She was revolted at the idea. It was a revulsion equivalent to finding one of Tommy Atkins’ half-dead mice in the drawing room, when her first instinct had been to call someone else to remove it – and dispose of it out of her sight.
But she was not without feeling. This was a young man, like Tom or George. A real man – not a mouse to be shovelled into the rubbish bin. Poor soul!
She swallowed nervously. Supposing George or Tom had returned to her smitten like that? What would she have done? How could she have coped with someone that helpless? How would she communicate with them? How could she convey to this man that she was grateful to him for going out to fight – sacrificing himself for king and country, as army generals were fond of saying.
The man had fallen silent, as she stared at him. She was suddenly filled with an immense pity, and what few motherly instincts she had ever had came to the fore. He didn’t look more than thirty. Now that the war was over, how would he earn a living? Would he get a decent pension? Would his wife nurse him?
She forgot about Cousin Albert and all her other worries. Plucking up courage, she rose from her end of the bench, and bashfully reseated herself close to him. He felt the swish of her skirts against his leg, and asked, ‘Are you a lady?’
She lifted his left hand from the walking stick, and he allowed her to turn it and open the palm. Very gently she touched his palm once. She saw him smile.
‘Do you live here?’
Again she signalled yes. She allowed him to rest his hand, palm upwards, on her lap, while he told her how he had, in France, been blinded, deafened and wounded in the back. ‘I’m with a lot of other lads in one of the houses facing the sea – I know by the smell of the wind that it faces the sea. All the lads are blind, but I believe only two of us are blind and deaf – and I don’t think the army doctors know what to do with us.’ His laugh was very cynical. ‘If I had a family, I suspect they would just send me home and make the family work it out. But I have no close kin – which is why I joined the army in the first place.’
Louise was so shaken at the idea of such a decent-looking man, no gentleman but nevertheless very respectable-looking, being abandoned that she found herself trying to hold back tears, and one dropped on to his hand.
He felt it, and shifted round to face her. Very carefully, with two fingers he followed the line of her arm from his hand, up to the fur collar of her coat and then almost poked her chin as he found her face.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said, as he felt the dampness on her cheek. ‘It doesn’t help.’ He sighed, and then asked, ‘Can I feel your face, so that I will know what you look like?’ He felt her nod agreement.
As the fingers went gently over her skin, Louise was shocked to find herself sexually stirred. It was impossible with a strange man – indecent. But it was there, roused by a man young enough to be her son. Did he feel the same? She was a little frightened.
She held herself rigid, while the exploring fingers ventured over her curled fringe and then her bonnet and the veil thrown back over it.
If he felt anything, he gave no indication of it. He checked the veil again, and again he sighed.
‘Forgive my asking, but are you a widow?’
She tapped yes.
‘The war?’
She tapped no.
‘Natural?’
He felt her sigh in her turn, and he did not probe further. A natural death made sense. The feel of the loose skin under her eyes told him that she was not young. And most war widows would be young and less likely to wear a veil.
He had held his stick between his knees, and after he had steadied it, he dropped his hands in his lap and tried another tack.
‘I’m Sergeant Richard Williamson, 5th South Lancashire Regiment, and I was born in St Helens. I’ve been all over the world with the regular army. It’s a miracle that I’m still alive, I suppose. What’s your name?’ He smiled suddenly, ‘You could try spelling it out on the palm of my hand, if you like.’
Poor boy, she thought. Still so young, despite his rank – and trying so hard to communicate.
Totally absorbed by his terrible predicament, she ignored her own feelings, and again picked up his left hand. Very carefully she traced L, which he got immediately, and, after a couple of tries, he managed O and U. The rest of her name defeated him.
She saw the frustration on his face, and she squeezed his hand in the hope of conveying her understanding. Without thinking, she said to him, ‘It doesn’t matter. Louise is not a very common name.’ Then she remembered that he could not hear.
