Oh, Robert, where are you now? Do you think of me as often as I think of you? Do you ache inside like I do, longing just to be with you, to feel your arms around me, dying to taste your kisses, even after all this time? Do you lie alone in your bed and wish I was with you, like I wish you were with me? Does your heart thump hard when you think of me, like mine does when I think of you? Do you weep for me at night like I weep for you? Do you wonder what I am doing like I wonder about you? I am afraid for you in Brazil, Robert. I worry about you always, hoping, praying that you are safe, that you are well. I miss you more than I could ever have imagined. I miss you more even than I miss my own family. You would be so proud of me now if you could see me. I am not quite the same Poppy I was, but much more to your liking, I believe. I don’t think you would be shy of being seen out with me anymore, either. When are you going to come back? How soon before I can feel the warmth of your body again, pressed against me? I know you will choose me rather than the girl you are engaged to. I feel it, as a certainty. If you have already made up your mind, please come back now and claim me and let us be happy together for the rest of our lives, never to be apart again. I love you so much, Robert. Please, never forget it. Let the memory of our love stay with you and strengthen you and give you wings to fly back to me at once.
Poppy worried privately about whether she would fail Aunt Phoebe, Mrs Green and herself at Baylies’s Charity School. She worried too whether she would be accepted, about the work, and about what would be expected of her. Aunt Phoebe had said she would be regarded as a sort of pupil teacher, but since she had never been a pupil at a school, more especially a pupil at a boys’ school, she was concerned that she would be entirely out of her depth and out of place. What if some boy wanted help on a problem of arithmetic or grammar that she was unable to answer? What if she was asked a question about geography? Goodness … Geography … The only places she knew anything about, apart from Dudley, were Brazil, which she had seen on the globe, Edinburgh because of Robert’s university days, and Mickleton where her father had met his death.
All these things and more were going through her mind as she walked to the school for the first time on the cool morning of the last Monday in April. She arrived five minutes early and was greeted cordially and put at ease by Mr Tromans, the schoolmaster. After a brief conversation she followed him outside into the yard that was chilly, lying as it was in the grey shadow of the glassworks and its huge cone. He blew his whistle and the boys, of varying ages, rushed about keenly to form lines straight enough to put a smile on the face of an army general. They stood erect, their heads held high, as they waited for Mr Tromans to call the register.
‘Quickly and quietly, file into the classroom,’ Mr Tromans ordered when the job was done.
By the time they had all filed quickly and quietly inside, Reverend Browne had appeared. He led them in prayers and they sang a hymn to Mr Tromans’s faltering harmonium accompaniment. Reverend Browne then addressed the school, introducing Mr Tromans’s new assistant, Miss Silk, whose services they were fortunate to have secured. Every boy would treat her with the respect and courtesy afforded any young lady of standing, under pain of death. Reverend Browne then went on, indoctrinating the pupils sufficiently early in their lives he hoped, to talk about the evils of drink and the virtues of abstinence, before they sang another hymn.
It was a bit of a novelty for the lads at Baylies’s Charity School to find they were blessed with the pretty young woman they’d seen a week or so before, now helping Mr Tromans in their classroom. The older boys were inclined to flash optimistic grins at her, designed to outshine their rivals. Others remained expressionless but could not take their eyes off her, while some of the younger ones were too shy to hold any eye contact at all. Mr Tromans realised early the effects Poppy was having and was all the stricter for it, inhibiting any notions of inappropriate behaviour any of them might have been nurturing.
At first she found herself handing out chalk sticks, cleaning the blackboard when requested. The older boys were allowed to use pen and ink and she was asked to top up inkwells, even when it was obvious they did not need topping up. When Mr Tromans was engaged with one pupil, others would attract her attention and ask for help with their work. Some did not actually need her help but they requested it just to gain proximity.
‘Are you married, miss?’ one whispered.
‘No, I’m not married.’
‘Will you marry me then?’
‘Perhaps when you grow up,’ she deftly answered, which immediately earned her the respect of those within earshot.
‘You smell nice, miss,’ another boy whispered cheekily as she collected written sheets of paper from him to hand to Mr Tromans. ‘Better than my sisters.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied courteously. ‘But I wouldn’t tell your sisters that.’
That first morning passed quickly and with no undue trouble or embarrassment, and Poppy decided to pay a visit to Minnie Catchpole afterwards to tell her all about it, and to keep her up to date with the other events in her life. It was no more than a three-minute walk from the school, and Poppy was glad to see her friend.
‘I got meself respectable work, Minnie,’ Poppy declared proudly, but lapsing into her old mode of speech with which she felt comfortable when talking to her oldest friend; after all, there was no point in putting on airs and graces for Minnie. She sat down on the sofa, took off her gloves and laid them on her lap primly. She told Minnie all about her work.
‘Lord, how you’ve gone up in the world,’ Minnie remarked when her friend had finished. ‘You always wanted to be a lady, and now you am one.’
‘Oh, it’s nice being a lady. It’s nice having a clean bed in a warm room, and eating good food off bone china and silver cutlery. I love everything about it …’
‘But?’
‘But there’s something else … And I don’t know what to do about it …’ Maybe Minnie could offer some sound advice. ‘You remember Robert Crawford, the engineer?’
‘The one you had a bit of a fling with?’
Poppy nodded. ‘Now his younger brother’s all over me. He keeps coming to Aunt Phoebe’s. Not to see her, to see me.’
Minnie shrugged. ‘So what’s up with that?’
‘He’s serious, Min. He says he loves me. He wants us to start courting.’
‘Is he as ’andsome as his brother?’
Poppy tutted impatiently. ‘That’s beside the point. I like him, yes. He’s good company. But I don’t love him. I could never love him. Well … I suppose I could put up with him, but why should I put up with second best? I’d never love him like I love Robert. Anyway, what if I say yes to him and Robert comes back home for me? What happens then?’
‘You still clingin’ to dreams of this Robert?’
‘Course. Why shouldn’t I?’
Minnie gave a mocking laugh. ‘You? Look at you. You’m like a princess. You could have your pick of any number o’ chaps now. Real gentlemen.’