Yew Tree Gardens

by Anna Jacobs

  When no reply had arrived after three days, Renie wrote again, and this time she did hear from her sister, explaining what had happened and how Cliff had destroyed the letter and address. She was furious to think her brother-in-law had thrown her letter in the fire and not for the first time wished poor Nell hadn’t had to marry Cliff.

  Nell hadn’t said whether Cliff was angry about Renie leaving, but he must have been, and he’d have taken it out on his wife.

  But there was nothing she could do about her sister’s situation except make sure she was never a burden to Nell, let alone in Cliff’s power. And she’d never, ever let either of her sisters down by misbehaving. Mattie had taught them both the right way to behave and why Nell had given herself to Cliff out of wedlock still puzzled Renie. But that wasn’t something you could ask about, certainly not in a letter that he might get his hands on.

  She was missing little Sarah as well as her sister. That child was such a little love.

  Renie had never even been inside a big hotel like this one. The King’s Head in Rochdale, bought when the Carlings were just starting up, apparently, was nothing to this place. She felt very ignorant during her first few weeks there, but with temporary staff around, hired just for the festive season, she wasn’t the only one needing to ask her way, so at least she didn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

  Gil refused to join his family in London for Christmas and Walter couldn’t change his mind, whatever he said or did. Gil didn’t share his family’s love of the social whirl. He preferred a quieter life in the country.

  Mrs Rycroft came down to see her youngest son one day, staying overnight, but she had to rush back to London for a ball the following evening.

  She made time to speak to Walter. ‘He’s very depressed, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I do my best, but he’s had to face some big changes, and he was never an indoor lad.’

  ‘No. If you need anything, think of anything we can send, just let me know.’

  ‘I will, ma’am.’

  He watched her go, wishing they’d insisted on Gil joining them in London.

  It was going to be a very quiet Christmas.

  The Rathleigh was almost completely booked out for Christmas, and there were parties held in several of the big private dining rooms every evening.

  The female waitresses, normally kept away from serving dinner, had to work in the evenings as well, but they were paid extra for it, so Renie didn’t mind. Of course, she was too junior to actually wait on the posh customers who dined there, but she fetched and carried for the waiters, watching wide-eyed as beautiful women in clothes such as she’d never seen before were shown to their seats.

  ‘Look at that one,’ Daff hissed as she passed, carrying a steaming tureen of vegetables.

  Renie tried not to stare. She wasn’t sure what she thought about peg-top skirts, whose material was bulky and pleated round the hips, then narrowed as it crossed at the front in two panels. It left a ‘V’ bare near the feet, fully revealing not only the ankles but the lower legs in their silk stockings. Some people thought that was shocking, but at least this lady had neat ankles.

  ‘Look how low that neckline over there is,’ she whispered to Daff when their paths next crossed. ‘It’s not respectable. My sister would have a fit if I wore something like that.’

  ‘I’ve seen lower necklines. She looks pretty, though. I wish I had a tiny waist like hers.’

  The evening gowns were made in beautiful fabrics like velvet and silk, which Renie had never seen close up before. They seemed to come in more colours than the rainbow and she wished she could buy something more colourful to wear. Not silk or anything impractical, but still, a pretty, bright material would cheer you up.

  She tried to describe the clothes in her next letter to Nell, but knew she couldn’t do them justice.

  After Christmas, the big pot of tips from happy customers was divided between those who’d worked so hard to serve them.

  Mrs Tolson herself came into the women’s sitting room to speak to the women staff. ‘I’m very pleased with you all. You’ve worked hard. Mr Greaves and I have counted the tips and divided it up between you. Also, Mr Carling wishes all employees to have a small bonus, as usual, in appreciation of your hard work over the year.’

  She called out the names and women came forward one by one to receive small envelopes and to take a chocolate from a big box.

  Renie was called out last.

  ‘Irene Fuller.’

  Daff had to nudge her to remind her that this was her. She still sometimes forgot to answer to her full name.

  She peeped into the envelope, which clinked nicely, expecting shillings, and finding three guineas and some change. In addition, she had a bonus on top of her wages paid by the owners, the smallest of any member of the permanent staff, which was only fair because she was a newcomer. But still, it was an extra three shillings, because they got a two shillings bonus for each month of service.

  And the chocolate was wonderful. Even better than a Fry’s Chocolate Cream bar. She sucked it slowly to make it last.

  When Mrs Tolson had left, one of the older women said, ‘Mean devils!’

  Renie looked at her in surprise.

  ‘I mean the Carlings, young Irene. They’ve earned hundreds of pounds from our hard work and we have to be grateful for a few shillings extra. It’s the customers’ tips that have given us our real bonus.’

  ‘If you met my brother-in-law, you’d think the Carlings very generous.’ Renie spoke without thinking, but to her surprise this led to one or two other women talking about relatives who were also treated badly by their stingy husbands.

  ‘Don’t ever marry, young Irene!’ said Miss Plympton, who was in charge of the cakes in the tea shop. ‘The only way you’ll keep the money you earn is to stay single.’

