by Betty Burton
‘Well, well? Goodbye, Miss Hewetson, and thank you.’
Oh, the anger later. By that kiss, which she had been giddy enough to return, he had effectively spiked her guns. He had kissed with such…? On her way back she had no words to describe it… such contact. She guessed that he knew well enough that she would never go running to her father. To tell her mother was out of the question. Ma would expect such a violator to be thrown out of the police force. She would forbid Otis to see Esther and Jack, and declare that she was not safe to be allowed out alone – particularly unsafe to allow her to keep her place at Stockwell College. Certainly she could not tell Esther, who in any case would hardly believe that her father was a man to embrace young girls only months after his wife’s death. Otis knew what her own reaction would be if someone accused Pa of such an action. She could perhaps tell Jack, but for what reason? It had not been a violation, had she not responded?
She could imagine how smug he would look. What has she complained of, Jack? That I did not go further? That she did not lean more heavily against me? Ask why she did not cry out, why she did not run from the office when there was help only feet away. Ask her how her mouth came to mould itself to mine and how her tongue came to curl around mine.
And now, three years on, when she imagined how Esther’s mind was shrivelling as her own expanded, she felt that her own participation on that day was partly to blame for Esther’s situation. Had she behaved like any normal young girl, and been shocked and complained at once, she might even have used the incident as a form of blackmail; then Esther might have gone from her father’s house and taken her place at Stockwell with Otis. As it was, she concluded from images sent to her in dreams that she had in a moment of aberration confused the inspector with Jack.
Now as the two young women shared fruit and mineral water and sank into an hour of quiet enjoyment of the splendid views, Otis reflected how, in the course of these last three years, they had both changed. Esther had grown quite sober and accountable, Otis, if anything, more assertive and hungry for experience than on the day she entered Stockwell.
That first day. It had been so thrilling.
‘Esther? Do you know the first thing that I did when I arrived at Stockwell?’
Esther, absorbed in making a water-colour sketch, shook her head absently.
‘I wrote you a postcard.’
‘Mmm. Oh yes, I still have it. Chichester cathedral, I believe. You wanted it for your collection. Remind me sometime and I will give it to you.’
‘Gloucester cathedral.’
‘Mmm.’
They drifted into the mood of the unusually warm spring day. Esther’s water-colour was drying too quickly; Otis’s pencil fell from her hand.
VIEW OF GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL
Esther, Briefly. New Address: Stockwell College, Stockwell Road, London SW. I hope you will not think v. badly of me for not writing before. I did think it was awfully kind of you to tk all that trble in measuring things in my rm. Curtains lvly. Many thanks. Write sn. O.H. (Hppnd to hv. card by me frm last hol – how dull but plse save for colln.)
Although it had been September, Otis remembered that it had been a day much like this, unseasonably as warm as July. She had said to herself that this was perhaps the most significant day of her life. Certainly the most significant so far. She remembered having been glad that she had decided on her dull red and rust woven skirt and white blouse rather than her favourite white and cream. In the midst of sensible colours and peasant-like weaves like her own, that would have appeared too outrageous for a newcomer. Freshlings were easy to pick out, being the girls who did not call out or fling themselves into one another’s arms, or fall into a delighted hug of reunion.
On arrival she had deposited her belongings in her college lodgings, met no one, and was panicked into thinking she had got something wrong, only to find that living so close she had arrived eagerly early. In the main assembly rooms of the college proper, having read every notice in sight, she sat on an outside wall in the sunshine and watched her future colleagues arrive.
A three-year course. Three years of reading, listening to lectures, discussing and acquiring knowledge. The shiver that went through her was almost erotic. The first stage in making reality of her dream was here.
