by Annie Groves
‘Not invited?’ Ellie frowned. ‘But that’s impossible. He is our father, and –’
‘Aunt Jane says that Aunt Gibson has said she does not want to take him away from the shop on a busy Saturday,’ Connie informed Ellie with a careless shrug.
‘Come along, girls, it is time for you to go upstairs and change into your gowns.’ Aunt Amelia was now standing in front of the sisters. Ellie knew that she had never approved of their father, but to have excluded him from Cecily’s wedding!
‘Aunt Amelia, Connie has just told me that our father is not to attend the wedding. Surely that cannot be true?’ Ellie demanded, stammering slightly beneath the weight of her shocked disbelief.
A slight tinge of colour betrayed Amelia Gibson’s chagrin, as her mouth thinned and she darted Connie a distinctly hostile look.
‘Your father has a shop to keep open, Ellie; you know that,’ she replied. ‘And besides, it is only just twelve months since he lost your mother, and to be amongst us without her would, I am sure, cause him a measure of distress he will be grateful to us for sparing him.’
‘But he is our father,’ Ellie insisted, her face starting to burn with the intensity of her feelings.
‘Ellie, this is neither the time nor the place for a discussion of this nature,’ Amelia Gibson reproved her determinedly. ‘I hope I do not need to remind you of your mother’s dying wishes!’
Suddenly Ellie’s face was as pale as it had been flushed.
‘Ellie, come on,’ Connie urged her sister from halfway up the stairs. Swallowing hard, Ellie followed her whilst Amelia watched her go.
It was her duty to ensure that her sister’s wishes were carried out, just as it was Ellie’s to remember the promise she had given her mother, and Amelia had very few qualms about deliberately driving a wedge between Robert and his family – and none whatsoever about excluding him from her daughter’s wedding! Which was why the sisters had made a pact that the siblings were not to be allowed any unchecked correspondence with one another.
Lavinia had been the hardest to persuade, shrinking from doing as Jane had done and standing over Ellie dictating what she might write to her brother and sister. So instead, Ellie’s letters had been handed to Mr Parkes who, for Ellie’s own sake and to spare her the pain of keeping in contact with the others, had simply disposed of them.
Ellie gave a small sigh as the congregation emerged from the church and John immediately attached himself to the photographer. No doubt her brother was plaguing the poor man with a dozen or more questions! Ellie frowned as she thought about John. Her young brother seemed so different from the noisy boy she remembered, much quieter and far more withdrawn. When she had rushed to hug him he had stiffened and looked over his shoulder to where their Aunt and Uncle Jepson were watching them, and she was sure she had seen apprehension in his eyes.
She had not as yet seen the baby Joseph, but John, boy-like, had simply shrugged when she had asked about him, telling her, ‘I don’t see very much of him. Our aunt doesn’t like me being with him because she says I wake him up. And he isn’t called Joseph any more, he’s called Philip.’
Ellie had felt a shock of anger surge through her. It had been their mother’s decision to name the baby Joseph. Not only had their aunts taken them away from their father, they had even taken his name away from their baby brother. Disturbed and distressed by her own thoughts, Ellie promised herself that somehow she would make her father see that they all had to come home.
The weather had been kind, with sunshine and the merest light breeze, and Cecily was such a radiantly happy bride that just looking at her caused a lump to fill Ellie’s throat.
‘And Mr Parkes is thinking of taking on a manservant to answer the telephone at home as he says it sounds much more businesslike when important clients telephone than merely having one of the maids do so.’
‘Really?’ Amelia Gibson raised one eyebrow in judicious consideration of her sister’s comment, whilst Ellie listened a little impatiently. ‘Actually Dr Gibson was saying only the other day that he feels he might employ one of these new telephonist stenographers,’ Amelia countered sturdily. ‘When he went to consult one of the specialists in Rodney Street about a patient the other week, he discovered that they are all employing these young women now.’
Whilst her Aunt Parkes digested this information, Ellie seized her moment.
