by Val Wood
Dolly nodded her head, and put up her thumb. ‘Course,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
The next morning Mary received a visitor. ‘Mrs Thornbury!’
Nora twitched her nose. ‘Mmm. A good smell, Mary.’
‘It’s onny bread,’ Mary said. ‘I’ve always made my own bread, and I have a good oven in this house, unlike the old one where there wasn’t an oven at all.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I used to make it at home and then take it to ’baker’s shop where he baked it for me. Charged, of course, but fair enough.’
‘I was wondering, Mary … erm, are you working anywhere at the moment?’
Mary shook her head and lifted the kettle over the fire to make tea for them both. ‘I was onny saying to Dolly yesterday that I must find work of some kind. Joe is out all day and sometimes at night as well now that he’s a fireman on ’trains, and both girls are working, so I can’t sit about doing nothing.’
‘Ah!’ Nora said. ‘Well, I have a proposition for you if it appeals. Eleanor will be starting up the factory very shortly. Clearance has been given, as you know, and we’re taking on five seamstresses including your Sally. Eleanor will oversee the finished results and do the pattern cutting.’
‘My word!’ Mary poured hot water into the teapot, swilled it round to warm it and poured it down the sink before putting in the tea leaves. ‘She’s remarkable for such a young girl.’
‘She is,’ Nora agreed. ‘We’re very proud of her, but I sit in with her on the interviews so that it’s seen as a family business and so that no one takes advantage of her youth; not that I think she’d let them,’ she added. ‘But it’s as well to be cautious.’
Mary poured the tea and handed a cup to Nora. ‘I’d better tell you now that I’m not much good with a needle apart from ’usual make do and mend, or turning a collar and darning,’ she said. ‘Like we were all taught by our mothers.’
Nora sipped her tea. ‘Better than I am, then,’ she said. ‘My mother taught me nothing useful, I’m afraid. But no, I’m not thinking of the new business, nothing like that. You’re very good at housekeeping and cooking, as I know from when you worked for us that brief time before you married.’
They both smiled, each recalling that they didn’t start off very well all those years ago.
Mary nodded. ‘I like cooking and baking, the simple kind. I couldn’t cook for a supper party I don’t think, not like ’old cook used to, but as for housekeeping, yes, I loved seeing ’house polished and tidy.’ She thought wistfully back to the days of Lucy’s parents and remembered too that she sometimes helped Cook in the kitchen when Dr Thornbury and his wife had guests for supper. Had she been too hasty in leaving, she wondered.
‘You mustn’t be embarrassed by my suggestion, and if you don’t agree, or don’t want to, then it’s perfectly all right.’ Nora put her teacup on the table and took a breath. ‘I’m going to need someone to look after the house in Baker Street, because I’ll be spending most of the day helping Eleanor set up, keeping time sheets and so on; and ideally I’d like someone who can also prepare food that I can just pop into the oven when Eleanor and I come home in the evenings.’
She paused. ‘But I must have someone I can trust to leave on their own to manage the house. I couldn’t possibly take on someone I didn’t know and you know it so well, Mary. If you would consider it? Nothing much has changed since you were there.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Well, we couldn’t, could we? It isn’t our house to do with as we wish, not that we have wanted to. It’s such a lovely house in any case.’
It hadn’t occurred to Mary that the house didn’t belong to her and Mr Thornbury, and the penny suddenly dropped. It must have been willed to Miss Lucy after her parents’ death, which meant that the Thornburys had given up their own home to live with the desolate little girl. No wonder, she thought, that Nora Thornbury had been so irritable when she first arrived; she was probably apprehensive, coming to a new area and looking after a child who wasn’t hers.
‘Oh, I’d love to come back, Mrs Thornbury. I’ve such happy memories of being there when Miss Lucy was little and before – well, before such sad times came along, and I’m grateful that you thought well enough of me to ask.’ Mary smiled, confident now that they would get along all right. ‘But what about your present cook? Will she mind someone else helping in the kitchen?’
