by Annie Groves
‘Yes indeed, Mrs Jenkins. What is it?’ she asked mildly, keeping her feelings to herself. She was, after all, an excellent housekeeper, if given to being over-harsh with the maids.
‘Well, it’s like this, madam.’ Mrs Jenkins had drawn herself up to her full height. A tall, bigboned woman, she stood a good four inches taller than Mary. ‘There’s goings-on in this house that I cannot approve of and on account o’ that I’m handing in me notice. I’m a Christian woman, and I don’t hold with…’ Thin lips folding into a disapproving line, she glared at Mary. ‘Your poor dear father would be spinning in his grave if he knew what was going on under this very roof.’
‘Going on?’
‘Yes, madam, going on! It comes to something when a mere workman feels free to come in and out of decent houses using the front door, just as though he owned it, if you please, and for all the world to see as well. It ain’t proper, and I –’
‘Mrs Jenkins, are you referring to Mr Walker?’
‘Oh, it’s Mr Walker, is it now?’ the housekeeper sniffed angrily. ‘Well, you can call him what you like, but it’s a pound to a penny that the rest of the street knows the truth of what’s going on just as I do myself! Coming and going at all hours, talking like he’s one of the gentry. If your father knew –’
‘My father is dead, Mrs Jenkins,’ Mary told her coldly, ‘and I am now the mistress of this house. Mr Walker comes to this house to make use of the library, and he uses the front door because I have instructed him to do so – not that there is any reason why I should explain any of this to you, Mrs Jenkins.’
The housekeeper’s face was burning red with moral indignation, and Mary could see that she desperately wanted to give full vent to her feelings.
Betty Jenkins glared angrily at her mistress. Oh, she could stand there looking all hoity-toity, and with that face of hers not so much as marked by a blush, but she knew what was going on, right enough. She’d seen it coming a long way back. Disgraceful it was as well. And not just because the mistress was a good twenty years older than Gideon Walker.
She was ashamed to be working in such a household! Why, she had even seen Gideon in Miss Isherwood’s bedroom the previous week. Oh, he had lied and pretended that he was there to measure up for something or other, but the whole street knew the truth!
Well, the mistress might treat him as her equal, but she was certainly not going to!
‘Not one single day more will I stay in this house,’ she told Mary, giving her a disapproving look. ‘Not one single day!’
Not one single day, but she certainly intended to go over and share a pot of tea with her closest friend before she left, and tell her just how her brazen-faced mistress had received her declaration.
She would have to contact the employment agency and get them to send her a temporary housekeeper until she could find a suitable replacement for Mrs Jenkins, Mary decided. Perhaps she should have expected there to be gossip about Gideon’s regular visits to the house and the instructions she had given on how he was to be treated. She knew how hard he was working during the day whilst studying the books in her library at night, and she had given orders that he was to be provided with a meal, and that a fire was to be kept burning in the library for him.
She tried to limit the number of times she allowed herself the joy of going into the library to see him to just once or twice a week.
Already she was aware of a change in him. He held himself with more confidence; he spoke with more confidence as well, using a far larger vocabulary, experimenting fearlessly with words she suspected he had newly learned. Watching the eager, almost greedy way in which his mind was soaking up the knowledge he was feeding it both touched and excited her.
‘Ellie, I have some news for you.’
As she looked at her cousin’s happy, glowing face, Ellie couldn’t help reflecting how lucky Cecily was to have fallen in love with a man her parents approved of.
‘I…we…I am to have a baby,’ Cecily announced, blushing a little and then laughing. ‘I am so excited and happy, and so is Paul.’
‘Oh, Cecily!’ Ellie hugged her cousin, trying to sound as enthusiastic as Cecily obviously expected her to be, but she could only remember the birth of her younger brother and the death of her mother, and to her dismay she heard herself blurting out, ‘Cecily, does it not worry you to…to be having a child?’
