Her Heart's Desire

by Vivienne Dockerty

  “You won’t. Remember you gave me two pearl hat pins for my birthday so that it couldn‘t happen again.”

  “I did too, Lily, and I’m glad you’ve remembered to use them. Well, if you are going into town, would you fetch me some flour from Westaways on Huskisson Street? I thought I would make a special cake for when Lawrence comes tomorrow for afternoon tea. I have enough of the other ingredients, but I’m getting short of flour.”

  Lily tried to feign indifference to the mention of their cousin’s visit, but it was hard to keep the excitement from her voice as she replied. “Do you think he’ll bring us gifts like he did last time? I loved my fan, but this time with him going to the America’s he may bring trinkets. Perhaps a beaded bracelet or necklace made by an American Indian.”

  “I am sure it is quite possible, my dear, though we should pray for his safe return to Liverpool, not be looking forward to any presents he may bring.”

  “I didn’t think. Of course I hope he had a safe journey across the Atlantic. It’s a lot of water to travel from New York back to Liverpool; I’m sure I’d be sea sick.”

  Bertha nodded in agreement before turning on her heel back into the kitchen. “Wait a moment. I must raid the housekeeping tin in order to give you a sixpence for the purchase of the flour. We don’t have an account with Westaways, but it’s too far for you to walk to the Cooperative Store and be back again by dark.”

  “Yes and it may come on to rain again, Bertha. If I don’t hurry, I’ll be meeting myself coming back.”

  “Oh, you are silly.” Bertha smiled indulgently at her younger sister, then bobbed back into the kitchen.

  “Where are you going, Lily?” Ellen, Lily’s next sister in age, came out of the kitchen. She looked her usual untidy and ugly self, dressed as she was in an old green serge dress and an all-enveloping white pinafore. Grand-mama always joked that Ellen was a changeling. According to Grand-mama, the real and prettier Ellen had been swapped by the midwife, who was jealous that another pretty daughter belonging to Hannah Griffiths had been born.

  Lily fidgeted while she waited for Bertha to appear. She never knew what to say to Ellen and tried to avoid staring at the pale face and squinty eyes. “I thought I would take a walk over to Mabel’s place of employment. It will do me good to take the air. I’ve had to help Mother and sit with Grand-mama today.”

  “Oh,” said Ellen, who had peeled the vegetables in readiness for dinner, washed the breakfast dishes, scoured the saucepans, scrubbed the scullery floor and was now thinking of heating up the flat iron on the fire, in preparation to do a little goffering after putting the crockery away. “Will you be back to take Grand-mama her afternoon tea? You know how I get nervous in her company.”

  “Oh, if I must. It means I will have to make great haste though, because I must make a detour to Westaways. Grand-mama won’t eat you, Ellen, it’s just her way.”

  “I’ll take Grand-mama’s tray up, Ellen,” said Bertha, who had heard the exchange between her younger sisters as she came to give Lily the small coin. “You can get Henrietta’s tea when she returns from Father’s office. Lily and I’ll sit with Grand-mama for a while.”

  Lily, free at last from any obligation, walked as fast as she could through Victoria Park, which the family home partially overlooked. Drops of rain dripped upon her from overhanging trees as she kept to the narrow stone slab path, which was lined on either side with rhododendron bushes awash with pink flowers. She felt glad that she had fastened a length of matching voile around her navy tri-corn shaped hat, as well as the hat pins, in an effort to keep the damned thing on, as the long stemmed umbrella kept catching on branches as she sped along. Mother had been quite annoyed when she had returned hatless from a sojourn on a windy day a few months ago, though she was more worried about what the neighbours would say if they saw one of her daughters without a hat.

  “Lily, wait for me.”

  A familiar voice broke into Lily’s fanciful thoughts, as she imagined herself and Lawrence walking up the aisle on their wedding day at the nearby St. Peter’s church. Only one more sleep and then he would be there in Grand-mama’s sitting room and she could feast her eyes upon him to her heart’s content.

