‘The rest we move into the shed at the back of my shop. We put together sets and show them in the front window as complete rooms, as far as we can. I’ll reduce the size of all the cabinets, sideboards, bookcases – the latter are too high to fit under the eight-foot ceilings in modern houses. Two of the five wardrobes you’ve got could have the drawers on which they stand removed and small feet put on instead – they’re mahogany – lovely wood – only need polishing. I could probably make hope chests out of the drawers.’
Celia was thrilled. She forgot about her mother. She had her hands clasped together as if in prayer, as she said impulsively, ‘What a wonderful idea!’
He laughed. He said, ‘There’s a catch in it.’
Her face fell.
‘Anything that I’ve altered or refinished, you pay me half of what you get.’
She was silent, and he added persuasively, ‘My work is very skilled work.’
‘I do understand that, Mr Philpotts. I’ll have to ask Mother,’ she said with some anxiety, and then she asked him, ‘Do you really think I can sell anything?’
‘With your nice manners, Miss? With the kind of clientele I have, why you could sell anything with patience. You’d soon learn a trick or two for selling. With a bit of luck, you’d be dealing with high-class buyers.’
She smiled prettily. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I think that’s the first compliment I’ve had in my life.’ Then again anxiety clouded over. ‘I’ve no idea what Mother will say about it.’
‘Well, you should explain to her that, this way, she’ll probably get the best return, although it’ll be slow. There’s a clientele round here who know good furniture when they see it. In addition, you should advertise as far as Chester and suchlike places. When they come to me for repairs, they’ll see what you’ve got. And you could have your tables laid with your Crown Derby dinner services – it would look good.’
‘What about the pictures? We seem to have quite a lot of them.’
‘Now that’s something I don’t pretend to know anything about. You could get an art dealer to look at them, if you think they’re good.’
Celia abandoned thought of the paintings, for the moment. She was more worried about her mother’s reactions. It would not be the thought of selling the furniture that would strike her, but the dreadful indignity of a daughter, granddaughter of a baronet, becoming a shopkeeper. She would be horrified at the very idea.
Louise had always referred to Celia’s father as being in commerce – not trade. Trade was vulgar. Celia wondered how she could even broach to her the subject of owning a shop.
Celia’s sudden hope died. ‘Mother will never agree to it – she’ll send it all to an auctioneer first.’
Mr Philpotts rose slowly and stretched his sturdy form to its full height. ‘Go – ask her,’ he said. ‘Nothing try, nothing have. I’ve a good name in this village – I’ll not cheat her.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you wouldn’t. Betty would not have introduced us, if she had not felt that you would really help us.’
‘Aye, I’ve known Betty and her dad – and her mam – since I was a little lad. Will you ask your mam?’
‘I will,’ Celia replied slowly, though the thought of doing so filled her with nameless terror. She put out her hand to shake Mr Philpotts’ hand in farewell. He held it tightly for a moment, and then said, ‘Don’t be scared – I think we’ll both benefit. Let me know how you get on.’
She licked her lips, and nodded agreement. Through her hand he could feel her trembling before he slowly dropped it.
She stood, framed by the open barn doors, and watched him drag his way across the yard, to pause a moment to look in at the office door. She saw him wave to Betty and then continue out of the yard. Then she sat down suddenly on one of the chairs and cried from sheer nervous tension.
Chapter Thirty-Two
When Celia arrived back at the cottage, Edna was seated by the living-room fire. She had a black skirt on her knee and a mouth full of pins. As Celia took off her hat and laid it on the table, she greeted her through her clenched teeth by saying, ‘You are just in time to pin up this hem for me. All my skirts are too long for English fashions.’ Then, after hastily removing the pins from her mouth, she inquired sharply, ‘Have you been crying?’
‘Yes, I did have a little weep.’ Celia pulled her cotton handkerchief out of her sleeve and quickly wiped her eyes. Then she sat down opposite Edna, her hands clenched on her knees, and burst forth, ‘I’m so scared of what Mother is going to say, Edna. I don’t know how to ask her.’
