As she waited for the sweep’s wife to answer her knock, she felt angrily that it was not that her mother was truly incapable – the birth of little Timothy George had proved that she had plenty of energy, despite her bereavement, when she was interested enough to use it.
The sweep’s wife, a waif with a baby at her breast, promised that her Henry would be there that afternoon. She kindly directed Celia to Mr Aspen’s domain across the railway bridge at Hoylake Station. ‘And follow the lane, like you was goin’ back to Meols. You can’t miss it.’
Hanging on to her hat, Celia battled her way up Market Street against a salt-laden breeze, climbed the pedestrian bridge over the railway, and turned into a country lane where a freshly green hawthorn hedge, curved landwards by the sea winds, sheltered a few violets and one or two primroses.
A few more minutes’ walk took her to a fenced compound with two huge gates which were wide open. To her left, just past the open gate, lay a small shed marked OFFICE.
Celia had never in her life faced, alone, so many strangers in one day, and she was surprised and relieved to find herself again talking to a woman instead of to Ben Aspen himself.
Behind the office counter stood a handsome, fair-haired woman about her own age. Her snow-white blouse with its black bow tie made her look plumper than she probably was. Her tanned rosy face was surrounded by carefully arranged tendrils of golden hair; the remainder was swept into a large bun at the nape of her neck and secured by a big black bow of ribbon.
On seeing Celia, a pair of cobalt-blue eyes twinkled amiably, and the woman picked up a pen and dipped it into a bottle of ink. She held the pen poised, ready to write, as she asked, ‘Can I help you?’
Celia explained her business, that she had been sent by Mr Billings and needed some painting and small repairs done to a cottage.
‘Me dad’s got someone with him, but if you’d like to have a seat there, I’ll go and tell him you’re waiting.’
She went outside, and, as Celia sat gingerly down on a dusty bench, she heard her calling across the yard to her father. Through the office door, she observed stacks of wood in neat piles, wheelbarrows and ladders, sacks and boxes the contents of which she could only guess at, a mountain of discarded old bricks and rolls of tar paper.
Near to the office door stood a car and by it lay a big tarpaulin, as if it had just been removed from the vehicle. Though the car was dusty, the sunlight caught its brass and black enamel and made it look new. A boy about eight years old wandered in through the gate, and surveyed it. With great care, he drew a round smiling face in the dust on the door.
‘Alfie! Leave it alone!’ shrieked the lady clerk, as she came running back to the office. ‘You know you mustn’t touch anything in Grandpa’s yard. Come here! Better not let Grandpa see you near that.’
She turned to Celia as she came up the office step. ‘I’m sorry, Miss. Father won’t be a minute. They was just getting the car out of the barn before you came. They want to sell it.’ She paused before entering the office, to look at the car, her expression stricken. ‘Me hubby built it,’ she explained. ‘He loved mechanical things.’
Celia nodded and said, ‘He must be a brilliant mechanic.’ Then she added shyly, ‘I’ll only take a few minutes of Mr Aspen’s time.’
The boy had followed his mother into the office. He paused to stare at Celia. She smiled at him and, after a moment, he grinned back. ‘Have you just come from school?’ she asked, trying hard to appear friendly.
He nodded. ‘I come to have me dinner with Granddad and Mum.’
His mother seemed a little confused by this baring of her domestic arrangements, and said sharply, ‘Now, Alfie, don’t you go bothering the lady. Go in the back room and start your dinner. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
As the boy wandered round the counter and disappeared through a doorway, his mother said to Celia, ‘Me dad’s short of men at the moment, Miss. So I’m filling in in the office.’
‘That’s very clever of you,’ Celia replied with genuine admiration.
‘Well, needs must. I learned a lot from me hubby. He was me dad’s clerk of works, and he always kept the books and did the estimating and ordering for Dad – he could estimate, real accurate – he were a first-class builder’s clerk. That’s how I met him, ’cos he was working for Dad.’ She paused, and to Celia she suddenly looked old. She said flatly, ‘He died at Messines Ridge in 1917.’
