The Mersey Angels

by Sheila Riley

  ‘I’m fine,’ Lottie said with a shrug, ‘just worry I suppose.’ But she knew it was more than that. She hadn’t ‘seen’ her monthly visitors since Jerky got out of prison in May, and it was almost the end of July.

  Back at Ashland, Ruby, in her element with the busy bustle, giving out cups of tea and chatting to the patients. And Anna’s cheerful performance back on the ward was a tribute to the courage these men had shown. How long she could keep up the charade, she did not know. She would have to find courage, too. Ruby was not going to be pleased that she had volunteered to go overseas. She had to find her brother, Sam.

  ‘She will go mad,’ Ellie’s eyes were glassy-bright with excitement. ‘We will have to sneak out under the cover of darkness.’ But there was no time to stand around engaging in idle gossip, They were kept busy with incoming casualties.

  Later that evening they were dispatched to Aintree train station to pick up men from all over Great Britain: English, Irish, Scottish and Welshmen whose fierce pride had taken them to the killing fields and returned them home to recover, and after long talks with some of the young soldiers who had joined up to escape grinding poverty, they learned that some were taken from the workhouse to build the armies needed to fight the enemy. While many men had no choice but to go off to war, even before subscription came into force. They were obliged to accept the King’s shilling to put bread on the table. Now they were coming back with limbs missing.

  Some patients had been taken off the troop train at Aintree and put in an ambulance for Ashland Auxiliary Hospital, while others received necessary medical treatment at the First Western hospital.

  ‘We’ll soon have you in a nice comfy bed, soldier,’ Ellie had said, and roared with laughter when one of the cheeky sods asked if she would care to join him. Nothing fazed Ellie, thought Anna.

  ‘We went in the hope of a steady wage to feed our family, Nurse,’ one man told Anna, ‘but any hope of work is hindered now. Who is going to employ a man with half a leg and only one good arm?’

  These poor men… Tired, bedraggled and looking less like conquering heroes than it was possible to imagine, tore at Anna’s heart. Their arrival had drawn a crowd, as civilians gathered on the bridge at Aintree station to watch the wounded being stretchered to the ambulances. The crowd was so large, the ambulances had difficulty negotiating the road and had to be driven very carefully and slowly, allowing the throng of sympathetic devotees to follow at a pace to the gates of the First Western Hospital at Fazakerley.

  Some wanted to catch a glimpse of the heroes returning from epic battles at Mons, Ypres and those who had fought at Marne. Places made famous by headlines in the local and national newspapers and Anna recalled some mothers pleading for information, wanting to know of their loved ones still fighting on the battlefields.

  Some of the officers were transferred to Ashland Hall to recuperate, while nurses watching from sash windows pulled up high, waited for their new charges to arrive.

  ‘This is a bit of all right, hey George?’ an injured corporal, brought in with his commanding officer, said to the general in the opposite bed, who, deaf as a post after being too close to an exploding shell, did not answer. But his spirits were raised when he saw the ballroom was now lined with narrow iron beds organised in perfect rows a wall of glazed doors opening out onto the garden.

  ‘Are we doing the right thing?’ Anna asked Ellie. ‘Patching up men to return them to the lion’s cage. It must be terrifying for them.’

  ‘They know what they are going back to,’ Ellie answered, ‘and that must be so much worse.’ Reports in the newspaper told them the action was no easier at sea either, with ships torpedoed so food could not get to this country. ‘The enemy are certain they will starve us into submission, according to the latest reports.’

  ‘It’s being so cheerful that keeps you going, Ellie,’ Anna snapped. She did not want to hear about the fighting at sea. They had lost thousands of men, during the Battle of Jutland. She took a deep breath. The Royal Navy managed to scare off the Hun and their navy had not left enemy harbour since. Anna immediately regretted her retort. And she felt an icy shiver run through her, even though the room was warm.

  8

  May was glad her husband’s funeral, paid for by the church, had commenced before Ruby, Archie and Ellie arrived in Scarborough. It was one less humiliation she had had to suffer because of Giles’s underhand dealings.

