by Anne Bennett
‘I need to see your brother,’ she said to Annabel now. ‘D’you know where he is?’
Annabel nodded. ‘He’s gone to the recruitment place in the town to try and get staff. He said he’d be back just after lunch and it’s almost lunchtime now – my stomach says so anyway. Are you hungry, Celia?’
‘Not starving, but I could eat something,’ Celia said. ‘Let’s see what’s left in the kitchen.’
‘It doesn’t matter what there is, I couldn’t make anything with it,’ Annabel said flatly.
‘You mean you can’t cook anything?’
‘Don’t know the least thing about it. There was never the need.’
‘Well there is now,’ Celia said. ‘Even if Henry manages to engage a cook it’s hardly likely she’s going to work straight away and seven days a week and you need to know something about cooking yourself if you are ever going to discuss meals with her, I would imagine. I bet your mother used to do that.’
Annabel nodded. ‘She did but she never showed me how. I wouldn’t know where to start. Anyway, what if they won’t take me back?’
Celia did wonder that herself, for they’d been willing to exile her to the wilds of Ireland and an Aunt Agatha, who Henry hadn’t a good word for. ‘Henry won’t stand for that,’ she said assuredly. ‘Anyway, whatever happens you need to know how to cook some simple dishes at least and no time like the present. Come on, let’s go and look in the kitchen.’
However, she found little to make a satisfying meal for Henry had only bought very basic things, but she found oats and flour and there was butter in the dish so she made a big pile of oatcakes and made Annabel watch how she did it.
Henry came in before she was finished and was delighted that she could cook.
‘I have hired a young girl as housemaid,’ he said. ‘Her name is Jackson, Janey Jackson, and she isn’t working at the moment and is anxious to start work and earn money straight away so she is beginning next week. The cook, however, who is called Sadie Phelps, has to work a fortnight’s notice and I wasn’t sure how we were going to manage.’
‘I can cook most standard things,’ Celia said. ‘Not much fancy or anything. I can’t cook without ingredients though,’ she added. ‘So we need to go shopping as soon as we’ve finished these oatcakes.’
‘Write a list of everything you need,’ Henry suggested. ‘Erdington Village is just a step away and it has every kind of shop and you will be able to get anything you want there.’
The three of them went together and Celia found it just as Henry had said. Every shop she could need – a butcher’s, grocer’s, fishmonger, greengrocer’s and a bakery – were all grouped around the village green, less than fifteen minutes’ walk from the house. They came back home with laden bags, though Annabel was allowed to carry nothing heavy, and Celia set to work straight away to make a hearty Irish stew served with oaten bread, taking Annabel into the kitchen with her and showing her how to chop the vegetables.
Everyone was hungry by the time it was ready and they attacked the meal with gusto and eventually Henry wiped the last piece of oaten bread round his plate and put down his spoon with a sigh. He sat back in his chair and said, ‘That was delicious. This is really very good of you, Celia.’
‘It’s all right,’ Celia said. ‘I don’t mind cooking and I like to keep busy.’ That was true, especially now, for every time she thought of Andy she felt a pain in her heart and so the less time she had to think the better. She remembered that when her sister, Maggie, had died eventually the intense pain had settled to a dull and manageable ache and knew she would feel that way about Andy eventually. But life still had to be got through and this was her life for now. ‘What did you do normally for meals?’ she asked Henry.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well there must have been times when you were here on your own and there was no resident cook, so what did you do?’
‘Well I’m not completely helpless,’ Henry said. ‘I can boil eggs, make porridge and anyone can knock up a sandwich. For everything else I would go out. There’s plenty of restaurants, or my club in the town which has a damned good chef, but we can’t do that now because it’s important that Annabel is not seen by anyone who might recognise her.’
‘Oh, I can see that,’ Celia said and then she said, ‘Oh I nearly forgot, I need to find the nearest Catholic church, because tomorrow is Sunday and I have to go to Mass. We passed an abbey today on the way to Erdington Village so that will be it, I suppose.’
