‘Thank heavens’, Elsie exclaimed, the minute Beth and Ella walked into the kitchen on their return to Grange House. ‘I was at my wit’s end, what with Grace and Mrs Ward just back from Scotland and no one to help me but Stevens and the girl.’ It seemed as though Enid, introduced to the house shortly after the war, was doomed to remain forever ‘the girl’ in Elsie’s eyes. She hadn’t warmed to her, finding fault with whatever she did at least five times a day, but she was aware that if Enid left they would be lucky to replace her. Girls didn’t view being in service in the same way as they had before the war, mostly seeing it as a stop-gap rather than a career choice.
‘Not that Stevens is much help at the moment, either.’ Elsie bustled about, putting the kettle on and lifting down the cake tin. The bell from the house summoned them before Ella could ask her what she meant.
Elsie started to swiftly lay up a tray. ‘They’ll be wanting tea now that they’re all back.’
‘I’ll take it up,’ Ella said. She realised as she said it that she felt strangely resentful. Serving Mr Ward was one thing, but John had been living as one of them, in their family home, for the last few weeks. In the event, when Ella carried the tray into the sitting room, only Mr and Mrs Ward and Grace were present.
‘Thank you, Ella,’ Grace said, moving swiftly to hold the door for her. ‘You can leave the tray and I’ll pour. I’ve heard a little about your time in the country. It all sounds rather marvellous – very Wuthering Heights.’
Grace smiled expectantly at Ella, who looked blank. Whatever was she talking about? And where was John?
‘We won’t have need of the extra cup and plate. John is resting after the journey,’ Grace continued. ‘He looks well, though. It’s clear that country air and exercise was just what he needed.’ She looked wistful. ‘It’s so lovely in that area. I remember it well from last year, when I visited a few sheep farms nearby.’
Ella smiled, dipped her head and withdrew from the room. As she did so, she considered Grace’s situation. She and Grace were of similar ages, both in their late thirties, both unmarried. The war years had suited Grace in some ways. A tall, striking woman, she seemed to lack the interest in fashion exhibited by her mother and sisters, and had a general impatience with the pursuits considered seemly for a young woman of her generation. After her girlish infatuation with Edgar Broughton, she hadn’t exhibited any interest in another man as far as Ella knew.
When John had joined up she had become restless. The lack of opportunity for involvement in a practical way in the war effort had bothered her. She had done what she could in the way of fund-raising for the troops, working alongside her mother, but when an opportunity had arisen to join the York-area organising committee of the Land Girls, she had leapt at it. After that, she was barely at home. She learnt to drive very quickly and took off around the countryside to visit farmers in need of agricultural help. With the young labourers gone to war, Land Girls were often billeted with farms to help out and it was Grace’s duty to check that they were being well looked after. She stepped in herself to help out at key times such as harvest. As the country made the transition from war to peace, she was still employed by the committee. With so many men lost in the war there was still a need for women to work the land, but the situation had settled down and before they left for Northwaite, Ella had heard her say that she wouldn’t be needed for much longer.
What would the future hold for both of them? It looked as though marriage wouldn’t now play a part in their lives. The war meant that there were barely enough eligible men for the younger girls of marriageable age. It seemed unlikely that two spinsters of their age would find suitors now. Ella didn’t mind for herself. She had long ago put all thoughts of marriage from her mind, burying them along with her dream that Albert Spencer had any kind of interest in her. She wondered whether Grace cared about her own situation, though.
As Ella settled back into the kitchen with a cup of tea and a slice of Elsie’s Victoria sponge cake, she was listening with only half an ear to Elsie describe what had been happening while they had been away. She was content for Beth to pay attention and ask any questions; she knew that she could always get her to recount anything that mattered later that evening in their room. Her thoughts were, instead, occupied with a worry that their stay in Northwaite had somehow made her unfit for service. She seemed to have returned to York with a different attitude towards her employment, and to the people for whom she worked. If she could not overcome this, she could see that she might well have to leave, bringing to the fore once again the question: what else could she do?
