A True Love of Mine

by Margaret Thornton

  But no, not quite. If you looked more closely you could see, here and there, a touch of colour. A mauve ribbon or a purple feather on a hat, a silk blouse with a high stand-up collar in a shade of pearl grey, and a white lace edging on the little girl’s dress.

  At the front of the windows, on the floor, were boxes of white handkerchiefs with black edges; notepaper and envelopes, also edged in black; black stockings, gloves, muffs, fur stoles, beads and brooches made from jet… Everything, in fact, that you might require when a death occurred in the family, to see you through the funeral and during the – often extensive – period of mourning.

  Jessie glanced uncertainly at her companion and gave a sheepish grin. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t a very polite thing to say, was it? But it gave me quite a shock, seeing all that black stuff. They’re clothes to wear when somebody dies, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ replied Maddy. ‘That’s what “mourning” means.’ She pointed to the sign. ‘My dad told me that it means…well…showing how sorry you are when somebody has died.’ She nodded knowingly. ‘And you wear black as a sign of respect. I’ve got used to it, ’cause I’ve always lived here, and I remember my mam and dad opening the shop when I was…ooh, about five, I think.’

  ‘Oh… I see,’ said Jessie. ‘And where did you live before that?’

  ‘I’ve just said; I’ve always lived here, ever since I was born. But before we had the shop we just had the undertaking business. My dad’s an undertaker, you see, and my grandad an’ all – he lives here with us. Well, it was his business really, and his “father before him”.’ She laughed. ‘He’s always saying that, me grandad.’

  Jessie was looking quite startled. ‘You mean your father…makes coffins? That’s what undertakers do, isn’t it? And that he goes round to see…dead people?’

  ‘Sometimes he does, yes, and my mam as well, she goes with him. He has to measure the body, you see, so that he can make the coffin the right size.’

  ‘Oh, stop it! Stop it! You’re giving me the creeps,’ cried Jessie. ‘You don’t…you don’t have to see dead bodies, do you? I’ve never ever seen anybody that was dead…’ She was staring anxiously at Maddy, her blue eyes wide with alarm.

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ said Maddy. ‘They don’t bring them here. My dad takes the coffin round to the person’s home, the day before the funeral. I did see my grandma, though, when she died two years ago. Dad said he thought I was old enough to understand. I didn’t think it looked like me grandma though… I told you, didn’t I, that my brother, our Patrick, he’s learning to be an undertaker as well.’

  ‘You told me he was going into the family business,’ replied Jessie, ‘but I didn’t know then what it was. Doesn’t he mind? Wouldn’t he rather do something more…more cheerful?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He seems quite happy about it all. If he’s not, then he doesn’t tell me. Patrick’s always laughing and joking. That’s what he’s like, and my dad, too; he’s very jolly and friendly. You can come in and meet them if you like. They’ll be working round at the back, I expect.’

  ‘Making coffins?’

  Maddy nodded. ‘Probably.’

  ‘No, I… I don’t think so,’ said Jessie, a little hesitantly. ‘I won’t come and meet them right now. Some other time perhaps. I’ll have to go now, or else my mother might be wondering where I am. It’s been very nice meeting you, Maddy, and I hope we’ll be able to see one another again.’

  ‘’Course we will,’ said Maddy. ‘Why shouldn’t we? It’s not frightened you, has it, all that stuff I’ve been saying about coffins an’ all that? I didn’t mean to scare you. And I’d really like us to be friends…wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes…yes, I would.’ Jessie nodded. ‘I really would. I was being a bit silly. You can’t help what your father does for a living, can you? I mean…it’s a very important job, isn’t it?’

  Maddy nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  ‘Shall we meet on the beach then, tomorrow morning, to watch the show again? My mother and my little brother and sister might be with me, but you don’t mind, do you? I would like you to meet them.’

  ‘’Course I don’t mind. If the tide’s in, though, they’ll have the show up on the promenade. They have to watch the tides, but I think it’s all right for the rest of this week, in the mornings anyway… See you tomorrow then, Jessie. And I’m really glad you came to talk to me.’

