Lovers Meeting

by Irene Carr

  ‘Sit down, my dear.’ She pointed to a chair when Josie entered her room and the girl perched on the edge of it. Mrs Carrington went on briskly, ‘Now, when you were taken on here you spent your first two years helping in the nursery, then when you were stronger you moved to kitchen-maid and for the past year you’ve been housemaid. Mrs Urquhart spoke to me this morning and said she thought a bit of a change would do you good.’ Elizabeth Urquhart had said, ‘The girl needs something to keep her busy, to take her mind off this sad business and help her get over it.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am?’ Josie was both attentive and wary now. She was ready to take on anything – but what was it?

  Mrs Carrington did not beat about the bush. ‘You spend an hour or two every day doing Letty Barker’s work because she’s too idle to do it herself.’ Josie blinked. She hadn’t thought that had been noticed. And Letty was lazy; Josie helped her because she could not bear to see a job badly done. The housekeeper went on, ‘And I want you to help me instead.’ She waited, not for Josie’s agreement, because Mrs Carrington was confident that ‘gels’ of that age did not know what was good for them anyway. But she expected an acknowledgment.

  Josie knew the rules too: ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ But she liked the idea.

  ‘Very well, off you go.’ Mrs Carrington closed the interview. ‘And tell Letty I want to see her. Now!’

  So Josie found herself learning a host of new skills, those of managing a household and a budget. She was eager and quick to learn and soon was as happy as she had ever been. She had not forgotten her mother’s last wish but Sunderland and the Langleys were nearly three hundred miles away. And the scene in the kitchen of the Langley house, her memory of the giant, huge and raging, was still only too clear. Sunderland and the Langleys could wait.

  6

  June 1904

  Josie sang as she worked, running a smoothing iron over the pages of The Times to remove the creases put in it by the paper-boy. Merridew would then lay it on Geoffrey Urquhart’s breakfast table. Betty Baynes, the children’s nurse, came hurrying into the kitchen. The two children she cared for were those of the eldest Urquhart girl, now married to an army officer serving in India, where they were living. They had left their son and daughter in the care of Geoffrey and Elizabeth Urquhart.

  Betty peered over Josie’s shoulder. ‘Is the announcement in? Their engagement, I mean?’ Josie flipped over the pages good-naturedly, though she was just as interested as she had grown up with the youngest Urquhart daughter, now to be engaged, and was the same age, twenty. Betty squeaked, ‘There it is!’

  They read the announcement together and then Josie said, ‘Not long for you, now.’

  Betty laughed and blushed. ‘Just two weeks.’ That was when she would be married. ‘And it can’t come too soon.’ She blushed again as Josie cocked a teasing eye at her. ‘I didn’t mean that! I was talking about getting away from Mrs Stritch.’

  Mrs Carrington had left the Urquhart service a month ago to join a bigger, ducal household where there was more scope for her considerable talents. Mrs Stritch had replaced her as housekeeper. Now Betty muttered, ‘Should be Witch, not Stritch.’ And went on her way. She would have to leave service when she married and so would escape the attentions of the new housekeeper. Mrs Stritch was a bad-tempered bully who blamed her staff for her own incompetence.

  There would be no such escape for Josie and she had already incurred the hatred of Mrs Stritch. She resented the position of trust the girl had enjoyed under Mrs Carrington and had swiftly engineered Josie’s return to being just a housemaid. More than that, she had a strong suspicion that Josie could measure her inefficiency, comparing her performance with that of her predecessor. That was intolerable and Josie would have to go.

  Josie had sensed this already and now bit her lip in worry at Betty’s reminder. Then a name in the columns of The Times caught her eye: Langley. Langley! She read: ‘To James and Mrs Maria Langley of Monkwearmouth in Sunderland, a daughter, Charlotte …’

  ‘Come on, my girl. Finished that paper yet?’ Merridew appeared at her side.

  ‘Yes, Mr Merridew. Just now.’ Josie handed it to him and he bustled away. She was left, startled by the news she had read, but at least it took the place of her worry about her future for a while.

