by Maggie Ford
“You said I could take you to the pictures?” he reminded. It would be a relief after this cold to be in the warmth and darkness of a picture palace. It would have to be the cheap front seats. He didn’t have enough for dearer ones, paying for two.
“You didn’t say tonight.” She looked down at her threadbare coat. “I’d have to go home and change into something better. Wouldn’t it be too late by then? I thought you meant another night.”
“I hoped it would be tonight. It’s not too late.” He felt happiness drain from him at the thought of losing her company to another day, or worse, perhaps never to another day. “I could meet you somewhere.”
She looked just as fearful of disappointment. His heart rose. It rose again as she brightened. “Come to my home while I change.”
“What about your parents? What’ll they say, a chap hanging around your door?”
For a moment she looked crestfallen. “My parents died when I was little.” She looked only little now, standing there, her coat pulled around her slight frame. Her eyes glancing briefly away, she looked a child. “I live with an old aunt. She can’t do much. Sleeps most of the time. I look after her, make sure she eats, that she’s warm, that sort of thing. I don’t have to keep her, luckily – she lives off a tiny annuity though it’s hardly enough to support her at times.”
She looked back up at him and the child was gone, her face momentarily reflecting the harsh life of those who had to struggle with it. Moments later she’d become young again, the indefatigability of youth winning through. “Come on, we’ll have to hurry.”
* * *
As she let herself out of one of a short row of tall old houses where she lived, an odd little street – almost an alley – tucked away behind the grand fagade of far more imposing roads, the once clean brick-work fuliginous with age and years of London smoke, his first impulse was to buy her a nice blouse and skirt at some time or another should he be allowed to know her better. Nothing too expensive because that would embarrass her. Something modest off a second-hand stall, come by casually. In time he’d get her this and that, from better places, so that she’d look more presentable.
Not that he was ashamed of her, he thought hastily. How could he even consider it? Suddenly he wanted to buy her everything. His mind’s eye saw her in a crystal-beaded evening gown, her fair hair, clean and shiny as it was since working at Letts, beautifully coiffured – at the moment it was drawn back into a loose bun – her lips ever so lightly rouged, her cheeks faintly powdered pink, a touch of mascara around her eyes. He saw long pendant ear-rings swinging, caressing her neck, the swanlike neck he knew to be under that old scarf she wore; a silvery bandeau around her forehead instead of that floppy old hat she was wearing; in her hand a…
With self-mocking, William put such thoughts aside – that sort of attire was miles beyond his pocket. Coming down to earth he crooked his arm gallantly for her to put her hand through it, and led her away to the bright lights of Oxford Street and a modestly priced, not quite so grand picture palace just off it.
Late, they arrived almost at the end of the first short film – a comedy with the Keystone Cops. But it didn’t matter – they would see it round again and he was sitting here with Mary Owen beside him, her small face trained on the flickering silent figures of the grippingly dramatic Mary Pickford film, her eyes wide as though she had never seen a film in her whole life before while her mouth chewed unconsciously on the toffees he’d bought her.
From time to time he glanced at her, the glare of the screen lighting up her features, and he knew he wanted to be the one to offer a new world to her. It came to him as a shock, as he envisaged her in the splendour he himself couldn’t afford, that he was in love with Mary Owen.
Four
Half of London’s couples seemed to be strolling in Hyde Park this Sunday. The warm April afternoon had suddenly brought them out en masse, like the pink and white blossoms on the trees. At times it even meant side-stepping several in making their way along the park’s criss-cross of paths. “And I thought we’d be on our own here,” Mary giggled. She had her arm through his, he wanting more to transfer his to around her waist, though in the past when he’d attempted to do so she’d go taut with a sharp, “Enough of that, Will. We’re in public,” so that he’d take his arm away smartly, fearing to offend and lose her respect.
She held to somewhat old-fashioned standards – at least, he hoped they were merely old fashioned and not that she saw him in a different light to how he saw her, despite having gone out with him regularly these past six weeks. But with so many of the old morals and social behaviour thrown over in this new age by men home from the war with a new concept of themselves, and women who’d taken over men’s places in the workplace throwing away all the old strait-laced attitudes, it seemed inappropriate for her to stick to stuffy convention.
It was the same with their goodnight kisses. Should his lips attempt anything firmer than a peck, his reward would be, “That’s enough, Will.” There was always an authoritative ring to her tone that belied her outward frail stature. At times he was proud of her strength of character, at others he was left worrying that she didn’t feel the love for him that he felt for her. Yet she seemed willing enough to go out with him.
What worried him was the way she attracted the eyes of other men, quite unconsciously. Dodds, for instance, still ogled her.
“I noticed Dodds giving you the eye yesterday,” he complained as they walked, the warm tang of newly cut grass, the first of the year, filling their nostrils.
Mary giggled again. “I think he still fancies me.”
He didn’t laugh. “You don’t… fancy him?”
She stopped and looked at him, obviously insulted. “Good Lord, no! I wouldn’t put up with that coarse creature. I hope you don’t lump me in with the likes of that. I’ve been brought up differently. My Aunt Maud wasn’t always old and frail. She was once a lady’s maid and it gave her very high standards, and she brought me up to have values. You don’t have to be rich to have values.”
