Until We Meet Again

by Margaret Thornton

  ‘I won’t hinder you,’ said Tilly, ‘but I couldn’t go without saying hello.’

  ‘Well, hello then,’ grinned Patrick. ‘And hello to you as well, Amy.’

  ‘Hello, Uncy Pat,’ said the child, which was the best she could manage. ‘We’ve been to see the ducks, Tilly and me, an’ we gave them some bread.’

  ‘Well, well, well! And what did the ducks say?’ Patrick smiled at his charming little niece.

  ‘Quack, quack, quack!’ said Amy, jumping up and down with excitement.

  Patrick laughed. ‘Do you know, I thought that’s what they might say. Didn’t they say “Thank you, Amy, for sharing your breakfast with me?”’

  Amy shook her head solemnly. ‘No… Ducks don’t talk, Uncy Pat.’

  ‘Stop teasing her,’ laughed Tilly. ‘She’ll give as good as she gets though before long, believe me.’

  Patrick had always been a tease. Tilly remembered being in awe of him when she had first known him; Maddy’s elder brother who had seemed so very big and grown-up to the three-year-old child. She had grown fond of him, though, over the years, and had come to think of him as an extra older brother. In fact he had always been much more friendly towards her than her real brother, Samuel.

  Patrick was a cheerful, easy-going young man, the very antithesis of what one might imagine an undertaker to be, although he could appear solemn and reverent when the occasion required it. He took his work seriously; there was nothing skittish about him, and clients could rely on him to treat them with the respect and sympathy they expected. But his friends and relations saw a different side to him.

  Looking at him now, Tilly thought how much he was starting to resemble his father. The same dark hair – although Uncle Will’s was greying noticeably now – and deep brown eyes with the same humorous, but perceptive, glint, which missed very little.

  ‘Aye, she’s a little bobby-dazzler, aren’t you, Amy?’ said her uncle, who was as enchanted with her as the rest of the family.

  Amy smiled happily, although she had no idea what he meant. She knew, though, that she was well loved. Tilly guessed that Maddy felt the child was in danger of being spoilt, so she, Tilly, always tried to temper her love for Amy with suitable firmness when necessary.

  ‘Come along now, Amy,’ she said. ‘Say bye-bye to Uncle Patrick, then we’ll get you into your carriage and off we’ll go back home. It’s nearly dinner-time.’

  Amy had not questioned yet why her grandfather and uncle and Joe Black were making all those wooden boxes. Patrick, and Maddy too, who had grown up in the environment, had told Tilly that they had come to expect it as the norm and had never worried about it. But it had taken Tilly a while to get used to the occupation of her stepfather and stepbrother.

  Amy’s eyes were closing and her head starting to nod as Tilly wheeled the pram along St Thomas Street and on to Newborough, the main thoroughfare of the town. She laid her down, knowing that in a few moments she would be asleep.

  As she walked along she reflected on what her mother had said; that very soon they might be at war. At her school the girls were encouraged to read the newspapers and to take a lively interest in what was going on in the world around them, and so Tilly, a serious-minded girl, had acquainted herself with the events that were being talked about.

  The trouble had started in the Balkans where a civil war was being waged in Albania. This was nothing new, as there was continual unrest in the area. But on the 28th of June the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Hapsburg Empire, had been assassinated in Sarajevo, along with his wife, and this had been the starting point of the conflict. Very soon afterwards Germany and Austria had declared war on Serbia, and it was feared that other countries – Russia, France and even Great Britain – would soon become involved on the side of the Serbians.

  Tilly could not understand how this could be so. King George the Fifth was a cousin both to Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Nicholas, the Tsar of Russia. Surely such close family members would not take up arms against one another? The idea was preposterous. Tilly kept telling herself, as did countless other folk, that it was all a very long way away…

  Chapter Two

  Maddy Nicholls lived at the bottom end of Eastborough, just before the road curved to meet Sandside, near to the harbour. She and her husband, Freddie, and little Amy lived in the family living quarters above the shop and dressmaking business, now known as Nicholls and Stringer.

