That seemed to trigger a thought as she refreshed his cup of tea. ‘Oh, you must visit the Rowntree’s factory while you’re here. Just about everyone in York works in one of the chocolate or confectionery factories. York and our chocolate factories were very important to the troops, you know. We sent over two special Christmas tins, as I understand it – hope you received yours?’
‘I did,’ he assured, ‘and I’ll certainly take a look at the factory.’ Maybe he could find Kitty easily enough that way.
Despite the guilt of unfinished food on his plate when there were people probably starving, he took his chance and slipped away, taking the steps two at a time to get to his room on the third floor. He retrieved Tom’s belongings and made his way back down to the guesthouse’s reception counter.
‘Good morning, Captain Blake,’ the owner, Mrs Potter, greeted him. ‘I hope you slept well?’
‘I don’t believe I’ve had a more peaceful night in many years. Er, Mrs Potter, I’m a civilian now and very glad to go by the simple title of Mister, if you don’t mind.’ He could see her surprise erupting. ‘This is only about me trying to leave behind unnecessary reminders of the war,’ he explained.
‘I understand, sir, of course.’
Harry could tell she didn’t comprehend and perhaps she was used to older men insisting on being addressed by their rank.
He shifted topics. ‘I have to visit someone in York. The address is Eldon Street. Can I walk there?’
‘Eldon Street?’ She searched her memory. She stopped young Jimmy, passing carrying suitcases. ‘Jimmy, have you heard of Eldon Street?’
‘It’s up by the institute. You know, in Paynleys, near St Thomas’s.’
The nose twisted. ‘Ah, yes. Thank you.’ She returned her gaze to Harry. ‘It’s not a very salubrious area, Mr Blake. There’s that saying,’ she said, pursing her lips as though thinking of something distasteful, ‘the rich man in his castle prefers not to have the poor man at his gate.’ There was a question lingering in her gaze and he took a moment to decide how to answer it.
‘Better to take a hackney, then? Although I fancy stretching my legs.’
‘Too far to walk, sir. It’s still part of the slum . . . er, an area of chronic poverty but, to be fair, it’s perhaps more a working-class area these days. There’s talk of changing the name to The Groves. Um, is this —’
Harry pretended not to hear the query coming and spoke across her. ‘Could Jimmy order me a cab, please?’
‘Of course. Jimmy!’ The lad reappeared, rosy-cheeked and eager. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen. ‘A hackney for Mr Blake, please.’ Jimmy sped off again outside the main doors. ‘He’s a good boy.’ She smiled. ‘Irish – his family originally from Dublin, I gather, but the famine sent them all scurrying for Northern England. Comes from the slums at Walmgate. Jimmy was orphaned, along with a host of sisters and brothers. His father was killed early on in the war and Jimmy lied about his age and tried to join up so he could send his wages home, but the army had got wise to boys lying about their ages. Then his mother died just before Christmas.’
Harry blinked, disconcerted by the easy way she exchanged this information.
‘They’re all living with an aunt now but she’s got plenty of her own, as I understand it. I gave Jimmy a job out of the goodness of my heart.’ She gave a sigh as if it were all too much for her mind to deal with.
He diverted her to another topic. ‘Mrs Potter, your waitress suggested I visit the chocolate factory. How would I go about that?’
‘Ah, well, Mr Blake, there are proper tours you can take. It’s quite splendid, I hear, with lots of special and clever machinery. You even get a bag of samples to take away with you.’
‘Sounds most agreeable,’ he admitted, a plan beginning to formulate. ‘So I just turn up at the factory?’
‘I think they run on the hour . . . something like that.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Potter. See you this evening.’
‘Enjoy your day, sir.’
Outside Jimmy had hailed a cab that was just arriving. He tipped his cap to Harry, who then pushed ten shillings into the boy’s hand. ‘Jimmy,’ he said as the cab arrived and he stared firmly into the lad’s shocked expression, ‘if you breathe a word of what I’ve just given you, I will hunt you down. Do you understand?’
Jimmy nodded, his mouth slackening, still shocked at the small fortune in his fist. ‘On my mother’s grave, sir.’ He stared back at Harry from a gaunt face.
