Her Heart's Desire

by Vivienne Dockerty

  Mr O’Neill, still in charge of the office where Charlie used to work before his panic attack on the H.M.S Bravery, was a little put out, to say the least, when his ex-employee turned up looking for his old job, expecting it still to be there even though he had been absent from his desk for over three years. If it hadn’t been for the fact that the navy had ordered enough warships and submarines to make one think that the government was planning to defend its nation against a major invasion, O’Neill would have kindly said, to this ingenuous little man who stood before him, that his position was no longer there. However, no one knew the date, the hour, or whether Britain would be caught with its pants down, so being a man who liked to meet his obligations ahead of the rest, he decided that it wouldn’t do the shipyard any harm to have an extra man, even if that man had declined to go on sea trials!

  Lily, worried to death that the new baby might be born into a hand-to-mouth existence, could finally plan ahead for a decent spread at Christmas and kill a chicken for their festive meal, instead of needing it alive for its eggs.

  Six year old Isabel, educated as she was by the nuns at the local convent school, soon came home with a smattering of French, had a knowledge of arithmetic and was adept at reading anything that had the written word. She had settled in well and enjoyed the strict regime of learning that the kindly teachers imposed upon their small charges and although neither Charlie and Lily were of the Roman Catholic faith, they accepted that though she took no part in the prayers, their daughter was still treated as a member of God’s family.

  On fine days the pupils went out to play in a lovely garden just behind the church. There was a huge lawn there, where the weeping willow trees made a graceful shelter for the black-robed sisters to sit and work at their beautiful embroidery. Those of the sisters who were not on duty would tuck up their skirts and play games with the children along the gravel paths. There were statues of the Virgin Mary and all the saints placed into little alcoves that were cut into the hedges around the garden. There were archways too and one day Isabel took the opportunity to have a look beyond the area that was forbidden to the youngsters. Just a look; no one would notice if she took a peek into what she saw was a kitchen garden. A garden smaller than her Papa’s, but with a dozen white hens scratching and clucking and a nun hoeing the soil with all the energy she possessed.

  Lily gave birth to her second baby as the snow began to fall in the third week of February. The local midwife, Miss Margaret Shaw, was in attendance when the doctor on examining Lily had decided that, considering Isabel had been a fairly easy labour, Lily could give birth at home and not in the nearby hospital, though with her tiny frame there might have been a possibility of a breech birth. The couple were a little disappointed, after ten hours of Lily’s exertion, that the baby whom they later decided to call Irene wasn’t a boy, but were grateful that their offspring had the required number of fingers and toes on her hands and feet. It also seemed that their market garden now would be just an extra source of income, as Charlie had settled back into his office job and Danny, until he got his call up papers, was keeping an eye on things.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By 1914, the German chancellor, Theodore von Bethmann-Hollweg, who had worked so hard in the past to convince Britain that there should be a reduction, not an increase of military armaments, found that he had come up against the wishes of his naval commander, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, who along with Kaiser Wilhelm was itching to start a war. Not having a good enough reason to attack Serbia, because it would bring about the might of Russia, who was a friend of the small country, the pair waited for a valid excuse, building up their military weapons and even picking the name for their hostilities of the ‘Great War’.

  Most people in Britain were unaware of the whirling pool of discontent that was happening so faraway in Europe. They didn’t consider themselves Europeans and unless someone threatened their own existence, why should they be concerned? Many in the second decade of the 20th century hadn’t even been out of their villages and couldn’t point on a map to where these foreign sounding names like Serbia were. Enjoying the warmth of an English summer, they didn’t really care.

  Lily, Charlie and their two young daughters – Isabel, a slim seven year old with long fair hair, and Irene, chestnut haired and toddling – took their first holiday together at the end of June, at a small bed and breakfast in Morecambe, travelling by train from Liverpool. Morecambe was not so brash as the nearby Blackpool, or so Charlie had heard from his office colleagues, where the mill owners of Lancashire put on special trains to transport their workers on Wakes Week; a time when the mill would shut down and everyone, even the bosses, took a week’s holiday. The B&Bs would be full, the arcades, the theatres and the Blackpool Tower would be packed and the landladies would be working flat out to cater for their lodgers needs.

