The bell rang, the tram groaned to a halt and most of the men disembarked. Who was this mysterious Miss Connolly? Why did the Captain say it was his money, anyway? There seemed to have been a presumption of knowledge that he just didn’t have. Did it matter? If nothing else, it did seem to have moved him a bit closer to the possibility of acceptance by the formidable Mrs Peterson. The bell tinkled, the tram jerked then moved off smoothly towards Pendleton Church and a woman downstairs cautioned the conductor to ‘Mind me eggs, love, they’re a treat for my Alfie. Mashed up in a cup with a bit of butter and some toast soldiers and he’ll be right as rain in a couple of days.’
Chapter 24
The peeling, brown-painted front door of the large terraced house on Ellor Street testified to the disinterested neglect of the occupant. The brass knob, letterbox and escutcheon, now heavily tarnished, bore evidence of previous cleanings in the scoured borders round them. The stone step looked tired, yearning for the thoughtful application of a cream and a white donkey stone, and the cast iron coal grid showed patches of rust through the want of a protective coat of black lead. Two women, idly gossiping outside the corset shop nearby, watched the girls as they hesitated in front of the house.
‘Are you sure that you want to ask him to do this,’ Pippin asked. ‘My dad would probably have helped you if we had asked him.’
‘I know, but Mr Blenkinsop said that I should ask Mr Eppie for advice to get the right words. He said that they don’t normally have females in the funeral business so the wording would have to be just right to persuade old Mr Musgrave that I could do the job,’ Amy said.
‘Why do you want to work with dead people anyway? That seems really morbid.’
‘Maybe. But it’s a proper job. It’s better than working in a mill for the rest of your life.’
‘But you’ll finish up miserable all the time like Mr Blenkinsop,’ Pippin reasoned.
‘You have to share the grief of the mourners, Pip. Wouldn’t do to go about laughing and joking at a funeral. Anyway, our Arthur Blenkinsop is a happy little chappy these days. Marrying Granny has perked him up no end.’
‘Why doesn’t he tell you what to write?’ Pippin asked.
‘He said that he is not very good with words and this needs something special,’ Amy said. ‘He said that it must be able to convince Mr Musgrave that I can blend in with a solemn occasion but can be supportive to the families and friends.’
‘Right, go on then. You knock. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for both of us.’
Amy stepped forward, rapped on the knocker attached to the letterbox and immediately retreated to the side of her friend. They waited a few minutes with no response then she knocked again. ‘Alright, alright, you can’t expect the exuberant performance of an athlete with my advancing years,’ a voice behind the door grumbled. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’
The door opened a few inches then became stuck. A brown, brogue shoe surmounted by a black trouser leg with a narrow silk stripe down the seam was hooked round the edge of the door and used to lever it past the blockage. Eppie appeared, blinking from his sudden emergence into the daylight and wiping his nose with a handkerchief culled from a red striped pot towel. He had an embroidered, blue velvet smoking cap pushed over his unruly grey hair and a heavy, brown woollen cardigan covering a red silk waistcoat. He peered, blinking at the girls. ‘Two of you? You seem to be younger than normal. Or is it that I have sunk into such a state of decrepitude that everyone seems young? Come in, anyway. And be careful that you don’t fall over things. Every room has transmogrified into a trap for the unwary. You are so needed, so needed.’
The girls, though puzzled by his response, followed him into the hall. The floor was littered with a variety of shoes, clothing, boxes and newspapers. A ginger cat meowed at them from its bed of envelopes strewn on the marble top of an oak hall table. ‘Do be careful,’ Eppie urged. ‘Things seem to quickly find their way into the most awkward and unreachable of places when your body is starting to concede defeat to the rigours of advancing years. Or perhaps it is the rigour of ageing muscles in these cold and damp winter days;’ he chuckled to himself, pleased by his verbal perspicacity.