‘You and I will never speak of this again,’ Harry added. ‘Eldon Street, Paynleys, please, driver.’
__________
The area of the neighbourhood known as Paynleys was networked by tiny streets that were too narrow for the carriage to enter but the driver pointed Harry in the right direction as he pocketed the fare.
‘Thank you, sir. Follow your nose but keep bearing left; can’t miss it.’
Harry nodded.
‘This whole area is believed to be built on the site of the Roman praetorium, you know,’ the man added with a misty look of awe. ‘City’s gates many centuries ago would have connected with this pathway.’
From the little he’d seen on the journey out of the walled city, the whole of York was laden with colourful history. The man who drove him to his guesthouse had been chattering about the Viking invasion of 866, which was deliberately chosen to clash with All Saints’ Day; York was a living museum and its folk were proud to share it.
He lifted a hand in farewell as he turned to face this new working-class enclave. It sat outside the city’s walls but not far from the Minster, within tightly knit rows of terraced red-brick houses. He was in no hurry and began a stroll. Some children running with a yapping dog at their heels passed him and he asked for directions; the eldest pointed over her shoulder. He kept walking, knowing he’d have to come to it sooner or later. He hadn’t rehearsed what to say to Rose, preferring to face her and simply be honest about his mission. It had not occurred to him until now as he found himself surrounded by long rows of identical houses with puffing chimneys and twitching net curtains that Rose might turn him away. Surely not? Then what? He checked his pockets to ensure he had a pen and pad on him.
Harry doubled back a few times, asking his way once more until he stood before a humble house, no front garden, no path. Its door opened onto the street but the step was freshly swept and blackened.
He tapped on the doorknocker and waited.
‘Who is it?’ It was a woman’s voice. She didn’t sound frail but she did sound suspicious.
‘Is that Mrs Fletcher?’
‘I asked who you were. I don’t have to answer your questions.’
He stifled a smile. ‘I’m Harry Blake. I’m here about your son, Tom.’
The door opened a crack and Harry could see a woman with curlers covered by a hair net. She wore an apron, from what he could tell. Harry stepped back to show Rose that she was not under any threat from him. ‘I already know he’s dead. Got the telegram years back,’ she snapped. ‘They’re both dead – him and his brother. Never found either of them, though.’
He nodded. ‘I’m the soldier who has found your Tom, Mrs Fletcher.’
‘Found him? My boy’s alive?’ she quavered with awed wonder but then her gaze narrowed at his grave expression.
‘We found his remains,’ he qualified. There was no way to soften the news.
Her tone turned accusatory. ‘What d’you want with me, then? There’d be nothing left of my boy now.’
Harry admired her logic as much as her stoicism; here was a woman resigned to living out her days alone. ‘I realise this is unusual but I thought it might bring some comfort if you met me.’
‘Why?’ She’d become sullen.
She was making him earn it as he began to question the wisdom of his decision. ‘Well, I thought it might help if I brought you Tom’s things . . . er, the items that he carried on him,’ he said, holding up the pathetically small kerchief that represented her
son. He watched the woman blink, sizing him up. Harry shrugged. ‘I don’t want anything from you, Mrs Fletcher. I can hand these to you through the door and be on my way. It was not my intention to upset you. I wanted to do a good turn, that’s all.’
‘Guilty conscience?’
He looked back at her, astonished. ‘No, not really.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I don’t feel guilt,’ he lied, ‘certainly embarrassment that this wasn’t such a good idea, and I’m sorry I’ve disturbed you.’
‘You sound like a southerner. Very posh too.’
‘I’m from London.’
The door widened slightly, as did her eyes. ‘You’ve come all the way from London to see me?’
He nodded. ‘And then I’ll go back,’ he replied.
‘Were you in Tom’s regiment?’
He shook his head, feeling ridiculous. ‘Captain in the London 20th.’
‘What’s his regiment, by the way?’ she added, suspicious again.
He gave it to her, including Tom’s rank as sergeant and where he was based. He waited while she looked him up and down again.
‘Well, I’ve just put the kettle on. You might as well come in and have a cup of tea and bring that stuff with you.’ She opened the door fully and the smell of boiling cabbage buffeted Harry as he crossed her threshold into a dark hallway.
