Spilt Milk by Amanda Hodgkinson Read Free Book Online

on the deck of a steamship, watching the coast of England slipping from view.
    When she got home, Vivian was sitting up, a candle burning low beside her. She was mending a skirt, her fingers sewing quick stitches. The needle flashed silver as Vivian stabbed the fabric with it, pulling it out, stabbing it into the cloth, over and over.
    ‘Did you enjoy your swim?’
    Nellie fetched a glass of lemonade from the jug in the pantry. She wished Vivian had been asleep in bed so that she could have avoided this confrontation.
    ‘It was refreshing, yes.’
    ‘You never swam at night before. I wonder why you do now. You are rarely at home these days.’
    ‘The evenings are so hot,’ said Nellie. She turned her back on her sister, her face burning.
    Vivian stopped sewing. ‘It’s unladylike the way you run out of the house after our evening meal. You’re like a farm dog after arabbit. What makes you so keen to leave me behind, I wonder?’
    ‘You sound like Rose.’
    ‘That’s because she would have said the same thing.’
    ‘I’m going up to bed now,’ said Nellie, finishing her drink. ‘Will you come soon, Vivie?’
    ‘Is it him you swim with?’
    Nellie could not bear this conversation.
    ‘He likes to swim and so do I,’ she said, and went up to bed, not waiting for a reply.
    Vivian stopped sewing. Nellie was going to marry Joe Ferier and leave her. She was sure of it. Alone, Vivian could not keep the cottage and earn enough to live on. She’d have to go into domestic service or move to town and work in a factory. Joe Ferier was ruining everything between the sisters. She got up, tidying away her work. She locked the front door and closed the curtains. The worst thing was, she was jealous. Horribly jealous that he had chosen Nellie instead of her.
    At the Home and Colonial Stores in town, Nellie bought a cardboard suitcase, a packet of hooks and eyes (in case they were hard to come by in America), a new girdle, and felt violets to sew onto her winter hat. If Joe wouldn’t stay, then she and Vivian would go with him. She enquired into the price of train tickets to Southampton and found a shipping agency by the docks who told her she could buy her passage to America through them.
    ‘I’ll want a double berth, for my sister and myself,’ she explained. ‘I’d like to reserve the berth and I’ll pay for it in the next few weeks.’
    ‘You can go with whomever you want, Miss,’ said the man at the desk, yawning. ‘Take my sister too, if you want. I wish you would. But you have to pay up front.’
    She didn’t have the money.
    ‘Then I’ll come back later,’ she told him.
    Nellie vowed she and Vivian would wear ostrich feathers intheir hats when they left. A barrel organ played a jaunty tune outside the railway station, and in a moment of madness she tossed her last shiny shilling into the black cap of the small monkey that sat upon it, thinking it might bring her luck. The monkey chattered noisily and ran to its owner, holding up the shilling. Nellie suddenly wished she could retrieve the coin. She would need all the money she could get in order to leave, and here she was giving it away like a lady with a heart set on charity.
    The sun was low by the time she walked along the dusty road towards home, her shadow with its suitcase a dark giant walking in front of her. Nellie felt defiant and sure. Joe said the world was there for the making. It was shapeless until you formed it your own way. He said you just had to stand up and start walking in the right direction. Nellie lifted her head. He was right. She was ready to walk. All she had to do was persuade Vivian to join her. She prayed her sister would agree to leave the cottage; Nellie would not leave without her. She would find the right time to talk to Vivian, and she’d understand it would be an adventure. Next week, when Joe was leaving. It was best not to give Vivian too much time to think about it.
    Vivian lay beside Nellie in bed in the dark under