  ‘So am I,’ said her new friend. ‘Goodbye then, Maddy, till tomorrow.’

  ‘Ta-ra,’ said Maddy, giving a cheery wave as she opened the shop door and went inside.

  The bell gave a jingle as she pressed down the latch, not a jolly tinkling sound, though, such as you might hear on entering a sweet shop or a toy shop, but a more sombre tonking tone, as befitted the funereal establishment. Not that the emporium – which was a posh name for a big shop, her mother had told her – was at all gloomy inside. It was well lit with electric light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. William Moon had insisted on having electricity installed when the shop was opened, although their living quarters upstairs were still lit by gaslight.

  The length of carpeting on which the clients walked on entering the shop had a deep pile and was patterned in a swirly design of maroon and black. The flooring consisted of highly polished wooden boards and there was a long mahogany counter along the rear of the shop, behind which the assistants stood to complete the purchases.

  There was a comfortable plush sofa, also maroon, on which customers could take their ease, and discreet cubicles on either side of the shop behind maroon velvet curtains, one for gentlemen clients and two for ladies. There they could discuss their requirements in private with the sales assistants, and try on their choices from the myriad items of clothing in stock.

  There were several racks holding the suits of black and charcoal grey and the ladies’ dresses, costumes and blouses, not only black ones but others in shades of grey, purple, violet and mauve, which were suitable to wear when the first period of mourning – usually lasting for several months – had come to an end.

  A few of the most elaborate hats – wide-brimmed creations fashioned from velvet or straw and lavishly adorned with sweeping ostrich feathers, or more discreet toques of swathed silk trimmed with ribbons and flowers – were displayed on stands, but most of them, and the top hats for the men, were kept in round hat-boxes on the high shelves.

  Maddy’s mother, Clara, assisted in the shop when she was not helping her husband with his other duties. Bella Randall, a family friend – or so Maddy’s mother said – worked there too, and they had recently acquired a new assistant, a fifteen-year-old girl called Polly who was still undergoing her training. To cater for the gentlemen’s needs there was an able young man in his early twenties, Martin Sadler, who had been employed at the shop ever since it opened.

  Clara Moon was, virtually, the manageress of the shop, but it often seemed to Maddy – and to others as well – that it was Bella Randall who was really in charge. It was true that she sometimes had to take over and hold the reins in Clara’s absence, but at other times, too, she loved to make her presence felt and to strut about as though she owned the place. At least, that was Maddy’s opinion, although she had to admit – to herself, if not openly to her mother and father – that she might be somewhat biased because she did not like Bella at all. And she knew that the dislike was mutual.

  On entering the shop Maddy realised, too late, that her mother was not there, but the other assistants were. Polly was serving a lady at the end of the counter with a pair of black gloves, and Martin, at the other end, was placing a top hat in a box for a gentleman customer. And Bella was standing in the centre on the carpeted area as though she was the Queen Bee.

  ‘Madeleine,’ she began as soon as Maddy stepped over the threshold, her forehead creasing in a frown and her black eyes glowering at the girl, ‘how many times have you been told that you must not come in through the shop, especially when you have bee
n down to the beach. Look at you now, treading sand all over the place!’

  Maddy looked pointedly down at her feet and at the carpet. There was not a grain of sand to be seen, but she knew better than to argue. ‘Sorry,’ she said, but not very graciously. ‘I forgot.’

  It was true that she was supposed to go round the back, by the workshop, and enter the premises through the back door. But it was a ruling that was made to be broken and neither her mother or her father minded too much if she did not always keep to it. It was only Bella who kept harping on about it. Maddy was supposed to call her Aunty Bella, but she usually got away with calling her nothing at all.

  ‘I was looking for my mam,’ she said. ‘I wanted to tell her something. Where is she?’

  Bella sighed. ‘Where else would she be at this time of the day but getting your dinner ready?’ she snapped. ‘Off you go now, quick sharp, out of the shop. We have work to do down here.’

