A Liverpool Lass (48 page)

‘All right, chuck, but wait for the next stop,’ Sadie said, hanging onto Nellie’s arm. ‘The driver won’t stop for you between stages, you know how they are, so get sat down. Who’s Stuart, anyway?’

‘A friend. The best,’ Nellie said breathlessly. ‘I’ll have to get off at the next stage, Sadie, honest to God I will.’

‘Then I’ll come with you,’ Sadie said resignedly. ‘But if there’s a tram close behind ... oh well, I can see there’s no reasoning with you.’

She was right. At the next stop both girls alighted and, with Nellie leading, ran back to the previous stop.

The small crowd waiting looked at them curiously as they panted up.

‘One’s just gone, gairls, so you got plenty of time,’ the young man at the end of the queue informed them lugubriously. ‘It’ll be ten minutes afore the next ’un comes along.’

Nellie turned to Sadie.

‘I’m sorry, chuck. You were right. He’s not here. If it was him, of course.’

‘Oh, Nell, I’m sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Nellie said dully. ‘I don’t know why I made such a fuss. If he’d wanted to see me, he knows where I live but he never even replied to my last letter. And anyway, he’s got no call to come up this end of the city.’

‘Unless he thought you still lived off the Scotland Road,’ Sadie suggested. ‘Suppose he’d just forgotten you weren’t here any more?’

Nellie stood very still for a moment. Then she turned to Sadie. Her whole face was alight with hope.

‘D’you think that’s possible?’ she said breathlessly. ‘D’you think my letter might never have reached him? Do you think he’s been trying to find me?’

‘It seems likely,’ Sadie said. ‘If I lost touch with you, Nellie McDowell, I’d try to find you – and I’m not a feller!’

Nellie gave a little squeak and flung her arms round her friend, then gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek.

‘Oh Sadie, I love you!’ she cried. ‘I could fly to the moon tonight!’

Nellie arrived at the Crinoline Tearooms at a quarter to four and found Lilac there ahead of her. The younger girl was sitting at a window table, gazing out at the people passing, and had not noticed Nellie, so she was able to stop and have a good look at her young friend.

Lilac was wearing a suit in a deep burnt orange colour, with a dark brown fur collar and cuffs. The skirt was flared and met the tops of a pair of dark brown Russian boots and to top her outfit off nicely, a tiny brown fur hat was perched on her gleaming hair. She did not look like a skivvy out on the spree, nor even a servant taking the air. She looks a real little lady, Nellie thought, pride mingling with sadness that it had not been possible for Lilac to wear such charming clothes when she, Nellie, had been her sole provider.

A waitress cleared her throat and Nellie realised she had been standing in the doorway for several moments. She apologised and set off across the room towards Lilac.

‘Here I am, early too, but you’re earlier,’ she began gaily, to be interrupted. Lilac jumped to her feet and gave Nellie a big kiss and then hugged her fiercely. Nellie could feel her shaking. Tenderly, she put Lilac away from her and sat down, eyeing her protégé keenly.

‘What’s the matter, love? Oh, it’s so nice to see you ... I’ve missed you more than you could ever guess.’

‘I can guess, because I’ve missed you much worse. Nellie, can you ever forgive me for thinking that it was more important to look for my mother and to live with
the Mattesons than anything else? Can you? Because I was a fool, and greedy, too. When I really thought about it, really, with my heart, why on earth should I care who my real mother was? After all, she cared about me so much that she dumped me on the doorstep and never even tried to make sure I was alive. But you, Nell, you had no cause to love me, or look after me. And how did I repay you? By dumping you, just like she dumped me! Nell, you’re all the mother I’ve ever known, and you’re all the mother I ever want, and I had to tell you!’

Nellie leaned across the table and clasped Lilac’s hands in hers. She could feel tears shining in her eyes yet she was laughing, too.

‘What are you on about, our Lilac? You don’t want to get yourself in a state, queen, because I never thought you’d cast me off, not really, not after all these years. And if you had, it would have been a part of your growing up and my own fault for going off to France the way I did. I never told you why I did it, because you were too young, but you aren’t too young any more.’

