When Day is Done

  Mildred said with a sigh, ‘He’s annoyed me at times but I’m sorry to see them go, I must admit.’ Kate said nothing. She had seen a card tucked in her bouquet and she was anxious to carry it away to read in private.

  Mildred went to her rooms, and Kate put the card in her pocket before carrying her roses downstairs to be exclaimed over by Mrs Molesworth and Josie. ‘I know he’s getting married this morning,’ Josie said, ‘but I still think he was half in love with you, Kate. If Miss Tate hadn’t of come along—’

  ‘Or if the missus had let you take that job in Bryant’s,’ said Mrs Molesworth.

  ‘That’s how he got friendly with Miss Tate,’ said Kate. ‘She took his part when he had words with Aunt Mildred about it.’

  ‘Fancy! I never knew that,’ exclaimed Mrs Molesworth.

  ‘See? You don’t know everything,’ teased Josie. She was making tea and called Lottie to join them.

  ‘It’ll seem strange without them all the same,’ said Mrs Molesworth, stirring her tea. ‘They’ve both been here a good few years.’

  ‘Were they here when you came, Kate?’ asked Josie.

  ‘Yes. Mrs Molesworth was here long before me,’ said Kate. She rested her chin on her hand and said dreamily, ‘The day I arrived I was so miserable and unhappy. It was the day of Mama’s funeral, and me and Rosie had just been separated. We thought we’d stay in the house together, but Aunt Beattie took Rose to live with her and I had to come here with Aunt Mildred.’

  ‘God love you, and I wasn’t even here,’ said Mrs Molesworth.

  ‘No, you were off with your bad leg and the two maids had just left, so Aunt Mildred had to do everything and I helped her. She told me to take a scuttle of coal to Mrs Bradley’s room. It was heavy and I rested it on the bottom stair in the hall. I was so miserable being parted from Rosie and everything, and it was a horrible grey day, but he came in like a breath of fresh air. He looked so healthy and cheerful. His eyes were so bright and his teeth so white and his hair in little curls all over his head. I felt better just looking at him.’

  Nobody spoke, and Kate went on in the same dreamy voice. ‘He said, “Halloa. A bit heavy for you. Where’s it going?” When I said first floor front, he picked up the bucket and walked upstairs with me. He asked my name, and when we got to the door he put the coal down and he said, “Cheer up, Kate. Remember, it’s always darkest before the dawn.” Then he smiled at me and went downstairs. I never felt as bad again after that.’

  ‘I never knew all that,’ Josie said in wonder. Lottie had listened starry-eyed, forgetting to drink her tea. ‘It’s like a fairy story,’ she whispered, and Josie laughed. ‘Drink your tea, Lottie,’ she said. ‘And we’ll get on with the rooms.’

  ‘This is a sad day for you, queen,’ Mrs Molesworth said when they had gone. ‘You’ll miss him outa the house,’ but Kate only nodded and smiled, still lost in her dream. She fingered the note in her pocket, deciding that she would not open it until twelve o’clock, the time of the wedding.

  She was glad the wedding was not at a local church, she thought, where she might be tempted to go and watch it. The fact that it was miles away in Prescot made it seem more unreal, too. At twelve o’clock precisely, in the privacy of her room she opened the small envelope. ‘To Kate. With fond gratitude and all good wishes for a very happy life, Henry,’ she read.

  She sat holding the note, tears rolling down her face, feeling that her heart would break. It’s no use pretending, she thought. I love him. I’ll always love him, even though he’s marrying someone else at this very minute. I can’t put him out of my mind and pretend it’s all finished and I’ll forget him. I never will.

  She went over to where the roses stood in a vase on the dressing table, and tucked the card among them, then buried her face in the flowers, her tears flowing. I can’t bear it. I’ll never see him again and I can’t bear it, she thought, her body racked with quiet sobs as she pictured Henry and Agnes at the altar in the Prescot church, being pronounced man and wife.

  She had heard voices in the kitchen but had been too engrossed in her sad thoughts to pay any attention. Shortly there was a quiet tap on her door. ‘The missus has been looking for you, queen,’ Mrs Molesworth whispered. ‘I told her you’d slipped out for a minute, but she wants to see you when you come in, she said.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Molesworth, I’ll be out in a minute,’ Kate said in a muffled voice. She splashed cold water on her face and pressed powder leaves round her eyes to try to hide the evidence of her tears, then tidied her hair and went into the kitchen.

