Comfort Me With Apples

by Comfort Me

  ‘Yes, but there’s so much stuff. Fifteen little tables I counted in the front parlour alone and every one full of knick-knacks.’

  ‘That’s no problem. There’s a jumble sale at the church in a few weeks and the rest can go to Con Doolan, you know, the second-hand dealer. You won’t have any trouble. They’ll be fighting to get their hands on them,’ said Frances.

  ‘And the furniture?’ James said. ‘There’s so much. You know we talked about selling this house once before and you thought I should put the money for it with that – that nest egg and rent a house…’

  ‘Yes, I thought you could rent a house and keep the money for when you was getting married and settling down,’ Frances said.

  James smiled. ‘I don’t know when that will be,’ he said. ‘But the point is, this furniture is too big for a smaller house and anyway I’d rather get rid of it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be rushing to sell it,’ Frances said. ‘As I said before, this house might suit someone that would want to take the furniture and all. It’d cost a lot to furnish it if it was empty.’

  James shook his head and smiled ruefully. ‘You can see why I need your help,’ he said, then he picked up a fork and began to draw patterns on the table cloth, unable to look at Frances. ‘Er, I don’t know how to say this, Frances,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t want me in the new house.’

  His head jerked up. ‘No!’ he almost shouted. ‘Just the opposite. Frances, I don’t know your circumstances, how badly you are needed at home, but I wanted to ask if you could… Have you ever thought of living in?’

  She sat looking at him, for once unable to speak, and James went on, ‘You see I want to take a house that would suit you as well as me. I’ve heard there’s some being built on Kensington Fields but they might be too far for you. I don’t mind where I go really, as long as you’re willing to keep looking after me. I’d be lost without you, Frances, but I don’t want to be selfish if your family need you.’

  The fact that she had even considered that she would be unwelcome made him able to speak freely and honestly but he was shocked to see that Frances was struggling with tears. In the end, she wept openly and he went to sit beside her to try to comfort her.

  Finally, she wiped her eyes and said shakily, ‘I only give the offices a lick and a promise and rushed back here, I was that worried about what you wanted to talk about when you left that note. I thought maybe you’d found out you had something terrible wrong with you and you was going to die. And I thought perhaps you were fed up with me. You’ve been a bit funny with me lately.’

  ‘Oh, Frances, you make me feel ashamed,’ James exclaimed. ‘I’ve been like that in the office too but I’ll be different from now on, I promise. What do you think of that idea – is it possible or, more to the point, would you want to?’

  ‘“Living in”, you mean,’ said Frances, then she smiled and said simply, ‘I’d be glad to.’

  ‘And your family won’t mind?’ James said.

  ‘My family,’ Frances said bitterly, ‘will be glad to see the back of me. My brother’s wife has wished me dead for years.’

  ‘Surely not!’ James exclaimed, horrified.

  She went on, ‘I heard her say to him she thought my sort died young but I was hanging on to spite her.’

  James was too dumbfounded to speak and she explained. ‘I’ve got four brothers, see, and I was the last and the only girl. “The runt of the litter”, my father called me. He was a horrible man, a selfish bully. Everything had to be done to suit him. My poor mother was a sick woman for years but he still expected her to wait on him. We were all glad when he died but then my eldest brother and his wife moved in.’

  ‘But when was this?’ James asked.

  ‘Thirteen years ago my father died and they moved in. Me brother thought he’d be the new master of the house but it’s his wife that wears the trousers. My mother hardly left her bed after that and I nursed her but gradually we got moved further and further up the house when my brother had children. Ma died not long before your Ma and I got moved to the attic. That’s when I heard my sister-in-law say that about me.’

  ‘Good God,’ was all James could say.

  Frances immediately began to talk about possible houses. ‘You won’t want to leave the parish, will you?’ she said. ‘But there’s plenty of good houses to rent round about. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open.’

