The Housemaid's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

Father’s way of teaching me to be brave.’
    His hands stilled from their shredding and he stared at me.
    ‘But war’s about killing, Ada. Killing,’ he repeated, his voice not much more than a whisper. ‘Not ghosts or evil spirits! Does God want us to be brave for that?’
    Master Phil’s eyes were very light, much lighter than the sky, much lighter than Miss Rose’s steely blue, you could look almost all the way through them as if they were water. They were searching me now, and I had no answer for them.
    He picked up another leaf and began to break it into pieces once more.
    I got up and fetched the next shirt from the washing basket. Silence stretched between us. What could I say to reassure him? I ought to help, as he had helped me in the past. But I knew nothing of war and what it demanded. Then another thought came to me and I tried to turn it away but it kept coming back. Was it possible that Master Phil, despite his energy and his good heart, was not meant to be a soldier?
    And what would Madam have said to his question if he’d asked her? Was there a lesson on God and war to be taken from Madam’s book in her dressing room?
    ‘I will pray for you, sir,’ I said, holding the damp shirt against my chest and feeling the cold on my body, and hoped my praying would be enough. ‘And Madam and Master will, too.’
    He smiled up at me with his mouth. Then flung off the torn leaves, jumped to his feet and strode back inside.
    * * *
    While young Master Phil marched, my mother Miriam and I saved food in the kitchen and Madam collected spare cake tins and knitted socks for some of the young men who might get cold in boats – strange machines that I had never seen but seemed to be necessary for war and for taking pianos across seas. In the town square there were rallies with important people coming to tell us to ‘support our lads and smash the enemy’.
    During the war, some of the men in uniform were coloured people, a lighter colour than Mama and I. They lived in a part of the township that I had never been to, above a drift in the Groot Vis where it was possible to get over the river when the water was low. The coloured soldiers were very proud of their khaki kit and marched around the edge of Market Square, kicking up puffs of dust to dirty their new boots. This I could see when they stopped in front of the town hall for some saluting. Then they started off again down Church Street and across the bridge to the railway station to go away to war. One handsome boy winked at me as he stamped by and my mother pulled me away from the front of the crowd. ‘Cheeky,’ she muttered. ‘Just because they got uniforms like whites.’
    The whole town came out and cheered them and waved little flags.
    There were no black soldiers the same colour as Mama and I; they stayed in the crowded township beyond Bree Street or worked on the farms. I don’t know why they didn’t go to the war. I asked my mother but she said it was because they hadn’t been asked to go, and that it had something to do with not being trusted with guns.
    A few white men didn’t want to fight and were put in jail – I heard this from the corridor one night when Master leant over the piano as Madam finished playing. They’d be left to rot there, he said, sounding satisfied.
    I remembered the meeting in the town hall and the shouting of the word treason and Mama’s fear of jails and what they could do to you even if you had never hurt anyone badly enough to be put there.
    But I couldn’t understand about the men being rotten as well. Only fruit like apricots went rotten when they fell from the tree on to the ground. Not people. Maybe the white men didn’t want to fight because they were already frightened, like young Master Phil had said he might be?
    ‘They see no reason to fight for England,’ Madam said sadly. Master patted her shoulder. He touched Madam a lot more since the war started. And Madam walked away to the piano a lot less than she