“If we could just see Isabel please, Duggie, we’ll try not to keep her too long.” Charlie stepped in front of Lily; they’d be there forever, argy-bargying, if he hadn’t.
“Okay, do yer wanna come up then, save waking Tilly Mint?”
Whoever Tilly Mint was neither Lily or Charlie asked or wanted to ask, as they followed the young man up the bare wooden stairs. She might have been one of Eliza’s grandchildren or, perish the thought, their own grandchild. Why was Duggie talking so authoritatively about it? They had only seen their daughter last November and now it was April… Lily did a mental quick calculation, could Isabel have been expecting a baby then? Maybe that was why she had been so hoity-toity, seeing her chance of marriage to the baby’s father disappear as soon as she had come up against her mother’s snobby attitude. Lily supposed, put in that position, she would have felt the same.
The young woman who lay on the sofa in the upstairs living room, covered with a patchwork counterpane, stared at her parents with hostility in her eyes. There was silence for a moment, as each person, including Duggie, stood awkwardly around her, wondering what to say or do.
“Can I get yer a cup or tea, or something?” That was what Duggie’s mother would have asked, if she had unexpected company.
“Nothing for me,” Lily said sharply, not knowing how to approach this new situation.
“Yes, thank you, no sugar.” Charlie’s mouth had gone quite dry and he felt as if he was going to have a nosebleed.
“I suppose you saw her then?” Isabel’s voice was confrontational.
“Well, we weren’t introduced,” said Charlie, looking around the sparse room, wondering if he might sit on a chair.
“Sit on the sofa by me,” Isabel said softly, moving her legs and patting a place further down from her. “It’s been a bit of a shock, Papa. I did want to tell you, but you were both dead set against having Duggie for a son-in-law. Did someone tell you that I gave birth last Saturday?”
“No,” he said, looking over at Lily, who it seemed was still in shock. “Who would have? Your mother had something to tell you, so we took the chance you were in.”
“Oh.” Suddenly Isabel looked boldly at Lily. “What was that then?”
Lily looked confused for a moment. Did she want to spend her hard won money on a daughter who had flown in the face of all convention? She was not, it seemed, even bothered that she had not only given birth to an illegitimate child, but was also living with the father of the child in sin! Good gracious, what were her sisters going to say when she paid for a wedding and the child was there as well? And Eliza, where was Eliza? She must have been in on this secret kerfuffle; Isabel couldn’t have faced this debacle on her own.
“Where’s your Aunt Eliza?”
“Oh, she living with Duggie’s mother for now, they seem to get on really well. She thought it only fair that Duggie and I should have some time on our own, to get used to little Sadie.”
“She did, did she? Sadie, is it? Well, the reason your papa and I came over…” She paused while Duggie handed over a cup of tea on a saucer to Charlie and then made as if he was going to leave them alone with their daughter.
“No, Duggie, you can listen to what I’ve got to say. The reason we came over is to offer to pay for you to have a nice wedding, Isabel. Believe it or not, I was young once and I always had a dream that you two girls would have the most splendid weddings that I could afford. As you know, with your father being of ill health and not able to work as well as he used to, money has been tight, but I’ve come into a little money now. Anyway, as you’ve put the cart before the horse, perhaps it won’t be the kind of wedding that I wanted for you.”
“That’s very kind of yer, Mrs Wilson, Mr Wilson.”
“Are there strings, Mother? Are you expecting me to come back home, stay until my wedding day and pretend I’m going down the church aisle as an innocent virgin?”
“Certainly not, Isabel and don’t speak so disrespectfully!” Lily took in a gulp of air after her daughter’s coarse language, at the same time listening to Charlie, who had also begun to object.
“You can remain here with your heart’s desire and your little offspring, while I make the necessary arrangements down at the town hall. I’ll be in touch!”
Suddenly, Lily couldn’t get out of the room quick enough; she was so stunned at her daughter’s behaviour.
