by Maggie Ford
Handing tea and cake to Eveline, she went on, ‘He don’t seem to ’ave no regular girlfriend, but when he do eventually get married, he’ll be well able ter provide a good ’ome and income. She’ll be a fortunate girl whoever she is. You know what it’s like struggling along on next ter nothing. So many what’s out of work, a woman could do worse than marry my Jim.’
Her eyes trained on Eveline, she added, ‘I must say, you and him both get on ever so well together, don’t yer?’
Eveline half nodded, concentrating on sipping her tea as she focused her eyes on the slice of cake on her plate, wishing Mrs Adams would drop the subject of Jim.
Before the war she’d not had much to do with him. Since coming back from the forces she’d found him likeable and friendly, but as a brother-in-law, nothing more. Then these last few months he’d become perhaps a little too friendly to her mind, though it could just have been her imagination.
The last girl he’d met had lately transferred her attentions to another and so far he’d not met anyone else. Once or twice when Eveline came here on the occasional Sunday he’d see her to the front door when she left and take her arm in a way that seemed a little too intimate.
Once he’d said he would always be here for her if she ever needed anything. The odd emphasis on the word need had made her look sharply at him, though the offer could have been entirely innocent. She’d thanked him for his concern, saying she was fine and needed nothing.
It had been a strange moment, but more recently he’d said, ‘You must miss our Bert an awful lot. I mean not ’aving a man around to do odd jobs. You know, things that matter.’
He had again laid his hand gently on her arm, seemingly brotherly, yet so much could be read into it and it brought back memories of moments she’d once known with Albert. This made her feel so desperately empty inside. Unthinkable that he could ever take Albert’s place, if Albert was truly dead. But he wasn’t. She believed that with all her heart and could only feel angry with Jim and his mother for believing otherwise.
Saturday, the twenty-ninth of March was her mother-in-law’s fiftieth birthday. It represented quite a milestone when poverty and excessive childbirth often put paid to women at a much earlier age, and Mrs Adams considered herself old. She dressed as fifty-year-old women usually did, in dark clothes, with no frills or fancies or jewellery except for her wedding ring and a jet brooch that had been her mother’s. She wore her iron-grey hair scraped back from her face in an old-fashioned, severe bun, and heavy-rimmed spectacles.
‘What do I want to celebrate me birthday for at my age?’ she said when Eveline suggested she come to her and Connie’s flat for a little birthday celebration. Guilty that she didn’t visit the woman as often as she should, Eveline intended to sacrifice a little of her housekeeping on a small iced cake she’d asked Connie to make for her.
‘And I can’t go gallivanting out when I’ve got Jim’s tea to get for ’im when he comes ’ome from work.’
‘Let him come too,’ Eveline said rashly. ‘And Helena would be thrilled to have her grandma here.’
Mrs Adams hardly went outside her door except to do her shopping, certainly not since losing her son whom she still grieved for. It would be the first time she’d even been up to see the flat Eveline now shared with Connie.
She gave way begrudgingly. ‘Well, seeing as you’re going to a bit of trouble, and Jim’ll be with me, we’ll come over for an hour or so.’
The tea party was nothing special, money did not stretch to anything special, but between them Eveline and Connie found her a small cheap brooch off a market stall in Petticoat Lane which she appreciated though Eveline doubted she’d ever wear it.
The afternoon proved a success except in one small thing. Halfway through it, Eveline became aware of Jim eyeing her friend a little too much. Oddly she felt a twinge of something like jealousy run through her. But it couldn’t be. She liked him but not like that. She realised then that if anything were to develop between Connie and someone else, she could be left on her own. If Connie ever did remarry, would she want Eveline hanging on? And after all, Connie was a widow – she could take up with someone else quite easily, she was extremely pretty, spoke so nicely. She could have her pick.
Yes, it was jealousy, not of Jim, but Connie, and the fact that it could promise to take the pressure off herself didn’t seem as comforting as it might. If Connie and Jim were to marry, Connie’s money worries would be over. She would never again know the wealth she had once been used to, but she’d be comfortably off, with a handsome husband, a decent income and a nice little flat. However, this was all speculation.
