Phyllis had, during an earlier visit, mentioned that women who had served as bank clerks during the conflict were not being encouraged to stay on. ‘I expect they will be glad to be at home again,’ she had said idly.
It was a most unsatisfactory visit. Celia was unable to re-establish their usual freedom together. She told Phyllis how pretty the cottage looked and how kind Betty Houghton and Mr Fairbanks had been to her, about the shocking naked swimmers in the sea, and the putting in of a bathroom and hot water. It all came out higgledy-piggledy, and Phyllis listened politely and said, ‘Indeed?’ or ‘How dreadful!’ or ‘How wonderful!’ in all the right places, but there was no true reciprocation.
After twenty minutes and a cup of tea, a puzzled Celia gave up. She kissed the baby and carefully handed him back to his mother. She bent down to kiss a reluctant Eric, who turned his face away and clung to Phyllis.
‘I must go. Goodbye, dear. Don’t get up. I’ll see myself out.’ She put her arms round the little mother, and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll come again soon.’
She was thankful to be out in the fresh air. During the train journey back to Meols, however, she worried about her old friend. That she herself had changed greatly since her father’s death did not occur to her.
When she had gone, Phyllis leaned back in her chair and burst into tears. She was in a state of numb terror that she might be pregnant again. Arthur was not a patient man and he had forced himself upon her nightly for the past two weeks. It had hurt her physically; her pleas for a little longer to rest between babies had been ignored. His lack of consideration had hurt even more.
At home, Celia found Edna peacefully reading a novel in front of the living-room fire. The room looked tidy; the table was already laid for the evening meal. There was no sign of her mother, and as she took off her jacket, she inquired where she was.
Edna looked up with a grin. ‘She’s resting. She’s had a busy day.’
Celia’s conscience smote her.
‘What happened?’
‘Well, I persuaded her to go to the village and order some groceries and buy some meat, and so on. She was most put out, because she was refused credit – she’s used to having weekly bills from the butcher and grocer, as you know.’
‘Oh, dear! Didn’t she have any money with her?’
‘Yes, I gave her some – she would not believe me that, as a stranger, they wouldn’t trust her. I told her, also, that she must get her bank account transferred from Liverpool to the local branch here, so that she can easily draw money when she wants it. She didn’t like the idea of having a strange bank manager to deal with – said she would prefer to go to Liverpool each time she needed money.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I didn’t say anything. Let her learn how inconvenient it is going to be.’ She saw the shocked look on Celia’s face at this remark, and she sounded defensive as she added, ‘It’s no good, Celia, she simply has to change her ideas – we all have to. We are facing a new world, and we’ve nobody to help us, except ourselves.’
A sharp lance of fear of the unknown, the unpredictable, shot through poor Celia. She had already had too much of having to make decisions, of treading nervously along unknown paths, as she arranged for the cottage to be made habitable.
It had been a tremendous struggle for her. Her life had always been ordered by her parents, her slightest suggestion immediately crushed, and she had learned early to accept numbly all that they decided. Now her father was not there to order – and her mother had become a lamenting, pitiful heap.
She glanced round the cosy, crowded room as she sank down into her mother’s easy chair. Suddenly, the room seemed to spread out its arms and offer her sanctuary – and she realised that she had organised it all herself. She had created this sense of comfort. A good odour of cooking had now been added to it by someone else.
Swallowing her fears, she said to her sister, with a nervous laugh, ‘It smells as if everything fell out all right.’
‘It did. The stuff she bought was delivered this afternoon by various errand boys, and she made a chicken pie – which is in the oven. And I managed to make a bread and butter pudding, which is also in the oven.’
Celia was dumbfounded. ‘I would never have had the courage to push Mother into doing anything she didn’t want to do,’ she said flatly. ‘Quite frankly, I took it for granted that I would have to do everything, now that we have no servants.’
Edna patted her knee. ‘Oh, no. We’ll try to share the work fairly. I’ve had enough of that kind of nonsense. I enjoyed tidying up this morning, and talking to Dorothy and to Mr Fairbanks when I saw him in his front garden. He inquired how you were, by the way. And Dorothy did, too. She made a good job of the shed, though I saw her hanging around talking over the hedge to Eddie Fairbanks for quite a while.’
At the mention of Mr Fairbanks, Celia felt a small twinge of jealousy. He was her friend, not Edna’s or Dorothy’s. She managed to respond by saying politely, ‘That was very kind of him to inquire about me.’ Her mind, however, quickly reverted to her mother, and she suggested that they must see that Louise got a rest each afternoon.
‘Of course. But the busier she is, the less time she has to grieve.’
Edna put down her book and stood up. She took down a small brown business envelope from the mantelpiece, and dropped the missive into Celia’s lap. ‘Mr Aspen’s yard boy came down on his bike to deliver this to you,’ she said.
As she picked up the letter and looked at her name on it, Celia felt her nervousness return; nobody ever wrote to her except Great-aunt Blodwyn, who wrote meticulously at Christmas, Easter and on Celia’s birthday.