  That afternoon was Josie’s half-day and she went strolling in the summer sunshine. She cut a trim figure in her black skirt that nearly brushed the ground and her high-necked blouse, topped by a straw hat with a black ribbon. All were cast-offs, given to her by the Urquhart daughters and she had learned a lot about dress sense and fashion from Gabrielle, Mrs Urquhart’s French maid. Several young men took a second look but Josie was lost in her thoughts.

  So James Langley had married and had a child. James was her uncle and his daughter was Josie’s cousin. It was strange to realise that she had a family so far away in the north. Now Josie noticed Betty Baynes was ahead of her, pushing a perambulator with the two Urquhart grandchildren in it. Josie absently quickened her pace as her thoughts ran on: A family, yes, but she had never seen the wife or the daughter and had only the vaguest recollection of the boy James had been when she last saw him in the Langley yard. While her grandfather – she remembered him only too well.

  Betty Baynes was swinging the perambulator around to cross the road, taking advantage of a break in the traffic. Beyond her was a coster’s barrow piled high with fruit and parked by the kerb. The coster was bawling his wares: ‘Luvverly apples an’ pears!’ A motor car had passed and was rumbling away up the road while a cart loaded with sacks of coal was approaching, drawn by a trotting horse, its driver seated precariously on the shaft. But there was plenty of time for Betty to cross – until the car back-fired with a crack! like a gunshot. It was passing the cart and the trotting horse took fright, reared and threw its driver into the road. Then it broke into a gallop.

  Josie halted, hands to her mouth, then hitched up her skirts and started to run, shrieking, ‘Go on, Betty! Get out of the way!’ Because the nurse had frozen in the middle of the road, clutching the handle of the perambulator and staring at the oncoming cart as if mesmerised. It hit the coster’s barrow and hurled it onto its side, fruit scattering and bursting across road and pavement, and came on without checking. Josie saw the terrified horse would run through Betty and the perambulator, spilling her and the children as it had spilt the fruit.

  Josie raced on, her little straw hat blowing away unnoticed, as the horse bore down on all of them. She reached Betty just in time to seize the handle of the perambulator in one hand and plant the other on Betty’s back. Her impetus, and strength born of desperation, enabled her to thrust the girl and the perambulator clear. But then something, horse or shaft, struck her shoulder like a club and the world exploded.

  Josie woke minutes later with a circle of faces above her. One face was nearer and belonged to a heavily built, tweed-suited man who was kneeling beside her. He held her wrist in one hand, his pocket-watch on its chain in the other. When he saw that her eyes were open he said, ‘Ah! You’re with us again.’ He slid his watch into a waistcoat pocket. ‘Your pulse is all right. I’m Dr Featherstone and I saw the whole affair. Don’t move, but tell me how you feel.’

  Josie felt dirty and embarrassed. And: ‘My shoulder feels numb.’

  Featherstone said drily, ‘I’m sure it does. That was quite a clout you got from that horse. Can you move your shoulder?’

  Josie tried and winced but succeeded.

  Featherstone nodded. ‘I’m sure it hurts but that’s a good sign.’

  ‘D’ye reckon she’ll be all right, Doctor?’ The question was put by the driver of the coal cart, anxiously twisting his cap in his hands.

  Featherstone said grimly, ‘I think so, but you’re damned lucky not to be answering charges over this.’ He turned back to Josie: ‘I’ve sent someone to fetch a cab. I want to take you home and have a proper look at you. Where d’you live?’

  When they arrived at the Urquharts’ house they
found one version of the story had preceded them. Betty Baynes, almost hysterical, had run home with the perambulator and told her tale through a flood of tears. ‘If it hadn’t been for Josie, me and those little lambs would ha’ been killed!’

  Featherstone examined Josie and found nothing worse than heavy bruising of her shoulder. The blow had been enough to hurl her to the ground and the fall had rendered her unconscious. ‘She was very brave. No doubt about it, she saved your nursemaid and the children.’

  He recommended that Josie should keep to her bed for a day and Geoffrey Urquhart, shaken by his beloved grandchildren’s narrow escape from death, insisted on it. Josie had time to reflect, with a shudder, that she had almost died.

