After the War Is Over: A Novel

by Jennifer Robson

  Soon they were all, Rosie excepted, gathered in the kitchen at home, hands clutched around cups of tea. The house was old enough to have interior shutters, the sort that recessed into the side of the window casings, and those had all been drawn and latched. The front door was locked and barred. There was nothing to do but wait.

  “I ought to have asked before, Janie, but do we have enough food to last through till Monday?”

  “Oh, yes, Miss Brown. I did the marketing this morning, same as always. We might run low on milk if the milkman doesn’t come, but that’ll be the worst of it.”

  “Well done. You see, Miss Mary and Miss Margaret? We are well prepared, and perfectly safe now that the house is secured.”

  “If you say so, Charlotte. But what if mobs start rampaging through the streets?”

  “That isn’t going to happen,” Charlotte said firmly. “There will likely be some looting overnight, but the extent of it depends on how many constables are striking. As we live in a residential district, I can’t imagine we have anything to fear. We’re taking precautions, that’s all.”

  “It’s so gloomy down here,” Norma complained. “Can’t we go up to the sitting room? We could open the shutters a little. Just to brighten the room.”

  “Best to keep them latched,” Charlotte insisted. “But we should go upstairs. Would you mind if we switched on the electric lights for a while, Miss Mary?”

  “Not at all. A spell in the sitting room will do us all good. You, too, Janie. Come along now.”

  They trooped upstairs, cups of tea in hand, and settled in at their regular places: the misses in their wing chairs, now adorned with their Blackpool antimacassars, Charlotte and Norma on the sofa, Meg at the piano, and Janie, who only saw the room when she came in to clean, perching on a footstool in front of the empty hearth.

  Charlotte had her book, the misses had their knitting, Meg was working her way through the sheet music for “Roses of Picardie,” Janie had some mending, and Norma fidgeted. Didn’t the girl have any way to pass the time apart from dancing and going to the pictures?

  “Surely you can find something to do,” Charlotte told her. “Why don’t you read one of your magazines?”

  “I couldn’t read, not now. When we’re all about to be murdered in our beds—”

  “Rubbish. No one is going to be murdered. Some shops may be looted, and there may be a few scuffles in the street, but that will be the sum of it. Do find something to busy yourself, won’t—”

  There was a knock at the door, not especially loud or forceful, but Norma seemed to think it worthy of a bloodcurdling scream.

  “Good heavens, Norma! It’s only a knock at the door. You’ll frighten us all to death.”

  “Don’t open the door—what if it’s—”

  “Do I look like a fool? You wait here.”

  Charlotte went into the front hall, placed herself before the door, and waited for another knock.

  “Yes? Who is it?” she called out in her best imitation of Miss Rathbone.

  “It’s John Ellis.”

  Her hands fumbling with the lock and dead bolt, she opened the door to his familiar, comforting face. “Come in, come in. Whatever are you doing out?”

  “I wanted to make sure you are safe, and that the house is secure.”

  “Will you come into the sitting room a moment, just to say hello to the others?”

  She introduced him to everyone, explaining that he was the editor of the Herald and had stopped by to ensure they were safe. This resulted in raised eyebrows from Norma and expressions of rapt adoration from the others.

  “If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I must go.”

  Back in the hall, they pitched their voices low enough that they wouldn’t easily be overheard.

  “Is it bad?” she asked.

  “Quite bad in some areas. Down Scottie Road and up in Everton there’s hardly a shop window that hasn’t been smashed, even though the sun won’t go down for hours yet. Can you believe it? Shops looted in broad daylight.”

  “I’ve shuttered the windows,” she said. “But I’m worried about downstairs. The windows lock, but that’s all.”

  “Are they big enough that a man might crawl through?”

  “No, none of them.”

  “Then you’ll be fine. Draw the curtains, if they have them, or pin up some cloth to cover them. Don’t go out tomorrow, not even if all seems well.”

