Her Heart's Desire

by Vivienne Dockerty

  “Lydia De Crosland has invited you to stay next weekend,” Grand-mama informed Lily, reading from the sheet of cream vellum writing paper that she held in her hand. “In fact, she has invited me to stay as well and on this occasion I will accept. We will be able to catch up on mutual friends we knew from our girlhood. Your mother and I have discussed the clothes that we will be taking and as it is quite short notice, we won’t involve the dressmaker this time. Suffice to say a travelling outfit, your gabardine mackintosh, galoshes, something for the daytime and a change for the evening will be enough. Personal items can be packed into your reticule.”

  “Are you happy with these arrangements, Lily?” asked her mother gently. “You don’t have to go if you prefer not to. Grand-mama can send a letter of cancellation, rather than of acceptance, should you change your mind in the next few days.”

  “Hurrumph.” Grand-mama didn’t seem to agree with her daughter’s sentiments and her face took on a sour look. “If Lily wishes to marry into a better class of family than you did, Hannah, then this is her chance to do so. Opportunities such as this don’t come along very often. It is her chance to better herself and move in the best of circles.”

  “If you say so, Mother, but she is only eighteen.”

  “Fiddlesticks, I was only eighteen when I married your father and a better marriage there has never been.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Hannah Griffiths didn’t continue to argue, as her mother already had experience of marriage arrangements; she had introduced Patricia to her wealthy husband, whose seat was the rambling Montgomery Hall. Her mother’s circle of friends was extensive and she had to admit that she had never heard a cross word between her parents at all.

  “I am very happy that you have taken the trouble to do this for me, Grand-mama. I am pleased that you will be coming with me too, as I would feel a little nervous if I had to meet Mrs De Crosland on my own. I will look forward to it, Grand-mama. Do not worry Mother, I am sure that once into the New Year, I will be announcing my betrothal too.”

  She couldn’t wait to announce her trip to the rest of her family; Bertha was in the kitchen as usual preparing their evening meal and Ellen was brushing down the yard outside, where an overhanging tree from the small garden next door had shed its leaves. Both sisters were generous with their good wishes once they had appraised the situation, but there was just a hint of envy in Ellen’s eyes. Henrietta, when she came back with Father from the office mourned the fact that three of the Griffiths girls were getting wed and the family was dispersing even more.

  Mabel, however, was inclined to recommend caution as she sat on Lily’s bed that evening, listening to her excited sister outlining her future plans from the minute she was to set her eyes on Roland, until the day she walked down the aisle. “You might not even like him, Lily. He could be coarse and vulgar. Spending time with other men in his regiment, he won’t know much about female things.”

  “Then I’ll teach him and I don’t know much about men things either. I only know Father and Frederick, so we’ll both have to learn together, won’t we?”

  “What if he decides that you are not suitable? Perhaps he has his eye on somebody else and hasn’t told his mother.”

  “Then I will have had a very nice weekend staying with Grand-mama in pleasant surroundings and someone else will have to be found for me. Anyway, he won’t be there. According to Grand-mama, he is still bound for Liverpool on a troopship.”

  “I marvel at your pragmatic outlook on this situation, Lily. I knew that you were sweet on Lawrence, so it must hurt that you may well be settling for second best.”

  “Lawrence will always be my heart’s desire, Mabel, even if he is to marry Bertha. But as I can’t have him, I will have to force myself to consider someone else.”

  And lucky she is to have the choice, thought Mabel miserably, as she walked along the landing to her bedroom, to lie on her bed and brood on what might have been if she hadn’t been consigned by the actions of her uncle to spinsterhood. Even now she could remember in detail that terrible day when she had walked along the first floor corridor at Montgomery Hall to her bedroom, feeling weary from the furious game of tennis she had just been playing with her cousins and looking forward to a long soak in the bath. She had been at the peak of womanhood; her breasts straining against the bodice of her white pleated tennis dress, her shapely calves and ankles peeping becomingly below the daring hemline and her pretty face glowing with exertion from the game.

