Lovers Meeting

by Irene Carr

  He had been wrong.

  And now he knew but it was too late, would always be too late.

  He sat there for some time with his head in his hands, but finally he got up, walked back to his office and found paper and pen. He wrote a letter, without hesitation, just setting down what was in his heart. Then he put on his top hat and walked into the town to his solicitors in High Street East. There he asked Arkenstall for his will and attached the letter to it. The letter was to be opened after his death and was addressed to his son, James. It spelt out William’s remorse and asked, ‘Pray to God to forgive me.’

  On his way home he went into the yard and sat in his office. There was work he could have done but he left it. Instead he sat looking out of the window. He could see nearly all the yard from that viewpoint and in particular he could see young James at work. He still had his younger son. He swore not to make the same mistake with James. Next time he would listen and give.

  That was some consolation but David had been his first-born and he had virtually driven him out to die. He got up from the desk restlessly and set out for his house. The day was bitterly cold with an icy wind sweeping up the River Wear from the sea. He jammed his top hat tightly on his greying head and buttoned his overcoat. As he left the gates of the yard behind him a voice that he first ignored finally caught his attention: ‘Got a ha’penny, mister? Got any grub?’

  Little Tom Collingwood had found enough to eat – just – each day of the past week, but had only had hard lying. He was afraid to go to a dosshouse because of what might happen to him there – theft and worse – now that he did not have his grandfather as protector. Besides, he could not afford it. What money he had begged he had spent on food – and little of that. He would not go to any official or the workhouse because that would only end with him going to the orphanage. So last night he had slept with his back against the wall of a bakery where the baker had his oven and there was still some warmth. He had shared it with a half-dozen stray cats that had draped themselves over his body so they all lay in a huddle.

  That had kept him from freezing and let him doze fitfully, but the cold in his legs and feet woke him at first light. He was glad to move to get warmth into his limbs. He knocked at back doors and was finally given milk and bread by an old woman. From there he begged his way down to the shipyards that lined the bank of the river. He knew that many of the men would leave the yard at midday to go home for their dinners. Some might have a few scraps left of the breakfast they had taken to work that morning. So he was waiting at the gate marked ‘William Langley and Sons’ – William painted over Hector; Hector had founded the firm – when the old man came out.

  William stopped and they looked at each other. Tom saw another tall, bearded old man with a hard eye, a man like his grandfather. William saw a boy in tattered trousers and jacket over a ragged shirt and jersey. His toes stuck out of his boots and he had a watchful and hungry stare. And he looked a little like David Langley as a boy.

  The boy said again, tentatively, ‘Got a ha’penny, mister?’ He did not ask for grub again. He could see this was a nob who would have money but would not be carrying food. But the ‘nob’ was not forthcoming and glowered down with those hard, black eyes. Tom tensed, ready to run if the old feller lashed out with the walking-cane he carried. But he did not. They stood for some long seconds while the wind whipped around them and Tom shivered.

  Then the old man asked, ‘Have you no home?’

  Tom hesitated a moment but saw no trap in the question. He answered, ‘No, mister.’

  ‘Any family?’

  That was different. Tom retreated a pace but did not run. There was something about the old man; he was not like his grandfather really, but … Tom said, ‘I’m not going in the orphanage.’

  William nodded, thinking, No family. A boy without family and living on the streets was not usual, but it was not unknown, either. William asked, ‘Are you prepared to work for your keep?’

  ‘Work? Where?’ Tom’s eyes slid round to the shipyard gate.

  But William said, ‘No, not in there. In my house.’

  Ah. Now Tom understood. ‘You mean in service.’

  ‘That’s right. You would be paid and get bed and board.’

  Tom was tempted. Bed and board! And paid! But he said, ‘I want to be a sailor, like my grandda was.’

  ‘Is he at sea now?’

  ‘No. He died a few days back.’

  William saw the corners of the boy’s mouth droop. There was sorrow there and he knew about that. He said, ‘You’re not big enough yet, but you can go to sea when you’re older.’

  The wind howled in again with a spit of rain that lashed cold in their faces. Tom was hungry. He said, ‘All right, mister.’

  So they went home together.

