Comfort Me With Apples

by Comfort Me

  The engagement was to last for eighteen months and Anna promised to help Isabel with the sewing for her bottom drawer.

  There were many other visitors to Rosemount and one of the most frequent was Mrs Mortimer. She enjoyed helping Anna in the garden and they were soon on first-name terms.

  The two men had also grown closer. At Christmas Mr Duggan and Mr Reade, the senior clerks, both retired and James and Henry were promoted. They enjoyed the increased responsibility and also the increase in status and salary. Often the two couples spent the evening together at the theatre or a concert.

  The Mortimers had two sons, Richard, an officer in the Royal Navy, and Robert, who was in France training to be a confectioner. ‘It hasn’t been easy for either of them since they left home,’ Margaret Mortimer told Anna, ‘but they’re doing what they want to do.’

  ‘That’s important, isn’t it?’ Anna said. ‘But it’s unusual for parents to allow it.’

  ‘We couldn’t stop Richard,’ Margaret said, laughing. ‘He was so determined. There was a bursary offered by a Liverpool man for a boy to go to naval college, everything paid for, uniform and everything. He said in his will the Navy needed people with brains, not just from the right families. I could see what he meant when we went for an interview.’

  ‘You went too?’ Anna said.

  ‘Yes. Richard came top in the exam but he still had to pass a board and I went with him. I suppose they wanted to see if I wore clogs and a shawl,’ she said bitterly. ‘Such a collection of snobs. They didn’t want him there. One of them even said it was ridiculous. Why should their boys have to mix with the lower orders at an important time in their lives.’

  ‘The impudence!’ Anna exclaimed. ‘While you were sitting there. As though they would be defiled.’

  ‘They told him the boys all knew each other and so did their families but he would be an outsider. I can’t remember the rest but all things like that. I was ready to fly at them but Richard was quite cool. A nice man leaned forward and said to him, “Wouldn’t that upset you? If you were one among thirty boys and they jeered at your accent or your manners. Said you were uncouth?”’

  Anna looked horrified but Margaret said, ‘I was proud of Richard. He said, “My parents wouldn’t allow me to behave like that and if those boys didn’t know any better I’d despise them.”’ The man asked if he’d tell the boys that and Richard said only if he was asked, so the man said the boys wouldn’t know how Richard felt. He just lifted his head up and said loudly, “No, sir, but I’d know.” The others just sat there with their mouths open but the nice man said, “You’ll do,” and we came out but, Anna, I was so proud. The proudest day of my life.’

  ‘Robert’s doing well too,’Anna said.

  ‘Yes. He wasn’t clever like Richard but he had a flair for making cakes. He went to London first to work in an hotel, and then went to train in France. He had to learn to speak French and he said that was the hardest part. He’s coming home again now,’ Margaret said.

  She glanced uncertainly at Anna and Anna said quickly, ‘I know he’s starting up on his own and James is backing him.’ She laughed at Margaret’s relieved expression and said, ‘It’s all right. James and I have no secrets from each other.’

  Later, when she was alone in her bedroom, she thought that that was not really true. Although there were no actual secrets there were areas which were taboo, topics and situations that they both avoided. Neither of them ever spoke of Dorrie and Anna could only guess at James’s feelings about her from quick glances at his face when he saw her or someone spoke of her.

  A priest who had left Liverpool a few years ago and was returning for a visit had seen Michael in civilian clothes and innocently asked Dr O’Brien, ‘Is your other nephew still in the army?’

  ‘No. Stravaiging about the Continent,’ the doctor said shortly and the priest smoothly changed the subject.

  Anna knew that James was looking at her and was annoyed to find herself blushing. It’s not even as if I care about him, she thought. It’s only because James was watching me.

  Although this was a happy time, with everything going well for them, she often felt unsettled, as though something was missing in her life. It must be seeing Isabel and John so completely happy, so truly in love, she thought. Some of those immortal longings Isabel once spoke about.

  She told herself firmly to count her blessings and enjoy her happy life. Their first wedding anniversary fell on 16 March and James had taken tickets for a concert for them. ‘Just the two of us, unless you’d like to do something different,’ he said but she said it was a perfect plan.