This is Stockwell. The college that has been almost on her doorstep since she was born. It could have been built here with Otis Hewetson in mind. A college in which women were acceptable. Had she set her heart on reading for a law degree, then she would have been in for a battle with the establishment that would never have been won. As it was, she had determined that she would be a teacher. Not just a teacher. She had closed her eyes at the late summer sun and drifted on, to a day when she received a sealed scroll, to a day when she took rooms in some poor area of London where there was a need of good teachers, to a day when she stood in her first classroom, to when her first pupil passed the entrance exam to a new Oxford or Cambridge women’s college that would be created for daughters of the poor, to the day when she was Miss Otis Hewetson MA, to a day when she stood before an assembly of uniformed girls and addressed them as their new Head.
‘I say.’ The voice that aroused her day-dreams was soft and timid. ‘I’m awfully sorry to bother you.’
Otis opened her eyes to see a young woman of her own age, eyebrows raised and eyes wide as a startled rabbit’s.
‘I’m new. I’ve just arrived. I’m awfully sorry but I don’t know where to go. Could you…?’
‘I’m new too.’
‘I say, are you really? You looked so confident dozing there in the sun that I was sure that you must be in your final year…’
‘Thank heaven,’ Otis said. ‘I thought that I must look such a rank beginner that everyone would notice me quivering. I believe that we are masses too early. Come and sit with me.’
‘Are we allowed?’
‘I don’t know, but I doubt if we shall be sent to the Head for it.’
The girl laughed. ‘No, I suppose we shan’t. It is going to take some getting used to… you know, being responsible.’
‘I’m Otis Hewetson. How d’you do?’
‘Catherine Campbell… I’m pleased to meet you. I saw your name – Otis… easily remembered – we are in the same place of residence. You are next to my friend who can’t get here until tomorrow.’
‘You have a friend starting at the same time?’
‘Oh yes, we always planned to keep together.’
Otis thought of Esther, caught in the web of duty that had been spun for her and from which she would not attempt to escape.
It had been in an attempt to try to revive something of the old Esther that Otis had arranged this Easter bicycling holiday in the Trossachs. This time, though, she did not attempt interviewing Inspector Moth, but wrote him a polite letter asking that he persuade Esther to accompany her on this tour. Equally politely, he had replied that he was pleased for his daughter to spend a few weeks in such healthful pursuits. Not only had he engaged a temporary housekeeper, he had also ordered a new bicycle for Esther, and hoped that the two friends would enjoy themselves and return to London invigorated.
As they pedalled their way back towards their lodgings at the end of that day, Esther Moth felt more at ease than she had done in ages.
No one at home ever wanted to talk of her mother. Her father immersed himself in his work and went from the house, often for days at a time. No one could say that he neglected the physical needs of his family: he had engaged a nursemaid for Kitt and was never mean with the money with which Esther kept house. But he disliked talk of Anne, telling Esther when she put flowers before her mother’s portrait on her birthday that she must not be sentimental, or, as when she told little Kitt stories about her own childhood, that she must not dwell upon the past.
Jack was seriously studying law and, whilst he would occasionally mention their mother, he rarely had time to listen to Esther who did not wish her memory of her mother to become dry and shrivelled. So t
hat these Trossach days with Otis, who didn’t think her morbid or maudlin if she talked about her mother, were like water to her parched memory.
As on several occasions over the last week, talk of the past turned to talk of the future, when Otis yet again tried to get Esther to talk about her forthcoming marriage to Bindon Blood, the lieutenant – now captain – who had fallen in love with Esther that fateful night in Southsea.
Everyone had agreed that the young officer had been wonderful on that occasion in the way he had taken command of the situation.
He had given orders to hotel staff to clear the room and close it off to the public, and had himself run to fetch a doctor he knew of who lived in the vicinity. All through the night he had sat with Esther and Jack in an ante-room in the nursing home whilst their father had waited to see whether the flickering flame of Anne Moth’s life would burn. It was the handsome young lieutenant too who had had a carriage standing at the ready to carry the forlorn family back to Garden Cottage and had helped Nancy Dickenson see to their physical needs.
Anne Moth’s frail baby had had to be cared for in the nursing home for six weeks, during which time Esther and Jack continued to stay on in Garden Cottage with Nancy in attendance.