‘She’s leaving at the end of the week. She’s obtained a new position as a cook in a munitions canteen. What a relief,’ Nora said happily. ‘When can you start?’
‘Tomorrow,’ Mary said at once. ‘And I can arrange for the washing to be done too if you’d like? Someone I can highly recommend!’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
June 1915
Everyone who read newspapers had seen photographs of the effects of Zeppelin raids on London and the south of England, many of them intended for other targets when the aircraft was blown off course. The attacks were therefore haphazard in the extreme, with the deadly bombs landing where least expected.
Nora woke up on the first Sunday in June at about midnight, disturbed by a strange noise and shouting out in the street. She nudged William, who was fast asleep by her side. ‘William,’ she said, and then jumped out of bed and ran to the window as she heard the shrill shriek of a warning buzzer.
‘What?’ William grunted.
‘It’s the attack buzzer,’ she said, lifting the curtain. ‘Get up!’
He turned over. ‘Another false alarm,’ he grumbled. ‘Come back to bed. We have to be up early in the morning.’
‘No!’ she said. ‘There are people out in the street.’
Reluctantly he got out of bed and put on his dressing gown, and joined her by the window just as she cried out, ‘Listen! You can hear them. They’re dropping bombs on the city!’
‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed. ‘The war has come to us! Quickly. Put on your dressing gown and I’ll wake Eleanor.’
But there was no need. ‘What’s happening?’ Their daughter appeared at the bedroom door. ‘What’s that noise?’
William hurried them downstairs, then turned back to pick up a coverlet from the bed. Nora unlocked and opened the front door and they went outside. ‘Look!’ She pointed towards the town centre, where the sky was ablaze.
‘That’s High Street,’ William said, ‘and over there’ – a blazing trail in the sky headed out of town – ‘that’s somewhere near the railway station. It’s a Zeppelin. It followed the Humber and now it’s following the railway line!’
A small crowd had gathered at the junction with Percy Street, all looking up at the reddened sky. ‘I saw it,’ one man said. ‘I thought I was seeing things. It was lit up like a silver cigar, and then it opened up and dropped its bombs. People have been hurt tonight,’ he said angrily. ‘Somebody’s got to pay for this!’
‘Somebody already is doing,’ a woman broke in. ‘My lad’s over there doing his bit. Now we’re getting a taste of it.’
A man was running towards them; he was coming from the direction of town, cutting over Albion Street and through Percy Street. ‘It’s bad,’ he shouted as he reached them. ‘Holy Trinity’s been hit, it’s on fire, and some houses in Porter Street so I’ve heard. You can see by ’colour of sky that it’s been a massive attack.’ He uttered an oath, and then said, ‘Can’t stop. Must see if everybody’s all right at home.’
‘They will be,’ William muttered to no one in particular. ‘It hasn’t reached over here. It’ll head back towards the Humber; there are only so many bombs a Zeppelin can hold. Come on.’ He wrapped the counterpane around the shoulders of his womenfolk who were both shivering, even though it wasn’t a cold night. ‘There’s nothing we can do. We’ve been caught napping all right. We weren’t expecting this. Totally unprepared,’ he muttered. ‘We’re not exempt from danger after all.’
The next day the city was buzzing with rumours and tales of the night’s events, and the reported number of persons killed
varied wildly. The local paper gave the full story, with photographs of the houses in Porter Street that had sustained serious damage and details of the casualties, including children, who were caught by flying glass or burned to death.
A pall of despair hung over the town and many people said that now they really knew what the soldiers were going through.
‘I feel as if I’ve joined the war,’ Dolly said to Mary. ‘I’m going through it wi’ my lads, instead of onny reading about it in their letters home.’
Eleanor, starting up in business and not yet sixteen, having been really frightened on the night of the raid, stood in front of her new staff and told them that they must work hard and well to get the shirts and puttees ready as quickly as possible to send out to the troops.
‘And,’ she said, ‘if you want to put your own discreet mark on the inside of the shirts, such as your initial, then please do so, so that the soldiers will know that someone was thinking of them whilst they were making them and they were not simply coming off a production line.’