  ‘Drink this cup of tea, girl,’ Mrs Molesworth said. ‘It won’t hurt her to wait another five minutes.’ Kate finished the tea then, feeling more composed, went to her aunt’s room.

  ‘I see those empty bedrooms haven’t even been started,’ Mildred said abruptly. ‘I want them thoroughly turned out, mind. I’ve got two guests coming for them and they’ll be here for dinner tonight.’

  ‘All right. I’ll cater for them,’ Kate said, moving to the door, but Mildred said triumphantly, ‘You see? My rooms are never empty for long.’ Kate nodded, trying to make her escape before her aunt noticed the signs of tears, but Mildred appeared to notice nothing and went on, ‘One’s a widower, a master in a private school, very superior, and the other is a lady teacher recommended by Miss Tate. Mr Fallon is to go in Mr Barnes’s room and Miss Lennon in Miss Tate’s.’

  ‘Very well, Aunt. I’ll see to it,’ Kate said, thankfully making her escape.

  Kate knew that Josie and Lottie would be more observant or more interested in her than her aunt, but they all tactfully avoided looking at her as she told them about the new guests and gave instructions. She was glad to be kept so busy for the rest of the day that there was little time to think of the wedding.

  Kate had been nervous about the superior Mr Fallon, but he proved to be a quiet man in his late forties with a pleasant manner and no airs. Miss Lennon was small and slight, dressed in deep mourning. She confided to Mrs Bradley that her mother had died three months previously and she had lost her home.

  ‘You were wise to come here,’ Mrs Bradley said. ‘You’ll be very comfortable and soon feel happier.’

  ‘I won’t be happy anywhere without Mother,’ Miss Lennon said mournfully. ‘We were all in all to each other.’

  ‘Never mind. It’s early days yet, my dear,’ Mrs Bradley encouraged her, but Miss Lennon made no reply. She was a pretty girl, and Jack Rothwell and the two young bank clerks eyed her hopefully, but she seemed too sunk in gloom to notice them.

  Kate had dreaded bedtime, fearing a sleepless night, but before Josie and Lottie went up to bed Josie gave Kate two pills. ‘Mrs Molesworth said I had to give you these, Kate. She said she thought you was starting with a cold and these’ll help you to sleep it off.’ Kate hesitated, but Josie urged, ‘Go on, Kate, take them. She’ll batter me tomorrow if you don’t.’ Kate laughed, and Josie said goodnight and vanished.

  Kate took the pills and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, yet she woke at the usual time, feeling clear-headed but remote from all that had happened.

  ‘Thanks for those pills,’ she said to Mrs Molesworth. ‘What were they? I’ve never had such a good sleep or felt like this before.’

  ‘The doctor from the Dispensary give them to Charlie. They make him sleep and he says he feels as if he never worries about nothing when he wakes up. The only thing is, the doctor said only to take them when he really needed them because they were – I can’t remember the word, but he’d get too used to them, like. Couldn’t do without them.’

  ‘They were just what I needed last night, but I won’t need them again, Mrs Molesworth,’ Kate said, and the charwoman nodded as though satisfied.

  ‘Aye, that’s the way, girl. Forward not back, as my feller says. What’s the new people like?’

  The unreal feeling induced by the pills gradually wore away, but the sharpness of Kate’s grief had been blunted when she needed it and she was able to keep her feel
ings under control. When the roses faded, she took the card from among them and wrapped it in tissue paper, then put it in the carved box that held her small treasures.

  It seemed a symbolic act. During one sleepless night she had decided not to struggle against thoughts of Henry and try to forget him, but to treasure her memories of him. Nobody would know, and they were a comfort to her, growing dearer as time passed.

  The new guests fitted easily into the household, although Miss Lennon was still wrapped in grief in spite of Mrs Bradley’s encouragement. ‘Sorrow affects people in different ways,’ Mrs Bradley told Kate. ‘We must all be very kind to her until she recovers.’

  Over morning tea, Kate told the others of Mrs Bradley’s words, but Josie said bluntly, ‘I think she’s wallowing in it. Wouldn’t do her no harm to smile now and again. I like Mr Fallon, though. He’s a proper gentleman.’

