by Maggie Ford
From the hall came the tinkle of the telephone. Victoria leaped as if struck. ‘It must be your father. How could he…’
‘Let Mary answer it,’ Julia interrupted. ‘She’ll take the message.’ She saw her mother relax though her hands remained clasped tightly together beneath her chin. The phone terrified her. She went into an instant panic if it rang, looking for Mary or Mrs Granby to take the call for her.
The dining room door opened slowly, just a fraction. Mary’s face appeared round it. ‘Madam, it’s a person wanting to speak to you.’
The girl’s expression sent Victoria into a flurry. ‘Not the master? I can’t speak to anyone at present. We are awaiting our guests. Julia, my dear, go and tell whoever it is that we are about to sit down to dinner.’
The telephone sat on a small table in the hall, its earphone lying on end beside it where Mary had left it. Picking it up, Julia put it to her ear and, bending towards the telephone’s mouthpiece at the top of the long black stem, said tentatively, ‘Hullo?’
‘Mrs Charles Longfield?’ enquired a female voice at the other end.
‘I’m Miss Longfield, her eldest daughter. Who is this?’
‘I do really need to speak to Mrs Longfield, personally.’ The voice sounded annoyingly efficient, not at all apologetic.
Julia felt irritation mounting. ‘My mother is unused to telephones. You may tell me what you want and if it’s important I will tell her.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the voice replied obstinately. ‘But it is necessary I speak to her.’
‘I’m sorry too, whoever you are. Goodbye!’
She was about to replace the earpiece when the voice almost shouted down the wire, ‘Please, Miss Longfield. It is about your father!’
Julia felt her heart give a little jump. ‘What about my father?’
‘This is the London Hospital. My name is Cunningham. Would you please bring your mother to the telephone, stay by her side and make sure she is sitting down. I am afraid I have some bad news.’
‘What bad news?’ Julia heard her voice rising. ‘What’s happened?’
Her mother, having overheard this last part of the conversation, was already coming from the dining room almost at a run, her face wrought with fear.
Julia turned back to the phone. ‘You’ll have to tell me,’ she said. ‘My mother is in no fit state to hear any bad news.’
At the words ‘bad news’, her mother gave a little squeak of panic, but the person at the other end of the phone was still talking.
‘Very well, my dear.’ The voice had softened. ‘I regret to tell you that your father suffered a heart attack and was immediately brought in to the hospital but unfortunately he died about fifteen minutes ago. There was nothing we could do for him. I am so very sorry.’
For a moment Julia couldn’t speak. Then she heard herself say, ‘Thank you’ in a small, stunned voice as she slowly replaced the mouthpiece on the stem’s forked metal bracket.
Two
Turning to her mother, she realized her own devastated expression had caused Victoria’s gaunt cheeks to pale.
‘What is it?’ The words came as a gasp but already her mother was fearing the worst.
‘It was the hospital,’ Julia whispered, hearing her own voice quivering with delayed shock. ‘They said…’
She trailed off, unable to shape the words, but her mother was ahead of her. ‘It’s your father! What has happened?’
It was like a spectral cry, shrill yet faint. ‘There’s been an accident. Is he hurt? How bad? Oh, my dear God! And we have Chester and his parents arriving at any moment. What are we going to do about dinner? Will they be sending him home? What will our guests think?’
Inconsistent, illogical, the words tumbled from her lips. Stephanie, drawn from the dining room by the torrent of emotion, ran to catch her as she began to sag.
To Julia the hall seemed suddenly full of people. Mary was still hovering uncertainly in case she was wanted; Mrs Granby, having heard the cries, had hurried up from the kitchen to see what the trouble was; young Virginia was now standing by helplessly, as well as herself, Stephanie and their mother.
‘Take Mummy into the parlour,’ Julia ordered, half in panic at the sight of them all while she tried to come to grips with her own shock of grief. ‘It’s all right, Mary, Mrs Granby, we’ve had some bad news, that’s all.’
Choking on the stupid words, incapable of going into any further explanation, she hurried after Stephanie and Virginia as they helped their mother into the parlour, closing the door behind them.
Mrs Granby, back in her kitchen, heard her mistress’s screams tear through the house, on and on until she thought they would never stop. She listened as, finally, they subsided into heart-rending weeping; deep, hollow sobs that reached right down to the kitchen and tore at the cook’s breast. The master had been in an accident was all she’d gathered. Any other woman would have mustered up some control but not Mrs Longfield. But how bad was the master?
Not knowing what to think, she gazed at the food on the preparation table and on the hob waiting to be conveyed upstairs as soon as the dinner guests had seated themselves. She thought regretfully of the lovely meal over which she had taken such a long time: anchovy eggs for starters; mock turtle soup keeping warm on the kitchen range; a main course of duck breasts in plum sauce, very light with potato croquettes, green beans, carrots and cauliflower; for dessert, strawberry gateaux with cream, all made by her own hand. No one would eat any of it now with Mr Longfield in hospital. She found herself praying that he wasn’t too badly hurt.