  Her heart had skipped a startled beat when her uncle, dressed in a navy padded dressing gown and matching leather slippers, came out of one of the bedrooms as she began to pass the door.

  “Ah, Mabel,” he had said in a silken voice, his rat-like face peering out from a profusion of greying whiskers, his breath reeking of brandy or some other spirit, which caused her to recoil. “I wonder if you could do your old uncle a big favour? I have a problem that perhaps you can help me with. Come in here, dear, and I’ll explain.”

  Looking back, even then she’d had her misgivings, thinking it wasn’t right to enter a bedroom on her own with a man, even if he was related. However, being an obedient girl and not liking to upset her uncle by her refusal to help in any way she could, she had meekly followed him.

  What had happened next had become locked away in a mind full of mortification. She had never seen a man’s appendage, never mind being told to grip the thing and give it a good pumping. Her uncle had sat on the edge of the bed with a very queer look on his face, flopping back a few minutes into the deed, after clutching at the sweaty thing whilst it erupted with some sort of evil smelling liquid. This had given Mabel her chance, mesmerised by the whole distasteful situation, to run from the room and sit shaking in her quarters until Aunt Patricia had come knocking on her door.

  Fearing that her niece had suffered from some sort of brain fever, as Mabel could only tremble and quake and make no sense in her ramblings, her aunt, on the advice of her now serene looking husband, had called for their driver to take her back home. Grand-mama was bound to get to the bottom of whatever was ailing the girl and could arrange for the family doctor to call. It was all a blur, after a scandalised Grand-mama realised that if she took the side of the gibbering girl there would be a rift in the family. Poor Patricia had enough being married to the boar without having this to add to his list of indiscretions, so she had arranged for Mabel to stay for a while at a place which took in distressed females, though the family was told she was attending an academy. There Mabel had met a kindly lady, who after listening sympathetically to the awful tale and encouraging her to reveal what the horrid uncle had got her to do, was told to try to banish all her troubling thoughts. Mulling over those feelings of disgust and shame would be like picking at a horrible sore, but it had left Mabel with a strong loathing of all things male.

  Wearing her best blue travelling outfit and a matching saucer-shaped hat, Lily was helped into the hire carriage by her father on the following Saturday. Grand-mama was already sitting in the black barouche, looking even more like Queen Victoria in her black widow’s weeds, with a small veil hiding her face from any onlooker.

  “I’ve given the address to the driver and negotiated a fair price,” Mannion explained through the open window to his mother-in-law. “He will collect you on Monday morning at half past nine. Bring your bill to the office, Tommy, and get one of the clerks to pay you.”

  The driver saluted his assent, flicked the whip lightly across the bay in the harness and with Lily blowing kisses to her parents, sisters and anyone else who may be watching on the pavement, the carriage set off.

  “Do sit down properly, Lily.” Grand-mama glared in her direction, as Lily wobbled against the black, leather upholstered seat after the carriage began to sway. “Concentrate on the reason we are undertaking this journey and act with a little decorum.”

  “Is Greasby far away?”

  “I imagine it is about six miles away, considering that when I stayed at Arrowe Hall, Greasby wa
s a short walk through the grounds and along a country lane. Not that I ever visited the place myself, as we attended the Holy Cross at Woodchurch.”

  “I can’t wait to get there. I do hope that Mrs De Crosland likes me and I can live there forever.”

  “I’m sure you and Lydia will get on very well, Lily. According to Millicent Broster, there was a daughter, probably a similar age to you when she died.”

  “Oh.” Lily wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this information. The thought of death always made her feel shivery, as if someone had just walked on her grave. She lapsed into silence, noticing that the narrow streets of Birkenhead were giving way to the occasional row of whitewashed cottages. There was a tavern standing at a crossroads; gates leading up a track to a red brick-built farmhouse and acres of stubble-bound fields, the stalks left over from the oats or hay crop still visible.

  “Is it far away now?” Lily was getting rather bored looking at the vast farmlands and the small copses of woodland that appeared over the hedge-lined roadway.

