When Day is Done

  ‘She’s not well. She has no strength,’ Robert protested.

  ‘No,’ agreed the doctor, ‘and she won’t have while she lies about all day doing nothing.’

  ‘Don’t suggest exercise,’ Robert begged.

  ‘No, I’m going to suggest you plan an outing. A dance, visit to the theatre, supper party, anything which will make your wife want to get up and get dressed for it.’

  Robert believed that Rose truly felt ill, but he had great respect for the doctor’s opinion, and he told Rose that some friends were planning a visit to the Empire Theatre, followed by a supper party. ‘I don’t know whether you feel up to it,’ he said. ‘It’s not until next week.’

  Rose declared that by that time she would make it, and she did. ‘Mind over matter,’ she said gaily to her friends, and Robert watched her indulgently.

  Two years later a second son was born and christened John Arthur, after Rose’s father and Beattie’s husband, as Robert’s father had also been Robert.

  ‘That’s all Mr Willis’s doing, those names,’ Essy told Beattie. ‘Rose wouldn’t have thought of remembering your husband and giving you that pleasure, madam.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid she’s changed, Essy,’ sighed Beattie. ‘She was such a loving little girl.’

  ‘Maybe you’re seeing her more clear,’ said Essy. ‘One thing’s for sure. She’s done well out of her marriage. She’ll never want.’

  ‘And she’s got a wonderful husband,’ Beattie said. ‘Such a kind man.’

  ‘Yes, he’s pure gold,’ Essy agreed, and said no more about Rose on that occasion.

  It was usually Robert who brought her great-nephews to see Beattie, although Rose came occasionally and was invariably charming. She made Beattie very welcome when she visited them at Christmas or on special occasions.

  As the years passed Beattie’s imaginary ailments became more real, and when her increasing weight and failing heart made it impossible for her to leave her house, Robert insisted that they spent Christmas with her. The boys found their great-aunt’s wheezing and her announcements that she was not long for this world alarming, but Essy was their firm friend.

  In spite of these forecasts and her obvious ill health, it was still a shock to everybody when Beattie died in her sleep in November 1929. Robert was the executor of her will, so he took charge of the funeral arrangements. He consulted Essy about Beattie’s wishes, and with a defiant look at Rose the maid said belligerently, ‘I think Kate should be asked. Madam would like her to be there. She often talked about Kate during the last few years.’

  ‘Kate. Your sister,’ Robert said to Rose with surprise. ‘I wish I’d known, Essy. I’d have tried to trace her. I wonder why Miss Anderson said nothing to us.’

  ‘Probably didn’t want to upset Mrs Willis, sir,’ said Essy recklessly.

  ‘Me! What’s it got to do with me?’ said Rose. ‘It was Kate who stopped visiting us. I’m sure Aunt Beattie would have said if she’d really wanted to see her. Lord knows where she is now anyway.’

  ‘Madam would want her at her funeral,’ Essy said stubbornly, and Robert promised to try to trace her.

  She was easy to find, as Essy knew the name of Mildred’s solicitor. Robert wrote to Kate, then went to see her. He had subconsciously expected someone like Rose, so it was a shock when a thin, plain woman wearing steel-rimmed glasses came timidly into the room where he waited. Kate’s straight mousy hair had been badly cut and wisps fell over her face. Robert noticed that the hand she held out to him was red and roughened by hard work, but when she smiled the sweetness of her expression and the direct look from her large hazel eyes disarmed him, and he no longer thought of her as plain.

  ‘Miss Drew? Kate?’ he said, taking her hand.

  She replied in a gentle voice, ‘Yes, and you must be Rose’s husband. I’m so sorry about Aunt Beattie. Did she suffer much?’

  ‘She’d been an invalid for some time, but she died peacefully in her sleep,’ he said.

  ‘And you said in your letter that Essy was with her to the end. I’m glad about that,’ Kate said simply. ‘She’d looked after her for so long.’

  ‘Essy believes that your aunt would have liked you to attend her funeral,’ Robert said cautiously. ‘And Rose and I would like you to be there.’

  Kate’s face lit up. ‘I will very gladly,’ she said eagerly. ‘How is Rose?’

