by Carol Rivers
‘Brigid,’ Don said eventually, as if just waking from a dream, ‘what are you doing here?’
‘The same as you, I should imagine,’ replied Birdie tightly, and suddenly felt anything but carefree. Here was her betrothed, or very nearly – once anyway, in the not too distant past, her sweetheart, her adored, now her very-much-missed – here he was in the company of Lydia again, a repeat performance, obviously! And hard on the heels of this deduction, Birdie recalled all the Sunday afternoons that had passed, and many cancelled too, when she had been made to hurry her walks out with him. She’d been fearful that his time was so precious, but here – here he was – sauntering along the East India Dock Road, which had been quite off-limits to her, as it would take another half-hour to arrive from March Street. Here was the man she worshipped, another female hand clamped possessively to his arm.
It all but took the wind out of her sails, but she managed somehow to compose herself. ‘It’s such a fine day,’ she blustered, raising her chin and glancing imperiously at Lydia. ‘And where else would a person come to while away such a glorious Sunday afternoon?’ She turned slightly, hoping that Lydia would notice, beneath her coat, the fine frill of her own rose-red dress, a frill that gave a certain bounce when moved just right. ‘In fact,’ Birdie continued, hardly knowing what the next word would be that came out of her mouth, ‘the tram will be leaving very soon to take us, as an added treat, up West.’ Birdie glanced over her shoulder in as graceful a manner as she could. ‘Oh, look, Harry, we’ve only a few moments before its departure.’
Lydia said nothing, but Don gave a kind of suffocated gasp that he soon corrected with a loud clearing of his throat. But Birdie pressed on with her breezy, couldn’t-care-less attitude, for what right had he to protest at her, when caught in the act himself?
‘Goodbye then,’ she said airily, not forgetting to give a sweet and genuine smile to James, who returned hers shyly.
For a few seconds her legs felt about to collapse, but she gripped Harry so keenly, she managed to cross the busy road. She didn’t glance back, but walked with what she hoped looked as much grace and dignity as Lydia had possessed in that camel-coloured coat, made of such quality cloth that even the ladies of Hailing House would have admired it.
Harry sat quietly after paying the conductor for their tickets, their exit from East India Dock Road to the tram bound for Aldgate making him almost breathless. Birdie had whisked them aboard the first tram they had come upon, and, pushing past everyone, grabbed a seat by the window. Here she had craned her neck so violently to search for Don and Lydia that he was surprised she was able to turn it back again. She’d given him a full description of the scene she could see from the window, which included the lacklustre trio making their way in the opposite direction.
But now her manner was subdued. The urgency had all but vanished, leaving just a faint frown on her forehead.
Harry decided he would maintain the silence and allow her to gather her thoughts. But after a while, he said softly, ‘So, that was a surprise. Meeting them all like that.’
He received a ponderous nod, leaving him none the wiser as the shops passed by: the fried fish shop, the bespoke tailor, a smell of saveloys and faggots wafting from a stall, and the stink of the Charlie Brown’s tavern with its upper windows open wide. Then a photographers, and a watch-repairer’s, and a big gap until the gas company showroom, next to the eel and pie shop advertising cheap Saturday suppers to take away to the Grand Cinema down the road.
Harry noted that Birdie was not seeing all this busy life. Her eyes were fixed in space and a tiny pulse beat at her temples. Her brown hair haloed her face and hung charmingly to her shoulders. Every now and then her face was softened by a beam of sunshine penetrating the glass.
Harry was amazed to find himself wanting to protect her, to shield her. Yet what right had he to feel like this? He knew nothing about women, well, no more than most unmarried men knew. He’d gone out with a few girls, enjoyed their company but never wanted to marry. But then, he’d entered the world without parentage. He had grown, or tried to grow, a thick skin after the loss of his friends, one by one, at the orphanage. Johnny Smart was the last, who’d not been smart enough to beat the diphtheria. Then Macedonia, 1917. Their trench, overlooked by hidden guns in the mountains, became a grave. Jack Solomon, Josias Newby, Fred Lovell . . . he’d come to know them like brothers. After that, he’d never got close again, not to anyone. Until earlier this year. And the day he’d taken lodgings with the Connors.
