When Day is Done

  ‘I thought you would understand,’ Rose cried. ‘I want to do something, be somebody.’

  ‘I do understand how you feel,’ said Miss Tasker, ‘but I also see the difficulties, my dear. The time may come when you have more freedom, but for the present you must try to be content. Find other interests and meet fresh people.’

  ‘Aunt Beattie wouldn’t agree,’ muttered Rose.

  ‘But if you became interested in good works I’m sure she would,’ said Miss Tasker. ‘Perhaps helping in the Victoria Settlement?’ Rose, however, angrily repudiated the idea. She was interested in a career for herself, not good works for others.

  As Beattie’s indolence increased, she had grown stouter and more breathless, and her doctor had warned her that her heart might be affected. Beattie decided that the trouble with Rose might cause a heart attack, and the doctor was summoned.

  He was anxious to avoid offending his wealthy patient, and when his suggestion of more exercise was badly received, he urged instead that Beattie should travel. ‘A cruise perhaps, Mrs Anderson, or you could take the waters at Baden Baden,’ he said.

  A friend of Beattie’s had taken the waters the previous year and pronounced them vile, so Beattie decided on a cruise. It would serve a double purpose too, Beattie thought, in distracting Rose from her strange ideas.

  Rose, who had been considering her options and realised how much she had to lose by defiance, was just as enthusiastic about the idea, and as affectionate as Beattie had hoped. A three-week cruise was speedily booked for the two of them.

  Chapter Seven

  Although Mildred had shown little patience with her sister’s complaints, one of Beattie’s comments had given her food for thought.

  Beattie had wept about the ingratitude shown by Rose, then said, ‘You got the best of the bargain, Mildred. Kate’s a good girl, but be careful she doesn’t treat you the way Rose has treated me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mildred snapped. ‘She’s got no hope of being a doctor.’

  ‘No, but she’d be able to get a good job as a housekeeper,’ Beattie retorted. ‘With better pay and less work. And don’t forget she’s nearly twenty now. Be careful she doesn’t just go off and leave you.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Mildred said roughly, but she was shaken with doubt. Kate had stood up to her to ask for more time off for Josie and more money for Josie and Mrs Molesworth. Perhaps she was also making plans for herself. You couldn’t trust these quiet ones, Mildred thought. She watched Kate carefully during the next few days and thought she could see a change in her.

  Kate’s misery at the ending of her dreams about Henry made her seem quieter and more introspective, and Mildred swiftly decided that something must be done. She needed Kate. Not only did her niece work hard from early morning until late at night, but Mildred now felt free to go out, knowing that she could leave conscientious Kate in charge of the house.

  It was many years now since she had told Kate that she was training her to help in running the house and hinted that she intended to leave the business to her niece in her will. Perhaps it was time she reminded her. A few days later she called Kate into her room.

  ‘It’s time you took more responsibility, Kate. You’re a woman now and I’m not getting any younger. I’ve been hard with you but it was for your own good because I was training you to take over from me. When I die, this place will be yours – if you are still with me. I’ve no relations apart from your Aunt Beattie, and she needs nothing from me.’

  ‘Er, thank you, Aunt,’ Kate stammered. ‘I hope it won’t be for a – a long time.’

  ‘In the midst of life we are in death,’ Mildred said grimly. ‘I want this guesthouse to be kept to the same standard. I’ve told you that it was necessary for me to earn my own living, and this is how I chose to do it, but I was determined that it would be a superior guesthouse and I select my guests carefully. I provide a comfortable home and choose people who will appreciate it and respect me. I never stint on food or coal, as you know, and my guests pay more for this comfort, yet I never have a room empty for long.’

  ‘Yes, Aunt,’ Kate murmured, looking bemused.

  ‘Now, I’ve decided that sometimes you will do the shopping. I’ll tell you what to buy and inspect it when you return, but you will choose the meat and vegetables. Also you will do more in the kitchen. I think you have a knack with cooking.’

  Kate was recovering from her bewilderment and said quickly, ‘But who’ll do the cleaning I usually do in the morning? Josie and Mrs Molesworth couldn’t manage it without me. And getting the food ready for upstairs later.’