‘Oh, how terrible!’
‘I thought I’d die myself,’ the woman admitted baldly. ‘But I’d got young Alfred to think of – and me dad needed help – working for him has kept me going. Dad wants Alfie to have the business when he retires. It does mean that Dad’ll have to continue to work a lot longer than he would’ve done though.’
Celia’s heart went out to the woman. She said compassionately, ‘You have my deepest sympathy.’ Then, feeling that her remark was too formal, she added, ‘I think you are being very brave.’
The woman made a wry face. ‘There’s a lot like me. You’re not married?’
‘Me? Goodness me, no.’ Celia shrugged her shoulders and made a small deprecating gesture with one hand. ‘We did lose George, though, at Scapa Flow, and Tom in France – they were my brothers.’ She looked down, and then out at Ben Aspen who was coming across the yard. ‘I do miss them,’ she said sadly. She turned her eyes back to the clerk, who was knocking sheets of paper into a neat pile on the desk. ‘But it’s not like losing a husband, I am sure.’
‘I don’t know, Miss. It seems as if everybody lost someone, doesn’t it? And I worry about Alfred growing up without a dad – though his grandpa keeps him in line.’
‘I am sure you do worry.’ Celia rose from her dusty bench, as Mr Aspen himself came up the step, and took off his bowler hat.
Celia’s first thought was that she had never seen quite such a huge white beard – it stuck wildly out in all directions, nearly obliterating the old man’s face. A red nose peeped through an unkempt moustache. Huge white eyebrows bristled above eyes identical to those of his daughter. A pair of very red ears made brackets round the whole. He wore a brown velvet waistcoat over a striped shirt, and his baggy trousers were held in at the knee by pieces of string tied round them.
His voice was very deep, like that of a younger man. ‘You wanted some repairs, Ma’am? Betty here said Mr Billings sent you?’
Very diffidently, afraid she might make a fool of herself, Celia explained that she needed someone capable to look over the cottage to see what repairs were necessary – chimneys, downpipes, etc. The structure needed its external woodwork painting, and, in addition, she went on bravely, she would like to know what it would cost to paint the interior – just plain white would do – something inexpensive.
Ben scratched his bird’s nest of a beard and looked her over. Not much money, he deduced – but a lady. ‘You know Eddie Fairbanks, by any chance?’ he asked. ‘He lives in a cottage, which I think is the one next to yours.’
‘He’s the tenant of the other house – they are semi-detached. Mama and I met him when we went over our house earlier this week.’
She waited, while he thought. He said finally, ‘Oh, aye, I know the property all right, though I’ve not been down there for a while. Trouble is I’m short of skilled men, especially them as can estimate.’ He turned to Betty, who had stood quietly by her counter, while he dealt with Celia. ‘Do you think you could take a look, Bet, and do the estimate? I can tell you what to look for.’
Betty’s expression which had been rather sombre lifted considerably. She smiled at Celia, and said, ‘I think so. When would you like me to come?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon? I’ve a plumber coming in the morning.’
‘We’re not usually open Saturday afternoon. But in the morning, you could talk to the plumber while I go round the place. I wouldn’t be able to give you a price until I’ve had a chance to work it out, anyway – it would be Monday for that.’
Considering his reputation for talk,
Ben Aspen was quite quiet. He confirmed Betty’s promise of a price by Monday, and, as Celia left him, politely said good afternoon to her.
As she turned at the bottom of the office steps, she saw him go through the office, presumably to join his grandson for lunch. She heard him say heavily, ‘I’m sorry to sell the car, Bet. But we’ll never use it – and it’ll deteriorate. It’s already sat there five years.’
Before she went out through the great gates which opened on to the lane, Celia stopped to put on her gloves, and looked back into the builder’s yard. The car gleamed outside the office door, but her eyes were on the barn at the back of the yard.
Its doors had been flung wide open and a boy was slowly sweeping it out – it looked as if it had a stone floor. It must have belonged to a farm at one point, she deduced. It looked weather-beaten, but the car which Betty said had been in it showed no sign of rust, so it must be fairly watertight.
