When Mrs Hughes came up to assure her that the fire in her sitting-room was lit and blazing well, she asked her landlady if Liverpool ever had any fine days.
‘Of course we do,’ Mrs Hughes assured her. ‘It’s just not such a good summer this year.’
‘Humph. My bad luck?’
Mrs Hughes looked amused, and said that if Wallace Helena liked to change her dress, she would get Violet May to press her present one dry. Although she was inquisitive and very snobbish, Mrs Hughes was not unkind, and she did not want her lodger to become seriously ill.
The younger woman hastily unhooked herself and handed the garment to her.
‘You’d better change your petticoat as well,’ the landlady advised, as she noticed the wet mud along its hem.
Dressed in a white blouse and a black skirt, Wallace Helena went down to her sitting-room and was grateful for the warmth of the fire in the wrought-iron fireplace.
Violet May knocked at the door and brought in a tea tray. The mistress says to have a cuppa, while you’re waiting on dinner,’ she announced, as she put it on a table by Wallace Helena’s chair. She wiped her big red hands on her apron, and asked, ‘Will I pour it for you, Miss?’
Thank you, Violet May.’
Wallace Helena felt inside her placket pocket and brought out a packet of Turkish cigarettes. Alfie had brought them to her that morning, after she had complained that, with such a cold, she could not taste the cigarellos she had formed the habit of smoking. ‘You might like to try ’em, Missus,’ he said. ‘They got a real, strong scent’
Violet May watched, pop-eyed, as Wallace Helena put a cigarette in her mouth, took a spill from a brass container in the hearth and lit it from the fire. She put the light to the cigarette, then leaned back in her chair and exhaled a stream of smoke.
Suddenly remembering her duties, Violet May drained the contents of the teapot into the flowered cup. As she leaned over to put the tea closer to Wallace Helena, she whispered conspiratorially, ‘The Missus isn’t goin’ to like the smell of smoke, Miss; the Master always smoked ’is pipe in the back room. She sniffed around the other day, when she come in here. We thought as a heavy-smoking man might’ve called on yez from the works, and the smell of smoke on ’is clothes ‘ad spread into the room. But I really knowed it was you, Miss, ’cos your clothes always smells of smoke when I irons them.’
With an amused glint in her eye, Wallace Helena turned to look at the girl. ‘I never thought of it troubling Mrs Hughes, Violet May; I’m so used to smoking.’ She looked careworn as she added, ‘I simply have to have a cigarette tonight – I’m so tired. What shall I do, Violet May? She won’t want me smoking upstairs in the bedroom.’
As Violet May handed Wallace Helena the sugar bowl, she swallowed uncomfortably. She knew the mistress needed the money from her lodger; she’d been proper hard up since the old man died. She rubbed her hands on her grubby white apron, and said hopefully, ‘What if I open the window by you and then one of the bay windows? That’ll make a cross-draught and clear some of it.’ She looked anxiously round the room, and then added with a mischievous grin, ‘I can shake up the bowl of potpourri on the table – real nice, it smells – it’d help to drown the smoke a bit.’
Wallace Helena laughed, and agreed. So she sat in the cool draught and enjoyed her cigarette with her tea.
‘There’s a letter for you,’ Violet May told her, as she was going out of the door. ‘It’s on the hall stand. Will I bring it to yez?’
The weary woman in the chair sat up straight, flicked ash into the fire, and replied with alacrity, ‘Please do.’
In his scrawling handwriting, the despair of the priest who had taught him, Joe reported the flattening of the oats in a brief hailstorm just before harvesting. The crop would be good only for animal feed. He had also lost a sheep, he thought to a cougar; there were certainly cougar tracks near the fold. He had been trying to track it down. The sheep were more trouble than they were worth and, if she wanted to raise a big flock, she’d better bring a shepherd from Britain – and a trained dog. ‘It’s another mouth to feed,’ he noted sourly. ‘You should think about that.’
Though he signed the letter with love, the tone of it was unusually testy. She put this down to the loss of the oat crop; it did not occur to her that her letters to him had been full of the men she had met, the charms of the city, the money that might be made out of the soapery. Joe was feeling more than a twinge of jealousy and had already begun to worry that she might not return.
