‘I think you are probably very run-down – you look it. I think you need a good holiday – away from Mother.’
Celia laughed. ‘That’s impossible. Mother would never allow it – she would say she could not spare me.’
‘Well, I’m here for the time being. And we could get a woman to come to clean the floors, to help out. I think it could be done.’
Celia sighed. ‘I don’t have any money to see a doctor – or go on a holiday.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course not.’
‘I assumed Father had made you a reasonable allowance, since he kept you at home. Or had, at least, made some financial arrangement, like insurance, an annuity, or something – kept separate from his business debts – to cover you when he and Mother died. He must surely have thought about you.’
‘He gave me pin money – the same amount as he paid Ethel.’
‘The skivvy?’ Edna asked, as they moved slowly back into the living room.
‘Yes. Mother always bought my clothes – out of her dowry money.’
Edna made a face. ‘They look like it!’ she replied.
As she picked up a teapot and went to make her mother’s tea, Celia glanced down at her old-fashioned black skirt, which lay on the back of a dining chair. She had brought it downstairs to sponge and press it. It was good wool and warm, she had always told herself. She had had it since before the war; it would never wear out.
While Celia made the tea, Edna laid the table, her mouth clamped shut very like her mother in a temper.
‘I’ll put some water on to boil eggs, and I’ll make some toast,’ she said. ‘It’s an easy breakfast.’ And, as Celia carefully carried a cup of tea towards the hall and staircase, she added, ‘And don’t say anything to Mother about what we’re going to do today.’
Celia paused. Mystified, she asked, ‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ll make sure that Mother shops for food and cooks the dinner. It won’t hurt her; she won’t have to carry anything – the shops will deliver. She has to wake up and begin living again.’ She shrugged a little hopelessly. ‘You and I can’t do everything. And it’ll give you a chance to go this afternoon to see Phyllis.’
‘Oh, Edna! Could you arrange that? I do want to see Phyllis. I must also go to Hoylake to see that the furniture in Mr Aspen’s barn is all right. Betty says I should advertise it in the local paper.’
Edna said grimly, ‘Betty’s right. Getting all that collection sold is going to take time, too. You leave Mother to me.’
It was a fairly silent breakfast, except for a monologue delivered by Louise. When Edna had called up the stairs to say that breakfast was ready, Louise had descended slowly. She was still dressed in a bedcap and dressing gown, and her first complaint was that there was no hot water coming out of the bathroom tap. How was she to have a bath? And she felt almost too tired to get up for breakfast, she announced dolefully; Celia should know very well that she had to eat before she got out of bed.
A little scared, and anxious to placate her, Celia swallowed a spoonful of egg, and ignored the complaint about breakfast. She told her, ‘The fire takes some time to heat the water in the big boiler behind the fireplace, Mama. In about an hour, you should be able to bath.’
‘It was always hot when I was ready to get up in the old house.’
Before Celia could reply to this, Edna said smartly, ‘And Ethel got up at five thirty to make sure that it was hot for you.’
‘Humph.’ Louise could not answer the implied reproof, so she ignored it. ‘The toast is burned round the edge and you haven’t trimmed the crust off it,’ she fretted as she looked at it with disgust.
Edna picked up the toasting fork, and stuck a slice of bread on to its prongs. She handed the fork to Louise, and said with glacial sweetness, ‘Make another slice yourself, Mother, and then you can be sure it is exactly as you like it.’
Celia closed her eyes in anticipation of an explosion, but her mother stared at Edna with shocked amazement and then, when she found her voice, responded with resignation. ‘I suppose this will do.’ She ate the offending toast with every indication of acute distaste. She then asked for another cup of tea and, with this in hand, once again retired to her bedroom.
As soon as her back was turned, Edna gravely winked at her sister.
‘Oh, Edna, you are cruel!’
‘Cruel to be kind,’ was the unrepentant response.
When the sound of their mother’s footsteps on the stairs had died away, Edna said, ‘You go and get washed quickly before she gets into the bathroom. And go to Hoylake. You could go straight from there to Liverpool to see Phyllis, if you like.’
‘Would it be all right?’