Ellie’s face burned with guilty heat as soon as she had asked her unguarded question but, to her relief, Cecily did not chide her for its intimacy, saying calmly, ‘You are thinking of your mother, I know, Ellie, and I must admit that I was a little anxious when I first realised, but both Mama and Paul have assured me that I have nothing to worry about and, of course, with my dearest Paul I could not be in safer hands. It is the natural consequence of marriage that a woman should bear children.’
Ellie smiled wanly.
‘Mother and Father came over at the weekend, and I told them then,’ Cecily continued chattily, before pausing and looking a little uncomfortable. ‘There has been…Ellie, there is something I think I should tell you, but I don’t want…It is about Gideon Walker. Oh, Ellie, it is the most shocking thing, but Mama’s cook had it from Miss Isherwood’s housekeeper – well, she was her housekeeper, but now she has handed in her notice on account of what has been happening.’
With every word Cecily uttered Ellie could feel her tension increase.
‘It seems that Miss Isherwood is…well, that she…there is an involvement between them, Ellie, with Mr Walker calling there every night and staying until the early hours of the morning! Miss Isherwood has given instructions to her staff that he is to be admitted through the front door, and treated like a gentleman!’
Ellie experienced the kind of pain one felt on an icy day when one’s fingers and toes burned with cold, only now her pain filled her whole body.
‘Ellie?’ she heard Cecily asking anxiously.
‘Cecily, I…I think I have a headache coming on,’ Ellie whispered painfully.
It was just because she had not been prepared for it that hearing news of Gideon had affected her so strongly, that was all. Nothing more. How could there be? Gideon was nothing to her now!
‘Ellie, I am sorry. I should not have told you. I have upset you,’ Cecily apologised unhappily. ‘I was not thinking properly.’
‘Not at all,’ Ellie denied fiercely. ‘Mr Walker is of no consequence to me, Cecily. I might have been foolish enough to think myself attracted to him at one time, but it is a foolishness I have long since left behind me.’
If her voice trembled a little it was just because she felt so relieved at her own escape, and so shocked by Cecily’s revelations, Ellie told herself determinedly.
Diplomatically Cecily changed the subject. ‘Poor Iris is very angry at the moment. You know how passionately she feels about the women’s suffrage movement, Ellie, and she has become very involved with it. She says that it is appalling that our sex should be denied the vote, and you should have heard her and Ewan Cameron arguing the other evening. Ewan loves to bait her so. I think he is in love with her, but Paul laughs at me for saying so.’
‘I cannot see how the movement will ever be able to persuade Parliament round to their way of thinking,’ Ellie responded.
Thanks, in the main, to listening to Iris herself, Ellie had begun to take a lively interest in political affairs, eagerly reading her uncle’s newspapers once he had finished with them, and secretly she admired Iris and her friends for their beliefs.
Mary made her way to the front of the crowd gathered to hear Mrs Pankhurst speak. Mary had travelled to Manchester with her fellow activists from Preston.
There was, she knew, a rift developing within the movement between those who supported Mrs Pankhurst and her cry for stronger action, and those who believed that genteel debate was the proper order of things.
‘Oh, well said.’ As the woman standing next to her broke into applause, Mary turned to look at her, recognising her from previous meetings.
Iris smiled ruefully. ‘I’m sorry, did I startle you? It’s just that I agree so passionately with everything she’s saying. We are never going to make any progress whilst we pathetically wait for men to allow us to have the vote. If necessary we have to take it for ourselves.’
‘You sound very militant,’ Mary responded, amused.
‘I feel very militant,’ Iris confessed. ‘We are just not making any progress. Whilst we talk amongst ourselves, those who really hold the power are keeping it and laughing at us behind our backs, whilst to our faces they are pretending to consider our claims.’
‘I must say, I feel inclined to agree with you,’ Mary admitted. ‘Have you met Emmeline yet? If not, perhaps you would like me to introduce you?’
‘No, and yes, I should very much like to meet her.’
‘There is to be a smaller…get-together after this meeting,’ Mary informed Iris in a low voice. They were having to be so careful. Even within their own ranks there were spies, and worse…but she considered herself to be a good judge of character and she sensed both Iris’s resolve and commitment. ‘If you would care to come to it as my guest…’
‘Thank you,’ Iris responded. ‘I should very much like to do so.’