  Well, I’m not stopping you! Maddy was tempted to reply. Bella certainly didn’t look as though she was exactly run off her feet, standing there like ‘cock of the midden’. That was an expression she had heard her grandad, Isaac, use about Bella. He didn’t seem to like the woman any more than she did, but that was their secret, hers and her grandad’s. She was annoyed now that Bella should have reprimanded her in front of the other shop assistants, and customers as well. Her mam and dad would never do that, and Bella, too, was more careful what she said to the little girl when either of her parents were around.

  Maddy went through the door at the back of the shop, into the kitchen-cum-stockroom where the assistants could sit for a few minutes’ respite if they were not too busy, or make a cup of tea or eat their lunchtime sandwiches if they wished. Then she went through the door which led to the spacious living quarters of the Moon family.

  Her mother was busy in the kitchen and she looked up from the stove as Maddy entered the room. Her face was red from the heat of the oven and she pushed back a lock of hair, almost the same golden shade as Maddy’s, as she smiled at her daughter. ‘Hello there, love. Have you had a nice morning?’

  ‘Yes, it was lovely, Mam, an’ I’ve got such a lot to tell you. I met a girl down there watching the show. I know you said I shouldn’t speak to strangers, but she’s a nice respectable girl – quite posh she is, really – and she’s called Jessie. She’s ten like me, and—’

  ‘It all sounds very exciting,’ said Clara, continuing to smile fondly at her. ‘You must tell me all about it later. But now…do you think you could lay the table for me? I’ve just been checking on the hotpot and I think it’s nearly done. And then you can go and tell your dad and grandad and Patrick that we’re ready.’

  ‘Yes, ’course I will,’ said Maddy. She sniffed appreciatively. ‘It smells good. Is it lamb chops in it then?’

  ‘Yes, proper Lancashire hotpot,’ laughed Clara. ‘I know we’re Yorkshire folk, all of us, but there’s some things they do in Lancashire that aren’t so bad, and their hotpot’s one of ’em.’

  Maddy opened a cupboard drawer and took out a blue-and-white checked cloth and the ordinary cutlery which they used when they dined in the kitchen. They ate at the large pine table which stood in the centre of the room and was used at other times for baking and pastry making and bottling of pickles and preserves. On Saturdays and Sundays and on special occasions they dined in the dining-cum-living room, from the mahogany table, using the best silver cutlery, a white damask cloth and rose-patterned china cups and saucers. But it was blue and white earthenware for every day and the large plates were already warming on the plate rack over the gas stove.

  ‘Wash your hands first,’ her mother reminded her, so Maddy swilled them under the kitchen tap at the stone sink and wiped them on a striped towel, instead of going into the bathroom.

  ‘There, that’s all done,’ she said, a few minutes later, looking at the five places she had laid with the wooden table mats, knives, forks and spoons, blue and white table napkins, and the glass salt and pepper shakers in the middle.

  ‘Just get the pickled onions and beetroot out of the larder,’ her mother told her, ‘and the red cabbage an’ all. Your grandad’s partial to a bit of red cabbage. Then I think we’re all done and dusted… Thank you, luv; you’re a good help to me. Now, off you pop and tell the menfolk as we’re ready.’

  Chapter Three

  There were five of them, all the members of the Moon family, seated round the table. Isaac was at the head where he always sat, as William and Clara still deferred to him as head of the household. William and Patrick sat at one of the long sides and Clara and Maddy at the other.

  ‘We’ll just say grace, shall we?’ said Isaac, as he did at the start of every formal meal; and they all dutifully bowed their heads.

  ‘For what we are about to receive, may the good Lord make us truly thankful,’ said Isaac.

  ‘Amen,’ they all said.

  ‘Right then, Clara lass,’ said Isaac, in a much more jovial voice. ‘Let’s make a start of us dinner. Me stomach’s beginning to think me throat’s cut.’