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Kept very busy with our two boys.’ He felt uncomfortable not knowing what lay behind the rift and was afraid of saying the wrong thing, but Kate looked at him and said honestly, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t see Aunt Beattie before she died. My own pride, I’m afraid, because of my circumstances, but I’ll be pleased to attend her funeral.’

  Robert asked Kate to come to their house to see Rose and meet the boys before the funeral, and she agreed ‘as long as Rose wants me to’, so he arranged to collect her. Rose was not pleased, but unsure what Robert had been told, she agreed to welcome Kate.

  Kate had bought a good black dress and coat and a small black hat for the funeral, and she wore them to visit Rose. As soon as the sisters saw each other the years fell away and they hugged each other and wept. Nothing was said about the years apart, or the long-ago incident in Bold Street which had caused the separation.

  There was instant rapport between Kate and the two boys. She was introduced as Aunt Kate, and seven-year-old John asked innocently, ‘Are you instead of Aunt Beattie?’

  His elder brother, nine-year-old Richard, pushed John and smiled at Kate. ‘Aunt Kate’s not in place of anybody, idiot. She’s here for herself,’ he said, and found a place in Kate’s heart which he never lost, although she deeply loved both boys.

  On the day of the funeral Robert brought Essy from Woolton to Sandfield Park. She attached herself to Kate, and to Kate’s embarrassment began to tell her in a loud whisper how badly Rose had treated her aunt. Kate tried to divert her by asking about Beattie’s health in her later years, and by the time Essy had told her, it was time to leave for the funeral, much to Kate’s relief.

  Beattie’s will was a surprise. Although not as rich as before, once Greenfields had been sold and her affairs settled she had been reasonably wealthy. She left the bulk of her money to be divided equally between young Richard and John, her jewellery to Rose, and her house and contents and an annuity to Essy. She also left one thousand pounds ‘to my dear niece Katherine Drew’, and Kate was deeply touched at this evidence that Beattie had remembered her with love.

  Beattie had already given Robert her husband’s gold hunter watch, his gold cuff links and pearl tiepin and his silver-backed hairbrushes, but she left him her grateful love for his affection and care for her during her last years. There was no mention of Rose, and she was furious. ‘She was influenced,’ she raged to Robert. ‘Her house to Essy and that money for Kate. Nothing for me for running round after her like a lapdog for years.’

  ‘She left you her jewellery,’ Robert said mildly. ‘She knew we don’t need money, Rose, and she was generous to our boys.’

  ‘But her house and furniture to Essy, who was her servant. It’s an insult to me,’ Rose snapped.

  ‘Essy was more than a servant. You know that, Rose. She was your aunt’s devoted friend for many years.’

  ‘And my enemy,’ Rose muttered.

  Robert said firmly, ‘I’m pleased that your aunt has left her house to Essy. She deserves it. She devoted her life to Beattie and you wouldn’t want her to be left homeless, would you?’

  Rose knew that note in his voice and said no more, and Robert added gently, ‘At least this has brought you and your sister together again. The boys are delighted with her, aren’t they?’

  The two boys were weekly boarders at a preparatory school near Parkgate on the Wirral side of the River Mersey. At first Kate avoided visiting when they were home at weekends, thinking that they would wish to be alone with their parents, but the boys were disappointed if she was not there, and she was soon easily persuaded to spe
nd Sundays at the Willis house when she was off duty.

  Rose was a little jealous of the instant affection between Kate and the boys, although pleased that Kate would play boisterous games with them which she herself disliked doing. Richard was tall for his age, with straight dark hair, and features and temperament very like his father’s, but John was fair and blue-eyed, an extrovert and happy child.

  ‘They’re not at all alike, are they?’ Kate said one day to Rose as they sat in the garden, watching the boys.

  ‘No. Seems to be the pattern in our family,’ said Rose. ‘We’re not at all alike.’

  ‘No, and neither were Mildred and Beattie,’ agreed Kate.

  ‘They were alike in some ways,’ Rose said. ‘They both had imaginary illnesses and were secretive about money. And let us down because they were useless at looking after it,’ she added bitterly.