After Jim and his mother had departed, Eveline realised with a jolt that in fact it wasn’t all speculation.
‘Jim Adams asked me if I would like to go to the cinema with him,’ Connie said when they had left. There was a glow to her cheeks.
‘Are you going?’ Eveline asked, hearing the coldness in her own voice.
Connie looked doubtful. ‘There’s Rebecca. I can’t take her along.’
‘I can look after her,’ Eveline heard herself say, almost too quickly. ‘We live here together in the same flat, why should I not have her for you?’
Why had she offered so readily? She didn’t know. All she knew was that if Connie found happiness again, she must be pleased for her. If only she could find happiness herself. That would only be if … no, when Albert came walking through that door. The thought made her eyes sting and she had to turn quickly away from Connie to busy herself clearing up the remnants of the little birthday tea.
So much for trying to make ends meet! Eveline stared at the little brooch on the lapel of Connie’s jacket.
She’d sold almost all the jewellery she once had and Eveline knew the couple of bits she had left. This wasn’t one of them.
‘Where did you get that from?’ she asked suspiciously.
Connie smiled and glanced down at it, sighing. ‘To think my jewellery was once gold, silver, real gems, real pearls. This is just something I found on a stall in the Bethnal Green Road. It reminded me of a brooch I once had and I couldn’t resist it.’
Eveline’s temper flared suddenly. ‘You couldn’t resist it! Anyone would think we was rolling in money.’
Connie looked peeved. ‘It was cheap, just a few pence.’
‘A few pence on a rubbishy bit of jewellery we can’t eat, pay the rent with or burn to keep us warm next winter. Connie, have you gone off your rocker or something?’
She knew why she was being so unreasonably sharp. They were starting to rub on each other’s nerves even after this short time sharing the one flat, virtually treading on each other’s toes. The tiniest squabble between their daughters had it erupting into something far more serious between their mothers. In their own separate flats it wouldn’t have mattered if Connie splashed out on some cheap brooch – her money, her lookout. But pooling two pensions to make money go further, each felt in control of both.
‘How can we manage if you start buying stuff like that?’
But it wasn’t just that. It was this uncertainty about Connie seeing more of Jim. She’d seen him three times in a week since he’d come to tea and very soon Eveline could see only a bleak road for herself.
It was Connie’s turn to be angry. Her hazel eyes flared. ‘Threepence, that’s all it was, the cost of a loaf and a bit of marg!’
‘A loaf and a bit of marg, as you casually put it, Connie, would help to see us through a few days.’
She knew she was being heavy-handed. They weren’t starving, just needing to eke out what they had on cheaper bits of meat, less expensive provisions and vegetables. They could fill up with plenty of bread and jam – but not if Connie started throwing away money on herself.
‘What about when next winter comes? We need enough to buy coal, and that’s already gone up in price. We must keep warm.’
Connie compressed her lips. ‘For God’s sake, Eveline, let’s get spring and summer over first.’
&nbs
p; ‘All right, but the cost of everything else is going up too. The time will come when we won’t be able to cope, even sharing this place. Why don’t you go off and marry Jim Adams, then you can buy whatever you like.’
She didn’t know why she said it. Connie was staring at her. When she spoke her voice was low and deliberate. ‘That could even happen.’
It was Eveline’s turn to stare as Connie went on. ‘He and I have been talking along those lines.’
‘It’s a bit quick, isn’t it?’
‘He asked if he and I can start thinking of going steady. He too said it might sound a little quick, given we’ve only just begun seeing each other. But, yes, it does point to a serious union.’
‘Marriage,’ Eveline said slowly.
‘I think so.’
‘But what about me?’ It came out as a wail. Connie caught her lip between her teeth, almost like an apology.