‘Of course it would, you idiot. These things have to be done.’ Edna looked around the little room, which, by this time, was rather untidy. ‘I’ll wash up and make this room respectable, and each of us can keep our own bedrooms clean and tidy.’
Celia leaned back in her chair. ‘You’re wonderful,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t dare suggest that to Mother.’
‘Well, if her room becomes a mess, that’s her headache. I’m not going to make her bed or clean the room for her – and neither should you have to.’
Celia hastily wiped her mouth with her serviette, folded it and put it into the silver ring her Great-aunt Blodwyn had given to her at her christening. Then she eased herself round the table, planted a shy kiss on Edna’s cheek and fled quietly upstairs, to get washed and to count her last remaining bit of pocket money to see if she had the train fare to Liverpool and then enough for a tram out to West Derby. She still had a couple of pounds given to her by Louise, to cover her various expenses while she had been travelling backwards and forwards from West Derby to the cottage; it never occurred to her to use any of it for a personal expedition, like going to see Phyllis.
She was so filled with hope and her wonderment at Edna’s outburst that she forgot, for the moment, the sickeningly unpleasant encounter of the previous evening. As she quickly combed her hair into a neat bun at the back of her head, she said, in astonishment, to her reflection, ‘Edna cares about you. I really believe she does.’
Less than an hour later, she was greeted enthusiastically by Betty Houghton, who slid down from her high stool behind the rough wooden counter of her father’s office. She closed an account book, before she took Celia’s hand, and said, ‘Everything looks all right. I don’t think any of the furniture was damaged. The movers had it all wrapped in padded quilts. Come and have a look.’
She took down a key from amongst a number hanging near her desk, and together they walked briskly across the yard. It was busy, and Betty explained that her father had recently acquired a good sub-contract to build city housing in Birkenhead that summer.
‘He’s looking for skilled craftsmen, but they’re hard to find. There’s a lot of men looking for jobs, but they’re not skilled – and it looks to me as if a lot of them ought to be in hospital still. He wants at least four brickies and some hod carriers.’
‘Brickies?’
Betty laughed at her bewilderment. ‘Bricklayers. He’d a nice young man here today, but he looked like a ghost. Though he said he’d done six months of bricklaying, before he joined the army. Dad couldn’t even offer him a labouring job – he said he’d never stay the course, he was too run down.’
‘Poor soul.’
‘And as for hod carriers – you’ve got to be as strong as an ox to carry hods of bricks and mortar up to a brickie all day,’ Betty informed her, as she unlocked the great barn.
The residue of Celia’s home looked very forlorn. All the piled-up furniture had a veil of dust on it. Dismantled bed frames from the guest rooms had been leaned against the walls; their horsehair mattresses had been laid on the tops of tables and sideboards and against the fronts of chests of drawers to protect them from being scratched. Pictures of all kinds had been laid face to face on top of the mattresses. Rolls of rugs, barrels of china and ornaments and packin
g cases of unwanted kitchen equipment lay, as yet unopened, along the back wall.
Celia looked at the mighty pile in some despair, and exclaimed, ‘Phew! I’ll never manage to sort it all out, never mind sell it.’
‘I think you will sell it and at decent prices, if you advertise it in the Hoylake paper – and, say, in the Evening Express.’ With a chuckle, Betty flung out her arms as if to a waiting audience and declaimed, ‘“For Sale. Handsome fruitwood furnishings, many Georgian pieces. Sale includes fine china, ornaments, carpets, etc., also some kitchen equipment.” That should do it.’ She drew a happy face in the dust on what had been Timothy Gilmore’s desk. ‘What bothers me is how you are going to price it – I’m sure some of it is valuable – and I’ve no idea about the pictures, for example. Have you?’
‘I’ve been worrying about that. Your friend Mrs Jowett helped me a lot – she was really sweet – but I’ll still be guessing. I thought the first thing I could do would be to look in the very good furniture shops in Liverpool and see their prices for new things. I’m going over to Liverpool to see Phyllis Woodcock this afternoon. I could take a quick peep in that nice furniture shop in Bold Street, before catching the tram out to West Derby.’
