“Mother, you’re back and look who you’ve got with you!” she cried in surprise as she saw Eddie’s Uncle Johnny loaded down with bags behind Maggie.
“Did you meet on your way up here then? Oh, I can see by all these bags you’ve enjoyed yourself shopping, Mother. Eddie’s somewhere about, I’ll call him. Eddie, there you are. Look who’s here with Mother, your Uncle Johnny! Here, give me the baby and help your uncle with the luggage and everything. Come on then, I’ve got the kettle on, we’ll sit at the kitchen table and you can tell me all about it. And there you were last Monday, Mother, making out you didn’t want to go.”
Chapter 16
Katie walked along the site road that lead through the new development. It seemed strange to be treading on quarry stones and rubble, instead of tramping through country lanes and grassy fields. She was on her way to see her sister, Annie, whose home at Lilac Cottage would soon be surrounded by luxurious villas. Not yet, though; there was still a lot of clearance work to be done. Over to her left stood Farmer Briggs’ old farmhouse, still occupied by the elderly man who kept his livestock in the yard as he had before, which was a blessing, really, for Ernie. He still had a job there fortunately, though there were no fields for ploughing and no seeds to sow. Just a few milking cows on two marshy fields that the developer hadn’t wanted and the pigs and hens, that helped to pay the wages. Though why hadn’t the farmer sold up completely? He must have plenty of money now he had sold his land.
In the distance, Katie could see a group of men cutting down the copse that had surrounded her old cottage. She willed herself to look away; there was no use in being emotional now. Annie had told her weeks ago that the place had been demolished. At least she and her brother had been well-rewarded for their removal, even if it had been forced. The house on Town Lane was a little palace, with its big front room, dining room-cum-kitchen, two large bedrooms, a tiny box room and a W.C. in the yard.
Katie sighed as she dodged a pothole and clambered across the trunk of a tree that had been left where it had been uprooted. This would be her in a few weeks time, she thought, pulled up by her roots again, leaving Ernie to cope alone.
She quickened her pace as a few spots of rain dropped upon her uncovered head. Typical. Her one day off and she was going to get caught in a shower.
Luckily her sister had just returned from the village, though Mrs. Piper, Annie’s mother-in-law, had been pottering in the garden anyway. Lilac Cottage was warm and muggy-smelling as Katie dashed in through the open doorway. A row of drying baby wear sat on a clotheshorse by the fire.
Alexandra, the youngest child, toddled around in the lean-to, watching her grandma bring in a basket of vegetables. Joe, her elder brother, sat on the overstuffed sofa playing with a struggling kitten. The older children had been put into school by Annie, who was relaxing in an easy chair trying to get her breath back.
“Katie,” Annie cried, when she saw her slightly damp visitor. “If I’d known yer were coming over, I’d have brought me shopping to your place and you could have helped me carry it down. Didn’t yer think to put on something better than that jacket? Yer only had to look at the storm clouds to know it was going to start pissing down. Ma… Move that washing, will yer, and let our Katie see the fire, then a cup of tea would be nice if the kettle’s boiling. Alex, get out of me shopping bag.”
Katie smiled to herself. Poor old Mrs. Piper. Annie’s willing slave, because she had been allowed to move to Lilac Cottage with the family. The woman was getting on in years, but she was devoted to Annie and Sam’s children.
“Here, I’ll make the tea, Mrs. Piper, after I’ve said hello to these two. Have you both got a kiss for your Aunty Katie? And what’s this I’ve got in my pocket?” Katie drew out some slightly soggy gingerbread men.
The children sat down on the peg rug chewing contentedly while the kitten made its escape out of the back door. Peace reigned for a few moments as Katie made the women a cup of tea.
“So, what brings yer here then Katie?” Annie inquired, as the two of them settled on the sofa. Mrs. Piper sipped at her drink, as she began to prepare a cabbage and some potatoes for their meal at the kitchen table.
