Mourning Doves Page 6

  Dear Phyllis! Childhood playmate and still her friend, despite her brood of awful children and her whining husband.

  Tomorrow is today, thought Celia. God, I must hurry. See to poor Mother, talk some sense into her – about the maids, about the cottage, about what furniture we should take with us, what we should sell. How did one sell superfluous pieces of furniture? Go to Hoylake to see Ben Aspen, the builder recommended by Mr Billings – would he need money down or would he send a bill later on? Go to see Mr Carruthers, the bank manager, about what one did to cash the cheque from Mr Billings. Did Mother know how to cash a cheque?

  After she had done all that, Celia remembered, there was the enormous task of writing letters of thanks for masses of flowers and in response to black-edged missives of condolence. Her father had been a well-known businessman and churchman, but, nevertheless, the interest engendered by his unexpected death had amazed Celia.

  ‘He must have known everyone in the city!’ Celia had exclaimed to her exhausted mother, who, on the day before the funeral, sat with that morning’s mail, still unopened, in her lap, while Dorothy added yet another floral tribute to the pile surrounding her father’s body in the sitting room, and Cousin Albert greeted the vicar and his wife at the door.

  Louise responded wearily, ‘He did. We did a lot of entertaining.’

  ‘We did,’ Celia agreed, remembering the long and boring dinners, which involved so much work. She herself often helped Winnie and Dorothy on such occasions, by doing the complicated laying of the table and overseeing, from the kitchen, that the right dishes for each course were lined up, ready for Dorothy to carry upstairs. She herself rarely appeared at the parties.

  Now, with her father safely in his grave and Cousin Albert back at his own home, she stood, for a moment, balancing herself against the table and looked shakily at the visiting cards. Through her tired mind rolled unusual words, like dowry, annuity, bankruptcy, land ownership. How could she deal coolly and calmly with visitors, when her tiny world was in such chaos?

  Paul! Edna! Please, dears – please come soon, she prayed. She feared she might sink again into her panic of the previous night.

  But Ethel was making a great dust as she cleared the ashes from the fireplace, and Dorothy was pushing the door open with her backside, as she carried in her box of brushes and dusters and her Bissell carpet sweeper. ‘Mornin’, Miss,’ she said mechanically, as she saw Celia.

  To calm herself, Celia took in a big breath of dusty air and replied gravely, ‘Good morning, Dorothy.’

  She went slowly out of the room and up the stairs. Her legs dragged, and she could not make herself hurry. Better leave Mother to sleep and then give her breakfast in bed, she considered. Before she wakes, I could make a list of things we must do, and, after breakfast, get her going on the more urgent ones – like seeing the bank manager.

  Upstairs, she shivered as she stripped off her clothes still damp from the perspiration of the previous night. She hung up her black skirt to air, and left the rest in a pile on her undisturbed bed for Dorothy to take away to be washed.

  Looking down at the smelly garments, she realised dully that she did not know how to wash clothes properly, and she wondered if they would be able to employ a washerwoman. Even during the war, when they had had to manage the house with only Winnie living in, they had been able to find women to do the washing and clean the house; they were usually army privates’ wives, living on very small army pay, who had children whom they did not want to leave alone for long. They had been thankful to come in by the day to earn an extra few shillings.

  As she washed herself in the sink of the jewel of her mother’s house, the bathroom, which glittered with white porcelain and highly polished mahogany, she remembered the earth lavatory of the cottage. Such primitive sanitary arrangements meant that they must take with them the old-fashioned washstands with their attendant china basins, jugs, buckets and chamber pots; she recollected that three rooms in their present home were still equipped with these pieces of furniture. And there was a tin bath in the cellar – they would need that, with all the work that it implied – heating and carrying jugs of hot water upstairs to a bedroom, and afterwards bringing down the dirty water, not to speak of the dragging up and down of the bath itself, all chores that she herself would probably have to attend to.

  While she brushed her hair and then tied it into a neat knot to be pinned at the back of her neck, she wondered resentfully whether, in addition to all the usual jobs her mother expected her to do, she was going to spend her whole future trying to deal with the domestic problems of the cottage.