  “But surely—”

  He took a step toward her, his voice little more than a whisper. “HMS Valiant has been called down from Scapa Flow, and will be anchored in the Mersey by tomorrow. The government is calling in men from the barracks in St. John’s Gardens.”

  “How many of the police are striking?”

  “Enough. At least half of them.”

  “What about the rest of England?”

  “A few spots of trouble, here and there, but it’s only in Merseyside that the strike has spread. No thanks to the antediluvian tactics of the Watch Committee that oversees the force. That’s what happens when you pay your police officers a third of what most workingmen make, never give them any time off, and dock their pay for even the slightest infraction. Did you know that a loose thread on his uniform can cost an officer a day’s pay? It’s a wonder they haven’t walked off the job long before now.”

  “What will happen to the men who’ve gone on strike?”

  “They’ve all been sacked.”

  “Already?”

  “Any man who failed to report for duty today was sacked. The Herald is running advertisements on Monday for new recruits, as are the other papers.”

  “It seems terribly harsh. Although it’s hard not to feel a little angry with them for putting us in such danger.”

  “Just as I imagine it’s hard to put your life in danger every day, work ungodly hours, and accept wages that are barely enough to keep your children in shoes.”

  “I didn’t mean . . . that is, I’m not unsympathetic to their cause.”

  “I know you aren’t. It’s a bloody mess, that’s what this is.”

  “What of your mother?”

  “I rang her earlier. Thank God I had a telephone installed at the house last year. She’ll be fine. The servants are staying with her, and Grassendale is well removed from the trouble spots.”

  “I suppose you ought to get back to the paper.”

  “I must.”

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “Will you promise to stay inside, you and everyone else, and on no account open the door unless you’re certain who is on the other side of it?”

  “I will.”

  “Good-bye for now. I ought to have asked before—does anyone on the street have a telephone?”

  “I think Mr. and Mrs. Atwater do. They’re next door.”

  “If you need me, don’t hesitate to ring. Now bolt the door, and do your best to entertain the others.”

  As soon as he was gone and she’d fastened the dead bolt, she closed her eyes and stood, shivering a little, in the dark, empty hall. He was such a lovely, kind man. Really he was. She could be happy with a man like John Ellis, a good man, a man whose aims in life seemed to dovetail so perfectly with her own.

  But try as she might, she couldn’t marshal even the scarcest wisp of romantic feeling for him. Couldn’t begin to imagine him in such a context. What was wrong with her?

  She listened and waited, holding her breath, wishing against hope for a lightning bolt of truth to descend and reveal the path she ought to take. She never prayed, hadn’t for years, nor was there anyone to whom she could turn and unburden herself. Perhaps, if Rosie had been home, she might have tried . . . but they had only known each other for a matter of months. It would be an impertinence to confide in her.

  She was alone in this world, as she would always be, and it was time she accepted it. Happiness didn’t turn on romance or marriage or motherhood, after all. She was alone, as she was meant to be, and she would survive.

  She went back
into the sitting room and, taking her place on the sofa again, picked up her book, a much-loved copy of Persuasion, and opened it to the first page.

  “Shall I read to you all? I think I have just the book for the occasion.”

  Chapter 17

  Has Meg said anything about the shop?” Charlotte asked. She and Rosie were returning home after a long and delightfully aimless walk through Princes Park, its gardens a riot of late-summer color. It seemed like months since they’d spent any amount of time together, for their days off didn’t often coincide.

  “Not to me, she hasn’t. I’m worried about her. The repairs seem to be taking forever.”

  For five weeks, ever since the riots at the beginning of August, Meg had been living on half pay, and she was fortunate to receive even that. À La Mode Chapeaux had been thoroughly vandalized, its stock pilfered and interior fittings destroyed, but Mr. Timmins had vowed to reopen. Many other shops, especially in the poorer districts of Toxteth and Everton, had shuttered their doors for good.