It was a drizzly afternoon and the Crinoline tearooms had few customers. The waitress came and brought them tea and cakes and put another lump of coal on the fire and Lilac listened attentively whilst Nellie told her everything ... about trying to find Davy, and finding him married to Bethan, about giving birth to the child. And then of her shock at discovering Davy was not dead, that he was actually in the hospital where she nursed and would be a patient for many weeks ... and had sent for his wife and child.

‘So I went to France to get away from them, and not just to do my duty,’ she admitted ruefully, watching for some sign of condemnation in the small, fair face opposite her own. There was none, only deep attention.
‘I let you down, Li, but all I could think of was getting away, before Bethan arrived.’

‘And Richart,’ Lilac said softly. ‘Didn’t you want to see him, Nell?’

Nellie shook her head.

‘No. I’ve never set eyes on him since he was a few weeks old and I knew that was the way it must be. Davy knew nothing, you see, and that’s the way it must be, too. I was so afraid ... so I ran away.’

‘You left your own baby for me,’ Lilac said softly. ‘Nellie, dearest Nell, I always knew you were special.’

There were tears in the big eyes, brimming, tipping, tumbling down the smooth, damask cheeks. Nellie got out her hanky and tenderly dabbed them away.

‘Don’t cry love, and don’t forget that you were pretty special too, or I daresay I’d never have done it. And since then we’ve both done things we regret, I daresay, but we love each other very much, and it’s love that matters. Is that why you wanted us to meet? To tell me what I always knew, in my heart? That we loved each other no matter what?’

‘Since you’ve told me, I’ll tell you,’ Lilac said bravely. ‘It’s rather a long story ...’

It was. She began right at the beginning when Polly had first aroused in her an interest in her mother, and continued up to the moment at the party when Mrs Herbert Allan had slapped her face.

‘And walking home, I was so
happy
,’ she said, a little smile tilting her mouth as she thought back to that moment of revelation under the gas lamps around Abercromby Square. ‘It was such a release, not to have to pretend it mattered who my mother was, not to try to love George Elcott, not to deny the court, and the Culler and all the other bits of my childhood. And running through my head, like a little, sprightly dancetune,
were the words, ‘Nellie’s my mother, she’s the one I care about, I can’t wait to tell her she’s all the mother I want.’

‘Oh queen, they’re the best words in the world,’ Nellie sighed, cradling her cup of tea in both hands and leaning forward earnestly. ‘But I’ve given up the house now, and you’re settled. Do you want me to leave the hospital and make a place for you again?’

Lilac shook her head until her curls danced, her eyes alight with amusement.

‘Nellie, as if I’d ask such a thing of you! One of these days you’re going to marry, and so shall I. We’ll both have our own homes. But I want you to know that ... you’re the person who matters most to me in the whole world, and always will be. I doubt if anything will change that.’

‘It will,’ Nellie said, smiling right back at her. ‘It’s only right and proper that it should. One of these days, Lilac Larkin, you’ll meet a feller who’ll put all thoughts of me – and of everyone else – right out of your head. But we’ll still love each other dearly, I hope.’

‘And see lots and lots of each other, even after you’re married to Stuart,’ Lilac said gaily. ‘Because he’ll come back for you, dear Nell. Only a fool would let you go. And as for me, all I want right now is my good friends, lovers can wait. I’m going straight round to the Corry tomorrow after work though, to tell Art ...’

‘To tell Art what? What he already knows? That you and I love each other?’

Lilac smiled and shook her head.

‘No, not that. Something he’d much rather hear. I don’t know what he’ll say, Nell, but if you come round to Rodney Street at about eight tomorrow evening, you could find out! I explained to Mrs Matteson that it was difficult for us to talk in the
nurses’ home, with you sharing a room, so she’s going to let us use the small parlour. There will be a fire, a tea-tray ... and we can have an evening together every week.’

Nellie did not ask what she meant by her enigmatic reference to Art; she hoped she knew. And presently they parted, Lilac to hurry back to the Mattesons to help her mistress dress for dinner, Nellie to return to her room in the nurses’ home and ponder happily on the past couple of hours.