She had never imagined there would be any sort of problem. Henry was quiet for quite some time and when he spoke at last it was regretfully. ‘I’m really sorry, Celia, but I cannot agree to that.’
‘But you must. It’s a mortal sin if I miss Mass.’
‘I know and I am really sorry, but you risk blowing this subterfuge to protect my sister’s name wide open if you go to a Catholic church. Do you see that? You are supposed to be my sister and we are not Catholics and so, until the child is born and everything is settled, you will be unable to attend your church.’
It was like a hammer blow to Celia. All her life she had been frightened of committing a mortal sin for the Catholic Church had drummed it into her that if you died with a mortal sin on your soul you would burn in the flames of hell forever. She turned to Henry to tell him that she couldn’t do it, that he was asking too much, and she saw his deep brown eyes were full of anxiety and his brow was furrowed. She felt her heart give a flip. His earnest concern for his sister was evident and she knew she couldn’t have borne it if she brought danger on these people she relied on.
So she gave a slight nod of the head as she said, ‘All right then.’ She closed her eyes tight for a moment and then in a voice a little above a whisper went on, ‘I quite see I can’t go to Mass at the moment.’
‘Oh, Celia, I am so relieved,’ Henry said with a sigh.
Annabel had seen what it had cost Celia to make that decision and she put her arms around her as she said, ‘Thank you and thank you again because I know that wasn’t an easy decision to make.’
‘No it wasn’t,’ Celia said. ‘But I quite see it was the only one to make and as I am not going to Mass to-morrow I will have the time to show you how to make a roast dinner.’
Henry roared his approval. ‘This I’ve got to see. Roast dinner eh?’
‘Yes,’ Celia said and admitted, ‘This will be a bit of a learning curve for me too, because I have never made a full roast dinner myself, though I have helped my mother often, so I sort of know what to do and I’d like the chance to have a go at it.’
‘Well now is your chance,’ Henry said. ‘Once the cook is installed, if she is anything like every other cook I have ever met, you will virtually need her permission to even enter the kitchen, never mind actually cook anything in it.’
‘That will be a really odd thing for me,’ Celia said. ‘But I suppose like everything else it is something for me to get used to.’
Andy was also getting used to new things and one was that he didn’t think it was going to be as easy as he had thought to get a job and he was missing Celia a great deal more than he’d ever imagined he would. And though he could do nothing about it at that moment, when almost a week had passed, he thought that he ought to try and ascertain that Celia was happy because the Lewishams were perfect strangers and he told himself that once he knew that she was all right he could put all his energies into finding a decent, proper job.
And so early the following morning he made his way from his dingy lodgings in Erdington to Grange Road. After leaving the way he had, he had no desire to meet Henry and, though he guessed by the time he arrived there Henry would have left for work, he decided not to approach the house directly to be on the safe side. Instead, he secreted himself away behind a stout oak tree outside Freer’s farm, which was virtually opposite Henry’s house. He hoped he might catch sight of Celia on her own and have a word with her, but for some time there was no movement at all.
He had begu
n to wonder how long he should wait, when he really should have been out looking for work, when suddenly he was rewarded by the sight of two young ladies coming out of the house together. It took a few minutes for him to realise that one of the young ladies was his Celia, for she was as elegantly dressed as the other one, who he recognised as Lady Annabel. Celia seemed well nourished too and happy, for as she emerged she was laughing at something Lady Annabel said.
Both girls carried shopping bags and he imagined they were making for Erdington Village and he was surprised that Lady Annabel was carrying anything. Any carrying was usually left for the servants and her carrying a bag as well made them look like equals. This was compounded when Lady Annabel slipped her arm through Celia’s and they sauntered down the road as two friends might.