That evening, as the pair unpacked in their room, Ella opened the window to let in the cool air of a spring evening. Birdsong drifted across the gardens, the melodious notes of the blackbird singing his heart out as he tried to hold back the encroaching dusk.
‘Poor Stevens,’ Beth mused as she shook out the dresses and hung them up.
Ella turned from the window. ‘Stevens? Why? What happened?’
‘Weren’t you listening?’ Beth laughed. ‘I thought you looked a bit preoccupied. Elsie looked very put out by your lack of reaction to her tale.’
She turned away to fold blouses and undergarments and stack them neatly into drawers.
‘Well?’ Ella demanded impatiently.
‘He’s on leave at the moment. His wife died in the asylum. He’d tried to keep it from everyone, as you know, that he even had a wife. But it all had to come out in the end. She was caught up in the influenza outbreak; it swept through the asylum. He’s gone to organise the funeral.’
Ella turned back to look out of the window. This was sad news indeed. She wished that she had been there when Stevens had heard it. He must have felt very alone. She wondered what would happen now. He had lived a strange kind of half-life for many years, married in name only yet with a great responsibility to bear. She supposed the lifting of the responsibility would bring a kind of relief, but she hoped that it wouldn’t usher in guilt to fill its place.
‘We must make a fuss of him when he comes back,’ Ella said, half to herself. That night, as she lay in bed, her thoughts whirled and churned and kept her awake. She had a sense of great change in the offing, and didn’t know whether she welcomed or feared it, nor what this feeling was founded upon. It seemed, though, that their stay in the country might have set the wheels of change in motion.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
By the time they had been back from Northwaite for two weeks, however, Ella had started to readjust to her situation. She was still worried about Sarah and how she would be coping without them, but she’d decided that one of the main reasons she was so unsettled was that she’d barely had longer than a few days’ holiday at a time over the last eighteen years. Taking several weeks away had given her a different outlook on her life. She wondered whether she was feeling more at ease because John had been at the office all day for the past few days and therefore out of the house. When he came home he was exhausted and took dinner in his room. After their easy companionship while they were in Northwaite she had found it difficult to return to their former relationship, even though it wasn’t a traditional one of son-of-the-household and servant. Luckily, she wasn’t called upon to serve him; Stevens was back and took care of that. He’d returned to Grange House a week after them and Ella immediately felt happier. The house had felt odd without his presence. She had to restrain herself from offering him an over-enthusiastic welcome; it wouldn’t be seemly for someone in mourning.
‘I was so sorry to hear your news,’ Ella said, then immediately felt awkward. It sounded a bit impersonal. ‘I mean, about your wife.’ Then she realised he had never mentioned his wife to her. ‘Beth mentioned her to me. I hope you don’t mind. It must be very hard for you.’
Stevens looked downcast, then smiled at Ella. ‘It was hard. But it was harder many years ago when I lost her to her illness. She had no life to speak of, really. I suppose it was better this way; her prospects were bleak. But it will take some getting used t
o.’
After that, no more was said and Stevens took up his duties in his old manner. The household felt steadier somehow, and Ella relaxed.
Then John suffered his breakdown.
‘It’s no good!’
Ella glanced nervously around as John spoke. The words had almost come out as a shout and, although they were well away from the house, in the kitchen garden where she had often taken him as a child, she worried that they would be overheard. In any case, it could surely be only a matter of time before one of them was missed in the house.
‘Sssh. You’ve only tried it for a short time,’ she ventured, soothingly. ‘It’s bound to feel strange. Having to get used to sitting at a desk, dealing with phone calls and paperwork…’ Ella tailed off. Her imagination of what might be involved in office work was limited and she could visualise nothing further.