  Kate liked Mr Fallon too, although she was inclined to resent him at first because he had taken Henry’s place. He was a quiet, studious man, almost as recently bereaved as Miss Lennon but never mentioning his loss. He had seen Kate glancing at the newspaper he had left on the hall table, and immediately offered it to her, saying that he had finished with it. ‘Although there’s not much good news in it, I’m afraid,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘Thank you. There seems to be a lot of trouble in Ireland,’ Kate said. ‘Do you think there’ll be civil war there, Mr Fallon?’

  He shrugged. ‘This man Carson seems dangerous,’ he replied. ‘He’s defying the Crown – raised his own private army of Protestants – and there’s all this gun-running in Ulster.’

  ‘But people wouldn’t fight each other just over religion, would they?’ Kate said.

  He smiled wryly. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time. This is about Home Rule, though. Carson says he would rather be governed by Germany than accept Home Rule for Ireland, but he’s playing with fire.’ He smiled. ‘Let’s hope they all see sense.’

  After that he often left his newspaper for Kate and spoke to her of items of news, and she was flattered that he thought she had such wide interests. She told Josie and Mrs Molesworth about events in Ireland, but Mrs Molesworth declared that her feller said that it was only the scum on both sides, Catholic and Protestant, who fought each other.

  ‘That feller’s got a cheek to threaten our King and Queen,’ Josie said indignantly. She had attended a pageant in July on the occasion of the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Liverpool to open the new Gladstone Dock at Seaforth, and had been intensely patriotic ever since then. The pageant, at Everton football ground, had involved 60,000 children, 15,000 of whom performed Swedish drill dressed in red, white and blue to give the appearance of a huge Union Jack. Josie often talked about it, and always finished by saying, ‘I felt proud to be English. I love my King and Queen.’

  Now Mrs Molesworth said, ‘Aye, the King and Queen are good people. He’s a family man, not like his father. King Eddy was a disgrace, running after women. I felt sorry for poor Queen Alexandra, pretending she didn’t notice nothing.’

  ‘She was very deaf, wasn’t she?’ Kate said, and Mrs Molesworth said, ‘Yes, but my feller said she’d have had to be blind as well not to know what was going on. I suppose them sort of people have got to put a good face on it.’

  ‘She couldn’t very well go and tear the other woman’s hair out like Katie Deagan’s mother did,’ Josie giggled.

  Mildred seemed inordinately pleased that she had relet the rooms so quickly. For a time she had been in an ill humour, querying every item on the household bills and grumbling that too much was being paid in wages. At the same time she had been subject to frequent sick headaches, spending much time in her room, and Kate wondered whether this was the reason for her bad temper or whether her aunt had some secret worry.

  She never discussed the financial affairs of the guesthouse with Kate, but suddenly the cloud lifted and Mildred resumed her visits to town and her socialising with the people from the Mission. The headaches disappeared and were never mentioned.

  ‘I wish my bad leg’d come and go as easy as them headaches,’ Mrs Molesworth said. ‘But I don’t think it’ll ever be any different.’

  ‘Is it very painful now?’ Kate asked sympathetically. She was still arranging the work to spare Mrs Molesworth’s bad leg, with the willing co-operation of Josie and Lottie, but there were days when it seemed difficult for the charwoman to walk.

  ‘Aye, a bit, but I can’t grumble, not when I think of me poor lad laying there all these years with never a moan outa him.’

  ‘He enjoys going out with Billy, though, doesn’t he?’ said Kate.

  ‘And Florrie’s visit made a change for him.’ Florrie had returned to New York now, but with promises to keep in touch and to come again, and Mrs Molesworth had told Kate that her husband still talked about the visit. ‘It’s given him a lot to think about,’ she said. ‘Done him good.’

  So the shock was all the greater when, two weeks before Christmas, Mr Molesworth died in his sleep. A young boy brought the news to the guesthouse, and Kate went immediately to see Mrs Molesworth. As she passed along the landing above the row of shops, she saw that all the neighbours had drawn their curtains as a mark of respect, and several neighbours were sitting with Mrs Molesworth when she arrived.

  Mrs Molesworth was dry-eyed and dignified. ‘His heart just give out, the doctor said. He said Charlie didn’t suffer. I told him Charlie done his suffering all these years and never a word of complaint outa him. He was real nice, the doctor. He said Charlie’d had a cross to bear but he was blessed with a good wife and a loving son.’

