Yes, Mama

by Helen Forrester

  Yes, thought Alicia, but you don’t really have to face Papa.

  Humphrey had no intention of remaining an invalid for the rest of his life. Because he refused to have a nurse in the house, for several weeks he had to accept the help of Alicia. It was either Polly or Alicia who emptied his bedpans, and Alicia, who had never in her life seen a naked male, who washed him. A curious, close relationship grew up between them, like that between prisoner and gaoler. There was no love between the thin wisp of a girl and the stout, frustrated man, but there began to be a reciprocal respect. In the end, Humphrey found it satisfyingly ironical that it should be Crossing’s bastard who served him so faithfully.

  Numbed by hatred of him, there was no sympathy from Elizabeth. Yet she feared that if he died, there would be only absent-minded, self-centred Charles to protect her. She rarely went into her husband’s bedroom and spept most of her time slumped in her easy chair or, as the summer drew on, in a chair in the garden. Polly and Fanny bore as best they could her continuous complaints about slowness in answering her bell and lateness of meals; it was as if the reality of caring for an invalid, or the fact that she should be helping, had not impinged on her brain at all.

  Following Humphrey’s heart attack, Florence came to stay for a couple of days. When told about Edward, she sat and wept copiously and the next day went into black. After that, she returned to her impatient, fussy husband, who had brought her to the house and who had stayed long enough to help Humphrey to his bed, before he went back home to supervise those members of his rowdy family not yet in boarding school.

  Alicia hid the key to the wine cellar long enough to get Elizabeth into one of her good, black dresses and keep her sober while she attended a Memorial Service for Edward arranged by her son-in-law. After the service, Elizabeth, clutching a black-edged handkerchief, received a stream of visitors who called formally to present their condolences; one or two went up to visit Humphrey as well, but he was very weak and could not stand long visits.

  Humphrey’s brother, Harold, and his wife, Vera, came from Manchester for the service, and Alicia soberly sat with them through lunch in the dining-room. ‘Mama is lying down-naturally, she is rather indisposed,’ Alicia explained. She did not say that her mother had a racking headache and was raging in her room, because she could not find the key to the wine cellar, nor could she find a single bottle of anything to drink in the rest of the house.

  When, later, the couple went upstairs for a short visit to her, she was propped up in bed drinking tea and was barely civil to them.

  In the next room, they conveyed their condolences to a recumbent Humphrey, and Harold promised to come to visit him again the following week.

  Charles came down from University and wandered round the house, looking, helpless. He had grown a beard and had trimmed it in imitation of the dashing Prince of Wales, so that Alicia barely recognized him.

  Charles had few memories of Edward and could not grieve at his death any more than if he had been a casual friend who had died. He did, however, sit with his father and refrained from any hot answer when Humphrey grumbled that he needed him at home now, to help him in the office.

  Despite the gloom in the house, Charles joked with Alicia and told her she was managing everything wonderfully. A few days later he went thankfully back to Cambridge and his research.

  At the end of two weeks, Elizabeth’s cash box being empty, Alicia gathered up her courage and asked Humphrey for some housekeeping money.

  ‘Mama doesn’t seem to have any; and I must pay Fanny and Polly and the grocer and the butcher.’

  He turned his head on his pillow and looked at her in astonishment, a thin slip of a fourteen-year-old – Andrew Crossing’s bastard. Then he laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh and it frightened Alicia. But she stood her ground and waited.

  ‘What’s your mother doing? She should have come to me for her housekeeping.’

  Alicia gulped. She did not want to say that her mother was often dazedly drunk or lay in her bed with racking headaches. Finally, she told him, ‘Well, Mama is so upset about Edward – and about you – that she is not well herself; so I’ve been doing things.’

  ‘I see. Get the housekeeping book from your mother and bring it to me – I check it each month. If she is well enough, ask her to come in to see me. Last time I saw it, the entries did not match the tradesmen’s bills.’ He looked suddenly exhausted, and Alicia felt a quick jolt of apprehension. Supposing he died, what would happen to her and to Mama – and Polly and Fanny?