  The saying of grace was a ritual in their household, something that Isaac had been brought up with and with which he felt it was his duty to continue, more out of habit than anything else. He could not say that he was an overly religious sort of fellow, although he still, more often than not, attended the morning service each Sunday at the Methodist chapel on Queen Street.

  His father, Joshua, had insisted that all the family – his wife, Abigail, and their five children – should attend chapel. Joshua had been a strict adherent to the principles and practices of Methodism, as preached by John Wesley. Indeed, his own father, Amos – Isaac’s grandfather – was said to have heard the great man himself preach on several occasions. John Wesley had been a frequent visitor to Scarborough between 1770 and 1790, preaching at the chapel on Church Street Stairs, leading down to the harbour, which the local Methodists had built as their first meeting place.

  Joshua’s God, and that of Amos, his father, had been a harsh disciplinarian sort of figure. The young Isaac had felt the weight of his father’s hand, and of his broad leather belt, many times whilst he was growing up, for quite minor misdemeanours; none of the five children had dared to step too far out of line. Joshua had mellowed, however, as he grew older, and when he started his own undertaking business in the middle years of Queen Victoria’s reign, it had been Isaac, the youngest son, who had learnt the trade along with him. The other brothers and sisters by that time had broken away from their father’s harsh regime.

  Isaac had been determined, were he to be blessed with a family, that he would be a kind and loving father, strict when it was necessary, but understanding as well. He and his beloved wife, Hannah, however, had been granted only the one son, William. When Hannah had died two years ago Isaac had felt as though the light had gone out of his life. But William was a good son – he couldn’t wish for a better one – and he had found consolation in his grandchildren, Patrick and Maddy, and his dear daughter-in-law, Clara. Now she was a grand lass if ever there was one.

  He had been pleased to see William adopting the same affectionate tolerance to his own children as he, Isaac, had always tried to show. And William had the same easy acceptance of his faith in God as well.

  It was difficult to understand sometimes, though, why God should act in the way He did; allowing little children to die, or cutting off a young man in his prime, when he had a brilliant future ahead of him. They came across many such instances in their day-to-day work, and were unable to offer any explanation to the often shocked and anguished relatives. But that was not really their place; it was their task just to show sympathy and compassion and to take care of the more practical matters regarding the disposal of the loved one’s earthly body.

  Isaac believed it would be impossible to do the job that was his without a belief in God and in the life hereafter. But one must also try to maintain a certain detachment and, perhaps above all, a sense of humour.

&nbs
p; That was something that William was not short of, nor his son, Patrick. Isaac watched them now, laughing at something that Maddy had said.

  ‘Honestly, Maddy,’ Patrick was saying, ‘that joke’s so old it’s sprouting whiskers. Haven’t they come up with any new ones this year, those Pierrots of yours?’

  ‘’Course they have!’ retorted Maddy. ‘There was one about seagulls. Pete’s stooge says, “Have you noticed how clean and spotless everything is in Scarborough this year?” And then Pete says, “Aye, I have that. They’ve even taught the seagulls to fly upside down.” But I don’t think I really understand that one. I mean, they don’t, do they? Seagulls can’t fly upside down…’

  Patrick roared with laughter, banging his spoon on the side of his dish, which earned him a disapproving look from his mother. ‘’Course they can’t, you ninny! That’s why it’s a joke, and not a bad one neither.’

  Isaac smiled at Maddy’s perplexed frown. ‘Seagulls drop their mess everywhere, you see, luv. You’ve only to take a walk along Royal Albert Drive and see what a mess they’ve made on t’ cliffs.’

  ‘And if they flew upside down, then they wouldn’t be able to… Oh yes, I see it now,’ said Maddy.

  ‘Well, well, well; the penny’s dropped at last!’ said Patrick, grinning at his sister. ‘Give the girl a round of applause, everyone.’

  ‘And you stop teasing yer sister, young feller-me-lad,’ said Isaac, although he knew there was no malice in the lad’s remarks. The brother and sister were good friends most of the time. ‘She’s just as clever as you any day of the week, is our little Maddy. Go on then, luv; tell us what else they did.’