A Mother's Spirit

by Anne Bennett

  Brian had taken Joe to the club quite a few times but he had always had to sign him in as a guest, but after the engagement he had been made a full member and he enjoyed the privileges this offered, though he always kept well away from the gaming rooms. He had gone in with Brian once and had been appalled at the money gambled away. Brian loved the thrill of it and was a regular, but it left Joe feeling cold and rather odd when he saw Brian raise the stake in a poker game for the amount that the average working man would barely earn in a month of back-breaking work.

  He was amazed too by all the fuss a marriage of this magnitude caused. Norah and Gloria were either poring over fabric patterns for the drapes and discussing colour schemes, or shopping together for Gloria’s trousseau. The wedding dress she was having made seemed to need endless fittings, as did the bridesmaid dresses for three of her school friends. Then there the flowers to choose, cars to order and invitations to send.

  ‘Let them be,’ Brian advised when Joe complained of this. ‘Women and weddings go together like peaches and cream.

  Mind you, we’d better be thinking about ordering our suits soon.’

  ‘I have half a dozen decent suits,’ Joe said. ‘I wasn’t going to go to the expense of buying another. I was just going to buy a new shirt.’

  Brian smiled. ‘You really have got to stop thinking of the expense of things all the time,’ he said. ‘Those days are over for you and, anyway, you haven’t a morning suit or top hat, and that is what will be required on the day.’

  ‘Oh, surely not, sir,’ Joe said.

  ‘I am afraid so. All the men will be dressed the same,’ Brian said. ‘And you will have to think of your best man. Will you be asking the man that sponsored you? Patrick something, wasn’t it?’

  Joe shook his head. ‘The friendship was spoiled between us when I passed my exams and you took me into the house to live. I haven’t seen him since then.’

  ‘Hmm, a pity.’

  ‘A great pity, sir,’ Joe said. ‘But there it is. In fact, the only one in the house that was pleased about my success that time was Planchard, and I think that he will do well enough.’

  Brian nodded. ‘He is a good man. So he will have to get kitted out as well.’

  ‘Couldn’t I just hire a suit, sir?’

  ‘Stop calling me sir,’ Brian said. ‘You will be my son-in-law soon and my name is Brian. No, it would not be good form for you to have a suit on hire. The bridegroom needs his own.’

  ‘But when would I ever need it again, sir?’

  Brian shrugged. ‘Who knows? Another wedding maybe, or other society dos where a morning suit is the appropriate and expected dress. Look,’ he went on as Joe still looked doubtful, ‘on your marriage you will become my business partner. Whatever people say, first impressions count, and so it is important to me that you have the correct clothes to fit these occasions.’

  It was the first time a partnership had been mentioned and though Joe was undoubtedly pleased he was also a little unnerved. But if Brian had decided then that was how it would be, he knew, and it would be another change in his life that he would eventually get used to.

  The morning of the wedding, 16 October 1926, Joe was spirited out of the house and into the white limousine to take him to the church early, lest he should cast his eyes on Gloria’s dress before the service and so bring bad luck upon the marriage. His morning suit felt stiff and uncomfortable, and he marvelled that Planchard looked so good in his. Brian was right, though, Joe noticed, as the car pulled up in front of the church and he saw some of the guests arriving: the women were dressed in a variety of outfits, but the men, without exception, were wearing morning suits. He would have looked decidedly out of place in anything else.

  The church was filling up nicely as he and Planchard walked side by side down the aisle to sit in the pews to the right and await the bride. Joe felt as if all his nerve endings were exposed and he found it very hard to sit still.

  ‘You’re like a cat on hot bricks, sir,’ Planchard said.

  ‘I know,’ Joe said. ‘It’s the waiting. I never could abide waiting. You sure you’ve got the ring safe?’

  ‘We checked before we left the house, remember?’ Planchard said with a smile.

  ‘Just wanted to be certain.’

  ‘Relax.’