  ‘And may I have some money, Papa?’

  ‘I must first speak to your mother.’

  ‘Of course, it would be impolite for me to look after the housekeeping without first asking her,’ responded Alicia soberly, as if she had not been battling with it for the previous two weeks.

  Politeness was not what Humphrey had in mind. Now a little recovered, he wanted to know what his wife had actually been doing while he was ill. Was she so drunk that she could not run the house?

  He rested for a moment while Alicia stood apprehensively by his bed. Then he took a large breath and made a further effort. ‘You remember Mr Bowring, my clerk, who came to see me after the Memorial Service?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Papa.’

  ‘Write him a letter to ask him to call on me tomorrow afternoon – at three o’clock. And get the maids to bring up the side table from the library – and a chair – and put them in the window, here, so that he has a place to work.’

  ‘Yes, Papa.’

  Outside the room, she stood in the upper hall and cried quietly to herself. How long was it going to be like this, she wondered. When would she be able to go back to school?

  Chapter Eighteen

  I

  On January 22nd, 1901, the old Queen died after a very brief illness. Few of her subjects had ever known another monarch, and they felt bereft when they discovered that she was not immortal. Theatres closed and church bells tolled mournfully; they went on and on, until even the most devoted mourners had to grit their teeth to endure even one more slow dongdong.

  All the dressmakers in the city, including George Henry Lee’s who usually provided Elizabeth’s better dresses, were inundated by orders for funeral mourning.

  On February 2nd, Humphrey and Elizabeth were bidden to the Cathedral Church of St Peter to attend a memorial service for the Queen.

  When Humphrey found the invitation in his morning mail at the breakfast table, he felt that they should attend. Though not as strong as he had been, he was fairly recovered from his heart attack and had taken up again most of his usual pursuits.

  He met his wife emerging from the master bedroom, after having had her breakfast in bed – he had long since returned to his single bed in the dressing-room; once his heart pains had retreated, he had announced that he preferred its more masculine atmosphere. This morning, Elizabeth was still wrapped in her grubby, blue woollen dressing-gown, her grey hair tumbling round her shoulders. She had assumed that Humphrey was already on his way to his office and she was now in search of a drop of brandy.

  He informed her of the cathedral service, and she responded sulkily that she had no decent black dress to wear.

  ‘Nonsense,’ he replied shortly, ‘you must have an enormous wardrobe.’

  ‘Nothing fits.’ Elizabeth sounded as if she did not care very much.

  ‘Well, for God’s sake, get a new dress or costume.’

  ‘I still owe Lee’s for the last one – and I know that Mrs Blossom has so much work that she can’t promise a dress in less than a month.’

  ‘Can’t you even manage to pay your bills?’

  ‘If you’d give more to Charles for his university expenses, he wouldn’t be such a drain on my resources.’

  ‘Charles should be in the office with me; I wonder if he’ll ever learn that he must earn a living.’

  Elizabeth ignored this old complaint, but went on unwisely, ‘Alicia should have a black costume; also.’

  Hump
hrey’s little eyes nearly vanished in the folds of flesh around them, as he turned towards the bathroom door. ‘Alicia’s personal needs are your concern, not mine. She’s lucky that I feed her and give her a bed.’ He pushed the door open and then looked back over his shoulder. ‘And don’t forget, Madam, that I give you a roof – many men wouldn’t. I shall order the carriage for 10.30 on Friday morning. See that you are ready. And make sure the servants have black arm bands sewn on their outdoor clothes.’

  He stalked into the bathroom and closed the door.

  Elizabeth shivered and wondered, for the hundredth time, whether her brother in Ceylon would give her a home on his tea estate, if she suddenly arrived there. Then she envisioned again dealing with the partner with whom he lived and with a totally strange country, and she discarded the idea; she rarely considered what would happen to Alicia if she left her husband; she did not enjoy thinking about the girl at all.