With the idea of raising money for more modem farm implements to take back to Canada, she had brought with her the last of her mother’s necklaces and three rings to sell. She thought it highly likely that she could get a much better price for them in a sophisticated city, where they might be regarded as exquisite workmanship rather than so many ounces of gold and a number of stones.
Now, she began to fret that she and Joe might need any money she got for the jewellery, to supplement their living expenses the following winter; even if they agreed to sell the homestead, it would take time, and they would have to live through the winter.
The cost of her trip to England, with its concomitant need for respectable clothing, had drained the cash she had saved in her mother’s trunk. Mr Benson had lent her funds against the Estate to cover her current living expenses. It was worrying, however, to draw money from the Estate, when the soapery would obviously need further investment in modern equipment, if the various staff she had talked to were to be believed.
Should she sell the Lady Lavender to help sustain the farm? Or persuade Joe that they should sell up in order to get investment funds for the soapery?
But would Joe even consider coming to England? She had asked him in a letter to which she had not yet had a reply.
The thought of Joe in a business suit and a top hat made her giggle. Yet you never knew with people. He sometimes complained that he was sick of winters; he might seriously consider her suggestion, particularly if they could buy some land near Liverpool – he might enjoy that. And she could run the soap works.
Round and round in her head went her longing to live in a civilized place – and have Joe, too. Alfie’s sad face floated before her. Would Liverpool crush Joe like that? She thought not; Joe was much, much tougher – but it could be a fight.
She had another bad night
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In comparison with Mr Benson’s elegant home in Falkner Square, Eleanor Al-Khoury’s house seemed small and dark. Dark green linoleum polished to a high gloss covered the narrow entrance, the hall and the stairs. Near the front door stood a branched wooden hatstand on which Eleanor hung Wallace Helena’s shawl and hat.
Eleanor’s sleeves were rolled up, to expose plump mottled arms, and she wore over her dress a large white bibbed pinafore. Over the pinafore was wrapped a thick striped cotton apron.
‘Come in. Come in,’ she cried hospitably to Wallace Helena. ‘How’s your cold?’
As she was ushered down the hall to the back of the house, Wallace Helena replied that the cold was not much better. ‘It’ll go away soon, no doubt.’ In fact, her chest felt badly congested and she had coughed steadily during the night.
‘This is me kitchen-living-room,’ Eleanor told her, as they entered a pleasant, cosy room with a big window facing a back yard. Under the window was a yellow sink with two shining brass taps, and beside it a wooden drain board. A large iron stove took up most of one wall; it had two ovens at one side and the fire was big enough to hold two iron kettles side by side. From the ovens came a distinct odour of mutton being stewed. A steel fender protected the hearth.
Against another wall was a table covered by a dark red chenille cloth which reached to the floor. A vase filled with dried flowers stood in the middle of it. Three dining chairs were tucked round the sides of the table, and much of the rest of the room was taken up by two easy chairs on either side of the fireplace. Over the mantelpiece hung two large amateur watercolours in mahogany fr
ames, which Wallace Helena supposed were portraits of Eleanor’s parents. Two small photographs in metal frames stood on the mantelpiece and immediately drew Wallace Helena’s attention. ‘Why, that’s Uncle James!’ she exclaimed, touching the unsmiling face with her finger. ‘And this must be Benji when he was a little boy – in a sailor suit!’
Eleanor came to stand by her. ‘Oh, aye,’ she agreed. ‘I got a nicer one of Jamie in me bedroom. Took about four years ago. I told him I wanted one of him smiling for me birthday – ’cos it were natural to ’im to smile and laugh a lot I must’ve had a feelin’ he wouldn’t be with me that long.’ She gave a long sobbing sigh, and turned away without saying anything about Benji’s picture. ‘Come and sit down, luv.’ She gestured to one of the easy chairs, and Wallace Helena obediently sank into the collection of patchwork cushions which nearly filled it. ‘I were just goin’ to slice me soap for the boiler when you come. If you don’t mind, I’ll finish it afore we have a cuppa.’