  She turned to see a slender young man, small of stature and neatly dressed, running along the muddy pathway after taking a shortcut from the esplanade. His normally pale face was aglow with the pleasure of seeing Lily, having not seen the object of his dreams for some time.

  “Lily,” he said breathlessly, not being a very fit young man at the best of times. “I haven’t seen you for a while. How are you? I saw you coming into the park and hoped to catch up with you. May I accompany you to your destination? I have some news that I would like you to hear.”

  “Oh, if it’s about your allotment again, Charlie, I don’t want to hear your news. Beans and peas do not interest me, unless I am eating them.”

  “No, silly. I wanted to let you know that I have finished my apprenticeship at the shipyard. Do you remember the last time I saw you, when I said that there was a possibility they may continue to employ me, but in their new development department?”

  Lily nodded. The last time she had seen Charlie, he had waylaid her on her way back from visiting a friend one Saturday afternoon.

  “Well, they have done just that,” Charlie beamed.

  “That is very kind of them, considering you have spent the last seven years at their beck and call whilst working there. Does this mean you will get a wage now?”

  “Of course it does,” Charlie said happily. “It also means I can ask your father’s permission to walk out with you. I will be able to support a wife and family one day.” His earnest face looked into hers confidently. Surely Lily Griffiths, from one of the smart houses on Rosemount Hill, would agree to his courtship of her now.

  “I don’t think Father will give his permission, Charlie,” Lily said, trying to bring a wistful note into her voice, in order to let her would-be beau down gently. “He wants me to marry into money and I’m sure a man employed by the shipyard wouldn’t do.”

  “But Lily, I won’t be just a labourer; I’m to have a job as an electrical fitter and perhaps I will work on one of the new submersibles that I have heard they are thinking of tendering for. Any man who works on such a dangerous assignment would be paid very handsomely, I am sure.” He didn’t add that according to the broadsheet that he read avidly every day, it could be years before the navy made its mind up over the use of submarines in warfare, as some top admiral had said that covert operations were not to be considered, when one should always meet the enemy eye to eye.

  “It won’t make any difference, I’m afraid,” Lily replied. “Father wants me to live in a mansion and have servants at my beck and call. I know that your heart will be broken now that I have told you of his plans for me, so I will allow you to walk with me as far as St. Catherine’s and then I will walk on my own the rest of the way.”

  Charlie looked so downcast that Lily, for a moment, felt sorry that she had destroyed his happiness and confidence with her cruel statement, thinking that perhaps she should have let him down more gently. After all, he used to walk her home when she had attended the Ashmore School for Young Ladies and he a nearby charity school. He had been her hero then, when he had escorted her past raggedy boys from the orphan asylum and she knew he would defend her forever from the slings and arrows of life, if he were allowed.

  “Lawrence, my cousin, is coming to tea tomorrow,” she said brightly, beginning to walk briskly in the direction of the park gate.

  “He has just completed his first voyage as a newly appointed captain to the eastern seaboards of America and we are holding a small celebration for him. According to my grand-mama, at twenty-eight he is one of the youngest captains that the Allison Line has ever employed.”

  Charlie nodded in agreement. It was something that he had also wished to do, when his thoughts had turned to employment in adulthood whilst attending the charity school. A life at sea and being
aboard the training ship H.M.S Conway, which was anchored in the River Mersey, then visiting all those far flung places that his father, before he’d died, had visited. His father had even been to Australia – a place where thousands of emigrants made their way each year, across treacherous and mighty seas in search of a better life for them and their families. It was unfortunate that his body had never been strong enough to follow in his father’s footsteps, subject as he was to wheezing, but at least he was able to hold his own in the locally based shipyard.

  Of course his mother would never have let her only son embark on such a foolish notion, even if he had been as fit as a flea. Having had her dearly beloved husband perish under the waters of the River Mersey, after the ferryboat Gem was in collision with a sailing ship during dense fog in November 1878, she was reluctant to allow Charlie even to catch the ferry to Liverpool, never mind travel the seven seas!