  ‘Penny for them?’ Ellie asked seeing her deep in thought.

  May, smiled, initially she felt sorry Ellie had missed the funeral, but was grateful she did not have to endure the hypocrisy of the sparse ceremony, knowing Giles rarely endeared himself to his parishioners.

  Since she received the telegram, Ellie had had no time to grieve and if she was being honest, she had no wish to. The funeral had taken place in her father’s church in Scarborough and her mother was now effectively homeless, because the rectory they lived in had been tied to her father’s work with the church. Even though her father’s death had little effect upon her, given that he had paid her so little attention other than to berate her for some minor misdeed, Ellie was surprised at how calmly her mother had actually taken the death.

  ‘There is something I need to discuss with you in private after dinner,’ May told her daughter quietly. Her husband’s death had thrown light onto the murky extent his gambling debts had sank their money.

  ‘He left me with nothing,’ May told Ellie when they were alone, ‘except a huge amount of debt. No home. No money. I am at the mercy of creditors!’

  Ellie had never felt unhappier for her poor mother. The rectory, cold even though the day was warm, was sparse even by her father’s frugal standards.

  ‘I do not own one stick of furniture,’ May told her, ‘Giles sold everything. My jewellery, even the clothes in my closet.’ She sat down heavily on a straight-backed chair, as if the necessity to stand was too great to bear. Lowering her head, May removed the wedding ring, which on closer inspection, Ellie could see had made her finger turn green, and she knew that her father’s devout piety was a sham, a lie he had used as a stick to beat her mother with.

  ‘Oh Mama,’ Ellie cried, her throat tightening. She had grown accustomed to Aunt Ruby’s lavish lifestyle without giving a second thought to her mother’s silent distress. ‘You are far braver than I could ever imagine.’

  May seemed to brighten at her words, and her lips stretched to a gentle smile that did not reach her eyes. ‘Two sisters who were closer than close, were prised apart by a controlling man who had no thoughts for anybody except himself.’ May said, her voice full of regret.

  ‘Because maybe, I was too wrapped up in my own wants and needs,’ Ruby said from the doorway. Neither May nor Ellie had heard her approach. ‘I neglected the one person who shared the same fears and worries I had myself.’

  ‘No,’ May said, feeling stronger now, ‘I was old enough to know better.’

  ‘You were lonely,’ Ruby said, glad they had missed the funeral. ‘I see that now, and you were ripe for Giles Harrington’s plucking. He knew what he was doing.’ Ruby ventured into the room not knowing if she would be welcomed or turned away. But she was made of stern stuff. She could handle everything life threw at her because she had a good, honest man by her side. ‘Giles played the long game, his most exquisite gamble. The one that would see him through all the years of Ellie’s rearing.’

  ‘You are right,’ May said, ‘and if truth be told, I knew it from the moment I married him. Everything fell into place for Giles. A loveless marriage. My inability to have children of my own. The idea that one day Ashland Hall and everything that went with it would be his in all but name.’

  ‘May!’ Ruby stepped forward, knowing her sister had said more than enough. ‘You are tired and distraught; you don’t know what you’re saying. You need to lie down before we make our way back home.’

  ‘I know the whole story,’ Ellie’s voice was low and measured. ‘Mama told me everything when I was young.�
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  Ruby felt as if she had been slapped in the face, she was stunned. ‘But you never said a word.’ The air was being sucked out of her. And not for the first time.

  ‘I’m glad Giles was not my father,’ Ellie said, ‘and I love Mama dearly. I didn’t know you personally. But felt I did by the hundreds of stories Mama told me as I grew up.’ Tears began to form in Ellie’s eyes. ‘That day. When I came to tell you about the reading of Grandpa’s Will, I did not know if you and Archie would turn me away or welcome me with open arms…’ She gave a watery smile. ‘Thankfully, Mama had told me so much about you I knew in my heart that you would not let me go a second time.’

  ‘My darling girl,’ said Ruby, ‘I did not want to lose you the first time.’