Edna dropped the skirt off her lap and on to the floor and laid the pin cushion on it. ‘What on earth do you mean? What now? Was the Philpotts man rude to you?’ she asked.
‘Oh, no, Edna. He was very nice indeed. He’s not a gentleman; he’s a skilled artisan. But I think you might like him.’ She poured out the details of Mr Philpotts’ offer.
‘He’s offered me a partnership in a little business, in effect, Edna,’ she finished up. ‘But it is Mother who will have to be the partner – because it’s her furniture. But you know Mother. She’d burst into tears every time she looked at her furniture, and she’d be horrified at the idea of serving in a shop, and she won’t want me there, either.’ She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. ‘Even if she agrees, she’ll never do a stroke to help. It is I who will have to be at the shop all day, every day. And I can’t do that and be here to look after her and help you with the house and the washing and the cooking and the cleaning – and do the garden.’
She wrung her hands in despair. ‘What shall I do? I hardly know how to even begin with Mother.’
At that moment, the back door opened and Eddie Fairbanks called, ‘Anybody home?’
Edna responded immediately that he was to come in. They heard his boots clomp as he kicked them off by the door and then he walked in in his socks. Celia’s first thought was to thank heaven that Mother was not there to see a next-door neighbour in her living room without shoes on.
He beamed cheerfully at both sisters. He had been thinning out his seedlings and was carrying tiny fresh lettuces and some spring onions on a piece of newspaper.
‘Thought you might like these,’ he said. ‘They’re a bit muddy with the rain we had in the night, but they’re real crisp. Where will I put them?’
He gazed at the two women seated by the fire, and realised that he had walked in at a difficult moment. Miss Celia looked as if she had been crying. Eyes and nose were red.
‘I’ll put them on the draining board,’ he said hastily and prepared to retreat to the kitchen.
It was quick-witted Edna who insisted he stay and have a cup of tea. So the lettuces were disposed of in the kitchen, and Celia pushed a dining chair round so that he could join them by the fire.
Following her sister’s lead, Celia said sweetly, ‘Do sit down, Mr Fairbanks.’ Then she turned to push the hob with the kettle on it over the blazing fire.
Edna was already getting teacups out of the small sideboard. She inquired brightly, ‘Do you know a man called John Philpotts – lives in Hoylake?’
Eddie looked surprised. ‘Sure I do – cabinetmaker and French polisher? Nice lad. Lost his fiancée in France – she was an ambulance driver or similar. He came back wounded, to be told about her death, poor lad. How is he – and how did you come to meet him?’
Celia answered him shyly. ‘I was talking to him today, Mr Fairbanks. About Mother’s furniture.’
‘Oh, aye?’
Celia glanced at Edna inquiringly, and Edna said, ‘Tell Mr Fairbanks about his suggestion. If he knows the man he can give an opinion.’ She came, teapot in hand, to sit down until the kettle boiled.
Eddie nodded, and wondered what John Philpotts had been up to.
Celia’s agreement sounded doubtful, and she evaded the issue by inquiring where Louise was. ‘Is she napping?’
‘No. She was complaining that she was completely fed up, so I suggested a walk on the promenade at Hoylake. She was going to take th
e train to Hoylake Station. I thought the fresh air would help her.’
Celia swallowed. She was going to have to go through her story three times, she realised. She sat slowly down on her chair and looked shyly up at the old man. He was smiling at her, so she went on to tell him about her morning interview.
She finished up by saying, ‘Betty said it might lead to a very nice occupation for me – as an antique dealer.’
While Eddie stirred his cup of tea, he considered the matter carefully. Finally, he said, ‘It depends what your mam thinks, doesn’t it?