He offered a hand. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Mrs Fletcher.’
‘You can call me Rose, if you wish,’ she said, taking his hand briefly before she gestured to another door.
The sitting room was tiny and a coal fire guttered as she shooed a cat off one of the three armchairs and offered him that seat as the kettle began a shrill whistle from the kitchen.
‘I’ll be right back,’ Rose said. ‘Timmy will want to sit on your lap but you just tell him no,’ she warned, eyeing the tabby from where it now sat on the rug, the tip of its tail thumping the ground rhythmically as though it were taking stock of the situation.
The cat then curled up in front of the fire, seemingly asleep, but its tail continued to drum silently, not at all relaxed.
Rose reappeared with a small tray. ‘I can’t offer you a slice of cake, I’m afraid, Captain Blake.’
‘A tea will be lovely, thank you. Please call me Harry. We’re all civilians now.’
‘Don’t you have the finest manners?’ she remarked. ‘I’m not used to such posh gentlemen in my house.’
Harry blinked, unsure how to respond.
‘I’ve had to take in lodgers, you see, since the boys . . .’ Rose explained, her voice trailing off on that thought. ‘I’ve got two gents in lodgings upstairs. They’re attending the Church of England teacher training college, both in their second year,’ she said proudly. ‘And I’ve got a lecturer as a permanent boarder. He’s one of the teachers. He helped my Tom to learn his reading and writing. It’s why he was so advanced and was able to pass the office exam into the Corporation Council, who accepted him in at fourteen as a junior office boy. He was taken into the city library for a while and had hopes to train as a teacher, maybe go abroad as a missionary, but he felt the call of soldiering once his brother died.’
While waiting he’d calculated there could only be three bedrooms in this tiny dwelling. ‘Where’s your room?’ he frowned, his curiosity out before he could censor himself.
‘I make do, Mr Blake. I sleep out the back in the parlour on a put-up bed. It’s been enough since Mr Fletcher passed away. We all have to make ends meet these days.’ She sounded defensive and Harry wondered if she’d been criticised for taking in paying guests.
He watched in amusement as she turned the teapot in an anticlockwise direction. Perhaps it was a northern ritual, for he’d never seen this performed at home. ‘Three times widdershins, as my mother used to say,’ she muttered, noting his interest. ‘It’s brewed now. Do you take milk and sugar?’
Again the defensive note; she was surely on rations. ‘Er, just a dash of milk is fine, thank you.’ Sugar had been a luxury in the trenches and much as he relished the taste, he’d become accustomed to tea without it.
She talked proudly as she poured. ‘I give my lodgers breakfast and dinner and I pack up sandwiches for their midday meal. I wash, iron, mend clothes, turn shirt collars and cuffs as needed too. I don’t charge much so the work is regular. If you need anything doing, sir, I’ll be happy to do any repair work.’
He smiled. ‘I didn’t bring enough with me.’
‘No, and it doesn’t look like those need repairing, either,’ she said, nodding at his clothes. ‘I was a seamstress in my day and that suit looks new – straight out of Savile Row, I suspect.’
He felt the colour rising to his cheeks and preferred not to respond. ‘Rose, I brought you these from a battlefield not far from Fromelles.’ He handed her the bag of Tom’s items in exchange for his cup and saucer.
‘I know that’s in Northern France. My Tom had written to me from there. So they’ve dug my son up, is that right? I’m presuming he was buried under all that mud we read and heard about?’
Harry blinked at her directness. He explained about the sweep through the region, clearing the towns and villages of any remaining German troops. ‘There was a hole in the ground, for want of a better word. I think Tom was killed by a shelling; he was in that area at a time of fierce fighting. I’m presuming they couldn’t retrieve the fallen at the time and then those who’d been killed were indeed buried under collapsing trenches and the like. From what I can tell – and I suspect the army will need to confirm all of this – Tom may have been in some sort of reconnaissance party. We used to send them out into no-man’s-land at night, to check on barricades or even to bring back wounded.’ Harry watched her untie the loose knots of the kerchief. ‘There’s a couple of rounds in there that I found clutched in Tom’s left hand. They’re German. I can’t tell you why but maybe he was bringing those back for headquarters to examine.’ He shrugged. ‘All guesswork, I’m afraid, at this stage. But your son was found some way from the main bulk of the party that had presumably gone over the top. I think Tom might have been on a particular mission.’
