The Carpenter's Children

by Maggie Bennett

  Tom sighed, and reread the letter, imagining what she might have written if her words had been for Mark’s eyes only.

  I was interested in all that you said about the Settlement that has been such a help to the young people, and the football team for the boys. You describe it all so vividly that I feel myself actually there, and I only wish that I were. It has been so long.

  (That means ‘I long to see you and share your life,’ thought Tom.)

  Life at school goes on as usual, the children are happy and learn well on the whole. I often think of the poor, ragged little souls that you tell me about who have no chance to learn to read and write. They come to mind when I am teaching my little ones to say their ABC, and my heart goes out to them. It seems so long since you used to come on school inspections for Mr Saville.

  (‘How I should love to teach your poor, barefooted urchins, and welcome your inspections to see what progress I have made! Your smiles and commendations would be all the reward I needed.’)

  Mr Saville preached a very solemn sermon last Sunday about the unrest in Europe, and he obviously doesn’t admire the kaiser, though our late King Edward VII was his cousin, and they seemed to be friendly. My father agrees that this trouble in the Balkans could be a threat to peace in that part of the world, and may spread to Germany and Austria. The newspapers contradict each other, and I find it all quite bewildering. Here we have lovely spring weather, and when I get time to walk in the Blackwater meadows, thoughts of war seem very far away. The trees look so beautiful in their new green foliage, and yesterday I heard a cuckoo calling. That place holds happy memories.

  (‘I felt as if I were walking again with you in that place where we first declared our love. If only we could be together again, I wouldn’t be bothered by these rumours from abroad, whatever Mr Saville says.’)

  Tom Munday folded the letter and put it in its envelope, ready for posting. And at that moment he made up his mind to discontinue this censorship of their letters. His daughter and Mark Storey had proved the enduring nature of their love, and had earned the right to privacy. It had been two years, for heaven’s sake, and as far as Tom Munday was concerned, the couple could meet and make plans for their future.

  Stepaside was a high-class tea room in Everham, known for its excellent home-made cakes and atmosphere of quiet refinement; it was situated conveniently for lady shoppers, and Lady Neville always took refreshments there when she came to Everham on business or shopping. It was run by a Mrs Brangton and her daughter Miss Brangton, and when an advertisement appeared in the Everham News for a suitable young lady to work as a waitress and assist in the kitchen at Stepaside, Grace Munday saw it and begged her father to let her apply, even though she had not yet had her fifteenth birthday, and was still a pupil at the council school. When approached Mr Chisman made no objection, and Grace, overjoyed at the prospect of escape from boring lessons and spiteful teachers, attended an interview with Mrs Brangton, where her pretty manners and dimpled smiles won her the place. Overnight she turned into Miss Munday, a young lady dressed in a long black skirt and high-necked white blouse, who earned her own living and travelled daily on the horse-drawn omnibus between North Camp and Everham. Her parents had mixed feelings at first, but she settled well, and her obvious happiness reassured them.

  Stepaside opened at midday, but behind its genteel frontage the morning activity in the kitchen was intense. Miss Munday arrived at eight, donned an overall and tied a triangular white square around her head, to assist both ladies in their tasks. Miss Brangton baked the cottage loaves which went into the oven at nine, having been ‘proved’ and rekneaded since the dough was made at seven. Mrs Brangton made the cakes of all kinds – fruit, chocolate, coffee and walnut (a great favourite), and sponges plain and flavoured, halved and filled with buttercream. While she wielded her wooden spoon and poured the mixtures into baking tins, Miss Brangton sliced vegetables for soup, simmering them with ham or beef bones, and Miss Munday had to assist both ladies who frequently needed her at the same time. At half past eleven she sat down to a delicious bowl of freshly made soup and a slice of home-baked bread, still warm from the oven, and at five to twelve she put on a frilly white apron with a matching cap, ready for her duties as waitress, in which she was joined and supervised by Miss Brangton. A stout woman called Mrs Hodge arrived to do the washing up; she stayed in the kitchen, while Mrs Brangton disappeared into an inner sanctum to do her accounts, issuing forth from time to time to greet her customers and exchange a word here and there – as if she hadn’t been working her socks off all the morning, thought Miss Munday admiringly.