  In the latter years of Queen Victoria’s reign the premises had been owned by Louisa Montague, who had been well known in the town as a bespoke dressmaker, catering for all levels of society, both the rich and those who were not so well-off. William Moon’s first wife, Clara, had worked there as a valued assistant, and it was there that William had first met her. Louisa, who had never married, had been a friend of the Moon family for many years; she had regarded Clara, who had been orphaned as a young girl, as the daughter she had never had.

  Years later, Maddy, on leaving school at thirteen, had gone to work for Louisa. She had proved herself to be a competent dressmaker until the time when she was fifteen years of age and her father had allowed her to go touring with Percy Morgan’s concert party, the Melody Makers.

  When Louisa died in 1910 she left the dressmaking business, the shop and the living premises to Maddy. The young woman at that time was still touring with the concert party, but earlier that year she had married Freddie Nicholls, the conjuror. Louisa had made a shrewd guess that the couple would soon be thinking about starting a family and they would need somewhere to live and bring up their children. The writing was on the wall for Louisa; she knew that she had not long to live.

  All the members of the Moon family were shocked and saddened when Louisa died in the autumn of that year; they had not known until very recently that she was so poorly. Maddy was surprised, but humbly grateful, at the generous bequest from their old family friend. When she realised she was expecting her first child she left the Melody Makers and started to make a home for her new family, and at the same time she set about developing the business she had inherited. Tilly stopped to look in the shop window, which had been tastefully arranged, as always, by Maddy and her partner in the business, Emily Stringer. Emily had worked for Louisa Montague for several years, and her loyalty and her aptitude for dressmaking had not gone unrewarded. Louisa had left her quite a considerable sum of money, and Emily had kept the business and the shop going, with only a little part-time help, until Maddy had come to live there and to join her in the work the following year. Maddy had insisted that they should call the business Nicholls and Stringer, and that they should be equal partners.

  The shop dealt mainly in children’s and baby clothes nowadays. The dressmaking business had become more of a sideline, for customers who liked to choose their own material and pattern and have their clothing made to their own requirements.

  Today the window displayed beach wear for children: striped tunics in red and white or blue and white with matching hats, and sailor tops and shorts. There were also baby dresses, serviceable cotton ones and others of frilled organdie, lace and muslin; hand-knitted bootees and matinee jackets – Emily Stringer was a very skilled knitter – as well as a few ladies’ blouses and some items of underwear. Maddy was careful not to encroach on the merchandise sold at Moon’s Modes, although the clientele at each of the shops were somewhat different and they were quite a distance from each other.

  Tilly pushed open the shop door and wheeled the pram inside. Amy, as though realising she was home, stirred, rubbed her eyes and sat up.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ cooed Emily, stepping out from behind the counter. ‘Have you just woken up? I’ll bet you’ve had a lovely time with Aunty Tilly, haven’t you?’

  The child nodded, looking a little bewildered. ‘Mummy…’ she said. ‘Where’s Mummy?’

  ‘She’s just gone upstairs, darling, to get your dinner ready. She said you’d be back soon. I shall be shutting up the shop in a few minutes,’ said Emily. ‘I have to
pop across to the market and do my weekend shopping. Can you let yourself out the back way, Tilly, when you’re ready?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ said Tilly. ‘Are you going to the show next Wednesday, Emily, to see Maddy?’

  ‘Of course,’ beamed Emily. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away! Maddy has managed to get somebody to look after Amy; a friend from the chapel, I think. Yes, I’m really looking forward to it.’ Emily clasped her hands together in delight.

  Tilly thought, again, that there was still something very naive and childlike about Emily, despite her advancing years. No one was quite sure of her age, but they guessed she was on the wrong side of fifty, although she didn’t look it. Her suppressed personality had only started to blossom when her elderly parents had died and she had been free to go out to work for the first time in her life. Her employment at Louisa Montague’s shop had been the making of her, and she admitted to everyone now that she had never been happier. She did not appear to regret her unmarried status. It was doubtful that she had ever had a male friend, although she had had her hopes and dreams.