  Soon after he left for the office a huge bouquet of flowers arrived with a card attached. ‘Thank you for a very happy year. Love, James.’

  Her eyes filled with tears and Julia, who had carried the flowers in to her, wept too and blurted out, ‘Isn’t he the grand man entirely? Sure I’m storming heaven every night with prayers ye’ll be soon blessed with little ones.’

  It was an awkward moment and Julia blushed at her lapse in her usual discretion but fortunately Frances came limping in to investigate. Julia hastily retreated and Frances said to Anna, ‘You’ve made a big difference in James, y’know. Twelve months ago he wouldn’t have had the nerve to do this. That old bitch had knocked the stuffing outa him.’

  ‘I don’t know how she ever had a son like him!’ Anna exclaimed but Frances said swiftly, ‘Because he’s all his father. There’s nothing of her in him. That’s why she hated him, but never mind, he’s beat her. He’s happy now.’

  Anna was glad to take her flowers away to arrange them and be alone to think of the comments by Julia and Frances. Poor Julia. Shall I tell her she’s wasting her time praying for children for us? Yet she knows about the separate rooms. Anna found that people spoke more freely before her as a married woman, so now she knew more about the facts of life, but she wondered if Julia was still unaware of them. Or perhaps she thinks James visits my bedroom, she thought, then firmly concentrated on arranging the flowers.

  Dr and Mrs O’Brien called with a gift of wine glasses. ‘We can’t stay but I believe you’re going out tonight,’ the doctor said, ‘so I won’t see my favourite patient but I came to congratulate you, Anna. James is a different man.’

  Anna blushed. ‘The credit must go to Frances,’ she said, ‘and even more to James. He’s fought his own devils.’

  ‘Indeed, but you’ve done most to make him whole again. Not just to bury his past, but to be happy,’ the doctor said.

  ‘He’s done a lot for me too,’ Anna said. ‘I was a wreck when he married me last year.’

  ‘So you’ve been good for each other and that’s grand,’ Mrs O’Brien said briskly. ‘Come along, Paddy. Have a fine time tonight, Anna, you and James.’

  Anna smiled as the doctor was marched firmly away. His wife evidently thought his remarks intruded on their privacy but Anna was not offended. She knew that they were made as a result of a genuine concern and love for his patients.

  Only Dr O’Brien and Frances knew of the details of James’s unhappy childhood and young manhood. He never spoke of it except in general terms but Anna knew that before their marriage he had often walked all night to escape his memories. At least he hasn’t done that since we were married, except for that night after our first dinner party, she thought now, quite unaware that James’s problems were different on that night.

  She said nothing to James about the various comments when she showed him the wine glasses and they spent a happy evening at the concert. Both thought with wonder at their former feelings for Dorrie and Eugene when they returned home and parted with a friendly goodnight kiss, after their happy anniversary.

  The gardener, Mr Cleary, was a taciturn man who worked hard on his one day a week and never failed to arrive. One evening in April a young man came to the kitchen door with a note from him, stating that a cut on his hand was septic and he was sending the bearer of the message, Gerry Byrne, in his place for the next few weeks
. Julia invited him in and called James who stepped into the kitchen and stopped short in shock.

  The young man who stood near the door, cap in hand, was a replica of Eugene at first sight. He was the same build, with a straight nose, a cleft chin and fair curls clustering round his forehead. Anna had followed James and he heard her gasp as she saw the young man.

  Gerry Byrne moved forward, smiling, and said in a thick Liverpool accent, ‘Good evening, sir. I’ve worked with Mr Cleary.’ At closer range he was not like Eugene at all. His features were much coarser and his skin was pitted with scars from acne or chickenpox, but at first glance the resemblance was striking.

  With an effort, James said in a steady voice, ‘Good evening. If Mr Cleary recommends you that’s good enough for us. Can you come this week?’

  ‘Yis, sir,’ he replied.

  Anna said quietly, ‘How is Mr Cleary? Is his hand very bad?’ James glanced at her and she was pale but seemed quite composed.

  ‘Bad enough like,’ Gerry Byrne said. ‘He’d poulticed it himself but it took bad ways like and the doctor at the dispensary had to cut it open. He says it’s not so sore now.’

