A Girl Called Hope

by A Girl Called Hope (retail) (epub)

  *

  Matthew approached her as she was setting out for her afternoon walk the following day. She moved to the side to pass him but he held the pushchair.

  ‘You should leave Cwm Derw,’ he said, smiling, his voice light as though simply passing a polite comment. ‘It’s killing Marjorie to see you every day, knowing you’re responsible for Ralph’s death.’

  ‘Let me pass! And please watch what lies you spout when you’re near my son.’ Using the pushchair as a battering ram, she was gratified to hear him grunt with pain as the foot rest hit his shins. She almost ran the rest of the way to the bus stop.

  She had intended going to their favourite place near the stream but she was afraid of being followed. She really would have to do something about Matthew Charles. But what? She had no intention of moving from Badgers Brook, whatever Marjorie said.

  *

  There was another problem with the plumbing a few days later. An unpleasant smell invaded the kitchen, and even after thorough cleaning and investigations by herself and Kitty and Bob they could find no cause. The source seemed to be outside and, trying not to become alarmed at the prospect of another expensive repair, and wondering if she could manage without resorting to another cleaning job to pay it, she asked the plumber to call. She couldn’t expect Geoff to pay. The rent he was charging her was very low, and this could be an extensive job if outside drains were the cause.

  On the day the plumber came he found the fault and, with a gang of workmen, opened the drains right down to the cesspit at the end of the garden. The smell was horrendous. An unexpected spell of warm weather made it worse, and after a few hours he suggested that she and Davy should stay elsewhere for a day or two until the area had been thoroughly disinfected and repaired.

  With some trepidation, Hope called on Marjorie. As she approached Ty Mawr she began rehearsing what she would say. Her first sentence must say it all as Marjorie might not give her time for a second before slamming the door.

  ‘Of course David can stay. He can have his father’s old room.’ Marjorie replied, obviously delighted, when she had briefly explained her dilemma.

  ‘It will only be for a couple of days, three at the most; we can’t stay in the house while the work is going on,’ Hope explained.

  ‘Davy can’t be anywhere near all that; he must come here,’ Marjorie said firmly, adding, ‘You see again how wrong it was of you to insist on taking Ralph and Davy to that house, away from their proper home?’

  ‘I’ll go home and collect our things.’ Hope ignored the criticism, which never seemed to end.

  ‘David’s things you mean,’ Marjorie said.

  ‘Our things, Davy’s and mine,’ she said with a smile. ‘We won’t need much, some clothes and a few of his toys. I’ll bring a cushion cover that I’m embroidering. It’s almost finished and I can work on it while I’m here.’

  ‘I don’t want you here. My son is dead because of you, and the family is shamed and disgraced. What makes you think I’d allow you to stay here? People might think I approve of you.’

  The shock was severe but after so many insults Hope was able to conceal her emotions quickly. She put on the coat she had slipped off, put a protesting Davy back into his pushchair and left the house without a word.

  Marjorie shouted, telling her she mustn’t put the child at risk, that he had to stay, that Hope was an unfit mother, and then Hope heard the door slam as, struggling to hide her tears, she hurried down the front path.

  Matthew Charles was just entering the gate, and she turned her head away as she ran past him without a word, but he was aware that she was crying. He knocked on the door, which was opened by an equally tearful Marjorie.

  ‘I don’t understand that young woman, refusing help when it’s offered,’ she wailed. ‘And I’ve just had another letter from Phillip. He says he’s too upset about Ralph to come home while she’s around. On top of everything else she’s done, she’s keeping my one remaining son away from me.’

  ‘And he’s probably very busy,’ Matthew comforted. ‘He’s increasingly in demand as his fame spreads.’

  ‘If she would only move away, leave Davy and go!’

  ‘When Phillip comes he and I will talk to her,’ Matthew promised sympathetically.