  Later, when she was dressed, the last button of a clean black blouse done up and a black bow tied under her chin, she paused to look at herself in the mirror, and made a wry face. She looked pinched and old. She was drained by the fears besetting her, acutely aware of her own ignorance. Even Ethel, struggling to make the fire go in the breakfast room, was not as helpless as she was. At least Ethel could make a fire and could probably cook a meal on it if she had to.

  Why haven’t I learned to cook? she asked herself dully. Or even watched Mrs Walls, when she comes in on Mondays to do the washing? Or looked to see in what order Dorothy does the rooms, so that she doesn’t redistribute the dust? And as for making the cottage garden look decent, I don’t know how to begin.

  The answer was clear to her. As a single, upper middle-class lady, she was not expected to know. Her job was to run after her mother, be her patient companion, carry her parcels, find her glasses, help her choose library books in the Argosy Library, make a fourth player at cards if no one else was available, write invitations and thank-you notes – and be careful always to be pleasant and never give offence to men, particularly to her father. And when her parents were gone, she would probably do the same for Edna – tolerated in her brother-in-law’s house, either because Edna had begged a roof for her or, on Paul’s part, from a faint sense of duty to a penniless woman.

  ‘I wish I were dead,’ she hissed tearfully at the reflection in the wardrobe mirror, and went down to the breakfast room to find a pencil and make a list.

  Chapter Seven

  While Dorothy and Ethel finished cleaning the breakfast room, Celia, list in hand, went down to the basement to talk to Winnie.

  On seeing her young mistress, the cook hastily rose from eating her own breakfast at the kitchen table. With the corner of her white apron, she surreptitiously dabbed the corners of her mouth.

  ‘Don’t get up, Winnie. Finish your breakfast. I just thought I’d have a word with you, before Mother rings for her tray.’

  Winnie sank slowly back into her chair and picked up her fork again. She looked cautiously at Celia, who had walked over to the kitchen dresser and taken down a cup and saucer. The girl looked as if she were on the point of collapse.

  ‘Would you be liking a cup of tea, Miss?’

  Celia laid the cup and saucer down in front of the cook, and then pulled out another kitchen chair to sit down on. ‘Yes, please, if you can spare it from your pot.’

  ‘To be sure, Miss.’

  While Celia slowly sipped a very strong cup of tea and Winnie finished up her egg and fried bread, both women basked in the warmth of the big fire in the kitchen range. Ethel had made it ready in anticipation of Winnie’s beginning the serious cooking of the day as soon as she had finished her own meal.

  The heat was very comforting, and some of Celia’s jitteriness left her. ‘I was wondering, Winnie,’ she began, ‘if one of you could come out to the Meols cottage with me and help me clean it. I think it will take more than one day. Could two of you manage, here, to look after Mother? I think I may have to be quick about making arrangements, and we can’t move anything from this house until the other one is clean. Mr Billings, the agent, will be going out there today to make sure it is watertight.’

  At the reminder of the impending demise of the household, poor Winnie’s breast heaved under her blue and white striped dress. Her response, however, s
howed no resentment. She said helpfully, ‘Oh, aye, Miss. Our Dorothy would be the best one to take – and you’d need to get the chimneys swept, no doubt.’ She paused and ran her tongue round her teeth, to rid them of bits of egg, while she considered the situation. ‘Anybody living nearby will put you on to a sweep, I’m sure. And you’d have to take brooms and brushes – and dusters and polish with you, wouldn’t you?’

  In twenty minutes, Winnie had a cleaning campaign worked out. She inquired whether the water in the house was turned on.

  Feeling a little ashamed at how low they had sunk, Celia admitted that there was only a pump that did not work and a well of uncertain cleanliness. She said hopefully, ‘I think Mr Fairbanks from next door would let us take water from his pump for a day or two. He’s very nice.’