“No, of course not.” She tucked her arm back through his and they resumed their strolling, the moment forgotten as she began to tug enthusiastically on his arm.
“Let’s go for a row on the Serpentine, Will, then afterwards we can go and watch the riders along Rotten Row. I love the way they look down on all the spectators – think themselves so high and mighty. They’re a scream really, don’t you think? Putting on airs, and they’re no different to us except that they’ve got money. Come on, Will, let’s get a boat out.”
Mary had a commanding way about her and he generally found himself conforming to her rules without question, which rather startled him at times. Again he wondered if she felt anything for him beyond friendly affection. She seemed happy to be here with him, yet after six weeks their relationship was still in its infant stage.
If only, he thought, as in his shirt-sleeves he pulled on the oars, she didn’t captivate other men so, turning their heads. She was doing it now, albeit unconsciously, as she sat back at one end of the rowboat, hazel eyes boldly surveying all and sundry without realising the magnetism she possessed. But then, she was so pretty, her small figure in an iris-blue print dress she had made herself, its petal sleeves fluttering in the warm breeze about her bare arms as he rowed, that it was natural all eyes should turn to her.
It was the admirers closer to home that worried him. Apart from the ogling Dodds, whom he could dismiss, he noticed Mr James Lett’s two sons in particular. Her head could so easily be turned by their open interest and by the money they had. Wouldn’t any girl’s?
It was indeed beginning to break his pocket keeping Mary’s eyes on him; taking her to the pictures, even cheap seats provoked a need to count his small change like some miser. For theatre seats he was forced to line up, even for the gods, in all weathers, the queue stretching round to the dark and dingy rear of the theatre while the wealthy, alighting from carriages, went straight in through the wide and glitterin
g main foyer doors, resplendent in impeccable evening clothes, all top hats and bow ties, their ladies beautiful to see even if without all the finery they might be the plainest women imaginable.
“Happy?” he asked her, and she smiled in reply, one hand delicately trailing in the water.
* * *
“Mother has been expressing quite a bit of surprise at your spending so much time in London with the business lately.”
The statement was heavy with connotation that went straight into its goal. Henry threw his brother a glare from his armchair in the library. “I’m doing nothing more than she asked me to do. What’s wrong with that?”
He was aware his challenge rang with deception, sure Geoffrey had defined it instantly as he shrugged.
“Just that she seemed surprised at all this sudden enthusiasm. Too sudden to be decent.”
Henry closed his book with a dull slap. “Her words or yours?”
“Oh, mine, old boy. I merely wonder what the attraction is that keeps drawing you there.”
Henry humphed. He knew exactly what Geoffrey was getting at. Geoffrey was as much smitten by that girl in the kitchen as he was. So were several others, all with the same thought in mind – “Who’s the little beauty you’ve got working in your kitchen? She’s a bit of a stunner, don’t you think?”
One would think chaps wouldn’t give a toss who worked behind the scenes of a restaurant so long as the food was top quality. Especially who worked in the kitchen. Especially a lowest-of-the-low kitchen hand.
He had made the mistake of showing one or two chaps around the premises now that his father could no longer go there, being too ill these days. They had spotted the girl immediately and, like crows descending upon a piece of choice meat, they had struck.
“Wouldn’t mind a tumble or two with her. How’ve you kept your own hands off her so far? Or haven’t you, you sly old fox?”
It wasn’t like that. Mary Owen fascinated him – that was why he frequented the kitchen area more often than – as Geoffrey intimated - was decent. And yes, the thought had crossed his mind, but he had dismissed it. Firstly, it would be lowering himself to consort with a girl of his own staff, clean and neat as she was; secondly, she always looked so vulnerable, her smile shy when he appeared, that a certain need to protect came over him and the idea of seducing her as though she were there for his sole pleasure was unthinkable. Gone were the days when a master took his pleasure of a pretty employee. His father had done so, when he and Geoffrey had been small. It had caused a devil of a row between him and Mother when he’d been discovered. In those days wives of wealthy men often put up with such things, but Mother was made of sterner stuff and Father had received such a verbal thwacking he never went near a maid again, not as far as Henry knew.
But it didn’t stop men being attracted to a girl like Mary, and he was certain Geoffrey would allow no scruples to mar his chances. The smooth-talking Geoffrey would have her as easy as kiss-your-hand; he was sure of it, given half the chance. And Mary? Being wined and dined and given a good time, with perhaps a little gratuity at the end of it, could work wonders with someone deprived all her life of such goodies. Geoffrey wouldn’t stop at the once, either. Not until he finally got the girl pregnant, and then his interest in her would go out like a light being switched off.
Geoffrey was grinning. “Wouldn’t be for some ulterior motive, would it, old chap?”
“I go there for Father’s sake. We’ve all got to pull together, he so ill.”
It wasn’t a lie. Their father was desperately ill: on his feet and fighting every inch of the way, but in pain all the same.
Geoffrey grew instantly sad. “He’s always been so strong. And now… I hate seeing him like this! And Mother’s being so brave. But she’s always been such a strong-minded woman.”