  ‘I’m coming to that,’ Mildred said impatiently but noting Kate’s readiness to speak out. ‘I’m taking on that deaf and dumb girl from Heyworth Street to help out in the afternoons. Her mother says she can wait on table or prepare food if it’s written down what she’s got to do, so I’m giving her a trial.’

  ‘When does she start?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes, but if she’s no use you can sack her. I’ll tell Josie and Mrs Molesworth that in future they’ll take their orders from you, and don’t be soft with them. Keep them at a distance too. You’re far too friendly with them.’

  She took a large tin box from a shelf and unlocked it. ‘I’m going to show you these books, Kate, but not a word about them to anyone else. Can I trust you?’

  ‘Of course!’ Kate said indignantly.

  Mildred spread out the books. ‘You can see from these figures that the guests pay more than they would in an ordinary boarding house.’ She turned several pages. ‘Now, these are the household accounts. You can see I have a comfortable margin, but only because I work so hard and spend so little on myself. I don’t stint on food or coal but I won’t have waste and you must be the same. Servants are always wasteful if they’re not watched carefully.’

  The figures meant nothing to Kate but she nodded as though she understood, and Mildred said complacently, ‘I have a friend who has advised me how to invest my savings, so I will have plenty to leave you – if you stay with me.’

  So that’s where she goes in her good clothes, Kate thought, but she only said meekly, ‘Yes, Aunt.’

  ‘I hope you will be able to share the burden with me now and repay me for giving you a home and looking after you all these years, Kate,’ said Mildred. ‘It will be to your own advantage. You’ll have your rightful standing here as my niece and it’s up to you to show some dignity. Keep the servants in their place.’

  ‘Yes, Aunt,’ Kate murmured, wondering how dignified she could be while cleaning under beds and washing hearths, and smiling to herself at the thought.

  ‘And another thing,’ Mildred added. ‘I’ve decided you can buy your own clothes from now on.’ She took five sovereigns from the tin. ‘I’ll increase your allowance to a pound a month and I’ll give you five pounds twice a year for clothes. And there’ll be no more talk of afternoons off. As my niece you will come and go as you please. I know you won’t take advantage.’

  ‘I won’t. Thank you, Aunt,’ Kate gasped.

  ‘I think I’ve been very fair with you, Kate, and I know I can trust you to be fair with me. No silly notions like your sister,’ Mildred said with a wintry smile. She stood up to indicate that the interview was over.

  Kate said again, ‘Thank you, Aunt,’ and hurried away, feeling as though she was dreaming.

  Later she told Josie what had transpired and Josie declared that it was about time. ‘You should’ve asked for more money and more time off long ago,’ she said.

  ‘I couldn’t, Josie,’ Kate said. ‘After all, she gave me a home and bought all my clothes.’

  ‘She never bought you nothing nice, and Mrs M. said you was working from the day you come here,’ said Josie.

  ‘I’ll be able to buy nice things now anyhow, and I’ve stopped growing so they’ll last,’ Kate said. Josie agreed, but Kate thought she sounded wistful and decided that she would buy a nice frock for the girl which she could
wear on her day off.

  Kate had been organising the cleaning for some time, but she found it quite different now that she had a free hand. The plan that she could come and go as she pleased never happened. The deaf and dumb girl came to help as arranged, but Mildred made her so nervous that she never returned, and Mildred was leaving more and more of the food preparation and cooking to Kate. If Mrs Molesworth and Josie had not insisted, Kate would have felt unable to even take a half-day off.

  ‘What’ll you do if my aunt doesn’t come to help, Josie?’ Kate worried, but Josie said airily, ‘If she doesn’t, them upstairs won’t get fed, but that’s the missus’s worry, not yours. If you give up your half-day she’ll let you and not crack on, but if you’re out she’ll have to help.’

  Mrs Molesworth approved of Kate’s new status and her extra pay, but she was cynical about Mildred’s motives. ‘She’s got the wind up, girl, because your Rosie’s kicking her heels up,’ she said. ‘She thinks you might leave her. Find yourself a good job as a housekeeper or a cook.’