Harry glanced at Birdie’s profile once more. Pondering on what might be going through her mind, he inclined his head.
‘A surprise, indeed, it must have been for you,’ he tried again. ‘And a surprise you might have avoided, had I not had the bright idea of tempting you out.’ For a second or two there was no response, but then she turned, her face an exclamation in itself.
‘Oh, but Harry, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!’
‘You wouldn’t?’
‘This afternoon has put me right, so it has,’ she said as if he should know it. ‘Did you see the way she clung to him? Staring me straight in the eye, she was, with never a blink. Like it was the regular thing to be walking out with my man. Like she was something more to him . . . more than – oh, well, now I’ve seen it, I’ll say it. Like she was his girl!’ She caught her breath, almost painfully. ‘Did you see it, Harry? Did you?’
Harry opened his mouth to reply – he wasn’t quite sure in what manner – but she rushed on, her lashes blinking fast as she spoke.
‘And the Dock Road, of all places! A street so full of interesting things on a Sunday afternoon, and Don always saying to me there was not time enough to go there. And I always content to walk to the park instead, thinking how lucky I was to have got even that!’
Harry saw her upset and answered with a touch of diplomacy. ‘Yes, but I suppose you could say that Poplar High Street and the Thornes’ shop are closer to the East India Dock Road than March Street.’
Birdie’s gasp was loud. ‘Then why shouldn’t we have the whole day together to do such things?’ She twisted fully in her seat to face him. ‘Can you answer me that?’
Harry shook his head silently.
‘Two hours in a week of seven days! How can anyone be expected to do anything of value in two hours?’
Harry mumbled his agreement, taken aback by the colour that had sprung to Birdie’s cheeks and the fiery light dancing in her eyes. And when she pulled back her shoulders even tighter, indicating more was to come, Harry braced himself.
‘And what about me wedding day?’ she asked, her eyes as round as saucers. ‘Can I see that now as being real? Can you answer me that?’ She shook her head firmly, needing no response. He was intrigued to see brown wisps of hair curling around her pink face, as though electrified. ‘Was that date ever really settled? Or has Lydia hoodwinked him, thrown off those widow’s weeds in order to set her cap at my man? With Stephen only gone in ’seventeen, as well. But then, in all fairness, if it was another suitor, I’d have congratulated her. But it was my Don she wanted all along. My Don! Bejesus, Harry, the cheek of it.’
Harry thought it wise not to comment. His own feelings on the matter anyway, weren’t quite those of Birdie. For though the widow may have hoodwinked Donald Thorne, was he not man enough to ward off her advances? True, it could be said that she might have had him in her sights after her husband’s death, but for Donald Thorne, wasn’t it a convenient arrangement to have two strings to his bow, until finally he decided just which one he would settle for? And from what Birdie had told him – how he lived for the business and she lived for it too – didn’t they have a powerful lot in common? But to express such a feeling at the moment, he gauged, was inappropriate.
Another view he would keep to himself was that Birdie was a deal better off for Lydia’s intervention. Marrying into the store, in his humble opinion, was like putting a rope around a throat and winding it slowly tighter.
S
uddenly she slumped back, peering up at him with defeated eyes. ‘She did look a lady, though. A real lady in that camel coat and all its pretty bits.’
Harry shrugged lightly, again choosing his answer carefully. ‘I couldn’t tell in a five-minute view.’
She took in a sharp breath. ‘Oh, I forgot, you don’t know her?’
‘No, though I feel some recognition – from your excellent descriptions.’
‘I hope I haven’t coloured a bad picture.’
‘Not at all.’
‘If I’d remembered me manners, I would have introduced you.’
He smiled. ‘And who should I have been introduced as?’
Without hesitation she answered. ‘Me friend, of course.’