  The clearance of the house was quickly organised. The ladies of the parish who were running the jumble sale were invited to select anything useful to them and Frances watched cynically as they flitted about, avidly examining the silver or plush photograph frames, the ornaments and tall vases.

  There was a quantity of jade and some ivory but Frances had prudently moved items that she thought James should keep into the kitchen.

  ‘They brought a man with a handcart but they finished up with a horse and cart, they took that much,’ she told James later. ‘Things like them small tables and whatnots and the fish kettle and preserving pans you won’t have room for. That Miss Furlong, y’know, the auntie, she was one of the worst. She got into the kitchen while my back was turned and I found her with her head in a cupboard, looking at the china.’

  ‘I thought you made the kitchen out of bounds,’ James said.

  Frances said grimly, ‘I did and so I told her. I said I thought they had so much already they wouldn’t need jumble from anywhere else and I didn’t know how it would fit on the stalls. She went as red as fire.’

  ‘She was just enthusiastic, I suppose,’ James said, unwilling to criticise anyone connected with Dorrie.

  Frances snorted. ‘If a quarter of that stuff reaches the stalls I’ll be surprised,’ she said. ‘I just hope they watch each other and make each other pay a fair price.’

  ‘I think you’re too hard on them, Frances,’ James said. ‘I’m sure they’re all good women. Anyhow, I’m glad to get rid of the stuff.’

  James had suggested that Frances moved into one of the empty rooms immediately, to be on hand for the business of moving. He also suggested that she gave up her office jobs, as she was now a housekeeper and must be paid accordingly. It was quickly arranged and Frances furnished the room with pieces she liked from the house, chosen with a view to fitting them in a smaller home.

  The next day the second-hand dealer came and with the walls bare and the floors uncluttered it already seemed like an empty house to James when he returned from the office.

  Frances found a house to rent in Cresswell Street, off Everton Road, with a small front garden and a bay window, and a flagged path running from the gate to where three steps rose to the front door.

  James was pleased with it until he saw a circular metal plate set midway up the path. ‘Is there a cellar?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, a coal cellar. The coal can be tipped in there but some people store coal in the backyard instead,’ the landlord’s agent said.

  ‘But the cellar’s still there. I don’t want a house with a cellar,’ said James. But the man insisted on showing him the inside of the house and James agreed that it was nice. There was a long hall with stairs rising at the end, a bright parlour with the bay window to the front and a kitchen-cum-living room with a blackleaded grate. There was also a flagged back-kitchen with a sink and a tap and a clothes boiler. In the large yard was a WC and a coalplace.

  ‘There you are,’ the agent said and as they went through the back-kitchen he opened the door to a space under the stairs. ‘That’s the entrance to the cellar,’ he said. ‘If you store things there it’ll be covered over.’ But James was adamant.

  ‘I don’t want a house with a cellar,’ he said and eventually a house was found in Eastbourne Street. It was a solid house with large rooms. There were three good-sized bedrooms and a boxroom which had been converted to a bathroom. There were attics but no cellars.

  The man who showed James round seemed surprised that he had asked Frances to accompany them and he said gloomily, ‘The people who had it
before were very arty, like. All this white paint and that puts people off but I suppose they never thought about it showing the dirt.’

  ‘What do you think, Frances?’ James said and she replied chirpily, ‘If the dirt’s there, I’d rather see it and get rid of it.’

  ‘It’s the brightness of the house that I like,’ James said. ‘Can we decide now? I’m willing to pay six months’ rent in advance.’

  ‘And key money,’ Frances put in.

  The man shook his head. ‘My guv’nor never asks for key money,’ he said proudly. ‘I’ll have to ask you to come to the office, sir. He likes to meet his tenants and there’s paperwork, rent book and that to be done. Could you come now, sir? It’s not far.’

  James agreed and the transaction was soon completed. The landlord told James that he had known his father as a young man and added, ‘You’ve got a look of him.’ This pleased James greatly and they parted very cordially. The men in the office were surprised that the landlord had not required references, especially from a young single man, but James had a warm feeling that the landlord’s regard for his father had made them superfluous.