  Josie asked, ‘Mam, what’s a bastard?’

  A week had passed since Peggy had settled in as an assistant cook with a small attic room for herself and Josie. While Harvey had recruited Peggy, her employer, who owned the house and all in it, was Geoffrey Urquhart, a millionaire industrialist. She rarely saw him. Her work was in the kitchen and she spent long hours there. But her boss, and the man who ran the house with the assistance of the housekeeper, was Albert Harvey. He ran it efficiently and the staff were happy.

  But this morning Peggy froze in the act of helping her daughter to dress. Josie asked again as she tugged the frock over her head. ‘Mam, what’s a bas—?’

  Peggy cut her short: ‘Where did you hear that?’ She automatically went on smoothing down the frock. It was Josie’s only other dress apart from her best, a rose pink that had washed nearly white; Peggy knew she would soon have to let it down.

  Josie looked up at her, curious. Peggy was used to her constant questions, but this one … Josie said, ‘One of the ladies in the kitchen said she thought I was a bastard. What does it mean?’

  Peggy dismissed it lightly. ‘It doesn’t matter because the lady was wrong.’ But when she entered the kitchen that morning she propped two sheets of stiff paper on top of the sideboard.

  Albert Harvey saw them as he passed through. One was Peggy’s ‘marriage lines’ and the other was Josie’s birth certificate. He glanced at Peggy, working at the big table, and asked, ‘Why are these here?’

  Without looking up, heart pounding because she was afraid this might cost her the ‘place’ she needed so badly, Peggy answered, ‘Some people thought Josie was born out of wedlock. Those papers show she wasn’t.’

  Harvey snapped, ‘Put them away.’ Then he said to no one in particular, for all the staff appeared to be working busily and unheeding, ‘If I catch anyone talking like that they will be looking for another position.’ He stalked out and Peggy sighed silently with relief. She collected the certificates – and many friendly smiles.

  Some weeks later, Peggy asked shyly, ‘Can I tell you something, Mr Harvey? I mean, just between you and me?’ The request was made respectfully because, while a friendship had soon grown up between her and the butler, she took care not to presume on it. Harvey, for his part, was at pains not to favour her – or at any rate, be seen to do so.

  Now he replied, ‘I’ll listen and hold my tongue, if that’s what you mean, Mrs Langley.’ They sat in his pantry with the door wide open, but nobody could linger and listen without Harvey seeing them.

  ‘Thank you. It’s just that, you being from Monkwearmouth, you’ll have known the Langleys. So you must have wondered why I’m working here.’ Peggy was pink-cheeked with embarrassment now, but went on to explain how William Langley had thought she had married his son for his money and turned them away. ‘It wasn’t so. I didn’t want his money, not then, not now. I sent a letter to him only once, to tell him that David had been killed, but I didn’t ask him for anything and I didn’t tell him I was coming to London.’ Peggy smiled, relieved to be done. ‘I just wanted you to know that I didn’t do anything wrong.’

  Albert Harvey had suspected Peggy’s background would be something like that,
a family row leaving her estranged, so he was not surprised. He said, ‘I’m sure you would not have done any wrong and I thank you for your confidence in me.’ Then, to change the subject and relieve Peggy from further embarrassment, he asked, ‘How is Josie settling down here?’

  Peggy said doubtfully, ‘Well …’

  Josie was a problem. She was still too young for school and sometimes Peggy had to leave her in their small room, but most of the day the little girl spent in the kitchen, playing in some out-of-the-way corner. Inevitably she occasionally strayed and got under the feet of busy cooks and maids, was chided and there were tears. But one afternoon she got hold of a pencil and a scrap of paper and Albert Harvey found her on hands and knees, trying to draw. He had an hour or so to spare that normally he filled by reading, but now he took the little girl to his pantry and started to teach her to write her letters.

  Josie picked it up quickly and Albert Harvey marvelled at the speed with which she learned to read and write. So he came to spend most of his spare time instructing the girl. Josie in turn revelled in her studies. She looked forward longingly to those few minutes, snatched here and there in the day, when he had time for her. She came to be fond of his neat and tidy but drab little pantry.