Celia wondered why Betty could possibly need to write to her. She had seen her only that morning, and she had already received a statement from her with regard to the work done on the cottage; though the sum involved had seemed reasonable to her and there was a note on the bill that arrangements could be made to pay by monthly instalments, she had not yet had the courage to give the account to her mother.
She fumbled as she tore open the envelope.
Chapter Thirty
As she read her letter, Celia’s expression changed from trepidation to pleasure. She looked up at Edna, who was peeking into the oven at the side of the fire to see how dinner was progressing, and announced, ‘A friend of Betty’s, a cabinetmaker, has asked to see our furniture – he came in after I left this morning, and Betty mentioned it to him. She says he’s interested in pieces that are dilapidated but made of good woods.’ Celia’s voice squeaked with excitement. ‘He has a little furniture repair business – and she says he is knowledgeable about antiques because he does restoration work. He can alter heavy furniture to make it fit into a smaller home, and she thinks he might be interested in some of our heavier stuff.’
‘That sounds very interesting.’ Edna closed the oven door and turned round to face her sister, as she added, ‘Not much of Mother’s furniture is in need of repair, though.’
‘Betty thinks that his knowledge of old furniture might be helpful to me.’ Celia smiled down at the letter. ‘In her PS she says he’s a friendly type and that she’s known him for years. She’s arranged for him to come to their yard at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, and she hopes this is convenient.’
Edna straightened herself up. ‘It certainly is convenient. Away you go tomorrow morning.’
‘What about Mother? She’s not yet made up her mind about what she wants to sell.’
‘Just tell her that someone is coming to look at it all. If they make an offer, she can then decide if she wishes to accept it.’
Though Celia nodded, her face fell. ‘You know, Edna, it’s going to take a terrible lot of time and running about, if I have to negotiate backwards and forwards between Mother and a buyer for every piece. Unless you want to help, I don’t think I could do it. I imagine that people would want to take away immediately anything they decided to buy, wouldn’t they?’
‘They
will, of course,’ Edna agreed. She hung the oven cloth on its hook by the fireplace.
‘And there’s so much else to be done. The garden is a shocking mess – and just keeping the house going from day to day without servants will keep us all quite busy – I’m tired out already.’
Edna was suddenly curious. ‘Is Mother going to give you anything for all the work you’ve done on the cottage? And for selling the furniture?’ she asked.
‘Give me something? What do you mean?’
‘Well, er – um – pay you or buy you something?’
‘I’m her daughter. She expects me to do what she wants – for love.’
‘Look here, Celia. With a lot of work and a bit of luck, you’re going to make hundreds of pounds out of that mighty pile of furniture, and you could find it less wearying, if you received a little money for the effort involved.
‘If it were auctioned, she would have to pay the auctioneer, wouldn’t she? Or if she asked a second-hand furniture shop to dispose of it for her, the shop would charge her a percentage on everything sold, probably a large percentage.’
Celia looked dumbfounded. ‘I couldn’t ask Mother for money!’
Edna could look quite ferocious at times. Now she did, as she snapped sharply, ‘Are you going to be her slave for ever – until she dies? Well, I’m not and neither should you be.
‘And another thing, Celia. As I said, times have changed. I don’t have to worry, because Paul left me provided for. But you would be wise to learn how to earn a living.
‘I know a lot of women are giving up their jobs to go home and be housewives again, now that the war is over. On the other hand, for a lot of us there is no chance of marriage – because the men who could have married us are dead, all the young businessmen, the professional men, the sons of county people – all gone!’ She sounded bitter, as she went on, ‘I’m told that, in the north-west here, there are whole villages without a single man left between the ages of seventeen and fifty. Do you know a single aristocratic or middle-class family without someone dead or dreadfully hurt?’
Celia looked at her, appalled. Her lower lip trembled as, in answer to her last question, she agreed. ‘I don’t know anyone, not that I ever had any hope of marriage. Even in Phyllis’s husband’s family, they lost two boys – Andrew had just qualified in law and the other one was an actuary in an insurance company.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean. There’s hardly anybody left. We have to look after ourselves, particularly because Father left you nothing.’
Celia was silenced and filled with fear, as, with sudden perception, she looked down the years and saw herself, after Louise’s death, an ageing, unpaid companion at the beck and call of some lady like her mother, not much better than a slave working for roof and food – because she did not know any other way of staying alive.
She was not given to self-pity, but, in her sense of shock, a tear ran down her face, and Edna said crossly, ‘Don’t start to cry – start to plan. Look, if Mother gave you ten per cent of everything you get from the furniture, it might be enough to pay for some training, though I can’t suggest what for – and, at twenty-four, you are rather old to start.’
Celia was so agitated that at first she could not reply. Then she blurted out, ‘I couldn’t ask her, Edna. And, anyway, she needs me at home.’
‘Rubbish. She’s a perfectly capable woman, not quite fifty years old yet. I could broach the subject for you – or perhaps Cousin Albert could talk some sense into her next time he comes up to Liverpool.’ Edna’s expression relaxed, as she saw Celia’s eyes fill. ‘Cheer up, sweetie. You have to be at your best tomorrow – a business lady with something to sell.’
‘It’s almost too much for me, Edna – to face all at once, I mean.’ She could feel panic beginning to overwhelm her again.