  In Morecambe, staying in the large bedroom of a Victorian built, three-storied, terraced house in a quiet street near Happy Mount Park, the family enjoyed the luxury of electric lighting, with Irene being in trouble for constantly pulling on the light switch. There was also a bathroom and an inside toilet and, although they had to pay for the privilege, each were able to have a soak in the ceramic bath. It was a happy time for all of them, with Charlie contentedly paddling with his daughters in the shallow end of the lido or in the chill waters of Morecambe Bay. Lily enjoyed the music played each day in the bandstand and both agreed that the floral display in the gardens gave food for thought, should Charlie ever want to landscape his acre instead of working the land. They took a ride on the tram to Blackpool, eyeing in awe the giant Ferris wheel that people queued for hours to take a ride on, walked to the top of the enormous tower that was modeled on the one that they had in Paris (Charlie didn’t, he sat on a bench watching the tide come in on Blackpool sands) then thankfully, finding the crowds too much to cope with along the busy streets, piers and esplanade, they caught the tram back to their lodgings.

  It was as Charlie put the key in the lock of Pear Tree Cottage, after puffing up the incline from the Penny Bridge holding Irene with one hand and the family’s cardboard suitcase in the other, that he had a sudden pang of remorse for the way he had taken Lily from the comfort of their marital home on Mersey Mount, before that Rosemount Terrace, and plonked her in this shabby, damp smelling dwelling, with no bath or inside toilet. He looked with dismay at the flagged floor in the kitchen, the dim lamps, the old fashioned range, walls that could do with another coat of distemper and the Persian rug, which badly needed replacing as it was all scuffed with ingrained dirt. He remembered how she had been so proud of it.

  He watched, as the mother of his two darling daughters went straight to the range to put a light to the fire that had been left in tidy readiness, took the suitcase from him and placed it in the scullery ready for the washing of the contents next day. She filled the kettle, gave Isabel her housekeeping purse and told her to fetch a plate meat pie from the bakery, then proceeded to peel some potatoes, all the while keeping an eye on Irene, who was sitting on the floor talking animatedly to her little rag doll.

  This matronly looking woman was his Lily, he thought sorrowfully. The girl he had called his beloved, whom he had dreamt about and wrote little poems to. What had he done to her? Eleven years on, they were living in a wreck of a house, with no modern trappings of his success, when she should have been living in a beautiful house on a leafy avenue somewhere. She was a saint to have put up with the ups and downs of their marriage, though he couldn’t help thinking she had let herself go somewhat.

  Her figure, once held together by corset-like undergarments, bulged discreetly around the waist of her skirt. Her peplum jacket now strained across her ample bosom and her hair had more grey than chestnut, which she wore in a bun at the nape of her neck. She looked aged beyond her thirty-eight years and recently he had been feeling a wave of discontent, because now she wasn’t the girl he had fallen in love with and he felt short changed somehow.

  Lily looked ov
er in exasperation at Charlie, who was still standing where she had left him by the back door, looking a little lost and as if he needed someone to give him orders. She couldn’t help smiling to herself wryly, when she thought of how she had changed from a frivolous young miss to this bustling body who had become such a good organiser. Bertha would have been very pleased with her all those years ago, if she had shown one iota of the energy that she put in to keep the body and soul of this small household going. And Grand-mama, Grand-mama who despaired that Lily had no talent other than arranging flowers, would be gratified to see the woman that Lily had become. Not with a wealthy husband though, a voice inside her head mocked. No splendid house and servants, no nursery maid to see to your daughters’ needs. Just married to a glorified gardener, who had a mother that sold flowers at the cemetery gate.