  ‘But she knows I’d never do that, Mrs Molesworth. I mean, she’s my aunt and she gave me a home when Mama died. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to go among new people and leave you and Josie,’ said Kate.

  ‘Yes, girl, but she judges you by herself. She’d do what was best for herself and she thinks you would an’ all. The missus is piling more and more on you, girl, and you’ll have to stand up to her,’ Mrs Molesworth said. ‘You done it for us, now do it for yourself. This is what she always wanted – to be like Lady Muck with someone else doing the work and the worrying.’

  ‘I don’t like to say I can’t manage,’ Kate said, but Mrs Molesworth said robustly, ‘That’s what she’s counting on, girl. You just face her out. Tell her if she’s not going to do nothing she’ll have to get someone else in place of the deaf and dumb girl.’

  It was only now that Mildred had withdrawn most of her help that Kate realised how much her aunt had done in the kitchen. Lacking Mildred’s years of experience, Kate found that all the preparations took longer, and it was hard for her to have meat and vegetables all ready to serve at the same time with a pudding to follow. Josie was too fully occupied cleaning to give the help Kate had given her aunt.

  ‘Tackle her about it, girl,’ advised Mrs Molesworth. ‘But don’t barge at her. “Softly softly catchee monkee,” my feller always says. Just say you can’t manage now she’s not able to do so much and try her with the idea of a girl from the orphanage who wouldn’t cost much.’

  ‘If we could only get someone like Josie,’ Kate said. ‘But I wouldn’t take advantage of her, Mrs Molesworth.’

  ‘I know you wouldn’t, girl, but remind the missus about the mess you was in on Josie’s night off. The way they had to wait for their puddens. Say they was moaning.’

  Kate went to Mildred and found her surprisingly amenable to the idea of taking another orphan. ‘Just as well to get someone trained up,’ she said. ‘That girl’s too flighty. She’ll marry young and leave us in the lurch.’

  ‘Josie?’ exclaimed Kate, but on reflection she thought that her aunt might be right. Josie still insisted that she trusted no man, but she had grown so pretty that every male who came to the house, and many others, were attracted to her, and she was always willing to flirt with them.

  ‘That’s as far as it goes,’ she told Kate. ‘I’m not going to get tricked by no man the way my poor mother was.’

  ‘Not every man is like that, Josie,’ Kate protested, but Josie said firmly, ‘I know, but I’m not taking any chances. I haven’t met any feller I really like anyhow. Not to be like Mrs Molesworth and her Charlie are.’

  ‘The trouble with you, girl,’ Mrs Molesworth told her, ‘is you don’t give a feller a chance. You know if you fall out with them there’s always another one waiting for you.’

  Kate had given Josie five shillings for new clothes, and Josie, who said she could do anything with a needle bar sew, had bought one of the ready-made dresses which were now in the shops. It cost two shillings and eleven pence three farthings, and she also bought a new corset for eleven pence halfpenny and a bust bodice for threepence. The material of the dress was of brown cambric sprinkled with orange pansies, and with the remaining coppers Josie bought a velvet pansy for the neckline and brown velvet ribbons for her hair.

  ‘You look lovely, Josie,’ Kate told her on the first occasion that she wore the new outfit.

  Josie hugged her impulsively. ‘It was my lucky day when I met you, Kate,’ she said. ‘Oh, I wish you could meet a nice chap and be happy.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Kate said with a smile, but Josie went on, ‘You should be more friendly, like, with fellers, Kate. They think you don’t like them and they’re afraid to ask you out.’

  ‘I can’t, and anyway I haven’t got your looks, Josie. But I am happy, honestly,’ Kate said, laughing. ‘Go on or you’ll be late,’ but she couldn’t help thinking wistfully that she wished she had not only Josie’s looks but her temperament.

  Josie was as lively and adventurous as Kate was quiet and timid, and was the source of endless entertainment to Kate. When the religious riots were at their height in Liverpool in 1909 Kate would go out to the countryside surrounding the city on her days off, but Josie spent her half-days in the thick of the action.