He went into his living room and, holding his head over an enamel bowl of steaming, pungent liquid, he drew a large towel over his head. They heard him inhale deeply three times then clear his throat with a loud, rasping cough. His hand extended out and waved vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. ‘You carry on. You’ll find the necessary accoutrements if you look around. I don’t know where Mrs Murgatroyd puts things but you’ll soon get the idea. If you want to make a cup of tea you will have to wash some pots first.’
Pippin leant her head towards the towel. ‘Mr Molineaux, why are you breathing that horrid smelling steam?’
‘Because, my dear, I am having great difficulty with my olfactory organ. A cruel blow for a man of the theatre who needs to achieve perfect control over the inflections and modulations of his words,’ the voice from within the towel groaned.
Amy sat at the table at the side of Eppie, pushing aside one of the four large piles of papers. She grasped the edge of the towel and, raising it a few inches, she peered underneath at the shiny face of the old man. ‘Mr Eppie, or Mr Molineaux, whichever you prefer, do you think that you could speak just plain Salford? I don’t think that either of us knows which organ you are talking about and I’ve actually come about a job application.’
He sat up and patted his face with the towel. ‘The nose, my dear, the nose. So important in achieving the correct enunciation. I quite understand. I didn’t expect two of you but no doubt that means it can be done in half the time. If Mrs Entwistle is happy, then so am I.’
Pippin picked up a bottle of white liquid off the table. ‘Mr Molineaux, is it this that you have been putting in your water?’
‘It is indeed. I am not sure if it is achieving the desired effect just yet but I shall persevere.’
‘But this is a bottle of embrocation. It’s not a decongestant. It’s for rubbing on aching muscles not clearing blocked up noses.’
‘Is it really? You know, I wasn’t quite sure. Mrs Murgatroyd used to sort all of these things out before her Willie took bad. But, I do feel greatly encouraged now that you both have arrived. I know that you will quickly resolve all of these minor irritations for me.’ He pulled the towel back over his head then emerged again immediately. ‘Did she tell you what the wages were? I can’t pay a king’s ransom now that I am reduced to such humble means.’
‘We don’t know anything about the wages, Mr Molineaux,’ Pippin said, addressing the towel again. ‘Do you want us to give you a hand with the tidying up while you are embrocating your nose under there?’
‘That would, indeed, fit very closely with my line of thinking. I will pay you the same as I paid Mrs Murgatroyd. You would clearly lack her experience as a consequence of your youth but you will undoubtedly exceed her in energy terms.’
‘Just to be clear about this,’ Amy said. ‘You think that we are your new cleaners?’ Eppie nodded under his towel.
Pippin and Amy looked at each quizzically over the towelled head. ‘What do you think, Ames?’ Pippin mouthed.
Amy shrugged. ‘Might as well, I suppose,’ she mouthed back. She pointed at the now humming head under the towel. ‘Shall we start with him,’ she giggled, holding her finger under her nose.
‘It’s the cardigan. Mothballs and cat, I think.’
‘It was two mornings a week that Mrs Murgatroyd did for me,’ the slightly muffled voice from under the towel said. ‘Just generally keeping things in order, a bit of washing and maybe a few errands. Don’t touch any of my papers, though, and don’t stroke the cat – she detests teenage girls.’ His glowing head suddenly emerged from its shroud. ‘But if there are two of you, I suppose it will only require one morning. Is that what Mrs Entwistle suggested?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Molineaux, but which Mrs Entwistle are you talking about?’ Pippin queried.
&nbs
p; ‘Mrs Entwistle from the tripe shop. The one who sent you over here.’
‘We haven’t seen Mrs Entwistle,’ Pippin said, ‘and we didn’t actually come for a job.’
‘Aha!’ Eppie exclaimed, holding his hand out dramatically. ‘But your friend did. She said quite clearly that she had come about a job application.’
‘Well, yes, I did,’ Amy said. ‘But not to work for you. I want to work at Musgrave’s funeral directors.’