  “It was something that I always wanted to do,” he said wistfully, keeping in step with Lily, who was a few inches short of Charlie’s five feet five, so that their strides had become equal.

  She quickened her pace on seeing more blackening skies.

  “But, of course, Mother would never have stood for me being a mariner and as you know, being the man of the house, I had to leave school when I was fourteen.”

  “Yes, such a great pity. I too would have liked to have gone on to attend an academy to study meaningful things, instead of spending my days waiting for a rich husband to come along. It is so boring. Did you know that, according to Lawrence, people are leaving our shores in thousands to build a new life in America? Now, that would be something to look forward to.”

  “For some maybe, Lily, but I would like to think that I could at least have sight of you, even if you did walk by me on the arm of a rich husband.”

  Lily patted him on the arm kindly. “You are bound to find a young woman worthy of your adoration one day, Charlie. I am most flattered that you think of me in that way.”

  “But not enough to allow me to ask permission to court you?”

  “Of course not, dear Charlie. You and I would never do.” He has always had a way of making me feel uncomfortable, she thought, as she waved back to him gaily, whilst he stood watching her progress down the hilly street. His eyes seemed to bore into her soul, as if he could see beyond the affectation of petted daughter to the woman she would be in her later years. “Pull yourself together, Lily,” she muttered, as suddenly a chilly wind made her body shiver. “He’s just a strange young man and you’d do well to steer well clear of him.”

  Chapter Two

  “Is that you, Charles?

  Jane Wilson sounded a little disgruntled when she heard her son coming into the small two storey cottage, which was situated on Whetstone Lane, a main road that lead down into the town of Birkenhead. She turned from the range in the kitchen-cum-living room, where she had been stirring something in a large, black cooking pot. “I thought you might be home earlier than this. You know I must leave by half past four.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry Mother, something held me up. Whatever it is you’ve been cooking smells good. I’ve just realised how hungry I am.”

  “Well, I can’t see why you want to hang around the waterfront looking at all those ships when you’d never be well enough serve in one. I could have done with your help on the allotment this afternoon.”

  “Mother, the sight of that battleship being floated from the shipyard will stay with me for the rest of my life. The Royal Oak is the largest vessel ever built by the Laird Brothers; in fact, it’s the biggest ship ever to float on the Mersey. The length alone is 380 feet. You should go and look.”

  “Another ship for men to go to war in,” sniffed Jane, disdainfully. “They never learn. No doubt some politician will be casting around, wondering who to start another war with as we speak. I’ve not time to serve your stew, I must away.” She pulled the heavy pot onto the trivet that stood near the glowing embers of the small fire within the cast iron range. “I had mine earlier, so leave the pot to cool when you’ve had yours and tamp down the fire when you decide to go off to bed. It will depend on what time His Worship the mayor decides to leave with his guest and head off back to Myrtle House, as to when I’ll be home again. I’ll walk back from the town hall with Mary Casson, so don’t worry about meeting me.”

  “I might walk down that way around half past nine and have a pint at The Grapes,” said Charlie, jingling a few coins in his trouser pocket. He earned a little money from the errands he did for some of the older men at the shipyard.

  “Well, see to it that it’s just the one,” said Jane primly, taking her black shawl from the back of a chair and putting it over her prematurely white hair, which was braided into a neat bun on top of her head. She checked her appearance in the round, speckled mirror that hung on the cottage wall. A sallow face with down-turned lips stared back at her as she inspected her outfit; a white, flat-collared, long-sleeved blouse; a black, ankle-length skirt that showed the tips of her shiny black boots; a black, short-waisted, long-sleeved jacket and a pristine white pinafore that she carried over her arm. “I don’t want you ending up like Ernie Morris from up the road. I feel like suggesting to his wife that he joins the Temperance Society.”

  “None of our business, Mother,” said Charlie, mildly. “Now you get off, or you’ll be getting the sack for being late. Oh, what was it you wanted me to do on the allotment? I could give you a hand after church in the morning.”