  ‘God, I only wish I could,’ Joe said. ‘We seem to have been sitting here for ages.’ But then the strains of the Wedding March could be heard, and he followed Planchard out of the pew to stand before the altar. Behind him, he could hear the shuffling of feet as people stood, and he was aware of sniffing and snuffling as some women began to cry.

  He turned and watched Gloria, on the arm of her father, walking slowly towards him. She looked so lovely, so utterly radiant, that he felt as if his heart had stopped beating for a moment or two and he knew he loved her with all his heart and would do so till the breath left his body. He stepped forward to stand beside her. Her father released her into Joe’s care and Gloria passed her bouquet to one of her bridesmaids. Then, taking each other’s hand, they kneeled together at the rails as the Nuptial Mass began.

  Joe was pleased, walking out of the church with his new bride on his arm, to see so many had come to wish them well. As it was Saturday the factory was closed. Bert Clifford and his wife had reserved seats towards the front, but Joe was touched to see how many other employees had turned out too.

  There were others from the church, and some of the men he knew from the club, with their wives and families. He saw many of the men’s eyes were on Gloria and he knew that more than a few would be envious of him.

  Kate had surpassed herself with the sumptuous meal she had prepared. She might not approve of the wedding at all but she was too proud of her culinary skills to produce anything substandard. The centrepiece was a four-tier wedding cake. Brian cracked open wines he had laid down in the cellar before prohibition began, and a fine time was had by all.

  Joe and Gloria were spending that night in their suite of rooms in the Brannigan house before setting off the following day for a fortnight’s honeymoon at Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains. Brian had highly recommended the location, where he had been himself as a young man.

  All in all, the day had been almost perfect and Joe settled in his bed that night with a sigh of contentment. Gloria went into his arms willingly and when he kissed her lips, teasing them open with his tongue for the first time, she murmured and held him tighter. When he went on to kiss her neck and then her throat she moaned with pleasure. That moan inflamed the impassioned Joe further, his pulse raced and he felt himself harden. He forced himself to go slowly knowing that, despite all her wildness, Gloria would be a virgin.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ he said huskily, ‘I will try not to hurt you at all,’ and he began gently to remove her nightdress.

  Immediately Gloria slapped his hands away. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Didn’t your mother speak to you about what might happen tonight?’

  ‘A bit …’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said that you might ask me to do things I might find strange, but I must submit to them because I am married to you now.’

  ‘Is that all she said?’

  Gloria shrugged. ‘Mostly. At least she said that men always seem to set great store by it, and that it’s really not so bad when you get the hang of it; that I might even get to enjoy it myself sometimes.’

  Despite Joe’s frustration he laughed. ‘Did you understand one word of what she was talking about? And did she explain what “it” was?’

  ‘No,’ Gloria admitted. ‘She might as well have been talking double Dutch, but I felt I couldn’t ask anything because she seemed so embarrassed, but I do know she never said anything about taking my nightdress off. I have never gone naked to bed.’

  ‘Darling, how can I make love to you if you are keeping your clothes on?’ Joe asked.

  He suddenly felt sorry for Gloria. He had held back during the courtship a
nd wanted to hold back no longer, for, though he hadn’t expected Gloria to be experienced, he did think she would at least have been informed. But now he dampened down his ardour, cuddled her in his arms and told her what married men and women did in bed together.

  She was shocked initially, there was no denying that, but she wanted to please Joe and so she allowed him to remove her nightdress and submitted to his kisses. At least she began by submitting to them, but then it was as if Joe’s kisses unlocked the passion Gloria had suppressed. Joe’s hands stroking her body, fondling her breasts, and his lips nuzzling at her nipples caused sharp shafts of desire to shoot through her and she moaned and groaned with ecstasy. When Joe’s fingers slid between her legs, she arched her back. Joe knew she was ready and he was smiling as he entered her.

  The sudden sharp pain caused Gloria to cry out and then it was forgotten as waves of exquisite joy swept over her again and again.