Eppie’s eyes widened and he stared haughtily at the two girls. ‘You young scoundrels. Do you mean to say that you are two female mountebanks who have wheedled their way into my presence, making me think that you have been sent by Mrs Entwistle so that you can pursue some nefarious activities once you have gained my trust? Well now your seedy plot has been uncovered. I should have heeded the cat’s warning. Be gone from my humble home. Cast not your shadow on my eyes.’
Amy put her hands on her hips and stared sternly at the ranting old man. ‘Now look here, Mr Molineaux. We came here because I wanted some advice on how to word a letter for a job application. We don’t know your Mrs Entwistle from the tripe shop because we have our own tripe shops on Regent Road.’
‘And we are not scoundrels either,’ Pippin interrupted, wagging her finger to add weight to her rebuke. ‘We are both Sunday School teachers and I am quite sure that we don’t do any of these nefarious activities, whatever they are.’
‘The fact that you have mistaken us for two women coming for a cleaning job is not our fault,’ continued Amy. ‘But you obviously need one; I mean, just look at the state of the place.’
Eppie braced his shoulders back, a look of indignation spreading across his face. ‘This is the abode of a man who has many distractions. There might be just some small evidence of neglect in minor matters but there are many important documents in my possession. The untrained eye of a female, who demands pristine emptiness for every flat surface, might not understand the system. But I know where everything is,’ he finished with a flourish, smug in his sense of accomplishment.
‘Mr Molineaux,’ Pippin said. ‘We have no wish to offend you but look around. There are cups with mould growing in them, bits of bread and crumbs on the carpet, which will attract mice. There are old newspapers everywhere and clothes hanging on every piece of furniture.’
‘And just look at the dust on the mantelpiece,’ Amy added. ‘And here on the sideboard. It’s got pawmarks where the cat has walked through it.’
‘Yes,’ Pippin agreed. ‘And I’m sorry to have to say this, but perhaps your clothes are overdue for a wash.’
A deflated Eppie sat back in his chair, the towel still draped over his head like a saddened Pharaoh. ‘It’s a month nearly since Mrs Murgatroyd’s Willie took bad. I have so many demands on me that I just can not devote the time to attending to the minutiae of domestic chores.’
‘Mr Molineaux,’ Amy asserted. ‘If you don’t start eating properly and looking after yourself a bit better, the only demand on your time will be from Him up there. Now then, we’ll start tidying up while you are trying to clear your head. After that, will you spare a bit of your time to help me with my letter?’
Eppie’s gloom was suddenly pierced by the happy thought of salvation from his domestic burdens. ‘My heart skips with joy at the blissful thought of sharing my Saturday mornings with two such delightful young ladies. Consider yourself engaged.’ Eppie pulled the towel back over his head, continuing his noisy inhalations for a few moments before lifting the side of the material. ‘Letter? Yes, yes, of course. I would be honoured to pen some suitable words on your behalf.’
‘Well, where do we start?’ Amy asked. ‘Every room looks like a battle site.’
‘We need a plan,’ Pippin said. ‘Why don’t we start from the front door and bring all the pots, the washing and the rubbish through to the back. That way, it will at least be safer for people to walk through.’
‘That’s a good idea, Pip. Then one of us could clean the floor while the other starts in this room.’
‘Do you want to see if you can find any brushes, mops and things and I’ll go and see if I can get on friendly terms with the cat.’
Eppie interrupted his muffled rendition of ‘My Faith it is an Oaken Staff’ to direct Pippin to the slice of suet pudding that he had left in the larder for the cat and which he assured them would delight the temperamental feline.