  “I know. And even if she were having trouble with her rent, she’d never say so. Do you want to have a quiet word with her? Just to be certain she’s all right?”

  “It can’t hurt,” Rosie said. “Though I doubt I’ll get very far.”

  It seemed to Charlotte that Meg had warmed to her housemates over the past months, joining in their conversations more and more, staying in the sitting room with them after supper, even accompanying the other women to a musical evening where the Misses Macleod had sung with their church choir. Small steps, to be sure, and Meg’s smiles were as rare as hen’s teeth, but it was a start.

  They were steps from home, still engrossed in their conversation, when Charlotte belatedly realized a large motorcar was stopped in the street ahead of them. No one on the street had a motorcar, not on this block at least. Certainly no one had an immense, gleaming, purring beast of a motorcar that surely ran on crumpled-up pound notes instead of petrol.

  “Will you look at that? Do you suppose the king is having his tea at Huskisson Street today?” Rosie said.

  “It’s not the king,” Charlotte answered. “It’s Lilly’s brother.” Even from a distance, she recognized the chauffeur’s livery.

  It made no sense. If he had wished to contact her, he might have written, or sent a telegram, or even telephoned her at work. There was no reason for him to be here.

  Rosie caught her arm and chivvied her along. “You and he are friends, aren’t you? Best not to keep him waiting. Goodness only knows how long he’s been here.”

  “I look a fright. We should go in the back way. Just so I can wash my face and brush my hair—”

  “I’m sure he won’t mind. Come on, now.”

  No sooner had they opened the front door than Janie, her face flushed and her eyes suspiciously red, rushed up to them.

  “Oh, Miss Charlotte, Miss Rosie! I dunno what to do. There was a knock at the door, so I come out of the kitchen to answer it, and there was a man stood there in a funny suit. He asked if you was here and I said no, you’d gone out. And then he went back to that big motorcar outside and she come in.”

  “She?” Charlotte asked, though she already knew the answer. It wasn’t Edward, after all. It was, instead, the last person in the world whom she ever, ever wished to see.

  “She didn’t say who she was. She went right past me into the sitting room. The misses had gone to their choir practice and everyone else was out. I didn’t know what to do, Miss Charlotte.”

  “I quite understand.”

  “I did go in to ask if she needed anything, a cup of tea or summat, and I was ever so polite, but she didn’t even look at me. Just told me to get out.”

  “Oh, Janie. I’m so very sorry. Let me speak to my, ah, guest, and then we’ll all have a cup of tea together.”

  It was time to beard the dragon.

  Without bothering to remove her hat or coat, she opened the door to the sitting room. There, seated in Miss Margaret’s chair, was Lady Cumberland.

  Charlotte sat on the sofa, ensured her back was ramrod straight, and looked the countess directly in the eye.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Cumberland.”

  The woman said nothing. She didn’t even blink. She simply stared at Charlotte.

  “May I ask why you have installed yourself in my sitting room?”

  “Your sitting room? Perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought you were nothing more than a boarder here.”

  “I may be a boarder, but this is my home all the same. So allow me to ask you again: why are you here?”

  For an instant, Charlotte saw the room through Lady Cumberland’s eyes. The worn upholstery on the misses’ easy chairs. The spots of damp on the ceiling. The furniture that was just old enough to look outdated, but not old enough or good enough to be antique.

  “You know very well,” the countess answered, her gaze flickering to a point on the wall behind Charlotte’s left ear.

  “No, Lady Cumberland, I do not know. Please enlighten me.”

  “Insolent girl. Do you know how much of my time you have wasted already? First at your place of employment, if one can charitably call it such, where I was informed you were not at work.”

  “Saturday and Sunday are my days off.”

  “Two days off? I’ve never heard of such a thing,” the countess sputtered.

  “Possibly because you have never worked a day in your life.”

  A positively arctic silence descended upon the room. This would never do; if she were to hear the woman out, and then extract her from the house, Charlotte would have to adopt a more diplomatic tone.