  When May returned to the Lodge at Ashland Hall, she was the one who played hostess to Ruby, Archie, Ellie and Anna. In this time of so much strife, she had never felt happier. They were all one big happy family once again.

  ‘I am so glad the truth is out about my father’s behaviour and my mother’s circumstances, and we can put the past behind us,’ Ellie told Anna when they were on duty in the small hours of the night. However, she did not tell Anna that Ruby, and not May, was her mother.

  ‘Mama is thriving under Ruby’s lovingly protective, and sometimes smothering, wing.’

  ‘I think Ruby’s mothering has now been transferred to Archie since his eye operation.’ Anna gave a low, contented laugh.

  Doctor Bea had worked a miracle with Archie’s sight, but Ruby made sure the good doctor’s rules were followed to the letter, much to Archie’s frustration when Ruby would read him a section of Pride and Prejudice when he would far rather hear her read the latest news from The Front.

  ‘No, Archie,’ Ruby had said, ‘Doctor Bea said you are not to get excited.’

  ‘Well, I can assure you,’ Archie said under his breath, ‘there is not much chance of that.’

  ‘Did you say something, Archie?’ Ruby asked. Archie had gone through the whole procedure without even telling her, until after the deed was done.

  ‘No, dear,’ Archie said, ‘I think I heard May calling.’

  ‘She promised she would accompany me to the tank fundraising this afternoon. You don’t mind do you, Archie?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Archie. He loved Ruby with all his heart and soul, but when she had a mission of mercy, she threw herself in entirely. It could get a bit tiring. ‘I was going to have a snooze anyway.’

  ‘Good thinking, Archie. I will leave you in peace.’

  ‘If I had known Archie was going blind, I would never have depended upon him so much, or let him drive the motorcar, or even his bicycle.’

  ‘I think that was the notion, Ruby dear,’ May said, casting off a new line of boot socks for the Royal Navy. Her time at Ashland Lodge had renewed her spirits and with her sister’s support, she had grown stronger than she had been for years and much more inclined to share her thoughts. ‘You know Archie isn’t one to make a fuss.’

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful you can speak so freely these days,’ Ruby’s casual tone hid her delight at having her sister back in the fold. She had forgotten the sometimes spiky but fundamentally loving exchanges they both had shared from childhood, and Ruby was enjoying her sister’s company enormously.

  ‘Archie will be having his bandages removed today,’ said Ellie, whose little bursts of joy echoed the feeling of everybody, that May was back where she belonged, albeit in the Lodge, something Giles Harrington would never have considered when he was alive. She never thought of him as ‘Father’ any more and no longer felt the stab of guilt she once had when she realised she did not love him, and she never had. Shuddering, Ellie remembered the times when he ordered her mother to sit in the wings and say nothing.

  ‘I will go and read the newspaper to Archie over tea,’ said Ruby when she got back from another successful fundraiser.

  ‘Tell him I will pop in later,’ said May, whose eyes now sparkled with the light Ruby had been so used to seeing, and Ruby smiled, patting her hand, knowing her sister could enjoy a life of her own choosing. Instead of meekly following in the long shadow of a greedy, overbearing husband.

  When Ruby sat at her husband’s bedside, she noticed the evening newspaper, obviously brought in by one of the orderlies, the old retainers who were too old or frail to join up and were as loyal to herself and Archie as they had been to her father. Picking up the newspaper, Ruby gasped in shock when she saw the headlines telling them of the fierce fighting in the North Sea.

  Ned would surely have been involved in The Battle of Jutland. The huge-scale clash of battleships between the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet. Ned was never far from everybody’s thoughts, and she knew he was as vulnerable as any man on the front line. Not that he could tell her of course.

  9

  Izzy was shocked that Lottie had handed in her notice.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Izzy asked when she saw Lottie packing a cardboard suitcase.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lottie answered, ‘all Jerry would say was that it is a surprise.’ She trusted him and believed he was going to change her life forever.