Harry thought of the jealous expression he’d seen on the shopkeeper’s face. ‘I rather think you wouldn’t have been much believed,’ he ventured, ‘for what you’re thinking of them, he’s no doubt thinking of you.’
He feared he might have gone too far as she clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘You don’t think – that he thought – that you and me . . .?’
‘I’m afraid I do.’
‘But we are only—’
‘Good friends,’ he nodded, wondering if he should add, ‘and I your lodger’.
‘Our walking was innocent,’ she protested. ‘And what does he think I’m to do, whilst he’s entertaining another woman? Does he expect me to hide indoors for the rest of my life and become an old maid?’
‘You’d never be that.’
‘But I might be. If left up to him,’ she decided firmly. ‘All those hours he’s spent with her when he could have been with me. And it was only a small disagreement we’d had. One we could easily have made up . . . if I had agreed to . . .’ She fell into a slump again, her lips working in a distressed way, and Harry knew she was thinking of Frank.
‘Yes, there’s always another way to do a thing,’ Harry concurred, much against the grain, for he harboured no liking at all for Donald Thorne, who seemed to be both a fool and a weakling. But he hated to see Birdie so torn. ‘It just takes a bit of thinking out. Turning the problem on its head, perhaps.’
‘But I’ve turned it, Harry,’ she admitted softly, twisting her fingers in her lap. ‘And I don’t know as I could put Frank from me life, not even for Don, not even for marriage.’ She added with a little rush, ‘Unless Don could take back what he said.’
Harry wondered at how Donald Thorne could have said what he did. If you loved someone, you loved them, warts and all. There was a special girl here, deserving a medal for the way she cared for kith and kin. Couldn’t that fickle and foolish fellow not see what he was losing?
‘Harry?’ She squeezed his arm.
He looked down into her face and took a deep swallow as the unexpected softness inside him took over.
‘Harry, do you think I’m wrong to stand by me brother? I mean, it could be the devil of a thing in respect of Pat. And if Dad was to find out, he’d probably get a seizure and what would I do then – if it was really bad and it was me who caused it?’ She paused, her face full of concern. ‘You and I are friends. Tell me what I should do. For despite me protests against the widow, I know it’s only meself that’s sent her into Don’s arms. It’s my fault she’s there. And I know equally that if I went to Don and told him I’d do as he says, I could win him back – sure I could!’
Harry hadn’t expected that. She had seemed so strong for family. And what was it to him? Who was he to decide on another’s life? Instead he took a breath and pushed down his strong dislike of the man who was causing this lovely girl so much distress. ‘Even the best of friends can’t advise the other what to do,’ he told her gruffly. ‘Ask yourself what you really want, Birdie. Find the answer in your heart, then act on it.’
He saw her think on this, her head sunk down and her fingers returning to their agitation in her lap. But then she looked up and smiled, and when the tram stopped, Harry saw they had arrived at Ludgate Hill. He suggested they find a bus to take them to the Strand and to Piccadilly where they might take yet another stroll. Birdie was eager to agree and he was relieved to find that the cloud that had settled around them on East India Dock Road had disappeared. Though he feared that, in due course, it might very well appear again.
Chapter 20
The days that followed were cold, with showers of freezing rain that chilled through to the bone. Birdie set aside her worries to continue the task of Lady Annabelle’s frock. But each time she ran her fingers over the luxurious fabric, she found herself recalling that other very fine cloth, moulded to Lydia’s elegant figure.
Her resentful thoughts persisted, gurgling away like the gutters outside, drenched from the downpours. All the while Don and Lydia and little James seemed locked in her thoughts, she wrestled with her conscience over Frank. She’d hoped that Harry might have more to say on the matter of her tangled romance as they’d strolled down the Strand that Sunday evening and made their way to the Embankment. But not a word more had been said on the matter, and now she was still in a state of indecision.
All week she worked on Annabelle’s dress and before she knew it Christmas had arrived.
At Mass on Christmas morning, she gave Flo and the girls their presents. ‘It’s just a few sweets and colouring books,’ Birdie said apologetically.