“You were a bit harsh on her,” said Charlie, as he linked Lily’s arm. After being shown out of the front door by Isabel’s boyfriend, he could feel her body trembling through her heavy winter coat. “And that was our granddaughter that you dragged me away from when I was trying to have a peep.”
“She’s our granddaughter when Isabel’s legally wed. First thing on Monday I’ll be down to the office in Hamilton Square to get the formalities started. Don’t tell our Irene about it just yet, or she’ll be pestering forever for a frock.”
The marriage of Douglas Deeley and Isabel Wilson took place four weeks later on a rainy Wednesday morning, in a civil ceremony conducted at the town hall. On the same day, the birth of Sadie Louise Deeley was registered by her father and became the official grandchild of Charlie and Lily, whilst ten year old Irene became an aunty to the little dote. No one, except close family, were invited, as discretion was the order of the day.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“So I gave fifty pounds to Isabel, it cost me two pounds, twelve and sixpence for the ceremony and the meal at the cafe, your new suit, mine and Irene’s dresses and those silly shoes she insisted on having. When is she going to wear ballet slippers for heaven’s sake? That lot came to nearly sixty pounds out of the money I won, so we’ve still got a lot to go at. I was thinking of a good deposit on one of those new houses off Leasowe Road.” Lily sounded pleased as she related her accounting skill to her husband.
“And where will we get our income from once we’ve left here, your winnings spent and with no money coming in? No one will give me a job at my age and once the small-holding’s gone, we won’t be able to earn any money.”
“I knew you’d say that. This is probably my last chance of being able to afford a decent house with an inside toilet, electric lights and a plumbed in bathroom. You always have to have the last word, don’t you Charlie?” Lily’s pleasure was lost and her spirits plummeted as she saw the austere years ahead.
“Well, go ahead then, do as you want, but don’t come crying to me when you’ve spent the money. I suggest you put it in my bank and we’ll use it for housekeeping.”
This discussion had taken place a few days after Isabel’s wedding and the couple had been sitting at the kitchen table, where Lily, having hidden the crisp five pound notes in the secret drawer of Charlie’s father’s sea chest (not that there was ever anything of value ever hidden in it before), was lovingly handling a few of the notes and discussing their future use.
“Can we at least go and look at one of them?”
“You can, but I can’t see the point. What’s the use of looking around something you’ll never be able to have?”
“I could get a job.”
“You’ve got a job, looking after me and Irene. Now the weather’s getting better, I’ll be able to work on the garden again. Duggie said he might come and help me.”
“Duggie has got enough to do, now they’ve decided to rent that terrace house on Tollemache Road. She’ll be having him up and down Grange Road looking at furniture for it and do you know something, they’ll be having an inside bathroom and lavatory?”
“Oh for pity’s sake, Lily, don’t you think that I would like a brand new house with an inside bathroom and lavatory? I’d like to be indoors in the middle of winter, when the wind is rattling the privy door and it’s so cold in there, it freezes your… well, I won’t say what it freezes, but if all the money is spent in one go, what are we going to live on?”
“Fresh air,” said Lily rudely and got up from the table and walked away. I should have stayed at home and looked after my parents,
she thought, not for the first time, as she walked up the path to the hen house with angry tears welling in her eyes, shooing away the birds as they pecked around her bare legs, squawking; a lot less irritating than being married to a man who was usually right when you sat down and examined why he had said what he did. Mabel had the right idea, though, beholden to no man and working now for a female politician who had her eye on a constituency in Cheshire, sharing a rather nice house in the city of Chester with a colleague.
Lily felt trapped, not for the first time: duty bound to Charlie and Irene, when here she was, the possessor of a small fortune but unable to spend it her way. She’d treated herself to a posh dress for Isabel’s wedding day, but that was all she’d have of note hanging in the battered old wardrobe, amongst the knitted jumpers and handmade skirts she had stitched for herself over the years. Her guipure dress, which had fitted her well until her babies had made their appearance, had long gone, given to a niece who had needed an elegant dress for some event or other. It was never returned and why would Lily have wanted it back anyway?