There was plenty of time before the arrival of the train for Liverpool, so she walked leisurely back to the railway station. She found herself enjoying the country view. To her left, she looked out over a small ploughed field. Beyond it was open land, incredibly green already, leading her eyes to misty, low hills. She basked in the quietness, broken only by the distant sound of sawing from the direction of Ben Aspen’s yard and the chatter of sparrows in the hedges. She felt relaxed, at peace, for the first time since her father’s death.
At the sight of the railway station, she was quickly brought back to the fact that she had another onerous task to fulfil, before she considered anything else, and she dreaded it. She must meet her elder sister at Lime Street Station. More grief. More comforting to be done.
She thrust other considerations out of her mind, while she went into the little red brick station to buy a train ticket to Liverpool.
She and Edna had never been very close. Edna had been sent as a boarder to a finishing school. After she was twelve, Celia had been withdrawn from Miss Ecclestone’s Day School for Young Ladies to help her mother at home, her place in life already decided upon by her parents. The explanation given to the little girl was that she could not learn much more at Miss Ecclestone’s and that she was too delicate to be sent away from home. The fact that she and Edna had gone through the usual cycles of ill health together did not occur to the child – they both had had chickenpox, measles, mumps and the dreaded scarlet fever at about the same time, when these diseases swept through the neighbourhood. Influenza, colds and gastritis had struck both of them no more than other children.
The very idea that she was delicate, something wrong with her, something that her parents had not divulged to her, still fed her panic attacks as she grew older.
At the finishing school, Edna had learned to dance and to paint with watercolours, to deport herself with dignity and some grace, to play the piano and to make polite conversation. She had learned a smattering of French, and more arithmetic, history and geography than Celia had. She copied the attitude of her mother towards Celia, regarding her as stupid, disobedient to their parents, an irritating younger sister who was always crying about something.
At the coming-out dance which her mother arranged for her, Edna met Paul Fellowes, the son of one of her father’s friends. He was a self-assured, handsome man ten years older than she was and already well established in his father’s company. Six months later, she became that magical person whom every girl dreamed of, a fiancée with a diamond ring on her finger. She flaunted the ring at every opportunity as a symbol of her supreme success.
After a two-year engagement, which both the Fellowes and the Gilmores felt was a respectable length of time, in 1912 Celia found herself, as chief bridesmaid, walking behind her sister up the aisle of the Church of St Mary the Virgin amid a gaggle of other young women, all giggling behind their bouquets of yellow roses and maidenhair ferns.
She was so consumed by jealousy of her sister’s success that she was incapable of enjoying the ceremony or the reception at their house afterwards, and, for some time, she was referred to by those who had been present as ‘that sulky sister of Edna Fellowes’.
For months, Celia pestered her mother about when she would give a coming-out party for her. There was, however, always some reason why it could not be done, the final argument being, towards the end of 1914, that so many families were in mourning that it would be inappropriate to give such a party while the war lasted. A crushed Celia conceded defeat.
As she sat in the Liverpool train, Celia remembered all this. She wondered how she would feel when she met her sister. Edna’s experiences were so different from her own.
At least I’m not jealous any more, she considered with a faint smile. Edna lost her little Rosemary and now she’s lost her husband. I need a sister at the moment and, other than Mother, I must be the only person in the world who really does need her.
She hoped wistfully that sophisticated, elegant Edna would be as brave as Betty appeared to be. It would certainly help.
Chapter Eighteen
When, at Birkenhead Park, Celia changed from the cosy warmth of the steam train to an unheated electric train, she helped a young woman with two tiny children on to the latter, and the shivers of the children led to a polite conversation. The little family reminded her of Phyllis, who was far more of a sister to her than Edna had ever been, and of new-born Timothy George. Her morning had been so full that she had given no thought to the struggle her friend was probably having.
