The house had probably been built in the early part of the 19th century, as Lily had discovered, when on the morning after their arrival she had found that there were two sets of stairs. One set lead from an upper back room down to the kitchen, perhaps for the use of a servant; the other on the landing ran down into what Lily called her sitting room. Charlie had checked out the cellar and found it housed the coal, the gas pipes, spider webs and a few mouse holes. Of course, the place lacked a bathroom, something which Lily had grown used to both at Rosemount and then at Mersey Mount, so once more she’d had to get used to doing without one. She made do with an all over wash in the scullery with a flannel, as she had also had to do at Brookvale.
The small shop sited just a few hundred yards up from the cottage had a large display window and emitted a lovely smell of baking through the open front door every morning, except Sunday. The owners, Arthur and Daisy Thomas, where originally from North Wales and usually went back on Sundays in their van, to collect seasonal fruit from the abundant orchard on Arthur’s brother’s farm. Rosy red apples, yellow pears, Victoria plums, golden yolk eggs and salted Welsh butter were often on sale on the premises and Arthur also sold his products from a stall on Leasowe Market, along with some of the confectionary that Daisy produced.
It had to be said that when Charlie took over the market garden, he was in direct competition with the Thomas’s for the dock workers’ custom, though his wares were minimal and not such a threat, if he only supplied produce from his vegetable garden. However, as time went by, money grew tight. Even by selling bunches of flowers to passing trade, they still were having problems with making ends meet, so Charlie suggested that they too should sell their produce as his mother had before from a market stall. Lily suggested they take in a lodger, as what did they need four bedrooms for?
Her idea had at first met with Charlie’s disapproval. He didn’t want a lodger, didn’t want his peaceful haven disturbed, but he had to admit that extra money would come in useful now that winter was on its way once more and he didn’t fancy puffing up the road to Leasowe with his produce. Even with Mannion’s contribution of a hundred weight of coal, dropped off once per fortnight, the house was damp and the only source of heating that they could afford was keeping in the embers in the kitchen range. A lodger would pay for some extra heating and they could light some bedroom fires.
Charlie was now faced with the winter of 1909, when the fog swirled in from the dock lands, a bitter wind that seemed to attack every bone in his body. He succumbed to any coughs and colds that were doing the rounds, which restricted his breathing. The thought of having a lodger brought a certain relief to all these worries, once he had grown used to the idea, though it couldn’t be permanent. Once the buds were on the trees again, he wouldn’t want a lodger.
Lily had to man the stall when Charlie couldn’t manage it, all dressed up in many layers of winter clothing and one of her husband’s caps, whilst Charlie sat with Isabel helping her to read and count, so that she’d be a bit ahead when she started at the convent school. One afternoon, when Lily had decided enough was enough and there was only a couple of bunches left in the pail, a tall young man requested some flowers for his lady love.
“Tis’ cold for yer, missis, standing out in all weathers. I’ve seen yer these last few days and said ter meself, I’ll get my Kathleen some flowers on pay day. She lives over there, her dadda’s the man who lives in the tollhouse. We’re to be wed next summer, if we ever get a place that is.”
“Is it difficult to get a place then?” Lily didn’t know and hadn’t yet got around to placing a card advertising for a lodger in the post office window at Liscard.
“It is, missis. I managed to get digs with a chap who works alongside me, but it isn’t ideal workin’ together, then sharing a place as well and it’s over on the other side of Birkenhead Park.”
“I see,” said Lily, her spirits soaring as she thought that this nice young man might fit in very nicely in their household. He was working, looked clean, presentable and if his fiancée lived across the bridge, he wouldn’t be spending a lot of time in their company. “I have a room to rent and I could do you a bit of breakfast too.”
So Lily and Charlie welcomed their new lodger, whose name was Jack. He was given the third bedroom, Charlie still insisting that the smaller fourth room would be a bathroom one day, which had a view over the orchard and hedges of lavender.
It was coming up to Christmas and Lily, well versed now in the making of floral wreaths, did a roaring trade from her stall. The trend to display a seasonal wreath of holly entwined with red ribbons and a few heads of white chrysanthemums on the front door of a person’s home had begun to catch on with the workers from the docks. Not that it was just dockyard workers that passed their stall to and from the dock lands. Chemical industries, such as the one that Jack worked for, oil and gas companies with their storage containers and sundry offices; all had businesses growing down there.
One crisp morning, when Lily had just finished selling the last of the sprouts that Charlie had grown in abundance that year, she noticed a funeral carriage, its two black stallions stamping impatiently with their nostrils billowing in the chill of the air, as a coffin was loaded upon it by two black suited men. The carriage was outside the home of Mr Wilson and, sensing that the poor old bloke had gone to his maker, Lily hurriedly whipped her apron off and, leaving the stall unattended, she sped across the road to pay her last respects.
A woman, short in height and a little rotund, with salt and pepper hair and wearing a black armband around the left sleeve of her shabby blue coat, waited on the pavement for the carriage to move off with the coffin.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Lily said, puffing a little, as the house was on a bit of an incline. “My name is Lily Wilson and I live across the road at Pear Tree Cottage. You must be Mr Wilson’s daughter? I called across to introduce myself to your father one day and he didn’t seem to be very well.”