Lieutenant Blood, being in barracks at Southsea, continued to be of great comfort and assistance to them. Inspector Moth showed his gratitude by welcoming the officer to his home whenever he was in London which, once Esther had returned home with baby Kitt, was as often as Captain Blood could manage.
Having once saved George Moth’s life, as well as being a tower of strength in time of crisis, the obliging and kindly officer, having no immediate family of his own, found a place in that of the Moths. If Esther Moth did not love the dark-haired, olive-complexioned, serious young officer quite as much as he loved her, she certainly loved him, and was endlessly grateful for the concern he showed for them all in their time of crisis. How could she have done otherwise than accept him when he had produced a diamond and opal ring?
Now, in a few months’ time, in the summer of 1914, she would be married to him.
But to Otis Hewetson it all seemed to be such a waste of a girl who would have made such a good professional woman. Heaven knew, the world was short enough of them. Even so, she took a great interest in her friend’s forthcoming career as a wife.
‘But won’t you ever have a home of your own?’
‘Windsor Villa is my own home.’
‘You know what I mean, you and Bindon, together, alone.’
‘Perhaps one day, when Kitt is a schoolboy. But with a house the size of Windsor Villa, we shall virtually have our own apartment within it. If we took a place of our own, it would have to be close to the barracks or there would be little point, and if I were to take Kitt, then he would miss Father and Jack. As it is, Bindon can be in London in a couple of hours, Jack and Father need not be put about by having some strange woman house-keep for them, and Kitt can grow up in Windsor Villa as Jack and I did. Mother loved living close to the Heath, she would have wanted Kitt to grow up there. And Bindon prefers a London house anyway.’
And what about Esther? Otis longed to say. Does Esther want to continue as mistress of Windsor Villa, as housekeeper to Inspector Moth, as foster-mother to Kitt and Jack? Doesn’t she want to be a bride in a home of her own choice, unencumbered by ready-made domestic responsibilities? But Otis did not say any such thing, suspecting that it would be heartless to force her own boat-rocking philosophies about independence upon Esther. Esther seemed able to cope better with the status quo. And in any case, Esther’s selflessness often made Otis feel self-centred, and guilty because of it.
‘So long as you don’t forget that you were once Esther Moth,’ was all that Otis allowed herself to say.
‘But I shall not be. I shall be Mrs Major Blood.’
‘Esther! A major?’
Esther flushed and smiled as though it was she who was to be promoted. ‘We believe so, and in time for the wedding.’
The road became steep so they dismounted and pushed their heavy iron bicyles along. It was late in the afternoon, but the sun was quite hot for the time of year, and dust rose at every footstep; a bank on the north side was green and gave off the fresh smell of moss. Had one of her Stockwell College friends been with her, then Otis would have said something about the air being flavoured with pepper and salt, and they would have contradicted, and each given their own interpretation of the smell of the air in which pollen, dust and moss mingled. But, because Esther had joined the domestic ranks, such a comment would have seemed too self-consciously outré.
Of all the friends, and she had gained many during her time at Stockwell, she still retained her greatest affection for Esther. There were times when they did not see one another for weeks, yet as soon as Otis was in Esther’s company she could relax. This holiday in particular had done much to forge their already strong bonds.
‘Stop, Esther.’ Spontaneously, Otis dropped her bicycle, put her arms about her friend’s slim shoulders, and kissed her fiercely on both cheeks. ‘Why have I never told you that you are my very favourite person. I think that if I were Bindon Blood then I should want to marry you.’
Colour suffused Esther’s neck and she held herself a little away from her friend’s embrace. ‘Otis! What on earth do you mean? You are not… I mean, you are not an… unnatural woman?’
Now, holding her friend at arm’s length, Otis smiled. ‘Would it change things between us if I were? Several of my Stockwell friends are.’
‘Of course it would, but I am sure that you are not. You are not, are you? Otis, don’t play the fool with me. You did not mean that, did you?’