  “Hadn’t you better have a look around the greenhouse?” she asked Charlie suddenly, with a sharp tone in her voice. She wondered why, after such a good family holiday, when the pair of them had got on so well despite having to keep their lovemaking to the early hours of the morning when they were sure their children were asleep, she was suddenly feeling dissatisfied.

  “Did you leave the window open in the greenhouse, Charlie? The tomatoes might have been affected by a draught.”

  “There’s no need to worry, Danny would have checked and he was keeping an eye on the place as you know.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there, then, find something to do. Perhaps you could go as far as putting the water into the teapot.”

  Charlie shrugged and did as he was told – at the look on her face, he wasn’t going to argue.

  Now that Charlie had a good job paying top wages again, it had been decided that it would be he who would pay for Isabel’s education, seeing as she could read any book put in front of her, write very well and speak French fairly fluently. Irene also had her name down at the convent and would begin her education when she was four.

  Mannion, still a creaking door but a danger to himself now he gone a little senile, had been given a bedroom in the home on Temple Road, as Mabel (a member of the suffragette movement now, especially so, since Emily Davidson had been killed under the legs of a horse in her pursuit of a vote for women), had decided when asked if she would give up work and look after her father instead, that she would rather walk on hot coals Instead she chose to share the rent of a two bedroom flat in a house on Shrewsbury Road, with a woman she had met on one of the rallies in Liverpool.

  There seemed to be so many changes now, in Charlie’s opinion. People like Mabel, for instance, who didn’t need or want the protection of a man, be it father or husband, was quite happy earning a wage with only herself to think of. Another of Lily’s sisters, Caroline, an older one that Charlie had only met at weddings and funerals, was at this moment sailing across the many seas in an emigrant ship bound for a place called Perth in Australia. She was to start a new life with a husband and three almost grownup boys, looking for a better place, a peaceful place, to live in.

  And there would be thousands more like Caroline, Charlie thought, with war almost on the horizon, now that someone called Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, had been assassinated. This had given a much needed excuse for the Germans to take a strike at Serbia, even though the emperor of that country, who had never been close to Franz, wasn’t really bothered.

  Charlie, up to his neck now in helping to launch battleships, submarines and all sort of smaller vessels that the navy had decided were necessary if suddenly Britain was called upon to help an ally, read his daily newspaper avidly, trying to make sense of it all. Germany, who seemed to have been spoiling for a fight for quite a while, offered what became known as a ‘blank cheque’ to Austria-Hungary, which meant unconditional support on whatever action the country decided upon. Germany, however, was more agreeable to war with France or Russia, who were supporters of Serbia, but according to the newspaper hoped to avoid a war with Britain. Much encouraged by this show of support from Germany, it was decided by Austria-Hungary to revoke Serbia’s national sovereignty, when really all they had to do was to ask for Ferdinand’s murderers to be handed over.

  So on 4th August 1914, Charlie and his colleagues in the office heard that British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey had announced that Britain was to fight to defend Belgium neutrality, as German troops were to occupy the country whilst en route to France.

  “What the hell has Belgium got to do with us?” Charlie said, no doubt voicing all the opinions of the men who were listening to their manager’s announcement after he had read out the telegram.

  Many volunteers rushed to join the armed forces later, as there was a widespread misunderstanding of what this war would be like. Most thought they were doing their bit to help crush the brutal aggression of the German Empire, encouraged by the government of the day who had control over what was written in the newspapers. It was only in the following year when casualties were mounting fast, the numbers enlisting dropped off and conscription was brought in for all unmarried men, known as the ‘call up.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  When the hostilities ended over four long years later, the armistice signed and millions of men having died in a futile war that should have been over by Christmas, many families were left traumatised after losing their main breadwinner and fatherless children were brought up in even worse poverty than they were before. But the kaiser had been given a bloody nose as far as many people were concerned, although he probably didn’t feel the effect personally in his retirement in the village of Appledorn, Holland.