‘Well, at least you’ll know that your price should be lower than theirs – though I’m not even very certain about that – those chairs are very fine; if they are antiques they may be worth more,’ Betty replied, pointing to a neat line of refugees from the Gilmore dining room. She turned and smiled a little wryly at her friend. ‘We’re both out of our depths on this.’
‘I have the books, of course, that Mrs Jowett lent me, as a rough guide to the age of what I have. She said to set the price at the most you feel you can get, and come down very slowly if someone is interested in a piece.’
‘She would know.’ Betty stared at the wild conglomeration before her. She herself did not know how to advise her friend. She suggested, ‘I think there are one or two second-hand furniture shops in Berry Street, at the top of Bold Street. You could go in and ask the price of anything that looks familiar to you. You might get some ideas.’
Celia agreed and, almost reluctantly, they locked up and went back to the office.
Celia looked worried. ‘I could always get an auctioneer, I suppose,’ she said.
Betty tried to cheer her up. ‘An auctioneer will just get what he can for you. Out here, where there are so many high-class homes, such auctions always draw antique dealers and they bid low. Unless you’re desperate for money, don’t try to hurry the selling. Learn a bit first.’
‘Mother is sure that we are poor as church mice, Betty. But Cousin Albert believes that we shall manage quite well once the house is sold. And I must say that I have been agreeably surprised at how much we have managed to do with what little money Mother had. And Edna has promised to help.’ She stopped, and then said with a rueful grin, ‘I’m the only one who doesn’t have a bean.’
‘Perhaps you could get a job.’
‘Me? How could I? I don’t know anything. Anyway, Mother wouldn’t let me – I’ve got to sell that barnful first, because Mother’s not going to stir a finger, as far as I can see. And it can’t stay here for ever.’
‘I don’t see why your mother can’t help you.’
‘You have to remember that she’s bereaved.’
‘So is everybody,’ responded Betty a little sharply, as she thought of her husband lying in a mass grave at Messines Ridge.
Celia bit her lower lip. ‘Of course. I know, Betty.’ Betty was so brave, she thought wistfully. She sighed, and said that she would come over in a couple of days, to make an inventory of the furniture, before pricing it. ‘If I’ve got everything listed in a notebook I can put a likely price by each piece. So that I don’t get flummoxed.’
Betty tried to pull herself together by concentrating on Celia’s problems. Before she replied, she told herself for the umpteenth time that it was no good moping about David; it wouldn’t bring him back. With forced gaiety, she teased, ‘A notebook sounds most professional. We’ll make a businesswoman of you yet!’
Celia laughed, and they stood talking for a few minutes amid the busy whirl of the yard, before Celia reluctantly said goodbye.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Holding young Timothy George against her shoulder, Phyllis answered her front door herself. Two-year-old Eric, his cheeks stained by recent tears, clung to her skirt. Phyllis’s careworn face lit up as she saw Celia, and she stepped back to make way for her friend to enter the narrow malodorous hall. ‘Come in – come in, dear,’ she said. ‘How nice of you to come such a long way. How are you?’
She opened the door of a tiny front sitting room, which had the dank airlessness of a room not much used, and, as Celia responded politely to her inquiry, she led the way in.
‘Do sit down, Seelee. I’ll ask Lily to make some tea for us.’
She hastened kitchenwards, while Eric, with his finger in his mouth, stood in the doorway and stared at the visitor.
Prior to taking a tram out to West Derby, Celia had walked rapidly down Lord Street, Church Street and Bold Street to take a quick look in the windows of the one or two furniture shops that she found; as she went along, she jotted down prices in her notebook.
Near St Luke’s Church, she had found two second-hand furniture shops. She ventured shyly into both, and even more shyly asked the prices of one or two pieces amid their dusty stock, which were similar to those her mother owned; they had little of the quality of her mother’s furnishings or of the style of Mrs Jowett’s stock. She stored away the information that second-hand shop owners did not seem to mind if you just wandered round and looked at what they had. Her inspection made her realise that there was quite a difference between second-hand and antique shops.