  Another woman tossed her head. ‘Well, I don’t agree. My Jimmy isn’t like that and I can’t wait to get married, but we’ve agreed to wait two years so that we can save up for our furniture.’

  When the women got talking in the evenings, Renie learnt quite a lot about life.

  She didn’t join in the complaints about the Rathleigh. She’d never stopped being thankful for this job. Whatever anyone else thought of their employers, the Carlings had taken her away from the grinding poverty and constant nastiness of her life with her brother-in-law.

  She wished she could take Nell away, too. And little Sarah.

  There were so many things she hoped for, now she was in London. Who knew what would happen to her in such an exciting place? She’d taken the first step out of poverty, and would work hard to go further yet.

  1911

  Chapter Three

  After Christmas, Renie still occasionally got lost in the areas of the hotel where guests were not to be found, and got teased a lot about that. But she couldn’t help it. It was easy enough to find your way round the main part of the hotel where the guests stayed, but there were two levels of cellars below that, where employees did dirty or menial jobs, mending, cleaning, fetching and carrying coal and oil. Only they were called ‘basements’ because ‘cellar’ was considered a rather common word.

  Worst of all was going down to the lower basement, which was mainly storerooms, because there were very few people around and it gave her the shivers as her footsteps echoed on the stone paving. Once she let a door slam behind her and couldn’t open it again because the wood was damp and it had stuck fast.

  She thought she’d be trapped there for hours till someone noticed she was missing and her lamp wouldn’t last that long and she’d be alone in the dark. She nearly panicked, but fortunately she heard footsteps in the corridor and called for help. And even more fortunately, it wasn’t one of the pageboys.

  After that, she made sure to prop the doors open carefully before she went into a storeroom. It was her job and she had to do it, so she gritted her teeth and tried not to jump at strange noises, because if the pageboys found out she was afraid, they’
d make her life hell, she knew. When she had been new to the hotel, they’d played a few nasty tricks on her until Maud had had a word with them. No one would dare play tricks on Maud.

  The front cellars connected at several points with the side basement beneath the hotel’s rear wing. There was one wide passage and several narrow sets of stairs. The wing had been built later to extend the hotel and the guest rooms here were not as spacious – or as expensive – and were used mostly for guests’ servants, who had their own dining room and sitting room.

  Three worlds under one roof, she thought: guests, staff and visiting servants. And in each world there were several different groups as well, such as upper and lower servants, who didn’t sit down to eat together. It could be very confusing to a girl from the country.

  As he started to recover, Gil, who had almost lived out of doors and been very active, fretted at sitting around inside the house and wasn’t the easiest of patients.

  His mother came to see him morning and evening when she was at home, and for her he held back his frustration, but she could tell how he was feeling.

  She stopped Walter in the corridor one day to say, ‘I don’t know what we’d do without you. My husband means well and I love my son dearly, but neither of us is any use in the sickroom.’

  No wonder. The master had never bothered to get to know his children, just barked orders at them, Walter thought. Mr Rycroft might lavish money on his children, but that wasn’t the same as loving someone.

  The mistress cared for her children in the way most upper-class ladies did, from a distance. After all, Mrs Rycroft had a busy social life with her husband and they spent most of the year in London.

  A nanny had brought up their three sons, young nursemaids had played with them or taken them for walks. As he grew older Gil became mad about horses and spent a lot of time in the stables with Walter. It was a pity old Nurse had died a few years ago. She’d have been a great help just now.

  Walter left his deputy in charge of the stables, and tried to keep his lad from plunging into deepest despair.

  When Gil was allowed to get up, he had to be lifted into a wheeled chair by Walter and the nurse, because the broken arm and leg were still in plaster. Dr Laver would remove that after a month or so.

  Mr Rycroft, a stout gentleman who puffed going up stairs, had wanted to install a newfangled invention in his country house, as he had in his town house: a lift. But with no electricity in the country, this wasn’t possible.

  Gil refused point-blank to be moved to the London house, so they brought in men to carry him up and down the stairs morning and evening.

  When the plaster was cut away, Dr Laver said the bones had healed well. ‘Try walking a few steps.’

  Gil found to his horror that he couldn’t walk evenly. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It was a bad break. You’ll have to consult the specialist as to whether anything else can be done.’

  Walter had seen it before. A break that healed to leave one leg shorter than the other. He didn’t say that to Gil, but he doubted a specialist could perform a miracle.

  They’d have to wait and see. At least going to London would get the lad out of the house.

  They went up to London by train a few days later, but Gil was still limping badly and needed to use a stick. They had a compartment to themselves, and when they got out of the train, Gil avoided looking round or making eye contact with anyone.

  At the last minute Mr Rycroft was called away to an important meeting, so it was Walter who went with Gil to the specialist.

  ‘The leg’s healed well, Mr Rycroft.’

  ‘But I’m still limping,’ Gil protested.

  ‘It sometimes happens that a leg is shortened by such an accident. I’m afraid you’ll always limp, Mr Rycroft. There’s nothing that can be done unless you want to undergo a series of operations – and even then, nothing can be guaranteed. I’d not advise it in your case. The bones were badly damaged.’

  Silence, then, ‘And my arm?’ Gil scowled down at it. ‘It twitches. I can’t control that.’