John was sobbing now and Beth, crouched by his side, was clutching his hands desperately. She looked up at Ella with anguished eyes. John had returned unexpectedly to the house just after lunch, refusing all offers of food from a flustered Elsie who hadn’t expected any of the family to be in until the evening. He had vanished, to his room they all presumed. It was Beth, coming out into the garden to pick rhubarb to add to a pie, who had found him huddled in a recently raked vegetable bed in the farthest corner of the garden, his back to the wall and his head buried in his hands.
Noticing that Beth hadn’t returned from the garden, and with Elsie’s pastry chilling in the larder, ready to be rolled out, Ella had come looking for her.
It was clear that the introduction to the family firm wasn’t going well. John was finding it stressful dealing with people, paperwork and noise. Even getting to the office, based in the centre of York, jangled his nerves. The honking of car horns startled him and he found it difficult to negotiate the traffic on the streets: a mix of horse-drawn buses, carts and bicycles, as well as an increasing number of motorcars. In the office, the staccato clatter of typewriters penetrated the walls of his room and brought back nightmarish reminders of gunfire on the front line. He felt a little calmer on his visits to the firm’s construction sites, but the shouts of the workers and the quantity of mud raised other unpleasant memories. At night, increasingly, he had flashbacks, waking with a thumping heart, never sure whether or not he had screamed out loud. As a result of all the sleep disruption, each day became a greater challenge, a bigger mountain to climb.
Ella assessed the situation and came to a quick decision. She seized the knife that Beth had dropped to the ground and quickly hacked a few stalks of rhubarb.
‘I’ll take this to the house and come back with some –’ she hesitated, at a loss. ‘Tea?’ she ventured. Then she flew up the path and into the kitchen, startling Elsie, who was rolling out the pastry, and Stevens who was leaning against the dresser as he chatted to her.
‘Whatever is the matter?’ Elsie laid down her rolling pin.
‘It’s John.’ Ella was flustered. ‘He’s – unwell. Beth found him in the kitchen garden. He needs help. I thought I’d take him water. Or tea, perhaps.’
Distracted, Ella looked around as though she might find the solution to her anguish in the kitchen.
‘Leave this to me.’ Stevens opened the dresser and took out a bottle, lifting a small glass from the shelf.
‘May I?’ he said to Elsie, but without waiting for a reply he took the brandy and headed off down the garden path.
‘Should I go too?’ Ella was unsure.
‘No, leave it to him. There are some situations men are better at dealing with. Not many, mind.’ Elsie chuckled to herself, pulling herself up when she registered Ella’s distraught expression. ‘Look, why don’t you help me? Can you give that rhubarb a wash and chop it for the pie? We’ll poach it a little first.’ Elsie busied herself fetching a chopping board and knife and so Ella settled to her task, her eyes trained on the back door. With the rhubarb in the pan, Elsie instructed her to add water, ginger and sugar, then to set it to simmer. Gradually Ella relaxed a little to concentrate fully on the task in hand.
At last Beth reappeared in the kitchen from the door into the house, rather than from the garden. She looked very pale and shaken.
‘How is he?’ Elsie and Ella demanded, with one voice.
Beth shook her head. ‘Not good. He calmed down a little after the shot of brandy and we were able to persuade him to stand up and start walking to the house. Then that infernally noisy machine that they use to cut the grass started up next door and John just crumpled onto the path and covered his head. It was awful.’
She closed her eyes briefly at the memory. ‘We tried to shout over the wall to get them to turn it off but they couldn’t hear us. Stevens had to drag John into the house. He was a little better once he was inside, so Stevens took him up to his room. I think he’s called the doctor and Mr Ward.’
Beth sat at the table and briefly put her head down, amongst the mess of flour and pastry trimmings.
‘What’s to be done?’ she asked despairingly. ‘However is he going to fit back into his life?’
The three women contemplated the situation in silence, each with their own set of worries. Elsie sighed and set about clearing and cleaning the table.
‘I don’t know what Mr Ward will make of it. He had his heart set on John following him into the business.’ Elsie shook her head. ‘That wretched war. It’s taken away lives in more ways than one.’
She was prevented from further comment by the reappearance of Stevens in the kitchen.