‘What do you mean, you want to return to Japan? You are my son, Henry, and your place is here. The Charnock Shipping Line is not the success it is today, Henry, because I have spent the last thirty-odd years doing as I pleased and sailing off to Japan whenever I have felt like it! Have you no sense of duty? No sense of what you owe me?’
Jarvis Charnock’s mouth compressed angrily as he looked at his only son, and, seeing the anger and hostility in his father’s eyes, Henry felt a familiar sense of anguish beginning to overtake him.
He knew that he was a disappointment to his father. He was too like his mother, both physically and emotionally, ever to have won his father’s approval.
‘Why should I have been cursed with such a son?’ Jarvis demanded. ‘Look at your cousin – married and with a fine family of sons, but you…’
Henry winced. He knew all about his father’s desire to have grandsons he could mould in his own image and to whom he could pass on the business.
‘Father…’ he began unsteadily.
‘You will marry, Henry, and soon,’ Jarvis announced, making no attempt to conceal his contempt for his son. ‘And let me tell you now, if you refuse to do as I wish, and attempt to go against me in this, then you will find yourself disinherited and disgraced. And you can forget all about going back to Japan! I shall see to it that there isn’t a shipping line the length and breadth of England that will give you a passage. So if you’ll take my advice you’ll stop sending the Pride girl milksop bunches of flowers and books, and fix your interest with her, and the sooner the better. Her uncle’s a warm man – and well connected. He’s willing to give the girl a handsome dowry and…’
A little shiftily, Jarvis looked away from his son. He was not prepared to take Henry into his confidence about the special business venture he and Josiah Parkes were planning.
Henry listened to his father in silent despair. He ached and yearned to go back to Japan. It was the only place he had ever felt that he belonged. And there were other reasons.
He so badly wanted to defy his father but he knew too well that he simply did not have the strength. A familiar black pit of despair opened up inside him. If his father had made up his mind Henry was to marry Ellie then that was exactly what would happen!
‘Let me look at you, Ellie. Yes, my dear, that gown looks very pretty,’ Ellie’s aunt approved. ‘We must hurry now, for I wouldn’t want us to be late.’
Ellie and her Aunt Parkes had been invited to take tea with Mrs George Fazackerly, Henry Charnock’s cousin’s wife, and Lavinia was in quite a state of agitation about the visit.
‘There is no mistaking the seriousness of Henry Charnock’s intentions now, Ellie!’ she continued, pleased. ‘He has not declared himself yet, of course, but his attentiveness towards you and this invitation to visit his cousin makes everything quite clear. Such a marriage is exactly what your dear mama wanted for you, Ellie. I am so pleased for you, my love, but you must remember that Mrs Fazackerly’s opinion is very highly regarded by Henry’s father.’
Closing her ears to her aunt’s voice, with a definite feeling of duty over pleasure, Ellie followed her out to the waiting carriage.
‘Now, children, that is enough. I am sure that Miss Pride is quite tired of playing cricket!’
Firmly instructing the hovering maid to take Ellie’s place on the makeshift cricket pitch, Elizabeth Fazackerly turned to smile at Ellie.
Why was it that when some people smiled, you were instantly aware that they did not really care for you, Ellie wondered ruefully, as Henry’s cousin’s wife indicated that Ellie was to take the empty chair next to her own.
‘I must admit that I have been intrigued to meet you, Miss Pride,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Mr Charnock has sung your praises enthusiastically, but then, of course, I have to say that he is bound to look favourably on anyone prepared to take on poor Henry.’
Her disparaging tone immediately made Ellie bristle indignantly on Henry’s behalf. It had been easy for Ellie to guess from his conversation how bullied and unvalued by those closest to him Henry Charnock was.
‘I have tried to introduce him to any number of suitable young women myself,’ Elizabeth complained, ‘but he is so lacking in any social graces, so very unlike either his father or my own dear husband, that one wonders sometimes how…But then Mr Charnock has always maintained that Henry is very much his mother’s child. She was a quiet poor thing as well, by all accounts.’