  ‘I’m afraid the rough treatment you received after the accident has injured nerves in that arm. It may improve a little, but I doubt it’ll ever be fully right again.’

  There was a long silence, but Walter could see how his lad’s shoulders slumped. He knew how embarrassed Gil was by the way the arm jerked involuntarily.

  Other people weren’t always tactful about how they reacted to it, either. His mother hated to see it and couldn’t hide how she felt. His father had once or twice said sharply, ‘Can’t you control that damned arm?’

  After that interview with the specialist, there were no more tears, but there were no smiles, either. Gil limped round the country house like a white-faced ghost, spending hours staring out of the window or sitting in the summer house. He still tired quickly and retreated to his bedroom on the slightest excuse.

  The family continued to lead their normal life, spending most of their time in London and coming less and less frequently to Hampshire. The two older brothers were married and no longer living at home. It seemed clear to Walter that the Rycrofts were avoiding their previously handsome, athletic son.

  Well, the lad was still handsome. The accident hadn’t harmed his face.

  One day Walter took the bull by the horns. ‘How about going to London for a few days? There’s more to do there.’

  ‘There’s nothing I want to do. Do you think I want to be seen by the fashionable world like this?’ He tried to gesture to himself, and as the damaged arm jerked sideways, he let out a bitter laugh. ‘I’m like a badly strung puppet.’

  ‘Your father’s talking about consulting other specialists to see if they can help.’

  ‘I doubt anyone can. We’ve already seen the supposedly best man.’

  ‘Well, a dicky arm isn’t the end of the world.’

  ‘No. And what can’t be cured must be endured. Only … it’s the end of my world. I don’t know how to bear this, Walter. I just … don’t know how.’ His voice broke.

  As the months passed, Renie settled into her new life. The work was hard and not very interesting, but there were more people to talk to and a lot to do in London on her day off. Even if she had only an hour off, she often nipped out to walk round Yew Tree Gardens, glad to be among greenery and to see a few flowers. She enjoyed watching children play there.

  In June, the city was filled with spectators for the coronation of King George V. Fortunately the summer had been fine and the coronation could take place in style.

  Renie was surprised at the fuss that the staff of the Rathleigh made about it, hardly talking about anything else for weeks. They couldn’t go to watch the procession, of course, but most of them managed to see the preparations, the stands for spectators and the decorations along the route to be taken to Westminster Abbey on the 22nd.

  The day after the coronation, she overheard one of the guests talking about it, and it didn’t sound at all like what she’d seen when she sneaked a look at one of the guests’ newspapers.

  ‘Just a procession of men in fancy uniforms riding expensive horses,’ the old lady said scornfully. ‘And the route was soon covered in dung. Those animals have no respect for the Queen and King, or for anyone else except Mother Nature.’ She laughed heartily at her own joke, but her companions seemed embarrassed.

  The staff of the hotel knew better, of course, than to criticise the royal family in any way, but the younger ones had been surprised when the poor queen had to give up her own name Victoria and become Queen Mary. The older staff said there would never be another like dear Queen Victoria and forbade them to speak of either queen disrespectfully.

  It wasn’t disrespectful to wonder why things were done, Renie thought mutinously, but she’d changed since she was a girl and didn’t burst out with her thoughts. Living with Cliff and being afraid of being thrown out of his house had taught her to hold her tongue and made her grow up quickly.

  Far more important to Re
nie was that little Sarah was very ill with diarrhoea that same month, and Nell could only send her sister a couple of brief notes to assure her that Sarah hadn’t succumbed. So many children died of stomach upsets that Renie had tears of sheer relief in her eyes when she heard that Sarah was well and truly better.

  It was living in that nasty little house that had done it. How could Cliff make his family live in a slum? It wouldn’t cost him much more to rent a decent house.

  In September Renie took her annual week’s holiday, going to spend it with her sister in Lancashire. It was wonderful to be with Nell, to be able to talk about anything and everything, and she loved playing with little Sarah, who was just starting to walk, clinging to the furniture, not moving on her own yet.

  Cliff was as nasty as ever, demanding Renie pay him for the food she ate and the washing she would cause. ‘I’ll buy my own food,’ she told him. ‘I’m not giving you any money. Anyway, you don’t do the shopping.’

  For a minute he glared at her so fiercely she wondered if she’d said too much and was afraid he might throw her out. Instead, he looked at his wife. ‘You’d better not keep me short to feed her.’

  ‘Of course not, Cliff.’

  Nell’s voice was toneless and she kept her eyes down. That upset Renie.

  Once he’d gone out to the pub, she asked, ‘Why do you let him treat you like that?’

  ‘Because it’s easier. He’s out all day and at the pub several evenings, so I don’t have to put up with him for long.’

  Renie didn’t comment but that phrase upset her. Put up with him! She remembered when Nell had thought herself in love and loved by Cliff. What an unhappy life she led now.

  All Renie could do was buy her sister and niece treats. One afternoon she took them to see a moving picture show.

  But the week passed so quickly, and Nell looked so unhappy as she said goodbye, that Renie knew she’d go home and cry.