‘How did he look?’
‘Peaceful,’ Harry lied, swiftly and easily.
‘That’s good. No suffering, then?’ She eyed him. ‘Tell me again why you’re here, in a suit, not calling yourself anything official?’
She was sharp; he’d give Rose that much. He explained about his brother.
‘I remain hopeful they’ll find Ed and someone comes knocking at our door with something of his . . . I feel it would help us to finally let him go.’
Rose nodded. ‘So my Tom reminds you of your brother?’
‘In a roundabout and sort of spiritual way, yes, he does.’ He sipped his tea, understanding now from that single swallow that Yorkshire women surely made the best brew in the country. Rose eyed him as though she didn’t know what to fully make of the odd stranger, talking of spiritual connections and dead brothers in relation to her son. He sensed she was far too pragmatic to entertain his romantic notions.
‘What’s this, then?’ Rose said, picking up the chocolate tin. Her pink curlers matched her apron, Harry realised, and he felt a pang of sorrow for this plucky woman.
He explained what he knew, adding, ‘The chocolate’s untouched.’
She looked at him slightly misty-eyed. ‘My Tom loved chocolate. He had such a sweet tooth, I used to tell him he’d lose them all by the time he was my age. He was a good boy; while he liked the idea of teaching he always talked of being a writer, but he knew writing stories wouldn’t earn his keep.’
Harry frowned. ‘I didn’t find a diary or notebook, I’m sorry.’
She shrugged. ‘He was private about it. Wouldn’t have done me any good. I’m not much of a reader and his father could barely spell out his own name,’ she said, her mouth pinching with disgust. ‘At least his sons died giving their lives for England. Their no-good father died with his hands clutched to a bottle of whisky in some shop doorway.’
&
nbsp; ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Yes, well, we three were better off without him and his ruined liver. He used to steal my housekeeping money and the boys and I often went hungry. It’s why they both became career soldiers; did well off it until . . .’
He nodded, didn’t need her to say it. ‘The tea is delicious, thank you,’ he said, draining his cup.
‘Another?’
‘I won’t, Rose. I am very glad to have met you and given you these items. I’ll probably get into trouble for it, but that’s not your concern.’
‘So are you doing this for other families?’
‘No.’ He smiled sadly, feeling vaguely pathetic. ‘It’s hard to explain. Finding Tom caught me in an odd moment of reflection. We had the Germans on the run, we knew their surrender was inevitable, and yet I felt so defeated upon discovering your son.’
Her expression softened as all suspicion left her gaze. ‘Harry, you’re alive. I don’t hold that against you. I’ve done my grieving and I’ll do some more now that I have my boy’s things. You’ve done something very kind for a stranger. How long will you stay in the north?’ Rose asked as she stood and began leading him out of the room.
‘Pretty much straight away, although I’ll visit the Rowntree’s factory. I want to, anyway, because of Tom’s chocolate tin – I feel as though it will complete my journey. Rose, um, I was going to try to meet Kitty, tell her about finding Tom, answer any questions she might have, but I can see my presence is understandably confusing. So, perhaps you might . . .’ His voice trailed off at her frown.
‘Who’s Kitty?’
‘Kitty,’ he repeated, uselessly. ‘Um, Tom’s sweetheart?’
‘You mean here in York?’ He nodded and she shook her head. ‘Well, if he had a local girl he cared about, I’ve never heard him speak of her and I was close enough to Tom that I think he would have written to me about her. No, Tom’s great love was Annie, and she came from Burnley. He swore he’d marry her if he survived the war.’
‘There’s a fond note in his tin, though. Er, wait.’ He stepped around her and moved back into the small sitting room where the stench of the cooking cabbage was suddenly overpowering. He returned with Tom’s sack and pulled out the tin, removing the note. ‘Here, read this.’
The Chocolate Tin Page 16