‘The only piece of advice I would like to give you is to have a written agreement with John as to exactly what each of you is going to do and how the money will be split. The family solicitor nearest to here is, I think, in West Kirby – but that’s only the next station after Hoylake – it’s not far. He’d make it right for you. And being local, Miss Celia, he won’t charge as much as a big Liverpool man might; it could save you a pile of trouble later on.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then assured her, ‘It’s not that you can’t trust John – he’s a decent fella – but, as time passes, you tend to forget exactly what you agreed – or change things without thinking, like. Then you might quarrel. It’s human nature.’
‘Would you like to do what this Philpotts man suggests, Celia?’ Edna asked with real curiosity.
Celia hesitated, and then said, ‘Well, I don’t know. I suppose I would learn how to sell things – and that might help me to get another job – though what Mother would say if I worked in a shop, I shudder to think.
‘I can’t do what Mr Philpotts suggests – that is, use our furniture as a basis on which to launch a continuing business – because I won’t have the money, will I? It will be Mother’s.’
Eddie had not worked for forty years for a lord without understanding to perfection the social gradations of his society. He said cautiously, ‘It’s no disgrace to work for a living, love, if that’s what you want to do. And your mam might be prepared to share the proceeds of the sales with you – so you could save most of it and buy more furniture to sell. You’d never make a fortune, but there’s others as make a living that way.’
Edna said, ‘My furniture will arrive from South America in about two months’ time. I shall not need all of it, even if I set up a home of my own. I’ll give you what I don’t need for your shop. It is handmade and carved very nicely.’
Celia looked at her open-mouthed. ‘Would you really?’
‘Well, of course I would. I don’t have to worry about every penny, and you haven’t a cent to bless yourself with. And, if truth were told, it wouldn’t hurt Mother to let you have the proceeds of the furniture sale.’
Eddie studied a tea leaf floating around in his cup. And these people think they’re hard up, he considered. They don’t know they’re born. Miss Celia was unlucky, now. He’d seen such women before. He’d heard that a lot of them like her, when their family didn’t want them any more, had been shipped off to Canada or Australia to marry pioneers they’d never seen.
He felt very sorry for her, and there she was, looking at him with wide scared blue eyes as if she knew already what life had in store for her, poor little lass. Even her sister’s kind offer did not seem to have taken the fear out of her.
Regardless of speaking in front of their plebeian visitor, Edna was continuing her tirade about her mother. She went on, ‘If you are earning, you can eventually contribute to the household – so Mother will not have to keep you.’
‘Oh, aye. That’s true,’ interjected Eddie. He took Celia’s hand and said, as if to his own daughter, ‘Don’t be so frightened, luv. Your mam may be quite pleased at the idea.’
Celia seriously felt that her mother would never be pleased at anything she did or said. But this was her own special friend speaking, a friend she had made by herself, and she gained a little courage from him.
Edna smiled at the pair of them. She hoped that Eddie Fairbanks would still be with them when her mother returned. Louise was more likely to keep her temper, if an acquaintance were present. To that end, she asked him to give her his cup so that she could refill it.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Louise walked slowly down King’s Gap towards the sea. Though the tide was ebbing, there was still enough water on which the spring sunshine could dance, and a light breeze caught playfully at her widow’s veil; the wind did not roar at her as it had done round the cottage.
She felt lonely and depressed. She had intended to call on Lady Tremaine, the widow of one of her husband’s business friends, who lived in Meols Drive, Hoylake. She was one of the few women she was acquainted with on this side of the Mersey. When she went to the house, however, the lady was not at home, and she had had to content herself with leaving her card with the parlourmaid.
She could not immediately recall the address of anyone else in Hoylake with whom she could claim acquaintance, and she wished that she had, after all, accompanied Celia to her appointment with Mr Philpotts. She could not, she thought savagely, even go into a village shop to amuse herself by trying on hats. For a lady wearing a mourning bonnet to indulge in such frivolity would not be considered good conduct.