  *

  Hurrying away from her mother-in-law’s wrath, Hope went straight to see Kitty. By then her distress had transformed itself to anger, and she told Kitty of Marjorie’s repetition of her belief that she, Hope, had killed her son.

  ‘To be honest, Kitty, I feel sorry for the woman, but I can’t take much more of her accusations.’

  ‘I don’t know what you can do except wait for the poisonous anguish to leave her. I don’t think people like us want to get into suing for slander, defamation of character and all that.’

  ‘Of course not. I could never do that to Ralph’s mother, Davy’s grandmother.’ She gave a huge sigh, then said, ‘Mind you, it might not be a bad idea to remind her that I could!’

  ‘Stay here tonight.’ Kitty waved away her protests and went on, ‘The couch and a put-you-up bed. That do?’

  Hope could only say, ‘Thank you.’

  Leaving Davy with Kitty, Hope went back to the house to collect what they would need for an overnight stay, but before she could begin there was a knock at the door.

  A man stood there with a handkerchief over his nose and mouth.

  ‘Sorry about the smell,’ she apologized. ‘The drains are giving trouble.’

  The man looked at a clipboard containing some papers and asked, ‘Can you tell me who lives here?’

  ‘Just me and my son, Davy.’

  ‘Who is how old, Mrs Murton?’

  ‘Davy will be three in October.’

  The man stepped back and looked towards the side of the house, where men were working in a foul-smelling trench.

  ‘The child will have to be taken to a place of safety, I’m afraid. It’s far too dangerous for him to be so near this disturbance.’

  ‘Davy isn’t here. We are staying with a neighbour until the work is finished.‘

  He checked his papers again. ‘I understood—’

  ‘You understood from my mother-in-law – who refused to help us – that I was putting my son at risk?’

  It took a while longer but the man was finally convinced that the child was far away from the open cesspit.

  ‘You can stay longer if you wish,’ Hope said finally, ‘but I have to get out of here. My son isn’t the only one who’d be better away from this place.’

  *

  Marjorie was writing to Phillip. Although he didn’t write to her often, recently he had done so several times, asking questions about Hope and her son, encouraging her criticism. She wrote a full description of Hope’s apparent failings as a mother, her working in a public house and having men to stay, her free-and-easy attitude to training, social development and good manners. ‘I know he’s not quite three,’ she explained, ‘but these things don’t suddenly start at the age of five, they have to be a part of his life from a very early age.’ She had no one else to talk to as Freddy refused to hear a word of complaint about his daughter-in-law, who, he often repeated, had been courageous in her misfortunes. So when she wrote to Phillip she poured more and more of her unhappiness out to him.

  In the past he had rarely replied to her letters, but on the subject of Davy he was surprisingly forthcoming. He suggested that, being a penniless widow, Hope might be persuaded to give him up and allow Marjorie to care for him. Then Hope could find a more suitable way of earning money. It was exactly what she had said to Matthew. It showed how well she and Phillip communicated.

  He also told her that she wouldn’t cope with the tragedy until Hope had moved far away from Cwm Derw. He repeated his sadness that he was unable to come home while there was a chance of coming face to face with Hope.

  As Phillip had written the words suggesting his mother might take care of Davy, he had felt a momentary qualm. Hope would never allow it,
would she? But what if his mother did manage to take him from Hope? What then? His own childhood had been so unhappy and here he was committing a not-quite-three-year-old to a similar regime. He always thought of the years spent at home as a regime rather than a childhood. Perhaps he would go home one day and see what kind of a child his brother Ralph had produced. Picturing a little boy similar to his younger brother, he put the letter aside. Perhaps he wouldn’t send it. The memories of his regimented childhood and the inability of his mother to demonstrate her love for him had remained as a sad echo of what his early years might have been.

  Still, he reassured himself, his mother bringing up the child wasn’t the plan. He just wanted there to be enough pressure on Hope to make her leave and take the little boy with her. Then he’d be able to go home, allow himself to be kept by his doting mother and not have to worry about success, or the lack of it. He really wasn’t cut out for working for a living and he’d had enough of Connie’s nagging. Hope would have to go, though.