  ‘That’s good,’ James said. ‘My wife is the gardener. She’ll tell you what needs doing.’

  Before they left the room Anna added, ‘Have a hot drink before you go and I’ll see you on Wednesday at eight o’clock.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, smiling at Julia, who already had the kettle boiling, and at Frances, who had arrived to investigate.

  ‘Poor Mr Cleary,’ Anna said as she and James went back to their books in the drawing room. Neither mentioned the new gardener’s resemblance to Eugene.

  On Wednesday morning he arrived promptly and Anna gave him the key of the toolshed and set him to clearing a shrubbery. ‘Mr Cleary intends to plant potatoes here,’ she said. ‘You can throw the laurels away but the buddleia will go at the end of the borders. They attract butterflies.’

  She found it quite easy to ignore the resemblance to Eugene, partly because she was closer to him, but also, she was pleased to realise, because she now felt nothing for Eugene except a vague pity.

  She went back to the house, where James was preparing to leave for the office. He looked apprehensive but she said cheerfully, ‘I’ve set him clearing that shrubbery of the laurels. I want to grow potatoes on that ground.’

  ‘You’re determined we’ll be self-sufficient,’ he said, smiling at her.

  Gerry worked hard but he was inclined to linger to talk to Julia when he was called for his break or his lunch. Frances told him bluntly that Mr Cleary never hung about after he’d finished his food and she made sure that she was in the kitchen whenever he was.

  ‘You don’t know nothing about him, girl,’ she told Julia. ‘Don’t go falling for him, now, no matter how he makes sheep’s eyes at you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Frances, the same feller will never love anyone but himself,’ Julia said. ‘Anyhow, he’s not straight.’

  ‘What do you mean, girl?’ asked Frances.

  ‘Those bushes he’s supposed to be throwing away. When I went out for a cabbage there was a little wooden cart there, full of bushes with the roots wrapped in sacking.’

  ‘Have you told the missus?’ Frances demanded.

  ‘No. I didn’t know what to do but the cart was kind of hid.’

  ‘I’ll tell her,’ Frances declared and did so right away. ‘They’re not going on no dump wrapped in sacking,’ she said. ‘He’ll be selling them to his other people.’

  ‘Well, I only told him to get rid of them,’ Anna said. ‘They’re no use to me, Frances.’ But it made her watch her new gardener more carefully. It must go with the type, she thought grimly.

  She and James had still not mentioned the gardener’s resemblance to Eugene but as Anna went about her tasks that day she thought how ridiculous it was when it meant so little to her.

  She told James that evening about Julia’s discovery. ‘It doesn’t matter because I told him to get rid of them,’ she said. ‘But it’s sly. He said nothing to me.’

  ‘Mr Cleary wouldn’t have done it,’ said James.

  ‘No, he wouldn’t,’ Anna said and she laughed. ‘I was thinking perhaps it goes with the type. Did you notice how like Eugene he was at first glance? And just as untrustworthy.’

  James was silent with shock for several minutes, stealing glances at Anna, but she continued sewing placidly. Finally he said, ‘I did notice it. Gave me quite a shock but it’s only at first glance. He’s quite rough really.’

  Anna bit off a thread and looked at him, smiling. ‘I was thinking earlier about those snobbish relations of his in Dublin with their social aspirations. How affronted they’d be if they knew we thought Gerry looked like their precious son.’

  After that, although they said little more about Eugene, their relationship was even easier and they could speak more freely about anything concerning him. James, especially, felt it as a lightening of a load he had not realised he carried.

  They were still unable to speak as freely about Dorrie. She had written to them after her return to London, apologising for being unable to see them. ‘I was prostrated after that dreadful journey from Ireland,’ she wrote, ‘but I am better now and very excited at the plan to move to a larger house in a better district. Everything is going very well with Michael’s business and we have a wonderful social life.’

  Mrs O’Brien had accompanied the doctor to London for a visit with Dr Parr and they visited Dorrie and Michael in their new home. Afterwards she told Anna that it was true that all was well with them. ‘The business is making money hand over fist,’ she said. ‘It’s a real mansion and Dorrie queening it there to the manner born. She looks well, though, and she has beautiful clothes, but of course they have to do a lot of entertaining.’