Andy was suddenly shy of calling after Celia as he had intended. He was very puzzled and while one part of him was relieved Celia had so obviously fallen on her feet, another part of him was concerned that this new Celia in the fancy clothes and footwear was like a stranger to him. He knew he would have hated for this new Celia to see the straitened circumstances he was in for his digs were spartan to say the least and he’d little opportunity to wash himself or change his clothes either.
The Celia he had come away with would have been sympathetic for his plight, but he thought the well-dressed, self-assured Celia he had just seen might just cast him a look of disdain and contempt. For a split second he had the urge to run after Celia and drag her away from the Lewishams before they tainted her altogether.
‘But to what?’ said his saner, inner voice. And he couldn’t answer that question because he had no viable alternative to offer Celia if he tried to force her to leave the comfort of the Lewishams’ place.
Even his own future was uncertain because he had little cash left and, unless he found work soon, he wouldn’t have enough to pay rent on the squalid room he had and would have to take to the streets. Did he want to risk imposing that on the girl he loved? No, of course he didn’t and as he sloped away he castigated himself that he should be so churlish about someone treating Celia almost too well. Instead, he should be pleased he’d made the right decision in leaving her behind with Lady Annabel and her brother, Henry.
He tried to feel relieved and happy, but he couldn’t totally ignore a knot of worry lodged in his heart that Celia was being pulled away from him. He had the feeling that the gap between them would widen the longer he was out of work until that gap would become an unbridgeable gulf and he couldn’t do anything about that either.
Back in Donegal, Norah was depressed and despondent and she knew in her heart of hearts then it was her own fault. Dazzled by thoughts of America dangling before her, she had encouraged and helped Celia escape without thinking through the implications for herself.
Dan Mulligan was no fool and knew Celia must have had help to run away for she was too closely guarded to make arrangements for herself and he also knew that the only one who would help her had to be Norah. She denied all knowledge of it of course, but her father didn’t believe her. Appealing to her mother was no good either because she thought the same way as her father and for a while she was treated like a leper.
No ticket came for America because Peggy had written and explained Celia’s flight and Norah’s suspected part in it and Aunt Maria quite understood that Norah couldn’t be trusted to leave her home just now, but suggested that perhaps Dermot might like the chance. Peggy read the letter to Dan, expecting him to pooh-pooh the whole notion of Dermot going so far away. She had no desire for any more of her children to go to America, that godforsaken place, in the knowledge that when they went aboard that ship she would never see them again.
To her utter amazement Dan said, ‘That’s a fine opportunity Maria is offering for a young man. It will be a wrench though, for the lad has become a real help on the farm now he’s grown up a bit.’
‘Dermot is far too young to be sent so far away,’ Peggy snapped. ‘I am surprised at you for even considering it.’
‘And what if he was to up and join the IRA?’ Dan said quietly. ‘As lads as young as him and younger are doing?’
Peggy knew Dan was right because as news of the brutality of the Black and Tans spread through the land, boys were joining the IRA and calling themselves Freedom Fighters in droves. And yet she maintained, ‘Dermot would never do such a thing. He’s far too sensible.’
Dan shook his head. ‘Sense doesn’t come into it when passion is aroused and in the young the passion is very close to the surface. You mind Jerry Maguire, Dermot’s best friend, who was never away from Donegal when they were wee boys together and a kinder, more even-tempered boy it would be hard to find?’
‘Of course I remember him,’ Peggy said. ‘Don’t say he’s involved in this?’
Dan nodded his head. ‘His parents are destroyed for they know once a person joins that organisation there’d be no getting out of it later. Not unless they want to spend the rest of their lives with busted kneecaps or worse. I would rather my son had a chance in America than be an IRA recruit and have his life snuffed out by a British Tommy gun.’
Peggy was silent. She still was not keen on Dermot going so far but Dan was right when he said passion among the young was to the fore. It was passion of a different kind that had caused Celia to run away. Never would Peggy have thought her daughter would have done anything like that, so there you are, you never knew what any of them might do, whatever upbringing they had, seemingly.