Nora felt a lump in her throat as she listened to her daughter. So many young people, young men in particular, but girls too, were having to grow up fast in these uncertain times, with this great threat of war hanging over them. The Great War indeed, as it was now named.
Lucy heard of the Zeppelin raids over Hull from Aunt Nora’s letter and she truly commiserated. She had seen some of the results from the attacks on London. By the time August came round, the war had been going on for a year and she wondered at the speed of it. They had been desperately busy at the hospital, so much so that she almost missed her own birthday; it was only the pile of letters, cards and parcels that was waiting on her return to her lodgings that night that reminded her what date it was and also that Eleanor’s birthday was coming up in two days’ time.
There were cards from home and one with a foreign stamp from Edie, and she wondered vaguely how her friend had managed to be so accurate with the date. Of the parcels, one was from Oswald containing a pretty silk scarf in a deep rose colour, a card, and a letter saying how he missed seeing her and asking her to let him know when she had some time off; the other parcels held a boxed set of perfume and talcum powder from her aunt and uncle, and from Eleanor six large machine-sewn white cotton handkerchiefs with her initial embroidered in one corner.
Just what I need, she thought, how very practical, and tucked one immediately into her pocket. She had so little time to find a present for Eleanor that she bought a yellow rose from Covent Garden and pressed it between two pieces of card and wrote a brief note inside.
Dearest Eleanor,
Please accept this huge bouquet at your door on the occasion of your sixteenth birthday. We are all so very proud of you and I am truly amazed when I think of myself at the same age, a mere schoolgirl, and here you are, a young businesswoman. I hope you have the loveliest of days and wish that I could be with you.
Sent with fondest love from your sister-cousin, Lucy.
She was due two days off on the following Saturday and Sunday and had written to Oswald to ask if he were free on the Sunday. On the Friday night she went to bed at eleven and slept until six, her usual time, then turned over and slept again until nine o’clock. She went down to the kitchen to make a cup of cocoa and took it back to bed, then slid down under the covers again until two o’clock.
All day she slept, getting up from time to time to make a drink or go to the bathroom and climbing straight back into bed. When she woke again, the sun was shining through her curtains, making patterns on the opposite wall, and she debated whether or not to get up and make another drink. She heard the peal of the front door bell and Mrs Peck’s footsteps on the hall tiles and snuggled down once more, closing her eyes.
She jumped when someone knocked briskly on her door. ‘Dr Thornbury?’ It was Mrs Peck’s voice. ‘Are you in?’
Lucy sat up. ‘Yes,’ she croaked. ‘What is it?’
‘There’s a young man asking for you. Says he’s your cousin.’ My cousin? she mouthed. Oh! Golly. Oswald! I’d forgotten. Is it Sunday already?
‘Just a minute,’ she called, grabbing her dressing gown.
‘He can’t come up, cousin or not,’ Mrs Peck said. ‘I’ve told him. Those are my rules.’
‘He wouldn’t want to, Mrs Peck.’ Lucy tied the belt around her. ‘He’s a respectable young man! Please tell him I’ll be down in a minute.’
She pulled a hairbrush through her hair, trying to separate the tangles, and then went to the door. Mrs Peck might maintain that visitors couldn’t come up, but nowhere did it say that she couldn’t go down, and Oswald had seen her in her dressing gown often enough.
He was standing waiting in the small vestibule and turned when he heard her run down the stairs. Mrs Peck had returned to her domain at the back of the house, having delivered her message.
‘Oswald, I’m so sorry.’ She reached up for him to kiss her cheek. ‘You’ve grown a beard. I have no idea what time it is. I’ve slept and slept. Did I know you were coming?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Probably not if you haven’t opened your post!’ He nodded towards the mirrored hallstand where there were several unopened envelopes.
‘Oh, goodness.’ She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Are you able to wait whilst I wash and get dressed? Shall we go out for breakfast?’
He gazed at her flushed face and tangled hair and wanted to say that he’d wait for ever, but couldn’t, considering the time and place.