  He sold his own house without difficulty to a woman who wanted to open a boarding house and was pleased to obtain the large, heavy furniture cheaply. Frances took the furniture she had earmarked for her bedroom but James took only a writing desk, which had belonged to his father, and some china and kitchen utensils.

  He gradually filled his new house with furniture and fittings of his own, suited to the bright rooms with their light walls and paintwork.

  It seemed like a fresh start and he felt that he had left many burdens behind in the old house but although he understood the reasons for his malady it was too deep-seated for him to recover easily.

  ‘Your body has healed but it’ll take longer for your mind,’ Dr O’Brien told him. ‘You’ll still have these morbid feelings at times but they’ll grow fewer. The thing is to keep busy.’

  James felt that it was easier to be cheerful in the new house, where there was still much to do, and Frances was so happy that it raised his own spirits.

  She had promoted her Sunday shawl and hat to be her everyday wear, in honour of her new status, and as often as possible she shopped where she could see and be seen by friends and neighbours of her sister-in-law. She told James with glee that her brother’s wife had said, ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ when Frances had told her she was leaving. ‘But then she had second thoughts. She realised she’ll miss my rent money and although I’m not as useful to them now as when the children were little I’m still useful sometimes.’

  ‘But you’re not sorry to leave?’ James said.

  ‘What! That’s a joke,’ Frances laughed. ‘You know, she even said I recommended strangers for my office jobs and never thought about the family. I just looked at her and I said, “How was I to know you wanted the job? You told me once your girls were ashamed of me cleaning offices. You think they wouldn’t be ashamed of you doing it?” I was made up to get that dig in and she didn’t know where to look.’

  James listened, smiling. Although it sounded out of character for Frances, he felt she was entitled to be a bit catty and to crow over her brother’s wife after all she had suffered at her hands.

  During the worst of his depression, James had often gone into the church to try to find comfort and strength and several times he had seen Anna Furlong there, kneeling alone, with her hands covering her face. Sunk in his own misery he had felt no curiosity about her but soon after the move to the new house he went into church one day to give thanks.

  A few people were dotted about, a man making the Stations of the Cross, several women with shawls drawn over their heads, kneeling in prayer, and others flitting about the altar with flowers. James went into a side chapel and knelt down, then realised that Anna Furlong was kneeling a few rows in front of him.

  With her shoulders bowed and her hands covering her face, she could have been deep in prayer but with his new awareness of people James was sure that she was weeping bitterly. She had obviously chosen this secluded corner for privacy and James rose and silently moved away.

  For the first time, he realised that, deep and bitter though his own pain had been when Dorrie married, others were suffering too and he began to think about what it must have meant to Anna. He felt ashamed of his self-absorption.

  Chapter Ten

  It was true that the summer following Dorrie’s wedding had been a most miserable time for Anna. She had expected to miss Dorrie but not nearly as much as she did. Loyalty to her family meant that there was now no one with whom she could discuss the situation in the Furlong household, the daily bickering between her mother and her aunt and the petty manoeuvring to gain an advantage.

  Even in letters to Dorrie she had to be circumspect because the letters would probably be shown to Michael. It had all been so much easier to bear, she thought, when she could talk things over with her sister, even make a joke about them. She missed Dorrie in every way, from when she woke each morning to the fresh pain of remembering that her sister had gone and would never again be there when she woke, to when she went to bed alone, with no one with whom to discuss the day.

  Most of all, she missed being able to discuss her worries about Eugene. She had hoped for so much from the wedding day, and at first she had been very happy, but later he had made little effort to be with her. She had been kept busy attending to the guests but he could have helped her, or at least stayed by her side, yet he had spent the time with the crew of her father’s ship. Then he had made his sudden departure, saying that he had to return to Caterham, surprising the O’Briens as well as herself.

  She had been reassured by Mrs O’Brien’s words about Eugene’s financial position, and her hint that he would be unable to propose until he had established himself by his own efforts, but now doubts crept in.