  ‘Would he? That would be proper kind. A friendly neighbour’s worth a lot.’ Winnie heaved herself out of her chair and began to clear the table. ‘You’d better get a plumber to fix the pump, hadn’t you? You could ask him what to do about the well. He’ll know – and I’ll put together some lunch for you.’

  Celia began to feel that her life was regaining some sense of order, and she looked gratefully at the cook. ‘You’re wonderful, Winnie,’ she said with feeling, as she took her empty teacup to the kitchen sink ready for Ethel when she came down to the basement kitchen to do the washing up.

  At that moment, Dorothy, carrying her brooms, bucket, dustpan and brush, and carpet sweeper, pushed open the kitchen door. She was bent on snatching her breakfast before she had to serve Louise and Celia their meal. Winnie told her immediately that she would be spending the next day in Meols, cleaning Miss Celia’s new home.

  Dorothy opened her mouth to protest, and then decided that it might be a bit of a change. She nodded assent, and said, ‘Yes, Miss,’ to Celia very primly, as if being whisked out to Meols was something that happened regularly to her. Then she hung up her dustpan and brush in a cupboard, and picked up the carpet sweeper again to take it outside to empty it into the dustbin. She unlocked the heavy back door and trotted into the brick-lined area outside.

  As she opened the flaps of the carpet sweeper and shook out the dust, she could hear, very distantly, Ethel singing ‘The Roses of Picardy’, as she scrubbed the front steps, and she began to regret her agreement to go out to Meols. Out there, it would likely be scrubbing, scrubbing all the way, she considered sourly, as she clicked the sweeper shut. Why hadn’t she suggested that Miss should take Ethel instead?

  Before leaving the kitchen, Celia turned and gave the cook a quick hug. ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do without you,’ she said.

  Winnie forced a smile, and wondered what she was going to do without the Gilmore family, whom she had served for over fifteen years. All through the war, I stayed with them, she considered dolefully, when I could have earned much more in a munitions factory – I was proper stupid. I could have saved something to help me now.

  A bell in the corner of the kitchen rang, and she turned to see which one it was. ‘Your mam’s awake,’ she shouted after Celia, who was running up the kitchen stairs. ‘Will you tell me when she’s ready for her breakfast?’

  ‘I will.’

  As Celia went up the second staircase to her mother’s bedroom, she smiled slightly. Things were already changing. Winnie would never have referred to her mother as ‘your mam’ if her father had been alive; and, at the sound of the bell, Dorothy would have had to climb the two staircases to inquire directly what it was that Madam required.

  Considering her flood of tears the previous night, Louise managed a remarkably solid breakfast. Celia, who did not want any, sat on the bed beside her, patiently wondering how to discuss their problems with her without causing yet another collapse into tears.

  Finally, Louise laid her empty cup down on its saucer, and sighed. ‘Put the tray on the side table for me, dear,’ she ordered.

  Celia did as she was bidden, while Louise crossed her hands over her stomach and stared disconsolately out of the window at a fine March day. She took no notice when Celia pulled out of her skirt pocket the list she had made earlier.

  ‘Mother,’ she said tentatively, ‘because Cousin Albert thinks we may have to move quickly from here, I’ve made a rough list of what I think we must do at once.’

  Her mother turned to look at her, her pale, slightly protruding blue eyes showing no sign of tears. There was, however, a total absence of expression in them, and Celia wondered if her mother was feeling the same sense of unreality that she was, as if she were a long way off from what was happening, that this wasn’t her life at all; she was merely watching a play.

  ‘Yes, dear?’ Louise’s voice was quite calm, though she sounded weary.

  Celia gathered her wandering thoughts, and began by saying, ‘I thought we’d better see, first, how much money we have access to.’ She paused, feeling that it was vulgar to consider money when they had just been bereaved. But they had to live until the house was sold, so she added firmly, ‘I suppose that dear Papa gave you the housekeeping at the beginning of the month?’

  Louise gave a sobbing sigh, and said, ‘Yes, dear. I hope I can make it last through the first week in April.’

  ‘Then there’s the cheque Mr Billings gave you yesterday. How do we get money for it? Do you know?’