Wallace Helena said she should go ahead exactly as she usually would. She remarked that she thought the picture of Benji was delightful. They talked desultorily about the peccadilloes of little boys, while Eleanor spread a piece of newspaper on the table and proceeded to shred up a bar of soap.
‘What are you going to do with that?’ Wallace Helena asked.
‘I’ll put ’em in the hot water in me boiler downstairs, and they’ll melt. Then I’ll put the clothes in and boil ’em. Then I’ll scrub the clothes on me washboard and rinse ’em. I’m hoping it won’t rain today, so as I can hang ’em in the yard to dry.’
‘A lot of work,’ Wallace Helena said.
‘Oh, aye. Me gentlemen keep me busy. I got three, and then there’s Benji. It makes a lot of shirts and sheets. I’m ironin’ most of Tuesday.’
‘Gentlemen?’ queried Wallace Helena.
‘Yes. I do for three gents. One has a bedroom and the front parlour, and the other two is younger and they have a bed-sitter each. I make a bit on them to keep the house goin’, like. Our Benji’s real good. Ever since his dad died he give me housekeeping in addition to the bit he always gave me for his own food. But letting the rooms makes it easier to manage.’
‘Do you cook for them?’
‘Oh, yes. Bed, board and laundry is what they get.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘I look for decent young fellas, and they often stay with me till they get married. Of course, I gave up for a good many years, ’cos Jamie were doing well and there were no need. But I’ve bin real thankful these last few months that I had the house and could go back to takin’ gentlemen.’
‘I’m sure you have.’ Wallace Helena’s voice was sympathetic; looking at the worn face and roughened hands of the woman at the table, she felt a sense of guilt.
The sliced-up soap smelt awful, and Wallace Helena was reminded that Mr Lever was putting citronella into his bar soap to drown its natural odour. Two can play at that game, she considered grimly. Perhaps they should put a splash of lavender into the soap she was responsible for. She made a mental note to talk to Benji about it
‘Do you get free soap from the Lady Lavender, since Benji works for us?’ she asked. It was a loaded question.
Eleanor answered innocently, ‘Well, you know, there’s lots of bars as don’t get cut quite neat; or they get dropped on the floor, so they look dirty. But it’s still decent soap. So the men take it home to their wives. Benji brings me a bit regular.’
‘I see.’ Wallace Helena sounded so noncommittal that Eleanor paused in her slicing to look up at her. ‘It goes with the job,’ she said a little defensively.
‘I understand.’ Wallace Helena made another mental note; this time to check on theft, which she had felt from her quick checks on the inventories might be more widespread than was tolerable. She would have to walk lightly, because she saw the common sense of allowing the men to have stuff which was definitely unsaleable. It was possible that the Cutting and Stamping Room was being deliberately careless. In slums even faulty soap could be sold; all kinds of goods had been available in the back streets of Chicago, she remembered grimly.
Eleanor was again giving her attention to the soap. She hoped uneasily that she had not told Wallace Helena something that Benji would have preferred to keep from her. ‘There,’ she said, and put down her knife while she carefully gathered up the soap chips into the newspaper. ‘The water in the boiler downstairs must be hot now. Would you like to come down with me?’
Wallace Helena smiled and followed her hostess down the worn stone steps to the cellar. It had been stiflingly hot in the living-room and she hoped that the cellar would be cooler.
She found herself in a dank, windowless room lit by a kerosene lamp hanging on the wall. It was half divided by a partial wall; the furthest section held coal which gleamed faintly in the light. Nearer them, in one corner in a whitewashed area, was a steaming copper built of brick and clay; under it lay an iron grate protected by a perforated iron door; through the perforations, Wallace Helena caught a glimpse of glowing coals. The copper itself had a loose wooden lid over it Nearby were two rough wooden tables, obviously well scrubbed. On one table were several heaps of damp, wrung-out dirty clothes; through the steam Wallace Helena could smell the odour of men from them.
Eleanor took the lid off the copper and sprinkled her soap chips into the heaving water. ‘I always add a bit of soda,’ she said, as she picked up an old earthenware marmalade jar and poured a little of its contents into the water. She then stirred the water with a pair of wooden tongs. She picked up a pile of white shirts and dropped them in, stirring them around and lifting them up with the tongs until they were thoroughly wet.