He turned his hand round and clasped hers. ‘Mrs Lou!’
She lifted his hand to her mouth, so that he could feel her laugh, and it made him chuckle, like a finger game would amuse a small child.
Their laughter ceased abruptly, as they were interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind them. Richard felt Louise freeze and then turn to see who was approaching.
He sat absolutely still, wary as a disturbed rabbit.
‘Oh, Ma’am, I hope Mr Williamson is not being a nuisance to you?’ A young woman in a nurse’s cap and apron stood behind the bench. ‘Sometimes they can be a pest – and that stupid.’
Louise rose. She noticed that the woman did not wear a nurse’s pin. A servant dressed as a nurse did not impress her. She said frigidly, ‘Certainly not. I am horrified by his predicament – and I was happy to try to communicate with him.’
The girl shrugged. ‘Oh, aye. It’s proper sad. Bad enough when they’re blind. There’s two of ’em here as is blind and deaf. Proper difficult it is looking after them.’ She turned to Richard and tapped him on the shoulder.
He rose immediately, and held out his hand to where he thought Louise might be. She turned back to him and shook his hand. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Lou,’ he said, his voice formal.
Louise did not know what made her continue to hold his hand, but she did, while she asked the young woman, ‘Where is he staying?’
The answer sounded a little impatient, ‘In Mon Repos. That’s the house across the road. It’s a nursing home now. Holds thirty men.’ She put her hand firmly under Richard’s arm and began to turn him away from Louise.
‘Wait a minute,’ Louise interrupted. ‘May I come with you to the house? I should like to arrange to see Sergeant Williamson again. He tells me he has no relations – on whom he could call for help or advice. He might be glad to know a local family.’
Louise could appear very formidable when she chose. The girl hesitated. She looked carefully at her. Sealskin collar to her well-cut black coat, real kid gloves clasped in one hand, a hand with a huge diamond ring. A widow’s bonnet and veil. A rich widow?
She smirked almost insolently, and Louise could have hit her. Then the girl shrugged. ‘Very well, Ma’am. But I tell you, he’s got a mind of his own, he has.’ There was more than a hint of resentment at a man who would not do what he was told, because he could not hear, and therefore, instead, did what seemed to him to be best in the circumstances. She added reluctantly, ‘You could talk to Matron if you want. He’s got to come in now – it’s lunch time.’
Still holding Richard’s hand firmly, so that he would know that she was going with him, Louise repositioned herself, in order that the girl could guide him. Slowly, the three of them crossed the road, and Louise had to relinquish Richard’s hand, so that he could use his stick to feel his way up a flight of steps to a lawn, where a number of abandoned lawn chairs suggested the existence of other residents in the fine, big house before them.
As they progressed, Louise’s dislike of the young woman faded, to be replaced by some apprehension of the quandary in which she had suddenly placed herself. She knew nothing about the care or training of the blind or, even worse, the deaf and blind. She was about to offer help to a man who would surely be under doctors who, she presumed, already knew what to do for him. Or did they? That was a question to be asked.
But it might have been my George or Tom in such a desperate situation, she told herself
passionately. In need of all the help they could get. At least I might be able to offer some entertainment to alleviate his boredom. Richard Williamson must be nearly out of his mind with simple, excruciating boredom.
And just what do you think you can do for this man, a working-class man? she asked herself.
The answer was that she had not the faintest idea, but she would try. It would give her something challenging to do.
She forgot her horrid cottage and her irritating daughters, as her far from stupid mind ground rustily into gear after weeks of disuse, and she began to think constructively of means of communication, of how to give Sergeant Williamson something to do other than sit on a bench.
Swept forward on a tide of overwhelming compassion and not a little of her own need, Louise entered the hall of the nursing home. She heard, in the distance, the rumble of young male voices and the clatter of knives and forks. Thirty of them, the maid had told her. How cruel war was.
It was the idea of two of them being both deaf and blind, however, which drove her upstairs to see an irate matron.