  ‘Your dear father always paid it into my bank account, and when I wanted to pay for a special dress, or something, for either you or me – or gifts – personal things, I wrote a cheque. I’m sure Mr Carruthers would show us how to put Mr Billings’ cheque into my account.’

  ‘Is there anything in the account at present?’

  ‘I don’t think so, dear. Your dear father got me to write a cheque on it for him about three months ago. It was a loan.’

  Celia felt an uncomfortable qualm in her stomach at this disclosure. She wondered what else her father might have done, which would further imperil their limited finances. She suggested that if Louise felt strong enough they should pay a call on the bank that afternoon, to which Louise agreed.

  ‘Did Papa have a solicitor for his affairs, Mama?’

  ‘Well, he had Mr Barnett, of course, who came to the funeral, dear. As far as I know, he did any legal work in connection with your father’s business. He’s supposed to be supervising the sale of this house, remember?’ Louise moved restlessly in her bed. ‘But Father didn’t use his services very much, because he was expensive. He even wrote his will himself; but Cousin Albert says that it is perfectly valid. He said it was witnessed by Andy McDougall and his chief clerk.’

  Celia knew of old Mr McDougall. When he had attended the funeral, he had looked as ferocious as his reputation held him to be, and with him there had been another old gentleman, who could well have been his chief clerk. She recollected vaguely that he was a corn merchant and had a small office, similar to her father’s, in the same building. She had noticed Cousin Albert talking with them after the funeral, probably because, as Albert had told her, he needed, first, to satisfy himself of the authenticity of the witnesses’ signatures to the will.

  ‘Do we need a solicitor, Celia?’ The question held a hint of anxiety in it.

  Celia chewed her lower lip. ‘I don’t really know, Mama,’ she confessed. ‘But this house belongs to you – and it’s a handsome house – it must be worth quite a lot.’ How could she say that she did not trust her father’s cousin very much – she had no real reason to feel like this, except that he was being very domineering and he had apparently tried to collect the rents which Mr Billings had refused to hand over to him.

  She said slowly, ‘I think that you should have a legal man to make sure that you receive what is yours.’

  Her mother gave a small shocked gasp, and Celia hastily added, ‘Well, laws are funny things, and it is difficult for us to know what we are signing – we can read it – but understanding is something different. Did you understand the papers that you signed for Mr Barnett and the estate agent the other day?’

  Lou
ise was frightened. ‘Not really; they both said they gave them permission to sell the house and for the agent to charge me a commission for doing it. Should I have had a solicitor of my own? Albert said I should sign – and he was once a solicitor himself.’ She looked helplessly up at Celia.

  ‘Try not to worry, Mama. The papers probably are all right.’ How could she say to her mother that it was Albert Gilmore himself about whom she felt doubtful? She finally replied carefully, ‘I know he was a solicitor. But he’s looking after the will – which is Father’s affair. You don’t have anybody. Perhaps there should be someone who is interested only in your affairs.’

  ‘Yes, dear. I see.’ Louise was trembling with apprehension as she began slowly to get out of bed. Her huge, lace-trimmed cotton nightgown caught in the bedclothes, and momentarily a fine pair of snow-white legs were exposed to the spring sunlight pouring through the windows.

  She hastily hitched her gown more modestly round her, but not before Celia had the sudden realisation that, though her mother always appeared old to her and her face petulant, she was extremely well preserved, with a perfect skin and luxuriant hair.

  She might marry again. And, if she did, where would I be? she asked herself fearfully.

  She swallowed hard. She had enough to worry about without anything else.

  She said carefully, as she moved out of Louise’s way, ‘Perhaps Mr Carruthers at the bank could recommend a solicitor to us. We could ask him.’

  As Louise nodded agreement, they both heard the front door bell faintly tinkling in the kitchen.

  ‘I think that will be Phyllis. She left her card yesterday when we were out, and said she would come again today. There are some cards on the tray for you, too. Will you be all right, Mother, if I go down? We could walk round to the bank this afternoon. Phyllis won’t stay long.’