She turned along the promenade, and paused, one hand on the iron railing at the edge of the pavement, to look down at two children, as they sought sea shells on the shore. They reminded her of Tom and George when they were boys, and, also, that they had left no grandchildren to console her. What did widows do? she wondered. Nobody seemed to need them nowadays, perhaps because there were so many.
Except that she was temporarily drained by the stress of Timothy’s untimely death and the consequential money shortage, she was a woman of excellent health and she had always kept herself busy, apart from running her home most efficiently, by planning elaborate dinners or soirées for Timothy’s friends; she was well known as a hostess, and such efforts were very helpful to Timothy in keeping in touch with other businessmen; there was a point in arranging them. But such entertaining would not be possible on the small income she would have in future, even if it were a suitable occupation for a widowed lady. Aimless afternoon teas for other widows would be about the limit she could afford.
As she began to recover from the shock of bereavement, her sense of frustration was making her increasingly restless, and, in consequence, she continued her wanderings along the promenade until she was quite tired. Then she turned round to walk back the way she had come.
I can’t live like I have been doing these past few weeks, she considered fretfully, as she watched the sea birds hunting over the wet sands.
Still deep in thought, she reached a bench on which, at the very end, sat a man. He held a walking stick clasped upright between his knees. He had rested his chin on his hands and looked as if he were searching the horizon for something. He wore a peaked tweed cap and a belted macintosh.
He looked respectable enough, so Louise sat quietly down on the far end of the bench to rest her feet. She nodded absently to the man as she passed him and said politely, ‘Good morning.’
He ignored her.
She did not accept the rebuff kindly. As she arranged her skirts around her, she thought crossly that this was not Liverpool where you would not talk to strangers. Hoylake was still small enough to be considered a village. Almost everyone would know everyone else, and she herself wanted to become casually acquainted with the local inhabitants. Once she knew the social standing of people, she would, as a result of moving so far away from her old home, have to make new, suitable friends from amongst them.
Really, some people were awfully rude.
While she rested her feet, her mind fretted on. She had received that morning a troublesome letter from Cousin Albert saying that he had had an offer for her house and that the price was being negotiated by the estate agent. He expected to be in Meols in the course of the next week or two.
‘And where does he think he is going to sleep in a three-bedroomed cottage?’ she asked herself
crossly. Celia would simply have to give up her room and share Edna’s bed. A male guest would be under one’s feet the whole time. And such a lot of work.
There was also the dreadful finality of the sale. How was she going to face the fact that strangers would now have the right to live in her home? It was certain that Albert would not understand her grief over it. In fact it seemed to her that nobody, including Edna, herself a widow, understood what she was going through without dear Timothy to lean on and his needs to think about.
Her reverie was interrupted by a hoarse voice from the other end of the bench. It asked, ‘Is someone there?’ The accent was a Lancashire one.
The oddness of the question made Louise jump. She replied tartly, ‘Yes. There is.’
It was as if the man had not heard her, because he went straight on speaking to her, and what he said shook her out of her irritation at Cousin Albert, out of her personal misery.
She turned to stare at him, her mouth open in disbelieving shock.
In a voice which seemed weakened by illness, he said, ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, but I get very bored sitting here. I’m deaf and blind. I can talk to you, but you can’t talk to me – unless you would be kind enough to sit close to me and touch my hand once for yes and twice for no. Then, at least, you can say yes or no to me.’
She was alarmed by the unexpectedness of the request. She had been taught in childhood that nice women didn’t touch strange men, unless they were first introduced – when a lady could politely allow her hand to be shaken.
For a second or two, she stared at the bent figure at the other end of the bench. Under the long, belted macintosh, she noticed that his trousers were hospital blue.
An ex-serviceman. Dear God! What dreadful thing had happened to him?
She knew from the newspapers about the number of blinded soldiers, who had, somehow, to be taught to read Braille and manage for themselves; she understood that the existing facilities were overwhelmed by their dire need. But that a man could be blinded and deafened had never occurred to her.
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