Matron was fed up with volunteers and other do-gooders whose enthusiasm, now that the war was over, waned within weeks; with a government which was simply muddling through and wished heartily that wounded soldiers would go home and get on with their lives; with a nursing staff with a marked tendency to get married and depart.
At first, Louise had some difficulty in persuading the matron, a very experienced army nurse who had seen more medical horrors than she cared to remember, that something more should be done for Sergeant Richard Williamson and his similarly afflicted comrade.
If Louise felt like doing something, she could be very stubborn. She was not stupid. She had some idea of planning and organisation. Her home and entertaining for her husband had both been well run. During the war, she had worked steadily for the Red Cross, and she understood the need to raise funds for charity.
But the dire need of an ordinary Lancashire man sitting on a seaside bench and an unknown number of others like him carried her far beyond the idea of charity. She sensed that it would take long-term dedication and, like the raising of Red Cross funds, endless patience. And, as she talked to the disillusioned matron, she realised that she herself would need to encourage others to help, just as she had when interesting herself in various charities.
A couple of hours later, when she finally left the nursing home, a bewildered matron, though very hungry for her forgotten lunch, had promised her cooperation in a scheme to find help for Sergeant Williamson and his fellow sufferer.
‘As far as I know, there’s nothing to help people like Richard, except I did hear that an American lady was once able to help a young deaf-blind girl,’ Matron said flatly. Her grim middle-aged face was heavy with melancholy. ‘The blind will be taught Braille, as soon as we’ve found teachers for them – the usual places are full, and the boys are having to wait. But I don’t see how they can teach anyone blind and deaf.’
For the moment, Louise could not see a way out of Sergeant Williamson’s dilemma either. She pushed the problem away for the moment, and inquired, ‘Will they get a pension?’
‘I suppose they will. There’s supposed to be a bill going before Parliament this year, which, if it passes, will make the government responsible for all legally blind people. But you know government – they’re as slow as snails.’
Louise nodded. ‘Is Braille difficult to learn?’ she asked. ‘If we could find a way to teach him, we could communicate with Sergeant Williamson.’
‘We could – Braille in itself is not that difficult – but the nurses and aides here are run off their feet. I don’t think there is one of them who has the tenacity to learn something which won’t be of much use when they return to general nursing. Braille would not be much needed by a civilian nurse.’
‘I have time – I’ve all the time in the world,’ replied Louise with a certain amount of bitterness in her voice. ‘I wonder if I could learn it.’
It did not occur to her that her daughters would be thankful if she would use some of her time to help them. They did not need to earn a living like men did.
The matron smiled. ‘You really want to help them, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ Louise responded, with the same commitment with which she had said the same words when she had married dear Timothy.
Let her try, decided the matron; something good may eventually come out of it. But she had not much hope. Once a war was over, governments were not very interested in soldiers.
Nevertheless, she shook Louise’s hand and assured her that she could visit at any time. ‘The blind boys would probably be grateful if you could read to them occasionally – something light that would amuse them.’
Louise picked up her handbag. She rose and thanked Matron for her time. ‘I’ll most certainly come to read to them,’ she promised. ‘Do you think they’d like Three Men in a Boat?’
‘I’m sure it would make them laugh – and that would be good for them,’ Matron said.
Louise trudged slowly up to the station. She had felt drained and tired when she sat down beside Sergeant Williamson. Then she had been shocked out of her fatigue and her grief. Now she felt suddenly worn out, maddeningly frustrated because her tired mind simply would not work. Reading would help the blind boys, but it would not help Sergeant Williamson. And it was his predicament which touched her heart.
Chapter Thirty-Four
After three cups of tea, the conversation between Eddie, Edna and Celia languished, and he announced his departure because he had to cut his hedge.
Both ladies rose and ushered him out of the back door, with many thanks for the lettuce and spring onions. Just as he was about to vanish round the side of their house, however, Edna called him back to ask if he knew a young man who would clear their back garden and dig it over for them.