And it was not only her reconciliation with Lilac that filled her with warmth and optimism, either. She had imagined Stuart a hundred times, seeing him in the street and accosting total strangers, but from the top of that tram, she had been
sure
. And he had been on Scotland Road, just as though he had been searching for her at Coronation Court, and if he really was searching for her, they were bound to meet!

Just the thought of it kept her happy until it was time for bed.

I wonder how I am to meet up with a young man who doesn’t have a clue where I am, but wants to find out? Nellie asked herself next evening after work, as she set off dutifully for Rodney Street. If it had not been for Lilac she would have gone off to Coronation Court with all possible speed, since the people there could scarcely have missed Stuart, had he been searching for her. Not that they knew where she was, she remembered, save that she was nursing. But it would only take Stuart so long to comb every hospital in the area, he should catch up with her eventually.

It was dark, of course, and by the time she left the hospital the street lamps were lit. She walked to the
tram stop through an increasingly soaking downpour, with the wind rising and above her head, grey clouds scudding across the sky. Fortunately she did not have to wait too long for a tram, but when she got aboard her cloak was drenched and she shivered as the night-wind gusted through the door every time it opened to admit a new passenger.

There were not a great many people about. It was Sunday and though some people were probably making their way to church it was not by tram. Nellie sat on the vehicle almost alone and got out at St Mark’s, to face the bitter wind and clutch her cloak round her tightly.

Walking down Upper Duke Street with only the railings between her and St Mark’s churchyard, Nellie felt suddenly alone and very vulnerable. She had been looking forward to an evening with Lilac, but she wondered how she should greet Mrs Matteson if she appeared once they were both indoors. But it did not matter, it was kind of the woman to suggest that they met at the house and once the weather was better and the evenings lighter they could do all sorts, tram-rides, trips on the ferry, tea down by the pierhead. She remembered taking Lilac there once, as a birthday treat ... they had eaten cream ices and drunk lemonade ... but it would have to wait for the better weather.

She reached the corner of Rodney Street and the wind, howling along St James’s Road, hurled the fallen leaves from the trees round the cemetery up into the air, so that they flapped round her head like tiny, wet birds. It was a relief to dive down Rodney Street though the wind followed her, tugging at her cloak, disarranging her soaked and draggly hair.

Walking quickly, Nellie suddenly thought of that other person who had come along Rodney Street on just such an inclement night almost fifteen years
before. How odd that she should remember that girl and her shawl-wrapped baby so clearly, and yet she had never actually seen the girl, only the child and the fine wool shawl. Poor girl, she thought now with real pity and understanding, how hard it must have been to leave your baby, how cruelly hard! It had been different for her, Richart had been left in the best possible hands, not with strangers. She also wondered how the girl had made out the Culler on such a wild night, for she herself was having to peer up at the doors to find the numbers and it was more by luck than judgement that she reached the right one at last.

She mounted the three steps and pulled at the bell. She listened and heard, faintly, the distant clang.

Stuart came down Rodney Street at a quick pace, his boots splashing indifferently through puddles and mud. He had got back to the city two days ago, coming via India, where his paper had sent him on an assignment, and he had gone straight to Coronation Court to find Nellie. He did not understand why she had not written, unless of course he had been en route for India when her letter arrived. His landlady in Berlin had probably thrown any letters which came after his departure on the fire – she was not fond of the English, she had lost two sons in the war.

But he had drawn a blank at the court. Friendly neighbours said she was nursing, they advised him to try all the hospitals, so he had started with the Alder Hey and intended to move gradually into the city centre itself.

He had visited a couple of hospitals earlier in the day without any luck, and had given up for today because despite his furious impatience, there were
things he had to do. So deciding that he must buy a few small presents before he paid his duty call this afternoon he donned his dark suit, tie and shiny shoes, and set off for Lewis’s.

The streets were busy and the big store crowded. Stuart wended his way from department to department. Despite his preoccupation with finding Nellie, he put a lot of time and thought into choosing his gifts. A few toys here, a pretty hanky there, a pouch of pipe tobacco, a bag of bright beads for threading. He enjoyed choosing but after an hour he had bought something for everyone so he set off, down the stairs.

Halfway down, glancing idly over the heads of the people below him, his eyes were drawn irresistibly to one particular head. Richly red-gold, it seemed to attract more light, more brilliance, than ...