‘Look, Eveline, nothing is settled. We’ve a long time to go before anything like that happens.’ She glanced at the clock, the action heavy with guilt. ‘The girls will be home for lunch soon. Let’s forget it. I’m sorry about the brooch. I’ll make it up to you, Eveline.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Eveline said, deflated, and set about laying the table ready for the children to eat the cheese on toast she planned to give them.
Connie began to help, quiet and subdued. Eventually she said, her tone low, ‘If you’re worried that I’d leave you to cope alone, I’d never let you go short or be on your own. I haven’t forgotten how you stood by me when I needed help most and I don’t intend to let you down now. If ever Jim and I marry, which will be a long time yet, I know he’ll be only too happy for you to come and live with us.’
Eveline felt her back go up. For a while she didn’t speak, fearing to sound abrupt.
‘I shall be fine,’ she said finally, managing not to sound as bleak as she felt. ‘I learned a long time ago to cope on my own. I proved to myself then that I could stand on my own two feet and I can do so again.’ She was even making her voice sound lively now.
‘In fact I think I might take up with the women trying to get the government to bring the age for women’s franchise down to twenty-one. I know that the Pankhursts have turned to other things now and we won’t ever see the great figureheads we knew, but our cause is the same as ever it was, and besides, I need something to do.’
She knew too that she would eventually have to accept the fact that Albert wasn’t coming home, that she needed no man to help her along her future path, but she said nothing of that to Connie.
Chapter Thirty-two
Connie’s face was bent over the letter that had arrived, addressed to her.
‘It’s from the nursing home,’ she said almost speaking to herself. ‘They say my mother is very ill.’
Eveline glanced up from making sure her daughter was ready for school, her hair combed, a clean hankie in her pocket, her woollen stockings pulled up without wrinkles.
‘They say she caught a chill and it’s turned to pneumonia,’ Connie went on. ‘They say it’s because her whole body is failing.’
She didn’t seem all that put out. She shed no tears, nor did she crumple the letter between anguished fingers. Her tone was level, unemotional. Eveline felt her heart go cold that so much hostility could exist between her and her mother. Connie, who’d always been warm-hearted, had changed a lot this past year, in small things such as trying to keep up with changing fashions. With little money to spare, she’d cut her own hair even shorter, shortened the hemlines of her skirts another inch to keep up with changing styles. Watching her stitching away, Eveline felt sorry for the girl who would once have merely gone out and bought a completely new outfit any time she fancied.
Kissing their daughters off to school, Eveline asked hopefully, ‘Will you be going to see your mother then?’ A day or two here on her own would be heaven.
‘I’ll have to,’ Connie answered. She turned beseeching eyes towards Eveline. ‘I don’t want to take Rebecca with me, not to a sickbed. Would you mind looking after her while I’m away? It’ll only be for the day.’
It was going to be a rush for her, and expensive.
‘Of course I’ll look after her,’ she said readily and saw Connie smile her thanks.
Connie sat at her mother’s bedside, looking down at the face she had once so loved, that had once been the young and gentle visage of a vulnerable woman, subservient to her husband, hanging on his every command as if he were a demi-god. It made Connie think, sitting there looking at the ravaged features that showed no recognition of her at all now. It had been her father who had turned her mother from her. He had forbidden her to speak her daughter’s name until in the end she had believed it was she who had decided to cast her daughter from her. And now she’d become witless, calling Connie Verity, even now not speaking her name as she tossed in delirium, shallowly panting away her last breath.
She died at seven o’clock in the evening, Connie beside her holding her thin, lined hand, though she quite unaware of it. Tears streamed silently down Connie’s face as a nurse gently helped her to her feet and guided her from the still body with its small face looking as though she was sleeping quite peacefully.
Someone gave her a cup of tea, and asked if there was anything she wanted. When she shook her head they withdrew to leave her to grieve in private. Sitting in the small bare room, she fished into her bag and drew out a box of matches and a packet of ten cigarettes that she’d bought on the way here; Eveline was not around to reprimand her for squandering a hard-earned couple of pence. She’d smoked two already and found them calming. Now she lit up and drew in a deep breath of the fragrant smoke. This time it didn’t make her choke and she felt calm drift over her.