By mutual assent, the new house off Leasowe Road was never mentioned again. Lily hid her disappointment and accompanied Charlie to an eye specialist at Liverpool Hospital, where the man said that without an operation for the cataracts on both his eyes, Charlie would be walking with a white stick within the year. Of course, his eyes had to be the priority and if Lily resented that a lot of her money was to be spent on her husband’s operation, she never said. It seemed that she had accepted her lot in life and had to make the best of it. She was nearly fifty, a grandma now and had spent the best years of her life living on the borderline of poverty, so who was she to change the cards she had been dealt?
It was 1925 and it had been a harrowing year for the couple, as Charlie, a guinea pig, really, in the days when surgeons hadn’t a great deal of experience in removing cataracts, found that after the operations his vision was worse than before. There was nothing for it but to accept his lot in life and make the best of it. He could still potter in the garden, though not able to do more than snip a few flowers, feel if the fruit in the orchard or tomatoes on the vine were ready for picking, or stagger to the Coach and Horses in the evening time, where he could find a few cronies to chew the fat with. Now, with an increased rent (the landlord having insisted on it), the specialist’s receipt sitting in her handbag, day-to-day living and a growing Irene who needed to be clothed and fed, Lily’s money from her stroke of good fortune began to dwindle fast.
It was in the October of that year that Bertha had passed away, to the horror of her three sons. They were now in their twenties, but were reliant on their mother as they still called Temple Road ‘home’. Bertha had gone the way of her mother and had piled the weight on, which in its turn had brought on problems with her heart and Lawrence had been away on the Atlantic run when his wife had been found by her daily woman. The funeral had been delayed until his ship docked in Liverpool.
Meanwhile, of all Bertha’s sisters it was Lily who offered her three nephews a temporary home, since she lived in a house with four bedrooms. Eliza, with whom she was now on speaking terms, had taken in a lodger so had no room to spare and Ellen, who had remarried and moved out to Bromborough, lived in a two-up two-down.
Suddenly, Irene was surrounded by three strapping fellows, who broke the silence of the melancholy house and gave Lily something to think about besides her woeful self. Of course, their presence caused untold pressure on the amount of money left in Lily’s purse, especially Matthew, who could eat his way through a saucepan of porridge or a cottage loaf without a second thought! Irene was intrigued by their presence and rather nervous, if the truth was known.
Matthew, at aged twenty-nine, had been about to sign on to an ocean liner from Liverpool to New York before his mother’s death, but had decided to defer the trip. His job as an assistant purser required one hundred percent concentration, which he wasn’t able give as he mourned his mother dearly. Mark, a trainee solicitor at twenty-seven, was engaged to be married, but preferred to stay with his brothers for propriety sake. That left Luke, who at twenty-five was one of a team of river pilots on the River Mersey, but had been given compassionate leave.
Lily, still attending to her stall outside the cottage, found she had to rely more and more on her thirteen year old daughter, with Charlie rising late as daylight meant nothing to him anymore. Gone were Irene’s dreams of working hard at school, passing her matriculation, maybe going to a training college and becoming a teacher, as Lily, unable to cope with all the new demands on her time and money, whilst grieving for her sister at the same time, insisted that the child left school, even though Irene wouldn’t be fourteen until the following February.
Evan, already fourteen and with another four years of education before going off to university felt alarmed that such a clever girl, usually near the top of the class for most subjects, was duty bound to give up school at such a tender age. He had walked with home with Irene from school each afternoon and the two cousins had become good friends, being usually seen chasing through the common land by St. Hilary’s church, sitting on a bollard on the quayside or hiding in one of the orchard’s trees. Sometimes they played on the carts or one of the lorries that Mr Rea used for his distribution, though not often as they grew older, as they usually got covered in coal dust.
One afternoon, Irene was up to her ears in baking pies and scones for the funeral spread, which were to be carried across by the family the next morning to Temple Road; all the sisters were taking a contribution. Evan, fresh home from school, called to ask if Irene would like to see a show at the Argyle Theatre.
“I’ve heard that Tommy Tiptree, the comedian, is on and Father said he would treat me to a couple of tickets for passing this year’s exam.” Evan was full of excitement, this being his chance to cheer poor Irene up.