‘Just what we want,’ chorused Emily and Enid.
‘Come back and see Reg,’ Flo persuaded. ‘He wants to give you a Christmas kiss.’ Everyone laughed as they stood in the drizzle outside church. ‘And you can tell me properly what happened in the Dock Road.’
‘I told you it in church,’ sighed Birdie as they set off under Flo’s umbrella. As they’d sat at the back under the choir gallery, Birdie had whispered her news during the Credo. But Flo always wanted the finer details.
‘Strikes me, Don was put out at seeing you with Harry,’ Flo smiled happily.
‘Harry’s me friend and a good one at that,’ Birdie protested. ‘Anyway, I don’t care what Don thinks after seeing him with her.’
‘Yes you do. Or else you wouldn’t be thinking about him.’
‘I want to know about us – one way or the other.’
Flo gave a snort of disgust as they turned into Ayle Street. ‘It wasn’t only your dreams of a church wedding he ended,’ Flo muttered as she pulled up the string from the letter box and opened the door. ‘There was two little girls that couldn’t wait to be bridesmaids, you know.’
Birdie felt sad about that. Even more so as Enid and Emily gave her their gifts: two drawings of the church, and them in their lemon dresses, with Birdie dressed all in white.
‘Oh, they’re beautiful,’ Birdie said guiltily, promising herself she would make them pretty dresses, anyway.
When big, burly Reg appeared with Flo’s apron wrapped round him, or at least half of it, they fell into fits. He ushered them all into the warm, steamy kitchen, which smelled of boiled cabbage and roasting chicken. ‘There’s a port wine, if you’d like it,’ he said, giving Birdie a wink. ‘It’s Christmas, after all.’
‘No, I’ve got to get home and cook the dinner.’
He poured her a cup of tea instead. ‘Come on now, everyone, let’s get into the spirit.’ Both he and Flo shared an ale.
In the front room they sat round the Christmas tree. The children had made paper decorations and tied little bows on the branches. They didn’t have much, Birdie thought, but they were happy. The girls were satisfied with their colouring books, and played in front of the roaring fire. Birdie looked around as she quickly drank her tea. This was a real happy family and she was envious.
Emily and Enid sat on her knee and cuddled up and asked once again if they were going to have pretty dresses made for them. Birdie and Flo exchanged glances, but Birdie could see the hurt look in Flo’s eyes and even though the girls were only young, they had been looking forward so much to being little princesses for one day.
When Birdie arrived home, even Harry hadn’t gone to work as it
was Christmas Day. Pat was mooning around with a long face and Wilfred was smoking in the parlour, but quickly put out his roll-up when Birdie appeared.
‘Is dinner ready?’
‘No, but it won’t be long.’ She had cooked a chicken yesterday, a very small one, and was going to carve it cold to make it look more on the plate. She only had the vegetables to cook.
Birdie hadn’t been able to afford a tree, but she had wrapped presents for everyone. They opened them after the meal, sitting round the fire: a scarf for her father, warm woollen socks for Pat and Harry. They were all she had been able to afford. Her father hadn’t been able to buy anything, but Pat gave her a new set of needles and a thimble. ‘Didn’t know what else to get you,’ he grinned.
‘Just what I want.’
Harry gave her a brooch, a lucky black cat and she was very surprised. She blushed as he helped her to pin it on her dress.
‘I hope it brings me good luck,’ she smiled into his eyes.
‘If it don’t, I’ll take it back and complain,’ Harry grinned.
‘It’s a miserable day,’ said Wilfred dejectedly as they huddled round the fire. ‘What are we going to do?’
Harry came up with the idea to play cards first, then dominoes. The afternoon passed pleasantly but Birdie wondered what Don was doing, and found it difficult to concentrate.
‘The rain won’t last.’ Harry’s voice broke into her thoughts. He was staring through the window and patting his pockets restlessly after finishing his game of dominoes with Pat. ‘Look, the kids are out, even on Christmas Day.’