Biting at her lower lip for that poor creature upstairs, she made up her mind that anything that could be saved would have to be put back in the larder. If not eaten, and she didn’t think it would be now, she, Mary and Fred would make use of it for their supper.
She thought suddenly of Fred. He would have been chauffeuring Mr Longfield home from his office. If it was a motor car accident, had he too been hurt? No one had mentioned him, being too distressed about the master. As the driver he could have been killed, but no one had even said what had happened.
Please, she prayed silently, let them be all right.
Already filled with this new anxiety, for she and Fred had always got on well together, each in their separate jobs, Martha shuddered and tried to turn her mind to other things.
She had hardly begun to clear the preparation table when the front doorbell sounded. She closed her eyes in a gesture of despair. What a time for young Chester Morrison and his parents to arrive. Poor Julia, her special dinner utterly spoiled.
No doubt they’d be going to the hospital together. Thinking this she removed the soup from the kitchen range and put it to keep warm in the oven. The family would need a little nourishment to sustain them when they returned. Maybe the master would be with them, not badly hurt after all, and Fred as well, she hoped. Maybe Chester and his family would return with them. Dinner might be on after all. A cook had to be prepared for all eventualities.
* * *
Mary almost yanked the front door open to her employer’s guests. For a brief second she stared. Then with a rush of incomprehensible words, she shut the door in their faces in panic, not knowing what to do, leaving them standing, mouths agape, while she ran to the parlour door.
‘Madam, the people are ’ere.’
Julia looked towards the girl, confused for a moment, seeing her through a mist of tears. ‘What?’
‘The people at the door – what do I tell them?’
Sense dawned on Julia. ‘Oh, God! Chester! Mary, go away! I’ll take care of it.’
‘Go where miss?’
‘Just…’ Julia broke off, leaping up from where she’d been kneeling, arms about her mother as she rocked the weeping form as if she were a baby. ‘Just go down to the kitchen and tell Cook what’s happened.’
‘You mean to the master?’
‘Mary, please just leave!’
The girl withdrew as if yanked from behind.
Her
back erect, Julia followed, leaving her sisters with their mother. She went out to the hall, hastily brushing away tears in a bid to regain her composure, needing to appear in control of herself, even if she felt quite the opposite.
A little of her father’s reluctance to bare his soul to the world came to the fore as she took a deep breath and opened the front door to their guests, even managing a tight, polite smile.
Chester and his parents stood there with expressions of affronted bewilderment at Mary’s odd behaviour.
‘Julia?’ Chester began. ‘What on earth… Your maid just shut the door on us. We were left…’
‘Please forgive us,’ Julia managed but her voice trembled despite her resolve to keep a firm grip on herself. ‘We’ve had some terrible news. You had all best come in and I’ll explain. We’ve just been told… just this minute been told…’
Her words died in her throat as she stepped back to let them in. Tears glistened in her eyes. Seeing Chester, her body suddenly seemed to lose all strength and she began to shake all over. The next minute he was holding her in his arms.
‘What is it, darling? Whatever’s the matter?’
Following their son into the hall, Chester’s parents looked lost with no maid to take their outdoor clothes. Realizing that something was very wrong, his father removed his own hat, coat and scarf, before turning to his wife to help her out of her fur coat, and then draping the whole lot in a bundle over his arm, leaving his wife still wearing her gloves and deep-brimmed velour hat. Chester, still in trilby and coat, held on to Julia who felt as if all strength had gone.
His troubled gaze was trained on her tearful face. ‘Darling, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’
She seemed to hear his voice from a long way off. She let herself fall against him, as if the strength she’d been holding on to for her mother’s sake had deserted her.
She told them about the hospital’s phone call. ‘They said it was a heart attack, sudden,’ she managed to explain as he held her. ‘They said they couldn’t save him. We’ve been too distraught to find out more.’
She felt him gently kiss her brow. ‘We must get in touch with them again,’ he said quietly.
Never had she felt such need of him as she did now. As they all gathered in the parlour, with his parents appearing somewhat ill at ease, he instantly took charge of everything, leaving her to sit quietly nursing her grief while her mother continued to sob in the arms of her two younger, weeping daughters.
Prior to his arrival she had been expected to pull herself together for the sake of her mother, who seemed incapable of doing anything other than weep. Now she had someone to take over and the relief was indescribable. For the first time, through all her grief, she realized just how much she loved him.
After Chester had gone out to the hall to phone the hospital, they had all sat in silence except for the sobbing of the bereaved woman. It had seemed an eternity until he returned. Suddenly looking so much older than his twenty-four years, he looked directly at Julia.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked and as she nodded, he continued in a steady tone, ‘I shall go with you and your mother and your sisters to the hospital. I’ve telephoned for a taxicab. I think it best my parents return home in the car.’ He glanced towards them and his father nodded almost as if with relief.
‘Our chauffeur is in the kitchen,’ Chester went on, talking directly to Julia. ‘Your cook has given him a cup of tea. He’ll go out to make sure the car’s ready. The engine should still be warm and start straight away.’
He surveyed each of the grieving women. ‘If you are ready, we should get started,’ he said gently.
