by Annie Groves
By the end of the second week, Ellie had turned out every china and linen cupboard in the house, setting up a flurry of dust and startling disgruntled moths, which had caused both Ellie and Maisie to sneeze violently. The best of the linen Ellie had sent to the laundry, since she had no servants to help her with such a vast amount of washing, and the rest she had repaired, sitting up each night sewing until her eyes ached and then making bags to fill with lavender and rose petals to place in the freshly cleaned cupboards.
Although everyone else kept scrupulously to the unwritten rule that dictated no woman should receive or pay calls during the first month of her marriage, Ellie did have one unexpected, and unwelcome, visitor – Henry’s cousin’s wife, Elizabeth Fazackerly.
She arrived unannounced one afternoon whilst Ellie was busy upstairs going through the linen cupboards, causing Ellie to have to run down to the hall to find out what all the commotion she could hear was about.
‘Ellie, my dear,’ Elizabeth gushed, subjecting Ellie to an embrace she did not want. ‘I know you will not be receiving callers as yet, but I own I feel we are as close as though we were sisters. Speaking of which, how is your sister? A very spirited girl, is she not? Your aunt confided to me at the wedding that she finds her headstrong wilfulness hard to bear at times.’
Already stiffening in Elizabeth’s embrace, Ellie stiffened even more at hearing her sister so criticised, but Elizabeth, oblivious to her reaction, continued, ‘You must not hesitate to let me know should you need any help managing such a large house, Ellie.’
Her sharp-eyed look around the hall as she released Ellie and stepped without invitation into the drawing room rendered Ellie speechless with affront – although she had noticed the distinct note of envy in Elizabeth’s voice as she commented on the generous size of the large mansion.
‘I confess that my dear Uncle Jarvis has complimented me on many occasions for the manner in which I run my own home. He swears he feels more content there than anywhere else, but then I have always felt that a woman should put the comfort of her family before everything. I know that you are used to living a very gay life, Ellie, running around town with your cousin Cecily, and enjoying all manner of treats, but you are a married woman now, my dear, and I hope you will understand when I say that I feel it is my duty to warn you that Uncle Jarvis has already commented to us about your lack of skill in dealing with the servants. Mrs Reilly has left, I understand. That is such a pity. She was devoted to Uncle Jarvis.’
Devoted to her father-in-law she might have been, Ellie decided, but she had certainly not been devoted to the execution of her duties, not if the state Ellie had found the kitchen in was anything to go by!
‘I have always prided myself on my choice of servants, Ellie,’ Elizabeth informed her. ‘Only the other evening, when Uncle Jarvis dined with us, he asked me to convey his compliments to my cook.’
There! The grate was finished. As Ellie stood back to check her handiwork, the drawing-room door opened and Henry came in.
‘Ellie, what on earth…?’ he began as he looked from his wife’s tired face to the immaculate fire grate. ‘You should not be doing this,’ he announced sternly. ‘Maisie –’
‘I could not trust her with the blacking, Henry. Poor girl, it is not her fault, but last time she got it everywhere, and it took me an age to get the carpet clean. I’m afraid that dinner will be late this evening.’
Ellie was having to do all the cooking herself as they had still not got a new cook, her father-in-law having announced that he would deal with the matter of Mrs Reilly’s replacement himself.
Unusually, Ellie’s father-in-law joined them that evening for dinner.
Since Ellie could not trust Maisie to serve at table, she was obliged to serve the food herself as well as cook it.
‘Ellie, this is delicious,’ Henry praised her warmly as he started to drink his soup.
Ellie smiled, glad to see that her father-in-law was also emptying his bowl.
‘Henry, I should like to write to my aunts soon so that we can make arrangements for my sister and my brothers to come here to live with us –’ Ellie began.
‘What? What nonsense is this?’ Ellie’s father-in-law interrupted her harshly. ‘No one comes to live in this house without my permission, and as I recollect I have certainly not agreed that you may have the rest of your family here, missie! Nor do I intend to agree to it.’
Shocked, Ellie looked at Henry, expecting him to come to her rescue, but instead he kept his gaze firmly on his soup plate, patting his lips with his napkin.
Bravely, Ellie faced Henry’s father. ‘Father-in-law, Henry has already agreed that I might –’
‘Henry has agreed?’ he cut her off angrily. ‘Henry has no right to agree to anything. I am master of this house, not my son! My God, isn’t having the two of you living off me enough? Do you really expect me to house and feed the whole of your family as well, miss?’
Ellie went scarlet and then white with embarrassment and shame. Her soup had gone cold but she could not have eaten it anyway.
Dismayed and upset, she pushed back her chair and got to her feet, hurrying from the room.
She was upstairs in their room when Henry came to her.
‘Ellie,’ he begged her miserably, ‘please try to understand.’
‘Why didn’t you say something to your father, Henry?’ Ellie demanded.
‘This is my father’s home,’ Henry told her, avoiding meeting her eyes.
‘So they can’t come then?’ she demanded.
‘It isn’t my fault, Ellie. I cannot do anything. Once my father has made up his mind about something, it is impossible to sway him. This matter of a grandchild…’ his voice trailed away uncomfortably.