  “If my memory serves me correctly, we should see the gates of Arrowe Park in a few minutes after we have climbed this hill. The hall there is owned by the Shaw family and in my day John Ralph Shaw was the lord of the manor, but of course nowadays it is the county council that holds the balance of power.”

  “Oh”, said Lily, watching a man shoving the last of a herd of cows down a narrow lane, their destination no doubt a milking shed. “Do you think we will be there for luncheon? My stomach is rumbling.”

  Brookvale was in a hollow, halfway along the Arrowe Brook Lane. High wooden gates and bushes of rhododendron hid the dwelling from view. Across the lane was a low, whitewashed farmhouse and the approach of the horse and carriage had set the geese in the yard cackling. A dog barked, adding to the cacophony and an irate man dressed in a stained white smock, gaiters over his brown corduroy trousers and heavy boots came ambling across to speak to their driver.

  “Bin up since afore dawn, can’t a fella catch up a bit on his snoozin’ without interruptions from your sort?”

  ‘Your sort’ must have applied to Lily and her Grand-mama and, seeing that the man had come out of a nearby barn, he was perhaps having a bit of a nap without the knowledge of the farmer.

  “Yer’ve come the wrong way if yer after Greasby Hall. Turn round and take the next turning on the left and it’ll tek yer through Greasby village.”

  “It’s this place, pal, Brookvale. The fella drew me a map. Can I take the carriage in or will it be too bumpy?”

  “I’d put ‘em down ‘ere, no sense in gettin’ yer axle broken. It’ll tek ‘em five minutes up the track to get ter the front door.”

  “I say, my man,” said Grand-mama, putting her head out of the window and shouting to the driver. “My son-in-law has directed you to deliver us to Brookvale. You will not be paid if you leave us at its entrance, so open the gates and get a move on.”

  There was a bit of muttering going on between Tommy and the farmhand, which resulted in a jolting of the carriage as the driver turned the horse and vehicle around.

  “He says to leave it ‘ere and ‘e’ll keep an eye to it.” Tommy had jumped down and was talking through the window to the outraged elderly lady, whilst Lily clutched at her reticule ready for their escape.

  “Are you expecting me to walk along a track with two valises and my granddaughter’s portmanteau? I think not! No, you can go ahead and inquire of the lady of the house if she has some sort of conveyance to put me in. A bath chair, perhaps.”

  “I could get a barrow,” said the farmhand, who had been hovering about listening to the exchanges with glee. “It’s a bit smelly, seein’ as I carry the horse muck in it, but I could put a newspaper on top.”

  Grand-mama ignored him and glared at the driver instead. “In the next few minutes please.”

  Lydia De Crosland herself came back with the driver, pushing an old battered wicker lying-chair on wheels ahead of her. Meanwhile, Grand-mama had worked herself into a frothing state, as the farmhand stood near to the carriage window chuckling to himself. Exhorting Grand-mama to take no notice of the little weasel, Lydia watched as Tommy first of all helped Lily down, then the grand-looking matriarch in her widow’s weeds. The farmhand looked at her in horror then. Had he just been taking the mick out of their stately queen?

  “Be off with you, Samuel, or I’ll come across and see Farmer Thornton. He won’t be very happy to hear you’ve been wasting precious daylight hours. Margaret! How many years has it been? And this must be Lily. What a beautiful name, taken from the Bible?” The lady herself was pleasant faced, with white hair that she wore in a type of a cottage loaf on top of her head. She was dressed in a dark blue tweed skirt that came down to her ankles, a pale blue knitted garment that had long, loose sleeves and a brown plaid shawl around her shoulders that had seen better days. On her feet she wore a pair of men’s heavy boots with the laces tied in a knot.

  She shook Lily’s hand and briefly patted Grand-mama on the shoulder, then motioned that her elderly visitor should climb into the chair, whilst the driver followed with their luggage behind. Lily found it difficult to keep her face straight, as she tiptoed behind her reclining grand-mama. How the family would smile if they could see their rather grand relative being pushed along a muddy track by a woman of a similar age!