  ‘I don’t stick up for either of them so I’ll just cheer whichever one’s nearest,’ she declared to Kate and Mrs Molesworth before setting off joyfully, accompanied by a weedy young grocer’s assistant.

  ‘Aye, and you’ll get clobbered by both,’ predicted Mrs Molesworth, but Josie returned unharmed, her brown eyes sparkling, full of tales of dangerous encounters.

  A couple of years after that, when Liverpool was reduced to a standstill by the transport strike and troops were brought in, Kate sympathised with the seamen, chiefly because Billy Molesworth was on strike, but she never attended any rallies or marches in support.

  Josie, however, was in the centre of it all at every opportunity, and even a blow from a policeman’s truncheon failed to deter her. She was delighted when her half-day off on 7 December coincided with the Mauretania breaking her moorings in the Sloyne and drifting down the Mersey on a strong flood tide with sirens blaring. She was among the crowd that followed to see the ship go aground on Devil’s Bank near Dingle, in the south of Liverpool, and waited to see her towed off by tugs but break away to go aground again on Pluckington Bank. She knew that she would have to face Mildred’s wrath at her lateness but felt that it was worth it.

  As it happened, Mildred was lying down with a bilious headache, so Kate was able to conceal Josie’s absence, but she had spent anxious hours wondering what had happened to her friend. Josie, who would have endured any amount of scolding from Mildred, was upset that she had worried Kate, and promised never to stay out late again.

  The ending of Kate’s dreams about Henry, which had filled her mind for so long, left a gap which made her feel restless and unhappy, but her new responsibilities did something to fill the void. The invitations to visit Agnes Tate’s room to discuss books and other matters had virtually ceased. Kate was now too busy, and the little time she had for reading was spent on twopenny romances which filled a need in her life. The long books by Thackeray and Dickens were now too demanding for her, so there was little to discuss, and Agnes had a new friend, a teacher who had arrived at her school and who shared her views on women’s suffrage and social reform.

  Like most people in her situation Kate knew little of what was happening in the country. She never read a newspaper or mixed with people who did, except the guests, and she was never present when they discussed national affairs. Agnes was the only person who had ever talked to her about a wider world.

  It grieved Kate to see so many hungry and barefoot children, particularly in the winter, but she consoled herself with the thought that many good people in Liverpool were trying to help the poor. Mr Lee Jones and the League of Welldoers provided dinners for starving children at Limekiln
Lane and took handcarts full of hot tea and soup to poor people and to the homeless men who slept under the overhead railway. Quakers and other church organisations provided food and clothing for the poor and all gave treats at Christmas. Even the men of the Mission distributed food parcels at Christmas to people they considered the ‘deserving poor’.

  It never occurred to Kate that anything could be done to cure the root cause of the widespread poverty, and she knew nothing of the attempts by Lloyd George and the Liberals to introduce reforms such as the Old Age Pension Act of 1908 and the National Insurance Act of 1911. Nor was she aware of the trouble when the 1909 People’s Budget was rejected by the House of Lords.

  Fully occupied by her own affairs, she knew nothing of what was happening in the world and only learnt that King Edward VII had died when it was announced at the Mission and shop windows were draped in black. The same shop windows were draped in red, white and blue for the Coronation of King George V, and Kate heard gossip in the shops about the ‘Sailor King’ and Queen Mary, but it all seemed very remote from her own busy life.

  She had little time, either, to brood about Henry’s engagement. She still saw him nearly every day and he was as cheerful and friendly as ever, but he never brought fruit or sweets now for her. She surmised that this was partly because he and Agnes were saving hard for their wedding, and partly because he had realised that she was no longer a child.

  Kate felt herself that she had changed. She was no longer so gullible, and had foiled attempts by the butcher and the grocer to take advantage of her inexperience in shopping. She still respected Mildred, but she realised now how devious and manipulative her aunt was, and was not afraid of her.

  ‘The missus has gorra shock coming when you start, girl,’ Mrs Molesworth chuckled. ‘You’re not the girl you was.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Kate asked, startled. ‘Do you think I’ve got very hard?’