‘Lunch, I think.’ He took out his watch from his jacket pocket and showed her the time. ‘Eleven o’clock!’
She closed her eyes and exhaled, flinging her head back. ‘I can’t believe I’ve slept so long.’ She opened her eyes. ‘Sit down, do. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be ready.’
‘Ten minutes! I’ll bet. Go on then.’ He’d been out with young ladies who had taken twice as long just to visit a powder room. But for Lucy it was a challenge and she hitched up her robe and raced up the stairs. ‘Don’t fall!’ he called after her and then grinned. She was no longer his young cousin to admonish or advise.
Ten minutes later exactly she came down the stairs, wearing a cotton two-piece outfit of short-sleeved jacket and ankle-length skirt and a pretty hat on her well brushed hair. She didn’t seem in the least rushed, and gave him a questioning glance.
‘I’m impressed.’ He got up, and offering his arm said, ‘Shall we?’
‘Just one minute,’ she said, and walking to the end of the narrow hall she knocked on a door. ‘Mrs Peck,’ she called, ‘I’d like a bath later. Will you make sure there’s plenty of hot water, please?’
She listened to the answer and called back, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but it is essential for tonight. I don’t know when I’ll be back again. There is a war on, you know. Yes, thank you.’ She smiled at Oswald as they went through the door. ‘For a landlady who thinks cleanliness is above godliness she’s remarkably mean with her hot water!’
They laughed as they walked along the street and he put his arm round her shoulder and she leaned into him. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so lax in writing,’ she said. ‘For the short time the hospital has been open it’s been just crazy. We’ve worked flat out with no time off. Those poor boys! So many injuries.’
He gave a little frown. ‘Don’t think about it now. Enjoy the day. You’ll be back soon enough. Are you hungry?’
‘Famished!’ she said. ‘Shall we go into Covent Garden? There are some nice cafés where we can eat and they won’t be too busy today as the market is closed. Then we can take a walk afterwards, if you like?’
‘Perfect,’ he said, taking her hand as they crossed the road.
There was a strong smell of vegetables – onions, leeks and cabbage – but also an underlying aroma of flowers: cosmos, nicotiana, stocks and phlox, all mingling and merging with the vegetable scents despite the stalls’ being empty of any plants or produce.
Lucy breathed in. ‘I love it in here,’ she said. ‘I must take a
huge bunch of flowers to Aunt Nora the next time I go home.’
They found a small café just off the Garden with tables outside and Lucy said, ‘How very continental!’ Then she sighed. ‘Although I don’t suppose anyone in France is enjoying eating out just now. Should we feel guilty?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ve already seen the effects of the war in England, including poor old Hull. The Zeppelin raids have really scared everyone, according to Pa, and you must be sure to take cover, Lucy, if you ever hear or see one. The Zepps are something that no one had ever seen before, and they bomb so indiscriminately. We never thought, did we, that we would ever be attacked from the air?’
She shook her head. ‘Neither did we ever think that an enemy could be so callous as to attack with gas; it is unethical!’ She lowered her voice to a whisper, as there were people at the next table. ‘I’ve seen soldiers blinded by poison gas, as well as suffering terrible skin blisters.’
‘Mustard gas, or perhaps chlorine,’ he murmured. ‘The rumour is that other types of gas are also being used and as yet there’s no antidote, only water if it’s available to swill off the gas before blisters appear.’
‘The difficulty,’ Lucy observed, ‘is that such treatment is virtually impossible whilst they’re in the trenches or on the battlefield.’
They stopped speaking to order their food and coffee. ‘Don’t think about it,’ he said again. ‘Today we must enjoy ourselves.’
‘But first,’ she said quickly, ‘can I ask what are you working on with the new company? Is it to do with the war?’
He nodded and lowered his voice. ‘Solutions to what we’ve been discussing. There’s a scientist, John Scott Haldane, the best in his field; he’s working on a better kind of respirator than the one they have now, as well as discovering more about the gas compound the Germans are using. But have you heard that Britain is retaliating with the same kind of warfare?’ He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