Eddie paused and scratched the back of his head. ‘Do you mind a lad who’s not all there?’ he asked tentatively, while Celia tugged at her sister’s sleeve and whispered that it would cost too much.
‘Shush, Celia, it won’t be that much.’ Then she replied to Eddie. ‘We don’t mind who does it, as long as it gets tidied up,’ she assured him.
‘Well, I’ll ask young Ethelred’s mam if he could do it. He’s a strong lad, though he’s lost a few marbles.’
‘That would be most kind of you.’ She pushed a quietly protesting Celia back into the kitchen.
‘We can’t afford these things, Edna,’ Celia argued. ‘I was going to do it bit by bit.’
‘Don’t be a duffer, Celia. It needs real muscle, and you are not going to undertake it. I can manage the few shillings it will cost.’ As they re-entered the living room, she added playfully, ‘I have high ambitions for you. I’m very keen that you work with this Philpotts man and that it grows into a proper business and is a success.’
Celia smiled a little ruefully. She collected the tea things to take them to the kitchen sink. She said, ‘It all depends on Mother. And she’s going to be furious at the very idea.’ She opened the back door and emptied the tea leaves round an anaemic-looking fern growing near the door. ‘Edna, it is ferns that like tea leaves, isn’t it?’
Edna came out to view the slightly yellow-tinged plant. ‘I’ve no idea. I think we’d better buy a gardening book.’
Unexpectedly, Celia chuckled. ‘What a useless pair we are! We don’t know anything, do we?’
‘Not much. I could try addressing it in Portuguese to find out if it likes tea leaves. It may not know English.’
Laughing, they turned, to face Louise, who had come silently through the front door and was astonished to see such levity in a house of mourning.
They greeted her, and Edna said she hoped she had enjoyed her walk.
Louise drew off her gloves and took out her hatpins. ‘Well, yes and no,’ she replied grudgingly. ‘Have either of you done anything about dinner?’
Celia and Edna looked guiltily at each other. In one shot, their mother
had put them in the wrong. ‘No,’ they admitted in chorus. When they followed Louise into the living room, Celia surreptitiously leaned over towards the fire and pulled out the oven damper, so that the oven would be hot if they needed it.
‘I might have known it,’ their mother said dolefully. Then, as she went to hang up her coat and hat, she asked Celia to make some tea and put some cheese and biscuits on a plate for her.
‘I haven’t had any lunch,’ she explained. She made her request mechanically, however, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. ‘I think I’ll lie down for a little while. Bring it upstairs.’
‘Yes, Mother.’ Celia’s response was equally mechanical. She had been gritting her teeth to keep down her sense of panic. She had been certain that her mother would open the subject of the furniture by asking how she had got on with Mr Philpotts. But she appeared to have forgotten all about him.
Celia was disappointed. The problem was weighing so heavily upon her that she was anxious to discuss it as soon as possible. Now it seemed that she herself would have to broach the subject, and she had no idea how to do it without, straight away, bringing Louise’s wrath down on her head. She wished suddenly that Mr Philpotts could be with her to support her when she did so. He seemed such a calm, sensible person.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Muttering irritably under her breath that she was old enough to know, roughly, what time dinner should arrive, Edna retired to the kitchen, to open the meat safe hanging on the wall and take out the remains of yesterday’s chicken and see if she could make another dinner out of it. Celia pushed past her to fill the tea kettle at the tap.
Edna looked gloomily at the dried-out chicken remains. ‘Better take Mother a lot of biscuits with her tea,’ she advised. ‘This bird is going to take some resurrecting.’
In spite of her inward qualms about facing her mother, Celia smiled. ‘Cut lots of veggies up small, parboil them and then mix the chicken scraps with them,’ she suggested. ‘You can thicken it with a bit of flour mixed with water.’
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