  When Josie resumed her duties next day, Geoffrey Urquhart summoned her to his study and gave her a chair. Elizabeth, his wife, sat in another while he stood before the fireplace. He said, ‘I owe you a debt I can never repay. But is there anything I can do for you?’

  Josie was at a loss for a moment, but then she remembered her worry and answered, ‘I’d be grateful if you’d keep me on, sir.’

  Urquhart knew nothing of Mrs Stritch’s tyrannical rule and machinations. Startled, he said, ‘Of course we’re keeping you on. What made you think we were not?’

  Josie stumbled over her words. ‘I thought – Mrs Stritch thinks I’m not giving satisfaction, sir.’

  Urquhart glanced at his wife. ‘You’d better have a word with Mrs Stritch.’ Then to Josie, ‘You don’t need to worry about that. Now, if you haven’t any other request—?’ He paused.

  Josie shook her head. ‘No, sir.’ And she was about to rise, thinking that was the end of it.

  But Urquhart went on, ‘Well, Mrs Urquhart and I have talked it over and we propose appointing you to take over the care of the children when Betty leaves to be married in two weeks’ time. How do you feel about that?’

  Josie smiled with relief and delight. ‘That would be lovely, sir.’

  That night before she slept Josie marvelled at her luck. She did not realise that she was favoured not by fortune but because of her own efforts. The Urquharts knew her too well and would never have agreed to her dismissal, and they had already determined to offer her the post of nursemaid; Josie’s saving the lives of the children had only brought forward the interview by a day or two.

  Josie was happy – and less inclined than ever to venture into the North Country, to the house of the fearsome William Langley to demand an inheritance that did not attract her. She had not forgotten Peggy Langley’s injunction, but to Josie’s mind the Langley family were nothing to her and had nothing for her. And as if to hammer home the message, that night she dreamed of the giant looming black against the light and roaring his rage. She woke, crying out, and it was some time before she sank into sleep again.

  7

  London, April 1907

  ‘Hey! Hello – Josie?’ The tall young sailor was in bell-bottom trousers and the linen collar outside his jumper had been washed until it was a pale blue. He was not sure as he confronted her. And Josie was uncertain of him. She blinked in the sunlight of a warm spring day. There was something about his eyes, his grin – but she was used to tentative approaches by young men as she took the Urquhart grandchildren for their walk. She held their hands, ready to edge around this sailor, but hesitated. The river of other strollers in Hyde Park washed around the little island they made. He went on, ‘It is, isn’t it, miss? Josie – I forget your second name now, but it was at Hallburgh Hall.’

  She supplied, ‘Josie Langley.’ And now at the mention of the Hall she recalled the boy who had grown into the young man before her. ‘And you’re Bob Miller.’

  He grinned delightedly. ‘That’s right. I thought I knew your face. O’ course, it’s been – how long? Over ten years?’

  ‘More like fifteen.’ Josie smiled in response to his grin. ‘I was about eight then.’ And she was twenty-three now, slender and long-legged, with hair glinting coppery in the sunlight.

  ‘That’s right,’ Bob agreed. ‘I was ten when my old man moved up to Yorkshire to work with his brother, my uncle.’

  ‘And you said you were going to be a sailor.’ She thought he looked fine in his uniform. The cap hid most of the shock of yellow hair but there was no concealing the bright, blue eyes.

  ‘Joined when I was seventeen,’ Bob replied absently, still amazed at how his childhood friend had grown into this pretty girl, neat and attractive in her nursemaid’s grey dress and white apron. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I work in the Urquhart house. My mam wanted me with her when I left school – and I wanted to be with her. So I started working for the Urquharts and I’ve been there ever since.’

  ‘How is your mother?’ asked Bob, and commiserated when Josie told him of Peggy’s death. He said, ‘My father died three years back and his brother went the year before. My mum didn’t have any relatives left but me so she moved down here and found a little house in Lambeth.’

  They examined each other shyly as they talked. They made a handsome couple, the tall, tanned, good-looking young man and the slender, smiling girl. But the children, Hugh in his sailor suit and Louise in her cotton dress, had become restless. So they all walked, Bob and Josie talking until they paused to listen to the oompah-oompah of a little German band, then went on. When it was time for Josie to go home Bob lifted a finger to his cap in salute – and they agreed to meet again.