Ellie was too upset to challenge him further.
‘I am so very sorry, but there is nothing I can do. You can see for yourself what my father is like. This is his home. I am dependent upon his goodwill for everything and I cannot –’
‘It’s all right, Henry,’ Ellie told him quietly. ‘You do not have to say any more.’
‘Ellie, please do not be cross with me,’ he pleaded.
The look in his eyes was that of a child rather than a man, Ellie recognised, as she was filled with a mixture of anger and pity.
After he had left her, Ellie went to the window and stared out into the cold February darkness. She was a married woman now, but somehow she felt lonelier in her marriage than she ever had done before. Ellie shivered. She felt somehow that she had nothing – no hope, no joy, no anything!
PART THREE
TWENTY-EIGHT
Gideon pulled his coat a little more warmly around himself as he turned into the dockside street and felt the ice-cold blast of air funnelling down it.
The street, like its fellows, comprised a row of terraced houses, many looking dilapidated and uncared for.
He had visited this particular street three times already in the last month, his stomach clenched with a mixture of anger and determination as he thought about the risk he was thinking of taking.
He hadn’t discussed his intentions with anyone – there was no one for him to discuss them with. Mary was the only person who might have understood, and certainly the only person he knew who would have been able to advise him, seeing as she owned a great deal of property herself.
Not property like this, of course – dirty, uncared for, with broken windows – but he had heard that such properties brought in a fair rent, especially if they were let off as single rooms.
If he used all his savings Gideon reckoned he would have just enough to buy himself two, or, if he was very lucky, perhaps three, of the cheapest sort of terraced houses. With all the rooms in each one let, and with no one defaulting on that rent, within twelve months he would be able to…But the likelihood was that he would not be able to let every room, and his tenants would default if they thought he might be weak enough to allow them to do so.
Mary had an agent who dealt with the humd
rum business of her properties for her, but Gideon would have to take on that role himself.
Bleakly, Gideon turned his back to the whipping arctic wind. It might almost be the end of March but as yet there was no sign that spring had arrived. In the town’s parks the daffodils might be in bloom, but here down by the docks everything was grey: grey sky, grey houses, and grey water.
Gideon looked again at the small house in front of him. He knew that what he was planning was the biggest risk of his life, but what alternative did he have, he asked himself bitterly. He was a cripple with no way of earning his own living, save off other people’s backs.
Ellie tried not to feel nervous as she stood outside her father-in-law’s library door and heard him call out sharply, ‘Come.’
As she walked in she reminded herself that she was Mr Charnock’s daughter-in-law and not his servant, and, moreover, that the book she was carrying in her hand and in which she had meticulously listed all her household expenses was as frugal and careful as it was possible to be.
It had come as a shock to Ellie to discover that her father-in-law expected her to render a weekly and detailed list to him of everything she had spent.
‘Well, miss,’ Mr Charnock greeted her unpleasantly, ‘and what falderals have you wasted my money on this week, if you please?’
As he had done right from the first of these unpleasant interviews, Ellie’s father-in-law kept her standing whilst he went through her accounts.
Far from welcoming her marriage to Henry, as Henry had informed her his father did, Mr Charnock, Ellie felt, had taken a great dislike to her the moment she had mentioned to him the possibility of having her family to live with them.
Ellie’s expression grew sad and forlorn as she thought about her sister. There had been no more talk of Connie coming to Hoylake, and for that Ellie was grateful, but she couldn’t help feeling that she’d let her down again.
Ellie waited as Mr Charnock went over and over her figures, holding her breath as he did so, and then tensing as he cried out, ‘What is the meaning of this, if you please? You have writ here that you have ordered more coals, but it is still not a month since they were last ordered!’
Ellie tried to remain calm. ‘You may remember, Father-in-law, that Henry was not very well two weeks ago, and I lit the fire in the bedroom because I was afraid he might take a chill on the chest.’ She could see from Mr Charnock’s expression that her explanation had not placated him.
‘Not very well? Nonsense! If you didn’t namby-pamby him so much he would be a great deal better!’ As he was speaking to her Mr Charnock was counting out a small bag of guineas.
‘Here,’ he told Ellie ungraciously, pushing the bag across the desk. ‘I have deducted two guineas this week: one since I consider that your expenditure is excessive, and the other to repay me for the extra coal which has had to be ordered.’
Ellie was nearly in tears when she left the room. The money Mr Charnock gave her was barely enough to cover what she had to buy anyway – and she had already secretly been buying a few extra little delicacies for Henry, whom she had discovered had a delicate stomach, out of the swiftly dwindling money she had been given by her Aunt Parkes on her marriage.
‘Ellie, what is it? What’s wrong?’
Henry, whom Mr Charnock had told to stay late at the office, had just opened the door, his expression concerned as he saw Ellie’s tears.
‘I have just come from presenting my accounts to your father, Henry, and he has deducted two guineas from the money he allocates me. There will not be enough for me to pay for everything!’ Ellie only just managed to hold back her distress.