I should go this evening to see how they are, she reminded herself. With Edna to care for, however, and her mother’s probable complaints about her desertion of her during the day, it seemed doubtful if she would get the opportunity.
She sighed. Though she felt she had done quite well that morning, it had tired her. She had made an enormous effort to express clearly and concisely to the people she had met exactly what she wanted them to do; now she prayed that the hope of tap water that the plumber’s wife had given her would be realised.
I hope everything works, she thought anxiously. That the sweep and the plumber will come, as promised, that Dorothy and Mr Fairbanks got along together, and that Mr Aspen’s daughter gives me a modest estimate.
Her eyelids drooped with fatigue and, as the electric train sped through the tunnel, she began to doze.
She awoke when the train stopped at Central Station with its usual sudden jerk, and the lady with the children smiled and said she hoped she felt better after such a nice nap.
A little bewildered, Celia helped her fellow travellers on to the platform, and then quietly followed them out of the station, up steep stairs and sloping passages until she found herself at street level.
She paused uncertainly at the station gate. Outside it, heavy drays lumbered past her, interspersed with cars driven by chauffeurs. Innumerable cyclists and pedestrians darted in and out between them.
‘Are you lost, duck?’
Celia jumped. Leaning against the stone gatepost of the station lounged a woman with a highly painted face beneath a purple veil draped round a purple hat.
A fallen woman! No one, except actresses and fallen women, made up their faces. Disconcerted, Celia simply looked at her.
The woman laughed. ‘Are you lost?’ she inquired again.
Celia swallowed, and said in a small scared voice, ‘I have to go to Lime Street Station, and I am not quite sure where it lies from here.’
The woman took her by the elbow and pointed her in the right direction. ‘Go up here and turn left. Five minutes’ walk. You’ll find it.’
Losing some of her fear, Celia said politely but shyly, ‘Thank you very much.’
The woman laughed again. ‘Go on with you, luv. You’re a nice girl. You shouldn’t be hanging around here.’ She gave Celia a little push, then leaned back against her pillar again.
Somewhat shaken, Celia took the route indicated. Amid the hurrying, indifferent crowd of pedestrians, she felt vulnerable and afraid. She had never walked alone in the city centre before and the
fact that a fallen woman, as she called her, had actually addressed her had unnerved her.
It was with relief that she reached the huge entrance of Lime Street Station. Here she had, once more, to stiffen her resolve before she could waylay a porter to ask which platform the train from London would arrive at.
Without stopping his rapid scuttle towards a train already in, he told her. When she went to the platform that he had indicated, her entrance was barred by a ponderous, bewhiskered ticket inspector, who demanded her ticket.
Flushing nervously, she told him she was meeting her sister travelling on the train.
‘You need a platform ticket, Miss – or you could wait here for her.’
‘Where would I purchase a ticket?’
The man looked down at her superciliously as if she were sorely lacking mentally, and said, ‘At the ticket office, of course – or from the machine over there.’ He pointed to a red-painted machine against the far wall.
Confused and flustered, she looked at the machine and decided that modern machinery would be too much to face, and she went to the ticket office, where, for one penny, she received a grubby grey ticket. The porter at the gate gravely punched a hole in it and gave it back to her. She walked through to the platform and began to calm down.
The train was just coming in.
Hoping to find good tippers, porters were running beside the first-class carriages ready to help with luggage. People meeting the train engulfed Celia, who, being small, was soon elbowed away from the train itself. Doors swung open. Men and women descended and were captured by porters, some of whom had trolleys on which to transfer steamer trunks carried in the luggage van at the rear of the train.
At the back of the crowd, Celia sought frantically for Edna, hoping to see her standing in the doorway of one of the carriages. She stood on tiptoe, and a man’s voice behind her said, ‘Wait for a minute or two, Ma’am, and the crowd will clear.’
She turned, and nearly knocked a man off his crutches. His blue hospital uniform failed to disguise his fragile thinness. Not much taller than she was, incapacitated by his crutches, he certainly did not need to be pushed and shoved by a thoughtless crowd.
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