  When her parents were alive, and for a while afterwards, she had found an outlet for her dreams in her visits to the Pierrot shows on the North Bay, indulging herself in a fantasy that bore little resemblance to life in the real world. She had even imagined herself to be in love with one of the young male dancers, but fortunately she had come to her senses before making an utter fool of herself, so Maddy had confided to Tilly years after the event. It seemed hard to imagine it, looking at her now.

  Her shining brown hair worn in a neat roll around her head, her candid grey eyes and unlined face told of an innocence that was a part of her likeable personality. Tilly, who was herself a rather reserved and self-effacing person, liked her very much.

  ‘So I’ll see you next Wednesday, Emily,’ she said. ‘Cheerio for now… Amy, say bye-bye to Aunty Emily.’

  The child waved and called, ‘Bye-bye, Aunty Em,’ as Tilly lifted her out of the pram. She deposited the large, somewhat cumbersome carriage in the spare room at the rear of the shop, then carried Amy up the steep staircase to the rooms above. It was an old property, built more than two hundred years ago, and the stairs creaked as Tilly climbed them.

  ‘Mummee!’ cried Amy, running towards her mother when Tilly put her down on the floor.

  Maddy turned round from the stove where she was cooking, her face flushed and her golden hair curling in tendrils around her forehead. ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she said, picking the little girl up and giving her a kiss. ‘Have you been a good girl for Aunty Tilly?’

  ‘Of course she has,’ answered Tilly. ‘You don’t need to ask, do you? See, Amy – here’s your daddy as well,’ she added as Freddie came in from the adjoining living room. ‘Hello, Freddie. You’ve come home for your dinner today, have you?’

  ‘Yes; here I am, as you see,’ grinned Freddie. ‘I have my dinner at midday when I can manage to get away from the bank. It saves Maddy having to cook again in the evening… Good to see you, Tilly. And you, too, scallywag,’ he said, ruffling his daughter’s dark curly hair; she had already pulled off her bonnet. ‘Don’t I get a kiss as well?’

  ‘Yes, Daddy,’ said the child, puckering up her lips and planting a kiss on her father’s cheek. ‘I’ve been to see the ducks, Daddy…’

  Amy was wide-awake after her nap and she plunged animatedly once again into the tale of the ducks and the bread. Watching the three of them, a perfect example to Tilly of a happy little family, she reflected that Amy resembled her father – and possibly her uncle Patrick – more than her mother. Her dark hair and her grey eyes – in Amy’s case a shining silver grey, fringed with dark lashes – were a legacy from her father. She was of a sturdier build, too, than her mother, with rosy cheeks which dimpled when she laughed. Maddy was quite small of stature, although she had put on a little more weight since Amy’s birth, and Tilly was now taller than her by several inches. She had always been captivated by her stepsister’s loveliness, though, ever since she had first met her, as had many thousands since then who had seen her on the stage and heard her wondrous singing. Her golden blonde hair was untidy now, drawn back from her face in a make-shift chignon. Her deep brown eyes contrasted strikingly with the colour of her hair, and her elfin features belied her strength both of character and of physique; there were not many jobs that Maddy would not tackle.

  ‘Will you stay and have some dinner with us, Tilly?’ asked Maddy. ‘It’s only beef stew, with carrots and potatoes, but there’s enough to go round.’

  ‘I’m very tempted,’ replied Tilly. ‘It smells delicious, but I’d better not, thanks all the same. I know what I’m like; I’d stay too long, and I really ought to get back home. I have some piano practice to do before my lesson at four o’clock. I’ve not quite got the hang of the Debussy yet, and it’s my exam next month.’

  ‘Clever stuff, eh?’ remarked Maddy, smiling. ‘I never got beyond the ‘Bluebells of Scotland’.

  Tilly knew that that was not quite true. Maddy was an able enough pianist, but learning to play the piano had led her to take an interest in singing, and that had very soon surpassed her piano playing. But it had been Maddy’s interest in music, generally, that had fostered Tilly’s desire to play the piano herself; Maddy had always been the focus of her admiration. And to her surprise, Tilly had discovered that she had a talent for it. So much so that she was hoping to go on to a music college when she had finished her final year at school.

  ‘I can’t sing, though,’ she said now. ‘By the way, we saw a poster for your show, didn’t we, Amy? Star-billing for you, Maddy! What do you think of that?’