‘I hate to see you looking so unhappy,’ Henry told her sadly. ‘I shall speak to my father on your behalf, Ellie, and ask him if he will not relent and give you a small personal allowance. But I cannot promise that my request will meet with success,’ he warned her, looking unhappy and worried.
Although Ellie was appreciative of his support, privately she knew that it was very unlikely that his father would pay any attention to him.
‘Father, if I might have a word with you…?’
As he was subjected to his father’s hard-edged, almost contemptuous stare, Henry wished desperately that he might be stronger, braver, hardier – much more the kind of man his father would so obviously have preferred him to be – a man such as his cousin George.
Unusually, he could smell spirit on his father’s breath, and his heart sank as he recognised the look of ill temper in his eyes, suspecting that he had chosen his moment badly and that his father was not in the best of moods. Had he been approaching him solely on his own behalf, Henry knew that his courage would have deserted him, but he was not here for himself. Every time he pictured Ellie as he had seen her this evening, looking so unhappy, his conscience racked him. He was her husband, her protector, and it was both immoral and ignoble that he should allow her to be treated as a skivvy.
‘Father, I am concerned that no provision has been made for giving Ellie an allowance.’
‘What? The chit has dared to demand that I pay for her fripperies, when that wretched uncle of hers has not yet handed over to me the dowry he promised?’
The apoplectic manner in which his words had been received confirmed all Henry’s worst fears. His father was building himself up into one of his fearsome rages, his face already burning with dark angry colour, his small eyes glittering with hostility.
‘If she wants to waste money on falderals then let her waste her uncle’s. Tell her to make her demands of him, and –’
‘Father, you are not being fair.’
‘Oh, I am not, am I? Your wife obviously thinks she has got herself married very well, and into money. I haven’t forgotten that she was naught but a butcher’s daughter, even if she chooses to do so. Elizabeth has already warned me that she suspects your wife is taking on airs above her station, and is of a dangerously frivolous and wasteful nature. And as to any matter of an allowance –’ spite gleamed in the small, mean eyes ‘– as her husband, that surely is your responsibility.’
Henry went white. ‘I wish that it could be, Father, but, as you well know, since you have refused ever to pay me a decent living wage –’
‘ “A decent living wage”,’ Jarvis Charnock roared. ‘You idle good-for-nothing. I provide you with a roof over your head, clothes to wear, food to eat, and a job for which you are plainly not equipped, and yet you still have the temerity to ask me for more. Are you blind? Can you not see what difficult times the business is in?’
It was infuriating to Jarvis that whilst he had done everything Josiah Parkes had told him to do to put in hand the final stages of their business arrangement, Josiah had told him to wait another week before giving the captain of the Antareas, who was waiting in China, the instruction to put their plan into action. Jarvis wasn’t sure his bank manager was prepared to wait yet another week, having waited several already, and Jarvis was desperately in need of the money he had expected to gain. And now here was his wretched son, daring to demand that he pay the Parkes girl an allowance to do what she was supposed to do and that was run the house! Well, the pair of them would soon learn that he was not going to be manipulated. No, sir!
Poor Henry, unaware of what was going on inside his father’s head, and desperately conscious of his duty to Ellie, protested fatally, ‘You say that, Father, and yet only this morning my cousin George told me that you had promised to increase his salary.’
‘You dare to question me?’
For a moment Henry thought that his father might actually strike him, such was the intensity of his rage. His face had turned from red to a deeply mottled purple, and a few flecks of spittle foamed from his mouth as he jabbed one finger menacingly at Henry and told him viciously, ‘God knows how I ever came to father such a one as you, Henry – if indeed I ever did, and your cursed mother didn’t foist some byblow off on me!’
Bitterly Henry wondered what his father would say if he were to tell him that in many
ways there was nothing he would like more than to discover that he was not his son were it not for the slur such a discovery would inevitably cast on his mother.
Heavy-hearted, he left his father’s office. He had as good as promised Ellie that she should have some more money, and now he was going to have to let her down. Unless there was a way…
Ellie was seated in the small parlour sewing when Henry went to her.
‘I’m afraid that my father is not in the best of moods at present,’ he told her. ‘There have been some problems with the business. However, you must not worry, I have money of my own and…and I shall provide you with some pin money for yourself, Ellie. The fault is mine in not thinking to do so before!’
Laying aside her sewing, Ellie smiled up at him in pleased relief. ‘I am so grateful to you, Henry. I cannot tell you how worried I have been.’
The smile she was giving him made Henry clear his throat and suggest, ‘Perhaps we might have an early night, Ellie. You have been working very hard and I should not want you to spoil your pretty eyes by spending so much time sewing.’
Nearly three months of marriage was long enough for Ellie to know what Henry’s suggestion of an ‘early night’ portended. Inside her head she could almost hear her mother’s voice reminding her that it was her duty to accede to Henry’s intimate marital demands.
Her duty. A small, obstinate thrill of rebellion shot through her. According to Iris, a woman’s first and most profound duty was to herself!
TWENTY-NINE
‘And so what am I bid for these two dockside terraces? Three floors, mind, and a fine opportunity to acquire a highly lettable property, which will bring in a tidy income.’