His taunting forgotten, Geoffrey got up and hurried from the library. Henry suspected he needed to hide the sudden tears filming over his eyes, much as they were forming over his own. Their father couldn’t have much longer. If God was at all merciful, he shouldn’t be allowed much longer.
* * *
The middle of May on a Friday was the last time James Lett ever attempted to go to London, in the back of the Rolls, a rug over his knees. Feather, his chauffeur, was stony-faced these days, at a loss to recreate the general level of conversation that used to pass between them. Not that Mr Lett could speak any more except to croak a command, eyes front, and that seldom.
Henry sat beside his father, edgy from watching him as the car took its time. It tore him to see those cheek muscles so taut, contorting beneath the wasted flesh as every spasm of pain gripped the throat.
They didn’t reach London. Half-way there, the already pallid face grew chalk-white, a hoarse gurgling that passed for a cough gripping the invalid. Obeying the waving hand to turn about, Feather swung the car round and speeded for home. James Lett was put to bed and the doctor called to examine him. It was the last time he left his house, though he was to linger for nearly another year.
* * *
William sat in the small parlour of the letting he shared with his parents, his sister married these past two years with a letting of her own.
The landlords called these properties “lettings”, each floor having two or three. In fact the blocks of flats were termed dwellings by those who lived in them, each one comprising two bedrooms, living-room, tiny kitchen and small parlour. Every three or four years the landlords had them wallpapered and painted free of charge, and though poky, they were clean and presentable.
Not so where Mary lived. Her home was shabby, unattended to by whoever its landlord was, only a stone’s throw from the dives and brothels of Soho – none of which, he was thankful to say, had rubbed off on her. It worried him to see the area in which she lived. It wasn’t healthy. One day he hoped to take her away and give her a home here, in the so-called run-down East End where, at least in his area, most people lived cleanly.
It was the thought of his offer which loomed traumatic. So far he had not dared ask her to meet his parents. What if she said no, his suggestion tantamount to an invitation for them to start courting properly?
His father was eyeing him, faintly quizzical. “Looks like you’re pretty serious about this young lady. She the same girl you’ve been going on about lately? Mary, you say?”
William nodded. This was the first time he had mentioned Mary by name.
“Mary what?”
“Owen.”
Not that it should matter to his father. He returned his quizzical look, expecting to hear a deep guffaw break from the tall, lightly built man whose laugh one would expect from a far beefier man. It was not an infectious laugh, and was one which often embarrassed his listeners, who felt as though he had made fun of them.
Easygoing for all that, he made many friends and few enemies. He worked “in the print”, as it was known, as a typesetter, earning pretty good wages in the bowels of the News Chronicle. William knew his father had hoped he would follow in his footsteps and that he saw the war as having initially stopped his son’s career stone dead and afterwards afforded no immediate work for him. He had refused to see it was not just the newspaper unwilling to employ him, but that Will, with no desire to work in the dim electric light of a compositing room, would rather meet other people. They’d seen it, wanted no half-hearted workers when there were plenty willing to work their guts out.
Dad had been embarrassed by Will’s going off to find employment of his own, as a waiter of all things. Effeminate, that was what he’d called it, even though William had always displayed a distinct liking for the girls, but he had slowly relaxed when William showed no sign of becoming odd, made happy at last by his declaration of wanting to bring this particular girl home.
“I am.” William answered his father’s first question. “Very serious.”
“Have you told ’er?”
“Not yet.”
“Then tell ’er.”
“It’s not that easy, Dad.”<
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“Don’t s’pose it ever was.” He cast a wry grin at his wife, her once fair but now greying hair bent over her knitting. “Had a devil of a job getting round your mum in asking her to go steady with me.”
She threw up her head, a smirk creasing her still relatively smooth features. “Come off it, George, you didn’t do too bad. I weren’t as awkward as that, was I?”
“You scared the life out of me.”
“Made no bones about proposing, though, did you? Oh, I remember all right. Blunt as old ’arry, you were. What was it you said? ‘What about it, then?’ And I said, ‘What about what?’ And you said, ‘Getting wed.’ And I said, ‘Yes, all right.’ And you said, ‘Right, then.’ And that was it.”
It was his turn to smirk. “Well, I’d got to know you by then.”
“After blooming sixteen months, I should think you would have.”
Listening to the easy banter – not always so amicable when Mum flew into one of her tantrums and Dad made himself scarce in double-quick time until finally the gale blew itself out in a welter of tears on his shoulder with him comforting her with a cuddle and patting her back like some old friend – it didn’t seem it would be half so hard asking Mary to go steady with him as his dad had made out.
* * *
The restaurant closed, the last customer finally gone, all was quiet except for those clearing the tables, laying fresh white linen for the next day and setting out the gleaming cutlery. The lights low, the place quiet, they worked silently and swiftly, intent only on getting home.
Henry stood by the swing door leading to the kitchen, that area still noisy with the clash of the last of the pans being washed and put away. He had been there for several minutes before the young girl at the sink looked up to see him watching her. Immediately her face, already pink from the rising steam of the hot suds, flushed even deeper as she looked quickly away and applied herself even more energetically to her task.