  “I presume that one of my colleagues was kind enough to supply you with my address?”

  “Yes, and I have been sitting here for nearly an hour.”

  “If you had taken the trouble to advise me of your plans, I would have suggested a mutually convenient time. Now, believe it or not, I am a busy woman and I have things to do. May I ask you to clarify your purpose in coming here? Otherwise I shall have to ask you to leave.”

  Her hands were trembling, her mouth had gone dry, and there was every chance that her knees would give way if she tried to stand. But she would not be cowed.

  “It’s all your fault,” said Lady Cumberland. Her gaze moved across the room, to a towering aspidistra next to the piano, and she began to fuss with her gloves. Could it be that the countess was nervous? Perhaps even fearful?

  “He hasn’t been himself, not since Elizabeth’s wedding. He says it is nothing, but I know the truth. I know you are to blame.”

  “By ‘he,’ do you mean Lord Cumberland?”

  “I do.”

  “May I ask what you believe to be wrong with him? Beyond the obvious difficulties, I mean.”

  “He was recovering well, I thought. At first he seemed to be improving . . .”

  Lady Cumberland now sat perfectly still, as immobile as one of the china figurines on the misses’ mantelpiece, but the expression on her face was a portrait of torment. It was impossible not to feel a twinge of sympathy, if fleeting and really quite minimal, for the woman.

  “How is he different, in your estimation?”

  “He won’t go out. Not to dinner, nor to any other sort of social engagement. He sleeps the day through, every day, and at night he roams through his house and drinks himself senseless and the servants have to carry him upstairs to bed.”

  “His house? Is he not living at Ashford House?”

  “He said he couldn’t bear it, so he removed himself to Chelsea.”

  “Where he lived before the war?”

  “Yes.”

  “So he is sleeping all day and drinking himself into a stupor each night?”

  “Yes.”

  Why had Lilly told her nothing of this? Where had Robbie been all this time? “Have you spoken to him of your concerns? Reminded him of the ruinous effects of drink?”

  “Of course I have, but he only laughs at me. He says that if I am very lucky he will drink himself
into the grave so the earldom might pass to George.”

  He had not been so poorly when she’d seen him at the wedding. He could not have been, surely, or she would have known it. “I am very sorry to hear it, Lady Cumberland. Truly I am. Yet I fail to see how I can be to blame.”

  “He broke his engagement because of you.”

  “Broke his engagement? When? I had no idea.” Could she have pushed him to it? Could her words, so horribly caustic in the remembrance, have set him on such a course?

  “He came to me last week and told me he had spoken to Helena and broken things off. I know it was because of you. Don’t deny it.”

  “I do deny it.”

  “He has some strange sort of attachment to you. He’s always had an affinity for those who are beneath him. Why else would he have allowed that Glaswegian upstart to presume upon their friendship for so long?”

  “You’re speaking of Robbie? That upstart is the only reason your son was returned to you. He spent months searching for Edward, or have you managed to forget?”

  “Edward would have come to his senses eventually.”

  “Given the state he’s in, I doubt it very much. Now, I cannot be certain of why he ended his engagement with Lady Helena, but I presume it has something to do with it having been forced on him when he was younger. And I further presume that he has no wish to ruin her life by trapping her in a loveless marriage.”

  At that, Lady Cumberland actually flinched. “You would rather he married a nonentity like yourself?”

  “I would rather that he be happy, just as any friend would wish for him. I promise I have no call upon his affections.”

  Lady Cumberland closed her eyes and bowed her head, her pose so convincingly dejected that Charlotte very nearly reached out to pat her hand. “Is that why you came here?” she asked instead. “To warn me off, à la Lady Catherine de Bourgh?”

  “De Bourgh? I know no one by that name, I assure you.”

  “I was only making reference to—” Charlotte began, but stopped short. Lady Cumberland had never approved of novels, and particularly not ones written by women. “Never mind. I was mistaken.”