  ‘All right, my darling?’ Joe asked as they lay still, entwined together. ‘Did I hurt you?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Never be sorry for what we did tonight,’ Gloria said. ‘You have made me happier than I can ever remember being.’

  And she was, for she felt as if she had been engulfed with total bliss and her love for Joe was greater than ever.

  Gloria and Joe returned from their wonderful honeymoon to find that Brian had bought them a Cadillac as a wedding present. With Joe at work all week, Gloria had charge of the car to go into New York on shopping trips, or to meet her friends for lunch, and in the evenings and at weekends she and Joe would often take off in it somewhere together. They had thought to begin a family straight away but each month they were disappointed.

  They assured each other that these things take time, and meanwhile there were any number of distractions to be had in New York, and they had good friends to visit at weekends. They told themselves that they were young and free, and maybe it was as well to stay that way for a while.

  However, they were fooling themselves. Each month Gloria’s longing for a child grew greater and she dreaded feeling the drawing pains in her stomach that meant they were once more unsuccessful.

  Then just after Easter, Brian had a funny turn at work and Joe drove him home and sent for the doctor. He advised Brian that he had to take life at a slower pace if he didn’t want his heart to give out altogether. Joe had seen his father have the same warning and not heed it, but he had been a younger man then with no authority to tell his father what to do.

  With Brian the relationship was totally different. ‘You have to do as the doctor says,’ Joe said. ‘What’s the point of having him come to see you otherwise? After all, I am here now. Over the years you have taught me well and you will be near at hand if I need advice.’

  Brian knew that Joe spoke the truth, but he growled, ‘And what will I do all day? Now if you were to do the business and give me a grandchild, which I thought you would have done by now, I would be as happy as Larry to stay at home more.’

  ‘You can play about with your stocks and shares,’ Joe told him. ‘It’s what you love to do anyway. And didn’t the doctor tell you to take more exercise? A brisk walk every day would use up some of your excess time.’

  ‘You are ducking the issue, man.’

  ‘What issue?’ Joe asked, though he knew full well.

  ‘I want a grandchild to gladden my heart and give me a reason for living long enough to see him or her grow up.’

  ‘Aye,’ Joe commented wryly. ‘Well, we can’t always have what we want.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Brian demanded. ‘Is there a problem? Shall I ask the doctor to take a look at you both?’

  ‘There is no problem,’ Joe said. ‘Leave well alone. These things take time.’ And surely, he thought, there couldn’t be anything serious wrong. He was as fit as a fiddle and so was Gloria, and he saw no reason why they wouldn’t soon have a child of their own.

  * * *

  However, the years passed and each month Gloria was sunk in despondency, especially as she knew her parents were waiting anxiously. She had a wonderful, happy life, money was no object, and she could have anything for the asking. Added to that she had loving parents and an adoring husband, and yet the thing she wanted above all this, a child, eluded her.

  In the summer of 1929, when Gloria and Joe had been married almost three years, she said to him, ‘Don’t you think it’s strange that there has been no sign of a child, Joe? Maybe I should do what Mother wants and see the doctor?’

  ‘What can a doctor do about something like that?’ Joe asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gloria said. ‘But it wouldn’t hurt to have a word.’

  Joe said nothing else, but Gloria knew he didn’t want her to go to the doctor and discuss their most intimate affairs with him, and so she said, ‘I won’t bother the doctor yet. Maybe I’ll go next spring, if it doesn’t all begin naturally.’

  She felt, rather than heard, Joe’s sigh of relief as he said, ‘Your father at least has something else to occupy his mind for now. He is buying shares left, right and centre, by all accounts. He doesn’t have to come into the office each day, but he insists, but I don’t let him do much. Actually he seems to spend most of the day on the telephone to the Exchange, buying and selling shares.’

  ‘He’s always been the same with stocks and shares,’ Gloria said. ‘I don’t really understand it.’

