Rosa. Ros Collins
Samuel parents eyed twenty-two-year-old Solly cautiously and weighed up the odds. Their daughter was nine years older than this young man, and to her siblings it seemed an unlikely pairing; they’d always assumed that Sadie would never get married. It was strange to think of her not being there sitting at her machine in the workshop, or looking after the market stall. And who would wash and mend their clothes, polish the brass samovar and see to all the household chores? With Will and Jimmy leading independent lives, and Rosie already determined to get away too, the family would be struggling. Gus would probably want to leave soon. Dora, who was shy, might stay for longer; Dinah and Rachel, young and rebellious, were saving hard to move out.
Every passing year made her age more of an argument that could be used against her:
You’re already thirty-one, it’s embarrassing for all of us if you marry someone nine years younger, cradle-snatching.
If you really want to get married why don’t you find yourself a nice widower who needs someone to mind his children?
You can’t expect the rest of us to look after Mother and Father as they get old, it’s your job.
Solly’s situation was not much better. Regina, his widowed mother, also laid it on the line:
You must take your father’s place now.
You must help run the workshop and take care of your poor orphaned sisters.
We will starve if you desert us.
Loyal and devoted, Sadie’s friends urged her to accept Solly.
‘It’s so romantic!’ said Leah Gordon.
‘It doesn’t matter a bit about the ages – he adores you!’ said Rosie Posner.
‘His sisters will give you hell but he’ll stick up for you,’ said Doris Glassberg.
It took three years for Solly to persuade Sadie. If she refused again, he threatened to throw the tiny engagement ring into the river Thames, and as she abhorred waste, she gave in.
‘We won’t be able to go to the wedding,’ said Leah. ‘Too expensive and there’s no place for us to stay in London. But we must get a present.’
It was a Sunday and the girls were all sitting in the sunshine on the bank of the Taff, looking across the bridge to Temperance Town.
‘If we all put our money together, we could buy something really special,’ said Doris. ‘Sadie’s never had a “hope chest”,’ said Rosie. ‘Why don’t we get Dafydd Thomas in the market to make her one? We could put some nice things inside, tablecloths and towels maybe?’
The cedar box was in the luggage van of the train that brought Sadie to London for her wedding. She was all by herself, sitting on a wooden seat in a third-class carriage. On her lap she carefully carried a basket of eggs as a gift for Aunt Annie, her mother’s sister-in-law, who would prepare her for married life.
This is what escape looks like, thinks Rosa.
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