  He contacted Matthew and told him he needed a ‘boys’ night out’. Matthew had promised to attend the play in which his wife and daughters were taking part, but persuaded himself that Phillip’s need was the greater.

  Since leaving home straight after being demobbed from the army in 1945, Phillip had lived with four romantically inclined women, who, in turn, had been attracted to the handsome, expensively dressed, well-spoken young man who dreamed of becoming an artist, and who had imagined themselves being admired for supporting him and becoming his indispensable and adored wife. Three had left him, unable to cope with his failures once they realized that the ambition to paint was no more than an excuse to avoid regular employment.

  His mother had encouraged a small talent he had for drawing and painting and had convinced herself he should be an architect. That Phillip had neither the talent nor the ability to take on such intense study was ignored. Not only was he incapable of such dedication, he had no desire to achieve the end result. He had an idea that, given time to develop slowly, naturally, he might become an artist. Earning money by painting pictures as and when the mood tempted him seemed a perfect way to spend his life.

  Leaving home had been easy. Soon after his return, facing more of his mother’s plans for him, he had simply walked out wearing his demob suit and carrying a few clothes bought by his mother, in a suitcase provided by the government. His wallet contained all the money he had saved and some he had been given by his father to set himself up with the materials he would need.

  He went to North Wales, where the rugged scenery appealed. Craggy mountains and lakes of breathtaking beauty, rich green fields, their shapes distorted by ancient walls and crossed by bubbling streams. He journeyed dreaming the idle dream of becoming a landscape artist, portraying picturesque farms filled with contented animals and fascinating characters. He wasn’t prepared for the effort involved. He did try, encouraged by various women who stayed until they realized that his main characteristic was not talent but laziness. Janet believed in him for a while, as he tried pottery alongside his paintings, then she gave up on him and left. Kate encouraged him to train as a teacher until his constant absences ended that brief promise. Harriet lasted only a month before walking away with everything she could carry that she might be able to sell, her luggage containing none of his paintings.

  Now there was Connie, a sometimes fiery character who, at thirty-three, was seven years older than him. She had made him face the fact that he had no chance of earning money by his art, and had persuaded him to apply for, and accept, a job as a school caretaker.

  She worked alongside him, bullying him when necessary to get him out of bed when he didn’t feel like going to work, and making the weekends so wonderful that he slowly accepted that the five days of working were worthwhile. She took control of the money, handing him a few shillings when he felt like walking to the local for a drink.

  Routine was something he abhorred but gradually he had learned to accept it. Connie cared for him and for a while he hadn’t thought he could cope alone again. Whatever happened to him he hadn’t thought he would ever go home. But now things had changed. Connie had changed. She was no longer content to drift along as they had been, her ambition for more had ruined everything. Perhaps, if he went on a visit, making sure Connie would still be here if he came back, he might be able to persuade Hope to leave.

  ‘I’ll come,’ Connie said at once when he mentioned his idea of visiting his parents. Phillip shook his head slowly, kissed her affectionately. ‘I wouldn’t inflict my mother on someone I love,’ he said solemnly. ‘In fact, I must have had an aberration when I suggested she might take care of Davy. I don’t know the child but I don’t think he could possibly deserve such a punishment.’ He explained about his suggestion. ‘Luckily, I changed my mind and didn’t post the letter.’

  ‘Oh dear, I think I did,’ Connie said.

  ‘I don’t expect she’ll take any notice of what I said anyway. If she does, I’ll bitterly regret writing that letter,’ he added sorrowfully.

  ‘Let’s go and see. I’ll stay away from the house if that's what you wish, but I’ll go with you. We have a half-term holiday coming soon.’

  ‘All right, if we can afford it. I’ll write to Matthew Charles and ask if we can stay with him, shall I?’