“No, it got him in the end, poor Dad. Been sufferin’ for years with a weak chest and this last month he’s been coughin’ up blood. A merciful release though. We think he must have caught somethin’ on ‘is travels.”
“Travels?”
“Yeah, ‘e was a mariner, went all over. One time when we were kids we didn’t see ‘im fer years. Mam used ter joke that ‘e were a typical sailor, a woman in every port. Anyways, I’ll be off, got ter meet the others at the cemetery. Isn’t it strange ‘avin two Wilson’s livin’ opposite each other, I wonder if we’re related?”
Chapter Seventeen
It was July 1911 before Lily was certain that another little Wilson would make his appearance and, according to Bertha’s calculations, the birth would be early in the New Year. The two sisters had grown quite close to one another as the years began to quickly pass them by; more so now, with their mother, Hannah, having gone to her rest in heaven, probably due to the enormous pressure of her weight on her heart. Mannion, cut to the quick by the demise of his adored wife and housebound because of painful gout, became dependent on some of his many daughters to keep him going in his final years. Frederick, unmarried and now a foreign diplomat, was only seen spasmodically.
Bertha, in charge of it all, as she lived the closest to her parent’s modest home and had more time on her hands now that the Patterson aunties had passed away, became the provider of Mannion’s daily meals. Some of them were cooked from the seasonal offerings of fruit, eggs and vegetables, courtesy of Pear Tree Cottage, taken across to the house in Carlton Road by a driver who now rented the old Wilson house across the Poulton Bridge Road. The man made his living delivering any goods that were up for transportation, parking his horse-drawn truck at the side of the stable that was built on land nearby. Ellen, once again, was called upon to keep her father’s house in good, clean order, even though she was now mother to a pair of snotty nosed rascals. Mabel, who had become the manageress of the florist shop on Borough Road, was there in the evening to keep her father compan
y. Lily, when she wasn’t required to man the stall outside the house and once Isabel had started at the convent school, would walk across the Penny Bridge, sometimes trekking through the narrow streets near Birkenhead Park until she reached her father’s home. Mostly, and especially when she found she was expecting again, she caught the omnibus from the Laird Street depot.
It was a warm day in July when Lily, holding Isabel by the hand, stood outside Mannion’s house, waiting for Bertha to answer the door. The convent school was on vacation and both Lily and Isabel were wearing chiffon summer dresses: Isabel’s knee length and white, Lily’s calf length and violet; Isabel wearing a straw boater trimmed with a matching ribbon and Lily wearing a larger version of her daughter’s. They had been there for some time and were just about to leave and catch the bus to the market, as Isabel had requested the visit there as a treat (to a six year old the market was a really exciting place), when Bertha, wiping tears away from her face with a large, white handkerchief, answered the door.
Alarmed that her father might be at death’s door and concerned that perhaps this would be her last chance to say goodbye to him, Lily left her daughter standing on the doorstep and sped to the kitchen-cum-living room. But Mannion, still as large as ever, was sitting in his armchair in front of the fire, staring gloomily at the newspaper that he had open in front of him.
“I knew something like this was going to happen,” he said mournfully, not taking in the fact that a different daughter was standing over him with a face full of concern. “That Hollweg fellow, that new German Chancellor… it says here that he wants Britain to reduce our naval armaments and the Germans will sign some bit of paper and do the same. I wouldn’t trust that lot as far as I could throw them and if Lawrence knew what’s good for him he’d get a shore job and pack in the sea.”
“Surely it’s just a lot of posturing, ‘cause he’s a new to the position? That’s what Charlie would say it was.” Lily beckoned to her daughter, who had been standing anxiously in the hallway listening to her grandfather, who didn’t seem to be his usual jovial self.
When her heart had stopped beating madly, Lily sank thankfully on the sofa with a bewildered Isabel. Bertha put the kettle on for a soothing cup of tea to calm all their nerves, over the initial shock of listening to her father warning that German submarines would one day pounce upon the merchant ships that sailed the Atlantic between Liverpool and America, which brought food and other products to a growing population.
“I heard Charlie talking to one of the dockyard workers the other day and he said that he’d heard from one of the German sailors that there’s a lot of civil unrest back there. A war with France and Russia would prove popular, but it would be fought on land not the sea. The sailor had said that Germany had no cause to fight a war with Britain.”
“Humph, well we’ll see. I’ll write to Frederick and find out what he’s got to say.” Mannion decided not to continue the discussion with those whom he felt were his unworldly daughters, after having succeeded in frightening poor Bertha, whose sea going husband he reckoned would be in the thick of it. From the reports he’d been reading recently, it seemed that the German military commanders were spoiling for a fight.
A similar discussion was going on between Charlie and his new pal Frank Pollitt, the delivery driver who rented the old house across the road. They had become firm friends, after Frank, seeing an opportunity to sell fruit and vegetables from his horse drawn cart, had approached Charlie and asked if he would be willing to supply the produce for his new enterprise. Of course, Charlie leapt at the chance of expanding and had even taken on a lad to do the heavy digging, leaving him with the pleasure of picking the produce and the occasional hoeing and weeding.