  Lunches consisted of the delectable soup and bread, with the addition or alternative of something on toast – poached or scrambled egg, cheese or grilled tomatoes. Miss Brangton prepared these, and kept two big kettles on the boil for tea. Lunches continued until two o’clock when there was a lull before teas began at three and continued until half past five. This was the busiest time, when the afternoon shoppers arrived for their usual treat, tea at Stepaside. Miss Munday welcomed all the ladies and the occasional gentleman, usually a husband, with smiling deference, taking their orders and dealing with each one promptly. She loved it.

  But one afternoon there was a difficulty. Mrs Bentley-Foulkes, a very elegant lady and regular patron, arrived with a female companion and demanded her usual table beneath the window. Miss Munday took their order, tea for two and lemon cake. When she brought the tray with two generous slices of lemon cake, Mrs Bentley-Foulkes regarded it with a frown.

  ‘I ordered a teacake, toasted and buttered,’ she said. ‘Mrs Whittington ordered the cake. Please change it.’

  ‘But madam, you ordered lemon cake for both of you – didn’t she, Mrs…er…’ protested Miss Munday, turning to the other lady for confirmation.

  ‘Don’t you answer back at me, my girl,’ retorted Mrs Bentley-Foulkes in indignation. ‘Take that slice of cake away at once, and bring me what I ordered.’

  ‘I’ll change it for you, madam, but you definitely ordered cake,’ insisted Miss Munday, quickly removing the offending slice and returning with a teacake, hastily toasted by Miss Brangton; she set it down without a word.

  When Mrs Brangton emerged from her office to speak to her customers, she returned looking very grave, and beckoned to Miss Munday.

  ‘I’m appalled to hear that you were insolent to one of my most valued customers, Miss Munday,’ she said. ‘You will have to go and apologise to Mrs Bentley-Foulkes at once.’

  ‘But she distinctly asked for lemon cake in the first place, and then said she hadn’t, Mrs Brangton!’ protested Miss Munday, reddening. ‘She was in the wrong, and as good as called me a liar!’

  ‘Hold your tongue, Miss Munday, and don’t ever raise your voice to me again, or you will be dismissed without notice!’ Mrs Brangton told her, also reddening. ‘Stepaside has a reputation as a high-class tea room, where the customer is always right, and don’t you ever forget that. Now go and apologise to Mrs Bentley-Foulkes and her companion – at once, Miss Munday!’

  Grace Munday drew several deep breaths and adjusted her face to one of pained submission as she went over to the table and muttered, ‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Bentley-Foulkes.’ The lady nodded in frosty acceptance, and Miss Munday went to take an order from another table. It isn’t easy to be subservient to one you regard as a stuck-up, overdressed Lady Muck, and a seed of rebellion was planted.

  ‘Looks as if there could be civil war in Ireland over this Home Rule business,’ said Ernest Munday, looking up from his newspaper.

  ‘Hm!’ grunted Aaron Pascoe, biting into his cold roast lamb sliced with unleavened bread. They were sitting at the wooden table in the yard at the back of Schelling and Pascoe’s offices, taking advantage of the midday sunshine while keeping an ear open for the doorbell.

  ‘All very well saying “Hm!” It could be a dangerous game if we have to send troops over there,’ said Ernest reprovingly.

  ‘My dear old chap, there could
be far more dangerous games ahead if this trouble between Serbia and Austria goes on and develops into outright conflict,’ said Aaron, looking so serious that Ernest glanced up sharply from his paper. He had never been able to take a real interest in events happening in a distant part of the world, and the Balkans, though not as far away as India or Africa, seemed particularly remote. Oddly, the great Dominions of the British Empire, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, seemed nearer because of their close historical links with Great Britain, while the United States of America, though independent for well over a hundred years, spoke the same language and could still be called cousins of their country of origin. Serbia and Croatia, Turkey and those eastern European countries with their incomprehensible languages and current stirrings and rumblings, held far less importance in Ernest’s view than, say, an upheaval in a part of the Empire, such as India which had had its uprisings and rebellions, but which was now peacefully governed by the viceroy and a network of district commissioners like Sir Arnold Neville. Ernest thought back to the great durbar of 1911 when the king and queen had visited India and been proclaimed emperor and empress, among scenes of magnificence and rejoicing among their loyal subjects there. How could local squabbles in the far eastern end of Europe compare with such strength? And yet there was a warning note in his friend’s unexpectedly solemn voice.