“Ernie’s all right, isn’t he? Hey,” she continued, before Katie managed to open her mouth. “Have yer seen those houses they’ve built near where Ashlea Cottage was? There’s two of them finished now. I walked round that way from the village yesterday morning and I had a look through one of the windows. What I’d give to live in summat like them. I spoke to a fella who was working on the garden wall; they’ve got four bedrooms, a study, two big rooms downstairs and, listen to this, a separate kitchen with a pantry off it. And they’ve got a bathroom upstairs with a separate room for the W.C! He said that the people were moving in this week and there’s a push on to get the road up there finished, so that the delivery men can bring along the furniture. I said what were they going to do fer stabling? Because if they’ve got that kind of money, they’ll have a horse and carriage as well. Do yer know what he said? People like that will pay fer a horse and cab to come down from the village to collect them! I’m thinking now that Sam should give up his milk round and buy an old carriage instead!”
“T’would be too much fer Polly, pulling the weight of a carriage,” Mrs. Piper remarked, who had been listening to the conversation avidly. “She’s getting too long in the tooth to be carrying people around.”
“Don’t be daft, she’s used to carrying full churns, isn’t she? Anyway, if we got really busy, we’d get a younger horse instead.”
“I wonder how the new folk like the idea of the colliery being only a spit away?” asked Katie. “I wouldn’t like to pay all that money and worry about underground tunnels beneath me feet.”
“Oh, they never came that far inland,” answered Mrs. Piper. “That’s why it never made the owners rich yer know, because they never dug deep enough seams.”
“Yea, and half the workers died in the cholera outbreak of ‘66. Beset with problems that mine has bin, but anyway I’m sure they’ll have trees planted as a screen. Now, Katie, yer haven’t told me yet what brings yer.”
Annie’s attention turned to her sister, the subject of the new houses beginning to pall.
“Well, I’m here to let you know that I’m going to have a big problem soon looking after Ernie. Matron called me into her office yesterday and told me I’m to be transferred to Clatterbridge Hospital. I don’t have a choice in the matter now that we’re under the Hospital Board. If I want promotion I have to do as they say. It’s all to do with numbers, according to Matron, and as they are short of staff nurses over there, she put my name forward. She says it’s for my own good, because I’ve a better chance of being taken on as a Sister once I’ve passed my next exams. I told her that we’d only just moved into Barleymow Terrace a few months ago and that I was keeping house for my brother. She asked me what was more important? My brother or my career?”
“And you said your career, didn’t yer?” Annie said scathingly. “Then legged it down here to my place to see if I’ll help yer out.”
“I’m going to have to live at the hospital, Annie. Matron said it was a residential post and even if it wasn’t, it would be too far to walk everyday.”
“There’s the omnibus from Heswall. Calls into the village every afternoon to take people up to visit…”
“But I’ll be on shift work, Annie. Be sensible. I can’t see them letting me start my work every day at three.”
“Ernie could come here fer his meals, Annie. Surely we can help them a little, they are family after all?”
“Ma,” Annie cried, feeling aggravated. “Not only do I have five children, a husband and all me alteration work, there’d be the house to see to, cleaning and his washing as well. Perhaps you’d like to volunteer fer the job then, or better still you move in with him!”
There was a silence for a moment. Mrs. Piper took the peelings out to the garden to put on top of the compost heap. Katie could see from the woman’s
shoulders that she’d be weeping out in the rain. Honestly, Annie could be unbearably rude at times.
“I know!” shouted Annie, her eyes gleaming with a possibility that had just occurred to her. The children turned their heads at her outburst then tried to scramble upon her knee.
“Get down, Joe, go and sit on Aunty Katie’s knee, Alex. I’m thinking of something that would benefit all of us!”
Katie looked at her sister doubtfully and Mrs. Piper groaned to herself quietly as she listened from the lean-to.
“Go on.” Whatever Annie came up with it would only benefit her.
“We’ll do a house swap!”
“A house swap,” Mrs. Piper wailed. “We’ve only just settled here this last twelve month and here yer are wanting us to move again. How’s that going to help your Ernie?”
“Well, it’s only a short walk fer him from here to the farm, isn’t it? If we were to move to Town Lane it will be nearer fer the school, the shops fer me and nearer to me customers. They’ve got a yard fer Sam to stow his milk churns in, so that would save paying the rent on the lock-up, and Polly could be turned out on that bit of wasteland by Bull Hill.”