‘Aunt, I have promised Connie that I will trim one of her gowns for her whilst we are here in Preston and I was thinking that I might walk round to Miller’s Arcade and…and see what I can find.’
Ellie hated being deceitful. ‘And then visit my father in Friargate,’ was what she had really wanted to say, but she had quickly discovered over the weekend that any talk of her father or of Friargate was not something that her mother’s family had any intentions of encouraging.
As she waited for her aunts’ response Ellie held her breath, praying that they would not refuse her request. It was two days after the wedding and Connie was upstairs in the Winckley Square house with her cousins, only Ellie being deemed grown-up enough to be included in the drawing-room conversation of the older generation.
‘Walk all that way? On your own?’ Aunt Parkes looked concerned and was, Ellie feared, about to refuse her permission to go.
But to her relief her Aunt Gibson pursed her lips and announced, ‘I am sure that it will be perfectly safe. Ellie could take her maid with her, perhaps.’
Take Lizzie! Ellie’s heart sank as Aunt Parkes signified her approval of this course of action. Ellie had had no idea when her mother had talked to her about the pleasures of being a ‘young lady’ that those pleasures came laced up with all manner of petty restrictions and loss of freedom!
An hour later, as they stood together at the entrance to Miller’s Arcade, Lizzie meticulously standing a couple of paces behind Ellie as she guarded the small package containing the trimming for Connie’s dress, Ellie turned to her, her face flushing uncomfortably.
‘Lizzie, I don’t want to…to put you in a difficult position, but I…I am going to Friargate to see my father,’ she announced defiantly. ‘My aunts do not approve of him, I know, but he is my father and I…I have to see him because there is something I need to discuss with him. I was wondering…if I were to give you a shilling, would you be happy to stay here and perhaps enjoy a cup of tea…?’
Lizzie looked wisely at her. In truth she felt rather sorry for Ellie, although, of course, it was not her place to say so. There had been the usual kind of talk about her amongst the servants at Hoylake and about her background.
‘A shilling would buy a good deal more than one cup of tea, miss,’ she pointed out drily. ‘But I shall take it, for it will add to our fund.’
‘Your fund? What is that?’
‘It is the money me and my sisters are saving, miss, so that we can rent out a house down by the docks and set up in business as landladies. There’s allus a big demand down there for clean rooms and decent food for seafaring men.’
Ellie gazed at her in admiration. ‘You will have your own business! Oh, Lizzie, how very brave and daring. But what if one of you should marry?’
‘Marry?’ Lizzie gave a disparaging sniff. ‘Oh, no, us’ll not be doing any of that, thank you, miss! Catch me taking on a man! No, thank you.’
‘I’ll be back as soon as I can, Lizzie,’ Ellie promised as she opened her purse and removed a shilling, handing it to Lizzie.
‘Don’t you worry about me, miss. I shall be fine. Oh, and by the by, should anyone have any cause to ask me about today – well I shall just say that it was a good thing that you decided to check on the trimming whilst you was in the teashop and that you discovered you had been given the wrong one, like, and had to take it back to change it.’
‘Oh, Lizzie!’
Ellie gave her a grateful look and then hugged her, much to the maid’s obvious bemusement.
She had been away only just over twelve months and surely it was not possible in that short space
of time that somehow Friargate could have become narrower and its houses shrunk, but somehow they had, Ellie acknowledged.
Her father’s apprentice looked up from serving the shop’s single customer, his mouth agape and his face bright red as Ellie hurried past him.
Since it was a Monday, Ellie was fully expecting the yard to be busy with the bustle of washday, the copper boiling viciously in the outhouse, whilst Jenny kneaded and scrubbed the dirty clothes, but there was no sign of either Jenny or of any activity as Ellie hurried through the yard and into the kitchen. Annie too was absent.
Had her father perhaps taken to sending everything out to the laundry, Ellie wondered absently, as she made her way upstairs, calling out her father’s name eagerly as she opened the door into the parlour.
The room was empty, but Ellie could hear muffled sounds from the bedroom above. Picking up her skirts, she hurried upstairs.
