For the first few nights Eddie had made himself comfortable on the sofa, but today had been the day of Isabel’s removal and, after helping the family into a taxi cab with their scant possessions, he had moved himself into one of the spare bedrooms. Not Irene’s; Lily was hoping for her daughter’s early return, when Eddie became the prodigal son and went back to live at his parents’ home.
“So, what did the foreman say?” Lily asked, as she prepared a tray in readiness for Charlie’s supper, seeing as he couldn’t even make it to the lavvy that day and had to use the chamber pot under his bed.
“I have to get a bloomin’ union card from somewhere before he’ll take me on. Dad never agreed with his men being in a union, so we never had one. I wouldn’t mind, but I would only be laying drains before the footings go in – the chap was saying it’ll be another warehouse. I’m thinking I might go over to Neston tomorrow, as my uncle, who inherited the Sheldon Property Company instead of my granddad, might be in a position to help me out.”
“Oh, the Sheldon Property Company? That sounds grand.” Lily was agog at what she was hearing. So the young man was from a well-heeled family.
“I don’t know much about it, except that a great aunt founded it way back in the 1860’s. She started out as an immigrant fleeing the Irish famine and ended up a millionaire!”
“Well I never, so it could be that you and Irene will be inviting most of the great and good of the county to a lavish wedding! As soon as you name the day, Eddie, I’ll go to Saltbury’s and buy myself a hat and a smart frock.”
That’ll be never, thought Eddie, not daring to tell Lily that his father would never give his permission to wed a Protestant, as Irene was, when the Dockerty’s were from a long line of Catholics dating back to 1803. He would have to wait until he was twenty-one before being able to marry Irene in the registry office.
“I’ll have to get Irene to start looking out for a wedding dress pattern, then Isabel can make a gown that befits the occasion. She is very good with a sewing needle and it will be something for Mr Wilson to look forward to, especially if it is held on a warm day. Not that he will be capable of walking Irene down the aisle, so we would have to ask her Uncle Lawrence to carry out that honour.” How strange would that feel, to see Lawrence giving her daughter away?
Eddie was out at work on the day that Charlie went to meet his maker. A coughing fit that morning, just as the sun had come out of the clouds and promised to take the chill from the autumnal air, caused Lily to run down the hilly street to get help from the man at the tollhouse. Charlie was blue by the time the man had run to the nearby telephone box, as Lily was shaking so much that she would never have been able to dial the numbers. He was dead by the time the ambulance had come at a frenetic pace from Victoria Hospital, a few miles away.
Lily was inconsolable and babbled inconsequentially to Irene, who had been called from work to the hospital, that she had never loved Charlie, hadn’t really wanted to marry him as she was still in love with someone else and now he had gone and she had never got around to telling him that he had always been so dear to her. Irene put it down to the grief that her mother was feeling, after watching her terrified husband trying to get air into his lungs. She brought Lily back in a taxi, which neither of them could afford.
Eddie was waiting for them on their return, neatly scrubbed from his recent ablutions in the water butt outside. He had known something was wrong because he had seen Lily’s note on the kitchen table when he had got in from work. Not that he could read it, because his father had preferred to have his daughters educated whereas he raised his boys as working men, but he recognised the word ‘Irene’ at the beginning and ‘Mother’ at the end. He made the two sobbing women a comforting cup of tea then set about frying eggs and bacon for their supper. Irene and Lily said they couldn’t eat, but Eddie insisted that they ate something as they would need their strength.
Later, worn out with the day’s events and feeling every inch her age as she lay next to the empty space where Charlie had slept for all those years, Lily couldn’t help but worry for her future years. She would have to move from Pear Tree Cottage; there was no way she could stay. She was down to her last ten shillings and a widow’s pension, if they gave her one, would only pay the rent. Of course, there was Irene; she might be persuaded to move back in and her wage would keep the wolf from the door.
A sudden movement caught her eye as she dozed intermittently, fretting upon who she should tell about Charlie passing over and whether his policy was paid up to date. It was dawn outside and the weak sun of the morning told her that night had turned into day.
“Charlie, is that you?” she cried, groggy and still in a state of disbelief that the man who had been her husband had gone, after all those years.
The apparition sat on the end of her bed was a great deal younger and handsomer than Lily remembered and wore clothes from a bygone era, which made him look dapper and well-groomed. They weren’t the ragged garments that Charlie had recently worn.
“I’m here Lily. Not gone just yet, it’s not my time and I can choose to be an Earth bound spirit for the moment. I thought that this bloomin’ chest of mine would do for me in the end.”
There was a sense of peace as she gazed upon him, but then a great feeling of sadness when she looked away for a moment and he was gone. Undeterred, she walked down the stairs in her dressing gown to set about her usual tasks of riddling the embers in the kitchen range and putting the kettle on.
Had she dreamt it, had her grieving heart conjured up an image of Charlie so that she could convince herself he was happy and had gone to a better place? Happier than she had made him, with her nagging tongue and her waspish ways; she had never once told him in all those years that he was the man she loved. Had she been living a lie, pretending to the world that all had been well, when deep inside she longed for her youth and her heart’s desire back in her life again?
Her Heart's Desire Page 22