Edna sensed her real distress, and said firmly, ‘Face one thing at a time. Go to Betty’s yard tomorrow and if this man wants to buy something, simply set the best price you can and sell it to him – and don’t worry about anything else. I’ll keep the house going. And Mother has to learn that if she doesn’t help you to sell the wretched stuff, she has to take the consequences. You are quite right that you cannot run backwards and forwards to consult her all the time.’
Celia got up wearily, Betty’s letter still in her hand. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, and summoning up a smile, she added, ‘It’s good of you to care.’ Then she said automatically, ‘I’d better make a cup of tea for Mother and wake her up.’
Edna opened her mouth to object, and then thought better of it. ‘That would be kind,’ she replied. ‘I’ve just to wash some lettuce which Mr Fairbanks gave me this morning, and dinner will be ready.’
Though still resentful at her elder daughter’s sudden insistence, that morning, that she must actually contribute some effort to the establishment of their new life, Louise felt better after her nap, and accepted the cup of tea which Celia brought upstairs to her. After she had taken a few sips and Celia had drawn back the curtains from the bedroom window, she inquired, quite amiably, how Phyllis was.
Celia expressed her unease at Phyllis’s fatigue, and her mother responded that having one’s family was the most fatiguing period of any woman’s life, particularly if the household did not include a nanny.
Celia felt suddenly that she would rather have her own life than the hopeless one of trying to please Arthur. She did not think that it was the moment to broach the subject of her own future, so she said simply that Edna was making a salad and that dinner would be ready in a few minutes.
She left Louise drinking her tea, and went into their brand-new bathroom to bathe her face and tidy her windblown hair. The water ran hot, and she breathed a thankful prayer for such a luxury.
She felt refreshed after washing herself. As she ran downstairs, she began to anticipate with pleasure seeing Betty again.
Edna had refilled the kettle and put it on the hob. On the table steamed the chicken pie and by it lay a bowl of crisp green young lettuce.
The two young women sat down opposite each other and waited patiently as their mother plodded slowly down the narrow staircase and came to the table. Before sitting down, she gazed gloomily at the meal awaiting her, and sighed. Celia jumped up and pulled out her chair for her. Without thanking her, Louise sat down, and without a word proceeded to serve the pie. Obviously Edna was not yet forgiven for so ruthlessly driving her to action through the day.
Celia told her about the note from Betty.
‘A strange man? How will you receive him?’
‘In the barn,’ replied Celia.
‘By yourself?’
‘I will have to, Mother, unless you want to come along.’
Louise looked very disapproving, so her daughter hastily added, ‘Betty will be there. Would you like to come to meet him?’
‘Certainly not. I don’t want to have to talk to a workman, while I’m still in mourning.’
Edna interjected sharply, ‘We are all in mourning. But you can leave it to Celia and Betty Aspen – I mean Betty Houghton – I keep forgetting that she was married; they seem to get along splendidly – and they are both very sensible.’
Then, without warning to Celia, she changed the subject, and said, ‘Celia is going to have to work very hard to sell the furniture, Mother. I think she should have something for doing it. I would suggest fifteen per cent of all the money she manages to collect.’
At this suggestion, Louise’s look of alarm was almost comical, her fork with a piece of chicken poised on it halfway to her mouth. But Edna went on ruthlessly, ‘You are still very upset, I know – and naturally so. So I feel you should leave it all entirely to Celia how she does dispose of the stuff. It will all have to go – there’s simply no more room in this cottage to put anything more.’
The silence grew and Celia’s face flushed with embarrassment.
Finally, Louise asked, ‘But what does she need money for?’ She sounded genuinely puzzled. ‘I keep her – and she will ha
ve her usual pocket money, as soon as Cousin Albert arranges my financial affairs.’
Celia opened her mouth to say that she should not worry about paying her. She felt she was simply being helpful to dear Mother.
Edna sensed this and quickly broke in again.
Her tone was sharp, as she said, ‘I don’t think, Mother, that you quite realise what a difficult position Celia is in, now that Father is no longer with us and has left her unprovided for.
‘In the nature of things, she will not always be able to depend upon you. She needs to learn a way to earn her own living, as many other women out there will have to do.’
Louise looked bewilderedly at her elder daughter, as she slowly put the piece of chicken into her mouth. Then she said disparagingly, ‘What can a girl like Celia do? She is not a working girl – she is a refined upper middle-class girl.’
‘What do you expect her to do, when you die?’ asked Edna icily, while Celia, shocked, murmured, ‘Edna!’
‘Well, I haven’t thought about it. I have had enough to cope with since your father’s sad passing, without thinking about Celia when I die.’ She slowly put down her fork, and added with more certainty, ‘I would have thought she could live with you. And she would have half the Birkenhead property from me, which would give her pin money. The other half would, naturally, go to you.’
‘I certainly would not let her starve,’ responded Edna tartly. ‘But she does need a life of her own – as do I.’
The idea that Edna wanted to do anything other than stay with her shook Louise. She had just picked up her fork again and now she dropped it on to her plate with an alarming clatter. ‘What are you thinking of doing?’
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