Pushing open the door to her father’s bedroom, Ellie rushed inside, calling out happily, ‘Father, it’s me, Ellie, I have –’
Abruptly Ellie stopped speaking, her face turning hot crimson and then milky white as she stared at the scene in front of her.
Her father was lying on his bed – the bed he had shared with her mother – and straddling him was a woman Ellie had never seen before, her untidy red hair hanging round her face, her body, like Ellie’s father’s, completely naked. Her father’s hand was clutching one of her full breasts, and…
Ellie’s stomach churned nauseously as she tried to look away. But for some reason she could not do so. Could not speak or move as shock locked her where she was.
The woman was looking at her, a sly smile of smug triumph curling her mouth as she deliberately jiggled her breasts and moved disgustingly on Ellie’s father’s body whilst saying, ‘Why, Robbie, why didn’t tha tell us, us ’ud be having company?’
Nausea rose in Ellie’s throat, bitter and sour. Somehow she managed to move, managed to turn and run towards the door, her father calling out frantically, ‘Ellie! Ellie, lass! Wait…’
Ignoring him, Ellie ran full pelt down the stairs and through the parlour, down into the shop and then out into the street, her body heaving with nausea and dry, choking sobs.
How could her father? How could he? How could he sully their mother’s memory in such a way? And with such a woman – a woman who had made it plain to Ellie with that sidelong taunting look that she considered herself to be very much in possession of Ellie’s father?
Half walking, half running, Ellie discovered that she had almost reached the river. Trying to calm herself, she stopped and drew in deep breaths of air. She was shivering, huge shudders of distress and shock that rocked her whole body.
Her head felt as though it was going to burst with the intensity of her thoughts. Images danced inside her head, tormenting her: her father’s face, hot with lust; the woman’s eyes, mocking with a knowledge she knew Ellie did not possess; even the smell of the room was in her nostrils, still clinging to her clothes and her skin, the smell of animals on heat! Ellie could still see the beads of perspiration trickling down her father’s face and glistening on the thick mat of grey hair on his chest; she could still feel the forbidden excitement in the room.
Anger burst through her. Anger against the woman, for mocking her; against her father, for betraying her mother; against her aunts for their selfishness in breaking up their family; anger against Connie for making her feel so guilty; but, most shockingly of all, anger against her dead mother.
Ellie shuddered and sobbed as she fought to suppress what she was feeling and struggled to remind herself of her duty and her promise, but still her anger would not go away.
The sound of a church bell striking the hour made her realise the time. She had to get back to Miller’s Arcade and Lizzie.
THIRTEEN
‘Is something wrong, Gideon?’ Mary Isherwood asked, walking into the kitchen. She had sent for him to take some measurements for a new china cupboard.
On the point of lying, to his own bemusement Gideon heard himself admitting reluctantly, ‘With the business expanding the way it has done these last months, I need larger premises, but property of the type I want – with a storage yard, good light and a couple o’ rooms for myself, and at a reasonable rent – is impossible to find.’ He reflected wearily on just how many hours he had wasted over the last couple of weeks looking for new accommodation.
‘Have you approached the agent you’re already renting from?’ Mary suggested.
Gideon informed her grimly, ‘He’s out of town on business, and the clerk in his office told me that they didn’t have anything available at the kind of rent I can afford, and even if they did, like as not I’d have to make a good-sized deposit.’
‘And you can’t afford to do that?’ Mary guessed.
Gideon tensed, wary of discussing something so personal with a customer. ‘I make a fair living,’ he answered guardedly.
Mary acknowledged inwardly that her questions were making Gideon feel uncomfortable, but she had her own reasons for asking them.
‘Well, if I were you, Gideon, I think I should insist on seeing the letting agent himself when he returns, and not his clerk. But, of course, you know your own business best…Oh!’ Mary gave a small exclamation of concern as she accidentally dislodged Gideon’s sketchbook from the table. ‘You draw?’ she questioned him, bending down to pick up the pad before he could stop her. ‘May I?’ And then without waiting for his reply she looked through the sketches.