  That could not last, of course. The lady of the house, Elizabeth Urquhart, slender, graceful and gentle, was that rarity at the time, an educated woman. She usually called the cook to attend her in the drawing room to receive instructions on the meals for the day, but occasionally wandered ‘below stairs’ to speak to her. One morning she did so and when passing the butler’s pantry saw the lessons in progress and heard Josie reading aloud. Elizabeth halted and enquired, ‘What have we here, Harvey?’

  ‘Little Josie Langley learning to read, ma’am.’ The butler stood up hastily and explained: ‘Her mother is the assistant cook.’

  His mistress looked down at his pupil and saw the small girl smiling up at her. She smiled in return and prompted the child, ‘Will you let me hear you?’ Josie was ready to oblige and did so, reading clearly and confidently. Elizabeth tested her by taking the book from her and pointing out some words at random, to see that she had not just memorised the whole passage parrot fashion. But Josie made no mistake.

  Elizabeth handed back the book and asked, ‘How old is the child?’

  ‘Not yet five, ma’am,’ answered Harvey.

  His mistress tapped the tip of her tongue with one slim finger, thinking. Then she said, her mind made up, ‘Well, I think she could do with more time than you can give her.’

  Harvey agreed. ‘Yes, ma’am, but she’s too young for school.’

  Elizabeth nodded. ‘So she’d do better to attend in the schoolroom with the children. Take her up in the morning after breakfast.’ She stooped to ask Josie, ‘Would you like that? To be taught in a proper schoolroom in this house with my little girls?’

  Josie was not sure. ‘What about my dinner, please?’

  Elizabeth’s lips twitched. ‘You will get your dinner with the girls, never fear. Now, will you come?’

  Josie agreed happily. ‘Aye, missus.’

  Peggy Langley had her doubts when Harvey broke the news to her. She protested worriedly, ‘She’ll be up there with strangers and all on her own. She’ll be out of her place with them.’

  But Harvey knew the three young daughters – aged four, six and eight – and the governess, chosen by Elizabeth Urquhart, who taught them. ‘They’ll treat her fair and she’ll learn a lot that’ll stand her in good stead.’

  Josie learned a great deal. Besides the lessons taught by the governess, she also learned of life on both sides of the green baize door. She absorbed the manners and speech of the Urquhart girls and those of the kitchen.

  And more …

  ‘Is that you again?’ Harvey would greet her as she sidled into his pantry when school was over for the day. Josie loved to sit with him while he talked of his work and the running of the house. So that she learned not only what was done but why it was done.

  Then in that summer of 1888 there was her first experience of Hallburgh Hall. ‘We’re going to the country,’ Peggy told her daughter. ‘All through the summer.’ This was an annual event. It was the custom for the landed gentry to come to London in May for the summer ‘season’ then go to the country in the autumn for shooting, hunting and fishing. However, Geoffrey Urquhart was not landed gentry but a businessman. So he would send his family to his country house for the summer while he stayed in London to attend to his business affairs. He would travel down into Surrey at the weekends.

  So Peggy packed the clothes for her and Josie and they took a cab to Waterloo station, then a train into Surrey with the rest of the staff who were going to Hallburgh Hall. Geoffrey retained a skeleton staff in London to serve him.

  ‘Mam!’ breathed Josie, as a big horse-drawn brake carried all of them up the long drive to the house. ‘Isn’t it lovely! Isn’t it big!’

  The Hall was built of old red brick with tall chimneys and log fires in huge hearths. There were several huge rooms and a myriad of smaller ones, all connected by a maze of passages. Acres of lawns and pasture merged into woodland with a gurgling stream running through it. Josie had this for an enormous playground she shared with the Urquhart girls.

  ‘Do we have to go back to London?’ she asked at the end of that summer.

  ‘’Course we do,’ replied her mother, ‘but we’ll be back every year.’

  Josie had to be content with that.

  And they did go back every year …

  ‘Hey, missy!’ The voice came out of the air. Josie’s head turned as she searched for its owner. She was eight years old now and walking in the woods around Hallburgh Hall on a hot afternoon, alone and bored because the Urquhart girls had gone to Switzerland. She looked in vain but then it came again: ‘Hey, missy!’ And scornfully: ‘Up here!’