‘There, now,’ she said cheerfully, ‘we can leave that for a bit, and go and have a cup of tea.’
‘Will they come out nice and white?’ asked Wallace Helena, in an effort to make conversation.
‘By the time I’ve finished, they will,’ Eleanor assured her. ‘I’ll put bleach in the second rinse. Then I rinse ’em again with blueing. And finally I rinse that out. With me sheets and tablecloths, I don’t scrub ’em; I put them in this tin bath and I dolly ’em, after I’ve boiled ’em. Give ’em a couple of rinses, dollying them again, and that’s it. I put everything through the mangle in the yard, before I hang it out – gets rid of any dirty water in it, better’n hand-wringing.’
Since Wallace Helena had never seen a dolly or a mangle, she was gravely introduced to the dolly in the corner of the cellar. It looked to her like a three-legged stool attached to a spade handle, and Eleanor showed her how she lifted it up and down and half twisted it to pound dirt out of a bath of clothes. The mangle standing in the yard seemed quite new. It had two heavy wooden rollers, but the rest of it was iron and was beginning to rust. ‘Benji keeps the wheels oiled for me, but I’ve got to watch I don’t get the grease on me clothes. He sometimes turns the mangle for me, if he can get home for lunch on Mondays, ’cos it’s heavy work – though not so hard as hand-wringing sheets.’
Wallace Helena thought of the fast, perfunctory wash done on her farm, and asked, ’is it necessary to work so hard?’
Eleanor looked at her as if she had queried the existence of God. ‘Oh, aye,’ she affirmed without hesitation. The clothes get filthy in the town, and my gentlemen work in offices or shops, so they have to be well turned out Mr Jenkins wot has the ground-floor front changes ’is collar twice a day – not that I do ’is collars – I send ’em out to a woman wot does nothin’ else.’
‘It must take you all day to do so much.’
Eleanor sighed, and then said with a wry grin, ‘It does. I put everything to soak the night before, and I were up at half past five this mornin’ to get the boiler lit and the first load in afore I started breakfast for me gentlemen. And afore I go to bed tonight I’ll get Benji to help me pull and fold me sheets and tablecloths ready for ironing. And I’ll use the nice soapy water from the copper to scrub the kitchen and the bathroom floors.’
Wallace Helena glanced down at the kit
chen-living-room floor; it was made of stone flags and had rag rugs under the table and near the fireplace. She decided she preferred to have to work outside, despite bitter winters or broiling sun. Her respect for Eleanor grew, as she realized the appalling amount of work the woman did.
She was grateful for a strong cup of tea and a piece of pound cake before she left. ‘I do me cakes and pies on Fridays,’ Eleanor confided. ‘I used to bake me own bread when Jamie was alive, but lately I haven’t had the heart, so I buy it.’
As the two women were going down the passage to the front door, and Wallace Helena reached for her hat, Eleanor said, ‘You should take a mangle and dolly back to Canada with you, when you go. They’d save you a lot of work.’
Wallace Helena nodded. It was possible that by now she could obtain such worksavers in western Canada; the railway had suddenly made everything possible. She answered Eleanor circumspectly, though with a smile. ‘I haven’t yet decided whether to go back to Canada or not. I may stay here.’ She was anxious that any idea that she must sell the soapery be dispelled; such gossip would not improve the price she would get if she did have to part with it.
Eleanor looked taken aback. ‘What you goin’ to do with it? You couldn’t run it yourself.’
‘I believe I could.’
‘But you’re a woman!’
‘Women can do anything they set their minds to.’
‘Well, I nevaire!’ Then Eleanor’s eyes twinkled. ‘Good thing your uncle can’t hear you.’ Then she looked sad. ‘He didn’t like women going to work.’
‘I wonder if he believed they didn’t work at home? You work crushingly hard.’
‘I don’t know, luv.’ She picked up Wallace Helena’s shawl and wrapped it round her shoulders. ‘Now, you take care of yourself, luv, with that cold. You’ve coughed quite a bit this morning; you should stay home today.’
The Lemon Tree Page 21
