it until finally her protests had died away.

‘You might have a bit of trouble getting your savings out,’ he’d said.

When she had asked what kind of trouble, he’d said, ‘I don’t know, a bit of a delay maybe, or something of that sort.’

How right he’d been. But she wished that if he’d known what she was facing, he might have told her outright, rather than making a mystery of it. Maybe he’d felt he might be wrong and hadn’t wanted to alarm her unnecessarily.

She’d been conscious of herself, a seventeen-year-old, standing in front of the bank manager’s desk in his carpeted office, with him looking at her from behind steel-rimmed spectacles, his mouth firm beneath his neat moustache. He had made her feel as if she were a recalcitrant young pupil and he the headmaster, as he’d told her that, although the savings were in her name, as a young person, under age and a female to boot, she must seek the permission of whoever had charge of her. Without a traceable father, this was Doctor Bertram Lowe, in whose care she had placed herself.

‘But it’s my money!’ Her protest had been cut short.

She’d been overthrown by his words. ‘An allowance by whoever has been watching over your welfare is of concern to him as to how it is used.’

‘But I was the one who saved it. I could have spent it all, but I didn’t.’

‘Nevertheless, without his obvious generosity to you, you would have nothing, and that is the way it must be seen.’

‘But that’s not fair! He gave it to me, so it’s mine!’

‘I’m afraid not, young woman. Until you reach the age of twenty-one you are beholden to your benefactor, who generously took responsibilities for guardianship, be they official or otherwise, of a young, under-age person, who enjoyed every privilege given whilst under his roof.’

‘But I’m not under his roof any more. I’ve left.’

The man had fiddled with the pencil he held. ‘Even so, young lady, he has responsibility for guarding your savings, for which I commend your astuteness for one so young; others of your age might have been tempted to spend instead.’

Seeing her set expression, ready to argue, he’d leaned forward to put his point across to her. ‘I will explain. As a married woman is accountable to her husband in all things, he being considered responsible for her conduct and her welfare, so you are accountable to your – let us say, to the man who kindly took you into his home, provided you with shelter and