“I thought yer were talking before about Sam starting up a cabby service?” her mother in law sniffed.
“One thing at a time, Ma!”
“You’ve forgotten something here, Annie,” Katie said gently. “The house is in our names, mine and Ernie’s and we’ve still got a loan to pay.”
“A mere detail. Ernie will be living rent-free here at Lilac Cottage and he can pay me something fer his meals if he comes to us each day. I’ll go up to Sheldon weekly and hand over whatever you’re paying to them. And we’ll have all that space to live in.”
She rubbed her hands together gleefully.
“Wait ‘til our Sam comes in!”
Maggie sat at her bureau in the drawing room, trying to compose a letter to Johnny. She had not seen him since that day he’d returned with her to Selwyn Lodge.
“I can understand you’re hurt, she wrote, but Hannah was only teasing me. I did so enjoy our time together. Forget her words please, Johnny. I was nervous, I’m sorry. Can’t we meet again?”
She addressed the letter care of The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, Liverpool, stamped it with the correct postage, then put it in the top drawer of her writing desk. She would give it to Alec, Olive’s new beau, next morning. By Friday, Johnny will have read it and perhaps he’ll come to visit at the weekend, she thought. If not, it’ll prove that he doesn’t really care enough for me, so we’ll both carry on with the rest of our lives.
Sitting there in the peaceful oasis of the room, somehow it all didn’t matter. She was where she wanted to be after all. Why would she want her boat rocking by men, whom she seemed to manage without very well? Men were so needy; they wanted your soul and your body. Look at Michael: from her son’s latest letter, he had wanted something from her as well.
Maggie had spent the time since she read it thinking. Her son wanted her to buy him out, it wasn’t what he had been lead to believe. It was a living Hell.
How did she go about that then? Buy him out? Did she go to the Chester Barracks with a fist full of money and hand it over to someone in authority? Her head was buzzing alarmingly. She’d have an early night. Shouting to Hannah that she was making her way to bed and she’d see her in the morning, she slowly climbed the stairs. Perhaps everything would feel differently when she awoke.
“Did you notice that my mother wasn’t looking very well at supper?” Hannah asked Eddie, as they settled down in bed.
“Well, I noticed that she left her bread and butter pudding and she was having a lot to drink.”
“She’s been very quiet since she came back home from Liverpool. I thought she’d want to tell me all about it and she seemed about to I’m sure, then your Uncle Johnny left without a word. That was odd, don’t you think, Eddie? The way he dumped all the bags then disappeared?”
“Oh, Hannah,” Eddie said sleepily. “You do look fer mysteries when there are none. It’ll be all these penny dreadfuls you keep reading. Yer know they go way back, Maggie and Uncle Johnny. They probably had a disagreement over something. Something from twenty-odd years ago, just to even up an old score!”
Maggie awoke the following morning with a sore throat, a thumping head and her body ached from top to toe. First she pushed her blankets off, as the sweat was pouring off her in buckets, then pulled them up quickly around her as she began to shiver with the cold.
“It’s probably influenza,” Hannah pronounced, when she heard Maggie croaking her name from the back bedroom.
“Shall I send Olive for the doctor? These things can get nasty; turn into pneumonia if you’re not careful. You haven’t got a rash on your chest have you, or spots on your tongue? No? Then it’s just a case of resting, don’t get out of bed.”
“Thanks, Nurse Hannah,” Maggie said weakly. “You’ve missed yer way, yer know. Do we get a professional in or will I be nursed by you?”
Hannah laughed at Maggie’s attempt at light-heartedness. “Let’s get Dr. Barnes in first, shall we, and see how serious this is? I’ll probably be told to keep away because of passing it on to little Johnny.”
The doctor was summoned and he agreed with Hannah’s verdict, though he was surprised that Maggie had caught influenza at that time of the year.
“We had a lot of this last winter, in fact I remember Olive, your maid, went down with it, didn’t she?”
Hannah nodded. As soon as she had seen the girl shivering she had sent her back home to her bed.