  Lottie was elated when she said her goodbyes to Izzy and left the charity shop for her biggest adventure yet. Dreams of bringing a new life into a different town filled her head and sustained her as seven o’clock came and went. She paced up and down the platform, Jerry could not leave her like this. She was expecting his child.

  Trains came in and went back out again. Whistles blew and smoke filled the air. Servicemen from the troop trains were being transported to the ports. Most of them were in their twenties and thirties; but some were just boys in late teens.

  Officially, they were meant to be nineteen to be sent overseas to fight, but obviously, given the young faces and bodies as yet not fully grown, some had lied about their age. Many had joined up in a fervour of patriotism with their pals or had shown up at the police station to enlist after being shamed with a white feather.

  Eight o’clock… Something must have happened. She worried. He has obviously had an accident, Lottie thought as she sat on the bench to ease her weary legs, watching travellers depart and servicemen kiss their sweetheart’s goodbye.

  Nine o’clock… She was more anxious now. Lottie did not feel the keen desperation of a jilted bride. Jerry loves me. She never doubted him. Of course, he would wed her.

  Anna nudged Ellie with her elbow and nodded to the forlorn-looking girl sitting on the bench on the other side of Lime Street Station, her suitcase at her feet.

  ‘Isn’t that Lottie, over there?’ Anna asked, smart in her nurse’s uniform like Ellie, dressed in a similar fashion as they waited for the troop train to come in.

  She peered across the platform and nodded. ‘She told me she was due to meet her chap here at seven o’clock.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Anna wilted, ‘you mean Jerky Woods?’

  ‘That’s the fellow,’ said Ellie. ‘She told Ruby she was leaving the charity shop with immediate effect. Ruby was not impressed; I can tell you.’

  ‘I am not surprised,’ Anna replied as Ellie pushed her handbag up her arm, her gaze running the length of the platform, watching for the troop train.

  ‘Excuse me, ladies,’ said the doddery porter, ‘do you know that young lady?’

  Anna and Ellie nodded.

  ‘You say she is waiting for her young man?’

  They nodded again.

  ‘If I’m not mistaken, he was taken by the military police earlier. Just before the young lady arrived.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Anna said, ‘let’s go over and speak to her, we have a few more minutes before the troop train comes in.’

  ‘I think something must have happened to Jerry,’ Lottie uttered when Anna and Ellie approached her. ‘I was supposed to meet him here at seven o’clock.’

  ‘The porter told us he had to leave suddenly. The military police took him,’ said Ellie.

  ‘He must be going overseas
, if the officers came to escort him,’ Lottie said, trying to hide the fact that she and Jerry where planning to run away.

  ‘You must be so proud,’ Ellie said, avoiding the truth that the porter had seen Woods wriggle like a worm on a hook when the military police caught up with him, but for as much as he jerked and pulled himself from their clutches, Jerky Woods did not live up to his name that time, and thrashed like a fish on a hook in his unwillingness to serve his country in any capacity.

  ‘I must go back and face Izzy in the charity shop,’ Lottie said, knowing she had been warned. She had been naïve where Jerry was concerned because she believed every word he said.

  ‘Let’s get you back, we pass the charity shop on the way to Ashland Hall so we can drop you off,’ Anna said gently, as Lottie, head bowed, looked so lost and pitiful.

  ‘We will not leave you stranded in a train station,’ Ellie joined in and Anna nodded. She would not see her one-time neighbour on the streets. ‘But we need to wait for the next train to meet the wounded troops who are to go to Ashland first.’

  Heartbroken, Lottie told Anna the whole sorry tale on the journey back to the flat over the shops, where Izzy took the sobbing girl in her arms and assured her everything was going to be fine. Izzy sighed and thanked the two nurses.

  ‘Poor Lottie, I’ll see she gets the care she needs,’ she said as the two nurses made their way downstairs to the front door and the waiting ambulance. ‘She is so gullible where that whippersnapper is concerned.’

  After they had left Izzy sat Lottie down, gave her a bowl of beef broth and a slice of fresh crusty bread and plenty of sympathy for the heartbreak her son had brought on this poor girl, who had so much going for her before Jerky came and ruined her.