“How are you, Irene? Frannie Baker and Emily Roper said to give you their regards when I saw you next.”
“Oh, I didn’t know they cared.” Irene was feeling down in the dumps, as she knew that certain members of her school year couldn’t wait to leave school and only wanted shop jobs until they married, which was a crying shame to her.
“Of course they did, it was because you were so shy that you didn’t get to know them.”
“I didn’t have chance to get to know them, living all this way from Liscard. Anyway, who wants to be friends with someone who has an unemployed gardener for a father?”
“Oh Irene, I do,” Evan said, when he saw the tears of frustration forming in his cousin’s eyes. “That’s why I’ve come to ask if you would like to come to the Argylle with me.”
“I’ll have to ask my mother. I’m not sure she’ll let me. As you know Aunt Bertha is being buried tomorrow and it’s been pandemonium here, helping Mother look after my other cousins until Uncle Lawrence got home. Anyway, I’ll have to go now; I’ll get it in the neck if I’ve not finished the baking.”
“I’ll leave you to it then, come over and see me anytime.”
The front room in the Temple Road house was full to bursting with the mourners who had come to support Lawrence and his family. Lily and Bronwen, who was to be representative of the Welsh side of the family, Irene, and Isabel, who by now had another child to care for, dashed around the kitchen, filling cups with tea, making extra sandwiches and slicing up the many cakes that had been baked by some of the kindly wives who had come along. Irene’s pies and rolls had gone in a flash and the family marveled at the many people who had arrived to pay their respects for Bertha, both there and at Flaybrick Cemetery.
Ellen, on duty in the living room, walked around with drinks on a silver salver, whilst a grieving Lawrence and his three sons stood chatting in small clusters to family and friends. Eliza, on babysitting duty caring for Sadie and the new baby – a little boy, this time – sat in a corner by a cheerful fire. Henrietta, up to her neck in children in a rectory south of Harrogate, and Frederick, having risen to dizzy heights in the Atlee g
overnment, had sent their commiseration by telegram.
Lawrence tapped his glass with a spoon, asked for silence and began to make a speech, welcoming them all on such a sad occasion and thanking them all for their much-needed support. He announced that he had recently been considering retirement and now that his wife had gone to her reward in heaven, he would be relinquishing his captaincy. It was time to get his land legs back and become a landlubber for a change. He raised his glass and asked them all to drink a toast to Bertha.
Lily, who was listening with Bronwen at the kitchen door, said a silent prayer, wiping away the ready tears of grief for the death of her sister whom she had grown close to over the years. Then her thoughts went to Charlie, housebound now, unless he was pottering around in the garden, which he knew like the back of his hand. He had mourned the departure of her nephews, after Lawrence had announced that he was going to employ a live in cook and bottle washer to see to the males of the family, who would still be residing in the Temple Road home. Charlie was going to miss their lively presence, their discussions on the current state of politics and their willingness to read his daily newspaper to him, which lately had been reporting on the growth and strength of the T.U.C.
A little later, most of the mourners had disappeared and Bronwen and Irene were putting the leftovers into the scullery. Lily was putting the finishing touches to an already tidy kitchen when Lawrence, looking as drunk as a mop and his breath smelling strongly of brandy, stood in the kitchen doorway staring intently at Lily as she took off her apron and tidied her hair.
“I don’t suppose you’d take on the job of looking after me and the young fellas, would yer, Lily? Seeing as you were wanting to be my helpmate all those years ago? I’m not asking you to take the place of Bertha, but I seem to remember you thought of me as your heart’s desire back then.”
Lily stood there, letting the years stretch back until she reached the day of her humiliation, when a young Lawrence, strikingly handsome in his captain’s uniform, held out his hand and she was thrilled at the prospect of marrying him. Then Charlie, dapper little Charlie, who had always worshipped the ground that she walked on, despite the hardships, the deprivations and the austere life they had endured together, came springing to her mind.
Her Heart's Desire Page 20