  She went downstairs into the dining-room; the brandy bottle in the sideboard was empty. She pulled a chair away from the table and sat down on it. When Polly came up to clear Humphrey’s breakfast dishes, she found her mistress weeping quietly, her hands screwing up her wet handkerchief in her lap. Tray in hand, Polly asked kindly if she could help her.

  Elizabeth made no attempt to hide her tears. She mumbled, ‘Yes, Polly. Find me a glass of port and my smelling salts.’

  II

  The fine black broadcloth costume, lined with silk and trimmed discreetly with black silk velvet binding was a miracle produced by two elderly ladies from George Henry Lee’s who sewed nearly all night for several nights, first the calico fitting and then the dress material cut from the calico pattern. Though a seamstress was sent up to the house for the first two fittings, Lee’s was so busy that Elizabeth had to go down to the shop for the final one.

  When Elizabeth had said she would hire a closed carriage for this journey, Humphrey said she could hire anything as long as she paid for it. Otherwise, she could use the electric tram, as he did. This led to one of their tremendous quarrels, from which the whole household reverberated for the next twenty-four hours.

  When Sarah Webb called and was told by Elizabeth about Humphrey’s meanness, she promptly offered to take her angry friend down to Lee’s in her governess cart; she herself always wore black as being the most economical colour. Elizabeth reluctantly accepted this modest form of door-to-door transport, and had the dress billed to Humphrey.

  A new hat being too much expense, an old one was taken out and retrimmed with swirls of black velvet, taken from an evening gown with a twenty-two inch waist which Elizabeth could no longer get into. There was enough material in the skirt to furnish a dress for Alicia; this was made up for her by a new dressmaker who had recently set up in Crown Street; it neither fitted nor suited Alicia, who complained bitterly to Polly about it.

  ‘It’s the best your Mam could do; be thankful for it,’ replied Polly unsympathetically.

  Alicia thought uneasily about this apparent need for economy and then put on the hated garment.

  Alicia herself bound four white handkerchiefs with black edging, two for Humphrey and one each for her mother and herself, not that Alicia wept much for the old Queen; she had a feeling that Edward VII might be more fun.

  While her parents were at the service and the subsequent luncheon, Alicia thankfully took off her ugly mourning dress and put on an old summer frock, in order to help Fanny give the morning-room and the library a much needed cleaning.

  The house was far too big for two maids to cope with, and Alicia had realized that parts of it were gradually becoming very neglected. Elizabeth took little interest in it. No parties had been given in it for some time. Few ladies called on a woman who did not have an At Home any more. Only Sarah Webb panted her way up the front steps at least once a week to sit with her old friend and visit her godchild.

  Shabby curtains and rugs which might normally have been renewed went unnoticed by their depressed owners. When Alicia pointed out that moths had got into the dining-room curtains and suggested new ones, her mother retorted impatiently that it was too much trouble and, anyway, Humphrey would never agree to the expense. In this latter remark, she was probably right; Humphrey was finding his old friend, Mrs Jakes and her tobacco shop, quite expensive, at a time when he had suffered a number of financial losses, including money invested in a mad scheme to build a railway tunnel under the Mersey; the railway had been built, but had been a consistent money loser.

  ‘Shall we take up the carpet, Allie?’ This from Fanny in the morning-room. ‘It needs beating badly.’

  ‘There isn’t time, Fan. They’ll be back from Church before we’re finished, if we take it up. Scatter tea leaves over it and give it a thorough brush with a stiff broom. We’ll take the curtains down, though, and give them a good brush and shake in the garden; I don’t think the velvet ones have been down for years.’

  ‘You should leave me to do it, Allie. You should go out for a bit. Haven’t you got a school friend you could visit? That Miss Ethel you used to walk home with sometimes?’

  At the top of the stepladder, Alicia carefully lowered one end of the heavy brass curtain rail into Fanny’s hands. Dust flew from the curtains as they slid to the end of the rail and Fanny pulled them off. Alicia sneezed, and this gave her time to consider her reply. She had learned to accept the fact that when she offered friendship to a girl, there always seemed to be an obstacle to its flourishing. She did not really understand why, and usually blamed herself for being uninteresting or not well-dressed enough to please the parents concerned.