Gideon felt both acutely uncomfortable and angry. Those drawings were in many ways his secret dreams – dreams that he knew could never come true. The sketches were not just of buildings that he had seen, but, more privately, of buildings he would like to see, buildings he had conjured up out of his imagination. But his anger turned to guilt when he saw Mary picking up the conservatory sketch he had drawn. He held his breath but, to his relief, she made no comment.
But as she handed the sketchpad back to him, she told him quietly, ‘These are very good, Gideon. Have you ever had any proper lessons?’
Her question made Gideon feel vulnerable and defensive. How did she think someone like him could afford ‘proper lessons’? He took the pad from her, and told her stiffly, ‘I’ve measured up for the cupboards you want in here. I’ll price them for you and then come back to you.’
He didn’t want to talk about his sketches or his dreams, and he certainly didn’t want to be patronised by a rich woman who had no idea of the bitterness he felt in his heart.
‘Did you see our father, then, Ellie?’ Connie demanded eagerly the moment she and Ellie were alone. ‘Is everything arranged? When are we to move back to Friargate?’
‘I…I did see him,’ Ellie confirmed, but how could she tell Connie just what she had seen? She couldn’t. She had to protect her sister from the sordidness of her discovery, as she now ached to have been protected herself!
There was no way they could return to Friargate now, Ellie knew that. And no way, she suspected, would their father want them back! No, that would spoil the new life he had made for himself. And even if he did, it would be impossible for them to live there whilst he…whilst that woman…Ellie’s eyes burned with shocked, angry tears she could not allow herself to cry, and her throat felt raw and painful. No, they could never return to Friargate. There was no place for them there now.
Ellie could still see inside her head that woman’s smirking look of contempt and triumph. Ellie knew instinctively that they would be enemies. How could it be otherwise? That woman had taken their mother’s place; taken their father from them. And what a dreadful example she would be to Connie!
No wonder their father had not replied to her letters, not telephoned her, not come to see her, Ellie reflected bitterly.
‘We can’t go back, Connie,’ she told her sister.
The despair and anger in Connie’s eyes echoed Ellie’s own feelings, but she told herself that she had to be strong for them both.
‘Wh
y not? You promised that we could. You promised,’ Connie sobbed furiously.
Biting her lip, Ellie turned her head slightly, fearing that Connie might see the truth in her eyes as she told her quietly, ‘I know I did, Connie, but…’ she searched for the right words, the words that would silence Connie’s passionate objections. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’ Ellie heard her words fall like stones into a very deep pool.
Connie’s mouth opened and stayed open in a round ‘O’ of silent dismay, her whole body frozen. And then she gave a small shudder.
‘I hate you, Ellie Pride,’ she burst out furiously. ‘You promised…you promised.’
Ellie went to hold her and comfort her, but she pulled away, her eyes burning with anger.
‘I shall hate you for ever for this!’ she cried passionately. ‘And I know why you’ve changed your mind. It’s because you don’t care about me and John, because everything’s all right for you, being spoiled and petted in Hoylake. Well, if you won’t help me then I shall just have to find a way to help myself. And I shall do so. Just you wait and see!’
Dully, Ellie listened in silence as Connie bombarded her with insults, pleas and threats, her head bowed beneath the injustice of Connie’s fury. Connie’s anger and bitterness were so hard to bear but they had to be borne for Connie’s own sake.
One day, perhaps when they were both older, she might be able to tell Connie the truth, Ellie thought, as her body shook in response to Connie’s cruel words, but not now. She could not tell her now! Connie had been so close to their father. She had worshipped him almost. Now she must never know what Ellie knew.
‘I hate you, Ellie,’ Connie repeated, her voice trembling. ‘It’s all right for you, living with Aunt Parkes, with your fine new clothes and your own maid, and now too our cousin Cecily so close at hand! I suppose I should not be surprised that you do not want to return to Friargate.’