‘No, dearest Miss Moth, for my sins I am fixed on the male of the species, although when I see my women friends in the company of their women partners, I am a little envious of the ease of their lives. But as for you and me… what I mean is that you are sweet and kind and self-sacrificing and you never think of yourself and I am afraid that when you are set up with Bindon, then I shall never see Esther Moth again. What I mean is that you are such a very nice person and that I feel that I must tell you. Why are we all so afraid of owning up to our feelings about those we love best. I wonder if any man at all deserves you – and yet you plan to give yourself to four of the brutes.’
‘That is no hardship – for I love them all. And shame on you, Otis. How can you say that little Kitt is a brute?’
Retrieving her machine, Otis smiled fondly at the thought of the featherweight, stick-armed little boy, whose serious application to puzzles and games delighted her on the occasions when Esther had brought him to visit in Otis’s room.
‘True, for the present Kitt is only an honorary brute – a kitty-brute.’
Not, she thought, a rogue like his father. And, as always when the image of George Moth flashed into her mind, her thighs became taut and a tremor ran over her breast. The times she had wished that it had been Jack Moth who had stooped over her, enveloped her in his long arms, Jack who had felt the outline of her figure, breathed heavily and forced her lips apart.
In these modern times she might have, as had some of her faster friends, taken a lover. Taken Jack Moth briefly until she had worked him out of her system. The recurring problem of the father had no solution unless and until something equally erotic obliterated the memory of that brief moment of mutual passion. As for Jack Moth, he was friendly on the few occasions when they met, but he still treated her in the brotherly way that he had always done.
Of course the one person with whom Otis wanted to talk of her entangled feelings was Esther, but of course she was one person with whom this was impossible.
Once Esther’s normal good spirits had returned, the two friends talked and laughed their way through the rest of their holiday, and returned to London refreshed and as brown-skinned as hop-pickers – Esther to her wedding arrangements, and Otis to her final term and the world of professional women.
ANNOUNCEMENT OF DEATH
CLERMONT –
MAJOR GENERAL SIR NORBERT CLERMONT, LATE OF THE HUSSARS (THE RED BRUNSWICKERS). SUDDENLY IN LONDON. PRIVATE BURIAL SERVICE IN FAMILY CHAPEL.
REQUEST NO FLORAL TRIBUTES
Although Jack Moth – as did Otis and her women friends, and as did many modern young men in universities and colleges – earnestly discussed politics and world affairs, he did not, in that same spring of 1914, foresee his own future, except in wig and gown, swishing dramatically through the Inns of Court in London.
Although in 1911, whilst menaced by no power, Germany had greatly increased her army by the adoption of an Army Act, followed by further acts in 1912 and 1913, Jack Moth had no idea that these measures meant anything more personal to him than did Sinn Fein and the Irish problem. In 1914, Jack Moth was not alone in assuming that such machinations of certain rogue governments were a matter for other governments rather than for individuals.
Although Russia worked at the construction of military railways and armament factories; although Belgium secretly adopted compulsory measures, and France lengthened the period of its own military service and deployed its navy in the Mediterranean, and although British naval strength was now concentrated in the North Sea where Germany’s navy was massed, it did not occur to Jack Moth that the ominously drawn forces of the Great Powers of Europe were to have any effect upon his personal life. There was talk of war, but war was fought by professional soldiers. His future brother-in-law, Bindon Blood, would probably see active service, but Jack Moth’s destiny was as a great advocate. Not yet, of course, he was still only in his early twenties, but that was his plan and ambition.
Somewhere entwined in his plan for the future was Victoria Ormorod. When he envisaged the distinguished Mr Justice Moth, he saw him accompanied by the noble profile of the judge’s copper-headed lady.
During the last three years, during which time he had seldom seen her, and then only by attending her meetings and taking her somewhere for supper or tea, his youthful head-over-heels love had been changed to a kind of warm devotion. Had he been asked to put into words what his feelings were for Victoria, he would probably have found it impossible. Only that they were always present: not disturbing, nor intrusive to his studies, but he was alive to her, aware of her presence on this planet at this time. Above all, he had the notion that she was, like himself, marking time till the appropriate moment when their lives should merge. He was in no position to ask anything of her yet.