  ‘She said that in her letter,’ said Anna.

  ‘Yes, well, Michael does that side of the business. He has the contacts and he gets the jobs and he’s very good at it. His partner Eddy is more rough and ready. He’s been in the building trade all his working life and he knows all the tricks, so he’s good at that side of it. They’ve just taken on a foreman, Jeremiah Busteed. He’s a Wicklow man married to a Liverpool girl so that’s another friend for Dorrie.’

  After Mrs O’Brien had gone, Anna and James only spoke obliquely of Dorrie. ‘I’m glad Michael is making such a success of his building business,’ Anna said. ‘It’ll compensate him for leaving the army.’

  ‘Yes, I admire anyone who has the nerve to strike out on his own,’ James said. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t the courage.’

  ‘You have the courage to back those who do,’ Anna said. ‘And you seem able to pick winners.’ They both laughed. James had originally lent money to Robert Mortimer to enable him to fit out a kitchen in London to make confectionery for a firm of caterers which supplied weddings and various other functions.

  Robert soon realised that the caterers were the ones profiting financially and he asked James if he was prepared to increase his stake. ‘Dad and I have used all our savings,’ he said frankly, ‘but if I had another two hundred pounds I could open a tearoom. I know I can make a lot of money and it would be done on a proper basis so you shared in the success.’

  Henry and Margaret Mortimer were not as confident and worried that James might lose his money. ‘We don’t think so,’ James said, ‘but if we do it’s money we can afford to lose, so don’t worry. Anna agrees with me.’

  They had been proved right. The first tearoom, named La Patisserie, had been discreetly advertised with the magic words, ‘Booking Advisable’, and had become the fashionable place to take afternoon tea.

  Everyone talked of the delicious confectionery and the quiet luxury of the surroundings and the fact that it was impossible to get a table there without booking well in advance. Robert was already negotiating to open other tearooms and orders for wedding and special-occasion cakes were pouring in.

  James and Anna had also lent money
from the ‘nest egg’ to Jim and Luke Deagan, to enable them to expand their successful printing business, and to the owner of the shop where they had bought their bicycles. He wanted to start dealing in motorcars but had insufficient capital and James offered to invest in the business. ‘They might be a nine-day wonder, I must warn you,’ the man said, ‘but I don’t think so,’ and neither did James or Anna.

  They decided they must keep the rest of the nest egg as a rainy-day fund, but with Anna’s careful budgeting they were living well within their means, and as the months passed they enjoyed life and the company of their many friends.

  Isabel and John had spent a week with them during the school holidays and Anna and James had been to the cottage for a long weekend. Anna shared Isabel’s bed, ‘So we can talk all night,’ Isabel told her mother gaily, ‘and James won’t mind that little boxroom for a couple of nights.’ Anna enjoyed these meetings but afterwards felt restless and vaguely unhappy.

  Gerry Byrne had offered to work two days a week and Anna had agreed so that most of the heavy work could be done before Mr Cleary returned.

  She was well aware that Byrne pilfered vegetables from the garden and would have pilfered from the kitchen if Frances had not watched him so closely. This seemed particularly mean as Julia made him a large meaty pasty for his dinner, and another the same to take home, as she had done for Mr Cleary.

  Fortunately, Mr Cleary returned within a month and within minutes of his return he came to Anna. ‘Some of the tools are missing from the shed,’ he said, ‘and a sack of bonemeal and a sack of dried blood. Have you used them, Mrs H?’

  ‘No, but Gerry might have used them on the garden,’ Anna said.

  After Mr Cleary had been in for his break and heard what Frances had to say, he came to Anna in great distress. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs H,’ he said. ‘I sent a thief here. I’d no idea, he was so plausible. I’ll make it good. I’ll replace the tools and the sacks and anything else you’ve missed.’

  ‘Indeed you won’t, Mr Cleary,’ Anna said. ‘You sent him in good faith and he was a good gardener. I knew he was taking vegetables but I didn’t need them and he didn’t get much chance for anything else with Frances after him like Sherlock Holmes.’ She laughed but the man was upset and she said gently, ‘Don’t worry, Mr Cleary. It didn’t worry us and I think Frances enjoyed outwitting him.’