The sunny weather held for the rest of August and Mr Thornbury decreed that they should all go on the picnic. He would take the afternoon off from the bank and declare it to be a holiday. ‘We’ll hire a wagonette to carry all we need. Is that acceptable, Ada?’ he added, thinking she seemed rather crestfallen.
‘I’ve asked my brother ’n’ sister, sir. Master Oswald said he’d like to play cricket and wanted our Joshua and Edie to come, but not Master Henry.’
‘Ah. Getting choosy over his companions, is he? Well, that’s not a bad thing. Ask your brother and sister to be here for … what shall we say, twelve noon? There’ll be plenty of room for everyone. Can someone bring them?’
‘They know their way, sir,’ Ada told him. ‘It’s not far.’
‘Nevertheless, tell them to be careful; there are buildings being knocked down and some of the streets are not safe. I have to take a detour on the way to the bank.’
She nodded. ‘I’ll tell them sir, but there’s no need to worry.’ She had heard from various members of her extensive family that the younger boys and some of the more intrepid girls were having a great time climbing on the piles of rubble every night after the workmen had gone home, in spite of the notices that said KEEP OUT in large letters and a watchman who could never catch them.
‘Good.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘And we’ll send our Bob up into the loft and see if we can find the old cricket bat, though I rather think we might need some new balls.’
On the chosen day, the sun was hot and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Cook had made two large meat and potato pies, cooked and sliced a chicken and a small ham, hard-boiled a dozen eggs, and made a large apple tart and two fruit cakes.
‘You’ll never get through all of this,’ she said, putting two bottles of lemonade in the picnic basket along with several glasses, plates, cutlery and table napkins.
‘Bet you we will,’ Ada said. ‘And two more bottles if you’ve made enough. Our Josh can eat and drink all of that himself.’
‘I’ll put a loaf of bread in as well then, and they can fill up on that.’ And just to be sure that there’d be enough food to go round she put a frying pan on the range and cooked two pounds of sausages.
At a quarter to twelve the front door bell rang and a grinning Joshua and Edie stood on the step. Joshua was carrying a bag with a variety of balls and Edie a brown paper parcel.
‘Our mam said we had to bring some food,’ Edie said, ‘but we didn’t have much in so I brought bread and jam. Is that all right, Ada?’
Ada ushered them in and took them to the kitchen. ‘Yes, course it is, but we’ve got plenty for everybody,’ she said, and vowed to make sure there’d be something for them to take home afterwards.
Mr Thornbury arrived five minutes later and on the stroke of midday, as they all clustered in the hall with blankets and picnic basket at their feet, the wagonette arrived. Lucy was excited at seeing Edie and Joshua again and they were all hopping about at the prospect of a ride in the wagonette.
‘The bat!’ Mr Thornbury gasped. ‘I didn’t ask Bob to look for the cricket bat! It’s too late now to go up in the loft. Sorry, Oswald. Is there somewhere on the way we can buy one?’
Oswald looked angry and then as if he were going to cry, but Joshua spoke up. ‘Our Stanley’s bringing a bat. He wouldn’t let me have a lend of it unless he came as well, so I said it would be all right.’ He looked up at Mr and Mrs Thornbury. ‘It will be, won’t it? I said we’d see them at ’park.’
‘Who else?’ Ada frowned. ‘Who else is coming?’
‘Onny our Max,’ Joshua said. ‘It’s his bat really. We just look after it for him.’
Ada relaxed. ‘Our Max is all right, sir. He’s a good lad. He and Stanley won’t be a bother.’
‘Well, that’s all right then,’ William Thornbury said heartily, whilst his wife looked decidedly pale at the idea of so many boys in tow. ‘Come along. Let’s be on our way.’
They drove up Beverley Road and all the children cheered when they overtook a horse tram. As they drove through the ornamental park gates, Joshua spotted the other two boys on the footpath and stood up to shout and wave at them. Edie pulled at his arm and hissed at him to sit down. ‘Our mam said you had to behave,’ she said, but she too waved as they passed them by and the two boys set off at a run to catch them up.
‘Stop here,’ Mrs Thornbury said. ‘William! Tell the driver to stop here and we’ll sit under that pine, where there’s plenty of shade from the sun.’
The driver drew up as directed and the children piled out and immediately ran across the grass to claim the space beneath the huge tree. Joshua held out both arms as if to stop anyone else from coming there, and then Oswald copied him. Lucy giggled and held her arms out too and Edie did the same until Ada arrived with the blankets and the hamper. Mr Thornbury followed, carrying two wood and canvas chairs, and last of all came Mrs Thornbury, with the mackintoshes and umbrella she had insisted on bringing despite its being a perfect summer’s day.