  ‘Oh Rose,’ Kate protested, but they looked at each other and laughed. Rose was pleased to have her sister’s companionship again. She could say anything to Kate, no matter how outrageous, things she would hesitate to say to Robert because she wanted to keep his good opinion. She was sure that in Kate’s eyes she could do no wrong.

  Kate’s love for Rose was not as blind and uncritical as Rose supposed, but to Kate she would always be the sweet and affectionate sister she had been when they were children together. Any bitterness or selfishness Rose showed now, Kate attributed to the life she had led and the people she had mixed with since they were parted.

  The sweet and loving side of Rose’s character was not lost, and she showed it often to Kate in response to her sister’s deep love for her. They were both very happy to be reunited.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Robert had been appalled to find how hard Kate worked and how menial her job was, and he urged her to leave it at once. ‘There’s no need for you to work, Kate, now that you are reunited with your family,’ he said, but Kate told him that Beattie’s legacy would make it possible for her to realise a dream.

  ‘The money Aunt Mildred left me is there for my old age,’ she said, ‘but Beattie’s legacy means I can afford to work for nothing but my board and lodging.’ She told him of a home for unmarried mothers run by a local charity. They could not afford to pay wages, only provide board and lodging, and Kate had always wanted to work there.

  ‘But what would you do?’ Robert said doubtfully.

  ‘Not cleaning,’ said Kate. ‘Helping the girls to settle in when they first come. Some of them are suicidal and they’re all upset. I’ve been doing that sometimes in my time off. If I was there full time I could help with the babies too.’

  ‘If that’s what you want, Kate,’ Robert said, recognising her need for independence. ‘But remember you’ll always have a home with us if you want it. I hope you’ll come to us often anyway. Rose will need you, especially when the boys go away to their main school.’

  Kate was warmly welcomed at the home, as they knew she had a gift for calming and comforting the girls when they arrived. They were often distraught and fearful, rejected first by the fathers of their babies then by their families. Kate drew on her own experience to help them, and she was particularly happy when she could work with the babies.

  She visited Rose and Robert often, and when Richard went away to his father’s old school she was there to comfort Rose. ‘It’s not right. He’s far too young to go away from home,’ Rose raged.

  ‘But all his friends will go, and he’ll be at a disadvantage later in life if he doesn’t,’ Robert said.

  Rose replied angrily, ‘Then someone should have the courage to break the pattern. We’re not a flock of sheep.’ Kate agreed with her, although she said nothing, but Richard made no complaint.

  John was still coming home for weekends, but two years later, when he followed his brother to school, Robert took Rose away on a cruise in the Mediterranean. She had often talked of her cruise with Beattie and how much more she could have enjoyed it if she had not been at Beattie’s beck and call, and Robert thought that a holiday now would console her for her sons’ absence.

  He was pleased to see how much Rose enjoyed herself, and she told him it had been a good idea. ‘You’re so thoughtful darling,’ she said. When she was alone with Kate, however, she complained that it had not come up to her expectations.

  ‘Cruises are best for young, single people. They’re the ones who really have a good time, unless they’re tied to a demanding relative like I was with Beattie. Now it’s all too late for me, an old married woman of nearly forty,’ she said tragically.

  ‘Don’t say that, Rose. I can’t think of you as being forty,’ Kate said. ‘Although I don’t think it matters anyway. I must say, I don’t feel any different now I’m forty.’

  ‘It matters on board ship,’ said Rose.

  ‘I’ll bet you charmed them just the same,’ Kate teased her. ‘In spite of your great age.’

  Rose smiled complacently. ‘I was never short of partners for dancing or anything else,’ she said. ‘And a couple of ship’s officers tried to flirt with me.’

  Kate looked thoughtful. ‘You know, Rose, Mama must have only been about our age when she died, and the aunts only a few years older. They seemed so ancient to me, at Mama’s funeral.’

  ‘And to me,’ said Rose. ‘It was the way they dressed and behaved, too. Mildred worked hard, I know, but Beattie just sat about eating. She went out in the carriage to visit or shop, or she had tea parties here, bridge afternoons and that sort of thing, but she never exerted herself in any way. She would never have dreamed of playing tennis or swimming as I did on the cruise.’ She looked at herself in a mirror with a satisfied air.