  ‘Truly, Aaron, do you believe that there could be real danger from Serbia?’

  ‘Certainly, if Germany gets involved, as Austria already has,’ replied his friend in the German accent that Ernest found so engaging. ‘I have written to my parents in Elberfeld to suggest that they come over with my younger brothers and sisters, and hope that my father will take heed.’

  Aaron’s father was English, though known as Herr Pascoe in Germany; his mother, a Schelling sister, enjoyed a comfortable life in Elberfeld, and wanted Aaron to return to what she called his home.

  ‘Why? Do you mean for safety’s sake?’ asked Ernest incredulously. ‘Surely that’s being overcautious! Why not wait to see how things turn out? These rumblings may die down in another year or two.’

  ‘Ah, Ernest my dear friend, you English can seldom see in front of your noses, and you have been caught unawares in history before now,’ said Aaron, shaking his head but softening his words with a wry smile. Ernest caught his breath at the words, ‘my dear friend’, an unusual way for one young man to address another, and Ernest put it down to the warmer terms and phrases used by Europeans. And over the past two years, working together, cycling together over Surrey’s open heaths and Hampshire’s rounded hills, by farms and orchards, by ancient village churches, by river banks and stretches of open water like Frensham Pond where they had swum and then sat in the shade – they had become close friends. Ernest privately marvelled at the fact that they had been unwittingly brought together by Paul Woodman, simply because he had married a Jewess; they had another child now, a son they named David, and like his sister he had been baptised as a Christian in the Methodist tradition. Ernest no longer attended Mr Woodman’s Bible study groups, for after attending church with his family on Sunday mornings, he was off on his bicycle with Aaron. This was the most beautiful summer he could remember, and the call of the open air had never been stronger than now, sharing it all with Aaron. A bond had grown between them that could only be broken by the marriage of one or the other, though this was never mentioned. Or rather, it had not yet been mentioned.

  One Sunday afternoon, resting near St Catherine’s Chapel, looking across to the Hog’s Back, that great chalk ridge that rises between Farnham and Guildford, and gives a wide view of peaceful Surrey countryside, now shimmering in a heat haze, Aaron lay on his back, gazing up through the thick branches of a yew. Ernest produced a stone jar from his backpack, removed the cork and offered Aaron a gulp of water from its narrow neck.

  ‘Mmm, that’s good! Amazing how the stone keeps it cool – thanks.’

  He passed the jar back to Ernest, and suddenly it seemed a right moment to broach the subject which Ernest had been turning over in his mind for some time, but which he had been half-afraid to mention to his friend. Now he could; now he must.

  ‘Aaron, may I ask you a question?’ He spoke quietly, but his heart beat fast.

  ‘Hush, you’re disturbing the silence of a perfect summer afternoon,’ teased Aaron. ‘Go on, then, ask your question, only I hope it isn’t deeply philosophical.’

  ‘It’s simple enough. You’re already twenty-four. Haven’t you had any thoughts of, er, of getting married? If you don’t mind me asking, Aaron.’

  ‘Oho, have you got someone in mind for me? If so, I hope she’s beautiful.’ Aaron smiled and closed his eyes as if in delighted anticipation.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’m quite serious. Surely you must have had some ideas about marriage and family life? Isn’t that an important part of your religion?’

  ‘Ah, you sound like my mother. And there’s the difficulty. You may have noticed that Jewish girls are not abundant in Everham and district. If I’d stayed in Elberfeld, I’d probably be a husband and father by now.’