  Over the next weeks they met whenever Josie had a half-day, or a few hours off – and Bob could get shore leave from his cruiser, which was being refitted in Chatham dockyard. They visited the zoo, and the museums when it rained, but mostly they walked, talked and laughed. Until one Sunday he took Josie home to meet his mother and to have tea. Dorothy Miller was obviously delighted with the girl. Then a week or so later Josie chanced to mention that she had given up her half-day one week, to cover for a girl who was not well, and so would have a full day off the following week.

  Bob said, ‘Here, tell you what, how about a run down to the Hall? It would be a day out and we could see how the old place looks now.’

  Josie knew how it looked because she went there every year when the Urquhart family visited. But she could see how eager Bob was and so she only laughed and protested, ‘All that way?’

  ‘It will only take an hour on the train – or less.’ And Bob pressed her, ‘My treat.’

  ‘Have you come into a fortune, then?’ Josie teased him, but wondering, because sailors were only paid a few shillings a week.

  Bob shrugged that off: ‘I’ve done some long cruises and I’ve got some money saved. Don’t you worry. Well?’

  Josie would never have considered going unchaperoned into the country with a young man but this was Bob, the friend of her childhood, and she gave no thought to propriety.

  So they left Waterloo on a blazing June day. After a fast journey by train, and a slow one on a country bus, they walked the last miles to the Hall. They did not enter by the main gates where the keeper lived in his lodge. Instead they passed into the grounds through a farmer’s field, where black-and-white cows followed them, curious. They also took care to keep out of sight of the house and they did not see another soul.

  It was noon when they arrived at the pool. Bob had removed his woollen jumper after leaving the bus to walk in his ‘flannel’, the short-sleeved sailor’s shirt. Josie, in a crisp, white blouse and wide straw hat, was still too hot. She had brought a light lunch of sandwiches for both of them, with a bottle of beer for Bob and ginger beer for herself. She laid the bottles in the pool to cool.

  ‘It’s just like that last summer.’ She took off her hat and set it aside.

  ‘It’s all o’ that.’ Bob wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and gazed yearningly at the pool, its surface moving slowly, eddying as the stream ran through it. ‘I could do with a swim now but I haven’t got a costume.’

  ‘That didn’t stop you before,’ Josie challenged. ‘You’re scared.’

/>   ‘So are you,’ countered Bob.

  They laughed as they remembered that time when as children they had bathed naked. Then they were suddenly shy and Josie remembered that this was not just her childhood friend but a virile young man. She looked away and said, ‘Yes, I am.’

  They laughed again then, and settled for paddling.

  Lunch was eaten in the shade by the pool and both dozed for a while in the heat of the day. When Josie woke she found Bob watching her. She smiled at him and he came to her and kissed her. He whispered, ‘My ship’s bound for the Med in October. Will you marry me, Josie? Please?’

  ‘Oh, Bob.’ Josie clung to him. ‘Yes.’ She knew how she was going to miss him. ‘Yes.’ And she responded to his caresses on that warm summer evening, because she loved him and they were as good as married, riding with him on a tide of passion.

  Bob bought Josie a ring that took most of his small savings. They planned a wedding in September but he came to the back door of the Urquhart house one evening in early August. Josie hurried him away into another doorway, out of sight of the house or prying eyes. ‘I told you not to come here, Bob. We’re not allowed “followers” hanging about.’

  ‘I’m not hanging about. I just had to see you. The ship’s sailing early. Not for the Med, this is just a shake-down cruise after coming out of the dockyard. I’ll only be away a few weeks, but I don’t know exactly when I’ll be back for the wedding.’

  Josie peered at his gloomy face. ‘Well, we’ll just have to postpone it.’ She was miserable but saw he needed cheering, and he was the one going to sea. So she tucked her arm through his and told him, ‘I’ve got a half-hour or so. I’ll see you on your way.’ She saw him on to his train to Chatham, where his ship was lying, kissed him and told him, ‘I love you.’