  Robert had a reliable business partner but had always done more than his share in the company, so now he felt free to take Rose on frequent holidays, but they were always at home for the boys’ holidays from school. Kate was a welcome visitor then.

  ‘Why don’t you go away with Mum and Dad sometimes?’ Richard asked Kate one day as they sat in the garden.

  ‘I only have two weeks’ holiday,’ Kate said, ‘and I spent that with my friend Josie in Ireland.’

  Richard touched Kate’s work-roughened hand. ‘Essy says you work far too hard,’ he said.

  Kate laughed. ‘Essy’s always worked herself,’ she said. ‘I’m glad she’s having it easier now.’

  ‘I like Miss Clarke, her lodger,’ Richard said. ‘She’s so quiet, and she has that awful hump on her back, but she never grumbles, Essy says. She must be very clever.’

  ‘Yes, she’s head of the dressmaking department of a big shop in Bold Street,’ Kate agreed. ‘She’s made me a lovely dress for special occasions, without a pattern or anything.’

  Richard looked up in surprise. ‘Mummy asked Essy if Miss Clarke would make clothes for her, but she said Miss Clarke doesn’t do private sewing.’

  ‘Then we won’t say anything about my dress,’ said Kate.

  ‘No sense in rocking the boat,’ Richard said, sounding so like his father that Kate began to laugh and he joined in, winking at her like a conspirator. A family holiday in Austria was planned, and Richard returned to the subject of Kate coming with them. ‘You’ve never been abroad, have you?’ he said.

  ‘No, but I’ve been to Ireland and Scotland,’ Kate said, smiling.

  ‘When did you go to Scotland?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Before you were born,’ Kate said. ‘I went twice,’ she added. ‘The first time to see a doctor I used to know. He was very kind to me when I needed it most. He’d come out of retirement during the war but when it was over he was put out to grass again, as he put it.’

  ‘What did he mean?’ asked Richard.

  ‘He had to retire again, so he went back to Scotland to the place where he was born. I went to see him then, and the second time I went it was for his funeral.’

  ‘That must have been sad for you,’ Richard said.

  ‘No, not really,’ Kate replied. ‘He was very old and in pain, but he’d had a few ve
ry happy years and a good life. The last thing he said to me when I saw him on my first visit was that he’d been dealt a good hand.’ Richard looked puzzled, and Kate explained, ‘He thought life was like a card game. Some people are dealt a good hand and some a bad one, but you have to do your best with the cards you’ve been dealt.’

  They sat in silence for a minute, then Richard said, ‘This trip to Austria. One of the masters says this isn’t a good time to go there. He says we might find some hostility. He thinks Germany is preparing for war.’

  ‘Surely not!’ Kate exclaimed. ‘They wouldn’t be so mad. Not so soon after the last war, and that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Don’t say anything to your mum, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘That’s what Dad said when I asked him about it. Not to say anything to Mum. As if I would! You must all think I’m daft,’ Richard said indignantly.

  Robert encouraged the boys to visit Essy, and on their next visit Richard spoke to her about the holiday in Austria. ‘I wish Aunt Kate was coming with us,’ he said. ‘She’s never been abroad, but Dad says she knows she’s welcome so she must decide.’

  Essy sniffed. ‘He probably knows she’d be just a handrag for your mother,’ she said, then, seeing Richard’s shocked face, she added quickly, ‘That’s how it is with Kate. It’s how she’s been all her life, running after other people.’

  ‘In her work, you mean?’ said Richard.

  ‘That as well,’ said Essy. ‘Her mother was a spoilt girl, her father’s favourite then carried round by her husband. When he got killed she just moved the burden to Kate, although she was only a child. Then, when the mother died Kate went as a drudge to Mildred.’

  ‘I thought Aunt Mildred adopted her,’ said Richard.

  ‘Oh aye, but nobody ate idle bread in Mildred’s house, least of all Kate, and because she was willing, Mildred piled the work on to her. Madam used to worry about her and try to help her. She was always kind, poor lady.’ Essy wiped away a tear.