  ‘But suppose you met someone you liked in Everham – a girl at the tennis club, for instance,’ persisted Ernest, thinking of Phyllis Bird who had become something of a flirt, and was at present walking out with Will Hickory, whose parents owned the bakehouse in North Camp.

  ‘You mean a Gentile girl? No, my friend, there was enough wailing and gnashing of teeth when Rachael married out and gave birth to two Christian children. To lose another, and a man, would be too much to inflict on the family.’

  There was silence as a brightly coloured butterfly alighted on Aaron’s arm, and he lay absolutely still so as not to disturb it. He gave a long sigh, and Ernest wondered whether it was one of contentment, or was asking him to stop his questions; he was reluctant to pursue the matter, yet felt he needed to know the answer. Aaron must have read his mind, because without dismissing the butterfly, he spoke again in an easy, matter-of-fact way.

  ‘It will rest with my mother – that is, if she and Father take my advice and return to England. In her absence my uncle Schelling will no doubt be instructed to write to a rabbi at a synagogue – in London, probably, where there’s a thriving Jewish quarter, and ask him to look out for a suitable young woman who is desperate to meet a country-loving, bicycling junior partner in an insurance firm. And then we’ll take it from there. Does that answer your question, Ernest old chap?’

  ‘Yes, I see. Thank you, Aaron.’

  The butterfly flew away, and the subject was closed. Ernest was more or less satisfied, for there seemed to be no early likelihood of losing his friend to marriage. Not in the foreseeable future, anyway.

  While Ernest sat in thought, Aaron had his own private deliberations. Dear old Ernest! At twenty he had little knowledge of the world, and was clearly totally inexperienced. Bless him, he was so tentative, so cautious, so English! It was typical of him to talk of marriage rather than of women in general, their relationship to men – their bodies, their soft breasts, their mysterious, exciting caves where a man might enter and cry out aloud with pleasure. It wasn’t that Aaron had much personal knowledge of these natural processes, especially since he had come to Everham, but he took it for granted that one day he would indeed marry a pleasing Jewish woman, one he would find for himself or have found for him; what, after all, would it matter?

  By which it might be assumed that in spite of his superior knowledge, Aaron Pascoe had never truly been in love.

  ‘Isabel’s off to London next week,’ Tom Munday told Eddie Cooper over their Friday night pint at the Tradesmen’s Arms.

  ‘Oh, ah?’ Eddie waited to hear more. Just about all of North Camp knew of the young curate’s banishment to a London parish two years ago, and there were those who said it served him right for carrying on with a sixteen-year-old girl. He had not been seen or heard of since, and the affair was thought to be over. Eddie, however, had known of the censored correspondence, and lately Tom had confi
ded to him that he had told Isabel she was now free to visit the Rev. Mark Storey in his East London parish. Mark had written to her and to Tom in happy acknowledgement, and an arrangement was made for her to go up at half-term, from next Friday to Monday. A married couple in Mark’s congregation had agreed to give Miss Munday lodging in their home, and he had paid them in advance.

  Tom relayed this information to Eddie who nodded his head in approval.

  ‘Yeah, if they both feel the same after all this time, I reckon they deserve to see each other again,’ he said. ‘Girls are getting married at her age. And after all, he’s a clergyman, and she’s older now. Good girl, your Isabel.’

  Tom Munday smiled, and returned a complimentary remark about Eddie’s daughter.

  ‘Mrs Yeomans thinks the world o’ your Mary, I hear – the way she helps her with the baby and cooks meals for them all.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s good with little Billy, same age as our Freddie, goin’ on for two. Never comes to see us, though, not on birthdays or Christmas or anything. I drop in at Yeomans’ farm now and then, to see her and have a word with her, so at least I know she’s being looked after, like.’

  ‘No trouble with young Dick these days, then?’

  ‘Not a thing since I had a word with old Yeomans, and he must’ve told his wife. They don’t want any trouble, either, so Dick has to behave himself. He’ll be taking over the farm one o’ these days, and they don’t want him to marry for a year or two. Mind you, he could do worse than my Mary.’