‘This is me brother Stanley,’ Joshua announced, as the other boys came across the grass, ‘and that one is our cousin Max. It’s his bat.’
Stanley was almost a copy of Joshua with his brown curly hair, dark eyes and cheeky grin, except that he was slightly taller and two years older. Max was taller than Stanley by half a head and looked nothing like his cousins, being fair-haired with blue eyes. He went over to Mr and Mrs Thornbury. ‘I’m Max Glover, sir, Mrs Thornbury,’ he told them. ‘Thank you for letting me come with you today. Joshua said it would be all right. I hope that it is? I don’t really mind lending my bat.’
For a moment they were both taken aback by his politeness, and then William cleared his throat. ‘Of course, of course, you’re very welcome, even though the numbers seem to be growing by the minute. Do you know my stepson Oswald and my niece Lucy?’
Max turned round. Oswald stared at him and was then astounded when Max came towards him and put out his hand and Oswald, mesmerized, held out his limp one.
Lucy gazed up at the blond giant who seemed to have stepped out of one of her story books and licked her lips as he bent down to speak to her. ‘Hello, Miss Lucy,’ he said softly. ‘I saw you at Aunt Mary’s wedding. It’s nice to see you again.’
She unclasped her hands, which had been locked together, and still holding his gaze she held them both out in front of him. He smiled and took them in his. ‘How do you do?’ he murmured.
‘Very well, thank you,’ she whispered, and although she was only just four she decided there and then that when she was old enough she would marry Max Glover, for she loved him already.
On being questioned by William regarding his relationship to the other children, Max confirmed that he was a cousin. ‘There are a lot of us,’ he said. ‘My mother Susan is ’eldest of three sisters and then there are four older brothers as well, and all of them are married with five or six children. I’ve onny got one sister, though, so there’s just the two of us. Jenny’s fourteen and I’m twelve.’
‘And is your sister working?’ Nora asked him. There was a reason behind her question; she was considering that if Ada ever left her employ then this polite boy’s sister might be a possible replacement.
‘She works for my father. He’s a general grocer. We both work in ’shop at weekends and school holidays. Jenny helps behind ’counter and I’m ’errand lad. She’s started full time now she’s fourteen, but I’ve been given ’day off today.’
‘How very industrious of your father,’ William joked. ‘To employ his children.’
‘He says it’s ’onny way to teach us how to mek a living. His father had ’shop before him and his father kept a milch cow and a pig in his back yard in order to feed his family.’
Joshua came over and stood in front of them. ‘Are we going to play cricket or what?’
William got out of the picnic chair and stood up. ‘Yes, come along. Let’s get organized. Who wants to be captain? Shall we toss for it?’
‘Max!’ Stanley, Joshua and Edie all called out.
‘Lads don’t fall out if our Max is captain,’ Edie explained. ‘Cos he plays fair and doesn’t cheat.’
‘Max,’ Lucy piped up, although not knowing what a captain did. ‘Max!’
Oswald stayed silent. At his London school it had always been best not to have an opinion in case it was the wrong one, and besides, he was overawed by this boy who seemed to be in charge and yet wasn’t a bully. He had hoped that it would have been just him and Joshua playing and Edie and Lucy running to fetch the ball back to them; he partly blamed his stepfather for forgetting to bring the bat for then he, Oswald, would have been in charge of it, but now, look, here was Max choosing two teams, tossing a coin and calling ‘Heads’.
It wasn’t fair, he fumed. He was teamed up with Stanley who he didn’t know and Edie who was just a girl, and Joshua was with Max and granted they had no chance of winning because Lucy was on their team and wouldn’t know how to play because she was too young as well as being a girl, but it still wasn’t fair.
For Lucy it was the best day of her life. She had found her hero. All other troubles and anxieties faded that day; Max had chosen her to play on his team and told her she could throw the first ball which she did and Oswald had missed by a mile. She threw another one and he missed that too and it hit the wicket, a short tree branch stuck in the ground behind him.
‘Out,’ Uncle William called, and Oswald threw the bat on the ground and marched off in a huff to sit next to his mother.
Then it was Edie’s turn to bat and she hit the ball each time, sending it flying across the grass with Joshua running after it whilst Edie ran up and down counting. Lucy didn’t know what that was supposed to mean but Edie said it was a score and she’d scored six and so Lucy clapped her and said ‘Well done’ and her uncle laughed.
When Edie was eventually caught out, it was Stanley’s turn to bat and Max took over the ball, to let Lucy have a rest, he said, and she was glad that he did as Stanley hit the ball very hard and they all had to duck and then everybody had to look for it under the bushes.
When they eventually broke up the game to eat their picnic, everyone, apart from Oswald, agreed that it was the best day they had ever had.