Birmingham Rose Read Online Free PDF

Whiteley,’ the girl said quietly, and she blushed such an embarrassed pink that the teacher decided not to pursue it just then.
    When school finished Miss Whiteley said to her, ‘Rose, would you come here a minute?’
    Geraldine whispered to her, ‘You’re for it now. I’ll wait for you outside.’
    ‘No, you go home,’ Rose replied. ‘And take Grace with you or Mom’ll be on at me.’
    She stood solemnly by her teacher’s desk when all the others had made their way noisily out of the room. She could hear them laughing and yelling as they trailed off down the street.
    ‘Are you all right, my dear?’ Miss Whiteley asked, sitting behind her big table at the end of the classroom. ‘It’s all right, don’t look so worried, you’re not here to be punished. I saw you crying earlier. Is everything all right at home?’
    ‘Yes, Miss Whiteley,’ Rose said.
    The teacher looked at the serious brown eyes which were gazing apprehensively at her and she smiled suddenly. She had a soft spot for Rose.
    ‘Are you happy at school?’ She was sensitive enough to realize that something was going on inside Rose, and she also knew that whatever her disadvantages in life, this was a child with potential.
    Rose just said yes again. She liked Miss Whiteley and trusted her, but standing alone in front of her she felt small and shy. She kept her eyes on the scuffed wooden boards of the classroom floor and her even more scuffed boots.
    Sarah Whiteley decided to try once more. She came out from behind the desk and brought her chair up to sit next to the child.
    Rose looked into Miss Whiteley’s lovely plain face with her round pink cheeks, quite unlike Miss Smart’s angular, rather pretty face, which was so often full of spite and irritation. Miss Whiteley seemed to give off comfort, like someone handing out buns.
    ‘What if I wanted to be a teacher?’ Rose blurted out. ‘’Cos Sam says people like us don’t do things like that and it’s daft of me to think of it. Only my friend Diana’s going to be a teacher.’ And without expecting to she found she was telling Miss Whiteley all about the storm and Diana and how different her family were from Rose’s own.
    Sarah Whiteley was startled. This was not what she had expected at all. She’d thought perhaps things were especially difficult for Rose’s family, as they so often were in the homes of the children she taught. She had met Dora Lucas a number of times and had taken a liking to her. She’d found her brisk, with the kind of hardness of someone who has no energy left to spare for niceties. But she isn’t rough, Sarah thought. Just worn down. And again, Sarah had perceived intelligence. She hadn’t met Rose’s father, but she knew he had been injured in the war and could not get work.
    With these thoughts in mind she struggled for words to answer Rose’s eager questions. She wanted to be positive and realistic at the same time and the combination was not easy.
    ‘Whether you could be a teacher is not an easy question to answer. I think you’re a clever girl and you do well in your lessons. But I expect you’ll have to leave school to go to work soon, won’t you?’
    Rose nodded miserably.
    ‘But perhaps what you can aim to do is get the best work you can. If you do well at school we might be able to find you something in an office, and you never know what opportunities might come your way. And there are such things as evening classes where you can further your education if you have the means when you’re older. But you’ll have to be very determined. Do you think you’re very determined?’
    ‘I dunno,’ Rose said. ‘But I don’t want to be like my mom, always sick with having babbies.’
    Sarah Whiteley felt tears slide into her own eyes at the thought of women like Dora Lucas with their relentless lives of childbirth and worry.
    Rose noticed her emotion and was alarmed. Blimey, what had she done to upset her?
    But all her teacher said, quietly, as if to