‘Shouldn’t we ask Dermot?’ Peggy said. ‘I have never heard him say a word about America, so maybe he has no desire to go.’
Dan nodded. ‘We’ll ask him certainly.’
‘And there is to be no pressure, Dan,’ Peggy warned. ‘If he says no it stays as no.’
Dan lifted up his hands. ‘Promise you. No pressure.’
Peggy was right, Dermot was sensible, far too sensible to hanker for things he couldn’t have and so that evening after the meal when his parents asked him to come into the sitting room, a room used only rarely, he had no idea what it was about. Norah was left to the task of washing the pots and she was no wiser either, so when Dan asked Dermot if he would like to go to America as Norah wasn’t being allowed to go, he was literally struck dumb for a moment or two. It was the very last thing he had expected his parents to say.
‘You serious?’ he asked his father.
‘Course I’m serious,’ Dan said.
‘But how will you manage? Sammy is too young to be of much help to you.’
‘Sammy will grow,’ Dan said. ‘He is nearly eight. And you won’t be going for a while yet. The summer is not the time for a farmer’s son to leave the land with everything ripening in the fields. Once the harvest is gathered in and the turf collected before winter sets in, that’s when you’ll be going, and for now take Sammy around with you as much as possible and show him what to do. But you must grasp this chance with two hands for such an opportunity will not come again.’
Dermot knew that well enough, but he was not expecting to leave his native soil for a long time yet, though he was well aware he’d have to make his way in the world eventually.
‘For all this is a marvellous opportunity for you,’ Peggy said, ‘we will understand, both of us, that you feel yourself too young to leave home yet and we will respect your decision.’
Dermot knew that was his mother’s way of saying she didn’t want him to go, but he remembered the things Jim had written to his sister to sort of prepare her for life over there and he had made it sound a very exciting place to live. While Dermot would undoubtedly miss his family and would have hated to be cast on America’s shores alone, he already had an older brother who would look out for him and an aunt who would be ready and willing to welcome him and the more he thought of the idea, the better he liked it.
‘Yes please,’ he said. ‘I think I would like to go to America.’
He heard his mother give a heartfelt sigh, but his father clapped him on the back in approval
.
‘Good man, Dermot, I think you’ve made the right decision. If you’d decided against it now, you may have regretted it all your life.’
‘I know,’ Dermot said. ‘I felt that way too.’
He knew though that Norah might be further hurt by the fact that he was going to America and he was sorry that he would have to hurt her afresh because he was very fond of her. However, working on the assumption that, as she had to know anyway, it was better sooner rather than later, he sought her out as soon as he left his parents. When he told her of the offer from Aunt Maria that his parents approved of, he saw her eyes open wider for the disappointment at the loss of her dream was lodged in her heart like a raw pain and she felt as though a knife was turned inside it at Dermot’s words.
And yet she did her best to smile at her young brother and tried but didn’t quite succeed in keeping any resentment out of her voice as she said, ‘Congratulations.’
‘Maybe later I can send for you?’
Norah smiled ruefully. ‘I think not, Dermot. My chance is gone.’
ELEVEN
All in all, though Celia remained hurt and confused by Andy’s behaviour, she was getting over it. She did enjoy Annabel’s company and there was plenty to occupy her because every morning they would decide on the menu for that day and then go into Erdington Village to buy all the things they would need. Once home again, at first Celia would show Annabel how to make dishes she was familiar with and so Celia would make bacon and cabbage, colcannon, coddle and Irish stew together with fruit cake, and apple pie and rhubarb crumble. Annabel felt better than she had in ages and was proud of the fact that an appetising meal she’d helped make was put in front of her brother when he came in from work each evening.
When Janey Jackson started work Celia thought it the strangest thing to watch a young girl – for she was only fifteen – do the jobs she thought of as hers. And she didn’t have to just watch her, but also give orders to her and Celia found that well nigh impossible at first. Annabel said she had to get over it for though many things were routine in the day, often Janey might have to be told to do certain jobs.