  Now, she wondered sometimes if there were another, darker reason. She had come to understand, after sly questioning of Polly, that illegitimacy was a dreadful burden for a child to bear; but, again and again, she came back to the fact that Papa was very much a presence in the house. He was terrifyingly bad-tempered and he rarely spoke to her, except to scold or swear at her. Nevertheless, he existed, so that when she had been called a bastard, it had seemed untrue. That her mother’s long-held reputation for flirtatiousness, on top of the rumours of Alicia being the daughter of Andrew Crossing, made anxious mothers feel that their daughters should not be exposed to such an influence, did not occur to bewildered Alicia.

  Fanny’s suggestion that she should go to see Ethel disturbed her and she did not know how to answer. Finally, as she slipped another curtain off its rod, she replied, ‘You know, Fan, I often feel a long way away from other girls, as if I were much older than them.’ She climbed slowly down the stepladder. ‘I met Ethel in the chemist’s one day. She said she was swotting to go to university, which is something I would have liked to do; but which university is going to accept a lady?’

  ‘I dunno anything about that. But it int natural for a young girl to have no friends,’ responded Fanny firmly. ‘Your Mam ought to do something about it. Who’s going to come to your Coming Out Dance, if you don’t know nobody?’

  Alicia bent over to bundle up the curtains, to take them into the garden to shake. ‘Mama hasn’t said anything about my Coming Out yet – I’m really not quite old enough, am I?’

  ‘Suppose you talk to Miss Florence about it?’ Fanny suggested, as together they staggered out under their loads of drapery.

  ‘Perhaps I will – one day,’ Alicia replied doubtfully.

  III

  Except for a necklace of seed pearls from her godmother, Sarah Webb, and a book of children’s poetry which arrived by post from Florence, Alicia’s sixteenth birthday on May 12th, 1902, went unremarked outside the kitchen.

  Polly baked a birthday cake and presented her with a pair of hand-knitted gloves; Fanny gave her two bars of highly scented soap. In addition to the cake, they had strawberry jelly for tea.

  When Sarah called, Elizabeth was so deeply asleep that Alicia was unable to waken her to greet her old friend. Sarah kept her concern at this to herself and had a cup of tea and a piece of birthday cake with Alicia in the morning-room.

  Alicia was
enchanted at having a real pearl necklace and flung her arms round Sarah gleefully.

  She did not tell her godmother that, as usual, her mother had forgotten her birthday and that Papa and Charles never seemed to remember anybody’s birthday. She wondered sadly if there were other girls whose birthdays went unremarked; most of the girls at school, she remembered, had had not only presents but parties to celebrate the day, parties to which she was never invited. This persistent overlooking of her meant, she was by now convinced, that there was something seriously wrong with her own character, so that she failed to please – or that she was, indeed, by some odd quirk, illegitimate and, therefore, outside the social pale. These fears about herself tended to make her withdrawn, though not when with her quiet, charming, old godmother.

  While she plied Sarah with tea, down in the basement kitchen Fanny voiced her usual complaints about the neglect of Alicia’s birthday.

  ‘Lady Mucks of Muck Hall round here, they are. Anywhere else, they’d’ve forgotten years ago wot ’er Mam did – and you’d think the Master would’ve guv up on it by now. But, no! The poor little bugger has to go on being put in ’er place, like she were born in the Workhouse, like me.’

  ‘Her Mam’s not well enough to see to her,’ Polly defended her mistress.

  Fanny replied tartly, There’s nothin’ wrong with her Mam, ’cept she drinks and totters round like a hen with the staggers. She’s just gone to bits, she has.’ Fanny wrung out the dishcloth, as if she were wringing Elizabeth’s neck. ‘If she’d a scrap of sense, she could’ve helped the kid get some friends, so they could’ve come to a do on her birthday.’ And she added, as she emptied the washing-up water down the sink, There’s no excuse for not givin’ her a present’

  Polly had heard it all before and agreed with her friend, but she warned, ‘Hush, Fan. It int our business.’