  “Thou shalt not labour on the Sabbath Day,” Jane chastised with an outstretched finger. It was said with tongue in cheek, as she didn’t stick to that commandment herself when there was a little money to be made. “I wanted some cut flowers for the cemetery and I need to take the scraps for the hens.”

  “Oh, was that all? I’ll get the buckets and load them onto the cart for you. That will give you a good start in the morning and the hens are overfed anyway, so it won’t harm them to do without now and again.”

  “You’re a good fellow, Charlie. They’ll be fresher if I cut them first thing. By the time I’d waited on at Bella’s, then come back to start our meal…”

  “Go, Mother, or you’ll be late.” Charlie took off his brown twill jacket and put it on the back of one of the solid oak kitchen chairs. It was hot in the small room, as Jane kept the fire going all day. Used for both cooking and heating, the fire in the range was never allowed to go out.

  He glanced into the mirror as Jane had just done, his pale blue eyes staring back at him confidently. He wasn’t a handsome man, but he wasn’t ugly either. His fair hair was neatly cut – not short like an army man, but allowed to touch the neck of his white and brown striped collarless shirt. His oatmeal coloured waistcoat, recently purchased for him by his mother as a present for his twenty-first birthday, held his deceased father’s fob-watch in the breast pocket, as luckily his father hadn’t been wearing it when he had been swept out to sea. Any decent girl would be very happy to accept my suit with a view to marrying me, thought Charlie proudly, especially now that he was to receive a man’s wage at the shipyard. Perhaps it was time to cast his eye around the spinsters of the parish, instead of pining over someone he could never have. Though that wasn’t really true, he thought, as Lily would be his one day, he was certain of it. The thought of that made his heart feel lighter.

  He carried his bowl of blind scouse, a stew made from potatoes and vegetables as meat was only served on a Sunday, to the heavy oak table that was covered with a red damask tablecloth. He sliced himself a piece of bread from the homemade bloomer loaf that had been sitting in the pot bread bin. Although a slimly built man, Charlie could pack away a decent helping and if he didn’t control himself he could have eaten a whole loaf on his own. Jane would only moan if there was nothing left to toast over the embers in the morning, as she liked to bake every other day with there only being the two of them.

  Life had not been easy for Jane after her husband had been taken from her. She could have returned to her pa
rents’ home – a small farm deep in the Lancashire countryside, the nearest place of note being Blackpool – but knowing that the place could only support the elderly couple and would bring hardship if she landed on them with her young son, she petitioned for a piece of land on the corporation allotment near her cottage to supplement their food.

  She had found those first two years there extremely hard work, clearing away the weeds and debris of the ground that had been previously allocated to a lazy man. However, after digging out a trench and filling it with waste matter and rotting vegetation gleaned from her fellow allotment holders, her wigwams of beans and peas grew profusely. Her flower beds were neat and trim, with rows of bushy carrot leaves, leafy green cabbages and stumpy looking potato plants growing in regimented drills. She had also acquired some chicks that had become good layers and her produce could be found in the casual area of the Friday market in Birkenhead, whilst the flowers, albeit seasonal, she sold outside the local cemetery. To make ends meet, she was a standby waitress at the town hall and a part time skivvy at Bella’s Cafe on Bellfield Street.

  Charlie had never known what it was like to go hungry. Jane had always tried her best to clothe and feed him well – not like some of the little chaps who went to the charity school that he had attended. The cost of the schools upkeep was donated from the great and the good of the area, or by money bequeathed from various ‘honourables’ after their deaths. No, some of Charlie’s fellow pupils had their bottoms sticking out of their ragged trousers and wore hand-me-down clothes. He was eyed with envy when he’d brought out a boiled egg, with a slice of bread and a layer of best butter upon it for his midday meal. Jane had scrimped and saved for Charlie’s apprenticeship indentures. She took out a loan from the tally man to pay for his first new suit and could proudly say to anyone who would take the time to listen that she had done her best by him.