  Joe shook his head. ‘I don’t want to understand it,’ he said. ‘Seems like a mug’s game to me. Even Bert’s at it. I thought you had to be really wealthy, but apparently not. You buy on something called a margin, Bert said. First a person borrows the money and then uses that to buy stock, so he can put the stock up as collateral. The whole thing is decided by the value of the shares, which apparently go up and down continuously. When they rise, you collect the dividend. Then if they drop, as they did earlier this month, he said you raise some more cash and wait for them to go up again. He wanted me to go in with him.’

  ‘I’m surprised that he wasted his breath on you,’ Gloria said. ‘You don’t even trust banks. You have a stash of money in a biscuit tin.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Joe said. ‘I have got along without stocks and shares this long while, and I will continue to give them a wide berth.’

  About the middle of October, Joe became aware that Brian was worried about something and he asked him about it.

  ‘It’s nothing that you need concern yourself about,’ Brian snapped.

  ‘Stop that sort of talk, Brian,’ Joe snapped back. ‘I am your son-in-law and so everything that bothers you this much is my concern too. If it is connected to the business in some way, then I need to be told what it is.’

  ‘It only loosely concerns the business,’ Brian said. ‘And it’s all to do with the shares. They dropped in early October, but they did that last month too and recovered.’

  ‘And this time they haven’t?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Brian said. ‘They will eventually, but they are still dropping at the moment.’

  ‘Why don’t you sell up while you have the chance?’

  ‘I can’t do that, Joe,’ Brian said. ‘You don’t know how much is at stake. I would lose a packet if I sold at current rates.’

  ‘I hope for your sake that prices soon rise then.’

  ‘You worry too much, Joe,’ Brian said. ‘I have been doing this for years. And the uneasiness sort of adds to the excitement.’

  It was excitement that Joe could well do without, and he saw Brian develop deep furrows across his brow and down each side of his nose, and sometimes he looked quite grey. Joe knew he was more worried than he was letting on and he was very concerned about him, but Brian refused to talk about it.

  The following week, Bert sought Joe out. ‘I am selling my shares back to the bank tomorrow,’ he said. ‘The boss should do the same. I tried telling him and got my head bitten off for my trouble. He said he’ll lose money. Hell, I will lose money, but at
least this way I’ll get something back. People say the stock market is going to crash. Try talking to him, Joe. He listens to you.’

  ‘Not at the moment he doesn’t,’ Joe said grimly. ‘But I will do my best.’

  Brian, however, was intractable. ‘People are getting fearful, that’s all,’ he told Joe. ‘They just have to hold their nerve and sit tight.’

  The following day, Bert told Joe of the agitated crowds of people who had flooded the Exchange, frantically trying to redeem their shares. ‘Good job I went early,’ he said. ‘For all that there was a mile-long queue already there, at least I got in. Some poor devils didn’t. When the hall reached what they considered capacity, they just shut the doors. People were hollering, crying, screaming in the streets, banging on the doors. I tell you, Joe, it was mayhem, and some of those who got in got no money, for the Exchange just closed down, couldn’t cope at all. God Almighty, Joe, where will America be after this?’

  Over the weekend, the market seemed to recover a little and there was a glimmer of hope that it would bounce back as it had so many times before. Brian had a smug, ‘told you so’ look on his face as he read the financial papers. But, by Monday the shares began spiralling down again and the evening papers were full of doom and gloom, and bad forecasts of worse to come. Brian decided he had to go down to the Exchange and see how things were for himself, and so on Tuesday morning, without a word to anyone, he got up early and left the house.

  The streets around the Exchange were busy for that hour in the morning, and in the milling crowds around the closed doors the desperation and panic could almost be felt. Brian felt the knot of worry he had carried for a few weeks harden and he was suddenly filled with dread. No one spoke to averyone else, and even avoided eye contact. Brian admitted for the first time that he might have made a ghastly mistake. It seemed hours later that the staff began arriving and then the crowds surging against the doors burst them apart.

  The sheer number of people streaming in that day made it impossible for the staff even to attempt to try to close the doors again. Brian stood cheek by jowl with his neighbours and saw the shares drop that first hour more than they had ever dropped before.