‘How is he?’ Ella asked.
‘The doctor is with him now. He’s giving him something to help him sleep. He’d like to wait to speak to Mr Ward. He’s on his way over from the office now.’
‘Should I make some tea?’ Elsie ventured.
Stevens smiled. ‘I think the doctor would prefer a whisky. You all look as pale as ghosts, though. I’ll bring the brandy back. Looks as though you could all do with a drop. Don’t worry now,’ he added, turning to address Ella and Beth. ‘I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks.’
He turned and went to offer refreshment to the doctor, and shortly after, they heard the sound of the front door banging shut and Mr Ward’s feet heavy on the stairs.
‘Brandy!’ Elsie sniffed, disappointing Ella who had thought a nip might be just the thing. ‘I’d like to see me getting tonight’s dinner on the table if I took to the bottle.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Confirmation that John had indeed suffered a breakdown came when Ella, returning a dress that Beth had altered, found Grace at her writing desk in her room.
‘It looks as though he must be sent away somewhere to recover fully,’ Grace replied when Ella enquired after John’s health. ‘The doctor was talking about a hospital he knows of. Somewhere they can give the proper kind of care for people with his sort of health problems.’ Grace hesitated. ‘Problems of the mind.’
‘You mean an asylum?’ Ella was deeply shocked.
‘I suppose so. He didn’t refer to it as such. But yes, I think that’s what he meant.’
Ella hung up the dress in silence. She hardly knew how to respond, or what to make of such news.
‘It’s awful, isn’t it? Father is very upset. Mother has taken to her room. And John is sedated. It’s so dreadful being downstairs I decided I would rather be up here.’
Grace sat back in her chair and Ella reflected on the lack of warmth between her and John, something that had been in evidence ever since she had known the family.
‘The awful thing is,’ Grace continued, ‘I think I can see an opportunity for myself.’ She seemed to be testing the water with an idea that she found almost too daring to contemplate privately. ‘If John is too ill to learn the business, then I’m going to suggest to Father that he takes me on. I don’t have the schooling that John has had, but what use is Latin and Greek in the construction industry? I learnt so much when I worked on the organising committee for the Land Army about people and how to get the best o
ut of them, settle their grievances and such. I can handle money as well as any man. I think I would be good at it. And, more importantly, I’d like to do it!’
Ella wondered whether Grace was talking to herself and whether she should just slip away but Grace suddenly swung round to face her.
‘What do you think, Ella?’
Ella was caught unawares. ‘Well, I really couldn’t say. It’s unusual for a woman to go into business, isn’t it?’ Then she paused to consider. ‘But I think you are right. I do think you would be good. And why shouldn’t women work in the same way as men? We’ve shown them that we can over the last few years.’ She felt her cheeks grow quite hot as she warmed to her theme.
‘However, I do think your father will need some persuading.’
Grace sighed. ‘You’re right, I know. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.’
When Ella got back to the kitchen it was clear that news of the severity of John’s illness had already reached them. Beth was sobbing while Elsie did her best to comfort her and Stevens looked on helplessly.
‘I’ll take her up to our room if you can manage without us for a while?’ Ella asked.
‘You go ahead,’ Elsie said. ‘It doesn’t look as though there’ll be much required in the way of dinner upstairs tonight.’ She sighed as she contemplated the food that she had already prepared.
Ella led Beth up the stairs to their room, where her sobs soon calmed.
‘You’ve heard the news?’ she asked Ella. ‘The doctor is talking about an asylum for John.’
‘I know.’ Ella tried hard to look for the positive. ‘Perhaps he thinks it’s for the best. That he can have treatments there that will cure him.’
‘That’s nonsense!’ Beth was suddenly fierce. ‘You saw how well he was when he was with us. It all went wrong when he came back here. He needs peace and quiet, but that doesn’t mean he needs to be locked away. He needs fresh air, the countryside, simple food. He doesn’t need that wretched job of his father’s, and the pressure of stupid, social dinners.’
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