  The rutted track, which was lined with what appeared to be an endless dark forest of oak, ash and birch trees on either sides, with the sounds of twittering birds above and the scurrying of little animals in the undergrowth, caused Lily to reflect on her possible move to the countryside. There would be no more walks to the park, or to the shops on Borough Road, or even a bracing sojourn along the esplanade, if she were accepted in marriage into the De Crosland family. Here in the gloom, where trees still dripped from the last shower of rain, she would be trapped forever. Perhaps her only relief would be a trip to church on a Sunday, or a visit now and again to the bosom of her family. She would have to be very much in love with the man she may marry; waiting for his return from his forays in foreign lands may cause a lot of heartache in the end.

  Then she thought of the glory, the acclaim from her doting parents, the envy from her sisters, because she, Lily Griffiths, a dreamer with no obvious talents, had managed to snare a man from a well-to-do family. A De Crosland, whose ancestors were around at the same time as the Magna Carta had been signed – that was if grand-mama was to be believed. Her spirits were high until the party rounded the corner and Brookvale Hall came into their view.

  When Brookvale Hall had been built in the previous century, an earlier De Crosland (a gentleman farmer) had lavished great amounts of money on it; the seven bedroomed, red stone, ivy covered manor house. It boasted a turreted entrance porch, with the family coat of arms carved into the archway above; square, leaded windows in the gabled wings, which stood either side of the portico and two wicked looking griffins, standing guard by the thick oak doorway.

  However, years of neglect from the family descendants, who used their birthright to capitalise on the name of De Crosland, had left the place heavily mortgaged to a wealthy man in Liverpool, who had let the house fall into disrepair. The army pension from Lydia’s now deceased lieutenant general husband’s estate, along with a little inherited income from rented property in West Kirby (courtesy of Lydia’s deceased parents), could only cover living expenses and the occasional urgent repair. The land that had been rented, part of the Arrowe Estate that had been sold in 1867 and its seasonal income from oats and wheat, along with the sale of many valuable paintings and artifacts, had soon disappeared from the family purse.

  “Welcome to chez nous,” Lydia said cheerfully, as she came to an abrupt stop by the portico, nearly causing Grand-mama to be pitched headlong. “Put the baggage over there, Driver, and then you can be off to find another fare.”

  Tommy, nervous now as he looked at his surroundings, was quick to do her bid, then sped off with promise of his return on Monday morning. Lily was left t
o wonder if she would see their driver again.

  “I thought an early luncheon after such a long journey,” Lydia said, as the three women walked into a large entrance hall, stone-floored and bare except for a fox head mounted on a wooden baton and staring balefully down from the whitewashed wall.

  The house felt chilly, even more so when they stepped into a large, oak-floored room, sparsely furnished with a heavy oak table, its legs carved with figures carrying baskets of fruit or flowers and under which were plain oak chairs, upholstered in faded red velvet. The stone chimney piece with its ornate over-mantel lay ready for the mistress of the house to set a match to the slow burning kindling, though it looked as if the well swept black marble interior hadn’t been used overmuch.

  “We tend to live in the kitchen,” Lydia remarked to her guests, as she lead the way through to another door that was set into light oak paneling, which lined the robust looking walls. “To tell the truth, since I had to let my live-in maid go I like to be where it is warm and comfortable, so I only light a fire in here when it’s of necessity. Of course, I still have a daily woman who comes in to help me, so do come through the both of you as she has made us a light lunch.”

  Grand-mama looked dismayed. Mannion wouldn’t be at all pleased when he heard that they had been on a wild goose chase that weekend. According to Millicent Broster, the De Crosland family were well heeled and from a very good background. Grand-mama made her mind up to never speak to Millicent again. Good gracious, she thought, as she stared at the stone flagged floor, the wooden bench seat that lined one of the whitewashed walls in the kitchen, the old fashioned rectangular table in front of it and the fire grate. From the large black kettle and the blackened stone pot beside it on the hearth, it looked as if the cooking was still done as if they were in an earlier century. At Rosemount Terrace, the cooking was done on a modern range with compartments for plate warming and the proofing of bread.