“I can’t see why Britain would want to go to war with Germany,” Charlie was saying. “Why would we, when even our monarchy is related to them? According to what I’ve been reading, if there was a war it would be the Austro-Hungarian Empire fighting the poor little Serbians – they’ve been itching for a fight with them for years.”
“So they say.” Frank, a large, heavily bearded man, an ex-docker, who due to an injury at work walked with a limp and was married to a nurse who worked at Victoria hospital, sounded dubious. “But me eldest boy, who as you know has just finished his army training, was saying that word ‘as it some sort of treaty was signed years ago with Belgium.”
“Well, what’s Belgium got to do with anything?” Charlie was at a loss to understand why a piece of paper signed with Belgium could draw Britain into any impending war.
“France, mate. We’re allies of France and if Belgium was invaded, France would be as well.”
“But what has France or Belgium got to do with Serbia?”
“Don’t know Charlie, I’m at a loss meself.”
Life in the Wilson household was now a lot more comfortable financially. Once Frank had got his delivery up and running around the leafy lanes of Oxton, where wealthy merchants and the nouveau riche had built houses suitable for their grand lifestyles, they didn’t need to take in a lodger. Besides profiting from the growing demand for his produce – principally still from the passing dock land trade but also from the flour mill that had been built further along the busy road – Charlie was able to take things a little easier. Danny, his young labourer, had proved to be worth his weight in gold in all things appertaining to the production of fruit and vegetables. Furthermore, the Thomas’s had sold their shop to a woman who preferred to run the place as a bakery and sandwich bar, and was happy to order all the free range eggs that Charlie could supply.
Jack, their lodger, after a pleasant wedding held at nearby St. Hilary’s to which the Wilson’s had been invited and after a weekend in New Brighton for the honeymoon, had moved into the tollhouse with Kathleen and her father, but still called in now and again just to say hello. It was of his opinion too that war couldn’t be far away. Look how there’d been the possibility of one over the Second Moroccan Crisis and the prevention of expansion of the Balkan War into broader conflict. Not that he or Charlie understood the motives of these politicians with their posh sounding lordship names, who were in charge of all things to do with foreign affairs, but they liked to sound knowledgeable. It was a man thing to keep an eye on what the government of the day was up to – that’s why those women suffragettes, who were causing a lot of mayhem all around, were proving to be such a pain.
“You’d be as well trying to get back into the shipyard, Charlie,” Jack said, whilst sipping a glass of homemade parsnip wine, which Charlie had recently found he was proficient at producing.
“You might think it’ll be the younger men that’ll be called up first and that could be true, but you’re only – what, thirty-nine? – and already experienced in one of them submarines the navy’ll start using. My boss was saying only the other day that people in reserved occupation wouldn’t have to go to war.”
“With my luck, they’d have me down in one of them again.” Charlie felt a shudder at the thought of it and hoped he wouldn’t get his nightmares back. His life was perfect just as it was. A thriving business, a good wife, a pretty daughter and another longed for baby on the way.
Lily felt worried as she listened to the men ‘chewing the fat’, as Charlie was apt to call his discussions with any male that had the time to listen when they stopped at the Wilson’s stall. As the months flew by and her body had grown bigger with pregnancy, she yearned for the quiet life she had known back in Greasby. The only talk of war then was when Roland had spoken of faraway lands, where despots, rajah’s and tyrants stood in the way of the mighty British Empire, who were intent on civilizing the world, whether the world liked it or not. A war in Europe, even if it was to be fought in a little known place called Serbia, seemed too close to home to the protective instinct in Lily, especially when she saw the increased shipping that came into the Wallasey docks.
Three things that winter caused Charlie to revisit his refusal to consider returning to the shipyard: his fruit trees got bl
ight, probably, he thought, due to the import of foreign apples, any diseases being spread by the rats who continued to leap across the short distance from a ship to his orchard; his vegetables, mostly cabbages and sprouts, were ruined overnight by a sudden dip in temperature, causing a kind of frostbite that burrowed into their core and Frank, having nothing much to sell now on his delivery round, took an inside job at the flour mill. Finally, Charlie’s lungs, exposed to the bitter wind chill as he haplessly examined each round heart or head for some sign that the vegetable was sellable, began to find that his breathing was becoming restricted yet again.
Lily, relieved on one hand that a desk job for Charlie would be more reliable than his market garden, and that if war was declared, though still unlikely if the newspapers were to be believed, he would be safe in an office instead of being sent to the front line, worried that she would be expected to look after the dwindling produce on the stall. After all, there were still the flowers, hot house grapes and a few fat marrows for sale and as her girth increased, with the birth of her baby due in February, she didn’t feel like standing there in the freezing cold.
It was Danny who came up trumps, on being told that there might not be a job for him if his employer got work at the shipyard. A couple of hours tuition on how to add the shillings and pennies and what change he’d have to give to a customer, saw him taking the place of Lily more than once on the stall.
Her Heart's Desire Page 16