  Charlie, amongst others who hadn’t lost their lives and were in a reserved occupation, found themselves trudging the streets looking for work. The shipyard, its navy contracts fulfilled and no more orders in the pipeline, had shed its workers, leaving only a skeleton workforce behind.

  When Charlie and his colleagues were vital to the war effort they had been presented to King George V and Queen Mary, but now they had to present themselves to the unemployment office, where a means test decided if they would have enough to eat.

  Not that it was the case in the Wilson household, as Lily, used to frugal living and make-do and mend, had been very canny during the war years, banking Charlie’s wages and assisting Danny in the market garden, until he had enlisted in the Liverpool Pals and had marched off to die in the fields of glory. She had provided as much as she was able from their land and their laying hens, with the table outside the cottage proving popular with the passing dock land trade.

  The country was certainly no fit place for heros to return to. Those who were lucky enough to survive found themselves coming back to broken homes and unbearable poverty. To top it all was the spread of Spanish influenza, which visited on a population whose bodies, weakened by the deprivations of good food due to the German U-boat campaign of sinking the ships that carried the food that Britain imported, hadn’t got the ability to shrug the infection off. Lily, once again, had a husband who was morose and melancholy and even the dock lands were idle after four years of noisy intrusion into the Wilson family’s ears. What was the point of working in the garden again, with no passing trade? Charlie had said to himself.

  It was a harrowing time for the couple, after Isabel went down with scarlet fever, contracted no doubt from her fellow students at the local school she now had to attend along with Irene, who had been most put out at having to leave her beloved teachers at the convent. Charlie was not able to pay the fee for their private tuition anymore and Lily wanted to hold onto her precious savings. Isabel was sent away by the family doctor to a hospital on Vyner Road in Bidston, which was earmarked for its isolation on the outskirts of the town. Irene also fell ill, though not so acutely as her sister, and Lily spent most of her time nursing her small patient. A wet, white sheet was suspended from the lintel of the bedroom door and the child tossed and turned as the fever took hold. It was inevitable that Charlie took to drink once more, finding solace in the company of other p
oor souls, with their recent tales of blood and gore to tell at the local tavern.

  While the children were ill and Lily was confined to the cottage – except for cutting a few flowers from the garden and placing them outside the gate in a bucket, with hope in her heart that someone would have a few coppers to spare for a bunch, as Charlie was drinking their hard earned savings away – she met up with a shady little man called Kenny. At that time, betting wasn’t a legal form of recreation, but there was usually someone of Kenny’s calibre hanging around a pub or a street corner that knew all the ropes involved in the sport.

  Lily met Kenny one morning, when he knocked at her door to tell her he was taking two of her bunches. One for his mother and one for his sweetheart, who he was hoping to make an honest woman of one day. Whilst he was handing her the money, he asked would she be interested in doing a bit of business? There was a horse, a dead cert, who was running in the Grand National at Aintree that day. With a bet each way, especially with his insider knowledge that the horse didn’t have a wooden leg, Lily would be rewarded with instant riches for her bet. Lily smiled to herself, as she gave back the money that he had just handed over and watched as he drew wads of paper and money out of his long overcoat pockets, licking the end of his pencil, then writing down her name. She thought herself a mug, but why not dream of riches for a while? She was tickled pink when the following Monday she saw Kenny hanging around the front gate, the collar of his coat pulled up against a chilly wind, a trilby pulled low on his forehead, looking every inch a spiv from a gangland movie. She was fifteen shillings richer and it was the first time in her life she had ever placed a bet.

  It was eight weeks before Isabel made a full recovery – a long time to be away from her family, who weren’t allowed to visit the hospital for fear of spreading germs. Irene had caught a lighter dose of the disease and although she had tossed and turned and gone through the same delirium, the doctor was pleased with her progress after the fever broke and she was on the mend. Lily, however, was whacked.