As everyone made to leave, Julia said, ‘I’m so sorry about all this,’ as if something quite trivial had spoiled the evening.
‘Please don’t be, my dear.’ Mr Morrison’s smile was no doubt meant to give comfort as he took her offered hand. ‘I should be the one to apologize for intruding at such a sad time. If there is anything we can do, anything at all…’
Julia shook her head. ‘Thank you, Mr Morrison, there’s nothing. But it is kind of you to ask. I do appreciate it.’
‘Not at all, my dear girl, and you’ll inform us when the funeral…’
She gave him no time to finish. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Chester will be with you at the hospital.’
‘Yes,’ she replied automatically, leaving an uneasy pause into which his voice burst like a small explosion.
‘Well, we’ll be off. I pray God give you fortitude, my dear, and comfort you all.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, trying not to break down as his wife came to kiss her cheek. Mrs Morrison’s efforts to offer them her condolences served only to incite a fresh bout of weeping from the bereaved woman and she moved away as if relieved to have that job over and done with.
Suddenly Julia wanted to be rid of them. All she wanted now was to have Chester to herself. Had it not been for him she wasn’t sure what she would have done, how she would have coped.
As she and Chester conducted her future in-laws to the front door, Julia wondered how her family was going to fare with her father no longer there to look out for them. But as the Morrisons’ car moved off while Chester stood with his arm tightly and protectively about her waist, to show that he was here for her and would always be here for her, all she knew was that she wanted so desperately to be married; to be safe, to be loved and looked after and not be left to cope alone with her family in their loss. She knew her love for Chester was indeed complete and perfect.
Three
The cloudless sky seemed to mock the sombre black of those gathered at the graveside. Chester’s comforting hand was tightly clasped around hers. His parents were on the far side but he’d made it a point to be with her and her family. Her mother was weeping copiously, stifled sobs issuing from beneath a black veil. Her sisters wept too and her brother James, sixteen and home from public school for the funeral, had his head lowered, but Julia thought only of Chester standing here beside her, comforting her.
At the funeral service, with sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows of St John’s Church to fall directly onto the coffin, she had listened to the vicar recounting the events of the deceased’s marvellous life. Yet his words hadn’t moved her at all while her mother had almost wilted with grief so that she had had to support her by the arm to prevent her giving way completely.
As for herself she could find no tears for her father. He’d had no real affection for any of his children, except maybe for James. He had been their father in name only as far as she was concerned; she’d never really known him as anything other than a distant, unsmiling figure, more often at his club than at home. Even when he had dined out with business associates he had gone alone. Her mother was uneasy with business people and preferred to spend her time looking after the home or attending her local ladies’ friendship meetings. Even there she had always been nervous of making new friends, and the one or two she did have were more like acquaintances.
Timid, frightened of the outside world, ever wary of saying something wrong and finding herself disliked, she even feared to chastise her own children lest they turned against her. She had preferred to leave that sort of thing to their father, who would exact stern and steady correction. To Julia such occasions had seemed to be the only time he ever made contact with them.
As they had grown older their parents had been keen to keep up with those of their own standing and so the girls had attended a boarding school for young ladies, and their father had remained a stranger. Young Virginia knew him least of all, having only just recently left school. James too, nearly seventeen and still studying, would be leaving school next month to go on to university.
Who would manage their father’s business now he was gone? Most certainly their mother couldn’t. It occurred to Julia that as the eldest child it could be left to her to do whatever was necessary to sort things out and she thanked God she now had Chester to help her. He might eve
n have to manage the business until James was old enough to take over.
All these thoughts went through her mind as she listened to the drone of the vicar’s voice: ‘… earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life…’
Quite suddenly she realized the vacant hole her father would leave in her life, despite having hardly known him when he was alive. In her mind she could see him arriving home in the evenings to hand his hat, coat and umbrella or cane to Mary, never addressing the girl, hardly looking at her.
The umbrella and cane, no longer in use now, stood in the umbrella stand in the hall. Her father’s coat hung above them, his dark trilby on its hook, all looking so lonely now.
Mother had lovingly placed them there after returning home from the hospital that night. Julia wished she’d allow them to be stored away. She would often find her mother standing gazing at them, fingering them gently, tenderly brushing the fabric with her palms, running a finger and thumb down every fold of the cloth.
Nor would she allow his study to be disturbed. She seemed to have become possessed with the idea of keeping his memory alive. Having read that Queen Victoria had behaved in much the same way when her beloved Prince Albert had died, Julia shuddered. Perhaps her mother was going funny in the head.
Julia found herself thinking that somehow she was going to have to reason with her mother and make her see that life had to go on and they must now face a different future and be strong. She must use her own strength to help her mother to become strong as well. Otherwise how would they be able to keep things going?
The thought pulled Julia up sharply. It was easy for her to keep going. She had her circle of friends and she had Chester. Soon they would be married, have a family, a lovely home, a bright and promising future, and never want for money. What did her mother have? The woman had lost her mainstay in life. Her children had their friends and would eventually go off and get married, leaving her a middle-aged woman with nothing to look forward to but a lonely old age, enlivened only when her grandchildren were brought to see her.