As Amy began her search of the cellar for cleaning equipment, Pippin began the daunting task of converting the hall to a corridor for safe passage. When she had first picked her way carefully through the chaos a half hour before, she hadn’t had the opportunity to fully appreciate the range of clutter that ranged across the floor. Starting by collecting together the brown, black and grey leather and canvas shoes, embroidered slippers, shiny galoshes and fur-lined brown boots with brass fasteners, she placed them neatly up the sides of the stairs. She then picked up the walking sticks, canes and umbrella, assembling them tidily in a wooden stand, followed by the coats and cloaks, hats and scarves and hanging these onto the hooks that were fastened along one wall. Next, she took four saucers containing hardened remnants of the cat’s meals from the previous few weeks into the kitchen. ‘I think that the floor in the lobby will need scrubbing, Ames,’ she told her friend.
‘There’s some carbolic soap and a scrubbing brush under the sink. I’ve got the kettle on to boil some water. I’ll see if I can find a bucket in the yard.’
‘Alright. I think that I will see if I can open the window in the parlour for a bit. His highness might not like it but it needs a bit of fresh air in. It might help to get rid of that horrible smell in there.’
Pippin’s astonishment when she opened the door of the parlour made her squeal. Every flat surface in the room was covered by piles of theatrical costumes; suitcases were littered round the floor; manuscripts and theatre programmes were stacked along the mantelpiece and sideboard. Pictures of music hall performers and posters advertising performances were pasted round most of the walls. Amy, clattering into the hall with a heavy bucket, popped her head round the parlour door. ‘Good grief, Pip, there’s more stuff in here than in Mrs Murphy’s shop. What does he want all these clothes for?’
‘Well most of it looks too exotic for normal wear so I suppose that it must be costumes for shows. This is going to take a lot of time to sort it all out.’
‘Perhaps he would rather we left it all alone. Hey, Pip, look at this one,’ Amy said directing Pippin towards the theatre bill next to the door.
‘What is it? An Evening with the Bard – delight in our national treasure,’ she read. ‘That sounds good; a bit of culture at the Hippodrome.’
‘I know, Pip. But look at that,’ she urged, jabbing at the poster with her finger. ‘It says, Presented by the Hon. Henry Molineaux. That must be Eppie. What’s the Hon bit supposed to mean? Is it part of his name? I’ve never heard of anyone called Hon before.’
‘I don’t know, really. I think that it might be part of a title or something,’ Pippin said.
‘What, like Honest or something? Or maybe it’s Honey because his mother thought that he was sweet.’
‘I think that it might mean Honourable. You read in the paper about the Honourable Percy Whatsit doing this or that.’
‘Well they don’t call him that now. He must have become dishonourable since then,’ Amy giggled.
‘Look at this, Ames. This is a bit weird. There are some gaps between the posters and there is something written on the wall. It’s hard to make out what it says. The ink has spread into the plaster.’
Amy peered at the neat but barely discernible script. ‘I think that it says Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines. What has that got to do with anything?’
‘I don’t know, Ames,’ Pippin said, moving along three posters to the next gap. ‘Look. This one says Summer's lease hath all too short a date. It sounds as though somebody couldn’t make their mind up about the weather.’
‘Well look at this one then.
We shall always feel more pain from our wants than pleasure from our enjoyments. Not much of a laugh in whoever wrote these.’
‘You know, Ames, I’ve just realised something. All these posters are in date order. They start in 1892 with the Hon. Henry doing his thing about the Bard and then all these others follow on. And if you look there are a few more with plays written by him amongst them.’
‘I never noticed that. They run through to May 1893 then there is one missing. Then there are some missing from July and August,’ Amy said, pointing excitedly at the dates.
‘And the last one is in September,’ Pippin frowned. Why had the poster collector’s enthusiasm suddenly died away and why did he write mysterious messages on the wall?
‘He probably just got fed up,’ Amy said, interpreting her friend’s puzzled look. ‘It’s like me with that embroidery kit. I went mad on it for a month then I haven’t touched it again for two years.’
‘But there are more posters over here,’ Pippin said, struggling to squeeze past a chair piled high with Arab costumes and a camel outfit. ‘But these don’t start until 1899.’
‘Most of them have sketches and plays written by a Mr Harry Mullins.’
Rags, Bones and Donkey Stones (Sequel) Page 22