  Josie lifted her eyes. The tree standing only feet away from her was massive, its trunk a yard in diameter and without a branch for the first ten feet of its height. The boy sat on the lowest bough, his legs dangling. His feet were bare and in the summer heat he wore only shorts and shirt. He had a shock of yellow hair above blue eyes in a brown face and he grinned at Josie. ‘I’m Bob Miller, after “Bobs”, see?’ Josie did; everybody knew ‘Bobs’, General Roberts, the soldier, who had made his name in India. The boy asked, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Josie Langley.’

  ‘You’re up at the Hall.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Bob said, ‘My dad’s a gardener there.’

  Josie knew there were three or four gardeners at the Hall. ‘My mum is a cook.’

  They were silent a moment, weighing each other up. Then Bob said, ‘You didn’t see me, did you?’

  Josie asked, ‘How did you get up there?’

  ‘Can’t you climb trees, then?’ Bob taunted.

  ‘I can.’ Josie refused to be nettled. ‘But you didn’t climb that. Nobody could because you can’t get your hands round it and there aren’t any branches to hold on to. Did you have a ladder?’ She peered about, looking for it.

  ‘Naw!’ Bob laughed, but was impressed by her reasoning. He admitted, ‘I came up on a rope, see?’ He lifted a loose coil of it and Josie saw that it was knotted around the branch on which he sat. ‘I threw one end over then climbed up it double. Want to come up?’ he invited.

  But Josie suspected he was still goading her. She turned away and copied him: ‘Naw.’ She started to walk away.

  ‘Hang on!’ Bob called. And when she looked over her shoulder, he coaxed, ‘I’ve got a house up here.’ Josie could see something like a box in the branches behind him, was eaten by curiosity but still only shrugged. ‘Here you are!’ Bob was encouraging her and now he cast the coils from the branch so they unravelled and the rope dangled to touch the ground. ‘Come on up.’

  Josie wanted to but did not know how. She replied with dignity, ‘Girls don’t climb ropes.’

  Bob urged, ‘Nobody will know. Tell you what:
I’ll show you.’ He grabbed the rope and came down hand over hand. He stood beside Josie but was half a head taller. ‘You’re not very big. How old are you?’

  ‘Eight,’ answered Josie. Was he talking down to her again?

  But Bob said, ‘I’m ten.’ Then he softened it by: ‘I expect you’ll be big as me when you’re ten. Now, what you do, you catch hold o’ the rope up here wi’ both hands, let the end of it lie over your left foot like that, and trap it there with your right foot. See? Then you straighten your legs and stretch up wi’ your hands, pull up your legs, tighten them and straighten them. See?’ He climbed some eight feet then slid back to earth and offered the rope to Josie. ‘It helps if you spit on your hands first.’

  Josie spat delicately and seized the rope.

  After an hour and a great deal of spitting, Josie sat on the branch with Bob. The house was a rough lattice-work of small dead branches, making a box with one side open and just big enough to hold the pair of them. It served through that day as their ship, carriage, or home, as their imaginations took them.

  Peggy worried for a while when Josie did not return to the house for tea. Then one of the gardeners, standing at the kitchen door while he drank a mug of tea Peggy had given him, said, ‘Your little lass is down in the wood, playing wi’ Jem Miller’s lad. Don’t ye worry about her.’ So Peggy worked on, relieved.

  Josie finally returned to the house as dusk was falling. ‘I’ve been playing with Bob Miller.’

  Peggy, busy with the preparations for dinner, said absently, ‘That’s nice.’

  Josie went on, ‘We’ve got a little house.’ She wisely did not mention that it was perched in a tree. ‘Bob’s mam gives him some bread and cheese for his tea so he doesn’t have to go home till it’s dark. He shared it with me, but can I have some tomorrow, please?’

  Peggy, hurrying from table to oven and red-faced in the heat of the kitchen, agreed readily. ‘’Course you can. Now move out of my way, there’s a love.’

  So Josie spent her days with little Bob Miller. She had to return to the house for lunch but after that she would run off to join him again, her bag of sandwiches in her hand. They were long summer days of blue skies and shimmering heat.