  ‘I’ll enquire about the trains.’

  ‘No,’ Phillip said, then, ‘Why don’t we make it a Christmas visit instead? We’ll be back in time for the New Year celebrations here.’

  Connie smiled. ‘You are getting to be a social butterfly, Phillip, you really are.’

  Phillip smiled contentedly. Maybe he and Connie were well suited after all. In fact, was it wise to risk going to see his parents? His mother had a well-honed knack for spoiling things. But then again, Connie had a way of sorting out troublemakers and the contest might be fun to watch.

  He still intended to leave Connie, but not yet. She wasn’t his future, he knew that now. She inhibited him, held him too tightly in chains of conventional, wage-earning orderliness. He needed freedom; something she was no longer willing to give him.

  *

  Hope was earning a growing reputation for making clothes for people less than easy to fit. One of her customers had a slight hump on her shoulder blade after an accident as a child, and Hope’s jacket helped to conceal the deformity, making the lady feel more confident, more able to mix socially. Several of her regular clients were small, and the usual method of simply shortening dresses and skirts didn’t work at all. Hope’s skill at remaking a dress, or making one from new, was quickly recognized, and she had as much work as she could manage. She often sat up late into the night to finish a garment, anxious to please a client and to see her bank balance growing.

  In September, she decided that if she were to accept all the work she was offered she needed to take on a trainee. Too much of her time was spent doing simple tasks, like tacking and felling, that a less capable person could do. Going to the employment exchange and sorting out all the paperwork, besides getting herself on to an official level, was alarming; but she knew that what she had begun as a way of surviving was becoming a legitimate business.

  The girl she employed had shown her some of her work and the neatness of her stitches, as well as her gentle demeanour, quickly persuaded Hope that, although she had little experience, she would give her a try. The girl was Joyce, Geoff Tanner’s niece. She was fourteen and had left school to work in a wool shop, but was not happy there. The prospect of working alongside Hope pleased her, and in the middle of September she arrived to begin work.

  At first Joyce was restricted to tacking, binding the edges of seams, sewing on buttons and dealing with the tidying-up at the end of each day, but within a few days Hope realized she could leave more and more of the more important work to her. She made suggestions as Hope worked out her designs, a second sewing machine arrived and the business grew.

  Every afternoon, leaving Joyce busy, Hope took Davy out for a walk. This tim
e was always for Davy. At first he had enjoyed trips to the park with the slide and swings, but one day, when she didn’t feel like going on the bus into the town, they had visited the brook where the badgers drank and crossed from one part of the wood to another. Hope had packed a picnic and after that, whenever the day was fine, it was there Davy wanted to go.

  Besides paddling in the thin trickle of clear, cold water and shrieking with the painful delight of it, they made dens, and found branches that made perfect swings, and gathered fire-wood and wild flowers, and watched as the leaves began to change colour. While they were there Hope was able, for a while at least, to put aside her loneliness and her concerns about the welfare of her difficult mother-in-law.

  As autumn changed the scene around Badgers Brook and a chill began to bite at fingers and toes, rumours reached her, usually via Kitty or Stella at the post office, that Marjorie had become almost a recluse. The shame of Ralph’s death and the uneasiness with which people greeted her had spoiled any attempts to be friendly, even with people she had known for many years. She rarely went into the post office, and Stella had been abruptly refused admittance when she had called at the Ty Mawr with flowers in an attempt to help.

  Freddy came out of the Ship and Compass one day as Hope and Davy were passing, having been fixing shelves for Betty Connors, and he told her that it had begun with Marjorie waiting in for news of when Phillip was coming home. As weeks went past and no further plans were mentioned she had fallen into despair and become less and less inclined to leave the house. Hope called at Ty Mawr several times and left flowers and notes, but heard nothing in reply.

  Stella was surprised to see the unhappy woman one day when she was about to close the shop door. She pulled down the blinds to discourage more latecomers and asked what she wanted.