There was no way Ellie intended to allow Elizabeth to speak so unkindly of Henry. Sitting up in her chair she returned crisply, ‘Henry may seem a little shy and inarticulate in company, but I can assure you, Mrs Fazackerly, that given the opportunity he is a most entertaining and informed raconteur. One only has to have the privilege of hearing him speak about those matters closest to his heart, such as his travels to Japan, to know that!’
Ellie could see from her hostess’s narrow-eyed expression that she had registered Ellie’s subtle retaliation.
‘Oh, Japan! I pray you will take my advice, Miss Pride, and not mention that country in the presence of my husband’s uncle – especially if you wish to retain his goodwill. It is poor Henry’s obsession with that country that has been the cause of so much discord between them. Mr Charnock is thoroughly exasperated by Henry’s ridiculous insistence on being allowed to return to Yokohama. George, my own dear husband, has tried to speak to Henry – to act as mediator between father and son, as it were – but he has confessed to me that he finds it hard since he totally supports his uncle’s point of view. If Henry is to take over the shipping line and maintain its successful operation, then he needs to be here and not in some remote part of the world playing at doing a job he really knows nothing about.
‘It was the talk of Liverpool the other year what a fool Henry had made of himself by trying to overrule a decision of one of his father’s shipmasters. Heaven knows how much money his folly might have lost the business if he had been allowed to have his way.’
No, she did not like Elizabeth Fazackerly, Ellie decided firmly later in the afternoon as she and her aunt were driven back to Hoylake.
‘So, Ellie, and how did you find Mrs Fazackerly?’
It was the day after her meeting with Henry’s cousin’s family, and Ellie was having afternoon tea with Iris in the Palm Court lounge of the Adelphi Hotel.
‘She was not really to my taste,’ Ellie admitted, wrinkling her nose. ‘And I thought that she was very unkind about Henry. She kept referring to him as “poor Henry”, and belittling him to such an extent that I own I felt I had to defend him. I cannot think why she was so unkind about him to me!’
‘Can’t you?’ Iris asked her drily. ‘It seems to me that Mrs Fazackerly has a good deal to gain by attempting to prevent Henry from m
arrying. It is no secret that his father has hopes of a grandson to take his place in the business! If Henry were not to marry then Mr George Fazackerly would be the next in line to inherit the shipping line.’
Whilst Ellie digested her comment, Iris calmly changed the subject.
‘Such good news about Cecily,’ she said. ‘Although I do hope that Paul will not allow her to conceive too quickly a second time! I know there are many men who insist that the whole purpose of sex is to produce children, and who refuse to allow their wives to use any form of birth control, but that, as any intelligent person knows, is a canard – otherwise why would there be so many brothels? No, the truth is that far too many men wish to control us in any and every way that they can.’
Ellie stared at Iris. ‘Is that true?’ she blurted out, pink-cheeked. ‘Is it indeed possible for a woman to…to have marital relations and not become…?’
Iris frowned. ‘Oh, Ellie, I am sorry. I had forgotten how ignorant of such things you will have been kept! And that is yet another reason why it is so important that we women should have the rights that our government continues to deny us. There are means, yes,’ she confirmed briskly.
Ellie felt as though an enormous weight had been lifted off her shoulders; a terrible fear pushed away to a safe distance. She longed to question Iris more deeply, but felt too shy to do so, and besides, Iris was now deep in vehement vocal monologue decrying the power and control that men had over their wives.
‘You should attend one of our meetings, Ellie. I really wish you would. You would find it most instructive.’
‘I can’t see Mr Parkes ever allowing any woman living beneath his roof to do that,’ Ellie replied wryly.
‘No indeed. And that is exactly why we have to succeed in our aims – so that men like your uncle no longer have the right to tell us what to do!’
Ellie listened to her affectionately. Iris didn’t know how lucky she was to be financially independent and to have parents whose outlook was so modern, and indulgent. Although Sir James teased Iris for her dedication to her cause, he happily accepted it, and Lady Angela made no secret of the fact that she both supported and applauded her daughter’s stance.