A middle-aged nurse appeared quietly at the door and smiled to see a young woman with a cigarette. Lots of women smoked these days, mostly the better-off sort, using a cigarette as an elegant addition to their appearance. She coughed politely and saw the young woman give a guilty start. True, smoking was not allowed, but this woman had lost her mother. One must stretch the rules a little.
‘I have had your mother’s belongings put together if you feel up to collecting them,’ she said. ‘But take your time. There is no hurry.’
With that she went away, leaving Connie to stare at the door she had gently closed behind her.
In her mother’s home, Connie sat at the highly polished dining-room table with the family solicitor Mr Goddard Braithwaite sitting opposite her, the surface in front of him spread with papers.
‘I trust you will be content to continue with my services following your mother’s sad demise,’ he said, almost imperiously. ‘I have been your father’s solicitor for as long as I can remember. I trust you see no reason to change?’
Connie shook her head, wishing he’d get on with his business. Her father had left everything to her mother but she’d never made a will.
‘I urged her so many times to do so, but one cannot move a woman grown unbelievably stubborn in her bereavement. It would have made everything so much simpler, but she persisted in maintaining that as she only had one daughter left, everything would go to her, your sister Verity.’
He ignored the wince his client gave. ‘I could make no headway in reminding her that she had another daughter. She refused to listen. I really am very, very sorry.’
Connie found her voice. ‘No need. I knew my mother well enough.’
‘Quite,’ said Goddard Braithwaite. ‘She was a stubborn woman. Most surprising as she followed your father in every way, though I suppose in that alone she demonstrated an inner strength, one might even venture to say.’
‘May we get on with it?’ Connie reminded him stiffly. She wanted to have done with all this, learn that her mother had most likely given every last penny and stick of furniture to charity, or the nursing home, or even a casual acquaintance, and that Mr Braithwaite was probably trying to let her down as lightly as he could in telling her that she was as much a
pauper as ever.
‘Quite,’ he said again, bending his head to the papers before him and shuffling through them. ‘Well, I have to tell you that due to your mother omitting to make a will of any sort, all that she owned, money, all her property and her considerable savings, as well as a good deal of stocks and shares that had been your father’s and which came to her on his death and to this day have remained unsurrendered, will pass to her only surviving kin.’ He looked up sharply. ‘That is you, my dear Mrs Towers.’
For a moment Connie stared at him, unable to speak.
‘You are a wealthy woman,’ he enlarged, realising that she hadn’t quite taken in what he was saying. ‘You have property and can take over as soon as the necessary legal details have been finalised.’
Concluding business, he stood up, tidying and stacking documents and putting them into his case. Connie stood up too as he came to extend his hand in farewell. ‘If there is anything else you want to know or are unsure about, I am here to help you. As I said, I hope you will continue to honour my firm with your business.’
‘I will,’ Connie replied, still dazed as she saw him to the door.
‘Goodbye, Mrs Towers, and might I once more add my condolences on the death of your mother as well as congratulations on your inheritance.’
Connie inclined her head and stood watching as he got into his car, tapping his chauffeur on the shoulder to drive off. He didn’t look back and Connie went back inside the house that was now hers, complete with every last penny her parents had owned.
This beautiful warm April morning Eveline and Connie were going up to the West End together. Connie was hardly able to wait to buy some expensive clothes on the strength of her inheritance, the solicitors having generously advanced her a tidy sum, knowing they’d reap it all back and more.
‘I want to look nice when Jim calls for me this evening,’ she said excitedly as they made their way by taxi, no expense spared. ‘I’m glad he asked me to marry him when he thought me as poor as a church mouse. He’s saying he hopes I don’t think he is after my money. I told him not to be so ridiculous.’ She laughed, clutching at Eveline’s arm. ‘I can hardly believe that you and I, having been friends for so long, are now going to be sisters-in-law.’