She was both tired and late by the time she arrived at Phyllis’s house, and she sat down thankfully in a pretty Victorian armchair. The room was familiar to her from many visits, when the friends had often shared their doubts and unhappinesses with each other – not many happinesses, thought Celia a little sadly.
She smiled at Eric and invited him to come to sit on her lap.
Eric refused to budge from the doorway until his mother returned to sit opposite her guest. As he moved close to Phyllis and rested his head against her arm, she laid Timothy George in her lap. He was awake, so Celia asked if she might nurse him.
‘Of course you can,’ Phyllis said and carefully laid the child in Celia’s arms. ‘And how is dear Mrs Gilmore?’ she asked with brittle brightness.
Celia chucked little Timothy George under his chin and he kicked his tiny feet quite happily at the attention. Celia sighed at the thought of her mother. She replied, ‘She’s a little depressed at leaving her old home – and she misses Papa very much.’
‘Naturally,’ Phyllis responded politely, though she could not imagine that one would miss a husband very much.
The conversation threatened to languish. It was disappointing to Celia, who was used to Phyllis’s pouring out the latest news about the small ills of her brood or about her husband’s complaints. She never knew how to deal with the latter, but, in talking the matter out comfortably with Celia, Phyllis had always seemed to gain fresh courage. Today, however, she seemed absent-minded, as if she could not bring her thoughts to bear on what her visitor was saying.
Celia smiled down at the baby and inserted a finger into his tiny hand. The child grasped it, and Celia laughed. Before the organisation of the move to the cottage had fallen on to her shoulders and absorbed most of her time, she had managed to run over to see the new baby only once. It did not seem to have grown much so she now asked, ‘Is he gaining weight all right?’
‘I think so. My milk isn’t coming in as well as it should, and he doesn’t like the cow’s milk with which I supplement it.’
Celia made a face at the baby. ‘Poor Timothy George!’ Her eyes were on the child, and she did not see the fleeting despair of his mother’s expression.
L
ily, the Woodcocks’ cook-general, pushed the door open with her backside. She eased Eric out of the way with a nudge from her bent knee, and set the tea tray down on a small table in front of his mother. The maid’s apron was crumpled and grubby, and, as she straightened up, she pushed untidy bits of hair back off her face with her forearm. ‘Will I be cutting the bread and butter for Christopher and Alison’s tea now?’ she asked, her accent sounding thick and ugly as if she had a cold. ‘They’ll be coming in from school soon.’
Phyllis replied mechanically. ‘Yes, please. Open the new pot of plum jam for them.’
‘When can Eric go to school?’ Celia asked.
‘When he is three – in September.’
‘That should give you a little more time to yourself, with only baby Timothy at home.’
‘I suppose.’
Celia wanted to bring up Edna’s advice that it was not necessary to have babies one after the other. Though she felt that it was momentous news, she did not know how to open the subject; it was not something for a single lady to talk about. It savoured of wicked private subjects.
Instead, she said brightly, ‘During the school holidays, you should bring the children out to visit us. We could have a picnic on the shore, and they could paddle.’ Maybe Edna could talk more frankly to Phyllis and tell her exactly how a steady flow of infants could be brought to a halt.
Phyllis said, ‘Thank you,’ without expressing any particular enthusiasm for seaside picnics.
Celia looked at her friend uneasily. ‘Are you all right, Phyllis? Do you feel recovered from having Timothy?’
Phyllis smiled slightly. ‘Not quite. I am rather tired, Seelee dear. Timothy has not yet learned to sleep the night through, and Arthur gets so cross when I have to keep getting up to attend to the child.’
Celia knew only too well Arthur Woodcock’s cold, whining voice. She had always wondered what had attracted Phyllis to him – and, in fact, Phyllis herself did not seem to know.
Celia had often thought that, fearing being single all her life, Phyllis had done what most girls did and had accepted the first offer of matrimony which she had received from a man with prospects. According to his wife, bearing in mind the number of bank staff who had been killed in the war, Arthur certainly had reasonable prospects of promotion. She had remarked, ‘He was fortunate that his weak chest kept him out of the army.’
Mourning Doves Page 21