  ‘I hope I come up to scratch, that’s what I think,’ laughed Maddy. ‘It’s quite a while since I did a concert, but I’ve tried to keep up with the practising. You have to, or you lose what you’ve got. You will know that, of course, Tilly.’

  ‘Did I get a mention?’ asked Freddie. ‘I wouldn’t get star-billing, that’s for sure,’ he joked.

  ‘Yes, your name was there as well,’ said Tilly. ‘Further down, with Barney and Benjy, and Nancy’s performing dogs, and Jeremy Jarvis, the ventriloquist. The acts don’t change very much, do they, from one year to the next?’

  ‘Not a great deal,’ agreed Freddie. ‘I’m only there part-time, of course. I was only joking about the star-billing. I’m very lucky that Percy has kept me on at all. I just do the Saturday shows, and one or two evenings during the week. Mornings and afternoons are out, because I’m working.’

  Maddy had left the Melody Makers soon after she had realised she was expecting a child, and Freddie, not wanting to be parted from his family, had left the concert party soon afterwards in time for Amy’s birth. He had found employment in a bank on Westborough, at the other end of the main street which ran through the centre of the town; he had done a similar clerical job before going on the professional stage. Tilly knew he was being modest about his talent as a magician. Percy Morgan had been sorry to lose him and had persuaded him to appear as often as he could when the Pierrots were based in Scarborough for their summer season.

  ‘Well, I’m looking forward to seeing your performance next Wednesday,’ said Tilly. ‘Have you any new tricks?’

  ‘Oh yes, one or two,’ replied Freddie. ‘A couple of card tricks, and they need audience participation. You can come and help if you like, Tilly.’

  ‘Oh no, not me,’ said Tilly, with a mock shudder. ‘You know I’m not much good on a stage. I feel as though everybody’s looking at me.’

  ‘Well, they are, of course,’ laughed Maddy, ‘and they would be thinking how brave you were to volunteer.’

  ‘Well, I won’t be volunteering, that’s for sure! Anyway, you can’t have a member of the family, Freddie. People might think we were in on the act… It’s funny, though; I don’t mind playing the piano for an audience.’ Tilly did so now and again, at church and chapel concerts. ‘I suppose I think they’re all listening to the music and not really taking much
notice of me.’

  ‘Whatever helps you to perform best,’ said Maddy. ‘I always try to look at a spot beyond the audience and not at anyone in particular. I know when I first started singing I was very much aware of my family and friends in the audience. Like children at a school concert, you know; I had to restrain myself from waving to them.’

  ‘Dear me, how unprofessional!’ teased Freddie.

  ‘I was only a kid when I started singing, you know,’ retorted Maddy. ‘Ten years old, I was – no, sorry, eleven – when I won the Pierrots’ talent contest. But it was a few years before my father would let me join them properly. And then I joined the Melody Makers.’

  ‘And then you met me,’ said Freddie, ‘didn’t you, darling?’

  ‘Yes, so I did, Freddie.’ Maddy smiled lovingly at him. ‘But we’d met before, you remember? When I won that talent contest you came second, didn’t you? You were fourteen and I was eleven; I was very much in awe of older boys at that time.’

  ‘What a talented couple you are!’ remarked Tilly. She often thought that there was nothing that her clever stepsister could not put her hand to. ‘Dressmaking as well! How did the fittings go, by the way?’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ replied Maddy. ‘Mrs Lovejoy and Mrs Merryweather; how’s that for a couple of happy names? And I must say they’re always cheerful and easy to please. Just the sort of clients I like. They’re two of the elderly ladies from the chapel and they always come together. They want two winter skirts each, so there’s no rush to finish them, fortunately. One for best and another for everyday wear, they instructed me; nothing too complicated. They’re rather old-fashioned sort of ladies.’

  ‘Not the sort of customers that shop at Moon’s Modes then?’ asked Tilly.

  ‘No, not at all. I’m careful, though, not to deal in the type of clothing that they sell there. Not that there’s much likelihood of that. I must say, I think they have become rather exclusive lately at Aunt Faith’s shop, and quite expensive, too.’