“Well spotted anyway, Hannah. Did they teach you this kind of thing at college? I’m very surprised to be called out to a case of this in April though. Has any other member of the household come down with it recently?”
“No, Doctor, but Mother has just come back from a holiday,” Hannah answered. Thank heavens she’d paid attention at college when they’d had a doctor come to lecture them.
“Well, that’s the reason then, she’s picked the virus up from her hotel! I’ll leave her this mixture. If it gets any worse, send Olive down again for me. It’s only a mild dose from the look of her.”
“Can we get a nurse in, Doctor? I daren’t get too close to Mother, because of my little boy. In fact,” Hannah lowered her voice. “I think I may be expecting again. Shall I visit you when Mother gets better and you can confirm if I am right?”
“Oh, I think your mother will get better in the next three or four days. No need to bring a nurse up here. Get Olive to bring her plenty of boiled water to drink, she’ll not feel like eating, but she’ll be strong enough to crawl into the bathroom. Olive can change her linen, but otherwise leave her alone. This mixture contains a little opium and rest will do the trick.”
The plump middle-aged doctor smiled kindly, as Hannah passed him his tall silk top hat.
“Another one already, eh? Are you planning to fill the nursery?”
Johnny lay in his bed in the room he rented on Grafton Street. He’d been feeling groggy since he came off his ship at Kingstown Harbour that afternoon and instead of walking from the docks to the city as he usually did, he flagged a passing cabby. Settled with a bottle of whisky that he had hurriedly bought before he mounted the steps to his chilly room, his foggy mind conjured up thoughts of Maggie. What the Hell had she been playing at? There was a name for women who behaved as she had done. He had really believed it, hadn’t he, that he and Maggie were going to be a couple? Sod the scandal, forget the Church, two fingers to Jack and their marriage. Maggie was going to leave her business, her family, her committee meetings and her fancy life to start afresh with him!
He threw another glass of whisky down his burning throat. Damn the woman. Just when he had opened his heart, wore it on his sleeve, made declarations of his undying love, her daughter had told the truth about her. Maggie hadn’t wanted to go to Liverpool in the first place. So why had she been there in the Adelphi? Why bother to go to all that trouble and expe
nse?
Johnny poured himself another drink. His body was shaking with cold, but sweat was pouring off him. When this was finished, he promised himself, he’d get another. Try to block out her lovely face.
“Hello Maggie, Hannah said I’d find yer in here. How yer feelin’ today?” Eddie came into the conservatory, where his mother in law sat in one of the cane chairs with her feet resting on a footstool.
“Well enough to sit in here, thank you,” Maggie replied a little hoarsely. “Your wife’s a dragon though, give her a bit of power and her bossy streak comes out.”
“Oh, she’s only concerned about yer. Doesn’t want yer rushing about like yer did before. Anyway, yer looking better, the warmth in here has give yer a bit of a flush. I’ve been over to see the Bradleys at Ashlea House this morning. See how they’re settling in. There’s one or two things they’re not very happy with. The front door doesn’t fit properly, looks like the bottom was shaved too much ‘cos the winds bin whistling under it. And she’s not too happy with her kitchen, not enough space to put their table in.”
“Well, she’s been enough times to measure up. I’d say it’s her fault if her table’s too big. Yer mean a kitchen table, don’t yer, one fer working on?”
Eddie nodded, pleased to see he’d lit a spark in Maggie. She’d been so listless according to Hannah, wasn’t eating, couldn’t be bothered reading the broadsheet or any of her books that she normally loved to read; staying in her bedroom staring out of the window, or sat in the conservatory just looking into space.
“I’ll take one of the carpenters off and get him to fit a thresher on the bottom, that should cure it. But I’m afraid she’ll have to sort her other problem out herself.”
“Was Mr. Bradley there? Yer know he’s setting up a branch of Thursco Textiles in Chester, don’t yer?”
“Yes, his missis told me. He’s one of the Directors. No, he wasn’t there. She told me he took a bracing walk up to Neston Station this morning to catch the eight o’ clock train. That’s why they’d chosen the area, she told me, fer its convenience, location and view!”
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