Rough Justice by Gilda O'Neill

cut yet still pretty blonde curls.
    She thought for only a few moments. ‘Here, I’ll tell you what, Nell, you can do the cleaning down here, help me upstairs with a few jobs, maybe a bit of laundry and that, and then you can have a couple of hours behind the bar. How does that sound?’
    ‘Thank you, miss.’ Nell could hardly say the words, not because she was still shocked at her being married to Bernie – that was all forgotten in this fast-moving, strange world – but because she was so excited; her mouth had gone dry and she felt as if her tongue was going to stick to the roof of her mouth.
    Then cold reality struck her like a slap in the face from Matron Sully. ‘But first I have to find somewhere to stay.’
    Sylvia shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about that, you can live in if you like. How’d that suit you?’
    Nell stared down at the ground, feeling stupid, just like she did whenever Matron had scolded her for getting something wrong. ‘Live in? I don’t know what that means.’
    ‘It means I’ll sort out a room for you here, Nell.’ She nodded towards the door by the bar. ‘Upstairs. We’ve got loads of space. Rooms we don’t even go in, let alone use. And you can have your meals chucked in and all, and we’ll get you a couple of frocks, a sight better than that one, and, let’s say what, five bob? No, don’t let’s get into an argument over it, seven and six a week?’
    Nell nodded, her face glowing with the gratitude that she felt towards this wonderful woman.
    It was now Sylvia who couldn’t believe her luck: a general dogsbody for seven and six a week, a couple of frocks off the market, and a bit of grub. She could already imagine having a lovely long lie-in of a morning before sitting down with a nice cup of tea. Living exactly the lifeshe’d expected she was going to have the day she’d agreed to marry Bernie, when she’d been working for him as a barmaid.
    Bernie patted Nell on the head. ‘Good girl,’ he said, and made his way back towards the door by the bar.
    ‘I’ll leave you two girls to sort out the details,’ he said, puffing as he started to climb the stairs. ‘I’m back up to the kitchen to finish off my breakfast. And from the sound of that girl’s rumbling belly, I reckon she could do with a bit of something and all, Sylv.’
    ‘I’ll make her a couple of rounds of toast,’ said Sylvia, following him through the doorway. ‘You warm yourself by the fire, Nell, while I go and get the bread. And give that coat a turn or it’ll scorch.’
    Nell watched in amazement as Sylvia sat next to her by the fire and first toasted the thickly sliced, really white, fluffy-looking bread on a long metal fork, and then spread it with bright yellow butter – something she’d only ever seen when taking Matron in her afternoon crumpets, certainly something she’d never eaten. Sylvia then put big dollops of glistening deep red jam on top.
    Nell ate three of the thick slices and drank two cups of tea with sugar and milk, out of the prettiest cup and saucer – even better than Matron’s – she’d ever seen. It was as if the angels in those books at Sunday school had lifted her up.
    ‘Better?’ asked Sylvia.
    ‘Yes, thank you very much, miss.’ Nell shiftedslightly on her chair so that she wasn’t looking Sylvia in the face. ‘There is one thing, though.’
    Here we go, thought Sylvia. She should have known it was too good to be true. ‘And that one thing, what would that be then?’
    ‘What your husband said, about blokes flocking in. I didn’t really know what he meant. What do I have to do?’
    Sylvia covered her spluttering laughter with a hurried coughing fit.
    ‘You don’t have to do anything, darling,’ she finally managed to spit out. ‘When you’re a young girl with looks like yours, men will take a proper shine to you. They’re only interested in one thing about a girl, see, the whole bloody lot of them. You know what men are like.’
    ‘No, not really, I