  Mr Molesworth’s body had been laid out on the bed where he had spent so many years, and Mrs Molesworth and Kate stood beside him. ‘Doesn’t he look young? The way he looked before the accident,’ the charwoman said fondly. ‘I always used to be that proud walking out with him.’

  ‘He looks noble,’ Kate said. ‘I’m glad Billy had that idea about the spinal carriage. He enjoyed going out and seeing people, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, and going round the docks, seeing the ships and his mates again,’ said Mrs Molesworth. ‘I’m glad he seen our Florrie too. Maybe that’s what he was hanging on for,’ but Kate said swiftly, ‘Oh no. Don’t think that. His heart could have given out at any time. He fought to live because he couldn’t bear to leave you. You kept him alive, but this had to happen sometime.’

  Kate looked about her at the row of books, the feeding cup of water and bag of mint imperials close to his hand, and on the mantelpiece at the foot of the bed a gaudy fan, carved elephants and canoes and a tiny bamboo rocking chair brought home from abroad by Billy. Mrs Molesworth had told her that she changed the items on the mantelpiece every day so that Charlie would have something different to look at. What devotion, thought Kate, when she must have been exhausted by her work in the guesthouse, and then the nursing, cooking and cleaning at home, all done with the handicap of a painful varicose ulcer. She looked at her old friend with even greater respect.

  The neighbour who had admitted Kate had whispered that Billy was on a three-week coaster run and was due to dock on Friday. As it was now Tuesday, he would be home for the funeral. A wire had been sent to Florrie. Kate asked if she could do anything, but Mrs Molesworth said her neighbours had everything in hand. ‘We’re used to death round here,’ she said with a sigh.

  ‘The undertaker’s coming,’ the neighbour said. ‘We’ve made room for the coffin in the bedroom so Mrs M. can have a fire in here.’ Kate realised that they were both sympathetic and practical, and left feeling that Mrs Molesworth was in good hands.

  Josie and Lottie were grieved for Mrs Molesworth, as Kate had expected, but she was surprised when Mildred called her into her room.

  ‘Is she all right? Mrs Molesworth, I mean,’ Mildred asked. ‘She’s done so much for him, she’s bound to feel it.’

  ‘She’s upset but very quiet and dignified,’ said Kate. ‘I suppose she’s been expecting this for a long time. H
er son’s due home on Friday.’

  ‘Good,’ said Mildred, then she added abruptly, ‘Has she got money for the funeral?’

  ‘I think so,’ Kate said. ‘I never thought about that. Anyway, Billy’ll be home.’

  ‘Try and find out as soon as you can and let me know, Kate,’ said Mildred. ‘She may be worrying about it.’ Kate promised, and left the room thinking that people could always surprise her. I suppose no one’s all of a piece, she thought.

  The following day she went again to see Mrs Molesworth. There were still neighbours sitting in the kitchen with her, and she took Kate into the bedroom, where the coffin stood on trestles, with candles burning at the head and foot. Kate whispered to Mrs Molesworth how peaceful Charlie looked.

  ‘Aye, he’s outa all his pain now, me poor lad,’ the widow said with a sigh.

  Kate took the opportunity to tell her of Mildred’s words. ‘You’re not offended, are you, Mrs Molesworth?’ she said.

  ‘No, girl, and I’m not surprised neither. Me and the missus have been sparring partners a long time, but I always knew she was a good woman for all her funny ways, like. Tell her thanks, queen, but I kept up me policies and Billy’s put money away for me and all. We’ll be able to give my feller a good send-off.’

  Kate begged to be allowed to supply the food for the funeral breakfast, and Mildred instructed her to order a wreath from herself and Kate. Josie and Lottie also sent flowers, and to Kate’s surprise Jack Rothwell organised a collection among the guests and sent a wreath from them. Mrs Molesworth was pleased and her neighbours were impressed by the wreaths, and even more by the fact that Mildred, accompanied by Kate and Josie, attended the funeral. They left Lottie in charge of the house.

  Mrs Molesworth, in deep mourning, walked behind the coffin, leaning on Billy’s arm. They were followed by a few distant relations and friends. The charwoman was composed and dignified, and probably because of her example, there were no loud outbursts of grief at the graveside. ‘All the more genuine for being quiet,’ Mildred remarked to Kate.