  Surely, if that was the reason, he would discuss it with her and ask her if she was willing to wait for him, not blow hot and cold without any explanation. There must be some other reason, some secret in Eugene’s past to account for his changes of mood, she thought. It seems he wants to love me but something holds him back.

  If only she could discuss it with Dorrie. Lying in bed with her sister in the friendly darkness it had been possible to speak of all her secret fears and worries, knowing that Dorrie would understand and would find a comforting explanation for Eugene’s behaviour, but she could only hint at her troubles in a letter.

  She hoped that Dorrie might have learned something which would explain Eugene’s strange mood swings but Dorrie only wrote that they saw very little of Eugene. She gave very little information in her letters and this was a fresh worry for Anna, because she feared that her beloved sister was unhappy in her new life.

  Anna had become closer to Isabel Jenson since the wedding and she told her her fears about Dorrie but Isabel dismissed them. ‘Dorrie’s just settling in,’ she said. ‘You know what she’s like, Anna. Shy with people until she gets to know them, then they’re always the best of friends.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Anna agreed. ‘You know, she’s very tactful. She sends letters to Mama, Aunt Clara and myself, all to arrive by the same post. I suppose she says the same to them as to me, that the married quarters are nice, the other soldiers’ wives are nice and the Commanding Officer’s wife is very nice. Then I suppose she adds the personal bit about Mama’s health or Aunt Clara’s church work.’

  ‘Does she say much about Eugene?’ Isabel asked.

  Anna’s face clouded. ‘No. She says they see very little of him,’ she admitted. ‘I think he’s in a different company or something.’

  They were walking down to the sodality meeting, arm in arm, and Anna said impulsively, ‘I don’t know what to make of him, Isabel. Since the wedding his letters have been very formal but suddenly one came last week that was quite different. He quoted poetry, love poetry, and asked me to give his regards to Dr and Mrs O’Brien.’

  ‘Doesn’t he writ
e to them himself?’ Isabel asked.

  ‘Yes, but he often sends messages to them through me. I wish he wouldn’t, really, because you know what Dr O’Brien’s like. Makes me feel really embarrassed.’

  Isabel laughed. ‘He doesn’t mean any harm,’ she said. ‘I think he’d love to see you and Eugene married. But I wouldn’t worry too much about the letters, Anna. I don’t suppose there’s much privacy in army barracks. I think he may write loving letters if he’s alone but more formal ones if other men are nearby.’

  Anna squeezed her arm gratefully. ‘You’re a great comfort to me, Isabel. Sorry to be such a miz. I promise I’ll look on the bright side in future.’

  ‘I think you worry too much about Eugene,’ Isabel said. ‘Don’t forget, Anna, I was there when you met and he was definitely smitten. The way he looked at you. And he’s never stopped writing to you, has he? In all this time.’

  ‘No, that’s true,’ Anna said and she enjoyed the sodality meeting so much that several people asked if she was getting over missing her sister.

  It was not so easy to maintain her high spirits at home, where she could do nothing right. She tried to help Nelly by taking over some of her many tasks but Nelly was offended and Mrs Furlong told Anna to stop upsetting her.

  ‘She can do everything twice as well as you, and in half the time, so don’t interfere,’ she said.

  Anna was so stung by the injustice of this remark that she was unwise enough to retort, ‘You said last week it was wrong that Nelly had so much to do while there was an idle, useless girl like me wasting her time. Now, when I try to help, you tell me not to interfere.’

  The predictable hysterics from her mother followed, and reproaches from her aunt and Nelly, but Anna escaped into the Deagans’ kitchen. ‘If I go out, it doesn’t suit, and if I stay in, I’m in the way, so I may as well do what I want,’ she told Mrs Deagan. ‘The result’s the same.’

  ‘Well, it means one person’s satisfied, anyhow,’ Mrs Deagan said equably. ‘And you’re always welcome here, girlie.’